Grishel's Feather Read online

  Jack stepped in front of Penny, who still crouched under the table. He snapped a bolt across the room at one of the two instigators of the fight. The wizard of the pair clutched his stomach, but Jack noticed he looked puzzled when he straightened up. Jack was at a loss for a fight-ending spell, but two constables entered the tavern, and the fighting began to ebb.

  He looked for Helen and saw that her sword didn’t appear to have any blood decorating the blade, so perhaps they would avoid jail time. The two constables conferred with the pair of men who started the whole thing. Jack sat down as others were doing the same thing amidst the debris of the fight.

  The constable sauntered over to their table. Helen, with her sword safely tucked away, joined Jack and Penny at the table.

  “Those two said you started the brawl?” the shorter constable said.

  “They tried to pick up these two ladies, and I told them they couldn’t.”

  “But you did throw the first punch?”

  “It was a matter of honor,” Jack said. He could feel his face burn. He’d never fought defending oppressed maidens before. He wasn’t so sure Helen was still a maiden, but he had no doubt Penny was.

  The constable nodded. “You will pay for the damages, and I want you and your lady friends out of the village early in the morning.”

  “We were going to leave first thing anyway,” Helen said. “My friend is sorry he caused the fight.”

  Jack blinked hard as he turned to Helen. “I’m sorry?” He cleared his throat and realized what Helen was doing. “I am sorry. We will do as you request.”

  “Good.” The two men left the tavern.

  The server and an older woman wearing a dirty apron approached the table. “You will settle up for the damages?”

  “What damages?” Helen said. “The boy didn’t start the brawl, they did.”

  She looked toward the two men, but they must have left just after the constable talked to them. “The two men that were standing on that end of the bar. They sent their friends over to start the fight.”

  “That is your side of the story,” the woman said. “You three are strangers.”

  And that was that Jack thought. “How much?” Jack gazed at the damage; a few broken plates and mugs and three or four chairs.

  She quoted a price high enough to replace the common room with furniture Jack’s father would charge.

  “Too high,” Jack said. “My father is a furniture maker in Raker Falls. I know what your chairs cost.” He gave her a low price, and after a bit of haggling, they settled on the cost of four good chairs.

  “Everyone was in on the fight,” Helen said. “That is what I think. The two men purposely provoked you so we would have to pay up, I would guess.”

  “People do that?” Penny asked.

  Helen nodded. “Jack fell for it. If he had kept his fist out of the wizard’s face, he might have not had to fight.”

  “Might is an important word here,” Jack said. “What if you had gone with them?”

  Helen smiled. “Penny and I might have had a good time.”

  Jack nodded. He was through talking about the fight. “I’m hungry and need lots of food so I can run far distances tomorrow.”

  Penny groaned. “No more running.”

  Helen peered at Penny. “Of course more running. You need to get into better shape before we step into Passoran, and Jack needs to learn to come to dinner with more weapons. If you had, there certainly wouldn’t have been a fight.”

  “Blame me,” Jack said. He couldn’t win, even when he won.

  Dinner was served. Jack took a look at his painful hand. “Can you heal this?”

  “You need a fist repaired?” Penny said.

  “I might have broken something.”

  Penny rolled her eyes. “Sit closer,” she said.

  Jack did so and held out his hand. Penny made a face when she touched it. She squeezed too hard, for Jack’s comfort and manipulated his hand, making him wince a few times.

  “A few bones might be broken,” she said. “I can’t fix it by myself. I need an object of power.”

  “Something I can make,” Jack said. He picked up Helen’s knife and pushed magic into it. “Use this.”

  She held onto the knife in one hand and laid her palm on the top of Jack’s hand. Her eyebrows rose. “This feels just like something Fasher would give me.”

  Jack sighed. “Why do you think he has me make objects?” He could feel the heat working in his hand.

  “There,” Penny said. “I can’t do anything else, and you will have to be careful for a week or more. No more fights and no strenuous activity.”

