A Sword from Red Ice

"Maggy Sea. The best tavern maid ever to set down a tankard in Ille Glaive." Gull couldn't seem to stop himself from lauding her, and would have continued singing her praises if it hadn't been for the strange, dangerous look in Angus Lok's eyes.

"What do you know of this woman?"

Gull opened his mouth to speak and then closed it as he realized he knew absolutely nothing about Maggy Sea.

Angus Lok rested for a moment, as if Gull's lack of words were a blow he had to absorb. Gull took the opportunity to refill his cup.

"How long did she work here?"

For a reason he could not understand, Gull was reluctant to give the answer. "Thirteen days."

Angus Lok sucked in breath. He had not shaven in a month and his beard was growing in. The hair on his head was lighter than the beard stubble. 'Tell me what she looks like."

Now, here was a question Gull could answer. Maggy Sea had simply appeared one day in the tavern and set about cleaning his copper bath. As he remembered it he had need of help and she was willing, and he hired her on the spot. Best thing he ever did. Maggy Sea had been a treasure, a fine woman who knew the value of hard work. She'd cleaned his pumps, mended his roof and cooked a lamb stew so fine and dense that it just about ate itself. "Well Maggys tall, but not really tall. More medium height, now that I think of it. But she's definitely slender-except for her shoulders and hipswhich are round." Gull couldn't understand why he was fumbling. The picture he had in his head of Maggy Sea was crystal clear. It just wasn t easy to describe it, that was all Gamely, he tried again…"She was certainly comely, but more often than not she looked plain, if you understand what I mean. And her eyes."

"It does not. matter." The finality with which the stranger spoke made Gull jump.

"Gull. I need your help. I can't get the tap in the keg." Liddie Lott drew abreast of the the table. Sweat was beading above her upper lip and she looked a little frayed around the edges. She had never been left to work alone lor so long,

"He will help you later,"

Both Laddie and Gull turned to look at the strangef. t Mil railed an eyebrow and then turned to Gull.

"Go on, Liddie. If anyone complains that they cant have their pre-ferred beer give them a free pint of something else." "But'

"Go" Gull shooed her away.

Angus Lok waited until she was out of earshot before he said." The woman's voice, was it unusual?"

At last. Here was something Gull Moler could get his teeth into. "Yes. Yes. Golden, like maple syrup. Made you start nodding your head before she'd even asked a question."

Angus Lok reached for his sword. It was a beautiful weapon; the blade forged from patterned steel that scattered light, the single, cen tral fuller cut so unusually deep that it looked as if it might bisect the blade. Resting it across his lap, Angus ran a finger along the trench. "What do you know of the people who died in the farmhouse fire a day east of here?"

Here it was. Gull realized. The reason why this man had come. The reason he smelled like a wild animal and the normal sense of time and place was missing from his eyes. He could be sitting anywhere at any point in the day. Gull realized, and would mark it solek by what he learned about his ramify. He was a clock who kept striking the same time.

Gull glanced back at the tavern, checking. Clyve Wheat had finished playing hit song and Liddie was bringing him the traditional payment a measure of malt and a wedge of blue cheese. Gull was glad to see she had remembered the old custom. Burdale Ruff was sitting with his chair swung back against the wall so it rested on it's back two legs. Still watching. He was in imposing night. Gull reckoned, dark and big and armed, but Gull didn't think he had a pat of butter in hell's chance of defending himself against this man.

Angus Lok waited. Gull spoke.

"Happened about two months back now. Was a bad business. Family of girls, as I heard it, working the farm while their father was away. By all accounts the chimney had been causing them trouble-that s why Thurlo Pike was called in. Those bad storms last winter had cracked the flue and smoke was coming back down into the house. Of course, no one will ever know for sure what happened that night, but the magistrate from Keen rode over the day after. Said it looked as if the family was trapped inside the house while it burned and by the time they figured a way out it was too late." Unable to help himself, Gull made the sign of the Three Tears against this chest. God help them.

'The bodies were in no state to identify. Blackened bones, the magistrate said. He ordered them to be buried twenty-five feet from the house and posted a warning that no one was to enter the farm until further notice."