Legend of the Three Moons by Patricia Bernard Read Free Book Online Page B

Seeing the dismay on Lyla's face, she bit her lip and wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

6
Petrie Wartstoe
    Lem's pace slowed as he reached the village. Cautious and questioning by nature, he liked to know what he was walking into before it was too late. He was also not as keen to do this task alone as he'd made the others believe, but couldn't have them thinking he was afraid.
    The village was a pitiful place with windowless cottages, sagging bark-roofed shanties, cracked mud walls and toppled fences that kept nothing in and nothing out. The few villagers he passed were gaunt-faced women or dirty-faced children peeking from doorways. All averted their eyes as if to return his look would cause them trouble.
    Even the dogs, slinking from puddle to puddle, had nothing good to say.
    `You are too well dressed,' growled one bent-eared hound.
    `The fishermen from Mussel Cove will steal those boots,' warned a skinny cattle dog.
    `The innkeeper is a thief and a murderer,' panted a third limping by with a sore the size of a dinner plate on its haunches.
    `Go back. Go back,' barked a tan and black puppy that was so starved its flanks flapped together.
    Lem scooped him up. `You poor little thing. If I get any food I will give you some.'
    The pup snuggled its head under his arm.
    The inn was a rambling manure-walled building with a shingle roof, four attic windows and one smoking chimney. To its left was a stable full of swayed-backed mules and horses. To its right lay a cobblestone yard jammed with vehicles. One was the potato farmers' wagon.
    Lem placed the pup under the wagon. `Stay here,' he ordered. But the pup followed him through the inn door.
    The stink of spilt ale, badly cooked food, and a floor that was never swept or washed of its layers of tobacco and phlegm, made Lem's empty stomach churn.
    `Shut the door and sit down if you're staying,' grunted a man just inside the door.
    The interior of the inn consisted of one large smoke-filled room with a ladder leading to the attic, a fireplace large enough for four men to stand inside and a sack- covered doorway leading to the ale room. Over the fire revolved a spit containing a lump of fatty meat, a roasting rooster and three crackling groundhogs.
    A wizened old man turned the spit when he wasn't sticking his tobacco-stained fingers into the beef dripping and sucking them. Beside the sizzling carcases hung a soot-blackened soup pot and a smaller pot of mulled wine. The old man's finger dipped into these as well.
    Pulled up around the fire were 20 split-log benches and 10 plank tables crowded with men drinking, talking, playing cards or sleeping. Around the inn's walls were smaller unlit tables where men could whisper secrets and not be seen. At one such table sat six drunken red-haired Huntsmen. Abel Penny lolled at another.
    Lem wondered if he had changed into a giant pig and galloped all the way to the inn to reach it so quickly.
    At a corner table sat the three farmers. The wounded one was resting his head on his arms.
    Lem picked up the pup and whispered in its ear. `Who is everyone?'
    The pup licked his ear and shared his thoughts. `The innkeeper, Petrie Wartstoe, watches you from behind the curtains. Abel Penny, the toll master, eats here every day. The farmers arrived this morning saying they'd been robbed by bandits and would have been murdered only a golden-haired cliff-spirit freed them.
    `The bandits who robbed them never come to the inn. Instead they bartered the farmers' wagon and potatoes for snake meat from the red-bearded Huntsmen. The Huntsmen bartered the wagon and potatoes for ale.
    `The men in the black-knitted hats playing cards over there are Mussel Cove fishermen. No one gambles better than a Mussel Cove fisherman.'
    `The 12-fingered travellers in the capes and wide brimmed hats are merchants from Belem. Beware of them for they can rob the eye out of a needle while you're still sewing with it.'
    Suddenly Lem's hood was snatched from his head. `Hey! No flea