“On the other hand,” the cargo master said, tying the end of the rope on to the crate he was holding. “If’n you, little red-head, show me how you did this, I’ll be takin’ the lot of you to Astyr, that’s for certain.”
Chapter 4
Wren adjusted his prosthetic nose and fake moustache in the mirror. “Good evening,” he said in the most posh accent he could manage. “I am the Earl of Grampton.” He cleared his throat, closed his eyes, and then tried again. “Good evening,” he said, changing the pitch to a nasal baritone. “I am the Earl of Grampton.” He had to get it just right. Lubbok was not a large city, but the Baron hosting tonight’s ball would notice if the accent was off in the slightest.
Wren stood up and moved toward the real Earl of Grampton, who was still lying unconscious on the sofa. Wren studied the man’s face carefully, and then moved to examine his face once more. Once he was satisfied that he had gotten the nose just right, he went to work fashioning a fake scar along the underside of his chin. Once finished, he dressed in the Earl’s clothes. The red overcoat was a bit much with the many buttons and the gold embroidery, but if he wanted to impersonate the Earl of Grampton, he would have to wear it, along with the many meaningless medals. Wren had served in enough combat to know that most officers of noble birth were awarded various medals and ribbons for their titles as opposed to any actual feats performed during the war. The fighting, and the dying, was left to those of lowly birth.
He stopped then as a pang of pain stung the back of his mind, threatening to fully emerge if he wasn’t careful. The seasoned spy stuffed the emotion back down, promising himself that there would be time to deal with it once his business was concluded. After safely compartmentalizing his past grief from his present mission, he turned to slip the white gloves onto his hands and then checked the whole uniform once more. The black, knee-high dress boots were polished to a high sheen, allowing him to see the form of his face in the reflection. The white trousers were creased in exactly the right place and free of any marks. The golden saber hung from his left hip, and the tails of his red overcoat reached just past his knees. He turned in front of the mirror and examined his dark brown shirt, ensuring none of the silk cloth had come untucked. Then, once he was satisfied, he turned back to the Earl of Grampton and patted the gentleman on the chest.
“Nice of you to lend me your look for the evening,” Wren said. “I’d say we’re even now, good sir,” he added. With that he grabbed a fat cigar from the top of a nearby table and carefully tucked it into his jacket pocket before turning and walking down the stairs and into the front entryway of the small house he had rented for the month. With all the hardships caused by the war, there were plenty of abandoned farmhouses available for the taking. This one had been reasonably priced, and better yet, was hidden away in a thick forest a few miles outside of town. Wren stepped out into the early evening air and locked the front door. He took in a deep breath and then focused on keeping his posture perfect as he walked down the long and dusty path back to the main road in front of the house where the Earl’s stagecoach was waiting for him.
“Everything in order?” the driver called out as he hopped down to grab the door.
“All is well,” Wren said, focusing on keeping his voice exactly as the real Earl’s.
“Very good sir, but, I must ask, what was so important here?”
“Never you mind,” Wren replied with a wave of his hand. “An old friend needed some help, and I was only too happy to oblige.”
“As you say, sir,” the driver kept his eyes up and forward as Wren climbed into the carriage. The driver shut the door and then clambered back into his seat. Wren breathed a sigh of relief. If his impersonation fooled the driver, then the rest of the night should go swimmingly well. The coach lurched forward and shambled down the road, its wheels bouncing with each pothole and bump. After ten minutes, they reached the town of Lubbok. Shops were closing for the day, with owners busily pulling their goods inside and closing shutters. To look at the townsfolk, no one would have guessed that there was a ball taking place in the center of town, but then the regular folk in Lubbok were hardly the kind the governor would invite.
The coach lurched to a stop outside the gate and the driver announced the Earl of Grampton to a pair of guards. One of the guards, fully festooned in ceremonial dress and carrying a pike replete with a pair of red and white feathers tied to the spike came to the door and checked in on Wren. Wren offered a short salute, and pretended to be dismayed at the guard’s impotence to bother with checking the carriage.