  “I suppose I can refrain from physical activity.” Jack looked at Helen and grinned. “I assume I won’t be able to run tomorrow.”

  Helen blinked and raised her eyebrows. “I suppose you won’t…tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Healer Ephram,” Jack said.

  Penny growled, and she didn’t say another thing at dinner.

  Chapter Three

  ~

  “I hate you,” Penny said, while Jack rode slowly as she huffed and puffed along the road.

  “You aren't very nice to the person who is leading your horse, Penny,” Jack said.

  He kept asking her inane questions as she jogged along the road. She barely had the wind to respond. Passersby got a good laugh at them.

  “Teaching your wife how to obey?” a woman said, cackling from the seat of her cart.

  “I’m no man’s wife!” Penny said.

  Helen turned back and joined them. “That is enough for today. Jack will spar with me this evening, and you can watch.”

  “Me?” Jack said.

  “Yes, you. I am aware Penny hasn’t been able to see how adept you are with a blade,” Helen said. “I can’t let her be the only one to feel all the pain on our trip to Bartonsee.”

  Jack felt his face burn. He knew that Helen would bring out all the clumsiness she could in a match. Penny would have a good laugh, seeing him beaten by a woman, but Jack had seen plenty of good swordsmen defeated by the female mercenary.

  Penny narrowed her eyes at Jack as she mounted. “I will take pleasure in your comeuppance,” she said.

  “That will make two,” Jack said, looking at Helen. “I am better with a sword than when you last saw me, but I’m still not at Helen’s level, so I concede she will easily defeat me.”

  “You are too modest,” Helen said from ahead. “I will still beat you, but not easily.”

  Jack could imagine the grin she had on her face when she said that. They stopped for the night after eating dinner at a village that had no rooms left.

  “I have to sleep on the ground after all that running? My body is still sore,” Penny said, pounding on her thigh.

  “You can sleep on your horse, I suppose,” Jack said with a silly grin, “but I think you’d find that even less comfortable.”

  When they unsaddled their horses, Jack helped Penny with her tack and gathered leaves to pile into a mattress of sorts.

  “That is better than sleeping in the dirt,” he said.

  Penny grunted, but it wasn’t a particularly nasty grunt. She laid out her bedroll and reclined. “Show Helen your prowess,” Penny said.

  Jack pursed his lips. He was in for some bruises at the very least.

  “No magic,” Helen said.

  “Have I ever?”

  “No, but there is a first time for everything, especially with a spectator.” Helen held her sword out.

  The sparring match began. Jack tried to attack immediately, but Helen fended him off quickly enough. She wasn’t an unfamiliar opponent, and Jack had learned from Tanner and from his own experience, that he had to use his strength advantage sparingly so Helen couldn’t take advantage of over-swinging, which was one of her fighting characteristics.

  Jack wasn’t as much out of practice as he thought, and they had a good bout. Helen still prevailed at the end, but he lasted twice as long as Penny had.

&n
bsp; “How is the hand?” Helen said when they finished.

  “Oh,” Jack looked at his broken hand. “I suppose Penny did a better job than she thought.” He flexed his fingers and could feel some pain, but his hand didn’t feel like he had overdone anything.

  “It will hurt later tonight,” Penny said. “As far as your performance, you have learned something, I guess.”

  Jack took that as praise from the girl and didn’t even try to muster a retort.

  Penny was right about his hand aching, but it was more like a bruise than a break, and Jack ignored it as he turned over on his own leafy bed and went to sleep.

  ~

  Bartonsee looked like it did before. Helen took them to a few taverns, asking about Myra Pulini, but they couldn’t find her. Jack suggested they go to the inn they used before, and once settled in, they walked through the market.

  “How can we find the elusive wizardess?” Jack asked Helen.

  She shrugged. “We will ask a lot of questions. Maybe we can ask the Passoranian merchants.”

