Chapter 29

Was it still only midafternoon? Kyminn was sure he'd spent at least three days doing battle with Lord Corbie. He shifted his feet on the front flagstones, the heavy door shut pointedly behind him. Across the yard, thirty-one horses and three dogs regarded him, silently asking what he planned to do next.

The grooms and servants, shortly so much in evidence, had vanished even more quickly than Corbie's good will. He considered pounding on the door – ideally with his sword – and demanding the assistance to which the Royal Warrant said he was entitled. The thought made his head hurt even more than it did already. Between a night of fetching horses and a day spent doing verbal battle, he was thoroughly wrung out.

The horses were by no means yet a 'herd', having been brought together from various pastures and stables. While they had yet to sort out their own pecking order, there were, nonetheless, one or two boss mares who stood out amongst the mob. It was these dominant females to whom Kyminn reached out, having the mares chivvy the other animals into a more-or-less cohesive rabble. With Vik and the mares to lead the mob, and the dogs to apply pressure from the sides and rear, Kyminn took up station at the tail end, trying to keep a gentle mental tether on as many beasts as possible.

There were too many, of course, for one man to 'hold' at once. All he could do was shift from beast to beast, nudging, suggesting, pushing. Had he any attention left to do so, he would probably have spent it praying that nothing happened to spook one of the beasts.

A trip that normally would have taken a half-candlemark took three times that long, but they made it without incident. The paddock at the inn was far too small to hold so many beasts for any length of time, but it would do for the moment while he tried to figure out his next move.

The inn's stable-hand's expression as he regarded the milling mob was equal parts awestruck and appalled.

"Master Healer, we hasn't room for all of them! And these be Lord Corbie's fine beasts, be they not? We canna keep them here!"

"I know, Slev. First off, don't worry about Lord Corbie. Each of these beasts belongs to the king now, bought, paid for and with the Lord's on seal on it. So never fear." A gusty sigh. "As to where we're going to put them…tell you what. I'd like you and master Loowis to put your heads together on this. I imagine you two know everyone here in town, including anyone who might have a spare stall, shed or spot in their cow byre. You two see what you can come up with and I'll be in shortly, alright?

Still protesting weakly, and looking askance at the Healer, the stableman left to confer with the innkeeper. As soon as the inn door had closed behind the befuddled man, Kyminn led his horses into the inn's little stable. He untacked them with his own hands, digging through the packs for a particular satchel.

As it emerged, he became the center of the dogs' undivided attention. They knew this bag. It contained the chunks of frozen horsemeat and other bits which formed the dogs' food while on the road. While they were quite happy to have been eating the innkeeper's leftovers for the past few days, they weren't fussy. Frozen horsemeat was just fine as far as they were concerned.

Kyminn's concern though, wasn't the gobbets of rock-hard meat, although he did toss a chunk to each dog as a reward for a job well done. Kyminn's interest was in the double stitched seam on the bottom of the satchel. He carefully picked apart one end, shaking and working out the gold and silver coins secreted there.

It wasn't an ideal system of course. Had anyone made a serious attempt at thievery, they would have slashed apart every bit of Kyminn's gear in search of just such a hoard. In such a case, Kyminn would probably be far too dead to worry about it. Generally, the gore and mess of the frozen meat served as enough of a deterrent to the casual pilferer. The dogs' protectiveness over the satchel could be attributed to normal food guarding behaviour, rather than their extremely explicit instructions to protect that particular bag.

There had been one notable incident though, where the seam had worked loose, spilling some of the coins into the meat mixture. The cold metal coins had frozen firmly to the sticky meat. Kyminn hadn't noticed until a glint of something in the firelight caused him to take a second look – right about the time the chunk disappeared down Bull's gullet.

Retrieving the coins had been simple, if not for the squeamish. As Kyminn pointed out acidly to his rather confused dogs, they were probably the only animals in Valdemar who actually crapped gold. The coins had been scrubbed with soap and water – several times – before being immersed in the strongest cleansing solution that Kyminn could brew. In hindsight, he should have set them aside from the others. He'd have used them to pay Lord Corbie.