“Proceed,” the guard said.
A whip cracked outside and the carriage rolled through the gate and around the long, wide cobblestone driveway leading up to the manor.
Wren was not much for politics if he was honest with himself, but even he had to admit that the gaudy house was far more than a single family needed. According to the plans he had studied, there were forty-seven bedrooms, two large baths, four dining halls, seven dance halls, and more drawing rooms than he had cared to memorize. To make it worse, the servants had their own quarters down in the basement, which mirrored the entire upstairs. The running joke was that Governor Wylls was so filthy rich that his servants had servants of their own.
Of course, that only made Wren’s mission all the sweeter. It was time to bring Governor Wylls down a few pegs.
When the carriage stopped, a tall gentleman opened the door and stood rigid. “Good evening, sir.”
Wren knew better than to answer a lowly servant. He emerged from the carriage without so much as a glance toward the man and walked up the carpeted path, flanked on both sides by more guards bedecked in their ceremonial uniforms, leading to the green marble steps ascending up toward the front entrance. In front of him some twenty yards was a young couple, the man dressed similar to Wren, but with a black sash around his overcoat that marked him as an officer in training. The woman next to him was dressed in a white silk dress with feathers and beads bouncing around the waist with each step she took. They moved up the stairs and offered their invitation to the Marshal standing in the doorway. He looked over the paper for a moment and then turned to announce them while ushering them inside.
Next it was Wren’s turn. He offered his invitation to the Court Marshal and then stood there expectantly, staring directly into the building.
The Marshal scrutinized him for a moment. “No guest?” he asked.
“Not tonight,” Wren replied with a hint of agitation in his voice.
“How is her ladyship tonight? She isn’t ill, I hope.”
Wren cleared his throat. “Not ill, no. Just a boring dullard.” He had known the Earl of Grampton long enough to know that the two of them never went anywhere together these days, and thus applied the proper amount of indignation to his tone. He then slightly arched his brow, but he didn’t look at the man holding his invitation.
The Court Marshal then turned and announced, “His Lordship, the Earl of Grampton.”
Wren strode into the manor and straight up to the governor, who was standing in the middle of the room speaking with the couple that had entered first.
“Ah, Lord Daebin, how good of you to come!” the governor said as he slipped away from the other two and extended his hand. “I do hope the road was good to you. How is the new farm coming along?”
Wren gave a slight bow of his head and then clasped hands with the governor. “I’m honored to be invited, Governor Wylls. This is quite a display you have put on tonight. Are there any younger ladies I might persuade to dance with me, or is this not one of those kind of parties?”
Governor Wylls smirked and slapped his free hand to Wren’s shoulder. “Still the same old rascal, I see. Come, there is a game of cards upstairs in the Southerby Room. I’ll send one of the eligible ladies up to fetch you when the dancing has commenced.”
Wren smiled and then offered a nod as he walked toward another grand staircase. Behind him, a new couple arrived and took the governor’s attentions. The
costume had worked. He was in, and no one had been the wiser. Of course, it helped that he knew so much about the Earl’s character. Not that they had ever been friends or anything, no never that, but Wren had fulfilled a few assignments for the Earl over the years. Granted, he wasn’t likely to get anymore assignments from him, but then again he was closer than ever to his goal, and he wouldn’t need the work much longer. Just a few more assignments and he would have what he needed, and he’d be able to put it all behind him and sail away to the Island of Torbos, living out the last few decades of his life in peace and quiet.
He went up the carpeted stairs and turned left to find the Southerby Room. From studying the plans, he knew it was the third room on the left. He passed by stands of armor, busts of previous Wylls family heads, and a few tapestries before he found the Southerby and pushed in.
A sour-looking gentleman glanced up from his cards and pulled his thick cigar out of his mouth just long enough to call out to Wren and motion to the empty chair at the table.
