A woman climbed the stairs with a man tugging at her skirt. A dog stole a bone off the man’s plate.
Tankards, plates, food, and a mixture of mud and things she would not consider mingled on the coarse plank floor.
She pursed her lips and headed for the counter. A portly, balding oldster tended bar, his massive form dwarfing the small area. She flattened an invisible wrinkle in her skirt, took a deep breath, pasted on a smile, and approached.
The man pulling the ascending woman’s skirt succeeded, and she plopped into his arms to riotous cheering.
Olivia rested her hands on the sticky bar, Sir Edgar beside her.
“What can I get you?” The barkeep didn’t even bother to look at them.
“Two pints of braggot, please.” Although she preferred posset ale, braggot was more expensive and would be consistent with their cover.
The barkeep summoned a serving man, who left and returned with two pints. She drank hers while Sir Edgar fiddled with his tankard nervously, his ivory skin even paler than normal.
Although he’d said he wanted out of the Order, it seemed he wasn’t willing to play fast and loose with the Sacred Vows after all.
The barkeep eyed them. “Anything else?”
She set down her tankard. “Actually, yes, if you would be so kind. I worked with a courier before the siege, and I can’t seem to get a hold of him now. But I know he frequented your fine establishment, and I owe him money and wish to retain him once again.”
The barkeep raised a bushy gray eyebrow. “Name?”
She smiled. “You know, he never offered one.” She chuckled. “He came so highly recommended that I didn’t think to ask.”
“You want me to recall a man with no name?” He snorted, then sobered. “You say you have money to give him?”
He caught on at last. She nodded.
“Why don’t we step into my office?” He tipped his head to a door off to the side.
A glance at Sir Edgar, who nodded, and they followed the barkeep. The so-called office was tiny, no more than a desk and chair surrounded by overstacked boxes. No doubt a man like him didn’t want to be seen taking bribes from strangers.
The barkeep shut the door behind them. “What’s he look like?” he asked quietly.
She removed the portrait from her cloak and unrolled the leather. The barkeep studied the face drawn there.
“I might’ve seen him.” The barkeep crossed his fleshy arms.
She pulled a small coin purse from her pocket, filled with a dozen argents. “If you could tell me where to find him, perhaps my bodyguard and I can check there, and leave the money with you in case he returns here?”
His eyes gleamed. “I know he boarded over the carriage house.”
“Over the carriage house?”
“Aye.” He grabbed the small purse and opened it. “The coachman’s not supposed to rent it out, but he does.”
“Anything else you can tell us about him?”
He counted the argents. “Mostly kept to himself—stayed here from dawn till well after dusk. Always paid well. An old fellow would come in from time to time and drop off a message, and he’d be gone. Never more than a day or two.”
Donnet. But if that were so, then he hadn’t seen the courier since the siege. She glanced at the coin purse. It hadn’t been well earned.
“When did you last see him?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Month and a half? Coachman might know his comings and goings better.”
A dozen argents to be redirected to a coachman who might not even have information for them. She nudged Sir Edgar. “Come on.”
They turned toward the door.
“You didn’t pay for your drinks,” the barkeep said.
She nodded toward the purse. “I’m sure that more than covers it.”
Sir Edgar led the way to the door and out. Perhaps the coachman would still be about.
Her heels crunched on the snow. The rare torches and lanterns provided sparse light, but with her map, it was enough to find their way to the carriage house. If the coachman had answers, if he knew where the courier was, James and Anton would be avenged. Courdeval would be avenged.
And perhaps Gilles’ mysterious client even knew Rielle’s whereabouts.
The answers were within reach. Perhaps within reach tonight. She lengthened her strides.
Sir Edgar grabbed her arm. “Olivia, it’s well past midnight, and you want to burst into the carriage house and rouse a sleeping man?”
She yanked her arm out of his grip and continued walking. “You’re here to assist me, not to stop me.”
He half-laughed. “Do you hear yourself?” He shook his head. “Even if you get an answer tonight, what will you be able to do with your knowledge in the middle of the night?”
