The king stood up. “You need to get well quickly, Reuben. I will be arranging for proper combat training, as my son tells me you are less than able with a blade, and I need you as skilled as a Pickering.”
“I don’t understand.”
“As of this moment, you are now, Reuben Hilfred, royal sergeant at arms and the personal bodyguard of the princess. You will go where she goes, never letting her out of your sight. And as far as her protection is concerned, you act with the power of the king. That means you have my permission to kill any man who threatens her—I don’t care what rank or position he holds. Do you understand?”
Reuben nodded.
“From now on, you answer only to my daughter and to me. Never let anyone tell you not to protect her again.”
“But the princess hates me.”
“She’ll get over it.” The king turned to leave, then paused. “Of course, I think we’ll wait at least until you’re healed and have learned how to use a sword before I break the news to her. She has a temper, that one.” He walked for the door, but paused once more before opening it. “Thank you, Reuben.”
“Your Majesty?”
“Yes?”
“I wasn’t alone.”
“What’s that?”
“In the fire. When I went back for the queen, I wasn’t alone. Someone else was with me. I couldn’t see them. I couldn’t see anything. Just a voice; she told me which way to go, how to get out, and when I finally reached the stairs, she told me to jump. Only no one else could have been in there with me, could they?”
“There was no one else. You alone braved the fire.”
“I think it might have been my mother. I think she wanted to help me—see that I survived—and now she has.”
The king stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. “I think everyone may have underestimated your mother’s love for you. Me included.”
CHAPTER 24
THE ROSE AND THE THORN
Hadrian watched as snow began to fall on the dirt. It melted faster on the newly turned soil, causing the little grave to stand out. The rough rectangle clean of any leaves, rich and dark, looked too small. It could be a child’s grave. He remembered her from that night—her face so young, so frightened. She was hardly more than a child. He pictured her under all that dirt and his stomach tightened. Gwen had dressed her in a gown of white and surrounded her in the last roses the vendors had left. Then they had nailed the box shut and settled it into the hole. Gwen had paid for the plot; she never said how much. All the ladies had pitched in for the headstone. There was a place outside the city for undesirables, but after Chancellor Braga’s announcement that the ladies of Medford House were under the direct protection of the king, no one protested. Not able to use her name, the headstone read GRACE FLOWERS.
If only he hadn’t interfered.
Would Rose have lived? Is she in that box under all that dirt because of me?
If he hadn’t helped Richard Hilfred fight off the sheriff and his deputies, if he hadn’t stepped in the way and stopped Terence from taking Rose to safety, she would still be alive.
Royce hadn’t said anything. What better illustration than the cold body of a beautiful young girl to really drive home an argument. Only the thief remained silent. Previously Hadrian might have wondered why, but he was getting to know Royce now. More to the point, Royce was getting to know—if not entirely understand—him.
The majority of the mourners filed out of the graveyard. A long silent procession of bowed heads and weeping eyes. Most were women—none wore black. Hadrian imagined it was the one color that the ladies didn’t own. The procession to the graveyard through town had brought stares and glares of disgust. More than a few commented on the “harlot colors,” but Hadrian knew they all wore red in deference to Rose.
Royce and Gwen lingered beside the grave. For once the thief was the most appropriately dressed. Gwen cried. She stood quivering, her hands to her face. It took a moment, a few beats of delay, but then Royce awkwardly slipped an arm around her. At his touch, she buried her face in his chest and sobbed. He stiffened. Her arms circled his waist and squeezed so that his cloak tapered. For a man so adept at movement, so agile and quick, Royce moved at the pace of a watched pot. His arms inched out around her shoulders, his cloak enveloping her. They stood that way, joined as one person in the center of the graveyard at the end of Paper Street.
Watching them, Hadrian sighed and it came out as a little fog that was snatched away by the cold wind.
He doesn’t deserve her. Then he shrugged. Who does?
First Arbor, now Gwen. Perhaps this is the way it would always be. Whenever he found the perfect woman, he would lose her to his closest friend. He breathed in a cold swallow of air that hurt.
Better to let it go.
Movement to his right caught his attention. A set of eyes peered at them over the top of a headstone. Hadrian recognized the forehead. It was Puzzle.
Hadrian’s only surprise was that it had taken this long. Since the night of the fire, they had not seen a member of the Hand. Now they were standing on their doorstep, and as inappropriate a time as it might be, they could hardly let it pass. More eyes appeared among the crypts and stones. None looked happy. They must have been aware of Royce and himself for some time, and while in the back of his mind Hadrian acknowledged the kindness that they held off, he wasn’t in a good mood. With the burial of Rose, he was back in a serious drinking state of mind. He often got that way when he thought too much, when he took inventory and found his shelves bare. His mind always spiraled down to thoughts of the tiger, his father, and the emptiness—an emptiness he tried to fill with drink. It took a day or two, but eventually he always succeeded in drowning the hatred, the deep loathing of the one person he held responsible for all his failures—himself.
