The Monk's Habit (The Disinherited Prince Series Book 2) Read online

  “That’s what the Listyans call their smallest copper coin,” Pol said.

  “Oh.” Searl pulled out his purse out and paid for their stay. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Fish.” The innkeeper laughed, and it took a moment for Searl to get her little joke, but he laughed heartily.

  Pol just smiled.

  After stowing their gear, Pol and Searl walked down from their rooms into the common room. A young man served them steaming bowls of a light fish soup with onions, strings of spinach and the white of egg swirling around the surface. He returned with light ale and bread and butter.

  The bread might have been fresh earlier in the day, but it had hardened a bit. Pol dipped his in the soup, while Searl buttered his and crunched his way through a slice.

  Pol looked at the ale. “I’ve never had ale before,” he said.

  “You haven’t, have you? You only drank heavily-watered wine or fruit juice, as I recall.”

  “With my new constitution, I’ll try it tonight.”

  Searl’s eyes glazed over. “My work looks like it’s permanent. You have your healer’s permission to drink a mug or two.” The monk took a sip and closed his eyes to savor the ale. “This is well-crafted. It seems light, but there is a good dose of alcohol.”

  “As long as it isn’t minweed,” Pol said, smiling.

  Searl’s face became solemn. “No, it’s not.”

  “Sorry,” Pol said.

  “No need to be sorry. I’m getting to the point where I want my life back. My addiction wasn’t the best of times.”

  Pol didn’t bring up the subject again. The innkeeper sauntered between the tables. Most of the other patrons were there for drinking.

  “Where are you headed?” she asked.

  “Alsador,” Pol said.

  She made a face. “It’s never been a happy place since the old king and queen died, and now the new king is terrible.”

  “Oh?” Pol said.

  The innkeeper shook her head in disgust. “Taxes are going up, and for what? To line the royal coffers. We were promised a proper Coast Highway by the regent a few years ago, and the prospect of that went away as soon as King Landon arrived. Now there are suspicious characters poking their nose into other people’s business in the name of the crown.”

  “Do you remember the old king and queen?” Pol asked.

  “I do. I was a young thing, then.” She smiled as she reminisced. “I can see the bright, shiny face of Princess Molissa riding with her parents. The future of Listya was filled with promise.” She sighed. “And then they were both were taken by the Little Plague.”

  “Ah,” Searl said. “I remember that. I was in training, and the healers didn’t know what to do.”

  “And didn’t find out until one-fourth of Listya and the rest of southeast Baccusol had died. I lost an uncle, aunt, and their only son.” She shook her head, but then she brightened.

  “Now that I know where you are going, where are you from?”

  “Sand,” Searl said.

  “North Salvan,” Pol said.

  Searl furrowed his brow. Pol knew the monk well enough to know that he had misspoken.

  “North Salvan originally, but we met up in Sand.”

  “So you’re not related? I thought you might be grandsire and grandson.”

  “Close enough, but not by blood,” Searl said. “What is the road like all the way to Alsador?”

  “Oh. It will take you three days or a little more, depending on how hard you press your horses. There are plenty of fishing villages along the way and a few small ports. The road isn’t bad for horses, but there are hells to pay for carriages.” She shivered. “Have a good night.” She patted Pol on the shoulder and joked around with a table of what must have been regulars before she disappeared into the kitchen.

  “It sounds like my stepfather’s regent didn’t win the hearts of the people,” Pol said quietly.

  “And it’s only gotten worse with King Landon.”

  Pol wondered how his mother might have ruled. He thought she would have done a good job of it. She used to give alms regularly, so she had a genuine interest in her subjects, and now Landon sat on the throne, making a mess of it, just as Pol had always thought he would.

  They finished their stew, and Pol felt a glow from the mug of ale as he climbed the stairs. He quickly fell asleep when he lay down, fully clothed.

  ~

  In the morning they bought a meal to take from the inn and mounted their horses. A man dressed as a merchant led his horse out into the stable yard.