He had a point. She looked away.
“Exactly. Nothing.” His footsteps crunched next to hers. “Don’t pull innocent folk out of their beds in the middle of the night. You want to terrorize this man for offering someone shelter? You want to scare him? What if he screams? What if he runs? What if he doesn’t answer the door when strangers knock at midnight?”
If the coachman raised a ruckus, their cover could be blown. If the courier were near, he might flee, go into deep hiding. It could compromise the mission. It could compromise vengeance and finding Rielle.
She sighed. “Fine.” She threw up her hands. “Whatever. If you’re so concerned, let’s go back to the inn. But we leave for the carriage house before dawn.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “I knew you’d see reason.”
The audacity. She narrowed her eyes. “Did you?”
“I know this is important to you.” He shrugged. “And you’re willing to fight… but not to hurt innocent people. You’re fair. I admire that.”
She laughed, looking away as she shook her head.
“What?”
“I’m not doing this for your admiration.”
He chuckled. “And? I’m not asking for your hand in marriage.”
“Good,” she replied. “Then you’re not wasting your breath.” When he straightened, she grabbed his arm and yanked him down a dimly lit alley back to The Seabird.
James, if you’re listening, give me the strength to see this through. Guide my steps, my eyes, my ears. Let me ease your rest.
Chapter 9
The dawn was no more than shades of pink and orange in the sky when Olivia emerged from the inn, Sir Edgar hot on her heels. Their breath fogged in the wintry air, and the cold bit even through layers of fur and wool. She pulled up her hood. All night, she’d hardly been able to sleep, waiting until first light so they could head back out.
The carriage house wasn’t far from the inn, and if they walked quickly, there’d be enough people about not to scare the coachman, but few enough not to arouse much notice. A perfect combination to elicit some answers. Finally.
The city slowly woke to life. Merchants set up stalls and shops in the predawn hours, and carts drove by with last-minute inventory.
Before long, the carriage house came into view, a long building made of rough, unhewn stone set in mortar, but not laid in regular courses. Two horses waited outside, harnessed to a small coach. She paused, letting a bay stallion smell her hand before she rubbed its nose. She scanned the area, searching for anyone who’d fit the description of a coachman.
“Let’s go inside.” Sir Edgar strode past her, brown cloak billowing after him. He was perhaps the friendlier face of this investigation. “Hello?” he called.
She followed, the musky smell of horse intensifying. Inside, a number of coaches and stalls lined the lengthy building, and Sir Edgar searched them.
At the end of the aisle was a staircase. It had to lead to the upstairs lodging. She approached it, looking around for anyone. Movement came from near the staircase. No horse.
A boy, about four feet tall, mucking stalls. He could be no more than thirteen. She didn’t want to scare him, so she backed away.
The boy’s blond head popped up. When his eyes found hers, he looked her over and inclined his head. “Good morning to you, lady. Next coach leaves for Melletoire tomorrow at dawn.”
Loud voice. She smiled. “I’m looking for the coachman. I owe a friend of his some money.” She raised her coin purse.
“How much?” Canting his head, the boy ventured out of the stall and wiped his hands on his breeches.
“Is he here?”
The boy shook his head. “He makes the run to Melletoire and back. Should be back by supper.”
They’d missed him, then. She raised a brow at Sir Edgar.
Sighing, he approached to stand at her side. “Who runs the carriage house while he’s away?”
The boy glanced at the staircase. “Mama.”
Sir Edgar shot her a smug smile and raised his eyebrows. Gloating ass.
She ignored him. “Might we speak with her?”
He nodded and darted toward the staircase. “Mama!” he shouted. “A lady and her man here to see you!”
She winced; the boy had a pair of lungs that belied his size. And her man? In his dreams, and maybe not even then.
A door creaked open, and a woman descended the stairs, her long golden hair wrapped in a bun, a wool dress hugging her buxom frame. Her laugh lines deepened as she smiled. “Good morning, lady, sir. What can I do for you?”
