by Robert Evert
Lord Fairhill cringed in aggravation. He attempted to hide it. “I could be saying I might be lying so you would believe that I wasn’t.”
Magnus pondered this new twist.
“Try not to think about it so hard.” Lord Fairhill signaled for Magnus to come with him. “Follow me. I’ll make it well worth your while, young man.”
He led Magnus into a lavish inn called The King’s Rest. The foyer was grander than anything Magnus had ever seen. Two wide stairways on either end of the room curved up along the wall until they met at a balcony. Under their arch, a corpulent, balding innkeeper sat behind a richly carved writing table. Seeing Lord Fairhill enter, he scurried to greet him.
“Ah, your grace!” the innkeeper bowed as much as his girth would allow. “Are you finding everything to your satisfaction?”
“I am. Thank you, Mr. Norris. Everything is delightful. Thank you very much.”
“Marvelous!” Mr. Norris said. “Please let me know if you desire anything. We take care of our guests at The Rest.”
“That you do. In fact, now that you mention it, there is something you can do for me this instant, if you’d be so willing.”
“You only need name it, sir.”
Lord Fairhill motioned to Magnus standing behind him, peering open-mouthed at the frescoed ceilings. “Could you be so kind as to tell this young man who I am?”
The innkeeper appeared confused.
“Allow me to explain,” said Lord Fairhill. “I am hiring this boy as an errand runner. I will be requiring his services for the duration of my stay in Eryn Mas, and he doesn’t believe who I am.”
“I never said I didn’t—” Magnus interjected.
Lord Fairhill hushed him.
“Boy, this is Lord Fairhill from the Fairhill region of the Angle. And it is truly an honor to have him in my humble home.”
“It’s a pleasure staying at such a fine establishment.” Lord Fairhill turned to Magnus. “You see, you shouldn’t always believe what people say about themselves. Sometimes the most accurate information comes from others.”
“If I may”—Mr. Norris raised a finger in objection—“we have plenty of boys who can tend to your every necessity. Say the word, and they’ll run whatever messages you like. No need to hire—”
“I do not wish to inconvenience your exceptional staff. This lad will do. Please extend to him any courtesy you would extend to me.”
Mr. Norris began to protest, then reconsidered. “Yes, of course. He only need ask for anything he may require.”
“Excellent. Now come along with me, young man. There are things we need to discuss.”
Magnus hurried after Lord Fairhill, up one of the curving stairways to the second floor, and then down a hall lit by crystal lamps. Lord Fairhill let him into a suite of rooms bedecked with expensive furniture and bejeweled tapestries hanging from the brightly painted walls.
“Now…” Lord Fairhill sat by a fireplace, the silver walking stick perched across his lap. He crossed his long legs and directed Magnus to the chair opposite him. Reluctantly, Magnus sat. “Your name, please.”
“Mine? Yes, yes of course.” Magnus considered saying “Grothrog the Bloodthirsty,” but thought better of it. Lord Fairhill didn’t appear to be the type of man who had a well-developed sense of humor. “It’s Magnus, your lordship.”
“Please, let’s not be so formal. You may refer to me as Winston.”
“Winston? You don’t look like a—”
“I want to be candid with you, Magnus.” Lord Fairhill studied him over steepled fingers. “I don’t particularly care for your previous employer. Frankly, I detest Sir Edris.”
“You do? Why? And he wasn’t my employer; the woman, Natalie, was.”
“Let me tell you a story.” Lord Fairhill reclined in his chair as if readying to tell a tale he had woven many times before. “It was long ago. Indeed, I wasn’t much older than yourself.”
“Really? How old do you think I am?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lord Fairhill snapped. “Listen!”
Magnus closed his mouth, trying not to get distracted by all the valuable antiques in the room. He was dying to reach over to an end table and pick up a shiny snuff box, but managed to restrain himself.
“As I was saying,” Lord Fairhill went on. “I was young and in love.”
“What was her name?”
