After a solemn handshake all round, the merchants left. Maddyn and Caradoc turned on Nevyn the moment the door swung shut.
‘I can’t tell you one blasted thing.’ Nevyn held up both hands flat in protest. ‘All I know is that they’re Cerrmor men going south, and that they’re both rich and reliable.’
‘Well, that should be enough, truly.’ Caradoc paused, thinking hard while he rubbed his chin with one hand. ‘Maddyn, make sure our young lad rides in the middle of the pack on the morrow, will you?’
‘I will. I might detail Aethan and Branoic to keep an eye on him – personally, like. Give them a chance to redeem themselves.’
‘Good idea. Carry it out.’ The captain glanced Nevyn’s way. ‘I was thinking of putting him between me and Owaen, but that’d look too suspicious.’
‘I agree. By the way, captain, I heard all sorts of news down at the temple. I must say that the merchant guilds do themselves proud when it comes to hearing what there is to hear. The Cantrae king seems to be planning a major offensive on the eastern side of the border – round Buccbrael, the rumours say. He’s been stripping the west of men for some big march, anyway.’
‘Splendid, if it’s true. Let’s pray it is.’
‘Provided he doesn’t strike at Cerrmor before we get there. The extreme west has always been Cerrmor’s weakest point, and it’s doubtless worse now that the Wolf Clan’s had to surrender their lands and go into exile.’
‘Uh, you know,’ Caradoc said. ‘The border’s held a long time without the Wolves on it. They went into exile – oh, at least twenty years ago.’
‘Has it been that long? When you get to be my age, it’s so easy to lose track of time.’
Just before noon, the silver daggers left Dun Trebyc under a sky striped with scattered clouds that had everyone groaning at the thought of more rain, but it held off till they met their hire. About two miles down the road Budyc was waiting on a splendid roan gelding. When Caradoc slowed the troop, Maddyn fell back beside Nevyn, and the merchant trotted over and took the place beside the captain.
‘We’ll be continuing south till mid-afternoon,’ Budyc said. ‘Then heading west for a-ways. Not far, though.’
‘How about telling us somewhat about this hire?’
‘Not yet.’ Budyc rose in the stirrups and looked round the flat view as if scanning for enemies. ‘Still too soon. Tonight, captain. Everything will come clear tonight.’
When Maddyn shot Nevyn a nervous glance, the old man merely smiled and shrugged, as if telling him to rest easy in his mind. If it weren’t for the prince, Maddyn might have, but as it was, he kept turning in the saddle and glancing back at Maryn. Since the road here was wide, the troop was riding four abreast, and Maryn was in the second file with Branoic on one side of him, Aethan the other, and Albyn just beyond Aethan – a formidable set of guards by anyone’s standards. No doubt the young prince could swing a sword himself if he had to – he’d certainly had the best teachers that warlike Pyrdon could offer – but all that sunny afternoon Maddyn kept brooding on the painful difference between swordcraft on the practice ground and swordcraft in a scrap. Sooner or later Maryn would have to blood his blade, of course; Maddyn merely prayed with all his heart that it would be later.
A couple of hours before sunset the silver daggers came to a trail that led west off the main road, and Budyc pointed it out to Caradoc with a wave. Yelling orders, Owaen rode down the line and sorted the troop out into single file, with Maryn between Branoic and Aethan about half-way along. Although Maddyn was less than pleased with this vulnerable arrangement, the countryside around was certainly peaceful enough. As they jingled their way along they saw two farmsteads, one herd of cows, and naught else but field after field of cabbages and turnips sprouting under the watchful eyes of crow-chasing small girls. At last, just when the sun was so low in the sky that everyone in the troop was squinting and cursing, they came to a deep-running stream, bordered by willows and hazels. Standing beside his black horse Wffyn the merchant was waiting for them, and through a clearing in the trees Maddyn could see what seemed to be a canal-barge tethered to the bank.
‘There you are!’ Wffyn sang out. ‘Good! First shipment just pulled in.’
As Budyc trotted forward to meet him, it dawned on Maddyn that these men were smugglers of some sort, a suspicion that was confirmed later that evening after the silver daggers had made camp. Along with Owaen, Maddyn followed Caradoc upstream to confer with the merchants on the morrow’s route and found a line of four barges being loaded from a parade of wagons. Stripped to the waist and sweating in the torchlight, Budyc and Wffyn were bounding from barge to shore and back again as they gave orders to the crew or even lent a hand themselves to haul the cargo on board.
‘Those look like ale-barrels,’ Owaen remarked. ‘But I never heard of ale that heavy. Look at those poor bastards sweat!’
‘Just so, and ale doesn’t clank, either – it sloshes.’
‘What in the three hells is going on?’ Caradoc muttered, somewhat waspishly. ‘And what?! Look at that lead barge!’
The cattle-barge had slatted wooden sides, and just visible above was a row of cows’ skulls stuck on poles and padded with wisps of straw. As the three silver daggers watched, open-mouthed with amazement, a barge man began wrapping the skulls with bits of leather, humming as he worked and stepping back now and again for a good look at his handicraft.
‘At night and from a distance they look a good bit like. cows,’ Budyc remarked as he joined them. ‘Enough to convince the passers-by that we’re a perfectly ordinary line of barges.’
‘All right, good sir,’ Caradoc snapped. ‘Just what is all this?’
‘Know how the smelter-masters weigh out raw iron up north? They say they have so many bulls’ worth of weight – the measure’s actually as much iron as you could trade a bull for back in the Dawntime, or so the guildmaster tells me. So that’s what we’ve got – a load of bulls, and barrels of the darkest ale in the kingdom.’
With a bark of laughter, Maddyn got the point of the joke and the journey both, but Owaen merely looked baffled.
‘Iron, lad,’ Maddyn told him. ‘They’re carrying smuggled iron down to Dun Cerrmor, and I’ll wager they’re getting a good bit more for it than a bull in trade.’
‘You could say that.’ Budyc preened a little. ‘But we’re not making some splendid profit, mind. Think about it – we have to hire wagons for the dry parts of the journey, barges for the wet, and the country folk’s silence, and then guards like you for the border crossing – it’s worth our while, but only just, lads, only just. Then count in the danger. Why do you think we hired you? The Cantrae men’ll stop us if they can, and they won’t be making an honourable prisoner out of the likes of me. If it weren’t helping to save Cerrmor, I doubt me if I’d make these runs.’
‘Tell me somewhat,’ Caradoc said. ‘Think there’s going to be much left of Cerrmor to save by the end of the summer?’
‘I don’t know.’ Budyc’s eyes turned dark. ‘We’re living on hope alone now that the king’s dead. Hope and omens – every cursed day you hear someone prattling about the True King coming to claim the throne, and the city still believes it, well, for the most part, anyway, but I ask you, captain – how much longer can we hold out? The regent’s a great man, and if it weren’t for him we’d have all surrendered to Cantrae by now, but even so, he’s just a regent. Too bad he’s so blasted honourable – if he’d marry the king’s daughter and give her a son, we’d all cheer him as king soon enough.’
‘And he won’t do it?’
‘He won’t, and he says he never will, unless someone brings him irrefutable proof that the True King’s dead and never