In The Mare's Head

The Mare’s Head served a tasty pie, steaming and surprisingly full of vegetables and poultry. The pastry was a bit dry, but it wasn’t worth complaint. They took a table in the open air eating space, where the sun from the street could reach them and warm their sleeves.

Andrew worked steadily at his pie, hardly looking up, and Galen and Lisveth saw no reason to interrupt him. They ate their own meals, savoring the meaty gravy, until Andrew paused between bites. “I suppose you’ll want to know why I asked you to join me.”

“In your own time.” Lisveth spooned another bite into her mouth.

Galen spoke with his mouth full. “You’re not just hospitable?” He smiled apologetically, still chewing.

“I like to think that I am, but that is not what brings us here together.” Andrew set down his spoon and stared at his plate. “I want you to help my daughter. And to do that, I have to ask you not to think ill of her.”

Lisveth kept eating. “We can hardly think ill of someone we haven’t met.”

Galen nodded agreement, still chewing.

“You might think differently when you hear what I have to say.”

Lisveth shrugged. “Did your daughter fall into the family way? Steal something? Run off with the wrong sort? Hardly an original offense, even if it feels that way.”

“She did run off with the wrong sort,” he said. “Road bandits.”

Galen scooped together a few vegetables. “We know something of road bandits. We’ve even earned bounties on a couple of them.” Which was true, although the bandits had been no one of consequence and the bounties had amounted to a pitiful forty taler all together.

“Really? But I wouldn’t want you to bring in my daughter for a bounty—not that I think she has one,” he added. “But I would pay more for her safe return, in any case. She’s gone along with the Fire Brigand.”

Lisveth stopped chewing. “What?”

“Surely you’ve heard of the Fire Brigand? She robs caravans, burning them unless they pay her a weighty tribute.”

“Oh, of course I’ve heard of her,” Lisveth said dryly. “It’s only that I thought no one else had, not for the last couple of years. Hasn’t she closed up shop, so to speak?”

He shook his head. “I suppose she had, but a few months ago, she reappeared. She and her gang are—”

“Her gang?” Lisveth hastily put another bite in her mouth. “I thought she worked alone.”

“Oh, no, she’s collected a small horde, now including my daughter. They fired out a spice caravan over near the Sung Mountains. She killed three people in the attack and burned another to extort the money chest from the caravan master.” His mouth flattened into a grim line. “I don’t want my girl involved in killing or torturing. And I don’t want any of them turning on her. I want you to bring her back home.”

Galen looked at Lisveth, who was still in her chair. He wondered if she had ever really heard it before, when people talked of the destruction wrought by the Fire Brigand. It probably never really struck her.

But all she said aloud was, “Galen and I know something about runaways. It might help us to have an idea about why she left in the first place.”

Andrew chewed the inside of his cheek. “I just want her back.”

Lisveth looked at him. “Finding her will be difficult, but the harder bit will be convincing her to come back with us. I’m not keen on abducting her and trying to drag her back across foothills and plains and Fortuna-knows-what. I can’t think it will make her happier to reach home, and it’s too dangerous for us. And it won’t help you much if we’re arrested for girl-stealing and she’s on her own again, now with more motivation to hide.”

Andrew looked at his mostly-eaten pie. “We had an argument. A row over a boy, which sounds all too common and stupid when I tell it to you now. But it’s true. We fought over a boy, and I told him he wasn’t to speak to her again or I’d break both his arms, and when he took heed of that, she got angry and ran off.”

“That’s a considerable threat to make. Did you mean it?”

“I did. I gave him a little bend of his shoulder to emphasize my point.”

Lisveth whistled. “I don’t suppose that could have had anything to do with her departure?”

Andrew’s jaw set. “I’m not going to feel sorry about it, if that’s what you mean. I knew him for what he was, and since then, he left the baker’s daughter bloodied and pregnant. I wasn’t going to see that happen to Andrea.”

“Well, that makes some sense,” Lisveth said, more steadily. “We’d need to know a bit more about her: her looks, where you think we might find her, why she might have gone in with the Fire Brigand in particular.”

Galen glanced at her, suspicious at this last phrase, and now he recognized the set of her jaw. Yes, she might care about the missing daughter—she had, after all, taken pity on another hapless runaway once—but she was definitely interested in the Fire Brigand. Galen thought her pride was piqued.

“She wanted to hurt me,” Andrew answered with grim honesty. “My father was our town’s deputy and I’ve done some similar work; she knew joining the lawless would wound me.”

“Why the Fire Brigand?”

“The most lawless, of course. That she-demon is a monster. I imagine hers is the most hated name on the High Road about now.”

Lisveth’s jaw clenched, and Galen knew he’d been right. Her pride had been touched. She didn’t mind the despicable reputation, for she had built that herself—but she minded greatly that it was benefiting someone who had simply stolen it.

“Can you describe her to us?” Galen put in.

“Andrea, after me. Andrea Lawson. She’s got nutmeg-brown hair down to her waist, if she hasn’t cut it, and her nose is a bit…prominent. Doesn’t do a thing to hurt her looks, though. I do have a sketch of her done a couple of years ago.”

“That will help,” Galen said. He realized they had been talking as if they had agreed to take his commission, though he and Lisveth hadn’t spoken yet. But, if Lisveth had the bit in her teeth over this Fire Brigand news, there was probably little point in discussing it. They’d go, and they’d find this new Fire Brigand, and they’d probably even happen to pick up the daughter on the way.

Lisveth wasn’t quite ready to hit the road, however. She nodded and set her forearms on the table, leaning forward. “And how would you like to arrange payment?”