Kard joined him at the edge of the rug.
“Strange. I don’t see a wrecked lamp around, but you’re right,” he agreed. “That’s a lot of blood, too. Carind was hurt worse than they said.”
“He lived,” Teer noted. Ashan hadn’t lied about that, but there was enough blood on the rug and the bed that he would have figured someone had died.
“Door was broken from the outside,” Kard said. “Was locked from in here. That wasn’t her.”
“Someone else?” Teer looked around the room. He didn’t see any sign that there’d been more people in there than the two they knew of.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, either,” his partner admitted. “We’re not detectives. We’re trackers. Any sign where she went from here?”
Teer examined the floor leading out of the room and shook his head.
“Nothing to hold tracks, and people been in and out all mornin’,” he admitted. “She took a horse, though, right?”
“That’s what we’re told,” Kard agreed. “I’ll go get our horses and gear and settle up the bill at Anristo’s. You check out the stables here, see if you can find a trail.”
“Right.”
Teer wasn’t sure he could find a trail out of stables in the middle of town…but on the other hand, he wasn’t the one who was supposed to pay the bill at Anristo’s, either.
“What you want?” the older woman asked when Teer returned to the common room.
“Sheela, right?” he replied. “We were told Lora stole a horse. I’ll need to see the stables.”
Sheela glared at him.
“Can’t steal what’s hers, can she?” she snapped. “Took one of her da’s horses.”
“Not saying ’twas a crime,” Teer said. “But need to know where she left. Where’s her da?”
“Gone. Hidin’ from folk askin’ questions,” Sheela told him.
He met her gaze for a few moments, but she finally looked away and nodded.
“Follow me,” she told him.
Teer obeyed. He probably could have found the stables himself, but following Sheela also showed him the route through the inn that their bounty would have taken. There was, he figured, no way Lora had escaped without being seen by at least one person.
On the other hand, Teer was no fan of the Spehari or the Unity himself. He saw the need to bring criminals to justice, to protect people from attack, but he didn’t have much sympathy for a man who was one of the Spehari’s favorite pets.
He grasped why the inn staff favored Lora, even if law and justice said she had to face a trial for beating a man to the edge of death. They knew the girl and not Carind.
Everyone favored their friends over strangers.
The stables Sheela led him to were plain but solid, attached to the back of the inn and out of view from most passersby.
“Front stalls are for guests; back six with the blue paint are Sardo’s,” Sheela told him.
“Sardo owns the inn?” Teer asked.
“Yeah. He and Lora, since her ma died a ways back.”
Teer nodded, feeling a spike of kinship for the woman he was chasing. He’d lost a parent too. He knew how that made people hurt.
“Thank you, Sheela,” he told her. “I’m fine from here.”
“Need to stay,” she replied. “Make sure you don’t steal horses.”
Teer gave her a pained smile but nodded.
Except for the very best horses, none would be worth more than a stone—and Teer had half a dozen stones tucked away in a concealed purse. He could buy Sardo’s remaining horses. He wasn’t going to steal them.
Leaving the inn employee at the door, he walked down the stables to the blue-painted stalls. Three of them were empty. The other three still had horses in them, dark-haired mixes of a type he recognized: not necessarily pretty, but well-behaved and healthy.
All three horses were distressed by the absence of half their regular herd. Teer looked around and found what he needed: there was a box of oatcakes on a shelf at the end of the stables.
It didn’t much matter what he fed the three horses. It was the act of feeding them and talking to them in a calm, soft voice that soothed their nerves. It took him a few minutes to calm all three horses down…but he wasn’t impressed with whoever ran the stables.
Shaking his head, he checked the empty stalls. One clearly didn’t have a regular resident, now that he looked more closely. There was no tack hung up in the stall, no brushes or blankets…no manure on the floor.
The other two had clearly been occupied until recently. One stall had been stripped of everything, presumably loaded into saddlebags to provide supplies to care for a horse on a long trip. Lora had made sure she had what she needed to keep her mount going—and then some more.
Teer figured she’d erred on the side of grabbing everything.
The other stall was still mostly full. Whoever had taken that horse was expecting to be back in the next few days, which meant the girl’s father had probably taken that one to wherever he was hiding. Sardo wasn’t in trouble, after all. Just avoiding people asking questions.
“Sheela,” Teer called the woman over. “Who takes care of ’ese horses?”
“Sardo,” the employee replied. “There’s a few kids from around who help out; they’ll probably feed ’em as sun goes down.”
So, Sardo hadn’t completely abandoned his animals, Teer reflected. He’d still left the three there stressed without calming them, but it wasn’t like Sardo wouldn’t have been stressed this morning.
“Here, girl,” he told one of the horses. “I’m a friend; just need to see you closer.”
He slipped into the stall, reaching out to feed the mare another oatcake. The horse relaxed to his tone, leaning into his hand as he reached out to touch her shoulder. Despite his being a stranger, she let him pick up her front leg and examine her hoof.
Teer was a bounty hunter now, but he’d been a ranch hand before that—and he’d been taking care of horses since he had a mere ten turnings. He had some idea of what to look for when he was trying to follow a horse.
And the horseshoes were everything he’d hoped for. Presumably made by a local smith, they were the artwork of someone who channeled creative urges into their day-to-day work. A distinctive pattern with a clear maker’s mark.
“Now, girl, gimme…” The mare huffed at him, but she let him check her back hooves as well. All of her horseshoes were the same, shod at the same time and by the same farrier using the same shoes.
Checking the other two horses was the work of a few minutes and most of the box of oatcakes. The shoes weren’t as fancy as shoes that were bought to be decorative, but the smith’s work made them distinctive enough, and all three horses wore the same shoes.
He put what was left of the box of horse treats back on the shelf and gave each horse a soft pat on the nose before stepping away and realizing Sheela was still there.
“I’m done here,” he told her. “Not gonna steal the horses. If you’ll show me, I’ll head out front and meet my boss.”
“Never seen that before,” she muttered, but gestured for him to follow her. “They’re well behaved, those mares, but…”