“Her name was Beatrice,” Lord Fairhill said with a faint, dreamy smile.
“Beatrice?”
“Yes,” he said, as though staring into the past. “She was a vision, I can assure you. And she loved me too.”
“What happened?”
A cloud of anger and pain swept over Lord Fairhill’s face. “She met Edris.”
“No!” Magnus said, feeling as though he should say something.
“Edris”—Lord Fairhill got to his feet, his face scrunched in loathing—“told my love lies about me. He told her I was unfaithful and unworthy of her.”
“Did she believe him?”
Lord Fairhill’s tortured expression told Magnus the answer.
“She never spoke to me again—all because of Edris.”
“The bastard!”
Lord Fairhill wandered about his opulent quarters. “It gets worse, my young friend.”
“How could it?”
“He seduced my innocent Beatrice—and made her with child!”
“No!”
“Yes, I am afraid it is so.” Lord Fairhill returned to his chair and gazed forlornly out the window.
“Boy, you people sleep with everybody!”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just I…I’ve heard a lot of stories about people bedding women and making them with child. I didn’t realize it happened so often!”
“Men like Edris leave a wake of broken hearts and illegitimate children wherever they go.”
“Bastard!”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Magnus considered this. He’d heard stories of Sir Edris, of course. The knight was a legend throughout the kingdoms; but most of the tales were about his exploits as an adventurer or a fighter. He hadn’t heard anything about Sir Edris being a lecherous pig.
“I know what you are thinking, young man,” Lord Fairhill said.
“You do?”
“You are thinking that this can’t be true. Nobody would be as evil as Edris.”
“Well, I—”
“But believe me, that’s the type of man Edris is. He’s worse than evil.”
“Worse than evil?”
“Think of the poor women he’s exploited. Think of all the lies he’s told.”
“Lies?”
Lord Fairhill spread his hands as though presenting a long table laden with facts. “Consider what he did to you.”
“Yeah! He grabbed me by the neck and threatened to kick my head down the street!”
“I don’t doubt it. But I believe, my dear Magnus, Edris and his woman friend did far more harm to you than you realize.”
“They did?”
“They fooled you. They took advantage of your tender soul and sense of fairness and made you do things you didn’t want to do. For instance, I’m guessing they had you collect all kinds of information regarding other adventurers, now didn’t they?”
“Not really. But I think they had me sabotage them. I’m not supposed to talk about it, you understand. But they had me steal somebody’s boots!”
“I’m sure it was truly dreadful. They could have gotten you killed. And for what? A few coins?”
“Yeah! There was this one time when they sent me to the library in the middle of the night, and somebody got shot with a crossbow. Right in the back! Can you believe it? I didn’t see who did it or anything. But they could’ve seen me!”
Lord Fairhill shook his head and tutted. “Truly horrible. Well, I say, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.” Lord Fairhill’s smirk turned mischievous. “How would you like to get a little revenge on ou
r fat-assed friend, Sir Edris? Hmm?”
Magnus giggled. “Fat ass. That’s what I called him. Right to his face. Threaten to kick my head down the street, eh? I’d love to kick his fat head!”
“Splendid! Then this is what I want you to do…”
Chapter Twenty
Magnus darted into another alleyway. He’d been following Lord Fairhill for the better part of a day, listening in on his conversations and watching his every move. After his experience with Natalie and Sir Edris, he wasn’t going to take any chances. Nobody was going to pull the wool over his eyes. Not again!
He glanced about the busy street. Lord Fairhill was nowhere to be found.
“Damn! Where could he have—?”
Then Lord Fairhill emerged from a small shop with a bundle tucked under his arm. He didn’t have the bundle before.
Lord Fairhill tipped his plumed hat at a beautiful woman. The woman tittered.
Magnus ducked into the alley as Lord Fairhill strolled by.
This was asinine. He was obviously nobility. Everybody said so.
