For Love of Evil by Piers Anthony Page A

appeared in the dark interior. She stared at him apprehensively. "I have lost my clothes," Parry said quickly. "I-I'm a refugee from the soldiers. They killed my wife. If you have anything I can wear, I will work for it."
     
    The woman considered. He knew she was trying to judge whether he spoke the truth, and whether it was safe to help him.
     
    "Are you Christian or heretic?" she asked at last.
     
    "Christian, with heretical leanings." That was the literal truth. "Whatever kind of Christianity the crusade represents, I'm not it."
     
    "Get in here, then," she said, and lifted the board clear.
     
    Parry ducked his head and entered the cottage. This was the stall chamber, and several sheep were in it. Their manure flavored the air.
     
    They passed into the second chamber, which was the residential one. The woman evidently lived alone; there was a single bed of straw at one side. She dug out a ragged old tunic. "My husband's, rest his soul."
     
    Parry accepted it and quickly donned it. "My thanks, good woman. I will earn it." The thing was patched and restitched and dirty, but did not seem to have fleas; it had been too long unused. That was a blessing.
     
    She found some battered shoes. "You're about his size."
     
    He tried them on. They were a bit tight, but would do."This is more than I-"
     
    "You hungry?"
     
    Parry realized that he was; he had been too busy to eat recently.
     
    She fetched a soiled wooden bowl and poured some cold pease porridge into it. Parry tilted it to his lips and took a swallow. It was bland, formless stuff, but it was food, and he was duly grateful.
     
    But before he finished, there was the sound of baying dogs. "Oh, no!" Parry exclaimed. "They are after me again, and I have brought mischief on your house!"
     
    "Run out and lead them off," the woman said. "Then loop back; you owe me some work."
     
    "Agreed!"
     
    He hurried out. He realized that the boots would mask his smell, so he took them off and carried them. Then he walked quickly through the village, attracting no attention; ragged peasants were common, especially now that war had come to this region.
     
    The sound of the dogs was coming closer. He walked on beyond the village, until out of sight of it. Then he walked into the forest on the left, looped about, intersected his own trail, and put on the boots. He tromped back across the road to the right, finding a passable path. He followed this back around the village.
     
    He heard the dogs arrive at the village. Then, as he moved back the way he had come, they progressed forward the way he had gone. He smiled briefly; they would encounter the loop, mill about uncertainly, and the handlers would conclude that he had changed to avian form and flown. End of that trail! They would not suspect a pedestrian ruse from a sorcerer. At least, that seemed worth gambling on. He was too tired to fly again, when the old woman had offered him further hospitality.
     
    He returned to the cottage. He knocked on the door.
     
    "Get in here!" the woman snapped. "They'll be back."
     
    He got in. "Hide under the straw," she said. "Till it's clear."
     
    He wedged under the matted straw, and arranged it to cover him. Now he could not see out, but he could hear. If they came back, and the woman betrayed him, he would be helpless. But what motive could she have for that? He owed her some work for his clothing.
     
    Shortly they did return. He heard them at the door. "Keep those dogs clear!" she screeched, outraged. "They'll spook my sheep!"
     
    There was a muttering outside he could not hear.
     
    Then the woman spoke again: "Of course he's not here! What do you think I am? May the wrath of our merciful Lord Jesus fall on me this instant if I speak falsely!"
     
    She was baldly lying, compounding it by invoking Jesus! This was not an ordinary peasant woman! Yet she had asked if he were a Christian, and he had assumed that it was the positive aspect of his answer that had persuaded her to take him