The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter (Riyria Chronicles #4)

A light rain began to fall as they entered the city—more a nuisance than a problem, but Hadrian suspected that might change as the drops multiplied, the sun set, and the air turned colder. This was something else he remembered: The weather was as unpredictable as the people. According to the stars, spring was less than a week away, but the cool air had a different opinion. Pulling his own hood up, Hadrian tightened the collar as he and Royce waited atop their horses, caught in the traffic of a busy street.

“Any idea where we should go?” Royce asked as the two waited side by side just to the rear of a carriage, which was stopped behind a wagon being unloaded.

“I’m thinking an inn or at least a tavern of some sort. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

“A lot of these stands sell food,” Royce pointed out. “That one is selling lamb, I think.”

“It’s nearly spring, most vendors will have lamb, but let’s get indoors. I’d prefer not to get soaked on a night that’s already turning cold.”

Hadrian looked down the street at signs for potential havens: ABERNATHY’S ANTIQUE APOTHECARY; BOOTHMAN & FULLER GLASS; HINKEL’S HEART-STOPPING HATS; FISKE & PINE TALISMANS, AMULETS, AND WARDS. “Lots of shops, but no inns that I can see.”

The wagon finished its delivery and rolled on. With no clear idea where to go, Royce and Hadrian followed the flow of traffic, trusting it the same way they sometimes relied on their horses to lead them to water. Much to Hadrian’s amazement, the streets became even more congested as they reached a stone bridge. Wide as it was, the span across the Roche River was choked with traffic. Off to their right, a forest of ships’ masts marked the location of the city’s harbor, while ahead and up on a hill stood a grand estate behind a wall. Crossing the bridge, they discovered they were on an island. Traffic urged them around the walled manor and to another bridge. Crossing this second one, they found a large plaza bordered by a huge cathedral and more shops. Although it didn’t seem possible, this plaza was even more packed with people. A sea of heads bobbed along in a slow-flowing current.

The architecture throughout the city was unusual and more pronounced near the center. Most buildings were constructed from stone and elegantly designed. Not only were they taller than the houses at the edge of town, but they had a grand quality expressed in the many subtle flourishes and unnecessary accoutrements: cupolas were numerous, as were spires. Even the smaller shops had an excess of fanciful gables. Doors were elaborately carved, as were supporting structures and the borders around windows. In towns like Medford, decorations of this sort would depict grapevines or flowers, but in Rochelle, grotesque, twisted faces peered out. Ornamental rainspouts were fashioned so that fantastic monsters, monkeys, lions, and nightmarish creatures belched forth the rain that ran from the slate-tiled roofs. Everything appeared ancient, worn, and weathered from centuries of storms. And everywhere was statuary.

One statue literally stood head and shoulders above the rest. In the grand plaza on the far bank of the Roche River, a monumental figure of a man loomed. Chiseled of pristine white marble, it stood seventeen feet tall and was as perfect a specimen of humanity as any Hadrian had ever seen. Lean, muscled, and youthful, the figure was carved with one shoulder down and a knee locked—a casual stance so life-like it could have been a giant covered in flour. The bare-chested man grasped a sword, point down, in his right hand. Novron, Hadrian guessed and it wasn’t a particularly difficult conclusion seeing as how the statue was positioned directly in front of a massive cathedral. The figure sported all the traditional tropes of the demi-god: long hair, perfect physique, and the unmistakable sword. If it wasn’t Novron, the Rochelle chapter of the Church of Nyphron had some explaining to do.

“There!” Royce pointed to a signboard: BLACK SWAN HOSTELRY.

They steered to the side, working their way out of the flow of people. Hadrian waited with the animals while Royce went in. He came back out only a few minutes later. “No vacancy. Place is packed.”

They moved on to the Gray Fox Inn and then the Hound’s Tooth, and finally The Iron Crown. Every room was taken.

“They have a waiting list,” Royce explained after returning with the bad news. “A bunch of people are hoping that someone might leave.” Royce climbed back aboard his saddle and in a quiet voice said, “Fella inside told me our best bet is a place called the Dirty Tankard. Says it’s up this way.”

Having drifted out of the more populated areas, Hadrian was both pleased and dismayed—happy to be away from the press of the crowd but uneasy as options ran out. He’d hoped to find someplace soon, especially since the rain was coming down harder. Crossing another smaller and less distinguished bridge, the two entered a neighborhood of equally narrow but darker streets. Shops were scarce, barkers and vendor carts completely absent. The Dirty Tankard lived up to its name: a dingy shack that reminded Hadrian of The Hideous Head before Gwen took it over and turned it into the much-improved Rose and the Thorn. Despite the Tankard’s run-down appearance, a line of people stretched out the door and wound down an oily street.

Dismounting, Royce tied their mounts as Hadrian took a place in line. He could hear the rain on the inn’s roof growing louder.

“Is de festival,” the woman in front said to the man ahead of her. She pronounced the word fest-e-vole, forcing Hadrian to puzzle it out. “Always busy dis time o’ year.”

“Yes, but dis is a special year, taint it? Every-von coming.”

“Don’t know why. Not going to make no difference to most of dees folks here, now is it?”

“Why you here?”

“Same as you. To see how much a difference it doesn’t make.”

Royce rushed up, his hood taking on the shine it did when wet.

“When is the festival?” Hadrian asked the group ahead of him.

The woman turned. Middle-aged and dark-skinned, she had bright almond eyes. She gave the pair a puzzled look as she studied their clothes. She glanced at the horses tied to the nearby post. “You looking for a place to stay?”

Hadrian and Royce both nodded.

“You don’t want dis place.” She spoke with the same conviction as if they were all waiting in line before an executioner’s block.

More heads turned. Hadrian saw the face of the man she had been speaking to and another woman looking back—all Calians. Ahead of them stood a pair of dwarves in traveling clothes holding satchels over their shoulders.

“She’s right, you don’t belong here,” one of the dwarves said. “You should be in the Merchant District or Old Town. This place—” the dwarf hooked a thumb at the Dirty Tankard—“is awful.”

“We tried,” Hadrian replied. “They’re all full.”

“There’s a room on Mill Street.” The person who said this wasn’t in line. She sat on the side of the road, her back up against the wall, wrapped in a sheet of worn sail canvas. She looked young, and Hadrian might have considered her a girl except that in her lap lay a bundled child. Hadrian hadn’t even noticed her until she spoke.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you in line?” Hadrian apologized.

“No,” she replied. “I’m not in line.” She said the words hesitantly, as if unsure whether he had been making a joke.

“Where is that room?” Royce pressed.

She pointed. “An old woman lets it out. There’s no sign, but it’s available. Down there. The one with blue shutters and matching door, just up the hill from the bookbindery, back toward the Merchant District.”

Royce looked the way she gestured. “If you know about this place, why are you sitting in the rain?” He glanced at the child. “Why don’t you take it? Is it expensive?”

This made several people in line laugh.

“Where you two from?” the Calian ahead of them asked.

“Not from here,” Royce said pointedly.

“Of course not. Wouldn’t be talking to her if you were. Or me, I suppose.”

“Wouldn’t be waiting to get into the Tankard, either,” one of the dwarves said.

“The lady who lets out the room on Mill Street is from here,” the mother with the baby said, as if this explained everything. When she saw it didn’t, she added, “I could knock on her door all day, and she’d never open for the likes of me.”