Enough woolgathering. Kyminn carefully counted out the coins he needed and retied the seam. With a final little treat to the dogs, he left them happily gnawing on their snacks.

The innkeeper and stableman were in the back of the kitchen, deep in animated conversation. They stopped though, when Kyminn tapped on the door.

"Well, gentlemen? Have you any suggestions for me?" Kyminn eased himself wearily onto a seat at the bar.

"Master Healer…" the innkeeper began, the stableman having declined to speak, "It's possible we can find places for most of the beasts, but…it'll be dear. Feed's scarce this time of year and none of these folks were expecting to board someone else's horses."

"I see." Kyminn kept his expression somber. "Just how dear do you expect it might be?"

The two men exchanged glances and Kyminn could tell they were trying to figure how much they should ask for. "Well sir," the innkeeper said carefully, "Right now you're paying three coppers a day for feed and two for board. Per beast. Now, I've got the stalls, and the feed set by, so I can charge you the road rate. Other folks…well…it'd cause crowding, and as I said, they'd have to buy the feed…and the price will be high…I think we can find places for about twenty horses, but the price for each would be at least six coppers a day board and six for food." The man looked as though he expected Kyminn to fly into a rage. With Corbie as his landowner, the man's caution wasn't surprising.

"I see. And that's for only twenty beasts. Well, that's a problem. You see, I have twenty-nine. Plus my own, of course. I'd expect that you'd want to see the same price yourself, since any animals I place with you will have to pay the higher feed bills…" They wouldn't, of course. The innkeeper had his own stores for the few travelers he expected over the winter season. He'd probably sell some of that to his neighbours, at a tidy profit, naturally.

Kyminn carefully put a silver crown on the bar. Worth twenty coppers, the coin represented food and board for nearly two horses – at the inflated rate. Kyminn gradually began laying coins on the counter as he continued to speak.

"Do you suppose," he said, laying down the twelfth coin, "That people might be inspired to find a bit more room if we were to offer them a bit more?" Fifteen coins.

The innkeeper tried very hard not to look at the coins. "Well, sir, they might. For the right price."

"I see." Kyminn laid down the twentieth coin. For what he was offering, he knew some folks would bring horses into their parlors if they could.

"Well then. Would you and master Slev here be willing to arrange this for me?" Thirty-one silver coins now, one for each horse. "Board, food – good quality hay and grain mind, no straw or leavings!" More silver, this time in two small piles. Five coins each, one for the innkeeper and one for the stableman. "For tonight and tomorrow night. I may depart before then, but I'll pay the second night regardless." He finally looked up from the bar.

"Well gentlemen? Do we have a deal?"

Happened that they did. The next few weary candlemarks were spent moving horses. Stables, cow byres, woodsheds – even an abandoned chicken coop. Any place sound and weather tight with a clean floor and fresh straw. Once word got around that the Healer was checking each and every stall, water bucket and food bin, those that might have tried to slip in substandard fodder gave up the idea. The dogs padded along, ostentatiously sniffing each barn, farmer and bit of hay and grain. Again, this was theatre – there was little likelihood of them finding anything untoward, but the idea that the dogs could was intimidating enough. If a little of mystical dazzle worked for Companions, he wasn't above borrowing the technique.

Exhausted, but grimly satisfied, Kyminn ate without tasting and crawled into bed. Tomorrow was another problem.

As it turned out, he did board the horses for two nights. In the intervening day, he again prevailed on the innkeeper for information. This time, it was to find four people who knew one side of a saddle from the other, along with a cart and driver. It was less than a day's travel to the nearest Guard station, but between the inexperienced help and the disorderly mob of horses, it took a full day and well into the evening before they shambled up to the station gate. The horses were profoundly unhappy at being asked to travel in the dark and it took all of Kyminn's attention to keep them moving forward. Along about noon it started to snow, cold, fat flakes and a chill that bit to the bone. As he tried to unclench his numb hands from the reins, Kyminn was viciously certain that he hadn't charged Lord Corbie nearly enough.