Rain Summoner Act 2

Han let his gaze wander all around the somber halls of Dol's castle. He had worked in the barley field for a month, but no one had summoned him inside until today.

The great hall was narrower than he expected. He took in every sharp, unfriendly stone and the patchy spider webs overlooked by housekeeping. Long wooden tables lined the cramped walkway, decorated by a crowd of urns. Han’s imagination filled them with the ashes of Dol’s family.

The distinct sound of a bird flapping its wings echoed overhead. Han stepped under the thorny arm of a potted vine to avoid the bird as it passed, moving carefully away from the thorns as soon as the coast was clear. Standing so close to them made him uneasy.

The vines climbed from elegant brass pots in rows all along the hall. They looked like giant versions of the weeds Han spent his days pulling out of the barley field.

They weren’t the usual quiet, well-mannered sort of vines Han stepped over in the woods when he and his neighbors went foraging for blueberries. Ages ago, when Han’s parents were young and unwed, Dol received a gift of great power from a spirit. With it, he had once covered his castle in a blanket of thorns and defended the granary in a siege Han’s neighbors still whispered about.

Not much was known about spirits, but they were rumored to be a picky, malicious lot. Han’s father was petrified of them and said they were ghosts who had stayed too long in the world of the living.

The door was ajar when Han tiptoed past Dol’s counting room. He stopped and leaned close to the gap to peek inside. It was a dark room with few furnishings and only one small window. The faint, bitter odor of freshly turned earth and compost clung to the walls.

A fine-robed figure hunched over a desk in the shadows, groaning and mumbling as if doomed to eternal toil. Dol was wrinkled and pale, and his beard hung in a mossy braid over his chest. His wrinkled hands worked with small, shining piles in front of him. The soft clink of money told Han the old warlord was counting his coins.

Han liked to investigate. Damion, Lord Dol’s scribe, paid him two extra salt coins a week to do so. At not-quite-nine, he was already earning more than either of his parents.

Oddly, he had yet to accrue a reputation as Dol's stooge. Mostly, he just asked the other workers what they were about and reported their uninspiring responses to Damion. It wasn’t much of an investigation.

What Han preferred was sleuthing through Dol’s grounds. It was a green, sprawling place with gloomy corners and outside cellar doors that seemed to lead to nowhere. He often spent as much time as he could getting ‘lost’ between completing assignments and reporting back to Damion.

Once, he found a hall underground that seemed to stretch on forever, but the daylight only reached so far, and he knew better than to ask for a light of his own to explore it. The trickling sound of dirt shifting further in returned to him some nights when he was trying to fall asleep. He wondered what use Dol made of a cellar like that.

Dol cleared his throat, wrenching Han out of his daydreams. His voice was hoarse and irritable. “Is that you wasting time out there, Damion?”

Han backed away from the door and hurried across the cramped walkway. He hid beside another of the potted vines in case Dol came out to punish him.

A door creaked open at the end of the hall. Damion’s flushed, square head emerged to glare at Han. “Come away from there, you fool.”

Han left the twisting shadow of the vine and followed Damion to a crooked room full of covered up furniture. He grabbed Han’s freckled hand and swatted it with the leather-bound account book he always carried at his side. “If I catch you wandering about like that again, I’ll send you back to work in the barley. Lord Dol doesn’t need any more cause to complain.”

Han hid his hands behind his back and stood straighter. “Yes, sir.”

Damion was none too tall, but he stood like a pillar in front of Han. His white-knuckled fingers held tight to the account book. He only seemed to write in it when he was frustrated, and Han was convinced he had filled it with insults directed at Dol and his many workers.

Damion snapped his fingers when he noticed Han’s attention had strayed. “I understand you know the errand girl who goes to market for Lord Dol.” His gaze was accusatory. “Is that so?”

Han chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Am I in trouble for something she did?”

Irritation conjured wrinkles between Damion's eyebrows. “Answer the question.”

Han took a small step back in case Damion decided to smack him with the book again. “She’s a neighbor in my father’s hamlet down the way.”

