Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [216]
"No mind," I said. "Can you take us to Kinadius?”
He hiccoughed. "Aye, my lord.”
Before we left, I settled his account with the innkeeper, a business conducted largely in pantomime. I spoke some Skaldic; bits and pieces Phèdre had taught me during the learning-games we'd played when I was younger, and some gleaned from Brigitta, when we'd played similar games on the journey to Alba. Still, it was far from my mother tongue, and I had a hard time making out the innkeeper's dialect. In the end, he wrote down the tally on a slate tablet with a piece of chalk. I withdrew a few D'Angeline coins from my purse, and we pushed them around the counter together until we'd come to an agreement.
"So," the innkeeper said cheerfully. "Pelgrim?”
I frowned. "Pelgrim?”
He pointed northeast. "Yeshua?”
I shook my head. "Jäger. Hunter. We're hunting …" I didn't know the word for murderer, or witch, or even bear. I spread my hands helplessly. The innkeeper blinked at me, good-natured and uncomprehending, blunt-cut blond hair falling over his broad, sweating brow. I sighed and thanked him, and we took our leave.
Selwin led us, weaving slightly, to a site a few hundred yards beyond the outskirts of Zoellen, where Kinadius had made camp. I brooded as we rode the short distance. I'd not put a great deal of thought into the difficulties posed by a lack of a common tongue until now.
Save for a few bedrolls and items of little value strewn about, the encampment was empty. Selwin assured us that Kinadius and the others would return well before nightfall to report, so we set about picketing the horses and making ourselves comfortable. While we worked, Selwin grew sober enough to relate the tale of their journey to date, how they'd ridden from the border to Zoellen, crisscrossing the land and asking questions, following the rumor of Berlik's passage.
"How are you managing to communicate?" I asked.
He fished in his pack and withdrew a piece of birch-bark. "Like this.”
I studied the images on it, incised with the point of a hot knife. A crude bear, its eyes white and staring. A man's face, staring eyes bracketed by claw-marks. "Clever.”
Selwin stowed the bark. "We ask, they point. No bears, but there were sightings of the magician, all right. At least until we got here.”
Within the hour, the others began returning in groups of two and three. Their faces lit upon seeing us, but our arrival was the only good news the day brought. Berlik's trail remained cold.
Before the sun set, Kinadius gathered his men around a patch of hard-packed dirt where a crude map had been sketched, depicting a swathe of land south of the Voorwijk River. Comparing tales, they extended the map's boundaries, adding the territory covered that day. I was impressed by their innovation and thoroughness.
"It's no good, though." Kinadius shook his head. "We've gone over every inch of country within a day's ride.”
"So what do we do?" I asked. "Backtrack to the last sighting?”
He sighed. "Or forge ahead and hope to get lucky. Betimes it works.”
"But if it doesn't, we lose days," one of his men added. "It's happened.”
Urist peered at the map. "Where was he last seen?”
Kinadius pointed to a spot in the dirt to the southwest of his crude map. "It was around here, I reckon. A little more than a day's ride. Some lad herding cattle saw him crossing a field near sunset. Thought he was going this way." He traced a line that angled more or less northeast in the direction of Zoellen town. "So we reckoned this was a good place to make camp and cast a net. No luck, though.”
"You've not crossed the river to the north?" Urist asked.
"No." Kinadius tapped his drawing-stick on the map. "There are bridges here and here, and here to the west of the Issel. No bridgekeepers, but lots of people around on foot and in boats. We spent the whole first day covering