Dragon's Bait Page 4

  Selendrile didn't answer, as though he couldn't be bothered with affirming something he knew she already knew.

  Alys wondered whether—if she had died—he'd have eaten her, and if that was why he'd been waiting so patiently by her side. "Thank you," she said, sitting down at the table. "For the food."

  Again he didn't answer.

  "Are you going to eat some with me?"

  "I've already fed."

  And looking down into those cold amethyst eyes she had no idea if he'd eaten some of the stew or the person who'd prepared it. She forced down a mouthful that seemed intent on lodging itself in her throat. He's never going to let you live, a small part of her warned. He'll help you get revenge on Atherton and Gower just for the pure spiteful fun of it. And then he'll rip your throat out, and enjoy it twice as much for having first tricked you into trusting him.

  Alys swallowed another lump of stew. No, she told herself, I'll take his help, but if it comes to that, I'll kill him before he kills me. He's just a—IT's just a—dragon. It's not a real person.

  She took another swallow. Even if she was in too much turmoil to taste anything, the food would keep her from starving. It would give her the strength she would need later. She said, "Have you considered what we talked about yesterday?"

  Selendrile finally shifted position and sat on the floor, but still said nothing.

  "About a plan?" she prompted.

  "It's your revenge," he pointed out. "Surely you don't expect me to tell you what to do."

  That was exactly what she'd expected.

  Alys sighed. "Do you have any suggestions?"

  She thought she caught a flicker of what may have been disappointment on his face. "You want to do Gower last," he reminded her.

  "Yes."

  "Then it would seem to make sense to do his family directly before him."

  "So Atherton first, since he's in Griswold?"

  The dragon-youth inclined his head.

  "What exactly are we going to do to him?"

  Selendrile only continued to watch her.

  Alys shook her head. It was one thing to know she wanted Atherton to pay for what he'd done to her and her father; it was quite another to come up with a plan. "Maybe I shouldn't rush into this. We can go to Griswold, see what the town is like, decide on what to do there."

  Selendrile asked, "Where do humans live when they're in a town they don't know, while they're trying to decide what to do?"

  "An inn, I guess," Alys said. "If they have gold or silver to pay."

  Selendrile smiled, faint and chilly, and Alys shivered.

  His amusement shifted to something darker, a mood for which she had no name. "I think," he told her, "you'll have to go as a boy."

  "What?" she squeaked. "I'd never pa—"

  "For your own protection," he interrupted. "The other choice is to go as a married couple, though that has the disadvantage of Atherton recognizing you as soon as he sees you."

  Alys found it hard to catch a breath despite the knowledge that he was watching her and was aware of her every movement. A married couple?

  He took her silence as agreement. "We'll go as brothers. Pick a name."

  Alys clenched her teeth, knowing that he was right, that a woman couldn't take a room by herself at a respectable inn, that he didn't need to bring her all the way to Griswold if he intended her harm. Still—soft-spoken and almost tame as he seemed at the moment—she could never be sure what he was thinking, could never trust him completely. She could never allow herself to forget that one of them would most probably end up killing the other. "Jocko," she said, picking the name out of the air.

  Selendrile turned his back to her and, sitting cross-legged, gathered up his long fair hair at the nape of his neck. "If you can braid this or tie it up somehow to look more in the fashion of your countrymen, we'll attract less attention."

  There was no chance Selendrile would ever not attract attention. Or was this another twist in the game, offering up trust—or the semblance of it—by turning his back to her while she sat in a kitchen full of knives?

  Alys picked up the piece of twine that had tied the apple sack, and then, to shake him, to reveal as a lie his pose of complacent indifference, she reached for one of the knives. But he didn't scramble to his feet, or tense up, or give any indication that he was even aware that she held a weapon. The knife was badly made, wobbling in its wooden handle, but she managed to saw the twine into manageable lengths, watching him all the while. Not foolhardy, after all, but only unobservant. Still holding the knife, she approached his unprotected back, knowing this was stupid, that he could whirl around at the last moment with that deadly speed of his and turn the blade on her, and she would never have the chance to protest it had only been a test.

