Green Rider

“I haven’t heard the news of late. It’s been a long while since I’ve traveled through a town of any size.”

“I guessed. Your ribs must be bare bones beneath that shirt. Ah, well. Most aren’t sure what to make of Lorilie, but they can’t dispute her ideas.” She collected the remains of Karigan’s dinner and ambled away toward the kitchen.

Karigan glanced over at the Anti-Monarchy Society. They talked among themselves in excited voices while Lorilie Dorran watched on, somehow separate and above her companions. Then she turned as if feeling Karigan’s gaze on her and smiled. With a word or two to her companions, she sauntered over.

“Are you interested in our group, sister?” she asked.

“Uh . . . I don’t know what you’re about, except that you don’t like kings.”

Lorilie pointed to the chair Clatheas had occupied earlier. “You mind?” Karigan shook her head and Lorilie sat down. “We are more than what some call us—King-Haters.” She made a wry face. “Our desire is to uplift the common folk who presently slave beneath the oppressive forces of the aristocracy.”

“I’m all for showing the aristocracy a thing or two,” Karigan said, “but I don’t understand the slave part. Slavery was banned in Sacoridia during the Second Age.”

“Oh, they won’t call it slavery, but that’s what it is. Land-less folk breaking their backs to fill the pockets of their overlords.”

“Overlords?”

“The landowners—the aristocracy. And of course it’s the common folk who pay the bulk of the taxes, while the aristocrats and merchants get fatter.”

“Wait a minute.” Karigan sat up a little straighter. “Merchants pay taxes.”

“Yes, they do, but it’s not proportionate with their wealth. They should be taxed more heavily, but they are favored by the king.” Lorilie leaned forward conspiratorially and put her hand on Karigan’s wrist. “Look, sister, we’re all in this together. Only by ousting the king and the aristocracy will we be able to raise the people to their proper level.”

“Hey, Lorilie!” called one of her friends. “Skeller wants to go over tomorrow’s speech.”

Lorilie nodded. “One moment.” Then again her intense eyes were on Karigan. “Sister, a revolution has begun, and a new order will arise.” She smiled grimly, then joined her followers. She spoke softly to them, and they huddled close to her. Then, after a bout of loud laughter, they left the inn.

Karigan swallowed the last of her wine. A revolution? A new order? It was too mind-boggling for one who had been on the road so long. Although the dig about merchants annoyed her, and understandably so . . . Everyone had the opportunity to do as her father had—to gain wealth and status through backbreaking work. And would Lorilie Dorran punish her father for all his good work, and for supporting commerce in Sacoridia?

I don’t even want to think about it. I’ve got enough problems to last nine lives of a cat.

Karigan stretched and yawned. The wine and food had made her somnolent, and the sooner to bed, the sooner to rise and leave North behind. As she strode across the common room, the minstrel’s eyes followed her without his missing a note of the song he sang. She scowled at him, then realized that several of the men in the common room, many lumberjacks by the look of their wool shirts and broad shoulders, followed her with their eyes, too.

The servant met her at the bottom of the stairs. “Don’t concern yourself with these lugs, missy. Innkeeper Wiles keeps order here, though he can’t keep the men from looking.” She rolled her eyes knowingly. “This is a respectable inn. If they want the company of a . . . woman, there are plenty of other inns in town where they can find it.”

“Thanks,” Karigan said. She wondered how the innkeeper enforced order in such a rough town, but was glad to hear that he did so one way or the other.

Once in her room, she changed into the oversized Green Rider shirt to wear to bed. She sank into the comfortable feather mattress anticipating a restful night, but discovered she could only toss and turn. Voices and the clatter of dish-ware disturbed her some, but it was the events of the day that jostled around in her mind and kept her awake.

In the small hours, when the music and chatter in the common room died down, sleep began to take her, but she suddenly jolted awake, quivering. The hairs on her arms stood on end, and her heart beat wildly, but she didn’t know what had roused her. Then there it was, faint, barely perceived footfalls in the corridor outside her room. A worn floorboard creaked.

A shadow darkened the crack between the door and floor, then passed over the keyhole. The doorknob twisted one way, then the other. Karigan held her breath, stiffened, listening, afraid to move. Her sword was on the other side of the room with the brooch.

A sharp light pierced through the keyhole, searching, probing.

Karigan sat up and threw the covers aside. The cold night spread goosepimples across her body as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She tiptoed across the icy floor, took up her saber, and waited by the door.

Strangely, the door seemed to flex and swim in her eyes. She blinked, but the door still distorted and warped in fluid motions, and she felt with a creeping certainty that it wasn’t her own groggy vision that warped the door, but magic. She reached for her brooch unconsciously, and discovered it was warm to her touch. The door would give in moments, and with growing apprehension, she knew it was the Shadow Man, the rider in gray, who intended to enter her room.