me, Laeka, and I'll introduce you to what we keep."
With the child trotting at her side and the inn-
keeper following, Tarma strolled back to Kethry.
"This's a good place, she'enedra, and they aren't
altogether outrageous in what they're charging. We'll
be staying. This is Laeka, she's our Keeper's daugh-
ter, and his chief stableman."
Laeka beamed at the elevation in her station
Tarma granted her.
"Now, hold out your hand to Kessira, little lady;
let her get your measure." She placed her own
hand on Kessira's neck and spoke a single com-
mand word under her breath. That told Kessira
that the child was not to be harmed, and was to be
obeyed—though she would only obey some com-
mands if they were given in Shin'a'in, and it wasn't
likely the child knew that tongue. Just as well, they
didn't truly need a new back door to their stabling.
The mare lowered her head with grave dignity
and snuffled the child's hand once, for politeness'
sake, while the girl's eyes widened in delight. Then
when Tarma put the reins in Laeka's hands, Kessira
followed her with gentle docility, taking careful,
dainty steps on the unfamiliar surface. Kethry
handed her the reins to the mule as well; Rodi, of
course, would follow anyone to food and stabling.
Hadell showed them their room; on the first floor,
it was barely big enough to contain the bed. But it
did have a window, and the walls were freshly
whitewashed. There were plenty of blankets—again,
well-worn but scrupulously clean—and a feather
comforter. Tarma had stayed in far worse places,
and said as much.
"So have I," Kethry replied, sitting on the edge
of the bed and pulling off her riding boots with a
grimace of pain. "The place where I met you, for
one. I think we've gotten a bargain, personally."
"Makes me wonder, but I may get the answer
when I see the rest of the guests. Well, what's
next?" Tarma handed her a pair of soft leather
half-boots meant for indoor wear.
"Dinner and bed. It's far too late to go to the
Hiring Hall; that'll be for first thing in the morn-
ing? I wonder if we could manage a bath out of
Hadell? I do not like smelling like a mule!"
As if to answer that question, there came a gentle
rap on the door. "Lady-guests?" a boy's soprano
said carefully, "Would ye wish th' use o' the
steamhouse? If ye be quick, Da says ye'll have it t'
yerselves fer a candlemark or so."
Tarma opened the door to him; a sturdy, dark
child, he looked very like his father. "And the charge,
lad?" she asked, "Though if it's in line with the
rest of the bill, I'm thinking we'll be taking you up
on it."
"Copper for steamhouse and bath, copper for soap
and towels," he said, holding out the last. "It's at
the end of the hallway."
"Done and done, and point us the way." Kethry
took possession of what he carried so fast he was
left gaping. "Pay the lad, Tarma; if I don't get
clean soon, I'm going to rot of my own stink."
Tarma laughed, and tossed the boy four coppers.
"And here I was thinking you were more trail-
hardened than me," she chuckled, following Kethry
down the hall in the direction the boy pointed.
"Now you turn out to be another soft sybarite."
"I didn't notice you saying no."
"We have a saying—"
"Not another one!"
" 'An enemy's nose is always keener than your
own.' "
"When I want a proverb, I'll consult a cleric.
Here we are," Kethry opened the door to the bath-
house, which had been annexed to the very end of
the inn. "Oh, heaven!"
This was, beyond a doubt, a well managed place.
There were actually three rooms to the bathing
hot water bubbled from a wooden pipe in the floor
into a channel running through it, while against the
wall were pumps. This room was evidently for ac-
tual bathing; the bather mixed hot water from the
channel with cold from the pumps, then poured
the dirty water down the refuse channel. The hot-
water channel ran into the room beside this one,
which contained one enormous tub sunk into the
floor, for soaking out aches and bruises. Beyond
this room was what was obviously a steamroom.
Although it was empty now, there were heated
rocks in a pit in the center of the floor, buckets
with dippers in them to pour water on the rocks,
and benches around the pit. The walls were plain,
varnished wood; the windows of something white
and opaque that let light in without making a mock-
ery of privacy.
"Heaven, in very deed," Tarma was losing no
time in shedding her clothing. "I think I'm finally
going to be warm again!"
One candlemark later, as they were blissfully
soaking in hot mineral water—"This is a hot spring,"
Kethry remarked after sniffing the faint tang of
copper in the air. "That's why he can afford to give
his baths away"—a bright grin surmounted by a
thatch of tousled brown hair appeared out of the
steam and handed them their towels.