  Which is what they did. Jack found it was easy to spot the merchants. Their stalls and carts were painted with bright colors. Passoranians were happy and easy going, quite a contrast to the relatively dour Corandians and Tesorians.

  “We are looking for a wizardess,” Penny asked one woman selling spices. “Her name is Myra Pulini. Have you heard of her?”

  The woman shook her head. “I know many Pulinis, but none go by Myra.” She smiled. “Would you like to buy some Passoranian spices? We have hot, hot peppers and sweet sugar stalks you can chew on.”

  Jack looked at her products. “I’ll take a few sugar stalks. How do you use these?”

  “Put them in your mouth and chew them to a pulp. You’ll be able to extract the sweetness,” the merchant woman said.

  “What is different about Passoran from Corand?” Helen said in an offhanded kind of way. “You have colors everywhere. What about your clothes?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “We are headed there on an errand, once we find the wizardess we seek. I’d rather not stick out too much,” she said.

  “Then add a little color to your wardrobe like a scarf around your neck, or a wide-brimmed hat, woven with a bright band or in a rich color of felt. We use a lot of different colors in the market to set ourselves apart,” the woman said. She gave them a smile when a few people began to cluster around her stall. “If you will excuse me.”

  “Color?” Penny said. “I dislike wearing bright colors. It is demeaning for a wizard.”

  Jack frowned. “How would you even know? Have you met a wizard other than your uncle and Corina?”

  Penny blushed. “I’m sure I have. What about you?” she asked Jack with accusation in the tone of her voice.

  “I have met more than a few, and all wore what they wanted to wear, even Black Finger Society wizards. The grand wizard of Tesoria wore the kind of clothes everyone else wore under normal circumstances. His costume at King Larkin’s coronation was fancy, but I only saw him wear that once.”

  “I’ll wear a little color here and there. Maybe we can find something in the market,” Helen said. “Both of you can join me. If the woman was tricking us, the accessories can stay in our saddlebags.”

  They found a couple of stalls that offered them colorful things. Jack liked a dark-red, wide-brimmed hat. If he found himself looking stupid, he could fling the thing away. The two women bought scarves, and Penny bought a light-blue cap that matched the dark blue of the wizard robes that she had tucked away in her bags.

  When they returned to the inn, they sat down at a table for dinner. Before their order came, a squad of guards tromped into the room.

  “Helen Rafter?” the leader said to the innkeeper, who pointed to them.

  The mention of her name made her eyes widen. “Not again,” she said.

  “No temper this time,” Jack said.

  “Who are you to tell me to behave?”

  “Tanner did a few times. Remember where you landed the last time we were here?”

  Helen pressed her lips together as the squad approached their table.

  “You are Helen Rafter?”

  “I remember her,” one of the guards said.

  “I am. What do you want?”

  “The Duke of Bartonsee wishes to speak with you.”

  She snorted. “How did he know I was in Bartonsee?”

  The guard pointed his head toward the innkeeper. “He remembered you accompanied the duke’s brother.”

  “So we did. Tanner isn’t with us on this trip,” she said.

  “The duke would like an audience anyway. We will be here tomorrow to escort you to the palace if you promise not to flee the city.”

  Helen nodded. “I agree if these two can accompany me.”

  The guard looked at Jack. “You were with the duke’s brother before?”

  Jack nodded. “I was.” He thought back to his attack on the duke’s posterior as he marched in the spring parade.

  “Come with Helen Rafter then.”

  Jack felt cornered. “I will.”

  The men left after conferring with the innkeeper on the way out.

  “Why would the duke be interested in talking to you?” Penny said.

  Helen shook her head, undoubtedly not happy about the invitation. “The brothers have a unique relationship. The duke wants Tanner to take over the dukedom at some point.”

  “The Tanner Simple we left behind in Raker Falls? He is a duke’s son?”

  “Mostly, Penny,” Jack said. “They are half brothers. Maybe he can help us find Myra Pulini.”

