Free Conqueror’s Moon by Julian May

of the interior peepholes. He could see nothing through it, but smelled candle-wax and incense. A chapel storage room, no doubt, windowless and deserted.
    He giggled. “Lucky again, Snudge!” Found the lantern, rekindled it with his talent, dusted himself down as well as he could, and started off.
    ==========
    Suppertime for the stablehands: chunks of black bread, hot mutton pottage thick with barley and onions and carrots, cannikins of strong brown Vanguard ale, famous in the north country. The duke’s men and the grooms and horseknaves of the visiting nobles were gathered together around a flaming brazier in the small arcade between the smithy and the saddlery, cursing the kitchenboys for ladling portions deemed too small and loudly demanding more ale when the first barrel was emptied.
    Snudge dodged past that well-lit area into a shadowed corridor beside the granary and hay-store, where he came upon a stack of iron-bound wooden buckets. He had turned his mutilated jerkin inside out to hide the prince’s silver stallion blazon, and no one would think to question a scruffy waterbearer wandering about. He took a bucket and slouched openly to the spring-shelter out in the midst of the ward, dipped up a small amount of water from the basin, and headed into the area of the stables where common-born visitors were lodged at night. It was there that he believed the windwatcher was lurking. Almost immediately he met two head grooms in Marley livery, who eyed him with disdain.
    “You, knave!” called one of them. “Where do the upper servants dine?”
    Snudge bobbed his head humbly. “In the kitchens, messire. Straight past the smithy yard and to your left, within the middle tower.”
    They strode off without another word, leaving Snudge with his heart pounding. He slipped into an alcove hung with coils of rope, put down the bucket, and closed his eyes to search closely.
    Perhaps down that corridor to the right… His mind’s eye could perceive no human form in any of the chambers, but there seemed to be a strange blur among the packsacks and fardels and other baggage belonging to some lord’s train. The boy concentrated his oversight on the mundane objects near the blur. The room was dark, but he was finally able to make out a heraldic device stamped on a small leather coffer—a lymphad with the sail furled and oars over the side, flying a death’s-head flag: the arms of House Skellhaven.
    Ha! Had the spy had come in from the east coast, with or without the knowledge of the piratical viscount?
    An idea suggested itself. Since there was small likelihood that the watcher would recognize his own talent—not even Vra-Kilian, the Royal Alchymist, had managed to do that—Snudge decided to blunder into the room like an oafish servitor and hope for the best. The water provided a suitable excuse. Perhaps the spy would be so engrossed in his work that he wouldn’t even notice an intruder.
    Snudge ignited his improvised dark-lantern, which he had hung from his belt like an ordinary tankard, and hoisted the bucket. The first dormitorium, with its door wide open, was untenanted. So was the second. The third chamber was closed but not locked, and when Snudge opened the door and held high the lantern he stopped short in astonishment.
    “Futter me blind!” he whispered, almost letting the bucket fall to the floor.
    At the far end of the dark, shuttered room, which was strewn with baggage, the wavering shadow of a human form was dimly visible on the wall.
    A shadow without a body to project it.
    Open-mouthed, Snudge advanced a few steps, sweeping the lantern from side to side. The movement of the light caused the shadow to change shape. “Who’s there?” he cried, without thinking.
    “Why, it’s only me, laddie—Jasiko, a man of Lord Skellhaven’s! Who might you be?” The voice was like dry oak leaves crushed underfoot.
    The windwatcher had appeared in the blink of an eye, and Snudge was aware of an insistent mental whisper