Andevai sat down like a meek child. The djeli launched into his song, his words punctuated at intervals by responses called from the crowd to questions or cues I did not recognize or hear. Brennan’s attention had shifted entirely to the djeli’s song, a tale familiar enough to wrap him in its weave. I was forgotten. Even Andevai’s gaze drifted to the djeli, whose gold earrings glinted in the firelight as words poured out of him. The singer commanded the attention of every soul in the common room except mine, for I was floundering in the current of an unknown river.
Also, a faint rhythm not in keeping with the song nagged at my hearing. I stepped away from Brennan and pulled the supper room door open just enough to slip through, closing it after me. Kehinde and Godwik were deep in a technical conversation about katabatic winds.
Chartji looked up as I paused beside the table. “Come to save me from these two and their interminable natural history? I can’t abide rat music, I must confess, and I’m not tired enough to fall into a stupor.”
I raised a hand to ask for a moment’s peace. The troll cocked up her muzzle and bent an eye on me as I crossed to the main window, unlatched one of the shutters at the base, and levered it away from the window. Cold exhaled from the bubbled glass, but I did not need the clarity of expensive glass to perceive that the distant scene of blurred blobs of light was in fact a phalanx of torches being borne along the road out of the south.
I leaned into the glass, night’s chill a bite on my skin. I bent my concentration and listened past the tick-tick of sleety drops sliding off the roof to the ground and the creak of a stable door being shoved open and the burr of a pair of voices that, inside a shuttered house, were oblivious to what was going on outside. There! A party of rumbling feet and stamping hooves slowed with hesitation as a young male voice called to them. At this distance, no person in this inn could have heard his words except for me.
“We’re come from Adurnam. Did anyone arrive here before us?”
“A rider came before dusk from Adurnam. Foundered his horse to get here so quick. Is it true what he said? A ship came to Adurnam that sails in the air? And it’s been destroyed by those cursed magisters?”
“It’s true,” replied a different man in a grim voice.
“Are you with the Prince of Tarrant’s wardens?”
“No. The prince went to the law court to try to get a legal ruling in his favor. Without a ruling, he’s too cowardly to act against a mage House. But some of us aren’t cowards. It’s time the mages feel the sting of our anger. We’ve eyewitnesses among us who saw and can identify the cursed cold mage who did it. We almost got him in Adurnam, but he called down a storm and escaped.”
“A young magister has taken shelter at the Griffin Inn. It’s got no veil of protection to keep you out. But you’ll have to act fast to catch him unawares.”