The Sword-Edged blonde

TWELVE

Ten days later Cathy and I reached the public bridge over the Wyomie River. The spring thaw upstream had swollen it high above flood stage, and great foamy waves churned mere inches beneath the span. The banks, thankfully, were so steep and rocky the water had not flooded the town. But if it rose another eight inches, folks in Poy Sippi would be rolling up their pants legs.

Too deep and swift for boat traffic on a normal day, the Wyomie was an impassable border slicing between the last of the foothills and the irregular Ogachic Mountains beyond. Over time it had carved a famously deep canyon, and the bridge at Poy Sippi was the only way across for miles in either direction.

About a hundred years before, a land speculator had paid for the bridge, assuming the real estate on either end would quickly increase in value. But because the location had only the bridge to recommend it-the surrounding soil was too rocky for farming, and despite years of effort, nothing useful could be mined from it-Poy Sippi was slow to become a real family-friendly town. At the time Cathy and I passed through, it was just a ragged settlement of the kinds of people who could make a living off bridge patrons.

On the day we arrived, it was crowded with travelers funneling into, or fanning out from, the ends of the bridge. There was no charge to use it, so for lots of folks it was the only way across the Wyomie. The local constabulary was supposed to police it, but like all isolated officials, they spent most of their time enjoying the illicit spoils of looking the other way. You crossed at your own risk, and if you got beaten, mugged or worse, you were on your own. Lots of bodies washed up downstream.

Before crossing, we stopped for lunch at one of the roadhouses clustered around the ends of the bridge. The sign proclaimed it The Sway Easy, and beneath that was what appeared to be a motto: Pain Don’t Hurt. After the waitress delivered our drinks and food, Cathy leaned over to me and said softly, “My instructions are really clear. We have to be sure no one follows us across the bridge. Specifically, no women on white horses.”

“Okay,” I agreed. That seemed easy enough. “But why?”

“I think my client is a little paranoid.”

“So who is your client?” I asked. “Seriously. We’ve spent every minute of the last ten days together, surely you can trust me now.”

She bit her lip thoughtfully, then nodded. “Okay. I had taken a set of property deeds to Cape Querna down on the coast of Boscobel. While I was there, I was approached by a messenger with this job. He wouldn’t tell me who it was for, but he paid up front. When I’m done, I’m supposed to go back to Boscobel and check into the same boarding house. They’ll contact me then about the balance due.”

I scowled. “And you wouldn’t trust me,” I said sarcastically.

“Got nothing to do with trust. It’s how couriers operate. We never get paid everything in advance, and a lot of times we don’t know who’s hired us.” She shrugged. “It’s the business.”

The back of my neck suddenly tingled. I looked around at the other travelers in the roadhouse. None of them seemed interested in us, yet I knew someone was studying us with more than idle curiosity. It’s a skill, or a sense, that develops quickly in battle, when two eyes just aren’t enough. “Maybe your mysterious client isn’t paranoid,” I said quietly. “I got that prickly feeling.”

She nodded and muttered, “Me, too. Do we run or try to draw them out?”

“You’re letting me decide?” I teased.

“I’m asking your opinion.” She kicked me sharply under the table. “This is my job. Be serious.”

I grinned. “Okay. Since even I don’t know jack about your job, how likely is it that someone else knows what you’re carrying?”

“Not very.”

“So unless it’s some woman on a white horse, they’re probably no more interested in us than they are in anyone else who might wander through. Probably think we’re newlyweds with pockets full of wedding cash. If we let ’em pick the fight, we’ll draw an awful lot of attention.”

“So we should just valiantly tiptoe away?”

“You’re the boss.”

She smiled. She did that seldom, but when it happened, it was dazzling. It made her eyes crinkle at the corners and completely eliminated the hard, no-nonsense warrior-bitch look she cultivated. It also made her, momentarily at least, quite beautiful. I’d never tell her that, of course.

“Prudence over passion, then,” she said, and dug out money to pay the check. “Just like my daddy always said. Let’s at least let ’em know we’re not complete morons, though.”