“Good,” Damion said. He didn’t sound any more pleased than he had before. “She won’t find it odd if you approach her. She’s been late returning these last few weeks. Lord Dol is prepared to pay you three salt coins to go and find out why.”

“Three?” Han was paid half a salt coin each day to rip weeds out of the field. Two bought him and his father each a fine dinner of roast sparrow and onions poached from Dol’s forest. Three salt coins for one day's work? Han could hardly believe his fortune.

Damion didn’t seem to think much of the offer. “If it takes you the better part of the day to find her, you may forego your duties in the field,” he said, a prospect that thrilled Han to no end. “Look at me. Under no circumstances are you to let her know we sent you.”

“What if she’s only meeting a sweetheart? Will I still get three coins?”

“If that's all, she’ll have her wages docked. She can be in love on her own time.”

Han’s attention piqued. “Do you suppose it’s something else?”

Damion’s forehead creased in unease. He was starting to look older than his forty years, a number he’d complained about endlessly the month before. “There are tales coming in from the countryside. Invaders from Isulfr. They send interlopers ahead and compromise towns before they strike. People one has known all one’s life begin acting strangely. The next thing one knows, one and one’s neighbors go missing in the night.” Damion dabbed under his chin with a square of lace. “I won’t have that happening here.”

Han cleared his throat. “Where did Lord Dol send her today?”

“To the capital. But she’s gone and disappeared in the hamlet’s direction again.” Damion tucked one of his ash-blond curls back under his velvet cap. “I had one of the sentries watch her from the tower.”

A chill ran up Han’s spine. “The sentries? Do they mean to shoot her?”

Damion narrowed his eyes. “If she’s been dealing with invaders, we’ll want her alive for questioning. They can sentence her in the capitol.”

A cold, fuzzy feeling overtook Han’s arms and legs. He opened his mouth to ask if they would really send Dagny to the capital’s mercy just for talking to someone, but Damion knocked him on the head with the leather book.

“Don’t concern yourself with the details. Get a move on if you wish to see any wages today.”

Han scrambled out of the room with conflicting visions of crossbow bolts firing out of the tower and a string full of salt coins swirling in his head. He didn’t know what to make of Damion’s talk of invaders.

Han had grown up getting gossip from Dol’s errand girl. She was the closest thing he had to a friend his age, and she was ten years his senior. He couldn’t imagine her sneaking off to chat with invaders all day.

He was so enveloped by worry, he walked into one of Dol’s vines. A white-hot sting in his arm nettled him into the present. He looked down. One of the thorns had pierced his sleeve.

He stepped back and tried to dislodge the thorn from his jacket, but it curled deeper into the weave. An ominous whispering eked from the soil in the pot.

Han grabbed onto the thorn and broke it from the plant. The whispering stopped, and he tore the thorn out of his sleeve. He cast it on the floor and bolted for the big open doors to the outside.

Heavy clouds rolled low in the sky as Han pushed aside the broken gate to his father’s hamlet. He covered his nose with his arm when the smell hit him. The reek of sewage from the river and fish drying on racks covered the scratchy dirt lanes in a fog.

He peeked through the doorways of a few houses, but there was no sign of Dol’s errand girl. He tried the riverside. His father was always out fishing at that time of day, and sure enough, the communal raft was missing.

The old widow who lived next to Han’s house bent over the parsnips in her garden. She waved to Han with a warm, gap-toothed smile. She waved to everyone when they went by.

If anyone knew where the errand girl had gone, the widow would.

The chickens in the widow’s coop clucked and flapped their wings as Han climbed over her short garden fence. It wasn’t as wobbly as it used to be. “Have you seen Dagny?” he asked, growing more afraid all the time.

“Dagny? She’s been sneaking off to the orchard over the hill with a big grin on her face.” The widow pursed her lips. “I figured she’s making extra wages helping the farmer over there. I told her not to keep going there while she’s working for Dol. Saints help her if she’s angered him.”