"Guard-shift's changin', miladies; men as stays
here'll be lookin' fer their baths in a bit. You wants
quiet, ye'd best come t' dinner. You wants a bit o'
summat else—you jest stays here, they'll gie' ye
that!"
"No doubt," Tarma said wryly, taking the towel
Laeka held out to her and emerging reluctantly
from the hot tub, thinking that in some ways a
child being raised in an inn grew up even faster
than a child of the Clans. "We'll take the quiet,
thanks. What's wrong?"
The child was staring at her torso with stricken
eyes. "Lady—you—how did—who did—"
Tarma glanced down at her own hard, tawny-
gold body, that was liberally latticed with a net-
work of paler scars and realized that the child had
been startled and shocked by the evidence of so
many old wounds on one so relatively young. She
also thought about the adulation that had been in
Laeka's eyes, and the concern in her father's when
the man had seen it there. This might be a chance
to do the man a good turn, maybe earn enough
gratitude that he'd exert himself for them.
"A lot of people did that to me, child," she said
quietly. "And if you've ever thought to go adven-
turing, think of these marks on me first. It isn't like
the tales, where people go to battle one candlemark
and go feast the next, with never a scratch on them.
I was months healing from the last fight I had, and
the best that those I fought for could give me was a
mule, provisions, and a handful of coin as reward.
The life of a mercenary is far from profitable most
of the
time."
Laeka gulped, and looked away. "I like horses,"
she ventured, finally. "I be good with 'em."
"Then by all means, become a horse-trainer,"
Tarma answered the unspoken question. "Train 'em
well, and sell 'em to fools like me who earn their
bread with swords instead of brains. Tell you what—
you decide to do that, you send word to the Clans
in my name. I'll leave orders you're to get a better
choice than we give most outlanders. Hmm?"
"Aye!" The girl's eyes lighted at the promise,
and she relaxed a little as Tarma donned her close-
fitting breeches, shirt, and wrapped Shin'a'in jacket,
covering the terrible scars. "Da says t' tell you
supper be stew, bread 'n' honey, an' ale."
"Sounds fine—Keth?"
"Wonderful."
"Tell him we'll be there right behind you."
The child scampered out, and Kethry lifted an
eyebrow. "Rather overdoing it, weren't you?"
"Huh! You didn't see the hero-worship in the
kid's eyes, earlier, or the worry in her Da's. Not too
many female mercenaries ride through here, I'd
guess; the kid's seen just enough to make it look
glamorous. Well, now she knows better, and I'm
thinking it's just as well."
"You knew better, but you took this road anyway."
"Aye, I did," Tarma laced her boots slowly, her
harsh voice dropping down to a whisper. "And the
only reason I left the Plains was to revenge my
Clan. All Shin'a'in learn the sword, but that doesn't
mean we plan to live by it. We—we don't live to
fight, we fight when we have to, to live. Sometimes
we don't manage the last. As for me, I had no
choice in taking up the blade, in becoming a merce-
nary; no more than did you."
Kethry winced, and touched Tarma's arm lightly.
"Put my foot in it, didn't I? She'enedra, I'm sorry—I
meant no offense—"
Tarma shook off her gloom with a shake of her
head. "I know that. None taken. Let's get that food.
I could eat this towel, I'm that hungry."
The whitewashed common room was quite empty,
although the boy who brought them their supper
(older than the other two children, darker, and
quieter) told them it would be filling shortly. And
so it proved; men of all ages and descriptions slowly
trickling in to take their places at table and bench,
being served promptly by Hadell's two sons. The
room could easily hold at least fifty; the current
crowd was less than half that number. Most of the
men looked to be of early middle-age with a sprin-
kling of youngsters; all wore the unconsciously com-
petent air of a good professional soldier. Tarma
liked what she saw of them. None of these men
would ever be officers, but the officers they did
serve would be glad to have them.
The talk was muted; the men were plainly weary
with the day's work. Listening without seeming to,
the women soon gleaned the reason why.
As Tarma had already guessed, these men were
foreign mercenaries, like themselves. This would
be Hadell's lean season—one reason, perhaps, that
his prices were reasonable, and that he was so glad
to see them. The other reason was that he was that
rare creature, an honest man, and one who chose to
give the men he had served beside a decent break.
