Shadows and Light

there for the night.”
    Ubel noticed a hawk fly toward the farmer’s cottage. Circle it. Another hawk glided high in the air—
    toward the road. Toward him.
    Sweat trickled down his back. Surely they were just ordinary hawks. Even if there were a few Fae in the Old Place, they’d have no reason to be flying over this farm. Unless the boy who had been sent back to the cottage had been told to give some kind of signal that would draw the Fae here?
    “They won’t be welcoming strangers in Breton tonight,” the man said. “Nor anywhere else around here.
    If you’re a decent man, you’d best ride south to the posting house. It’s not so far that you won’t make it there while there’s still day-light.”

    Ubel looked around as if confused. He tried not to shiver as the hawk’s shadow fell across the road. “I took this to be a main road. Surely the people around here see travelers all the time.”
    “And most of the time we’re friendly enough,” the man replied, shifting his grip on the ax. “But there’s been trouble here.”
    “Trouble?”
    Grim fury filled the man’s face. “Some of those whoreson bastard Black Coats came to Breton. Killed a farmer and hurt his family. Killed one of Forrester’s apprentices. That’s got the baron’s people and the villagers stirred up.”
    Whoreson bastard? How dare this doltish, ignorant peasant say such a thing about an Inquisitor?
    The man glanced up at the hawk soaring above them. “Word is they also tried to kill Lady Ashk and the witch who lives in Bretonwood. That’s got the Fae riled. I wouldn’t want to be a stranger riding into Breton tonight.”
    “Fae? You mean a few of them actually live around here?” Ubel tried to sound interested. Sweat soaked the armpits of his coat.
    “A few?” The man stared at him. “The whole Bretonwood Clan lives in the Old Place. That’s a sizable more than a few.”
    The forester boy had told the truth about there being a Clan house in the Old Place. How could he have known the boy had told the truth? He’d never heard of the Fae living in the human world.
    “But... Even if someone, a stranger, did kill those peopie, how do you know it was a—what did you call them?— a Black Coat?”
    “The Gatherer said they were. Guess she would know.”
    The reins slipped from Ubel’s suddenly numb fingers. The Gatherer was here? “What happened to the man?”
    “I’m thinking you’d have to ask the Fae what happened to those men. Or the village magistrate.”
    He wasn’t going to ride into that village and ask the magistrate anything. And he certainly wasn’t going to get near the Fae—especially when there was a whole Clan out there and the Gatherer was among them.
    Ubel gathered the reins. “I think you’re right, good sir. I think it would be best if I went to the posting house to find lodgings tonight. And I... I don’t think I’ll continue my northern journey after all.”
    “That’s probably for the best,” the man agreed. “By this time tomorrow, no stranger will be able to step a man’s length anywhere in the west without the barons and the Fae knowing about it—and he won’t be able to do so much as unbutton his trousers to take a piss without having to explain himself.”
    “Thank you for your time,” Ubel said weakly. He turned his horse and set the pace at an easy trot. It wouldn’t do to run, to appear afraid. It wouldn’t do to have anyone think he had a reason to hurry.
    He could keep riding. He and his men had hired horses and exchanged them at various posting stations on the journey here. He could do the same on the journey back, riding hard since he didn’t care if the animal was sound when he was through with it.

    But one man, alone on the roads ...
    If the farmer was right and news could travel that fast here in the west... If any of his men lived and were persuaded to talk about the man who was their leader for this task...
    He needed to blend in with other strangers. A seaport was a better choice for that. And a coach. Surely there were coaches at that posting house that took passengers to the coastal road and the seaports.
    Yes. Better to be one among many than a lone rider easily followed.
    It wouldn’t please Master Adolfo that he’d lost the men he’d brought with him. It would please the Master even less that he’d failed his task in almost every way. But the winged gifts he and his men had left in the shadows of the woods were starting to stir.
    Let the baron