“No thanks,” Ridge replied. “And if it’s on the king’s orders, it’s not murder. Just so you know.” The look in her eyes made her opinion clear, but she said nothing.
“We can’t stay here,” Rett warned. “Whoever blew up her shop is still out there. And we’ve got a job to do.”
Ridge swore under his breath. He turned back to Lorella. “The duke’s brother—how does he contact you?”
She sighed as if debating whether to continue her resistance and then gave in. “He would send a messenger to tell me to expect him, and then come by at the end of the day. He’d pass along what I was supposed to tell the duke, and then I’d send a messenger up to the manor, saying the children had spoken to me.”
“What do you know about a man people call the Witch Lord?” Rett asked.
Lorella’s puzzlement seemed sincere. “A lord of witches? I know a few people with magic, perhaps a bit of ability beyond what the monks permit, but no one of real power. Is there such a person?”
Ridge made a rude noise in response, and Rett glared at him in reproof.
“Not exactly. He’s someone who curries favor with powerful people and may not be completely loyal to King Kristoph,” Ridge replied, choosing his words carefully.
Lorella shook her head. “I don’t know anyone like that. The duke’s brother, he says that the duke is stubborn and won’t listen to him. That’s why he has me say the children pass along wisdom from the Veil.”
“If that’s all it was, would he need to threaten you?” Rett asked quietly.
Lorella looked from one man to the other. “You think the brother might have something to do with this Witch Lord?”
Ridge shrugged. “Perhaps. Or maybe it’s just the brother who’s rotten. The advice he’s been giving to the duke is drawing the wrong kind of attention. We’re here to sort things out.”
Lorella paled. “You mean to kill the duke?”
“Actually, we’re here to save his life,” Rett replied. “If he’s being led into treason, then he’s a victim. We came to stop the ones taking advantage of his trust.”
Lorella’s pallor increased as the meaning of Rett’s words sank in. “Look, none of this was my idea,” she said. “I don’t know why the brother doesn’t just talk to the duke. But I’m in the middle, and if I stop doing what he tells me, he’ll throw me to the guards.”
“Help us, and we’ll make sure you get safe passage,” Ridge bargained.
“What kind of help would that be?” Lorella challenged, feisty despite being the captive of two assassins.
Ridge decided that he liked her spirit. “Help us spring a trap on the duke’s brother, and reveal his betrayal to the duke. We’ll know whether the duke is loyal or not,” he said.
Lorella’s eyes narrowed. “You both have magic. More than a lick of it, more than is legal.”
“Right now, you need us,” Ridge said, his voice low and dangerous. “As I said, we have a warrant for you, and it’s up to us whether we exercise it. So I’d be careful about idle speculation.”
Lorella held up her bound hands in appeasement. “Hear me out. Can you tell if someone is a witch?”
“Not exactly,” Rett replied with care. “You think the duke’s brother has magic of his own?”
She shrugged. “No, I don’t think so. He wouldn’t need me then, would he? He’d just magic the duke into doing whatever he wanted. But if he had a spell on him, if someone compelled him, would you know?”
“We might,” Ridge hedged. “There are ways. Is that what you believe?”
Lorella shrugged. “Maybe. Not like I knew the duke’s brother before this to compare. But he seems…driven. These messages, they don’t seem that important to me, but he’s relentless, pushes me to pass them along right away.”
“We believe the Witch Lord compels his followers to do his will,” Ridge answered. “Getting close to the duke’s brother would help us learn more.”
“When this is over, what happens to me?” Lorella demanded, raising her chin defiantly. “You make an enemy of the duke’s brother—and maybe the duke, if he doesn’t trust me anymore—and what becomes of me? I didn’t go looking to cause a problem. I had no choice in the matter.”
Ridge and Rett exchanged a glance. Ridge knew Rett was thinking the same thing—Lady Sally Anne. “We have a well-placed friend who can assure your safety,” he replied. “Make sure no one can harm you, keep you comfortable until this is all sorted out.”