Of course, a good fight could help too. And it was with this eager eye that Hadrian watched the Crimson Hand rise out of the crypts and gather around them. Hadrian wondered if Royce saw them. He was unusually distracted at that moment, but then he lifted his head and drew Gwen away, positioning her between himself and Hadrian.
Top Hat approached with his trademark lid, to which he added a long wool cloak. He glanced at the grave. “My condolences,” he said, tipping his hat. It even sounded sincere. He looked at Royce. “I heard back from Colnora.”
“Let her go first,” Hadrian ordered.
Top Hat looked at Gwen. “No need. I wouldn’t dare harm a lady of Medford House. Not after the chancellor’s edict. And…” Top Hat’s voice lost its bravado and he looked to Royce. “Not after what happened to Lord Exeter”—he turned to Hadrian—“and the sheriff’s men. They’re saying the king did it, you know? That he made an example of what happens to traitors. It was adequately gruesome, and very public to be sure, only a bit odd. Kings usually like executions done in daylight with torture and lots of screams before a cringing crowd. It also tends to happen when he’s actually present, not drinking with old friends.”
Top Hat paused. Maybe he expected them to say something. When they didn’t, he went on.
“But I suppose it had to be the king. No one else would be crazy enough to kill Exeter, and no one would be mad enough to hang him up like that for everyone to see. I mean, if it wasn’t the king, who could have done such a thing—done it and got away? Unless you’re wearing a crown, you don’t kill a noble and walk away whistling, now, do you?”
Hadrian watched. He began sizing them up, determining the biggest threats and their distance from him. Only the thieves didn’t close in as before. They didn’t circle. Top Hat stood the closest, and even he kept to the far side of the grave.
“Thing is, I heard something like this happened before. I heard it happened down south—down in Colnora. ’Bout two years ago, there was a bunch of murders there. Magistrate, lawyers, powerful folk, and nobody saw nothing. But it didn’t stop there. Seems after killing the cream, this shadow began targeting members of the Black Diamond itself. Thieves were kille
d, butchered and strung up in the city squares—works of bleeding art like Lord Exeter. And if killing a noble is crazy, I’m not sure there’s a word for declaring war on the BD, but someone did. They call it the Year of Fear. The year an assassin turned on his own. They say one guy did it all, and they say he was never caught. Some still have nightmares.”
“Sounds awful.” Royce still had an arm around Gwen; the other was in his cloak.
“Yeah.” Top Hat glanced at both of them. “Hate to have something like that happen here.”
“I heard that same story when I was down in Colnora,” Royce said. “The way I heard it, the killer was provoked.”
“Really?”
“A pleasant fellow otherwise.”
“A regular gentleman, I suspect.”
“No, not in the least, but also not the sort to bother his neighbors so long as they don’t bother him.”
This left Top Hat thinking for several minutes. He glanced at the grave and then back at his thieves. Finally he looked back at Royce. “You planning on staying in Medford awhile, then?”
At this Gwen tilted her head up to look at Royce.
“Hadn’t really thought about it, but … what do you think, Hadrian?”
“It’s a nice enough place.”
Royce asked Top Hat, “You got a problem with that?”
“It’s … ah … it’s not customary to allow non-guild thieves to practice—”
“The Black Diamond had similar restrictions,” Royce said, his voice dropping in degrees.
Top Hat licked his lips and adjusted his hat. “That so?” The guild leader looked like a bartering shopkeeper being swindled. “Well, I’ve never cared for the Black Diamond. And I suspect they’d think twice about pushing into this territory if they knew who was calling it home. I don’t think there would be any real harm letting just the two of you pick a few pockets.”
“You won’t even know we’re here,” Royce said.
“I like that. Don’t suppose you’d be willing to pay me a percentage of your take?”
“No.”
“Become a member?”
“No.”
“Couldn’t hurt to ask.” Top Hat looked to his brood and raised his voice. “From now on, these two are our guests. No one touches them. No one as much as stares at them. Got it?” Top Hat looked back at the grave and this time took his hat off, revealing a balding head. “I was serious. I liked her. Grue was an ass.” He spoke these three sentences like a eulogy, then replaced his hat and took a step back. “Stay on your side and we’ll stay on ours. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Top Hat turned to move away, then paused. “How’d you do it?”
“Do what?” Royce asked.
“Kill Exeter.”
“Never heard of him.”
Top Hat smiled, nodded, and walked away.
His horse shifted a step as Royce pulled the straps tight on the saddlebags and then buckled down the blanket over the top. Baron McMannis’s estate was only three days’ ride, but winter doubled their gear. Inns could not be counted on, and while the season was early, storms were plentiful. They had to pack for the worst, and that meant bringing everything. No matter how much forethought he put into it, he always felt he forgot something. The feeling usually proved true, with the discovery always made ten miles down the road.
Hadrian had already packed and his mare looked like a miner’s mule. He was across Wayward Street at the tavern helping the girls move the heavy stuff. Gwen had bought the certificate to Grue’s tavern and together they were rolling old casks out of the way while the girls swept and scrubbed. Dixon was well enough to leave the doctor’s place and had returned to the House. He sat out front wrapped in blankets, looking frustrated. The big man was thinner than Royce remembered from the previous year, but at least he was up and eating again.