“I owe some money to a man who used to board here, a courier?”
The woman frowned. “What’s he look like?”
“In his late forties, long hair, a birthmark right here,” she said, pointing to a spot on her jaw.
The woman’s eyes widened. “Aye, him! Gerard?”
“Right,” Olivia said, exhaling a relieved breath. “Gerard.”
The woman nodded. “Quiet one, he. Kept to his business and no more. I was repairing a wheel last time he left us.”
Olivia grinned. “When was that?”
“Months ago. Maybe two?”
Two months? The trail had gone cold, then.
“Do you know where he was headed?” Sir Edgar stepped forward.
The woman’s brow furrowed. “He always used to rush my husband to Melletoire. Didn’t want to miss the coach there. Only the route to Chevrefeuils has a departure from there early in the day. Courdeval’s leaves at dusk.”
Chevrefeuils… He might live there; his master might live there; or it was simply a stop on his way.
“But last time he left, he wasn’t in a rush,” the woman added. “Maybe he was going elsewhere.”
Excellent. So there was no certainty why he went to Chevrefeuils, and now there was no certainty he even went there last time. She sighed.
“Thank you for your time,” Sir Edgar offered, extending his hand.
The woman blushed and shook it. “It’s no trouble.”
Olivia opened her coin purse and removed two argents. “For your help.”
The woman accepted the sum. “Thank you, lady.”
Olivia inclined her head. “Good day to you.”
With goodbyes exchanged, she and Sir Edgar strode back out into the street. Snow fell, shrouding the city in stark white.
“So, Chevrefeuils,” Sir Edgar said. “We have more answers.”
To useless questions, yes. They certainly did. “He’s in the wind. And we’re no closer to finding him.”
“We’re closer than we were.”
She stopped in the street. “We have nothing.” James’s death, Anton’s, the king’s, the royal family’s—Rielle’s disappearance—all for nothing, with no answers.
He took her hands before she could turn and did not let go. “Look, we know he used to take the road to Chevrefeuils all the time, and last time, probably after the siege, he went elsewhere. There are only three roads out of Melletoire—to Kirn, toward Chevrefeuils, and toward Partage.” He squeezed her hands. “He had to be going toward Partage. The question is why.”
There could be a thousand reasons why. “To buy a bottle of wine? To avoid the fleeing Crag? To catch some sun on the west coast?”
He sighed. “Or perhaps his master traveled elsewhere, a place he could access by way of Partage. Or perhaps, after the siege, it was a longer but safer route to his usual destination.”
She shook her head. They had no certainty of that. The best they could do would be to, on the way back to Courdeval, check with Chevrefeuils’ carriage house to see if he usually went farther, and where.
He sighed. “Olivia, we have more than we did. What more do you want?”
“To find this courier.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing.”
She pulled her hands out of his grasp. “That’s what I’m doing.”
Maybe he was content with a snail’s pace, but she wasn’t. Her James had paid the price; Anton had paid the price; and Rielle might… if she hadn’t already. There was no time to waste. The courier had to be found yesterday… weeks ago… months ago.
“I’d ask you if you’re always this abrasive, but I know the answer.”
She turned away from him and stormed off to The Seabird. He fell into step behind her. Argument or not, it was time to check with Chevrefeuils’ carriage house, and if no answers emerged, return to Courdeval and deliver the disappointing news to the king.
Rielle shrank into her scant garment, hiding under her unkempt curls. The caravan had come to a stop, and the guards and Ihsan stepped away. Nearby, there was only a tent with large pens of camels and elephants behind it.
Camels and elephants? The rough, crowded, and jostling covered wagon had only been a temporary luxury, then. The well-traveled paths in Harifa fed into nothing but sand, as far as the eye could see—and wagon wheels were of no use there.
They were to go into the desert, farther from the coast, farther inland.
Farther inland… To where? She strained to hear Ihsan’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. For all she knew, Ihsan could be taking them to a mine, to live out their days in the dark, breaking their backs mining gold, gems, arcanir, recondite. A nightmare.
