“This be the last of the Greystoke luggage, milord.” The white-haired halfling wrung his cap between his hands as the two burly human porters—both of whom bore a close family resemblance to the halfling—set down another large chest, this one with a lock.
Sir Simon—arguably now Baron Simon—felt crowded. The little wedge-shaped room had seemed more than enough for one man by himself when he’d decided to rent it, but now that it was full of things, it seemed quite small. He pressed three shillings in the halfling’s hand.
“Very well done,” Simon said, then waited for the men to leave. It seemed disrespectful to go through the goods of the dead in front of others, doubly so given the fraudulent nature of his claim to ownership.
Not that anyone else has a better claim, he thought to himself. He left aside the locked chest for now and opened the latches on the largest chest instead, finding it full of women’s clothing. Another and a third—more clothing, some outfits in matching sets of three with two sized for little girls. A fourth—Ivette’s dower chest, a familiar-looking maroon dress with a feeder neck and black embroidery carefully laid flat on top. A sack filled with loose items gathered from around the room the Greystoke family had rented, and a pair of travel bags.
A small chest with a lock on it. After searching for the key and finding it in the pocket of a jacket, Simon discovered that the chest wasn’t locked. Inside were four jewelry boxes. He opened the smallest jewelry box, recognizing at once a necklace he’d seen Ivette wear. Tears blurred his eyes as he shut the box. He walked over to his own small travel chest, unlocked it, and set Ivette’s jewelry box inside, next to the jewelry box that had belonged to his sister Gelle.
The last chest had to contain the rest of the baron’s traveling effects and the man’s arms and armor. Examining the lock, Simon found it had no keyhole; it was a puzzle lock, and not a very good one. He’d seen one like it before, belonging to one of his Oxford roommates. There would be a different trick to it, but as long as he was systematic, he would get it open eventually.
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Across the bailey courtyard, a woman wearing a lavender leather hunting vest festooned with lace craned her neck around over her shoulder to watch the Duke of York as the tall silver man started to strike at the pells with a poleaxe. Then she slowed her horse to a walk, stowed her riding whip between her teeth, put one hand on the seat of her lavender saddle, the other hand on one of her saddle’s pommels, and swiveled her legs over the horse’s rear end to the opposite side in a casual practiced motion that briefly flared her skirts. This put her in a comfortable viewing position sidesaddle on the right side of the horse, which flicked an ear dubiously in response.
You cannot return in time for the wedding? Avery hacked angrily at the pell with his poleaxe, lopping off a foot-long section of the notched post.
I am near the eastern border of Cornwall, James sent back. And there have been complications. It is a long story.
Complications? Avery leaned the poleaxe against his shoulder, catching his breath. Imperial complications?
Hopefully not, although there was an imperial auditor sniffing about the last time I was here. The main complication was that the prince behaved inappropriately. My companions took exception. Sir Bryan and my men-at-arms reached our rendezvous point before the prince’s men caught up with us. James’s voice sounded vaguely embarrassed. We should be fine. But it’s really not the time; I’m trying to help coordinate, and Hana is hard to connect to when she’s invoking.
With a loud crack, Avery swung the poleaxe overhead in a blow that split the damaged pell, a splintered piece six inches across and five feet long falling to the earth. If you have made the Prince of Cornwall my enemy, you will tell me now.
Instead of speaking, James sent an image, pieces coming into focus as the distant halfling closed his eyes and called up a memory full of fire, blood, and violence, and the image of the sun rising over a writhing thing, already burned and pinned to a castle rampant by a spear that sank into the stone itself. It’s complicated. I think the prince is not your enemy at present, but he was old and canny; he may yet still return in some form eventually.
Avery eyed the splintered post sticking out of the ground. It would not do as a pell anymore, not at all. He closed his own eyes, glaring inwardly at the tableau being sent to him. James…
Later. James sounded breathless, and then suddenly the tableau vanished as the usually disciplined mental voice of the halfling echoed with the sound of his real voice, the clang of metal on metal, and the bodily sensations of fear. The hill! Move! Move!
As the halfling closed the link from the other end, Avery had a brief impression of a sheet of grassy turf moving, golden scales appearing through seams opening in the earth.
James! Avery strained, but the connection was blocked, and there was no way he could force his way in if James wasn’t interested in listening. Avery glared at the splintered post sticking out of the ground for a long moment, breathing heavily; then he flipped the poleaxe around in his hands and struck at the frosted base of the ruined pell with the hammer head on the back of the blade.
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Both Fiona and Maude suddenly paused. The older half-elven woman was still for a moment; the younger quarter-elven woman cocked her head to the side, turning her ear in the direction of the window.
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“That’s a different sound. Perhaps someone dropped some crockery,” Maude said. “Or pitched it out a window?”
Merilda glanced over at Anna, still standing at the other end of the bedframe. Behind Anna was a jumbled pile—another bed, piled with both mattresses and both canopies, and a table sideways against the wall with a set of four matching chairs stacked on top of it.