Nonetheless, there was something odd about him—the way he always looked as though he were going to strangle Magnus at any moment. Actually, Magnus got that quite a lot. But this lord guy could do it. Magnus could see it in his eyes. One wrong word and he’d throttle him with his bare hands.
Hands…
That’s something else that bothered Magnus. Nobility always had impeccably soft hands. This lord’s hands were calluses on top of calluses. He was also strong. Not “big strong” like Sir Fat Ass, but his fingers were like iron.
Why would a lord have such strong fingers?
He’d heard something about people in certain professions needing strong hands. Who was it? Blacksmiths?
This lord was no blacksmith.
The question was: Was he really a lord?
Magnus checked to make sure the coast was clear, then snuck toward the store the lord had come out of. A hundred different scents emitting from it—some sweet, some bitter, some he’d tasted before. He peeped in the store’s window. Inside were scores of glass jars filled with assorted spices.
Something else nagged at Magnus, though he didn’t know what.
Spices were costly. All rich people bought spices. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
True, but it was usually women who bought spices for their cooking.
Then again, this lord was single. He’d lost the only woman he’d ever loved to Sir Edris.
Something continued to bother him.
The lord was staying at a hoity-toity inn that undoubtedly provided their residents with food—good food, Magnus imagined. So why the need for spices?
And why would the lord try to hide what he bought?
Feeling he was doing something irrevocably wrong, Magnus dashed into the shop. A big cowbell over the door clanked, making him jump.
“What can I do for you, young master?” said a man standing behind the wooden counter. He had a black patch over one eye and resembled a grizzled sailor more than a shopkeeper.
“What? Oh, oh yes. Me.” Magnus walked around, pretending to inspect the glass jars. “This is going to sound kind of funny, but do you know the gentleman who left here? Tallish. Kind of thin. Had a fancy hat with a bright yellow feather.”
“Lord Fairhill? What of him, lad?”
“Oh,” Magnus stammered. “That is…”
The cowbell clanged again as a boy a couple years older than Magnus stepped into the store. The boy was much taller and broader than Magnus. He also had a sword on his belt and wore a sense of self-importance that usually came with either being noble or having won on the dueling fields. Nobles didn’t typically wear weapons.
The shopkeeper eyed the newcomer.
“Sir John’s squire,” the young man said, jogging the shopkeeper’s memory.
The shopkeeper nodded in recognition. “Half a moment.” He regarded Magnus. “Now, young sir, what is it that you’d be wanting?”
Sir John? He was an adventurer for King William over in Lakewood. What would he be doing in Eryn Mas?
“Son?” the shopkeeper prompted.
“Pepper!” Magnus managed to say, trying not to get caught inspecting the squire’s gear. “Do you have any?”
“How much you want?”
“Uh…” Magnus handed him a coin. “This much.”
The shopkeeper looked at the coin. It was a silver piece.
“That’s a lot of pepper, lad.”
“Yeah!” Magnus said, trying to sound like he knew what he was doing. “That’s what I said, but she said get a silver piece’s worth of pepper. My wife, I mean. No sense in arguing. Not with her. I do what I’m told and am thankful she doesn’t smack me upside the head when I’m wrong.”
“To each their own, I suppose.” The shopkeeper went to the rows of glass jars lining the shelves behind him and scooped four heaping cupfuls of ground pepper into a pouch the size of Magnus’s head. He weighed it, added another half scoop for good measure, and then handed the pouch to Magnus. “Anything else?”
“Naw! I’m good. Pepper was all I was told to get.”
“Thanks for your business.”
“Thank you.” Magnus headed for the door.
As Magnus made to leave, the shopkeeper pulled aside a long, black curtain hiding a doorway to a side room. The squire followed him inside.
“It needs to be lethal,” the squire said. “And undetectable.”
The black curtain fell behind the two men, hiding them from view.
“I have something that’ll do the job,” the shopkeeper said. “But it’ll cost you two hundred gold.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“It can’t be helped,” Sir Edris said, dropping another crate on the floor. Whatever was inside rattled almost to the point of breaking.
