Blood of the Fold

The flutter was so faint that he thought maybe those who followed weren't close enough for him to see them. But then, how was he to know who it was? It could be any of the faces he saw. He glanced at the rooftops, but didn't see the one he knew was following him, and instead checked the direction of the sunlight to help keep his bearings.

He paused near a corner building to watch the people flowing up and down the street, looking for anyone watching him, anyone who looked out of place, or unusual, but saw nothing alarming.

"Honey cake, m'lord?"

Richard turned to a small girl in a too-big coat standing behind a rickety little table. He guessed her to be ten or twelve, but he wasn't good at guessing young girls' ages. "What was that?"

She swept a hand over the wares on her table. "Honey cake? My grandmamma makes them. They're right good, I can tell you, and only a penny. Would you buy one, please, m'lord? You won't be sorry."

On the ground behind the girl, a stocky old woman in a tattered wrap of brown blanket sat on a board placed over the snow. She grinned up at him. Richard only half smiled back as he probed his inner flutter, trying to determine what he was sensing, trying to determine the nature of the foreboding. The girl and old woman smiled hopefully, and waited.

Richard glanced up the street again and then, letting a long cloud of his breath stream away in the light breeze, fished around in his pocket. He had had precious little to eat in his two-week run to Aydindril, and was still weak. All he had was silver and gold from the Palace of the Prophets. He doubted his pack, back at the Confessors' Palace, had any pennies in it, either.

"I'm not a lord," he said as he put all but a silver back into his pocket.

The girl pointed at his sword. "Anyone with a fine sword the likes of that must be a lord, surely."

The old woman had stopped smiling. With her eyes fixed on his sword, she rose to her feet.

Richard hastily pulled his cape across the hilt and the silver- and gold-worked scabbard, and handed the girl the coin. She stared at it in her palm.

"I've not enough small money to make change for this much, m'lord. Bless me, I don't even know how much small money it would take. I've never held a silver coin before."

"I told you, I'm not a lord." He smiled when she looked up. "My name's Richard. Tell you what, why don't you just keep the coin and consider the extra as payment in advance, then whenever I pass this way again, well, you can give me another of your honey cakes for the bargain, until the silver is used up."

"Oh, m'lord… I mean Richard, thank you."

Beaming, the girl handed the coin to her grandmamma. The old woman inspected the silver coin with a critical eye as she turned it in her fingers. "I've not seen marks like these before. You must have traveled a long way."

The woman would have no way of knowing where the coin was from; the Old and New Worlds had been separated for the last three thousand years. "I have. The silver is real enough, though."

She gazed up with blue eyes that looked as if the years had washed out nearly all the color.”Taken or given, m'lord?" When Richard's brow creased, she gestured. "That sword of yours, m'lord. Did you take it, or was it given to you."

Richard held her gaze, at last understanding. The Seeker was meant to be appointed by a wizard, but since Zedd had fled the Midlands many years past, the sword had become a prize among those who could afford it, or those who could steal it. Pretend Seekers had given the Sword of Truth a nefarious reputation, and were not to be trusted; they used the sword's magic for selfish reasons, and not as it had been intended by those who had invested their magic in the blade. Richard was the first in decades to have been named Seeker of Truth by a wizard. Richard understood the magic, its terrible power and responsibility. He was the true Seeker.

"It was given by one of the First Order. I was named," he said cryptically.

She clutched the blanket to her buxom chest. "A Seeker," she breathed through the gaps where teeth belonged. "The spirits be praised. A real Seeker."

The little girl, not understanding the conversation, peered at the coin in her grandmamma's hand, and then handed Richard the biggest honey cake on the table. He accepted it with a smile.

The old woman leaned over the table a bit and lowered her voice. "You've come to rid us of the vermin?"

"Something like thai." He took a bite of the honey cake. He smiled down at the girl again. "It's as good as you promised."

She grinned. "Told you so. Grandmamma makes the best honey cakes on Stentor Street."

Stentor Street. At least he had managed to find the correct street. Past the market on Stentor Street, Mistress Sanderholt had said. He winked at the girl while he chewed. "What vermin?" he asked the old woman.