Ki ducked in and stood up, savoring the muted light, the cleanliness, and the relative quiet of the place. From the common room behind her, she heard the tinker bellow out, ‘Blood-sucking Windsingers!’ and follow it with muted curses. But here there was only the chink of pincers against the round-bottomed vessels of food snugged in the sand-troughs.
The sole Human inhabitant of the room sat with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out beneath a sand table. One booted foot rested comfortably on the ankle of the other. His head was tilted back, his eyes rolled up as, with one hand, he groped on a shelf above him. His fingertips teased a bottle to the edge, and caught it just as it began to tip into a fall. A light shower of sand came with it, dusting his hair. With a practiced twist of the wrist, he nested the round-bottomed bottle into the table before him. Two hemispherical glasses waited there, one clean and one tinged with dregs.
The man pushed the sleeves of his cream-colored tunic back to his elbows, exposing finely muscled forearms, and bent over the bottle to work off the seal. Curly dark hair fell over his forehead, partially obscuring the scar that divided his face.
Ki moved softly across the room, placing her boots with such care that she stood over him before he was aware of her. Dark eyes swept up to meet her green ones. She gave his boots a light kick. ‘I should have known,’ she grumbled. ‘It would be the Kerugi inn with a T’cherian serving room.’ She dropped to the floor and settled in beside him, her booted ankles crossed comfortably atop his.
‘It was so obvious, I never thought to mention it,’ Vandien conceded. ‘How was your haul?’
Ki leaned back against the wall behind them and let herself relax. ‘Bad roads, hot weather, unfriendly towns, and ungrateful recipients on this end. They claimed the top sacks of beans were spoiled from exposure to the weather. I thought they always smelled like that. We argued a bit, and I cut my fee a little, and we parted amiably. At least, the Kerugi’s Olo seemed friendly enough when I left. Who knows what a Kerugi really thinks about anything? All you hear is the carefully edited reply from its Olo…’
‘Um,’ Vandien agreed. He had resumed picking at the bottle’s seal, flicking away scraps of greenish wax to expose a fibrous stopper. He reached under the table to draw a small knife from a sheath on his belt and dug it into the stopper. ‘I hope you’re not too tired,’ he said casually. Amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth. He smoothed his small moustache to cover it, but Ki was alerted.
‘Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.’
‘Think we could be in False Harbor ten nights from now?’
‘False Harbor?’
‘About a day’s ride beyond Bitters by horse; maybe two for the wagon. The road is narrow and rutted.’
‘But why would I want to be in False Harbor then?’
Vandien glanced up at the T’cherian server making her way to their table laden with two steaming bowls. He timed his reply perfectly, speaking as he poured a dark purple liqueur into their glasses. The T’cherian nested their bowls into the sand before them. ‘I’ve contracted us a job there.’
Ki was speechless in the double amazement of Vandien actually seeking for gainful employment, and daring to commit her wagon and team without her permission. He looked up from the liqueur and laughed aloud at her wide eyes, her gaping mouth. As her eyes narrowed and she took a deep breath for speech, he raised both hands in supplication. ‘Before you tell me your current opinion of your dearest friend, let me tell you the details of the deal. You decide if even a stubborn Romni teamster would have walked away from it.’
Ki picked up her glass and leaned back against the wall, regarding him skeptically. She took a slow sip of the liqueur. He grinned at her engagingly, already sure of himself, and shifted to feel the companionable warmth of her shoulder and hip against his.
‘Three nights ago, I was sitting here, at this very table, when the strangest woman I’ve ever seen came in.’
As Vandien began his story, a length of white string appeared from his pouch as if by magic. It settled in a loop on his fingers, and as he spoke, he twisted and wove the string into the story symbols of his people. Ki’s eyes went from his fingers to his face and back again.
‘She stood in the doorway and looked slowly about. She was dressed in a coarse brown smock and trousers, like a field farmer. By her body and face, she could have been grandmother to a dozen children. Our eyes met. She smiled. She’d a bottle in one hand, and yellow flowers woven into her black, black hair. All in all, a strange sight, but not an eye turned to her but mine. Straight to my table she came, and twisted her bottle into the sand. She sat down across from me as if we were the oldest of friends. And, strangely, I knew we were.’
Vandien paused to take a sip from his glass and risked a look at Ki. He knew well that she could not resist a tale, especially as he told them, but he had not won her. Yet. He cleared his throat and went on.
‘Well, she just sat there, smiling at me and working a cork out of her bottle. When she had it open, she took a glass from one of her sleeves, and then another, and set them in the sand between us, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. When she had filled both glasses, what should it be but Alys! Ki, I had tried earlier in the day to buy Alys in four different taverns in this town. No one in Dyal had ever heard of it, let alone stocked it. But there she was, pouring me a glass of it. And still not a word had she spoken, and me half-wondering if I’m dreaming the whole thing.
‘Well, then she lifted her glass to me and said in a voice sweet as a bird’s call, “Here’s to your strong right arm and the scar between your eyes!” And she drained off her glass.’
‘So, of course, you had to do the same,’ Ki murmured. She was into the spirit of the tale now, and enjoying it as much as Vandien enjoyed the telling.
He took a sip of his dark liqueur. With a fingertip, he traced the scar that began at the inside corner of one eye and ran across the bridge of his nose and down his cheek to the angle of his jaw. He gave a grave nod and resumed his story.
‘When we had drunk, she told me her name, Srolan. I told her mine. She wasted no words. She said that she was seeking a strong Human with a dependable team for a very special task. She would not say who had steered her to me. I told her that while I knew of a very dependable team, they were not mine to commit…’
Ki sat up slightly, her muscles tensing as she began to speak, but Vandien spoke more quickly.
‘She told me what she needed done, and it seemed simple enough, even intriguing. But again I told her that I could not commit a team that was not mine. She took it to mean that I wanted a higher fee. She raised her offer. Again, I told her I must first propose it to you. Again, she raised her offer! Ki, it had reached an embarrassing level. But once more, I refused, telling her she must wait until you arrived, and ask you herself. Then Srolan sat back, and her shoulders sagged; her eyes lost their sparkle, and her years looked out at me.’
Vandien mimed her movements, becoming for an instant a downcast old woman. He held forth an appealing hand to Ki.
‘She could not stay in Dyal. Her daughter in Bitters was soon to give birth, and she must go to midwife her. No one but herself would do, for the girl had had three breech births, and none of the babes survived. This time Srolan was determined to be there herself and not trust to some other midwife’s fumbling. She was convinced that her touch alone could bring forth her daughter’s child alive.’
‘How could you deny the urgency of such a mission?’ Ki murmured. Vandien flashed her a self-righteous scowl at the underlying note of amusement in her voice.
‘How indeed, Ki? Especially when the final offer she made was so ridiculously high for such a simple task. In money alone,