Casket of Souls

cheese.
    “Aye. I think they’re plague carriers. We lost our sister to the sleeping death last week,” Seregil told him with a catch in his voice.
    The woman made a Dalnan sign against ill health and stepped back from them.
    “You know of the sleeping death?”
    The old man nodded. “My daughter here lost her first sonto it, some thirty years back, when we lived in Dresher’s Ford, up in the northern freeholdings.”
    Seregil exchanged a surprised look with Alec. The first time they’d heard of the place was from Atre.
    “My boy was only six years old,” the woman whispered, hand pressed to her heart as if to fend off fresh pain.
    “Oh, you poor dear,” Seregil said sorrowfully. “What happened to him?”
    “Why, it’s just like you have here,” she told him. “A person falls down in a trance and dies before the week is out.”
    “And you saw others stricken with it?”
    “Dozens in our town,” Master Elren wheezed. “And it stopped quick as it started. People said it was on account of the strangers.”
    “The traveling beggars,” Nala explained. “They traded trinkets with children, who soon fell sick with what you call the sleeping death. But the blackguards ran away before we could catch them, and the sickness gradually stopped after they were gone.”
    “How many beggars were there?” asked Seregil.
    Nala spread her hands. “It’s been so long. Four, perhaps five?”
    “But it didn’t end there,” said Elren. “We moved south after that, down into Mycena, and a few years ago we saw it again, in the city of White Cliff, and I heard from some others on the road here that it had happened in Nanta, too, just before the siege this year.”
    For an instant Seregil couldn’t breathe as a terrible idea came to him. “Were the beggars there, too?”
    “I don’t know about Nanta, but they were in White Cliff. I told the mayor about what we’d seen before, but they ran off again before anyone could catch them. It must have been the same clan of people, don’t you think?”
    “Something like that,” Seregil murmured, tamping down his growing horror. “Did either of you actually see any of these beggars?”
    “I did,” Nala replied. “I watched one of them, an old woman, trade my little boy a pretty stone for some toy. It’sbeen so long, I don’t even remember what it was. But I remember her and that stone!”
    “Was it a yellow crystal?” asked Alec.
    Nala shook her head. Reaching into the neck of her dress, she pulled out a red jasper pebble with a hole through it, which she wore on a thin silver chain. “After my poor boy died, I hoped this would kill me, too. Now I have it as a keepsake.” She wiped her cheek. “I remember that old woman like she’s standing here before me!”
    “What did she look like?” Alec asked, and Seregil felt a stab of the same unsettled excitement along their talímenios bond.
    “Dirty! Dirty kerchief around her head, dirty hands, dirty dress, and a belt with things strung from it—”
    “Do you remember what?” asked Seregil.
    “Foolish things. A bird skull, a harness ring, more stones—I remember those because she untied the pebble she gave my Ressi from a string of others … That’s all I remember, but it was just trash.”
    “I see.” Seregil would have liked to have bought the stone from her to show to Thero, but chances were any magic that might have been on it had long since leached away—and he doubted she’d part with the treasured relic of her child.
    “Are they here in Rhíminee, the strange beggars?” asked Elren.
    “Yes, old father,” Seregil replied.
    “I hope they catch them this time, and hang them all!” he wheezed. “I hope I live to see the day!”
    Micum gave the woman a handful of silver. “For your troubles, Mistress Nala, and the Maker’s Mercy.”
    “Bless you,” she quavered. “Bless you all, kind folk! May the Old Sailor carry your sister gently.”
    Seregil refused to speak until they were safely in their rooms at the Stag and Otter. Kari and Elsbet were in the front room and stood as soon as the others came in.
    “Well?” asked Kari, hands clutched over her heart.
    “What’s wrong, you two?” asked Micum. “You both look like you’ve eaten a mess of bad mussels.”
    “We’ve been blind as moles is what’s wrong!” Seregil growled, stalking over to the table where the map was spread.
    Alec followed. “You really think it could be them?”
    “Who, damn it?” Micum