  Helen raised her eyebrows. “Maybe he can at that. Don’t blurt out the request, but let’s make that our goal. That way we can get something out of giving him information about Tanner.”

  ~

  The three of them were shown into a small audience room. Jack remembered the duke of Bartonsee from before.

  “Chairs,” the duke said.

  In a moment, they sat in front of the duke. He sat behind a table filled with papers, and while they talked, he shuffled through them, even stopping their conversation from time to time to confer with a minister.

  “Tanner isn’t here? I thought he had accompanied you, but was being his usual furtive self,” the duke said.

  “Tanner is sick, and we seek a remedy in Passoran,” Helen said.

  Jack realized that she was much more direct than Tanner would ever be.

  “A life-threatening illness?”

  “We don’t know,” Penny said, inserting herself into the conversation. “My master, Fasher Tempest, is likewise afflicted.”

  “Then what brings you to Bartonsee?” the duke said.

  “We seek a wizardess who can guide us in Passoran. Her name is Myra Pulini. Fasher wrote to say he thought she lived in Bartonsee,” Penny said.

  “Wrote to say?” The duke looked confused.

  “He is not in Raker Falls. Tanner delivered the message from my master,” Penny said, “but Tanner showed symptoms, so we left him behind.”

  That was more information than the duke needed, Jack thought.

  “We asked around at the market yesterday when we first arrived, but no one has heard of her,” Helen said.

  “I will have my people find her; until then, you are guests in my palace.”

  “If it is all the same, I would rather stay in the inn where you found us. It provides us with what we need,” Helen said.

  “If that is what you want…”

  “It is, Duke. We can continue to look on our own. I am anxious to obtain the cure as much as you.”

  The duke frowned. “I love my brother and don’t want to see anything happen to him, so by all means, search away.” The man looked at Jack. “Whatever happened to the patriarch? I heard Tanner was on the same ship as the man, but the patriarch never returned to Corand.”

  “Was he excommunicated from the Church of Alderach?” Jack asked.

  “He was. There was
an altercation at the dock and magic was used on the priests. If that wasn’t enough for the man to lose his ecclesiastical standing, his theft of some holy objects of power was, I heard. I never did get the entire story from Dorkansee. The Alderachean church has decided to keep the matter secret,” the duke said.

  “Aramore Gant deserved what he got. He put himself into a position that he couldn’t handle and paid the ultimate consequence.”

  “In Lajia?”

  Jack looked at Helen and nodded. “That is what I hear. He left us when we got off the ship, you see.” And that was as true as anything else Jack had said.

  “He was an interesting man, if a little too intense,” the duke said, sighing. “Well, I’ve already taken too much of your time. I will let you know as soon as I locate the wizardess.”

  The duke stood and walked around the table to shake their hands and ushered them to the door.

  “He is a nice man, for a duke,” Penny said as guards escorted them out the palace.

  “You’ve met duke’s before?” Helen asked.

  “Of course. My father was influential in Dorkansee. We lived in the Second Ring. He sold his business, however, and moved to Raker Falls, at Fasher’s request. My father doesn’t regret it. He always felt he could be ruined in a day, should he cross the wrong people, and that included dukes.”

  “Do you miss Dorkansee?” Jack said.

  “No, not really. My little sister misses it more than I do. I like learning from Uncle Fasher. He is a good teacher, and I enjoy the mystery that surrounds him.”

  Jack looked into the sun as they exited from the palace doors. “What mystery?” he said, once they were outside.

  “He isn’t a blood relation, you know. He and my mother spent their adolescence together in our home in Dorkansee. Mother said he was always a bit aloof, elusive, and mysterious. We all agreed.”

  Jack didn’t find him particularly mysterious. He guessed his relationship with Fasher was quite different from the Ephrams. It was interesting to know that Fasher spent his early youth in Dorkansee. Was that when he met Desmon, the man who lost his life hoarding the Serpent’s Orb? Maybe Fasher was a bit mysterious.