  “The innkeeper said you were headed to Alsador. Mind if I join you? My name is Carlon Winters.”

  Pol looked at the shorter man. He looked familiar somehow, but he couldn’t figure out whom he looked like. “We are heading for Alsador.”

  Winters smiled. “So the innkeeper told me. The road isn’t particularly dangerous, I understand, but I wouldn’t mind riding with two others, if you don’t mind.”

  Pol turned to Searl, who shrugged his shoulders. “It’s fine with us.”

  As the three of them rode along the Coast Highway, Winters began to talk.

  “I’m from Yastan. My factor in Alsador died, and I have to hire another. I could take a ship from Dasalt or Hertz, but my stomach is a tender thing.” The man smiled, but somehow it didn’t reach his eyes. Pol didn’t know if he trusted Winters, but so far he didn’t need to.

  “We are from Sand,” Searl said. “My daughter moved to Alsador about six months ago, so we are hoping for a happy reunion.”

  “Not everyone is happy in Alsador. There are rumors that the new King and Queen are hell-bent on ruining the country. I heard this very road was to be paved by the regent, but Queen Bythia put a quick halt to the project.”

  Pol nodded. “We heard much the same thing from the innkeeper.”

  Winters laughed. Again, it seemed forced, rather than natural. “Keep your eyes and ears open when you reach the capital. You may learn more than you wished about Alsador, but it may save your lives.”

  “That’s a dire warning for one traveling to the capital,” Searl said.

  “I didn’t come to Alsador to seek out what stirs in the capital. There are those in Yastan that have a good idea of what ails Listya.”

