Brann turned away, his shoulders shaking, as Breta and Hakon eschewed the planks that the carter had used to roll the barrels from the cart and lifted them directly back into it.
Grakk had been quietly watching, having taken the opportunity to seat himself on a rock at the side of the road. ‘Your gratitude is gracious, but unnecessary, my friend. When a man with a predicament such as yours meets a group with capabilities such as ours, there should be only one outcome.’
‘Perhaps in your experience, but not in mine, holy man,’ Jacques said, mistakenly assuming Grakk’s mode of speech and tattooed scalp to be based on religion. He sat on the back of his wagon, clearly glad of the rest before he was on his way. ‘Most armed groups that are met on these roads are wont to take what you have of value and pay you by allowing you to live. If they allow you to live.’
Cannick frowned. ‘And Belleville allows this?’
The man spat. ‘Belleville protects Belleville, and its farms on the plain, nothing more. They patrol the plain and hide behind their walls. It is up to us to get ourselves there intact. In truth, the bandits are fairly harmless and not overly numerous. They are no more than lads made desperate by poverty, and if they get enough to keep them going, they are satisfied. The real crooks are in the town. When we do,’ he spat again, ‘they pay a pittance for what we have and charge a fortune for what we want.’
Brann turned, humour forgotten in the face of injustice. ‘Can you not take your goods elsewhere?’
Jacques shrugged. ‘Nowhere else close enough to make it viable, young man.’
Brann still found it hard to understand. ‘Can you not refuse to sell unless they raise their prices? And refuse to buy at the prices they set?’
The man smiled sadly. ‘They grow their necessities for life; what they buy from us is over and above that, such as this oil I carry today. These goods enhance their life and they would not like to be without them for any length of time, but they can afford to survive on basics, just to make a point, and are stubborn enough to do so. We, however, need what they sell to produce what we do, and need their coin to buy what we eat. If I had a farm that produced all I needed to live, I would never soil myself with visiting that accursed town. Too late in my life, though, to change what generations of my family have done. We are carters, pure and simple. We transport, we are paid for transporting, we buy from our neighbours what we can avoid going to town to acquire, and then we transport some more.’
‘So,’ Brann said slowly, a thought growing. ‘If you didn’t have to go to the town today, you would not be distressed.’
The gap-toothed grin returned. ‘If I did not have to go to the town today, I would be bloody overjoyed, young man. Sadly, however, a consignment must be delivered for the fee to be paid, and the consignment will be paid for in the town.’
Brann looked at Grakk, then Cannick. ‘Unless the consignment and the cart are both bought at the side of a road and delivered by its new owners in your stead.’ His eyes had returned to the carter by the end.
The carter shrugged. ‘Should that be a possibility, it would be a welcome possibility.’
‘What are you thinking, Brann?’ Cannick was cautious.
‘I am thinking that a band of armed riders at the gates of a town renowned for its less than welcoming attitude would arouse suspicion. But a band of armed riders escorting a cart through dangerous bandit-ridden countryside would make more sense.’
‘Could we not,’ Konall said, ‘just escort this man to the gates of the town and pose as an escort in that way without having to pay for it in the first place?’
Hope began to fade from the old man’s face.
Brann shook his head. ‘Jacques has been doing this all his life, which is a considerable length of time.’ He looked at the man. ‘No offence meant.’
The man flashed his few teeth at Breta. ‘Why would a compliment offend, eh, young lady?’
She nodded solemnly. ‘Indeed.’ She turned to Hakon. ‘He called me a lady. Did you hear that?’
Brann continued quickly before Hakon could get himself into trouble. ‘The guards at the gate will know Jacques, and would wonder why he has broken the habit of a lifetime to now employ a guard. Whereas,’ he glanced at Konall, ‘a new man starting his business in this area, made nervous by the stories of banditry, might panic and hire a sizable escort. That might seem natural, might it not?’
The tall blond boy nodded. ‘It could make sense.’
Brann looked at Grakk. ‘We have the ability to pay.’
Grakk looked at Sophaya, having entrusted to her the pouches of coin passed to them by their benefactor in ul-Taratac – as the Sagians called their empire – to fund their mission, wherever Loku led them. Who better to know how to keep safe such valuables than the one natural thief in the group?
She nodded. ‘Of course. If that is what you want, it is there.’
Brann took a selection of coins from Sophaya and collected them into a pouch. He turned back to the old carter. ‘Can you buy a new cart in time for your next delivery?’
‘No need, young man. I have two, in case an accident befalls one with more dire consequences than today’s mishap. In any case, your price is far too high. Half of that would more than suffice, even after I purchase two more horses.’
Konall made to speak, but a glare from Cannick and a dig of Mongoose’s sharp elbow jolted him into uncharacteristic restraint.
Brann handed the pouch to Jacques. ‘It is the right amount.’
Cannick had suggested approaching the town’s main gate a little after dusk had started to fall, when the heat of the day had left the guards tired and thinking more of a refreshing drink than the duty involved in the remainder of their shift.
The wait allowed the others to rest in the shadow of the cart while Sophaya rode with the old man to a nearby steading, where he could borrow a mount to see him home. The glee on his face attested to the infrequency in his life when he could wrap his arms around the waist of a young woman. Gerens’s glare removed the glee for as long as it took, Brann noticed with amusement, for the pair to move beyond the grim boy’s line of sight.
Brann sat on the ground and rested his back against the recently repaired wheel. He folded his arms, rested his chin on his chest and closed his eyes, but found himself unable to snooze as the others were doing. His mind whirled and calculated, thoughts fired by his relentless impatience to reel in Loku. His thinking was hampered, though, by his nagging regret at missing the man at Markethaven by only a matter of days, only to be trapped there by the siege for weeks, the frustration driving his mind in circles.
The irritation was still refusing to leave him alone after they had moved off, the sun low in the sky but the air no less stifling for it. He nudged his horse beside those of Grakk and Cannick.
‘How long do you think—?’
Grakk cut in with a smile. ‘It would take Taraloku-Bana, or Loku, as he calls himself in these more norther parts, to reach here? I am only surprised, young Brann, that it has taken you so long to ask when you had time this afternoon to ponder it.’
Brann frowned. ‘I was thinking about it, yes, but every time I tried to think about it, my head kept returning to the way we came so close to him, and yet still he managed to stay ahead of us, while we lost even more time. It was as if the gods were toying with us like a bully dangling a toy in front of a child: almost in reach but then pulling it away at the last instant.’
Cannick spat into the dusty road. ‘The gods do not toy with us. What happens, happens. All we can do in this game that is life is play the dice the way they fall and not waste time wishing they had shown different numbers, or some other player will step in and play our turn.’
Grakk looked at