  Alys knelt behind him. And only then made the decision that it was a test. She'd do his hair, and then afterward show him the knife she'd silently laid on the floor, show him the danger he'd never known he was in.

  Alys ran her fingers through his hair to separate it into strands for braiding. When she was finished, she pulled the braids back and fastened them behind. "There," she said.

  Selendrile turned before she had a chance to pick up the knife, but his purple eyes locked onto hers, never glancing to either side or down to the floor. "Turn around," he told her.

  "Why?"

  "So I can cut off your hair." With his eyes never flickering away from hers, he picked up the knife she had finally convinced herself he couldn't have seen.

  She stiffened. "Why can't we just braid it like yours?"

  "Because there can't be a hint of a question in anybody's mind. The moment someone suspects you're a girl, the clothes won't work. You don't want Atherton to recognize you right away. You want him to feel there's something familiar about you so that he thinks about you after you're gone, after you've destroyed him. You want him to realize who you are only when you're not there anymore."

  "That's what I want, is it?" she asked, unable to look away from the blade in his hand.

  He used the knife to indicate she put her back to him, to take her turn in this game of trust and nerve.

  She sat down, and he swept her hair back over her shoulders. His fingers were light and gentle as they brushed against her cheek, her neck. But the knife tugged mercilessly as he hacked away long strands of hair.

  It'll grow back, she thought as big chunks of it dropped all around her. And even if it didn't, this would still be worth it, to get revenge on Atherton. And then Una and Etta, Gower's family. And then Gower himself.

  Anything would be worth that.

  Chapter 6

  ALYS ASSUMED THAT they would set out for Griswold immediately, so she was surprised when—after she thought they were all set—Selendrile said, "Wait here."

  "For what?"

  "You said we'd need gold and silver."

  "Ah," Alys said, "of which you have..."

  He gave a perfectly charming smile. "Much."

  "Much." Alys sighed. "I can imagine. Wouldn't it be faster if I went with you?"

  He shook his head.

  "Once it's really dark, they'll close and lock the town gates."

  Again he shook his head.

  "You don't trust me," she said.

  He just smiled.

  By the time he came back, clutching a leather bag of coins, and by the time she rebraided his hair and by the time they'd walked to Griswold, the sky had turned from gray to black. Now here they were, standing with only the moon to light them, trying to convince the night watch that they were, in fact, harmless and should be allowed to enter.

  The guard who had the lantern leaned down from his vantage on top of the wall, holding the light out to get a better look at them. But since he was up about eight feet higher than they were, they got a better look at him than he got at them.

  Alys thought he looked cranky and suspicious.

  The other guard seemed to be the first man's superior; the one with the lantern had fetched him when
Alys and Selendrile had knocked on the wooden gate, demanding entrance and refusing to go away and come back in the morning. Alys couldn't see him, but he sounded cranky and suspicious. He said, "How do we know you ain't that witch?"

  Selendrile, who'd been looking down to avoid the glare of the light in his eyes, jerked his head up, but appeared more amused than startled.

  Word of her couldn't have traveled this far this fast, could it? "What witch?" Alys asked.

  "That old witch lives behind one of them waterfalls up to the glen." The guard jerked his head in the general direction of the mountain.

  Alys realized she'd been holding her breath. She shook her head to indicate she didn't know what he was talking about.

  "Sold her soul to the devil for the witch-power," he explained. "And never did use it for nothing but mischief and sorrow all her life. But now she's old and close to dying, she's looking to buy someone else's soul to take her place. Been bothering decent, law-abiding folk."

  Alys continued to shake her head.

  Selendrile finally spoke up. "No witches here," he said in a tone that gave away the fact that he was suspiciously close to laughing.