  Pol thought Winters held back on his information, but the man quickly changed the subject.

  ~~~

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ~

  ALSADOR LOOKED IMPRESSIVE FROM A DISTANCE. It rose from a plain, greening up with crops, as the patchwork of fields promised a harvest at the end of summer. The stonework looked white in the morning sun, enhanced by the thinning mist that Winters, Searl, and Pol had ridden through since early morning.

  The ocean disappeared behind a bank of misty clouds not far offshore. Pol didn’t remember this view, but he might have been sleeping in the carriage as they approached Alsador seven years ago.

  He took a deep breath as they moved ahead in the line of merchants, farmers, and others seeking entrance through the eastern gate and into the city. The guards demanded two Listyan silver foxes as payment to enter. No other city had asked as much, even the capital city of Lawster. His stepfather, King Colvin, had never charged visitors for entrance into Borstall.

  Pol had been through capital cities large and small in the last few months, and Alsador seemed larger than them all, he thought as they rode underneath the main gate, and then approached another, smaller gate one hundred yards in. Farmers worked the fields in between the two walls that circled the city. He looked at the tops of the walls, and crenellations were evident, then he realized that he currently rode through a killing field, as Mistress Farthia would call it. In a conflict, the farmland would be plowed under and invaders could be attacked from both sides.

  They continued on into the city proper. Listya’s poorer sections hugged the real city wall just like in most cities.

  Searl stopped a merchant heading out of Alsador and asked about a suitable inn to stay fo
r a few weeks. Pol didn’t hear most of the conversation since he continued to look around at the city of his mother’s birth. The district was still poor, and Pol could smell the familiar stench of less-than-fastidious human habitation.

  “I will take my leave,” Carlon Winters said. “Perhaps we will meet again before you leave Alsador.” He nodded to both of them and headed in a different direction.

  “A strange man,” Pol said.

  Searl watched Winters thread his way through the crowds. “He is more than he seems, I’m sure. The man wore a disguise.”

  “He did?” Pol said.

  “The man is a magician. He changed his hair and his features. With a little practice, you’ll be able to do the same. When you learn, you can sense a disguise. His was well-done, but then I’m a Black. I think he is, too.”

  “You didn’t call him on it,” Pol said.

  Searl snorted. “If he wanted to introduce us to his real self, he would have.” The monk shook his head. “I’d not push a high-level magician too far.” He looked at Pol, who nodded that he had understood the message between the words.

  The inn was another mile in towards the center of the city where the castle stood on a man-made hill. Pol remembered the towers poking above the streets, but little else. People thronged among them and clogged the thoroughfare. The carts and carriages moved slowly through the crowds.

  They finally reached the inn. It looked ‘serviceable,’ as Val might have described it. Pol followed Searl into the stable yard. Two stable boys took their horses, and two more ran up to carry their saddlebags.

  “Grain for both of them,” Pol said.

  The boys looked at Searl for confirmation. The monk nodded and followed the porters into the inn.

  The Turning Wheel Inn was much better than the one he used during Searl’s last stages of minweed withdrawal. He looked around at the carpets beneath his feet. The main floor held a common room and a dining room much like the inn at Hill Creek, but much larger.

  “We’ll have to share a room,” Searl said. “Prices are high in Alsador, and taxes have been raised recently.” He shook his head. “What a burden King Landon has placed on the visitors to his city.”

  Pol nodded. He would’ve liked to say more, but there were too many people coming and going at the inn.

  The room was larger than Pol expected, but they were all the way up on the fourth floor. The monastery’s buildings didn’t go higher than three stories. The two beds were on opposite sides of a sitting area. Good-sized windows looked out onto the roof of the next building. That gave them a good view of the castle towers poking above the roofs.

  Pol stood at the windowsill, looking at the castle, wondering how Landon spent his day. Part of him wanted to find out, and another part abhorred being in Listya’s capital city. Would have, could have, should have. Fate had spun a different path for Pol to follow. He examined his clenched fist. The blood that coursed through his hand was the same as always, but the heart that pumped it was different, repaired.

  He felt that his new life hadn’t begun yet and wouldn’t until he returned to Deftnis.

  “Looking at the castle that might have been yours?” Searl asked.

  “It never was mine,” Pol said, turning around and sitting on the simple couch that sat against one wall between beds. “How do you want to proceed? This might become a Seeking exercise.”

  Searl smiled. “I know it will. Alsador is big enough to swallow a craftsman up without any way to find him.”

  “He is an ironmonger? Decorative grills?”

  “That’s what he did in Dasalt. I don’t know what he would do here.”

  “Both Dasalt and Listya are hot enough countries. People want their windows open during the day and at night. That’s why iron grills are popular. Why would he change professions?” Pol said.

  Searl shrugged. “Some countries have guilds that protect local craftsmen.”

  “Then we Seek. I think we should start out that way. You’re looking for your daughter, there’s no reason to be subtle.”

  “And what name will you have? King Landon will probably know that you are calling yourself Pol Cissert, since your South Salvan enemies know.”

