Gruntle’s sudden growl silenced them both. They were now following the hoof prints and various furrows of things being dragged in the wake of the animals. In the squat houses to either side, muted lights flickered through thick-glassed win shy;dows. The sound of draining water surrounded them, along with the occasional distant rumble of thunder. The air mocked with the freshness that came after a storm.
‘There they are,’ said Amby, pointing. ‘Just past that low wall. You see them, Gruntle? You see them?’
A corral. The wreckage of the carriage high bench was scattered along the base of the stone wall.
Reaching it, they paused, squinted at the field of churned-up mud, the horses huddled at the far end — eyeing them suspiciously — and there, something sprawled near the middle. A body. Far off to the left was one of the carriage wheels.
Gruntle leading the way, they climbed the wall and set out for Glanno Tarp.
As they drew closer, they could hear him talking.
‘. . and so she wasn’t so bad, compared to Nivvy, but it was years before I surre shy;alized not all women talked that way, and if I’d a known, well, I probably would never have agreed to it. I mean, I have some decency in me, I’m sure of it. It was the way she carried on pretending she was nine years old, eyes so wide, all those cute things she did which, when you think about, was maybe cute some time, long ago, but now — I mean, her hair was going grey, for Hood’s sake — oh, you found me. Good. No, don’t move me just yet, my leg is broke and maybe a shoulder too, and an arm, wrist, oh, and this finger here, it’s sprained. Get Quell — don’t go moving me without Quell, all right? Thanks. Now, where was I? Nivvy? No, that stall keeper, Luft, now she didn’t last, for the reasons I experplained before. It was months before I found me a new woman — well, before Coutre found me, would be more reaccurate. She’d just lost all her hair. .’
The carriage wheel had moved slightly. Gruntle had caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and, leaving Glanno babbling on to the Boles, who stood looking down with mouths hanging open, he set out for it.
He sheathed his cutlasses and heaved at the wheel. It resisted until, with a thick slurping sound, it lifted clear of the mud and Gruntle pushed it entirely upright.
Cartographer was a figure seemingly composed entirely of clay, still bound by the wrists and ankle to the spokes. The face worked for a time, pushing out lumps of mud from its mouth, and then the corpse said, ‘It’s the jam-smeared bread thing, isn’t it?’
‘Look at that,’ Quell said.
Precious Thimble made a warding gesture and then spat thrice, up, down, straight ahead. ‘Blackdog Swamp,’ she said. ‘Mott Wood. This was why I left, dammit! That’s the problem with Jaghut, they show up everywhere.’
Behind them, Mappo grunted but otherwise offered no comment.
The tower was something between square and round, the corners either weath shy;ered down by centuries and centuries of wind or deliberately softened to ease that same buffeting, howling wind. The entranceway was a narrow gloomy recess be shy;neath a mossy lintel stone, the moss hanging in beards that dripped in a curtain of rainwater, each drop popping into eroded hollows on the slab of the landing.
‘So,’ said Quell with brittle confidence, ‘the village Provost went and moved into a Jaghut tower. That was brave-’
‘Stupid.’
‘Stupidly brave, yes.’
‘Unless,’ she said, sniffing the air. ‘That’s the other problem with Jaghut. When they build towers, they live in them. For ever.’
Quell groaned. ‘I was pretending not to think that, Witch.’
‘As if that would help.’
‘It helped me!’
‘There’s two things we can do,’ Precious Thimble announced. ‘We can turn right round and ignore the curse and all that and get out of this town as fast as possible.’
‘Or?’
‘We can go up to that door and knock.’
Quell rubbed at his chin, glanced back at a silent Mappo, and then once more eyed the tower. ‘This witchery — this curse here, Precious, that strikes when a woman comes of age.’
‘What about it? It’s a damned old one, a nasty one.’
‘Can you break it?’
‘Not likely. All we can hope to do is make the witch or warlock change her or his mind about it. The caster can surrender it a whole lot more easily than someone else can break it.’
‘And if we kill the caster?’
She shrugged. ‘Could go either way, Wizard. Poof! Gone. Or. . not. Anyway, you’re stepping sideways, Quell. We were talking about this. . this Provost.’
‘Not sideways, Witch. I was thinking, well, about you and Sweetest Sufferance and Faint, that’s all.’
All at once she felt as if she’d just swallowed a fistful of icy knuckles. Her throat ached, her stomach curdled. ‘Oh, shit.’
‘And since,’ Quell went on remorselessly, ‘it’s going to be a day or two before we can effect repairs — at best — well. .’
‘I think we’d better knock,’ she said.
‘All right. Just let me, er, empty my bladder first.’
He walked off to the stone-lined gutter to his left. Mappo went off a few paces in the other direction, to rummage in his sack.
