Assassin's Quest

She spat suddenly on the ground beside me. "As if I'd have let you. I was amusing myself, shepherd. No more than that." She made a small sound in her throat. "Men. How can you look at yourself and think anyone would want you for your own sake? You stink of sheep, you're skinny, and your face looks like you've lost every fight you've ever been in." She turned on her heel, then seemed to abruptly remember why she'd come. "I won't tell any of them. Yet. But when we get to Blue Lake, your master must pay you something. See you bring it to me, or I'll have the whole town seeking you out."

I sighed. "Whatever amuses you, I'm sure you'll do. Create all the fuss you wish. When it comes to naught and folk laugh about it, it will probably give Dell one more reason to beat you."

She turned away from me and went stalking off down the hillside. She lost her footing in the moonlight's uncertainty and nearly took a tumble. But she recovered herself and then glared back at me, as if daring me to laugh. I had no such inclination. Despite my defiance of her, my stomach was clenched up under my throat. A hundred gold coins. Spread a rumor of it, and that much money was enough to start a riot. After I was dead, they'd probably decide they had the wrong man.

I wondered how well I'd do at crossing the rest of the Farrow plains alone. I could leave right after Creece relieved me on watch. I'd go to the wagon and get my things quietly and sneak away into the night. How much farther could it be to Blue Lake anyway? I was pondering that as I watched yet another figure slip away from the campsite and come up the slope toward me.

Starling came quietly, but not stealthily. She lifted a hand to me in greeting before she sat down companionably at my side. "I hope you didn't give her any money," she greeted me affably.

"Umph," I said, letting her take it however she wished.

"Because you're at least the third man who's supposedly got her pregnant on this trip. Your master had the honor of being the first accused. Madge's son was the second. At least I think he was. I don't know how many fathers she's selected for this possible child."

"I haven't been with her, so she could scarcely accuse me of, that," I said defensively.

"Oh? Then you're probably the only man in the caravan who hasn't."

That jolted me a bit. Then I thought about it and wondered if I would ever reach a place in which I ceased finding out how stupid I could be. "So you think she's with child and is looking for a man to buy her out of her apprenticeship?"

Starling snorted. "I doubt she's with child at all. She wasn't asking to be married, only for coin to buy herbs to shake the child loose. I think Madge's boy might have actually given her some. No. I don't think she wants a husband, just some money. So she looks for ways that allow her a bit of a tumble, and a man who might pay her for it afterward." She shifted, tossed aside an offending stone. "So. If you haven't got her pregnant, what have you done to her?"

"I told you. Nothing."

"Ah. That explains why she speaks so ill of you then. But only in the last day or so, so I supposed you `nothinged' her the night the rest of us went to town."

"Starling," I began warningly, and she raised a placating hand.

"I shan't say a word about whatever you didn't do to her. Not another word. That's not what I came up here to speak to you about anyway."

She paused, and when I refused to ask the question, she did. "What do you plan to do after we get to Blue Lake?"

I glanced at her. "Collect my pay. Have a beer and a decent meal, a hot bath and a clean bed for one night at least. Why? What do you plan?"

"I thought I might go on to the Mountains." She gave me a sideways glance.

"To seek your songworthy event there?" I tried to keep my question casual.

"Songs are more likely to be found clinging to a man than bound to a place," she suggested. "I thought you might be going to the Mountains as well. We could travel together."

"You've still that idiotic notion that I'm the Bastard," I accused her flatly.

She grinned. "The Bastard. The Witted one. Yes."

"You're wrong," I said flatly. "And even if you were right, why follow him to the Mountains? I'd take the chance for a bigger profit, and sell him to the King's Guard. With a hundred gold pieces, who'd need to make songs?"

Starling made a small sound of disgust. "You've more experience of the King's Guard than I have, I'm sure. But even I've enough to know that a minstrel who tried to claim that reward would probably be found floating in the river a few days later. While some guardsmen became suddenly very wealthy. No. I've told you. I'm not after gold, Bastard. I'm after a song."

"Don't call me that," I warned her sharply. She shrugged and turned away. After a moment she twitched as if I'd poked her and then turned back to me with a grin widening across her face.

"Ah. I believe I've worked it out. That's how Tassin was squeezing you, isn't it? Asking for money to still her tongue."

I made no reply.