Outside she casually joined the pedestrian traffic moving toward the bridge, pushed aside by the bigger wagons and horses. I headed in the opposite direction, looped quickly around a smithy shop and watched two thuggish men emerge from the roadhouse. They saw Cathy walking away alone and instantly looked around for me, knowing they’d been smoked. I stepped out so they could see me, tapped the side of my nose to indicate I knew exactly what they were up to, and watched them shuffle back inside. Evidently they weren’t up for such hard work.

I caught up with Cathy. “Just a couple of bums thinking they’d surprise us. Gave up when they saw we were on to ’em. Good call.”

She just nodded, but I saw her blush slightly at the compliment. It was so adorable that, combined with the smile she’d given me over lunch, I found my thoughts turning in a surprising direction. But I kept them to myself, out of respect for Janet, and Cathy.

That had been a long time ago, before traveling all day made my lower back throb like it did now. Now Poy Sippi was huge, and new gates controlled the bridge traffic. There was still no charge, but pedestrians could only cross at certain times, wagons at another, and so forth.

The old roadhouse we’d stopped at for lunch was long gone, replaced by a brand-new tavern advertising gourmet dinners and great-looking waitresses. I tried lunch, which was adequate, and admired the waitresses, who were attractive. But then again, so were the girls in the place next door. And across the street. The individual quality was gone, replaced by cookie-cutter roadhouses owned by far-off noblemen. I missed the individual touch.

“Everything good?” the waitress asked brightly. Her name tag said Trudy. “Shall I freshen up that ale for you?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “You know, I haven’t been here in a while; the place is really built up.”

“Oh, yes. There’s talk of putting in a whole other bridge to handle the traffic. If they do that, this place’ll explode.” She was young, so the thought excited her. I bet she’d be bored to tears by the town I remembered.

“You live here long?” I asked.

“All my life.” A guarded tone slid into her voice, probably because she thought I was about to proposition her.

“Did you ever know a woman named Epona Gray?” To aid her memory, I put money atop my check and a sizable pile next to it for her tip.

Trudy thought about it, her serving tray balanced on her hip. “No, I don’t think so. A lot of the old-timers left when it started getting crowded, maybe she was one of them.”

“How about Andrew Reese?”

“No, haven’t-” She stopped and looked puzzled. “Do you mean the children’s rhyme? ‘Andrew Reese is broken to pieces’?”

Those words, said so casually, sent a chill through me. The only time I’d ever heard them before was from Epona Gray’s own lips. “You know that one?”

She smiled. “Everyone here knows it. We all learned it when we were little kids in school.” She closed her eyes and softly sang:

“Because he had no manners,

She pounded him with hammers.

Because he was so rude,

She fixed his attitude.

Because he was so mean,

She made him scream and scream.

And now Andrew Reese is

Broken to pieces.”

She laughed a little. “Wow. It must really stick in your head if I can remember it after all this time.”

The last couplet, in Epona’s drunken voice, echoed maddeningly in my mind. “Yeah, I bet it does. So there’s no real person with that name?”

“Oh, I’m sure there is somewhere. But not in Poy Sippi. Nobody would be cruel enough to name their kid that. That’d be just asking for him to get beaten up.”

After she left to attend other customers, I sipped my ale and mentally kicked my own ass. I’d assumed, for no good reason, that Andrew Reese was a real person. I don’t know why, given the lunacy of everything else Epona said, that I’d seized on this one thing as an indisputable fact. Had she just been drunk, singing some nursery rhyme?

No. I was certain she’d said Andrew Reese sent the package Cathy delivered. And whether or not she meant it symbolically- an Andrew Reese instead of the Andrew Reese-it still counted as a clue. If my trip into the mountains crapped out, I’d pursue the origins of this children’s song. It was only a slightly longer shot than my current course of action.

I came out of the roadhouse and started down the street when a voice said, “Hey, mister.”

I turned. A tiny young girl stood in the alley between the livery stable where I’d left my horse and a ramshackle swordsmith’s shop. I guessed she was around four, with matted hair, a dirty face and clothes that were little more than rags. You saw kids like this in every town, especially those on trade routes like Poy Sippi: orphans or junior criminals, sometimes both. When I’d first passed through town with Cathy, the gangs had been adults; now, with security to keep the grown-ups in check, the streets fell by default to the kids.

