‘Hmmm.’ He glanced up at the window. ‘What about the folk outside?’
‘Oh, they’ve all gone.’
‘But I can hear voices.’
‘Market day. And a busy one too. I should lay low if I was you, in case folk start to put the word out you’ve come back again.’
He gave Duffred a nod of agreement. ‘Good idea.’
Will replaited his braids, dressed and slipped down to the snug. Dimmet appeared from one of the pantries. He planted his hands on his hips when he saw Will was awake and laughed his great laugh. ‘Oh, so you’ve come back to us, have you? You was as mad as a March hare when we put you to bed. Rattling on about this and that.’ He turned to Duffred. ‘How is he now?’
‘Says he’s hungry.’
Duffred raised his eyebrows. ‘And how’s the hand?’
Will flexed it testingly. ‘Stiff. And I still feel tired, despite sleeping a full night on your softest mattress.’
‘Two nights and the day in between if you really want to know. We was getting a mite concerned about you.’
Will was astonished. ‘That long?’
‘I suppose doing magic takes it out of a body.’ Dimmet’s voice hardened. ‘Duffred here says them folks from Morton Ashley weren’t best pleased you let their goggly get away, mind.’
‘It didn’t get away. I let it go.’
Dimmet blinked. ‘What? A-purpose?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, then. No wonder they was upset with you. Gogglies ain’t the easiest of things to catch ahold of by all accounts.’
‘I thought I’d been called there to save a life. But they’d caught the creature in an iron snare. They wanted me to kill it for them. What do they think I am?’
Dimmet put a pewter platter down in front of him and withdrew. Will make short work of the breakfast, then he went back upstairs, having remembered the red fish that was still in his pouch. He took it out. A stunning idea had come to him.
Maybe, just maybe, it was his own green fish. Maybe something or someone had stolen it away from Nether Norton, and had taken it to Little Slaughter where it had been altered by the heat of the fireball.
He looked at it with new eyes. If it had been altered, then it was a change for the worse. There was something secretive about it now, something that did not sit very comfortably with his magical sense. Even so, he felt prompted to put it on a thread and wear it inside his shirt, just as he had before. But after a while sitting alone he began to feel so restless that he decided to go out.
He tied a bundle to his staff, stuck his hazel wand in his belt and put up the hood of his cloak. Then he crept downstairs again and stepped out by the back way.
He felt drained, like a man who wakes in the thin hours of the night and cannot get back to sleep. The wound in his hand had begun to throb. He knew he should rest, but what he wanted most was to get away from Eiton and its throngs of people for the rest of the day. He needed to plant his feet in the good earth, drink his fill of pure spring water and feast on fresh air. He would walk the lign, and soon he would feel more like his old self again. The sun would burn the tiredness out of him, and he might even be able to think a few things through at last.
He slipped back into the Plough’s yard unnoticed a little after sunset. He was tired and displeased with what now seemed to have been a fruitless and ill-spent day. The night was clear and warm. Many stars were twinkling overhead, but he had no time for them. He came in past the stables, and felt the presence of a big animal shifting its weight from foot to foot. His magical sense flared vividly, and he got the impression that the beast in the stall was thirsty, but he was too tired to pull the thought fully up into his conscious mind or to do anything practical about it.
The inn was warm and welcoming and busy with village folk making merry, but it seemed to Will both close and stuffy. There was a man sawing on a fiddle and another beating on a tabor. Duffred was washing a bucket of greasy wooden spoons over by the ale taps, and he hailed Will.
‘It’s too busy in there,’ Will said, preparing to slip upstairs.
‘My old dad says that “too” and “busy” are words that never go well together in an innkeeper’s hearing. Mind you, after all the tumults of this week I confess I’d be happier if it was a little quieter just now. Where’ve you been all the day?’
‘I…think it’s best if I make myself scarce.’ He glanced at the many customers, disliking their raucous laughter and the merry singing that had begun.
Duffred looked up and handed him a full tankard. ‘Here. This’ll wet your whistle. You get yourself down the far corner. Nobody much’ll bother you down there.’
He took the cider. ‘Thank you. I don’t think I’ll need to whet my appetite though. I’m ravenous.’
He watched Duffred break off half a loaf and then ladle out a bowl of pauper’s pea soup for him. Will carried it off down the passageway and found the quietest corner, but no sooner had he broken bread than a bent-backed old man shambled over. He was wrapped in a dark cloak, and there was a dusting of sparkles about his hair and upon the wool of his mantle, as if he had just come through fine rain.
‘Hey-ho, Master!’ the old man said in a jocular voice, and sat himself down.
Will resettled himself. ‘How do,’ he said more than a little gruffly and fearing that more was about to be asked of him. The old man edged his stool closer to the table and leaned forward and Will felt a pair of faded eyes boring into him as he ate.
He looked up at last and saw the old man nod at him. ‘Looks right tasty, does that, Master.’
‘I’m nobody’s master.’ He frowned. There was something about the old man’s appearance that made Will feel mightily uneasy. He wished the singers would quieten down. ‘I dare say Duffred’ll give you a splash of good pauper’s soup and the rest of this loaf if you ask him.’
‘Oh, I ain’t much hungry for soup.’
‘That’s all right then,’ Will said with his mouth full.
‘But see, I heard there was a crow visiting hereabouts.’
Will stopped chewing and put his hunk of bread down. ‘Crow’ was the word some used to mean a wizard. ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’
‘And I heard there was a lot of healing going on here. A regular hero of a healer at work they told me – a friend of the crow’s, a young feller not unlike yourself.’
‘I’m no hero,’ Will said lightly, and started eating again.
‘Maybe you’re not,’ the old man said, but his eyes strayed to Will’s staff, and then to a meat knife that was on the uncleared table, and finally back to Will’s face. ‘But what if I said I’d been looking for you?’
Will saw the old man’s eyes fasten upon his own. His hand went unconsciously to the place where the red fish was concealed. ‘Looking for me, you say?’
The old man smiled a yellow smile. ‘Oh, I’ve known about you for a very long time, Willand. As a matter of fact, we’ve met before.’
The singing stopped and the sudden silence was blemished by the sounds of a big horse snorting and big hooves clopping out in the yard. Will looked to the tiny window, then to the door and irresistibly back to the old man. ‘Who are you?’ he said, his blood running cold. ‘How do you know me?’
‘You know very well, I think.’ The old man’s arm moved as fast as lightning. He suddenly plucked out the hazel wand that Will had in his belt. ‘I see you’ve a talent!’
As