what Caravan Masters do.”
“Oh,” said Smith, who had been looking forward to a day of riding stretched out on the shipment of flour from Old Troon Mills.
“Funny about the dead glider,” Burnbright said.
“What was funny about him?”
“He was from Troon.” She helped him to a seat beside the fire. “I recognized him. He used to hang out at the Burning Wheel. That’s the bar where all the gamblers go.”
“You think Lord Ermenwyr’s a gambler as well as a vampire?” Smith asked her wryly.
She flushed. “Well? I never saw him any other time but after dark until today, did you? And he never eats anything, and he looks just terrible! But he’s not a gambler. He’s somebody’s ambassador, was what I heard, and he’s been called off the job because he’s sick so they’re sending him to the spa. What, you think the gliders were after him?” She looked surprised.
“He thinks so.”
“Hmmm.” Her face was bright with speculation. Just then Mrs. Smith called for her, and she ran off to the kitchen pavilion.
No one slept particularly well that night. The Smith’s baby screamed for two hours instead of the usual one. Smith divided watches with the keymen, taking the first shift, so he was up late anyway, getting stiffer and more chilled before Keyman Bellows took his place. Just as Smith had got himself drunk enough to pretend his wounded leg belonged to somebody else so he could doze off, he found himself sitting up, his heart pounding. He turned his head, staring into the west beyond the ring of carts. The faintest of touches on his face, a trace of moisture in the air, a scent as powerful and distinct as the sea’s but certainly not the sea.
Across the fire from him, Mrs. Smith leaned up on one elbow in her bedroll.
“Wind’s shifted,” she muttered. “That’s the Greenlands. We’ll see it, tomorrow.”
Smith lay back, wondering what she meant, and then he remembered the dark mountain.
He had forgotten it next morning, in the haze of his hangover and the confusion of breaking camp. He took Keyman Crucible’s place on the key, crowding beside him as Crucible pedaled, and the effort of winding for the push-off alone was enough to make Smith’s biceps twinge. By the time they were three hours on their way he had mentally crossed key-man off the list of possible careers for himself.
Busy with all this, Smith did not glance up at the horizon until the noon meal was handed along the line, and then he saw it: a rise of forested land to the northwest, and above it a black jagged cone. It didn’t seem very big until his mind grappled with a calculation of the distance. Then his eyes wouldn’t accept how immense it must be.
He put it out of his mind and attempted to unwrap his lunch with one hand. It was a pocket roll stuffed with highly spiced meat. He chewed methodically, looking back along the line of cars, and wondered again what the purpose of the glider attack had been. Robbery seemed unlikely, at least of the cargo. The most valuable thing they were carrying was Lady Seven Butterflies’s holistic eggs, and the mental image of a corps of gliders attempting to fly, bearing between them perhaps a cargo net full of big violet eggs, was enough to make him grin involuntarily.
What if one of the passengers had something they wanted? The fact that the dead man had an assassin’s tattoo didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t also a thief. One man may in his time take many professions, as Smith knew too well.
He looked forward at the cart where the Smiths rode. They were jewelers; were they carrying any of their wares?
He turned back to look at the cart that Parradan Smith and the Yendri shared. They rode in mutual silence. Parradan Smith watched the eastern horizon. Flowering Reed’s uneasy stare was fixed on the black mountain to the northwest. Smith ruled out the Yendri, who was carrying very little luggage and had no trunks at all. His race disdained personal possessions and produced nothing anyone would want, traded in nothing but medicinal herbs and the occasional freshwater pearl.
Parradan Smith, on the other hand, was couriering something. What? The instrument case he carried didn’t seem heavy enough to be loaded with gold, as Burnbright had speculated.
Which left Lord Ermenwyr. Drugs, money, jewelry: The Lordling undoubtedly had plenty that would interest a thief.
Smith cranked again on the key, scanned the sky. No wings, at