by Barb Hendee
Rodian pulled his horse around, and his calm broke. “Even with my full complement of guards, we cannot be everywhere at all times. Nor can the constabularies. We are few compared to the breadth of our responsibilities.”
“You know less than you presume concerning my guild,” Wynn countered. “We have our own duties and limits, some dictated from the same sources as yours. We fulfill our responsibilities, but it’s your duty to solve these murders—not ours.”
Rodian looked down upon her, and she watched his breaths deepen. He shifted uncomfortably, settling both hands upon the saddle’s pommel with the reins still wrapped between them. Wynn was tired of this arrogant soldier.
“It’s not always easy . . . what is asked of us,” he said quietly.
“Yes, remember that.” And she turned away down the street.
“Where are you going?” he called after her.
“Home.”
Wynn heard the clop of horseshoes. Rodian’s mount appeared beside her, and she hopped aside in surprise. The captain flipped his cloak back and reached down an open hand.
In truth, the afternoon grew cold, and in her hurry she’d worn no cloak. The sun had been out earlier, but the sky was now overcast and rain would likely come. Rodian’s horse craned its head at her, a pretty white creature with round gentle eyes.
Without a word, Wynn grasped Rodian’s hand.
He heaved her up behind himself. As the horse lurched forward, Wynn quickly wrapped her arms around the captain’s waist. For a short way the ride was unnervingly quiet. Wynn tried to watch the people in the streets going about their daily lives.
“You are a journeyor, yes?” the captain suddenly asked.
Sitting behind him, she couldn’t see his expression. “I said as much,” she replied.
“And, as you said, I know little of the guild’s ways,” he answered. “I was merely curious.”
She said nothing to this.
“As such, you have . . . an assignment? Or so I’ve heard. Some duty you perform outside the guild, now that you’ve achieved journeyor status?”
“Yes—no . . . not anymore.”
“Yes, no, which is it?”
Wynn leaned sideways but couldn’t quite see his face. What was he getting at?
“I had an assignment, as you call it. It ended about six moons ago.”
“So you finished, and now you will advance in rank?”
“It’s not that simple . . . and I haven’t finished anything. Not enough to petition and test for master’s status, not by far.”
“I see,” Rodian replied. “At times, in the military, we too must point out our accomplishments to our superiors.”
Wynn looked up at the back of his head. This captain had ambition if he was bold enough to do such a thing. That wasn’t the way things were done in the guild. And she wondered just what he’d done to gain his post as head of the city’s honored guard. Even in that, it seemed a strange place to be, if he was a career soldier.
“It’s not like that with us,” she said. “Our superior, a chosen mentor in our selected order—usually a domin—advises us when it’s time to go before the premin council.”
“And you’ve not been so advised?”
“No.”
“But you have no assignment, as a journeyer?”
“Not anymore.” And it was her turn to sigh. “I just sit about . . . waiting.”
“I don’t understand,” Rodian said. “For what?”
Wynn thought she saw him shake his head, and she had no answer for his question.
“What was this assignment you didn’t finish?” he asked.
“I went with my mentor and others to help start a new branch of the guild.”
Rodian was silent for a long moment. “That seems quite a venture, but I haven’t heard of any new branch in the making.”
“It wasn’t anywhere nearby.”
“Then abroad? I know the Lhoin’na, the elves to the far southeast, have a branch. Another is in the Suman Empire on its western coast. It seems there’s no need for one more.”
“Not here . . . on the eastern continent.”
“A lengthy journey. You must’ve been gone a long while. Yet now you do nothing. So the endeavor failed, and you and your mentor returned?”
“No, just me. The others still strive to keep it going.”
“Is this a common pursuit . . . to establish further branches in far-off lands?”
“It’s the only attempt I know of—in my lifetime.”
“I see,” Rodian said, and that was all.
They rode in silence until Wynn spotted remnants of the old outer bailey wall among shops and other buildings along Switchin Way. That wall had opened in many places over the centuries since the guild took over the first castle. The city had flowed in to fill the outer bailey, all the way to what was now called the Old Bailey Road. They turned onto it, looping around the still-present inner bailey wall of the guild’s grounds.
“Wynn!”
The thunderous growl carried to her as the captain’s horse neared the front gate. Beyond, just outside the gatehouse, Domin High-Tower stood with two apprentices in gray. He began striding down the path, and both apprentices scurried after in nervous steps.
“You’d better leave me here,” Wynn told the captain.
He reached back, bracing her as she slid off his horse. Before she could thank him for the ride, Domin High-Tower came at them.
“Get back inside!” he barked at her, but his outraged expression was aimed at the captain. “And you were told no interrogation without supervision.”
