| “You . . . do?” I said. |
“This is a good village,” she said, “with a strong and diligent thegn. Yet, they don’t have much. Why upon the lands would you pick here to run your scam?”
Scam?
“Oil with a stencil to create the burned-out figure,” she continued, “which I’ll admit is ingenious. Scattered pages of text is nothing new, though I’m shocked you were brazen enough to take one from an offering. But the demands you made of the thegn? Ridiculous.”
Ah . . . She thought I was a grifter, come to bilk the locals. It was an apt description of a dimensional tourist.
“Next time,” she added, “flinch at my boasts. I find it incredible that you could put so much preparation into your scam, but do so little research. You look exactly like an aelv—even shaved your beard—but you couldn’t do a little playacting? How can you be so incompetent yet capable at the same time?”
Play along, my instincts said. You can ride this.
“The hit to my head,” I said to her. “Did you have to swing so hard? When I woke up, I barely remembered what I’d had for breakfast, let alone what my plan was.”
She grunted, arms still folded, golden curls wobbling as she shook her head at me. “You can’t be alone. Those messengers have your accent.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They’d have told your father how to get rid of my haunting. Then I’d appear in the night, give him a scare, to encourage him along.”
“Why do you think Ealstan is my father?” she asked.
“You called him . . .”
“Little father? Thegn? Lord of the local lands?” Her frown deepened. “You speak words, yet you don’t understand them. My brother and I are only passing through this area. We were brought back because they needed a skop.”
“Oh,” I said. “Um . . . hit to the head . . .”
She sighed. “Why Stenford? Wellbury is right down the road, and they’ve many times the resources.”
“I’m known there,” I said. “Look, we don’t need much. Just a little to get us on our way. We wanted your lord to get all frightened because he’d seen an eelev, then pay us to leave.” I gave an upside-down shrug. “My friends aren’t going to be happy I got caught, by the way.”
She rubbed her forehead with thumb and forefinger, eyes closed. “Why do they have your description wrong?”
“I was supposed to put on a disguise,” I said. “To look more exotic. Look, we’ve got an easy out. You give me another boast or two in front of the lord. I’ll act however you tell me. Then you can hand me off to my friends, and we won’t demand anything. Everybody walks away happy.”
“Huh,” she said.
“What?”
“That’s not an unreasonable ask.”
“I promise you, I just wanted a warm meal,” I said. “We’re off for bigger winnings elsewhere, and were running low on supplies.”
She nodded, as if she expected something similar.
And damn. I . . . I was building quite the unflattering picture of who I’d been. Sneaking. Combat augments. Practiced at grifting . . .
But if I had been a thief, why did my stomach immediately turn at the idea? Why did my instincts resist it so strongly? Surely if that was me, it would feel right to acknowledge it.
Instead, a piece of me was screaming. No, it said. That’s not who you are.
“Look,” I said to her. “What was your name again?”
“Sefawynn,” she said.
“Right. Sefawynn, you’re obviously not the type who wants to see a guy get hanged because he’s hungry. Let’s do this the easy way. I’ll even let you know how I did the arm trick, if you want.”
“I know your type,” she said. “Far too well. I know you’ll take whatever you can get. That you’ll turn on me in a second. But don’t try it, all right? I understand you better than you think I do.”
“Sure, all right,” I said. “After this, I’ll stay far away from this village and anyone in it—you have my word.”
“For what that’s worth.”
I shrugged again. “It’s either that, or you try to convince the little father I’m a liar—then I do my best scary eelef imitation, and we see who wins. But in that scenario, someone also has to lose.”
“Aelv,” she said. “Ae-lv. At least say it right.”
“Aylev,” I tried.
“Closer.” She walked up to me, slipping a knife from her pocket. Hey, she had a pocket in her dress. Funny to find someone living in the Middle Ages who had one of those, when Jen had always complained that her dresses didn’t have any.
Wait. Who was Jen?
Sefawynn tensed as she cut my hands free, prepared for a fight. I slowly brought my hands in front of me, then rubbed my wrists in a nonthreatening way.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Brace yourself,” she said, then untied the rope holding my feet.
I used my hands to do just that, then tucked and rolled to my feet, kicking free of the ropes. See that, I thought. Athletic. I didn’t bolt for the door. My best bet at getting free was still to have her turn me in to those messengers.
Except, they hadn’t described me. But she’d said our accents were similar? Hell, I really needed more information.
“Don’t suppose,” I said, “you have the rest of my ‘incantations’ stashed around here? Those were kind of hard to get ahold of.”
“You shouldn’t be playing with the written word,” she said. “You’ll attract the attention of the gods.”
“I’ll risk it.”
She shook her head at my apparent foolishness. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to do with them. Burning them would draw Logna’s ire for certain, but merely having them will draw Woden’s. So I’ll fetch them for you. And then you must carry the wyrd away with you and your foolish aers.”
Whole lot of gibberish there, but I nodded to her in thanks. The papers were my best bet at learning about this place. I was practically a baby in my knowledge of the Middle Ages. Jen would laugh at me for . . .
Oh.
Jen was dead.
