Page 50 of Silverbow
The Riverboat Inn was a sprawling building as big as any she’d ever seen. Voices and laughter drifted out into the street, along with the smells of roastedchicken and mutton, but Enya glanced at the parchments fluttering on the door and did not intend to stay. She kept on toward the southern gate.
It stood open with a line of wagons waiting to rumble on to the south. Joining the queue, she stood in her stirrups and craned her neck to get a look at what was causing the delay. Enya’s heart sank.
Open as the gates were, a knot of blue clad men stood to either side, flanked by the crimson coats of Pallas Davolier’s men. They checked papers and poked their heads into carriages and covered wagons. With a quiet curse, she steered Arawelo out of the line before any had noticed her or the heart that pounded too loudly in her own ears.A needle and thread, sewing scissors.
She wastrappedinside Trout Run like the fish netted for market.Bloody walls.
Enya ran through her list over and over, the recitation holding the panic at bay.A lantern with a spare cask of oil, flint and steel, her belt knife, a spare bowstring, a waterskin, a tin cup and bowl, a small kettle, a blanket roll, towel, three changes of clothes, bandages, a salve, a needle and thread, sewing scissors. A brush, hoof pick, feed bag. A hair comb and a bit of soap. Bread, hard cheese, dried meat, honey, and tea. Silver and gold, a few coppers. The horse head carving. Arawelo. My bow and quiver. My wits.
A lantern with a spare cask of oil…Took half the garrison back with them.
There couldn’t be that many of the king’s men left in Trout Run. If she had a way to get them off the gate, some kind of distraction…A distraction that they would leave the gates open for…
Flint and steel…
She huffed a laugh.
Rash, Enya. Very rash.
She turned Arawelo in search of kindling. There was plenty of it in the warehouses stacked against the docks, but she had no quarrels with these men. The merchants and traders hadn’t done her any wrongs. The king and his Master of Coin though…
She found herself strolling down an alley beside the soldier’s outpost. It was easy enough to find, marked by the crimson lion flying out front and matching uniforms hanging on a clothesline in the back alley. Enya skirted the wood sided building, humming to herself.Pallas Davolier really ought to build things from stone.
With a glance over her shoulder, she pulled the cork from her cask of lamp oil and splattered it over the rough wood. With trembling hands, it took a few strikes before sparks caught, but flame quietly licked across the siding, bathing the alley in a warm glow.
Enya admired it before she turned and strode back to where she left Arawelo waiting. Hiding her triumphant grin, she rejoined the queue at the gates, fighting the urge to turn in her saddle and stare in the direction of the soldier’s outpost. She bit her lip when the cry went up behind.
“Fire!”
“Something’s on fire!”
All around her, people turned to point at the plume of smoke, and then the line was surging forward.
“Let us out!”
“Order!” One of the soldiers was shouting. “Order!”
“The city’s on fire, man! Let us out!”
“Order!”
“Don’t shut the gate, you light blinded fool!”
An argument seemed to break out between the soldiers and the town watch, and the line surged again. Carts and wagons scrambled to be well clear of the blaze and Enya slipped out between them. She gave a silent salute to the plume of smoke that billowed above Trout Run and rode south with a smile.
fourteen
Renley
Pain seared across Renley’s skin at every jostle of the wagon. His muscles knotted and cramped in protest from the short chains that bound wrist and ankle, anchoring him to the wagon floor between sacks and crates of Peytar Ralenet’s gold. His back was in tatters from the daily lashings delivered by hard faced men who delighted in his torment. Through the pain, Renley silently delighted in Peytar’s vexation.
He’d lost count of the days he’d been bound in these chains. He’d lost count of how many dawns and dusks he’d seen since he’d met the High Lord of Pavia in the empty yard of his father’s house. He’d lost count of how long it had been since his life had been reduced to cinders by one man and a choice he made twenty years ago. A choice he still didn’t regret. It had all been worth it, every moment of it.
They occasionally remembered to toss him a waterskin, empty as often as it was full, and threw scraps of food at his feet like a dog. He was hauled down from the wagon just twice a day to relieve himself and take his lashings. They dropped the guise of questioning him days ago. There were no questions between the blows now. It was purely for sport.
Renley didn’t care. He had his newfound devotion to keep him company. With every turn of the carriage wheels, he sent up a silent prayer for Enya’s safety.Mosphaera and Sakaala blessed her with a gift. The gods were with her, and as he looked back at the last twenty years, he thought they always had been. He could see their fondness for her now in so many things from avoided accidents to chance that went her way. But it seemed they were not so fond of Peytar Ralenet and that gave Renley some small satisfaction.
At every turn of their journey, they were met with a broken wagon axle here, an upturned farmer’s cart there. A great tree fell over the road in Greenridge, and it took Peytar’s men half a day to hack through the wide truck and drag it out of the path of the High Lord’s carriage and his wagons of gold. It slowed their crawl east, even as the Master of Coin barked at his men to move faster.
