Echoes of Betrayal Read Free Page A

whuffled.
    “Friends for food,” Arvid said. “We share.”
    “You give. Us eat.”
    “No.” Dattur launched into a language Arvid didn’t know, sounding more like quarreling cats than words. The men answered in the same language, and finally the one in front removed the arrow from the string of his bow and stuck it in a quiver by his side.
    “Share,” he said, and gestured. Arvid slid off his horse and lifted Dattur down. The gnome stamped three times with his left foot and twice with his right. Arvid had no idea what that meant but hoped it would mean supper and a safe night’s sleep.

    T he fire they’d smelled lay in a slight hollow; four wagons surrounded it, brush piled on the windward side to break the wind. Their two horses joined nine others tied to a picket line; Dattur took their sack of redroots and onions to the fire. Arvid took off the bits of harness while Dattur jabbered away with the woodsfolk, then filled the horses’ nose bags with oats and spread the tattered blankets over their backs. When he bent to pick up a hoof, the man watching him grunted.
    “You care horse?”
    “Horse needs foot,” Arvid said. Without a word, the man passed him a hoofpick made of horn. “Thanks,” Arvid said, and went to work. By the time he’d finished both horses, he was trembling again with cold and hunger.
    As he came to the fire, the dancing light picked out details he hadnot noticed before: men, all in rough sheepskins with the fleece turned out; women in layers and layers of long shirts and skirts. All the women wore a string of blue beads across their foreheads. In the north, blue would mean Girdish. Did it here? Children, legs wrapped in strips of sheepskin with the fleece in.
    A man brought him a round of bread and held it out. Arvid looked at Dattur. “Share?”
    Dattur nodded at one of the several pots on the fire. “Cooking.”
    Arvid bowed, hoping it was the right thing to do, and tore the round, handing the larger piece to the other man. He tore it again and offered the larger to Dattur, but Dattur shook his head and took the smaller one.
    The bread was warm; Arvid could hardly wait until the other man tore off pieces and handed them to the oldest man and woman and then bit into his own piece. At last he could eat, and he sat with a thump, his legs betraying him, and stuffed his mouth with warm bread.
    “Who hit?” asked the first man, pointing at Arvid’s face.
    “Thieves,” Arvid said.
    “You thief!”
    “Not same.” A woman handed him a bowl of something that steamed; Arvid nodded his thanks and sniffed. Onions and redroots and whole peppers as long as his thumb. Something else … he looked up. The woman’s eyelids were almost closed. Without taking a bite, he turned to the man. “I don’t steal from fire-friends.”
    The man blinked, looked away, looked back. “Only give little sleep. You need.”
    “Not fire-friends,” another man said. “No gaj is fire-friend.”
    “Is fire-friend,” the first man said. “One night. Give me bowl, fire-friend.” Arvid handed it over; the man dipped his bread in it and ate. “I could sleep better. Ajai, give him only the plain.” The woman turned back to the fire. “Is insult to refuse food from woman. Woman angry causes trouble.”
    “I meant no insult,” Arvid said. “But I have had a bad several days. Makes trust hard.”
    “So face shows,” the man said.
    The woman brought him another bowl; she widened her eyes at him. Arvid dipped his bread in and ate it. If it was drugged … hewould be robbed, but he did not think they’d leave him naked in the rain or snow. The stuff burned his mouth so he gasped; tears ran down his face. The women laughed at him; the men grinned.
    “No peppers so hot in the north,” Arvid said when he could.
    “No,” the first man said. “But is good for many things. Makes sweat.”
    “I can tell,” Arvid said.
    Across the fire, a man began to pluck the strings of a fat-bellied instrument, and