This girl certainly looked more like a victim than a crook, but the voice that called me had belonged to an older child. As soon as I’d had time to make solid eye contact with the girl, a hand appeared behind her and yanked her out of sight down the alley.

“Help!” the other child’s voice called.

I looked around. None of the other passersby seemed to have heard, or else had sense enough to ignore it. I sighed, unsnapped the catch on my scabbard and strode toward the alley. I’m sure they counted on finding someone unable to just walk away from a child in danger, preferably a stupid do-gooder with a wallet full of gold and a naive belief in his own invulnerability. They’d soon find out how wrong they were-I had very little gold on me. My only advantage was that I knew exactly what I was getting into.

I peeked around the edge of the swordsmith building. The girl now waited at the alley’s far end, and again a hand yanked her out of sight once she knew I’d seen her. I was being drawn into the wider alley at the rear of the buildings, where the garbage and other refuse, some of it human, always collected.

I wanted to smack myself. Of course I was being suckered, and I was on an important job, but the infinitesimal chance that a child might actually be in danger made me proceed anyway. I hugged the wall down to the far end of the building, then stopped and listened. I heard nothing. I drew my sword, held it down beside my leg and stepped around the corner.

Luckily I’d also crouched, so the wooden board slammed against the building above me instead of into my head. I used my left arm to grab the kid who swung it. He was about ten, and struggled with well-practiced panic. “Hey, help! This guy wants to bend me over a garbage barrel! Let me go, you pervert!”

I got a good grip on his hair, yanked him back against me and raised the sword blade to his throat. He froze when the metal touched his skin.

I faced his gang. Three grubby boys, the oldest about fifteen, watched me with wide eyes. The little girl they’d used as bait ran over and hid behind them.

The boy in my grasp burst into renewed struggles, trying to catch me off-guard. I pressed the blade harder against his throat. I wasn’t going to kill him, but I didn’t care if he got cut a little. “Shouldn’t you kids be in school?” I said over my hostage’s head.

“Uh… give us your money,” the tallest boy said, falling back on routine.

I almost laughed. “I don’t think so. Why don’t you give me your money?”

He blinked. “What?”

“You heard me. On the ground, right here in front of me. Come on.”

The kids looked at each other.

I leaned close to my prisoner. “Better get ’em moving,” I snarled in his ear.

“Give him the damn money!” the kid squeaked.

The tallest boy, evidently the leader, stepped forward and said, “No. I don’t think you’ll hurt him.”

I slid the sword just enough to slice my hostage’s neck. It was no more than a glorified shaving nick, but the nice thing about those harmless, shallow cuts is that they sting like a bitch and bleed quite freely. This one did both, and the kids gasped. The little girl began to cry.

“Hell, Scotty!” my captive screeched. “Give him the money!”

“All right!” the boy Scotty said. He tossed a small bag to the ground at my feet. It jingled when it hit. “There. That’s all we have.”

“Is that the truth?” I asked the kid in my grip.

“Yeah!” he shrieked.

I slowly withdrew my sword. The boy was sure I was about to cut his throat all the way, but I wasn’t. When I released him his knees collapsed, and he crawled over to Scotty’s feet. He put his hand to his throat, and when he saw blood he passed out.

I picked up the money. It was maybe enough to buy a couple of meals. I looked at the raggedy idiots, sighed and tossed the money back to Scotty. “Here. This was embarrassing for all of us.”

Scotty caught it and stared at me. “Are you going to kill us?” he asked, his voice low but steady.

“No, you moron. But I should, just to save some other sword jockey from having to put up with you. Do you have any idea how close you came?” I sheathed my sword. “You guys are really bad at this.”

“You’re mean!” the bait girl said, then ducked back out of sight.

“Yeah,” I agreed, and turned to go. And that should’ve been that. But I never saw the blow coming, since whoever struck me did so from behind. I felt only the rush into that big black pool where nothing hurts and nobody bothers you.