The Hob's Bargain(37)

He wore soft leather boots, rough-finished and undyed. His trousers, what I could see of them underneath the cloak, were dark brown, and there was some kind of embroidery on them. The cloak itself was of the same raw leather as his boots, but it was embroidered with all sorts of outlandish things. Minuscule red and black beads were sewn along the hem of the cloak as thickly as ants in their nest.

From his shoulders, strands of much larger red beads, some the size of walnuts, hung down in random lengths. Small, blue-black feathers were sewn into the hood, giving him the appearance of some sort of giant bird. In his left hand he held a wooden staff, dark and dull with age. The hand was charcoal gray and tipped with formidable claws.

I'd slowed Duck to a walk when we started the steep climb, and now I brought him to a halt. The hob, for I supposed it was he, stopped as well, turning to face me.

Under the hood of his cloak, his face was shrouded in shadows that seemed darker than the hood alone warranted. He did not speak, and now that I'd found what I had sought, I wondered if I could make him understand what I needed of him.

Finally, I cleared my throat and began, awkwardly, "My thanks, lord, for your rescue of me when the - "

"Hillgrim," he supplied, his voice as rough and earthy' as the bark on an old elm tree, though his accent was as native as any born to Fallbrook. "Your folks called them hobgoblins as well. But as they're neither goblins nor hobs, I don't use that name. Mucky-smelling things, goblins - though not as annoying as the grims. I am no one's lord. You may call me... Caefawn."

He seemed friendly, though the hillgrim had fooled me in a similar fashion. I frowned at him a moment. Something about the way he spoke the last sentence called my attention to it. He'd sounded amused. "What does Caefawn mean?"

He drew back as if affronted, but there was amusement in his voice when he answered me. "It is who I am, Lady."

There was a story there, and if Caefawn was his real name, I'd eat my cinch. He sounded too satisfied with it. I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering for a moment if I was attributing human characteristics to someone - or something - arguably not human at all. I dismounted in order to give myself some time to think.

"If you are no lord, then I am no lady - call me Aren." I remembered something Gram said to me once, a reason the hob wouldn't give me his name. Names had power, she said, and the wildlings kept their names to themselves.

"Ah, but every lovely woman is a lady in her own right," he said.

I frowned at him. I couldn't afford to have him take me lightly - besides, I didn't like it. The village men talked down to all the women. I hadn't noticed it until they'd quit doing it to me. They treated me as they'd treat a man, even those who were wary or frightened of my talents. "Call me Aren if you want me to answer."

It occurred to me - too late, as usual - that arguing with the hob about names was a stupid thing to do when approaching him for help. I'd come here prepared to grovel, and I would, if he'd quit... flirting with me. No one knew where Kith was.

"Aren, then," he agreed blandly, but I had the impression he was laughing at me. "And Caefawn will do, Aren. It is not my name, but it is indeed what I am." He touched his staff to the ground gently. "You come for the hob's bargain."

"The what?"

"Ah," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. "Before the king's mages came, claiming this land for whatever kingdom they owed their allegiance, human and hob lived side by side. There were things the humans had that my people did not. For these our peoples would trade. One thing for another, by which bargain neither party was the worse."

"You"  -  he pushed back his hood - "need my help, no?"

I remembered those features clearly, but even so, face-to-face they were shocking. Reddish-brown eyes, cat-slitted and slanted, laughed out of a dark gray face. If he had been a carving, I would have said he was beautiful, but the color of his skin and eyes made it difficult to see past the strangeness. Black hair threaded with silver and white was pulled back into a thick braid that disappeared in the depths of his cloak.

His ears were pointed and large; the right one was pierced several times with a chain that looked as if it were made of tiny wooden lengths woven in and out though the piercings. Three small, red feathers dangled from the end of the chain.

When he smiled at me, I saw his eyeteeth were long, like the fangs of a cat. His ears fanned gently; from the expression on his face, he did it to frighten me - like a child clapping his hands to tease a deer into running away.

The knowledge he was doing it on purpose didn't stop it from being unsettling, but it did make me mad. I felt my jaw jut out in an unladylike fashion that aggravated the soreness from the blow I'd taken in practice last night.

I'd rehearsed this speech all the way here, but I had intended to deliver it in supplicating tones, not bark at him like a territorial dog. "We need your help. There are raiders in the valley, and we can't stop them alone. I don't know what we can provide to you in return, but if you can help us, you are welcome to anything we have."

"Don't promise so easily," he chided, apparently not upset with my tone of voice. "I will talk to your elders before we seal the bargain." He tilted his head and looked out over the valley. "First, I will prove to them that my help is useful."