“I didn’t hear anything.” Anna shook her head, dark curls bouncing. “Let’s get this moved to the corner.”
Merilda lifted her end of the frame, then set it down as Anna shook her head again.
“I can’t hold up this end by myself. Fiona, get back here,” Anna said.
Fiona peered out the window, looking down across the moat to the castle bailey, fiddling uncomfortably with the long draped sleeves of her gown as she turned back to her fellow fiancees. “I guess I’ll ask Johanna when she comes back; she’s still riding laps about the courtyard. It sounded like it came from down there, but I don’t see anything. His Grace looks like he’s done practicing and on his way over to the kennels.”
Maude cleared her throat. “Gossip is a base preoccupation,” she said pointedly.
“As is moving furniture by hand,” Fiona said, arching an eyebrow.
“I told you, we’re shorthanded. The servants will get to it in time if you wait, and you wanted to make special arrangements rather than all piling in the one bed I had brought up first—”
Fiona glared, waving her hand at the bedframe leaned up against the side. “Special arrangements. Very well, I will make special arrangements. Anna, Merilda, come over here by the window.”
Maude crossed her arms as Merilda obediently shuffled over to stand next to Fiona. A moment later, Anna followed uncertainly. Fiona drew a thin stick of wood from her sleeve, tapping the edge of the bedframe tentatively.
“Are you casting a spell on my bed?” Anna asked.
Fiona ignored the question, her brows furrowing as she muttered under her breath. The bed lurched into motion, skidding across the stone floor for the space of a few heartbeats before thudding into the wall. With another gesture, the bed slowly scraped along the wall, settling in the corner.
“There we are,” Fiona said, a small, proud smile on her face. “No need for us to dirty our hands, and my father will be glad I’m practicing. We can take care of matters for ourselves here, Lady Maude, but I believe the room wants at least one large carpet and two or three smaller ones. It is a duchesses’ chamber, and we’ll have a goodly space for a carpet between the two beds.”
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Avery leaned against the closed door. “I think we should move now to shut down the manufactory site.”
Gregor scratched a wolfhound behind the ears. “I thought we were going to wait until James was back in town.”
Avery nodded. “That was my plan, but James kept telling me he was busy with important matters.”
“What could be more important than the murder of an entire inn full of people?” Gregor frowned.
Avery hesitated. “I’m not sure, but I think I am now convinced. We spoke briefly—he was in a pitched battle of some kind.”
“But… I cannot learn which of them is guilty, Your Grace,” Gregor said. “All I can do is help manage the hounds.”
“We do not have James, but we have an archmage-diviner on our side,” Avery said. “The hounds have scented the poison used at the Golden Fleece Inn, and it is stored at the dyeworks under construction by the York Textile Company, a site kept tightly secured for the purpose of maintaining the secrecy of their exclusive bleaching process. Surely, the archmage-diviner can discern which of the officers of the York Textile Company has chosen to hide a gaseous poison within a dyeworks. We summon the officers, identify the culprit, and pass judgement upon the spot.”
Gregor rummaged in his pocket, pulling out a slip of paper. “The archmage handed me this at the crack of dawn.”
When Duke Avery inquires as to my availability today, please inform him that I will be busy observing Aurelius Ambrosius. This, I am sure, will be very exciting, since I have not yet succeeded in doing so, but the auguries of the auguries were unequivocal even if the direct ones were not, and this matter is of paramount importance.
“Aurelius Ambrosius?” Avery searched his memory. The name sounded familiar, and he felt certain he’d read it in a book. “Wasn’t he a Roman general or something? How could a figure out of history be of paramount importance?”
Gregor shrugged. “Master Warin spent half of yesterday looking at grains of wheat under a jeweler’s glass and the other half arguing with a scruffy old lady about whether or not brooms ought to have straight handles. If you ask me, Your Grace, he’s barmy.”
“Understood,” Avery said, looking at the slip of paper. “Or rather, I understand what you mean, not… whatever this means. I ought to roust him anyway; set his mind into the present time.”
Old Manfred stood and shook, his ears flapping. Then the old dog spoke silently to both of them. No can bother Warin. Warin fly away with Rosamund two bells ago. Beauford watched.
Avery let out his breath in a long annoyed hiss.
Gregor cleared his throat. “We could wait until he comes back,” Gregor said.
“No,” Avery said. “The incident at the Golden Fleece may not be important enough to James or Warin, but by my honor, it is important to me. Old Manfred, you will stay here. I think… eight hounds and half a dozen guards in the main party. Have the town guard fetch the officers of the York Textile Company to meet us at the site, and have someone fetch Sir Simon. Or, rather, Baron Simon.”
Yes, said the old dog, yawning. But I get chipped moonapples tonight. Because I am good boy.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Gregor said. “I will pass along your orders at once.”