Gwen stepped out of the dusty shadows of the tavern. Her dress was filthy and there were smudges on her face. With one hand leaning on her crutch and the other shielding her eyes, she peered back at the building. She, too, looked better. The bruises and cuts were fading, but the presence of the crutch made him wish he could kill Exeter twice.
“Shouldn’t you leave the work to the girls?” he asked.
“There’s so much to do.”
“You’re still healing.”
“Thanks to you, I’ll be fine.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “We all will.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t resist a smile, not while she was staring. How she did that baffled him. He made a living out of lying. He was good at it, but not with her. He wanted to tell her everything—the way even a sane man who stood on the brink of a cliff might think about jumping. Knowing disaster would follow didn’t change the desire; something about the view begged it. For now, the view was enough.
Hadrian came out, unrolling sleeves. “By Mar, that place was a mess, but I think you can handle the rest without me. And Royce gets grumpy when I make him wait.”
“Thank you,” Gwen said. “I don’t suppose you’d let me pay you.”
Hadrian gave her a smirk; then his eyebrows rose. “You could tell me what you saw in my palm … well, maybe not all of what you saw. Maybe just something good.”
She glanced at Royce briefly and offered a weak smile, but there was a sadness that bothered him.
“What is it?” Hadrian asked. “Did you see my death?”
“No,” she replied.
Gwen paused briefly, then smiled to herself and said, “One day you’ll remember this moment. It will have faded to a mere wisp, a ghost of a long-forgotten past, but it will return to you. You’ll have white hair and feeling your years. You’ll be thinking about your life, about what you achieved and what you failed at and be troubled. You’ll be sharpening a blade and cut yourself. You’ll see the blood and it will remind you that I said this would happen. You’ll remember and you’ll smile, then you’ll frown, and finally in the silence of that little room, you’ll cry. You’ll cry because it will all make sense then. Your wife will find you crying and she’ll hold you and ask what happened. You’ll look at her and see she’s frightened. In all the years she’s known you, through all the troubles you faced together, she’s almost never seen you cry. You’ll shake your head and simply say, ‘Gwen.’ She’ll understand and the two of you will hold each other. You’ll both cry and the moment will pass. It will be a good moment. Whatever was troubling you will be washed away by those tears and remind you of many things, some that you’ll have forgotten about but shouldn’t have, and that day will be the better for it.”
Looking embarrassed, Hadrian turned to Royce and said, “Hear that, I’m going to have a wife.”
“You deserve one,” he replied, and was pleased to see Hadrian and Gwen each took his meaning differently. Words were rarely so accommodating.
Gwen looked back at the tavern. “It will take years to make it really presentable. I’ll need to rip out whole floors and still I wonder if I will ever manage to clean the memories of Grue and Stane from it.”
“Make it too pretty and you’ll have to change the name,” Hadrian said, grabbing his horse.
“Oh, I plan to change the name. I won’t own a place called The Hideous Head.”
“What are you gonna call it?” Hadrian asked.
“The Rose,” she told him, and this caused a round of smiles. “I was thinking of clearing out that old kitchen storage room for you and Royce. It’s back away from the public rooms. You could talk business there. Store your gear if you like. I’ll watch over you as I did when we first met.”
“How much?” Royce asked.
“How much, what?”
Royce approached her. “How much rent will you charge?”
Gwen looked stunned. “I won’t charge you rent.”
“That’s not smart.”
Gwen pivoted around the crutch with two petite hops to face him full-on. “I couldn’t have bought the cer
tificate to the tavern without you. If you hadn’t come—” She looked away and took a breath. “If you hadn’t come, Grue would have driven me out of business, or worse, and I honestly think it would have been the or worse. And who knows how many more Avons and Roses there would have been.” She placed a small hand on his chest. “You changed everything. And I owe you that—how could I charge?”
“Okay, fine. You’ll get a percentage.”
“I don’t want a percentage. Honestly, I’m offering the use of the room in the selfish hope it will keep you coming back.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Hadrian told her with a wink.
Royce wanted to stab him, but then noticed her smile, and … was she turning red? “There’s a risk to hosting thieves,” he said quickly. “You could be arrested, have your holdings taken, your hands cut off, for Maribor’s sake. I won’t let you take that risk without payment. As long as we work out of your tavern, you’ll get a cut of what we make.”
“But I—”
“I won’t stay otherwise.”
She had her mouth open but slowly closed it. He longed to wipe away the smudge on her cheek. His hand moved partway before he caught himself. What is it about her that makes me feel I can do such a thing?
“You’ll stay? You’ll live here?”
Royce glanced at Hadrian and shrugged, trying his best to sound casual. “Be nice to have a safe place to come back to. But I insist you take a cut.”
Hadrian chuckled. “If this is going to be Royce’s permanent home, maybe you should call it The Rose and the Thorn.”
Riyria Chronicles 02 - The Rose and the Thorn Page 31
