The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [113]
XXXV
WHEEEE…EEE…
Gairloch was still protesting when I checked on him after a breakfast of three overpriced and overbaked corn muffins eaten next to two hung-over and scowling cavalry troopers. As usual, Justen was nowhere around, having left with the dawn on some wizardly errand.
My haste in downing the leaden starch may have contributed to the growls from my own guts that nearly drowned out Gairloch’s gut-level protests.
“Plain hay just not enough for you, fellow?” I set the saddlebags on the stall barrier, checking to see if my old saddle and the worn blanket remained where I had racked them. They were still there, proof either that the inn was honest or that my gear was worth less than that of other potential victims. My still-shielded staff remained tucked in the stall corner, but I did not actually handle the wood, since the shielding disappeared whenever my hands touched it—unless I cast a larger shield.
“Better,” was all that the gray wizard had said about my concealment efforts, and that admission had seemed grudging enough.
Wheeee…eeee…
“…oooo…”
Thud.
The soft scream from outside the stable might have gone unnoticed, between Gairloch’s protests and my conversation except for the sound of that impact.
With little thought, I grabbed my no-longer-invisible staff and burst from the stable, looking around the courtyard. Not only was the courtyard momentarily vacant, but I heard nothing for an instant.
“Now…”
The voice came from the alleyway, and, like many another perfect fool, I followed the sound until I came across two well-dressed bravos two rods or so toward the town center, standing in the morning shadows. Both looked up and toward me, the shorter one on the right releasing a woman in ripped clothing, then pushing her toward the brick wall behind him.
The taller one already had his sword out, but he looked at me, and then at my staff…and laughed. “You’re already dead, boy.” He gestured to his companion, the one who had held the woman. “Let’s go, Bildal.”
Without even looking at me or the huddled heap on the bricked pavement of the alley, the two strolled, almost arrogantly, toward the far end of the alley, the end that opened onto some sort of square where I could see wagons and horses passing.
Around where I stood, looking from the backs of the departing bravos to the huddled and silent figure against the bricks, the back walls and iron-banded rear doors of homes or businesses remained steadfastly closed, the alley deserted.
I shifted my study to the woman, who looked back at me blankly, unmoving, although her black eyes moved from my face to my staff and back. Tears oozed from her eyes, and her lips were tight. A reddish abrasion covered most of her left cheek, as if her face had scraped against the rough brick walls. Her clean, white, and plain blouse had been ripped open across the front, and she hunched her shoulders and crossed her arms as if to cover her breasts, partly revealed by the treatment accorded her and her garments.
Despite the gray streaks in her black hair and the pockmarks on her face, the gaps in her garments showed more of a slender and curved figure than she would have wished as she eased herself into a sitting position without using her hands. Both wrists hung oddly, and the tears continued to seep from her eyes, though her mouth was set firmly against the pain.
“Do with me as you will, black devil. Your days are numbered now.”
I must have gaped. Here the woman had been beaten, assaulted and nearly raped, and I had saved her from that and possibly worse treatment, and I was a black devil?
“The viscount will catch you.”
I shrugged, feigning a calmness I did not feel. Since I might as well be hanged for a wolf as a sheep, I set down the staff and gently let my fingers touch her wrists.
“Ohhhhh…”
What exactly I did, that I could not say, except that with what I had learned from working the sheep and with something from what I had read, my mind put enough of the pieces together. My thoughts and senses touched the bones and flows