38. The Last Quiet
The Last Quiet
Kain's eyes came open with the next morning. The air was cool, and he rose and dressed.
His armor lay folded to one side, but he didn't look at it. Not yet.
He needed to show his face at the festival. Carol had been right: if he simply rode off on the day of it, every soul in town would want to know what was wrong, and every eye would be on the horizon.
He needed them to see him, so they would know the thing was being handled, as much as it could be.
He pulled on his tunic and went through into the main room. Ghost stood at the front door, staring at it as though something waited on the other side.
Kain pushed it open half expecting the gryphon itself, but Ghost only shot out and ran around the side of the house.
Kain followed and found the wolf fixed on the land to the north, up toward the ridge, its ears cocked and turned for sounds he couldn't begin to catch. Something had happened in the night.
Maybe the gryphon was only sick and miserable. Maybe it had started trying to put distance between itself and the place.
Kain couldn't say. He looked out across the hills a while.
He went back to the stable, saddled Roan, mucked out the stall, and turned north for town.
"Don't worry," he called down to Ghost. "I'll be back soon. After lunch, likely. Maybe before."
Ghost looked off across the hills again, and when Kain rode away north the wolf turned a few circles and lay down with its head on its front paws, watching the north.
Kain rode up toward town, and it was a heavier ride than the distance asked for. By the time he came in the sun was full up, and the festival was getting under way. Near enough.
There were tables out and food laid on them the same as always, but it wasn't the same. A single fiddler worked at keeping things going, and the tune out of his fiddle was a long way from lively.
It faltered as Kain rode in, and every eye turned his way.
He rode down the main street to the stables, swung down, and let the stablehand take Roan. When he turned to look the festival over, everyone was doing their level best to seem to be about their own business, and every few seconds their eyes flickered back to him.
He walked over to Sam's store and leaned against the wall. Carol went past and waved, her arms full of jam jars, and her father came along behind her and shot Kain a look that all but dared him to offer a hand.
Kain was thinking about offering anyway when the store door opened and Sam stepped out.
"Kain." Sam stretched. "Nice day for it, isn't it."
"Not bad." Sam stretched again, and Kain looked at him. "If you've got a question for me, you can just ask it."
"We pried the whole of it out of Carol last night. My fault, I likely egged it on." He scratched his jaw. "She said you poisoned the thing?"
Kain nodded. "The poison's in it. I leave this afternoon."
"This afternoon." Sam shook his head. "This afternoon." He said it once or twice more, like turning it over to see if it weighed less the second time.
Kain only stood there. There was nothing else worth saying, the way he saw it, and after a while Sam came around to the same view and went back inside the store.
Kain stayed put a while, watching the town mill about, until Carol came over to him.
"Come on down this way," she said.
He knew what she was at, trying to lift the mood of the place, and he let her draw him down toward the food booths as it got on toward noon.
She began taking pastries and cuts of meat off the tables and pressing them on him, and he nodded over each one as he tried it, and the folk who had set the food out began to smile.
The mood came up a little. Still, Kain marked that the children weren't tearing up and down the street the way they did at a festival. No ball games, no hoops run along with a stick, the children kept close by their parents instead.
Eyes kept flickering up to the sky. Nobody asked Kain what was coming. He knew every one of them wanted to.
When he'd eaten he made his way over to the tavern. Inside, Sasha put a big mug of coffee into his hands before he could ask for one.
"Word on the street says you're heading out soon," she said, low.
"Word travels too fast on the street." Kain drank. "But yes. This afternoon."
"I've got something for you in the back." She nodded toward the rear of the place. "Let me know before you go."
"I'll do that."
Before he could say anything else, Jeremiah came up, thumbs hooked in his overalls, and put out a hand. "Kain."
Kain took the hand. "Any reason we're being so formal?"
"Just nerves." Jeremiah shrugged. "This sort of thing hasn't come around here in a long while."
"Kain's got it," Carol put in.
"I'm not saying he hasn't. I'm saying it's got my stomach tied up in knots." Jeremiah turned to Kain. "I'll see to your farm while you're out. In case it runs you a few days."
"Appreciate it." Kain thought a moment. "See Roan's hooves get picked out every couple of days. And that he's fed every morning."
"I know how to mind a horse." Jeremiah held up a finger.
"I know you do," Kain said.
He finished his coffee while Jeremiah worked at an ale, and when the mug was empty he straightened. "Well. I'd best be getting on."
"Yeah, you'd better," Jeremiah said, stepping back. "Don't let me keep you."
Kain caught Sasha's eye, and she waved him after her. He followed her through the tavern and out the back door, where she had a small package waiting, wrapped in brown paper. She held it out for him to take.
"Please."
Kain unwrapped it. Carol came out behind them a moment later and watched as he turned back the paper on a block of the poison, the concentrated kind.
"I got Gerald to lend a hand. We made up a bit more, with what could be gathered." Sasha kept her voice down. "He's a brewer, so he knows his way around a slow boil. It ought to come out even stronger than the batch you made."
"How did you get my recipe?" Kain asked.
"You had it out at the Kettle one day. I copied it down, word for word, while you weren't looking." Sasha shrugged. "Seems to me it's the best thing for taking the gryphon down. Smear it on your sword, your arrows, whatever you like. It ought to help."
"Appreciate it." Kain folded the paper back over it.
The stuff was so concentrated it had near gone solid, and he tucked it into his satchel.
"I'm out of my own. Got a few poisoned arrows, not many.
Eating it spread the dose out slow. More of it straight into the blood ought to hit faster, and harder. "
"I hope so too, for all our sakes." Sasha caught her lip in her teeth. "Be careful, Kain."
Carol reached out and squeezed his arm, then stepped past him and went on her way. Kain watched her go.
Matthew, up in Sasha's arms, reached out a fat little hand toward him.
"I'll be all right, boy." Kain reached out and touched the baby's hand. Matthew caught his finger and held it a moment, then let go.
Kain nodded to Sasha, then turned and started back through the town. The whole town watched him mount up and ride out, slow, down the road toward the farm. Everything was in place.