The pillars of creation

He nodded, looking concerned. "Among others. I tried them all, but I liked the spicy goat sausages best." He lifted a thumb over his shoulder, indicating his two brothers. "Joe liked her beef sausages best, and Clayton, well he liked the pork, but I favored her goat sausages."

Jennsen was shivering and it wasn't the cold. "Where is she? I have to find her!"

The man scratched his head of disheveled blond hair. "I'm sorry, but I don't know. She comes here to sell sausages. Most folks around here have seen her before. She's a nice lady, always a smile and a good word."

Jennsen felt freezing tears run down her cheeks. "But where is she? Where does she live? I have to find her."

The man grasped Jennsen's arm, as if fearing she might fall. "Sorry, ma'am, but I don't know. Why? What's wrong?"

"She has my animals. My horses. And Betty."

"Betty?"

"My goat. She has them. We paid her to watch them until we got back.»

"Oh." He looked gloomy to have no better news for her. "Sorry. Her sausages pretty much sold steady till they were gone. It usually takes her all day long to sell what she cooks up, but sometimes it just goes better, I guess. After her sausages were gone, she sat around and talked to us for a long spell. Finally, she let out a sigh, and said she had to get home."

Jennsen's mind raced. The world felt as if it were spinning around her. She didn't know what to do. She felt dazed, confused. Jennsen had never felt so alone.

"Please," she said, her voice choked with tears, "please, could I rent one of your horses?"

"Our horses? Then how would we get our wagon home? Besides, they're draft horses. We don't have any saddle or tack for riding or any-"

"Please! I have gold." Jennsen groped at her belt. "I can pay."

Feeling around at her waist, she couldn't find her small leather pouch with her gold and silver coins. Jennsen threw back her cloak, searching. There, on her belt, beside her knife, she found only a small piece of a leather thong, parted cleanly.

"My purse… my purse is gone." She couldn't get her breath. "My money. ."

The man's face sagged with sorrow as he watched her pull the remnant of the drawstring from her belt. "There are wicked people prowling around, looking to steal-"

"But I need it."

He fell silent. She looked back behind, searching for the hawker selling charms. It all flashed back through her mind. He had bumped into her, jostled her. He was really cutting her purse. She couldn't even recall what he looked like-just that he was scruffy and ill kept. She hadn't wanted to look at his face, meet his eyes. She couldn't seem to get her breath as she frantically looked this way and that, trying to find the man who had stolen her money.

"No. ." she whined, too overcome to know what to say. "No, oh please no." She sank down, sitting on the ground beside the table. "I need a horse. Dear spirits, I need a horse."

The man hurriedly poured wine in a cup and squatted down beside her as she sobbed. "Here, drink this."

"I have no money," she managed to get out as she wept.

"No charge," he said, giving her a sympathetic, lopsided smile of straight white teeth. "It'll help. Drink it down."

The other two blond-headed brothers, Joe and Clayton, stood behind the table, hands in their pockets, heads lowered with regret for the woman their brother was tending to.

The man tipped the cup up, trying to get her to drink as she cried. Some spilled down her chin, some went in her mouth and she had to swallow it.

"Why do you need a horse?" the man asked.

"I have to get to Althea's place."

"Althea? The old sorceress?"

Jennsen nodded as she wiped wine from her chin and tears from her cheeks.

"Have you been invited out there?"

"No," Jennsen admitted. "But I have to go."

"Why?"

"It's a matter of life or death. I need Althea's help or a man could die."

Crouching beside her, still holding the cup he'd used to give her a drink, his eyes turned from looking into hers to take in her ringlets of red hair under her hood.

The big man put his hands on his knees and stood, going back to his brothers to let her be as she tried but failed to halt her desperate tears. Jennsen wept with worry for Betty, too. Betty was Jennsen's friend and companion, and a connection to her mother. The poor goat probably felt abandoned and unloved. Jennsen would give anything, just then, to see Betty's little upright tail wagging.

She told herself that she couldn't just sit there acting like a child. It would accomplish nothing. She had to do something. There could be no help in the shadow of Lord Rahl's palace, and she had no money to help her. She couldn't depend on anyone-except Sebastian, and he had no hope of help but from her. Now his life depended on her actions alone. She couldn't sit there feeling sorry for herself. If her mother had taught her anything, she had taught Jennsen better than this.