Right now, only those hire-swords with contracts
for a year or more—or those one or two so prosper-
ous that they could afford to bide out the merce-
nary's lean season in an inn—were staying at the
Broken Sword. Normally a year-contract included
room and board, but these men were a special case.
All of them were hired on with the City Guard,
which had no barracks for them. The result was
that their pay included a stipend for board, and a
good many of them stayed at inns like the Broken
Sword. The job was never the easy one it might
appear to the unknowing to be; and today had been
the occasion of a riot over bread prices. The Guard
had been ordered to put down the riot; no few of
these men had been of two minds about their or-
ders. On the one hand, they weren't suffering; but
on the other, most of them were of the same lower-
classes as those that were rioting, and could re-
member winters when they had gone hungry. And
the inflated grain prices, so rumor had it, had no
basis for being so high. The harvest had been good,
the granaries full. Rumor said that shortages were
being created. Rumor said, by Wethes Goldmarchant.
Both Tarma and her partner took to their bed
with more than a bellyful of good stew to digest.
"Are you certain you want to come with me, even
knowing there probably won't be work for you?
You deserved a chance to sleep in for a change."
Kethry, standing in the light from the window,
gave her sorcerer's robe a good brushing and slipped
it on over her shirt and breeches—and belted on
her blade as well.
"Eyah. I want to be lurking in the background
looking protective and menacing. I want to start
rumors about how it's best to approach my partner
with respect. You put on whatever act you think
will reinforce mine. And I don't think you should
be wearing that."
Kethry glanced down at Need and pursed her
lips. "You're probably right, but I feel rather naked
without her."
"We don't want to attract any attention, right?
You know damn well mages don't bear steel other
than eating knives and ritual daggers." Tarma
lounged fully-clothed—except for her boots—on the
bed, since there wasn't enough room for two people
to be standing beside it at the same time.
"Right," Kethry sighed, removing the blade and
stowing it under the bed with the rest of their
goods. "All right, let's go."
The Hiring Hall was no more than a short stroll
from the inn; an interesting walk from Tarma's
point of view. Even at this early an hour the streets
were full of people, from ragged beggars to well-
dressed merchants, and not all from around here—
Tarma recognized the regional dress of more than a
dozen other areas, and might have spotted more
had she known what to look for. This might be the
lean season, but it was evident that Mornedealth
always had a certain amount of trade going.
At the Hiring Hall—just that, a hall lined with
benches on both sides, and a desk at the end, all of
the ubiquitous varnished wood—they gave essen-
tially the same story they'd given the guard. Their
tale differed only in that Kethry was being more of
herself; it wouldn't do to look an idiot when she
was trying to get work. As they had been told, the
steward of the hall shook his blond head regretfully
when Tarma informed him that she was only inter-
ested in short-term assignmen
ts.
"I'm sorry, Swordlady," he told her, "Very sorry.
I could get you your pick of a round dozen one-to-
five-year contracts. But this is the lean season, and
there just isn't anything for a hire-sword but long-
term. But your friend—yes."
"Oh?" Kethry contrived to look eager.
"There's a fellow from a cadet branch of one of
the Fifty; he just came into a nice fat Royal grant.
He's getting the revenue from Upvale wine taxes,
and he's bent on showing the City how a real aristo
does things when he gets the cash to work with.
He's starting a full stable; hunters, racers, carriage
beasts and pleasure beasts. He knows his horse-
flesh; what he doesn't know is how to tell if there's
been a glamour put on 'em. Doesn't trust City mages,
as who could blame him. They're all in the pay of
somebody, and it's hard to say who might owe whom
a favor or three. So he's had me on the lookout for
an independent, and strictly temporary. Does that
suit your talents?"
"You couldn't have suited me better!" Kethry
exclaimed with delight. "Mage-sight's one of my
strongest skills."
"Right then," the steward said with satisfaction.
"Here's your address; here's your contract—sign
here—"
Kethry scrutinized the brief document, nodded,
and made her mage-glyph where he indicated.
"—and off you go; and good luck to you."
They left together; at the door, Tarma asked,
"Want me with you?"
"No, I know the client, but he won't know me.
He's not one of Kavin's crowd, which is all I was
worried about. I'll be safe enough on my own."