White Road

the tayan’gil?”
    Alec nodded. “We don’t want more of them made, any more than you do. And whatever is in that book may help us understand him better.”
    “To what end?”
    “To make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
    “That won’t be a problem, among my people.”
    “You’re not taking him,” growled Alec.
    “You can’t stop us.”
    “Hush, both of you, before someone hears,” hissed Seregil. “Nobody is to mention any of that again until we’re well away from all this!”

CHAPTER 26
Scouting the Ground
    O NE OF THE horse trader’s servants roused them early the next morning and brought them into the kitchen for a hot breakfast. Alec rubbed the sleep from his eyes as they entered the warm, steamy room to find bread trenchers already set out for them on a side table. The kitchen girl even gave them a smile as she brought them a platter of crisp turnip cakes fried in bacon grease and a pitcher of fresh milk. Micum must have made a good impression on his host.
    Micum and the horse trader came in and ate with them, talking and laughing like old friends. When they were done, Micum kissed the serving girl to make her giggle, then the four of them set off toward the slave market.
    “I wish there was another direction to go,” Alec said when they were away from the house.
    “Actually, I’d like to see it this time,” Seregil replied.
    “So would I,” Rieser murmured, eyes hard above his veil.
    The markets were as Alec remembered, but he had more time to look around than he’d had before. Slave barns, money houses, taverns, and inns surrounded a series of squares. Each barn had a raised platform out in front, and already a few slaves were on display to small clusters of bidders. At this hour it was mostly children; the poor things were half naked, with heavy chains attached to their little collars.
    The sights and smells brought back bad memories and made Alec’s stomach hurt, but he didn’t recognize anything until they reached one of the larger squares, where he caughtsight of the maimed slaves chained along a wall with filthy bandages where limbs had been.
    “By the Light!” Rieser gasped softly behind his veil. “What happened to them?”
    “Punishment.” Alec made himself look back at them again. “Run away and lose a foot. Be rude to your master and they cut out your tongue. Steal and—”
    “I understand,” Rieser replied. Even whispering, his outrage was obvious.
    “Quiet, you lot!” Micum ordered sharply, giving them a meaningful look over one shoulder.
    Alec obeyed, then turned to find Seregil looking up at a handsome young Aurënfaie man on one of the platforms. He was naked, hands shackled behind his back so that he couldn’t cover himself. Pale with cold, he stared out over the crowd, eyes devoid of hope.
    Seregil turned to Alec, telling him with narrowed eyes that this place should be burned to the ground with every slaver locked in their own barn.
    They came at last to the barn with a moon and sun sign done in gilt work hanging over the door, and the street they were seeking. Turning right, they left the market and continued up a busy thoroughfare, following it to the east gate.
    Alec had been made to kneel in Yhakobin’s carriage and hadn’t been able to see anything more than the tops of houses and trees out the open window. It wasn’t much help to them now; they left the city behind and rode through rolling farmland, following the horse trader’s directions.
    It was greener here than on the coast, and they rode past horse pastures and fields of winter wheat and turnips that had been left in the ground through the cold season. At last Alec spotted a sprawling villa on a wooded hilltop half a mile or so in the distance.
    “That’s the place,” he told the others.
    “Are you sure?” asked Seregil.
    “Yes. It’s the right shape and I recognize the tree line behind it, with the dead oak.”
    “You don’t know the place?” Rieser asked Seregil.
    “I was kept inside more than Alec, and it was dark when we escaped.”
    “And we’re going there now?”
    “Not yet.”
    They reached the tree-lined lane the trader had told them of, but continued past it. The road was less traveled here, and the farms spaced farther apart.
    They stopped at last in a copse of trees at the edge of a field.
    “Micum, you and Rieser can wait for us here. The farm should be within a mile of here.” He looked up at the sun; it was coming to midafternoon now. “I think we