Baffled, Wynn looked up, wondering what Captain Rodian had done to earn such ire. And what interrogation was the domin referring to?
“By the Trinity, I thank you for the tutelage, Journeyor Hygeorht,” the captain said. “Knowledge is always a blessing, when it comes. Perhaps you would teach me more at a better time.”
Wynn cringed for more than one reason.
Firstly she knew his reference to one of several religions in the land—they called it the Blessed Trinity of Sentience. Though one of the most reasoned, it didn’t sit well with her. Captain Rodian was an arrogant, controlling, ambitious man, but she hadn’t figured him as a fanatic.
As he turned his horse down the street, Wynn tried to remember all she’d said to this complicated soldier. And the second reason . . .
He had played her, but she wasn’t sure how well or for what.
At the first intersection along Old Procession Road, Rodian reined in and turned his horse in time to watch the dwarven sage herding Wynn Hygeorht into the guild’s castle. He pulled his small journal from his belt and scanned his notes.
Whatever the sages had in their possession and hid from outside eyes under royal protection, he had little doubt where it had come from. Or at least, who had brought those texts to them.
Half a year, Sykion had said, since translations had begun—and six moons since a young journeyor returned alone from abroad. In that time, the project was still ongoing in small pieces. Whatever Wynn Hygeorht brought back from foreign lands, it was more than just a few old scrolls or an obscure tome. But it wasn’t all that she’d brought.
Wynn had brought fear to her guild, though they hid this as well.
It didn’t matter that these sages dismissed a connection between one folio and the deaths of two of their own. Their emphatic certainty didn’t weigh in the balance.
Captain Siweard Rodian believed—knew—this, as sure as his faith.
CHAPTER 4
After finishing half a supper, alone among the others in the common hall, Wynn carried a wooden crate filled with empty milk bottles out through the gatehouse tunnel.
Everyone living within the guild grounds equally shared regular duties. Tonight Wynn took her turn in the kitchens, and any errand to get away from staring eyes was welcome. Chopping vegetables had been especially unpleasant, considering who’d been in charge of meal preparations. Regina Melliny was a nasty b
eanpole of an apprentice in the Order of Naturology, and the ringleader for those whispering most behind Wynn’s back.
Whether it was snide comments about Wynn being “above herself,” or just that she was a fool with all her mad talk of dhampirs, undead, and assassins, Regina had a hand in it. She was like the head of a motley troupe of street players, who picked a passerby to mock for everyone else’s amusement.
Perhaps the venom stemmed from a zealous approach to her order’s pragmatic pursuits in natural and earth studies. Or maybe it was just her noble upbringing. Either way, Wynn couldn’t wait to escape the kitchens during cleanup.
She trudged to the inner bailey’s gate and settled the crates with a note on top, requesting a full wheel of goat cheese with the next delivery. In the morning a dairyman would pick up the empties, leave full bottles, and fulfill requests for goods that were available.
Wynn lingered awhile, breathing the damp night air and watching her own breath billow like fog in the cold. Then a strange thought popped into her head—or rather a memory.
As Captain Rodian had shoved her out of the Upright Quill, she’d glimpsed a shimmer, like fur touched by distant street lanterns, as something ducked into the alley. Again she found herself missing Chap to a painful degree.
Wynn peered down Old Procession Road running straight into the city. She didn’t really notice the dim glow from all of the scattered street lanterns. Or rather she peered into each pool of light upon the wide cobbled street, one by one, searching for another glimpse.
She shook her head and scoffed. That was all she needed—to lend more credence to her fame for addled wits, even if only to herself. She reluctantly turned up the path and was nearly to the gatehouse when she froze.
Large torches, their blazing heads girded in iron bands, were mounted to either side of the tunnel. But someone stood in the entrance’s darker shadow, just out of the light’s reach.
Nikolas Columsarn inched out into plain sight.
Wynn sighed, heart still pounding in her chest. It had been too long a day, and she wasn’t up to this. But the closer she stepped, the more his lost expression wrenched her. His straight brown hair hung partly over his face, but didn’t quite hide his nervous, shifting eyes.
“I heard the captain brought you back,” Nikolas said softly, uncertain whether to whisper or not. “Did he tell you anything about . . . ?”
“Jeremy and Elias?” she finished after he faltered.
“My only friends, except maybe Imaret.”
“I saw her today. She asked after you.”
He brushed his hair aside. “How is she?”
“Sad. You should go see her.”
Wynn stepped past him into the tunnel, but he didn’t follow. She should’ve left him there if he was just going to lurk about, but she reached back and pulled him once by the arm.