Twelve guards stood watch, their eyes keen but not indifferent like the guards’ at the auction. Lingering. Unsettling. Beyond them, Ihsan spoke to a man and gesticulated effusively. Effusively for an Emaurrian. Bargaining.
They persisted, bargaining for what felt like an hour. At last, several men arrived with thirteen camels.
Stony faced, Ihsan mounted her camel and barked orders to the guards.
Rielle scratched her head—it had gotten itchier and itchier over the past few weeks—and her chains rattled down the line of others like her. With Ihsan and twelve guards, there was no mystery regarding who would ride. No one, after all, would worry about the discomfort of chattels. Five men, a young girl, four women, and behind her, a small boy no older than seven.
Linked together, they were fastened to the harness of a camel. To walk.
They trudged across the desert at the camels’ pace, a long and slow crawl in the heat of the scorching sun, their skin sizzling beneath the chains and reddened from the exposure. Her feet burned against the hot sand, the brief rise between every shallow footfall her only respite. Sand dunes reached for the horizon, only tufts of weeping lovegrass interrupting its endless stretch of pale desert.
Wherever they were going, Jon would find her. Someone would have seen the Siren leave Courdeval, seen a woman matching her description in Harifa, on this route… Someone. He would look for her, never give up, tirelessly searching until he found her. And then… well, as king, he had the coin to buy her freedom, even.
King. Kings didn’t dare enter foreign lands—an act of war—but Jon was different; he’d been raised a paladin, not a prince. He’d be guided not by royal protocol, but by good, by right, by his love for her. She’d just have to survive long enough for him to find her.
And she would. She’d live to see him again. Warn him about Shadow. They’d take her down together. Jon would find her
, and she would help him.
After a long day walking, a woman ahead faltered. A guard paused long enough to crack a whip. Night had already fallen by the time they reached a small oasis, lined with date palms and spiky speargrasses. Ihsan drank, the guards drank, and the camels drank. And then Rielle and the rest of them were allowed to. She pulled three hairs from her head, and while the Ihsan and the guards were eating, she knotted them into the bark of a date palm. Jon might never see them, but… he might. And that was better than no hope at all.
After Ihsan, the guards, and the camels finished eating, Rielle and the others each got a handful of plain flatbread and cheese. Meager, but even a meager offering was food, and she snatched it.
The dark-haired woman shackled next to her grabbed at her hands.
Rielle pulled back, kicking her legs out at the woman while stuffing the flatbread and cheese into her mouth with sandy fingers, sating her lamenting belly.
The woman screamed at her in Sileni until the whip cracked again, and then she was silent.
The meal was over far too soon. When would the next one be? But those thoughts led to dark places. Dangerous places. At least in arcanir shackles, she’d never go into fureur—or perhaps, even without them, she’d have full control since the battle with the Brigands.
But all this fear, this frustration, this rage was too much.
Breathing slowly, she listened to the desert wind whistling ghostly elegies of sun-bleached bones and weathered dreams. A fate she hoped to avoid.
Somehow, when she was finally off her feet, the pain that had built over the entire day came all at once. Her feet throbbed and stung enough to force tears from her eyes. The others with her weren’t faring much better, some groaning while the rest suffered in silence.
Next to her, the boy lay. Passed out? His chest rose and fell steadily. He was all right… or as much as he could be here.
Soft footfalls shuffled through the sand. Ihsan approached them where they had been left to bed down in the sand, and crouched next to the man at the head of the line.
Healing magic. The last time she’d used healing magic had been the day she’d healed Jon after the Black Mountain Brigands had attacked them on the way to Monas Amar. All the things they’d promised each other… Their plans to spend the summer in the country, reading books by the fire, taking walks, enjoying each other. He’d teach her the sword, and she’d teach him magic. And of course, I plan to make love to you until we forget our names, he’d said. Making love on the bank of the Propré River. She suppressed the inkling of an emerging smile.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 9
