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Justen stepped up to the first table.

“Another apprentice, wizard? Last time, you said you weren’t up to one more.”

Justen gave the heaviest man a rueful look. “And you said I wouldn’t see you here another winter, Thurlow.”

“What do you need?” Thurlow leaned forward but did not leave the chair, spindly-looking to hold his bulk.

“Canteen, basic travel food.”

“What you see is what there is.”

I let my fingers run across the assortment of bedrolls and blankets, stopping when my fingers recognized a certain tight weave and waterproofing that matched my pack.

Justen nodded minutely, and I set it aside for the moment, while he casually picked up a canteen and an assortment of small oilcloth-wrapped packages.

“Got everything?” grunted the heavy man as he levered himself from the chair and waddled toward the tables.

“Just a few things.”

“How about a silver?”

Justen shook his head slowly. “I’m a poor traveling wizard reduced to taking apprentices, and you treat me like a rich merchant.”

The other two men, much thinner than Thurlow, guffawed, but they had stopped rocking as they watched.

“Pretty young for an apprentice.” Thurlow’s deep-set black eyes raked over me.

“Times are rough all over.”

“Seven pennies, but that’s because you’ve always been kind to an old man.”

“What about that bedroll—the brown one?”

“That? It’s Recluce-made, worth at least five silvers. Something like that stays dry anywhere but the sea itself.” Thurlow’s voice was indifferent.

“Some folks don’t like Recluce products,” Justen answered.

“That’s true, but they’re good, you have to admit.”

“How did it end up here?”

“One of their kids—dangergelders, they call them—sold it to someone I knew in Fenard. Prefect outlawed the sale of Recluce-made stuff. So he sent it to Jellico, and I got it there. The viscount doesn’t care.”

“One silver?”

“Not much good to me, but it is worth more.”

In the end, Justen paid not quite three silvers for this bedroll, canteen, and five packages of food. I couldn’t have done nearly so well.

“Well, wizard…you won’t see me here another winter.”

“And you won’t see me with another apprentice,” countered Justen.

They both laughed, and we left with me carrying everything.

Outside, the wind had picked up.

“Ah…hum?”

Justen raised his eyebrows as I laid the bedroll over the saddle in order to pack the food parcels.

I looked back at him.

“Two plus nine,” he reminded me. His face was impassive, but I wondered if he were trying to hide a smile.

I dredged three silvers from my belt pouch, noting that my funds were disappearing all too rapidly, and remembering that the bedroll had belonged to a dangergelder who hadn’t gotten very far before he’d had to sell it. I shivered, although I wasn’t even cold.

A few fine swirls of snow whipped past my face as I packed the food into one saddlebag, and rolled the waterproof cloth of the one-piece bedroll into a tighter bundle that I tied behind the saddle.

“We’ll fill the canteen along the way, in one of the cleaner streams.”

I also agreed with that. Howlett didn’t look as if it were the most sanitary of communities.

Without another word, Justen untied Rosefoot and chucked the reins. I was still struggling with Gairloch when he had reached the edge of Howlett and took the left-hand road. It took me almost three kays to catch up because Gairloch insisted on an even walk, barely faster than Rosefoot.

Even then Justen said little, though we rode side-by-side on the crooked road.

XXVII

JUSTEN REINED IN his pony.

I did the same, but Gairloch decided he didn’t want to stop, at least not there. First, I had to lean all the way back, using all my weight on the hackamore, wishing for the moment that mountain ponies used real bridles with bits, if only to get Gairloch’s attention.

Then, he stopped—all four feet instantly frozen.

Only the stirrups kept me anywhere near the saddle—that, and the fact that the stubby saddle horn had somehow grabbed my belt and almost eliminated any future offspring.