Free Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier Page A

supplies — and I owe Cam for the hare … How much is a sword worth?’
    â€˜Those two you have are good Mesentreian steel,’ Cam said. ‘But they’re military blades. This part of the country is crawling with soldiers — if we try to sell them people are going to want to know where they came from. Unless we take them to the sort of folk who don’t ask questions, in which case we’ll get only a fraction of the value. And I’d advise against selling your horse. If you’re on the run you’ll need it just as we need ours.’
    â€˜But your sword doesn’t have a military mark,’ Garzen said to Cam. ‘If you were to trade Kasimi for one of hers, you could sell your old one and keep the new.’
    â€˜Well, that’s a thought,’ Cam said, scratching his chin. His weapon was a nondescript piece from the time they’d joined the raiders. ‘If anyone asked I could say it was booty from a skirmish with the outlaws.’
    â€˜Problem is,’ Garzen said, ‘the old one isn’t going to fetch anywhere near the value of one of those new blades.’
    â€˜From what I’m hearing, those blades wouldn’t fetch their true value anyway,’ Kasimi said with a shrug. ‘We need the money now, so we may as well take it where we can.’
    â€˜That’s all well and good, but what about the rest of it?’ Brekan said. ‘I saw those bracelets you were wearing. Those red stones would fetch a good price.’
    Even around the mask, Cam saw the colour drain from Kasimi’s face.
    â€˜No! The … the people I escaped from will be looking for me. If they find the stones …’
    â€˜We won’t be going to a village nearby,’ Cam said. ‘It’s too dangerous, what with Isidro still too weak to travel. We’ll pick one that’s a good day’s ride away. By the time anyone recognises the stones, we’ll be long gone, and they’ll have no idea where to find you.’
    Kasimi was shaking her head. ‘No. Believe me, it’s not worth the risk. I’ll trade you anything else I have, but not those stones.’
    Had he been able to stare her down, Cam might have been able to winkle some more information out of her, but that blindfold was as good as a shield. His curiosity prickled him like a burr beneath his shirt, but this was not the time to try to tease it out of her. The questions he itched to ask — who are you? and what are you running from? — would have to wait.
    Eloba was keeping a tally of the things they needed on one side of a set of waxed tablets and on the other she was totting up the value of the goods they had to trade. ‘Rhia, you’re running low on some medicines? Is that right?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Well, with those as well, this isn’t going to be enough. We’ll have to find something else to sell or trade.’
    â€˜But we’ve been through this,’ Brekan said. ‘We’ve already traded away everything of value we have. There’s nothing left.’
    Lakua raised her hands to the neck of her shirt. ‘Well, actually, I do have one thing.’ She produced a golden brooch that had been pinned to an inner seam of her shirt. ‘It was Markhan’s bride-gift. It’s the last thing of his we have. Eloba’s was stolen, back in the Raiders’ camp, and Markhan died before he could replace it …’ Tears welled in her eyes as she spoke.
    â€˜Lakua, no, keep it. We can find something else.’ Even as he said it, Cam knew Brekan was right. They’d been counting on the fur and meat of a winter harvest to see them through the cold season, but that was before the soldiers began pouring into the region, before Isidro had been captured and left an invalid.
    â€˜No, Cam,’ Lakua said. ‘I’ve held on to it because I knew the time would come when we needed it. If it