Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [46]
Beva held out a small pouch, which the injured man took warily. “Mix that into a weak tea and drink a cup of it with each meal. The leg is healing well, but this will keep fever away.”
“Um.” The tribesman who had answered Caelan’s questions dug into his money purse for coins.
Beva accepted them without expression. “I have taken away his pain, but the leg will heal straighter if he does not walk on it much for another week.” He held up his left hand, fingers spread wide. “This many days.”
The tribesman nodded, and Beva walked back into the house.
“We go,” the Neika said.
Almost in unison, they headed for the gates, braids swinging around their wide shoulders.
Caelan hurried after them. “Wait!” he said. “I want to barter.”
They laughed above his head, strong teeth flashing in the sunshine.
“No barter,” the tribesman said kindly. “All goods sold. We go back to camp.”
“Wait. Please.” Feeling breathless, Caelan looked up into his blue eyes. “How much for an axe?”
The Neika’s laughter faded abruptly. He set his hand protectively on his axe-head and frowned. “Axe is blessed. No sell, ever.”
Caelan held up his hands. “Sorry. I didn’t understand. What about a dagger?”
The man squinted thoughtfully with his head tilled to one side. “What healer need with fighting dagger?”
“I’m not a healer.” Caelan glanced over his shoulder at the house. “My father has nothing to do with this It’s for me.”
“Little warrior.” The Neika laughed and said something in his own language that made the others laugh too.
It reminded Caelan of how the soldiers had laughed as they circled him. Anger steeled him, and he vowed to himself that he would become a man at whom no one laughed ever again. But for now, he needed a weapon if he was to make his plan work.
“What can I offer you?” he persisted. “Which of my possessions would most please the Neika?”
“You have bargained with our people before. This is good.” Nodding, the man squatted.
Caelan crouched beside him while the others stood patiently. Caelan’s heart quickened with excitement. Carefully, he tried to be polite and wait for the big man to think.
Lea, bright in her scarlet wool cloak, came running up. “Caelan!” she called, elbowing past the tribesmen. “Are you coming? You promised—”
Caelan frowned and shook his head at her, but she settled herself beside him anyway. “You promised,” she said with more urgency.
“Soon,” he told her. “Wait until I’m finished with this.”
“What are you doing?”
“Hush.”
The tribesman beside him drew a long dagger from his belt and laid it carefully on the cobblestones between them. It had a bronze blade decorated with intricate carving worn in places. The hilt was a plain cross, long and tapering, with a round brass knob on the end. Wrapped in fine wire, it looked very old and nothing at all like the weapons the Neika usually carried.
“You trade for this?” the Neika asked.
Caelan nodded.
Beside him, Lea tensed. He squeezed her hand to keep her quiet.
“You give ... medicines for this dagger.”
Caelan looked up in dismay. “But I can’t—” He caught himself, breaking off in mid-sentence, and thought about it. His father’s herbal cabinets were kept locked. No one but Gunder was allowed near them. Caelan thought about what his father had tried to do to him and hardened his heart.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Ah.” Looking satisfied, the Neika rocked back on his heels. He stood up, leaving the dagger on the ground.
“But, Caelan—”
Caelan frowned at Lea. “Don’t say anything. This is my business.”
“But it’s a bad thing—”
“Lea, either keep quiet or I’m not going with you.”
She frowned, looking hurt, and marched away.
He stared after her, sorry to be so harsh, but he didn’t need her pestering him right now.
He picked up the dagger and turned it over in his hands, running his fingertips along the flat of the blade. It didn’t come close to the dagger he’d left behind at Rieschelhold, but it would do.
Holding it out to its owner, he said, “I’ll bring the remedies as soon as I—”
“You keep. We have made bargain. We go outside walls.”
Pleased