Nolan Orvyn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Nolan watched the rider crest the ridge from the blacksmith's doorway. One man, riding easy. That meant scouts, not soldiers. A scout meant a report, and a report meant a company on the road by dusk. He had hours, not days. He could not walk the ridge road as himself. Grey beard, patched coat, the limp in his left knee — any old guardsman from the valley would know him in a glance. He stepped back inside. The sweeper girl still held the bundle against her apron. "I need clothes that aren't mine," he said. "And I need to be off this ridge before dark." She set the bundle on a shelf behind the bellows and covered it with a rag. "The smith keeps a trunk in the loft. Traveler's things. Left by men who didn't come back for them." "Show me." She climbed the ladder first. He followed slower. In the loft stood a suit of old armor on a wooden frame, plates dented, straps cracked, a helm with a narrow slit for the eyes. Beside it, a cedar trunk. She opened the trunk and pulled out a drover's cloak, a wide felt hat, a stained scarf, and boots larger than his own. Nolan looked at the armor. "Whose was that?" "A man who paid to have it stored. Ten winters back. He never came." He almost reached for it. Armor would answer the blade in his back. It would also announce him from a mile off. A woodcutter in plate was a story that traveled faster than he could ride. He took the cloak and hat instead. He pulled the scarf up over his beard. He stuffed rag into the toes of the borrowed boots and stood. The girl looked him over. "Walk," she said. He walked the length of the loft. She shook her head. "Your back gives you away. Bend it. You're a drover, not a captain." He bent it. He tried again. She nodded once. "There's a farmer taking a cow elk and her calf down to the market road at dusk," she said. "He owes the smith money. He'll take a quiet man on the cart and not ask." "Send me with him." She went down the ladder. He heard her cross the yard, speak low to someone, come back. When she climbed up again, she carried a mug of ash from the forge. "Your hands," she said. He held them out. She rubbed ash into his palms and up his wrists until the skin looked like a working man's who had never held a seal. She stopped at the ring. She did not touch it. She only glanced up at him, and he turned the band further inward with his thumb. At dusk he climbed onto the cart behind the elk and her calf. The rider from the ridge passed them going the other way. He did not turn his head.