“You mean, a prisoner?”
“More like a guest,” Rett said. “Enough power to keep anyone from bothering you. We’ll make sure you’re safe if you help us.” It went unsaid that if she didn’t, a well-placed caution to the duke could lead to unpleasant complications.
“All right,” Lorella said. “I’ll help. Don’t have a lot of choice, but then again I didn’t like the duke’s brother putting words in the mouths of the dead. I might shade the truth now and again to save the feelings of the living—angry customers don’t pay—but I never used the spirits to lie for my own gain. There’s something wrong in that. Disrespectful.”
“We’ll go to the inn tonight. You’ll be safe, I swear to you,” Ridge said as she gave them a skeptical look. “Tomorrow, we set you up in the inn’s back room doing readings for customers. We’ll be your new bodyguards after what happened at your shop. That probably caught the attention of the duke’s brother, so he’ll want to make sure you can still send his messages. And if the bastard who blew up your shop comes around for another try, we’ll set him straight.”
Lorella returned a sly smile. “Sounds good.” She held up her wrists. “Now can you get me out of these damned ropes?”
Chapter Eight
“It took me a while to find you.” The florid-faced man glared at Lorella as if it were her fault someone blew up her shop and apartment.
“I was lucky to escape,” she replied. Duke Barton’s brother, Fenton, wasn’t the kind of man to waste time on pleasantries, especially not with an inferior.
“Did you accidentally blow up the middens?” he retorted.
She fixed him with a cold glare. “No. Someone tried to kill me.”
Ridge stood behind Lorella and to her left, positioning himself in the shadows to remain inconspicuous. Rett took up a spot near the entrance, partly for protection and also to keep out any drunks who might open the wrong door. They had managed to obtain different clothing that suggested “ruffian” rather than “assassin.” Hiding their identities on a job was not new.
“Hence the hired muscle?” he said, giving Ridge and Rett a dismissive glance. “Best make sure you stay in one piece, woman. I have a job for you.”
Lorella regarded Fenton with thinly veiled dislike. It had only taken Rett seconds after the man entered the room to trigger his Sight and validate the Witch Lord’s taint. A nod from Ridge told him that his partner had seen the same poison clinging to the man. What happened next depended on Lorella’s skill as an actress to draw in the duke’s traitorous brother and set him up for a fall.
“I’ve spoken with Lorn and Betta,” Lorella said. “They have tidings to pass along to their father.”
“Spare me the dramatics,” Fenton snapped. “Save it for the saps that pay coin for your lies. Here’s what I need you to have the children tell my brother. A merchant caravan will be passing through his lands very soon. They’ll have crates for him, gifts from someone who means him well. He should accept the gifts, and store them in his barn, but not open them until the time is right.”
Fenton made no effort to hide his contempt for the medium. “Dress that up in whatever pretty words you want, but make sure he buys it.”
“It’s an odd request to come from small children,” Lorella replied, playing her part well.
“Make it work,” Fenton snapped. “Emphasize the ‘gift.’ My brother’s not the smartest of the litter. He didn’t earn his title; he got it from being lucky enough to be the first brat my mother dropped.”
“And how w
ill he know when the time is right?”
“Your spirit guides will let you know, and you’ll be sure to tell him.” He leaned forward, looming over her with no subtlety to his intimidation. “Make him believe. Turn on the tears. I don’t care what you do, as long as he accepts those damn crates and doesn’t open them!”
Rett had no doubt as to the contents or the markings on the crates in question. Fenton might not control the title to his family’s valuable lands, but he was clearly getting ready for something big. Something that would require smuggled weapons, and lots of them.
“Yes, m’lord.” Lorella dropped her gaze, and her shoulders slumped. Not too much—it wouldn’t do for Fenton to doubt her sincerity. Then again, given his bulk and bullish manner, Fenton no doubt expected others to be cowed in his presence and enjoyed making it happen.
“Send a message ‘round when it’s done,” Fenton growled. “Make sure you don’t foul it up.” With that, he swept from the room like a storm gust.