“What’s the game?” Wren asked as he moved into position and exchanged a few gold pieces with the dealer for rectangular chips.
“Dragon Claw,” the dealer replied. “Fours are wild, only two draws allowed.”
“Excellent,” Wren said. He nodded to each of the other seven players seated around the table, noting their facial expressions and the varying size of their chip piles. “And how about a drink to start off with?”
The dealer looked up and snapped his fingers. From the back of the room approached a young woman dressed in skin-tight leggings and a poofy skirt with a black blouse.
“What will you have, your lordship?”
“A brandy,” Wren replied.
“I could go for one of those myself,” the young man to Wren’s left said.
Wren smiled at his neighbor and then tossed in his ante as the next round started up. The dealer worked amazingly fast, nearly too quickly for Wren to keep up with counting. Within seconds, all eight of them had their seven cards. Wren took in a breath and picked up five, leaving one face down on the table in front of himself.
He was not overly fond of gambling, but both as an officer in the army, and as a spy, he had found it an invaluable way to gain access into places otherwise forbidden. Not to mention the fact that cleaning up with a big pile of chips not only made his coinpurse heavier, but often flushed out larger targets. Such was the case tonight. He spent the first ten minutes losing purposefully, just so he could study the men sitting around the table, then he went to work.
The first hand he won wiped one of the players clean, sending the man into a grumbling tizzy as he pushed back from the table and muttered something about hoping his luck downstairs would be better. By the time he had won four more hands in a row, three additional players left the room.
“You seem to be on a lucky streak,” the neighbor to Wren’s left said.
Wren smiled. “It isn’t a very complicated game. As long as you play it right, that is.”
The neighbor laughed. “Well, I think I have lost enough for tonight. Perhaps I will see you downstairs.”
“Sir,” the dealer called out. “This hand is not yet over, and you still have a pile of chips in front of you.”
“Yes, but not as many as when I started, and my current hand won’t help that in the least.”
The gentleman stood up and cashed in his remaining chips. As he turned and exited the room, a tall, slender man with a slight limp came in with a young, dark haired beauty clinging to his left arm and giggling.
“Room for one more?”
The dealer welcomed him in and the serving girl took away the empty glasses from one of the spots.
“Would you like a drink?” she asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said as he sat down. The young lady with the long black hair stood behind him and stroked his neck and shoulders as he bought some chips from the dealer. “Well, I see the Earl of Grampton is cleaning up rather nicely.”
Wren offered a slight nod and continued focusing on his current hand.
“I’d never be one to accuse his lordship of something so underhanded as cheating,” one of the players on the right said. “But, he seems to have a swell bit of luck filling his sails tonight.”
Wren smiled and placed another two chips on the table. “Dragon’s eye,” Wren announced as he laid his cards on the table for all to see.
“Bah!” the player on the right commented as he tossed his cards at the dealer. “Is it magic, is that what it is?”
Wren smiled. “Magic is a rare gift in these parts,” he said. “I should think if I had some I wouldn’t waste it on something so silly as a game of cards.”
“Quite right,” the newcomer put in. “Still, magic or no magic, I heard from Lord Etmyn that you were up here giving everyone a solid spanking, and thought to myself I should come and put a stop to it.”
Wren grinned. “Is that so?” he asked, still impersonating the Earl’s voice perfectly. “Well, I may not have any magic with me, but I still have a trick or two up my sleeve, Mr…?”
“Horsby,” the newcomer said. “Mr. Horsby.”
“Then it shall be a pleasure teaching you the finer points of the game, Mr. Horsby,” Wren said with a nod and tapped the table.
The dealer quickly handed out the next round of cards, but his usual smile had disappeared. Wren picked up his cards and sorted them around the way he liked them, and then tossed a few chips onto the table.
“Lay down your exchanges, gentlemen,” the dealer said.
