She walked until her calves hurt. And then she walked some more.
The rhythm of walking left her keenly aware of her own movement, the twinges of tendons and the flat dull ache that accompanied each stride. Her feet felt hot and sweaty and unpleasant inside their stockings. The boots were rubbing and pinching in more than one place. And to make the evening really miserable, the enclosing evening brought with it colder, wetter weather.
Caewen arrived at the top of a ridge just as the rain began to fall in wandering curtains. It was not a wind-driven rain, but it was heavy. A sad downpour that soaked everything. Below her, the road went down into a valley, through which ran a grey, choppy river. Luckily, an old stone bridge crossed it, otherwise she’d have been getting even wetter. By the time Caewen made it to the bridge, her feet were sinking in mud, squelching out big holes in the sticky road. She considered trying to camp under the bridge, but the river was rising quickly. A few black, shaggy pines offered some shelter, though not much.
“What’s that?” said Fetch, from her side.
“What?” She hadn’t realised he had poked his head out. “There. Isn’t it a light? Tsch.”
She squinted through the grey sheets of shifting rain. The little shadow-thing was right. Far off among the tree trunks, there was an orange glow. It had the look of firelight: either an open fire that was sheltered from the rain, or, she hoped, something more substantial. It looked to be somewhere farther along the road. She debated with herself for a moment whether it was worth the risk to investigate, but, unless soldiers had come unexpectedly out of the north or east, it seemed more likely that the light belonged to a farmhouse or isolated cottage. There seemed nothing else to do but walk.
Her clothing was sticking to her skin in cold wrinkles and slick sheets of fabric by the time she came in sight of the building. It was a large building, high-peaked in the roof, and strung round with twisted leafless apple trees and grapevines on trellises. A clumsy plank of a signboard hung damply in the torrential rain. Painted upon it was a bright blue, large-eyed dragonish creature eating grapes off a vine. Some sort of little piskie-drake or feral dragonet, she guessed.
“An inn,” said Caewen, relieved. She hurried up the wooden steps toward the shelter of the door.
As she put a foot on the step, she felt something whisper in her thoughts. It was Fetch who put the sensation into words.
“Tssch. There’s a magician inside, and a powerful one at that.” He paused, sniffing. She could see his little black liquid eyes blinking, his small nose twitching. “Hard to say what manner of magician. Could be a spy. Or a warlock out of the north. Or worse.”
“Or, it could be a local spell-raiser of no particular threat.”
“Tssch. It’s like you want to be naive.”
“We’ll have to chance it. If I’m not dead of the cold by morning, I’ll be drowned. And that will do you no good either.”
Rather dejectedly, Fetch seemed to accept this and huddled himself down deeper in the satchel, allowing the cover to fold back over him. With his face covered, his voice was a touch more muffled, his hissings and snarls more muted. “True. Tssck. You can let me know if it’s safe. I think I’ll make myself as small as I possibly can be until then.”
Caewen lifted her feet, using what little warmth and fire was left in her muscles to pull herself up the last of the stairs, then push the door open.
Warmth and light met her. In her next breath was a mustiness of ale, the brisk hard smell of stout and an inviting aroma of something fatty and stewing. Not a moment later, a woman’s voice called out: “Well, how’s this then? You look like a drowned rat. Didn’t think we’d have any more travellers in from the night this evening. It’s a right royal downpour out there.”
“Don’t I know it.” Caewen did her best to force a smile. “Caught in the storm. Do you have a bed or even just a place by the fire?”
The owner of the voice was a middle-aged woman who seemed as familiar and comfortable and worn-down as a very old and much-loved family quilt. Her clothing was quilt-like too, all patches and bits and pieces, but made out of the most remarkable cloth. It looked as if she was in the habit of buying a small square of the most expensive fabric from each passing cloth-merchant, and then went about making dresses and aprons out of a collection of mad scraps: cloth-of-gold, and brocade, and lace and intricate needlework all lay alongside each other, jarring to look at. It was a magpie’s dream of a dress.
The other thing that washed over Caewen was a strong sense of enchantment.
Someone in the room was a magician, and that magician was doing nothing to hide their power. But who? There was a small gathering of what seemed to be farmers and day labourers by the fireplace. An inn-boy went back and forth with trays. A girl of about Caewen’s own age was sitting at a table by herself eating what looked to be a fatty mutton stew. Two rangy men in woodsman’s outfits sat in the shadows and looked at Caewen from under suspicious brows.
But who was the magician?
Distractedly, Caewen unfastened her cloak. It was so wet that it felt as if she had brought the rain in with her, the way it dripped. “Have you a room, or bed, or anywhere at all to sleep?”
“We’ve some rooms left.” The innkeeper eyed her. “Fine cloak like that… and a very fine sword. I imagine you will want a room to yourself. You are clearly a lady of consequence.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I’m rather inconsequential, in the grand scheme of things. But, I would prefer a private room. Is a hot bath out of the question?”
“There’s a bathhouse out back. The furnace is still fired and hot.”
“That sounds good. Alright. So, room, bath and dinner, if I may?”
Caewen walked over to the woman so that they could negotiate a price. They vaguely haggled back and forth a little, but Caewen wasn’t in the mood to bicker. She agreed to a price, then dug out her purse and handed over some coins. She had half-forgotten that she still carried a few coins from the treasure of the Wisht Folk, a good many other old, weird coins, picked up from here and there, hidden troves and guarded hoards along the way. The innkeeper looked at each coin, holding them one-by-one in the glow of the nearest candle flame. She lightly tasted a couple of them. “Strange coins, but silver is silver.”
“I’ve travelled a long way.” A small fragile attempt at a smile. “I hope that does not trouble you.”
“Trouble me? Nonsense. Where would an innkeeper be without weary travellers who’ve come a long way? Certainly, not keeping an inn. I can tell you that.”
“That is true enough. Which way to the bathhouse?”
The woman indicated a way out the back, and Caewen took herself out of the room.
The feeling of magic in the air subsided as she left the room.
“Powerful,” whispered the Fetch, the moment they were out of the room. “Very powerful.”
“If we’re lucky, whoever it is barely noticed us.”
“With your cloak bought at the Wizard’s Moot and woven to look like forget-me-nots, and a sword of Fane steel and silver? Tssssch. Naive. Naive. Naive.”
“Don’t forget the demon in my purse. Whoever it is will have noticed that too.”
“Tssssssk,” came the hissing voice, petulant. “I bet they noticed you don’t have a shadow. I bet they noticed that long before they noticed me hiding in the dark.”
She laughed, softly, but it made her anxious. It was true. She did not have a shadow and folks would notice, sooner or later. It wasn’t the sort of thing folks tended to disregard with a shrug.