  “How about Kell Digbee?”

  Searl shook his head. “Think.”

  Pol quickly found the pattern. “He is associated with me. Fen is relatively close by, and his merchant father might have done business in Alsador.”

  “Good. I was just thinking about his association with you. Why don’t you make up a name that might sound like you came from Hill Creek? You know that village well enough.”

  “Aron Morfess?”

  Searl laughed. “That is as good as any and that’s not Morfess’s first name, but no one will know or probably care.”

  “Aron Morfess,” Pol said to himself. He looked up at Searl. “Demeron knows he won’t be exercised for the next two weeks, so I won’t be associated with a big warhorse riding through Alsador.”

  “If one of us needs a horse, we’ll take mine.”

  “And you will be a healer looking for his daughter.”

  “Yes, using my real name, Searl Hogton. My great-great grandfather came from Hogtown in the kingdom of Lake and liked the name. My father changed it from Hogtown to Hogton, but I never liked using it, so I am Searl.”

  “You sure are,” Pol said, somewhat disrespectfully. Searl smiled, nevertheless.

  ~

  The next morning, they set out seeking ironmongers who built decorative grills.

  “I’m looking for my son-in-law, Mansen Lassler,” Searl said to the first one they encountered.

  The man at the counter shook his head. “Can’t say I’ve heard the name.”

  “Is there an ironmonger’s guild or some other guild that manages those who craft with iron?” Pol asked.

  The man shook his head. “I wish. Everybody wants to sell to the nobility and make lots of money working with iron. The fact of the matter is there is little new construction in Alsador, and those that need grills on their windows can’t afford them. I’d be surprised if he found any work at all. Sorry,” he said. A customer walked in and the man moved away from them.

  “Not what I wanted to hear,” Searl said. “I wonder if my daughter has taken up healing.”

  “Is she as good as you?”

  Searl laughed. “Can anybody be as good as me? No, to be honest she has a little power, but not enough to peer into a body like you can. She can stop bleeding and seal wounds well enough. I taught her quite a bit when she was younger and if she’s kept practicing, she’s probably as good as most non-talented healers. Even though she can’t see into a person’s body, she can even do some operations and knows how to keep things clean to fend off infection.”

  “Maybe we should split off. I can look for Mansen, and you can look for your daughter.”

  Searl pursed his lips. “This isn’t going to be as simple as I thought.”

  “What is?” Pol said. He had never found things to be as easy as he thought. He had found Searl quickly, but he went through a long, arduous effort to get the monk sober

  ~

  The next few days proved fruitless for Pol. He had gotten names of other ironmongers from the first and his list kept expanding for a while until he began to cover all the craftsmen in Alsador.

  A few might have heard of Mansen’s name but didn’t know where he might possibly be. Searl’s son-in-law definitely wasn’t working as an ironmonger making grills.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Searl said after their fourth day in Alsador, over an early dinner. They took their meal in the emptier common room. It would fill up later in the evening. “There are a number of healers that just set up shop in the streets and treat passersby. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Alsador must have the healthiest people in Baccusol, if you count health as the number of healers in the capital. However, I’ve observed a few, and most barely know how to bandage an injury. The better ones know how to sew wounds an
d can prescribe a few herbal remedies, but little else.”

  “Your daughter can do more than that.”

  Searl nodded. His eyebrows rose. “I just got an idea. What if we became street healers ourselves? I can do a little more teaching, and you could use it no matter where your magic takes you.”

  Pol thought it over while he chewed on a bite of roast beef. The inn had better food than Deftnis. That was for sure. “We could stay a day or two in a certain spot, and then move. People who might know your daughter would be coming to us. Is that your thought?”

  Searl smiled. “And we can both do a little good along the way while we get information. It’s been too long since I’ve done healing.”

  “You helped in Hill Creek.”

  “Two or three hours in a year or more? I can do better than that.”

  Pol took another bite, pleased at Searl’s outlook. “What do we need?” he said with him mouth full.

  “I passed a store that sold traveling goods. They had a collapsible cot, and we could also buy two chairs. An apothecary will have bandages, salves, potions, and other medicines. I’m not going to overtly use too much magic. Not out in the open in a strange city.”

  “Alsador seems a little strange, doesn’t it? People are closed up and don’t like talking. Do you think it’s because of Landon?” Pol said.

  “I don’t know how life was in Listya before the regent from North Salvan arrived. If Landon behaved as you think, that would account for the change. We can find out while we offer healing from place to place.”

  ~

  Even though Pol thought people were offish, they had no shortage of patients. Most of them wanted free care, but Searl had monitored a few of the street healers and they all charged something for their services, and it looked like the quality of the patients’ clothing had more to do with the fee than what malady the healers treated.

  Searl encouraged Pol to help with the clientele and made sure that Pol kept notes of the treatments. “If we get back to Deftnis, I’ll be able to give you credit for much more than a truncated herb gardening class,” Searl said.

  That was fine with Pol. He felt time had slipped away. While others learned from the monks at Deftnis, he had been fencing Searl with his wits.