Wren placed two cards down and received two more in their place. He frowned and then tossed one more down onto the table and reached for his spare exchange that was lying face down on the table, all the while keeping his face tilted downward toward the table while angling his eyes up and to the side. Just as he suspected, he caught the dealer slip a card from the bottom of the deck. After another round of betting, the player on the right set his cards down.
“Dragon’s eye!” he said happily.
Wren sighed and laid his out. “Dragon’s crown,” he said.
“What?! This is preposterous. Nobody wins this many hands in a row!”
“Relax old chap,” Mr. Horsby called out as he set his cards upon the table. “Twin dragons,” he said as he reached for the pile of chips.
The player on the right closed his mouth and pushed his cards away. He picked up his five remaining chips and gave them to the dealer. “Thank you, for the interesting evening, but even I know when I am outmatched.”
He exited the room, leaving only Wren, the dealer, the serving girl, and Mr. Horsby along with his arm candy.
“Well, poor fellow, sometimes you have it and sometimes you don’t,” Wren said. “What do you say, shall the game continue?”
Mr. Horsby smiled and reached into his jacket pocket for a cigar. “I think it must. After all, if you leave I shall be all alone at the table, and that simply won’t do.”
Wren offered a nod to the black haired woman. “Not entirely alone, I should say.” Wren reached into his own jacket and pulled out the fat cigar he had prepared for the evening. The dealer called for the antes and began shuffling the cards once more. He lit the cigar and held it in his left hand. The smoke was a little thicker than most other cigars would give off, but not enough to be noticeably different from Mr. Horsby’s. They played through two more hands as the smoke gathered in the air above them. Wren lost both rounds, but then he wasn’t playing for money any longer.
“Ever travel southward, Mr. Horsby?” Wren asked.
The dealer wiped thickening beads of sweat from his forehead.
“No, I should say not. There is a war going on, old chap. I’m afraid the only people crossing the border these days are soldiers and spies.”
Wren nodded. “Yes well, I should know that well enough for myself,” he said as he patted the medals hanging from his chest.”
“Yes, I should say you should,” Mr. Horsby said as he tossed in a few more
chips and rearranged his cards. The young lady behind him coughed and took a step back. Horsby turned around. “Are you all right, my darling?”
“I’m sorry, I just need to lie down. I’ll be perfectly well in a moment or two.”
Wren turned to the serving girl. “Perhaps you could find her a room. I am sure Governor Wylls would be able to give her any of the guest rooms.”
“No need for that,” Mr. Horsby said.
“No, it’s all right,” the serving girl said quickly. “I’ll see to her, sir.” The two women left the room and closed the door behind them.
“Well, I wonder what that was all about,” Mr. Horsby said.
“I’m sure I don’t know. Young ladies seem so fragile these days, perhaps it was that talk of the war. Maybe she had a flash of what might happen to you if you went out and did your part.”
The dealer wiped his forehead once more.
“I have been to the front,” Mr. Horsby said.
“Really?” Wren asked. “By the way you spoke, I thought you had somehow escaped the war. So many of the merchant class are buying their way out of their duties as a soldier, you know.”
“I see what this is,” Mr. Horsby said as he slapped the table. “I’m throttling you at cards, so you think to goad me into giving away my hand.” He shook his head. “It won’t work, your Lordship. I am not so easily baited.”
Wren gave a derisive snort. “My dear fellow, if I have given you offense, it was entirely unintentional. Perhaps it is the cigar, it has gone straight to my head.” Wren made a show of placing his cards on the table face down, and then looked up to the dealer. “I say, are you quite all right?”
The dealer wiped his brow yet again.
“You do look a bit green around the gills,” Mr. Horsby put in.
The dealer nodded. “Perhaps I will take my leave. I’ll summon Moorebrook to continue the game for you both.” The dealer bowed and then exited the room.
“Well,” Mr. Horsby said. “It seems that you have gotten me alone at last,” he said. “I suppose I should have been a tad more careful.”
Wren and the Ravens Page 6