  Alys added: "Does either of us look like an old witch?"

  The guards were unimpressed with irony or logic. "Gate opens at dawn. Come back then."

  If she weren't disguised as a boy in tunic, breeches, and cap, she could have started crying, loudly, to see if that would help, but under the circumstances it probably wouldn't. The first guard straightened, pulling the lantern up with him. Seeing the light move away, Alys yelled up, "It was the dragon's fault." She was aware of Selendrile watching her, but she was watching the light. It stopped moving, returned to the wall.

  "Dragon?" the guard said.

  Alys decided to put a little quiver into her voice after all. "It killed our parents, ravaged our fields. We didn't dare stay another night. We were afraid it might come back." She pointed vaguely in the direction from which they'd come, then snuffled loudly, rubbing her sleeve arm over her nose.

  The guard's voice became more gentle. "How old are you lads?"

  "Twelve," she said, because there was no way she could pass as a fifteen-year-old boy and because she figured the younger the guards thought them, the more sympathetic they would be. Then, indicating Selendrile, she said, "And seventeen," which was what he looked like. Seventeen, going on three hundred.

  The guards muttered together.

  "All right," the senior one finally said.

  There was another delay, then the creak of rope and wood as the latch was raised, and the gate swung open.

  The guard stood in the middle of the open space, glowering at them over his crossbow sights.

  Alys forced down a swallow.

  "Move, move," he told them from between clenched teeth.

  Selendrile gave her a shove just strong enough that she staggered forward a couple of paces. Her first thought was that he was offering her up as the target, but he came with her, and the guard continued to aim at the spot where they had stood, all the while anxiously peering into the shadows beyond the walls.

  The heavy gate thudded back into place, maneuvered by the guard who'd been holding the lantern. Once the latch was secured, the other lowered his crossbow, apparently satisfied that no one was coming in with them. A lot of good gate or wall would do to keep Selendrile or his real kin out.

  "You got people in Griswold?" the guard asked.

  "No," Alys said. "But we do have a few copper pieces for lodging." She wanted him to know they weren't going to make a nuisance of themselves begging, without indicating they had enough that it'd be worth his while to rob them.

  But now that she and Selendrile were in, the guards lost interest. The first was already scrambling up to resume his position on the wall. "The Green Barrel's probably your best bet, then," the other said, waving airily in an arc that indicated three-fourths of the town. "There's probably cleaner and definitely cheaper, but at least you won't wake up in the morning to find your throats slit."

  While Alys paused to sort that out, Selendrile took her arm and started pulling her in the general direction the guard had indicated.

  The inhabitants of Saint Toby's would be mostly home and in bed by this hour, but Griswold was a lot bigger, if no grander, and there were still lights on in many of the buildings and people out on the streets. For Alys it was a strange sensation, being in a town big enough to get lost in, being surrounded by people she hadn't known all her life. By the time she and Selendrile finally found themselves in front of the Green Barrel Inn, her heart was beating too hard and fast for her to ask Selendrile to wait while she caught her breath.

  He swept her past the painted rain barrel that gave the place its name and in through the open front door.

  This is where we get set upon by thieves and cutthroats, Alys thought, just waiting for an innocent victim to blunder in. Unless, of course, anybody took more than the hastiest glance at Selendrile, in which case they were sure to see beyond his human disguise to the monster beneath, and that would start a commotion of a different sort.

  But nobody at the dozen or so tables in the place looked at them with anything that even the wary Alys could call more than indifferent curiosity. From across the room came a skinny little man who was no taller than Alys, wiping his hands on his apron and smiling. His gaze flickered from Alys to Selendrile and he looked neither murderous nor about to panic. "May I help you?" he asked instead. Asked Selendrile, who appeared the older.

  How can he look at him and not see? Alys wondered. She said: "My brother and I, we're looking for a room."

  The innkeeper shifted his gaze back to her and raised his brows skeptically.

