Page 47 of Time's Fool

“What is he doing here?” Kit repeated harshly, because that last sentence had made no sense. And because the bird’s too intelligent eyes were frankly disturbing.

“’Tis a refuge like,” the older woman said. She’d found herself a drink and a perch on the end of a table.

“What is?”

“This place,” she gestured about with the ale pot. “The cats were the familiars of witches who died in the war. Rilda took ‘em in.”

“’Cept for the horse,” the redhead with a hole in his ear said. “Didn’t keep the horse.”

The woman shrugged. “Was on its last leg, anyway. And who keeps a horse as a familiar?”

“I heard o’it before,” the Abraham man said.

“Don’t think it was a familiar,” the friar remarked, coming up with a pot of ale and a sunny smile on his face, which caused Kit to feel for his purse. Only to realize that Gillian had never returned it. That made the friar grin even wider.

“Then what was it?” the redhead demanded.

“A horse,” the friar shot him an impatient glance. “For going to market.”

The redhead did not look convinced. “I’d have wanted to make sure before I sold it.”

“Didn’t sell it. Put it out to pasture—”

“Where? Farmer probably ate it, time’s being wot they is—”

“Not that kind of farmer,” the friar said meaningfully, and the redhead apparently finally understood, because his eyes widened.

“Ah. Like what happened with the camel?”

“What camel?” Kit asked, feeling decidedly off balance. The longer he was there, the more confused he became.

“That wasn’t a familiar, either,” the old woman argued. “Just one o’ them curiosities, y’know, wot people are always showing off at fairs and marketplaces and charging you a penny t’see.”

“Rilda has a kind heart, though you’d never know it,” the black-haired man with the branded thumb added. He moved a cat off a bench so that he could take a seat, but then mollified it by keeping the creature in his lap. “She saw how they was whipping it and rescued the poor thing.”

“I saw a lion once,” the young woman said, piping up from the far wall, where she was getting herself a drink from the freestanding barrel. “Least they said he was. Looked kind of old and mangy t’me, but I couldn’t say they was wrong.”

“Think I saw the same one,” the old woman agreed. “Missing a patch o’fur on his hindquarters, was he? And that ‘mane’ was a sight—”

“Mebbe the queen should get a different symbol, if that’s wot the things really look like,” the redhead said, which made the older woman cackle and kick her feet, although Kit didn’t understand the joke.

“Mebbe a dragon,” she laughed, and several more joined her.

“Dragon, dragon, dragon,” the bird cawed, making Kit’s already tense spine stiffen a little more.

“I think I’ll go find Mistress Urswick,” he said, only to have the Abraham man throw an arm around his shoulders.

“No need for that, now. She’ll be back anon.”

“Have an ale,” the friar added, with that same odd smile, and proffered his pot.

But Kit had had enough. And while these folks were certainly strange, they did not appear to be magical, as he had first feared. Which improved his odds considerably.

He was still handicapped by the fact that he didn’t want to hurt them. They seemed to be friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, of Gillian’s, and he wanted to justify her faith in bringing him along. She had refused Mircea, who had seemed strangely insistent on coming, and had even hesitated where Kit was concerned.

But then, he didn’t have to hurt them to get around them.

He fell into the trance like state that vampires used when they wanted to move quickly, and dodged out from under the big man’s grip. He ducked beneath the friar’s proffered offering while the man just stood there, having yet to realize that Kit had moved. And launched himself over the table where the older woman was sitting and out into the main part of the room.

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