“We’ve seen them. Now let’s go,” Pym hissed in Nimue’s ear, and tugged on her sleeve.
Nimue exited the doorway, leaving Pym behind, and slid in beside another packhorse lumbering onto the street from the market square. She walked alongside the animal for several paces. A moment later the packhorse interrupted the Red Paladins’ conference, the street not being wide enough for them all. A mason atop his wagon of stones winced. “Apologies, brothers,” he called as he tried to steer around the group. The monks scowled as their horses backstepped and adjusted around the mason’s wagon. Amid this disruption, Nimue walked quickly between the Red Paladins’ horses, drew the stolen dagger from the thief’s saddlebag, and smoothly hid it within her sleeve. When the shorter monk turned in Nimue’s direction, all he saw was a flash of skirts as she swung around the corner into another alley.
Pym hurried out of the doorway and ran back into the bustle of the arcade. Her breathing had just started to settle when a long blade appeared at her throat. She froze.
“Give me all your coins!” Nimue snarled in Pym’s ear.
Pym spun around and slapped at a laughing Nimue, until she herself was laughing.
“Ow! Stop it! You’re bruising me!” Nimue covered her head.
“I won’t stop, crazy woman!” Pym kept at it until a farm woman shouted at them both for upsetting a pail of cabbages. The girls ran and shoved through the crowd back into the square. Nimue walked up to the blacksmith’s stall as a hammer rang in the tent and returned the stolen dagger to its place on the table of blades.
FOUR
THEY WANDERED TOWARD THE SOUND of music. Two young men had propped their swords against a wagon wheel and were staging an impromptu concert. Nimue took note of the number of young ladies who were swaying to the singer’s voice:
“With meadows green and skies o’ blue,
My mistress struck her arrow true,
We kissed and danced ’neath Virgo’s eye,
As the waxing moon fled from July.”
Curious, she fixed her gaze on the singer. He had a boyish face and was lean with broad shoulders and longish hair that flashed copper in the sun. His more lumpish friend played an able ruan.
“Sing high-lolly-lo say my fair summer lady,
Sing high-lolly-li-summer-hi-lolly-lo.”
The young singer’s voice was pleasing, though he struggled with the higher notes. But there was something about him that fixed Nimue to the spot. The hum of the Hidden swelled in her belly and behind her ear. She touched her cheek to make sure the Fingers of Airimid were not growing. Who is he? she wondered. He wasn’t Fey that she could tell. But the Hidden were trying to tell her something about this boy. She tried to will the hum away, push it down, but it persisted. Was it a warning? A summons? A mix of both?
Pym clucked her tongue and elbowed Nimue.
“But autumn gusts do blow cold, summer lady,
The swallows fly south from their nests in the bailey.”
The singer’s eyes fell on Nimue and the verse held on his tongue.
“And the warm wine . . .”
Nimue’s cheeks flushed. She looked away, embarrassed, then allowed herself to look the singer in his gray eyes, eyes that reminded her of the wolf cubs of the Iron Wood, alert, playful, and soon to be dangerous. He resumed his verse.
“. . . but there came a maid with blue eyes like ice on the sea,
Sing high-lolly-lo say my fair winter lady . . .”
The singer smiled at Nimue.
“He fancies you,” Pym whispered in her ear. Nimue laughed despite herself. But between the hum in her belly and the singer’s gray eyes, it was too much, and she turned back into the crowded market, where a juggler danced between a ring of children. He fumbled his balls, and one of them rolled past Nimue and was retrieved by the young singer. But rather than return the ball to the juggler, he offered it to Nimue instead. “Miss, you dropped this.”
Nimue took the ball and smirked. “Do I look like a juggler to you?”
The boy considered her. “Ah yes, I know what’s missing.”
By this time the juggler had tracked down the singer, but he didn’t get his ball. The singer stole his player’s cap and set it atop Nimue’s head. “Perfect!” he declared.
Pym snorted, the player protested, and Nimue allowed his teasing enough to brag, “I only juggle fire.”
The singer wagged a finger at her. “I suspected as much.”
Judging by his rough manners and hand-me-down tunic, Nimue pegged the boy as a sword for hire. Sky Folk were taught to avoid his type on the forest roads near Dewdenn.
The juggler was losing his sense of humor and stole his ball back from Nimue as the singer plopped the minstrel hat upon his own head. “No more charade. In truth, I am the great juggling master Giuseppe Fuzzini Fuzzini—two Fuzzinis—et cetera! And I am looking for a juggling apprentice to follow in my footsteps.” The singer grabbed two turnips from the barrel of a farmer’s stall and began his own juggling routine, playing keep-away from the juggler, who now competed with the children in jumping for his hat. Nimue couldn’t help but snort with laughter. The young mercenary attempted to kick his heels and juggle at the same time, which taxed his already limited talents to the breaking point. Mercenary and turnips spilled over in a heap.
“Fancy an ale?” the singer asked, leading Pym and Nimue away from the angry farmer and toward a raucous tavern named the Raven Wing.
“Sorry, we should be getting home,” Pym said.
“We have developed a thirst,” Nimue said, striding past the singer.
“Splendid.” He smiled and followed her to the tavern.
“I’m Arthur,” the singer said as he set down two mugs of ale for Pym and Nimue and pulled up a chair to a small table in the crowded Raven Wing. Pym’s eyes darted all around. The city crowd gave them suspicious looks.
“Nimue. This is Pym.” Nimue nudged Pym, who smiled fleetingly.
“That’s a lovely name, ‘Nimue,’ ” Arthur said, raising his mug to her. “I must say I like the cloaks, very mysterious. Are you sisters of the convent or something?”
“We’re hired assassins,” Nimue said.
“I suspected as much.” Arthur played along, though Nimue could tell he was still trying to pin them down.
“You live in Hawksbridge?” he asked.
“Near enough,” Nimue said, in no rush to answer Arthur’s questions. It’s one ale with a local boy, what harm can it do? She took a sip. Her lips tingled as she swallowed her first gulp. The ale was sour and warm, but she noticed its taste improved the more she drank. “And you?”
“Just passing through, really.”
“Are you a sword for hire?”
“Not at all. We’re knights,” Arthur said. He jerked his head at an unruly table nearby, where several rough fellows played bone dice. A local stood up from the table and snarled, “Bunch of cheats!” The large mercenary with the dice wore a chain-mail shirt and sported a bald pate with several battle dents to match his crooked nose. He stood up with enough menace to hurry the local away, and then his dull eyes kept glancing at Pym and Nimue.
“Bors over there commanded Lord Adelard’s host before the old fellow’s heart gave out,” Arthur said.