  "Our parents were killed in a dragon raid," she said. "It knocked down our house, burned our fields. We've come to Griswold looking for work."

  One of the people at the nearest table asked, "You Upton's boys then?"

  It was too dangerous; if somebody here knew this man Upton, somebody else might know his sons. "No," Alys admitted. "We're from the other side of Saint Toby's village. But there wasn't any work to be had there. We've got enough money for the night"—Selendrile had brought enough money to buy the place, but she certainly wasn't going to announce that—"or we could work for our keep."

  The innkeeper hesitated and Alys nudged Selendrile. The gold was useless—there was no way a pair of orphaned peasants could come by gold—but she'd had him put a few of the silver and copper pieces in his pocket. Now he took one of these out and held it to the innkeeper.

  "This'll get you your lodgings and a bit of supper if you haven't eaten yet," the man said. "Breakfast comes with the room. Odelia," he called to a girl who was cleaning one of the tables. She looked just like him except for the fact that she had more hair and was obviously a couple of years younger than Alys. "You and your sister get a room set up."

  "This way, please," the little girl said. She led them through the kitchen, where she introduced them as paying customers to another girl. This older one put down the spoon she was using to stir a kettle of soup and gave Selendrile a long, studied stare.

  Here it comes, Alys thought.

  With admirable calm, the older sister said, "We need to get straw for the bedding." She flung her arm around her sister's shoulders, but Alys saw her fingers dig into Odelia's upper arm, and the younger girl's confused expression as her sister hustled her outdoors. Run, run, every instinct warned Alys. They're going to raise an alarm. Selendrile was looking around the kitchen, oblivious to it all, peeking into the corners, looking under the counters. "We've got to get out of here," Alys warned him in a frantic whisper.

  "We just got here," Selendrile pointed out, picking up a clay pot lid as though he'd never seen one before.

  The two girls returned, carrying armloads of straw. Alys caught the hurried glance Odelia gave Selendrile before she lowered her gaze. "This way," she murmured.

  But that wasn't fear which was causing her cheeks to redden. Alys glance
d at the older sister, who was staring at Selendrile again.

  Oh, heaven help me—they're flirting with him, she realized.

  The two sisters led them to an upstairs room and began stuffing the straw into the mattress.

  Alys tugged on Selendrile's arm. "There's only one sleeping pallet," she hissed at him.

  He'd been looking out the window at the people in the street below, and he turned to her with a blank expression that could have been either lack of understanding or his usual give-nothing expression.

  "What's that?" the older girl asked, straightening.

  "There's only one sleeping pallet," Alys repeated.

  "There's hardly room for two."

  "Yes," Alys said, finding her patience wearing thin at the smug tone, "but there are two of us."

  "But this one's wide enough for two," said the younger girl, Odelia, "and you are brothers." Both girls seemed on the verge of a giggling fit.

  "Of course we're brothers"—Alys was balanced between annoyance and panic—"but we need two sleeping pallets."

  Selendrile came up behind her and flung his arm around her shoulders in imitation of the older sister's protective gesture. Somehow Alys kept from jumping out of her skin. Selendrile told the girls, "My brother kicks and snores terribly."

  This time the girls did burst out laughing, but, leaving, they promised to bring up more bedding.

  Alys sat on the sleeping pallet and rested her head in her hands and waited for the thudding of her heart to slow down. "I think I'll stay here until I've calmed back down," she muttered between her fingers. "Barricade the door for a year or two, will you?"

  Selendrile stooped down beside her, his leg brushing against her arm. This time Alys did jump. But there was no way to move back to put more distance between them, not without scrambling over the mattress. "Staying in the room makes no sense," he said. "We've got to go out and mingle with the townspeople."

  Alys sighed.

  The worst part of it was knowing he was right.

  Chapter 7

  THE THING WAS, Alys thought, Selendrile made a passable human.

  No, that was being unfairly snide.