Read Liars and Thieves (A Company of Liars short story) for Free Online

her onto the fire.
    ‘But you said you wanted to know if it was the real stone,’ Narigorm said, sweetly. ‘Now you’ll be able to see if it turns red.’
    Pecker peered into the pit. ‘Can’t see it at all in those hot embers.
    ‘Then it must have gone red, mustn’t it?’ Narigorm said.
    Pecker frowned suspiciously, staring down into the fire, his eyes watering from the smoke.
    Narigorm turned back to me. ‘We must leave now,’ she said firmly, as if it was her decision to make.
    Pecker glanced up sharply.
    ‘Is this a trick? Maybe she didn’t throw it in the fire at all. She’s got a cutpurse’s fingers, like Weasel, can make things vanish. No, brat, you’re staying right here till that stone’s in my hand. ’Sides, we need his Highness to tell us how it works. So we’ll just keep all of you here, nice and safe, till he gets bored of hiding in the forest and comes to find you.’
    Rodrigo’s knife was in his hand again. ‘You are fools if you think you can keep us here. Maybe you could hold an old man and a pregnant woman, but not all of us together.’
    Dye held up her hands in a gesture of conciliation. ‘Take no notice of Pecker. Manners of a charging boar, he has. He’s not used to fine company. What he means is, why don’t you stay here for the night, keep warm by the fire? Lass in her condition can’t go traipsing through the forest in the dark. If she falls, she could lose the bairn. ’Sides, that horse of yours is lame. It won’t be going anywhere in a hurry. And I’ve seen the way you was eyeing the pot. I reckon you’ve not had a bite all day. Strapping man like you needs his meats.’
    Narigorm glared at Dye.
    ‘We are going now!’ She pointed to the corpses. ‘If Adela sleeps with death, her baby will die.’
    Adela clutched at Osmond in alarm.
    ‘Never you mind about them,’ Dye said. ‘Pecker and Jack’ll shift them,
right now
, won’t you? You’ve eaten a bellyful, lass. Give your elders a chance to get something hot inside them.’
    ‘Let them go,’ Holy Jack growled from across the clearing. ‘Cut our throats while we sleep, they will.’
    But I noticed he was not looking at Rodrigo’s knife, but at Narigorm. He was afraid of her and it wasn’t just her white hair. He saw something malevolent in that child, something that up to then I thought only I could see.
    The temptation of a hot meal proved too much for Osmond, Rodrigo and Jofre. Once the corpses had been removed by Pecker and Jack, they dug into the common pot with nearly as much gusto as Narigorm had done.
    Pecker was painstakingly raking through the fire with part of an old pickaxe blade. The metal hit something solid among the wood ash. He flicked it out. The egg-shaped stone momentarily glowed red, but as he rolled it away from the flame it turned black again, though unlike its namesake, the salamander, it was still far too hot to touch. Pecker sat there watching it intently as it cooled, as if he expected it to hatch, but it lay as dead as any one of the thousands of rocks and pebbles that were scattered around us. As soon as he could handle it, Pecker rolled it in the woollen cloth he’d taken from the monk and slipped it inside his tunic.
    Neither Zophiel nor Weasel returned to the camp. I thought Weasel might sidle back, but I did not expect Zophiel to put himself into the hands of the outlaws again. I had no idea whether he was hiding in the forest, was wandering lost, or had managed to make his way back to Cygnus and the wagon. In any case, it would be pointless to search for him in the dark and I suspected Jofre, at least, would be relieved to be spending a night free from his constant jibes, for along with Cygnus he was usually the butt of Zophiel’s stinging sarcasm.
    ‘What’s the lass doing?’ Dye asked.
    I glanced over to where Narigorm was sitting cross-legged, staring at something on the ground. My heart sank as I caught sight of the three concentric circles she had drawn in the