His shuffling gait sent the sound of scraping leather on stone rolling around the tunnel until they entered the inner courtyard. Wynn turned aside rather than head for the main hall. Nikolas quickened his step to catch up as she walked around the courtyard.
“Does the captain know anything yet?” Nikolas repeated.
“Why are you asking me?”
“I can’t ask Domin High-Tower, or the premin . . . or anyone else. They wouldn’t talk to me. Do you think the captain will find whoever did this . . . punish them, execute them?”
Wynn stopped. Clear hatred and hunger for vengeance surfaced under those shaky words. She was already certain the killer was undead, but Nikolas had sought her out for a reason. If he harbored any blame for an innocent, it had to be dispelled immediately.
Then again, she’d known vampires who’d fooled her into believing they were mortal—at least one or two. Welstiel, Magiere’s own half brother, fooled her for a while, and as to the other that had once tricked Wynn . . .
But she also remembered Rodian’s warning not to meddle—or from her own perspective, not to get caught doing so.
“If you know anything,” she said, “you must tell the captain.”
Nikolas quickly shook his head. “I couldn’t, not him. There are things in my past . . . But Jeremy and Elias were easy to be with. They might’ve laughed at some of what I told them, but not to make fun of me.”
He paused.
“I could tell you,” he said, “and you can tell the captain.”
Wynn was a little lost and really not up to this. Nikolas spoke of something more than friendship that he shared with two lost companions. Something out of the young man’s own past was tangled in his loss of Jeremy and Elias.
“Tell the captain what?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed, and anger seeped back into his voice. “Elias was courting a merchant’s daughter named Elvina.”
“Courting?” Wynn blinked. “When would he even find time?”
Nikolas shook his head again, dismissing the question. “Have you heard of Baron dweard Twynam? Only one generation noble, barely above a commoner, but his son Jason wants Elvina, too. Eight days back Jason cornered Elias behind the soap shop in the eastern district . . . and threatened to kill him if he didn’t stay away from Elvina. Jason said no one would miss a useless little sage.”
Wynn exhaled slowly. “Why didn’t Elias tell the domins?”
“He’d just made journeyor and was still waiting for his assignment. The domins would’ve told him to stay away from her. And who knows where they would’ve sent him to make sure of it.”
Nikolas was correct, though he still should’ve told someone about a death threat. But Wynn’s own conclusions wavered a bit concerning the deaths of Elias and Jeremy.
What if il’Sänke was right? Was it possible they were killed for such an explainable reason, and not by something out of memories that still plagued her dreams? But it didn’t all add up, if this Elvina was interested in a minor noble’s son with wealth and means. Sages generally led austere lives, and only a few found their way into some wealth. So why had Elvina given Elias any note?
And if this story was true, why had Jason even felt threatened, unless he was that petty and controlling?
“How could Elias afford to court this girl?” Wynn asked.
“He borrowed coin from Jeremy.”
Wynn was losing patience. “So how did Jeremy get the money?”
Nikolas started fidgeting again. “He was working . . .”
Wynn folded her arms and glared at him.
“. . . for a moneylender named Selwyn Midton,” he mumbled. “I went with him sometimes.”
Wynn let out huff. “Nikolas!”
“I know, I know!” he whined. “It’s against guild rules, but the payment was so much. Elias was taking Elvina to all the best inns, and Jeremy wanted to help him. And Jeremy also had his eye on a fine set of calligraphy quills that he wanted before being sent off on assignment. He has—had—a good hand, enough to have been a scribe. But after he took the job with Selwyn, we started learning things. Selwyn didn’t have a charter for moneylending, and he was charging ridiculous rates on illicit loans. But that wasn’t all of it. . . .”
Wynn couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How had this taken place with no one’s knowledge? High-Tower always seemed to learn everything about his charges. Or had he been so embroiled in the hushed translation work that he never even noticed?
“I couldn’t read all of Selwyn’s ciphers,” Nikolas went on. “But I think Jeremy may have figured out some of his clients. He was very quiet a couple of times heading back to the guild, like he knew some of them.”
Wynn slumped against the keep’s side.
Most citizens seeking loans for business went through one of the few banks or chartered lenders under the sanction of the ministry of commerce. But there were people—many others—who didn’t have collateral. Moneylending, legal or otherwise, was frowned upon, but it still took place in any major city for those who had no other recourse.
Sages should never be involved in anything so sordid.
Ini
tiates and apprentices were forbidden involvement in private enterprise. Aside from masters, only journeyors were allowed to do so, if whatever assignment they were given was explicitly in a legal enterprise. It wasn’t just about protecting them from exploitation. The guild couldn’t risk tainting its reputation as a public institution.
“What happened?” Wynn demanded, not certain she wanted to know.