Within an hour of Magnus scurrying out of her shop, Natalie, Reg, and Sir Edris had piled the contents of Natalie’s store into a wagon and had ridden feverishly out of Eryn Mas. Now, two weeks later, they were in a new store, this one in Winros Minor—back where their adventures together had begun.
“But why here?” Natalie dragged her fingers through her hair, now dyed a deep auburn. “Won’t Brago—?”
“Don’t worry about Brago. Nobody has seen or heard from the weasel since last winter.”
“Besides—” Reg brought in another crate. “I’m sure he thinks you’re dead. We spread a convincing rumor that you bled to death at the Kettering estate. They have a grave for you and everything. It’s under a willow tree by the river.”
“It sounds delightful. But what about their servants? They know! They could tell somebody. And coming here—isn’t it going to be dangerous? People have seen me here, as Natalie, I mean.”
Sir Edris pushed several of the crates to one side, creating more room in which they could move. “That was two years ago. You look completely different. Besides, you’re Rebecca from Red Lake now.”
Ugh!
Natalie hated being Rebecca. She could never remember to answer to her new name. And nobody would ever believe her accent was from within a hundred miles of Red Lake, not in a million years.
“Nat,” the knight said, wearily, “this is the life you agreed to. I know you enjoyed Eryn Mas, but—”
“Enjoyed it? King Lionel treats women worse than anybody. There were three witch burnings in five months! Women weren’t even allowed to own their own businesses.”
“Well, you can’t own one here, either. Everybody thinks this place was purchased by your husband, who travels a lot. His name is William. Remember that. Maybe call him Billy. It sounds more authentic.”
Billy?
Natalie thought of Hadley and her brother. It seemed like a lifetime since she’d seen them.
When would all of this end?
Sir Edris prodded her. “Say it.”
Natalie sighed hopelessly. “I’m Rebecca from Red Lake. My husband is William. Everybody calls him Billy. He owns this shop and travels
a lot. He cheats on me every chance he gets.”
“Good!”
“Good?” Natalie cried. “I was kidding!”
“Showing a little animosity toward your absent husband is only natural. People will believe that and sympathize with you. Besides, he probably would cheat on you.”
“What?”
“Oh, I don’t mean on you you. But it’s a known fact that men who are away tend to stray. Haven’t you heard that before?”
“Please. Just because it rhymes doesn’t mean it’s true.”
Reg set down another crate. “I’d never cheat on you. No matter how far apart we are.”
He kissed her, though her anxiety didn’t diminish.
Sir Edris coughed deliberately. “Which, I’m afraid, brings us to something rather important we need to discuss.”
Reg rearranged the crates into neater stacks. To Natalie, it appeared as though he were avoiding her gaze.
“We don’t have to do this now,” he said.
“I believe we must,” the knight replied.
Natalie looked at Sir Edris and then at Reg. “What now? Let me guess. You two want me to pretend I’m pregnant? Maybe wear a pillow under my dress? Is that it? Asses.”
Sir Edris took her hand. “My dear—”
Reg cut him off. “Let me tell her.”
Sir Edris frowned. “Very well. I’ll…” He gestured to the open front door. One of the horses harnessed to the wagon thrashed its black mane. “I’ll be outside.”
“Outside?” Anger surpassed Natalie’s anxiety. “Why does he have to go outside? What’s this all about, Reg? Tell me before I kick you in the groin!”
Reg waited for Sir Edris to close the door behind him, then took Natalie’s hands in his. She jerked them away. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s…wrong.”
“Don’t give me that. I can see it in your face. Tell me this instant what’s going on!”
Through the window spanning the front of the new shop, Reg watched Sir Edris tend to the horses. Natalie grabbed his shirt and made him face her.
“Tell me!”
Reg cleared his throat. “As you know, I’ve been Sir Edris’s squire for a while now,” he said, looking everywhere but at Natalie. “And I’m turning twenty next month.”