Han hurried up the hill and paused at the well to wrestle out a bucket of water. He gulped down a handful and poured the rest over his head. He knew it was wasteful, but he was sweaty and miserable, and the smell of the hamlet hung around him like a cloak.

A cheerful voice rose from the other side of the hill. “Slacking off, are we?”

Han snapped to attention. “You’re in trouble with Damion,” he warned.

“I expected so.” Dagny beamed as she hopped onto the rim of the well and took a seat. “But it’s no matter, now. I won’t be working for those old crabs much longer.”

Han watched her carefully. “Because the orchard offered you a job?”

Her round gray eyes took on a prideful, far-off gaze, and she lifted her soft chin in the air. “Nah, I’ve been talking to someone real clever. Your Dagny’s got herself an advisor.” She punched the word ‘advisor' with a boastful flair. “I’m to leave after supper tonight. You’ll be in for a new line of work, too, the way I hear it.”

The shadow of an invader loomed in Han’s imagination. “You’ve not sold us out, have you?”

Dagny's thin blond eyebrows shot up. “I only tell her what I hear from Dol. She likes hearing the gossip is all. What’s this about selling you out? You've imagined me into a spy?”

Han couldn’t get the tension out of his shoulders. The early summer air sharpened with an oncoming rain, and he shivered in his wet clothes. “Damion’s talking about handing you over to the capital.”

Dagny’s pink cheeks turned the color of a fish’s belly. Even her lips went white. “Saints preserve me.”

Fear made her sound short of breath as she explained. “The woman up the hill gives out business advice, that’s all. Sometimes she’ll help you out in exchange for a little gossip. I’m to start work as a broker for a wine merchant; I’ve not been talking to spies!” She paused, suddenly managing to look more worried and uncertain than she had a moment ago. “Have I?”

Han wasn’t sure what to do. “I could try telling Damion the truth.”

Dagny shook her head so fast that one of her hairpins jostled loose. “He never listens past the first word. Tell him I was taking care of a sick friend. That I took ill and couldn’t finish the errands today.” She rummaged through her apron with shaking hands until she pulled out a list and a coin purse with a copper pin fixed to the front. “Here. Once I’m gone, Dol'll start looking for a new errand runner. If you finish up my work today, he might hire you. It’s a mite cushier than field work; just don’t get them pointing fingers at you like I did.”

A bitter ache scratched at Han’s insides. Dagny was a plague orphan, like he had almost been. She didn’t have family roots in the province to keep her there.

“How far are you going to go?” he asked her.

She took a drink from the well and breathed deep. “My new job’s in a town down South. I got some money saved up for food on the wagon ride.”

He stared at the black script on the page she had given him. He couldn’t read it, but he recognized Damion’s stern handwriting. “What’s this for?”

Dagny stopped and turned around. She must have forgotten Han’s station forbade him the world of reading. “He wants some wine from the Queen’s reserve and a new mule. Since the invaders are running wild in the next counties over, he figures we’ll be carrying heavier hauls on errands.” She turned to head back for a broken spot in the orchard’s fence.

“Where’m I supposed to find a mule?”

She called over her shoulder before ducking under a low-hanging bough. “There's loads of animals for sale in the Tooth Market.” She hopped over the fallen post and crouched to face him one last time. “That’s where I do all my shopping. Dol never asks because it always costs him less than if I go to the proper people. Someone there's bound to have that wine for cheap, too. Those merchants are the type who can’t afford to hang onto it, you know?”

Han’s skin crawled at the idea of venturing into the Tooth Market by himself. He had been to the capital once or twice with his father, when they'd gone to sell loose teeth. Just past the main gate, a poorly lit right turn led to a labyrinth of streets where thieves and murderers stood behind stalls, selling everything from seeds to people dug out of their graves. The guards who patrolled there were all paid to look the other way. Rumor had it some of them assisted.

Dagny vanished through the green arms bowing over the broken fence before he could ask her anything else. His heart sank. He didn’t suppose he’d ever see her again.