“Asshole,” Ridge muttered. “Is the duke like that, too?”
Lorella shook her head. “The duke has been very gentlemanly. Very much the grieving father. His brother is…not as nice.” She looked to her two self-appointed bodyguards. “What’s so important about the crates?”
Ridge and Rett exchanged a glance, then came to a silent agreement. “Weapons,” Rett replied. “Smuggled, illegal weapons. Which is one of the reasons we think the Witch Lord is up to no good.”
Lorella caught her breath. “But the duke doesn’t know—”
“And it’s likely that’s why his brother needs you to manipulate his lordship,” Rett pointed out.
Lorella’s cheeks colored. “I don’t like what he’s made me do,” she said. “I’ve been an honest medium and suffered for it. There’s plenty more money in lies than in telling the truth. People will pay for pretty lies. When ghosts say something my clients don’t want to hear, those clients call me names and leave without paying.”
“I believe you,” Rett said. “But we’re going to have to work together to stop Fenton. We might save the duke’s life in the process.”
###
Ridge stayed with Lorella while Rett went down to the common room to bring up supper and ale. He scanned the crowd, alert for the disgruntled client the medium thought might have set fire to her shop. The pub was crowded, loud with voices and drunken song, and seeing through the crush of bodies posed a difficulty. He leaned against the bar, waiting for their food, and caught a glimpse of a man fitting Lorella’s description.
The stranger was tall and thin, with long, lank blond hair and a hawk nose. He wore a miserable expression, and the glint in his eyes suggested he intended to share the misery. Rett slipped through the press of tavern-goers, but when he looked again, the man had vanished.
Rett eased out the door, taking a quick look around, but the stranger was nowhere to be seen. Worried and annoyed, he returned just as the server had begun complaining to the barkeep about him skipping out on his order without pay.
“I’ve got the coin right here,” Rett said, holding up the money. “Had to take a piss. Wasn’t gone but a minute.”
A good tip mollified both the serving girl and the barkeep, and a few coins added to it promised they would keep an eye out for the hawk-nosed man.
“He was downstairs,” Rett announced as he returned to their room with the food and ale.
Ridge looked up. “Who?”
“The man Lorella described. The one she thought might have set the fire.”
“Tarle Hennessy,” Lorella added. “But being here might not have anything to do with us. He drinks anywhere that’ll take his money until he’s out of coin. Although this inn is a bit above the rat holes he usually frequents.”
“If he is the one who tried to kill you, do you think he’d repeat that with the inn?” Ridge asked, moving to look out the windows into the street below.
“Doubt it. He might risk burning me out, but there are too many people about, and the town would string him up if he burned the inn. ‘Sides, some of the mayor’s guards like to do their drinking here after their shift. Wouldn’t be healthy to interrupt their fun.”
“Once you expose Fenton to the duke, you won’t be able to come back here,” Rett said quietly, setting the food on the small table for them to share.
Lorella shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but she avoided meeting his gaze. “The shop’s gone, and so is everything I owned in my room upstairs. I don’t need much to use my gift—just a table and chairs, perhaps some candles to set the mood. But I don’t much fancy having to start over. Damn Hennessy and damn Fenton!”
Rett went downstairs an hour later and once again checked both the common room and the area around the inn, but saw no sign of the hawk-nosed man. Perhaps Lorella had been right, and he had landed in the same inn that night by coincidence. Yet experience told Rett that coincidence was far less likely than intent.
“Still nothing,” he reported, noting that Ridge also checked the windows, being careful not to frame himself in the lantern’s light.
“I agree with Lorella. He’s not going to burn down the inn,” Ridge replied. “And after tomorrow, it might not matter, since she’ll be gone. We’ll just keep our eyes open, and stay focused on the bigger issue.”
Rett agreed and finished off the last of his ale, but he drifted into an uneasy sleep, and when Ridge woke him for his turn at watch, Rett found himself staring at the shadows beyond the windows, wondering if someone was staring back.
###
While Rett remained to guard Lorella, Ridge slipped down to the docks early the next morning, returning with a wooden crate and a bag of supplies. By the time Lorella sent a messenger up the hill to Broadmoor Manor, the crate bore a carefully forged sigil just like those Rett and Ridge had intercepted in the caravan. Rocks in the bottom beneath layers of rags gave the box enough heft, and they covered the top layer with some of their extra weapons, then nailed the lid shut.
Duke Barton must have been eagerly awaiting more news from his dead children because Lorella’s note yielded an urgent summons to come at once, and a carriage to bring her to the manor.
“Make sure this arrives at Broadmoor Manor in two hours,” Rett instructed the man they’d hired from the stable. “Bring the wagon to the front, and ask for the duke, no one else. And this is important. No one must know that you’ve ever seen me before.”
“Understood, m’lord,” the hired main replied. The marked crate sat beneath a tarp in the back of the wagon. Ridge and Rett still wore the ruffian/bodyguard outfits from the day before, but their weapons, warrant, and letters of marque identifying them as King’s Shadows were hidden.
The crate could be a brilliant stroke—or a dangerous ruse. Rett hoped they could break Fenton’s hold over Lorella and alert Duke Barton to his peril. If all went well, they’d bag a traitor. If it went badly, the day would end awash in blood.
They rode to Broadmoor Manor in silence. Lorella kept her composure, but Rett noticed how she picked at the threads on the hem of her sleeve. He knew Ridge’s tells as well, and the way his partner held himself still, with an exaggerated casual slouch told Rett that the other assassin was on edge.
The duke himself met the carriage when they arrived at the manor. He smiled as Lorella alighted, then stepped back warily as Ridge and Rett followed. “Who are they?” he demanded, and Rett could see the resemblance between the duke and his brother.
“My bodyguards,” Lorella replied as if the question were trivial. “Someone tried to kill me a few days ago.”
Barton gasped, and his manner thawed. “How awful. Were you hurt? I can have my physician tend you.”
Lorella gave him a sincere smile, and Rett guessed she had grown genuinely fond of the man. “Thank you, but I was lucky enough to escape without injury,” she replied, omitting the role Ridge and Rett had played in accomplishing that feat.
“Please come in,” Barton said, focusing solicitously on Lorella and offerin
g her his arm. He paid no further attention to Ridge and Rett, as befitted servants. His steward, however, gave them each a measuring stare of disapproval and followed them in as if to ensure they did not steal the silver.
Barton ushered Lorella into a comfortable parlor. She took a seat on a couch with her back to the wall. Ridge stood to her left, while Rett found a place near the door where he could also watch out the window.
“What have you heard from the children?” Duke Barton asked, almost breathless with excitement. Rett felt a stab of pity at how openly the man wore his grief, how desperate he was for their touch from beyond. Despite his title and wealth, heartbreak had made him an easy mark.
Lorella settled her skirts around her. Rett watched her carefully. Their success depended on the medium’s skill as an actress. “The children send their love. They miss you.”
“I miss them, too. Very much,” Barton replied, his voice tight. “Have they any news?”
Lorella’s gaze focused on the middle distance, and while her eyes were open, she did not seem to notice anything in the room. “Lorn was sad that the horse died,” she replied. “Betta liked the new kittens in the barn. She wanted to ask if the burn on your arm had healed.”
Barton’s eyebrows rose, and his right hand went to touch a spot on his left arm beneath his sleeve. “Hot embers from the fire singed my arm,” he replied, his voice full of wonder. “Just last night. It hurt, but it’s really nothing. Please, tell her that.”
A movement outside the window drew Rett’s attention, but when he looked more closely, he saw no one. The instinct to investigate warred with the need to be present as Lorella confronted the duke. Probably just the gardener, he told himself and returned his attention to the medium.
Lorella nodded and fell silent for a moment. Then she raised her head. “The children are worried. They fear for your safety.”
Assassin's Honor (Assassins of Landria Book 1) Page 10
