by J. M. Martin
Kristin’s face became a beacon of hope as she leaned forward. “So you’ll do it?”
“No!” Royce’s tone echoed with finality.
“But Royce—” Hadrian started.
“Listen,” Royce stopped him. “Aside from the fact that we don’t kidnap—or even pretend to—tomorrow is a full moon, which adds additional risk to an already stupid idea.”
Hadrian ignored him and leaned toward Kristin, careful not to put his weight on the table. If I get out of here without breaking something it will be a miracle. “Let me get this straight. You’re willing to pay fifteen tenents just in the hope your disappearance will be noticed by this Ianto fellow?”
The woman wiggled her eyebrows. “Clever, right?”
“Not if clever means the same in your world as it does in ours,” Royce said.
“My father will panic when I disappear. And Ianto—being the daring, brave, and wonderful man he is—will offer to find me. And when he does, I’ll throw my arms around his neck and thank him with kisses. Oh—he’ll notice me.”
“And then you two will live happily ever after, I suppose?” Royce stared at the woman, his disgust replaced by pity. Hadrian had seen the same expression after his partner’s bay mare broke her leg stepping in a woodchuck hole.
“Absolutely.” Kristin bounced once more in her chair.
Hadrian picked up the woman’s empty purse and began putting the coins back. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I have to agree with Royce. You don’t need us. Save your money. If you really think your disappearance will work, just sneak out and pretend you were kidnapped.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he locks me in.”
“Who does?”
“My father.”
“So? Climb out a window.”
“I can’t.”
“You’re bedroom doesn’t have a window?”
“He doesn’t lock me in my bedroom.”
“Where does he lock you?”
“In a steel box…in the basement.”
Hadrian stopped gathering up the coins, opened his mouth, and then closed it. He glanced at Royce, who failed to offer any help, but appeared genuinely interested in the conversation for the first time. “Your father…wait…” Hadrian forgot himself and leaned on the table with his elbow, causing the thing to tilt and creak or possibly crack; he wasn’t sure which. Jerking his elbow nearly took out the porcelain teapot. He watched to make certain the table wouldn’t collapse, composed himself, clasped his hands, and leaned toward her again. “Why in Maribor’s name would your father lock you in a box?”
Kristin shrugged, making the lace of her dress dance.
“Have you asked?”
She looked at Hadrian with a smirk.
“So what did he say?”
“He just says it’s for my own safety and won’t say anything else.”
“And your mother? What does she say? Why does she go along with this?”
“My mother died when I was five, and I’m certain that’s part of it. After what happened to her, he’s overprotective.”
“What happened to your mother?”
Kristin focused on the teacups. “We were attacked by wolves just a few miles from home. She was killed. He’s always saying he won’t let it happen again.”
“So he locks you in a steel box every night?”
“No. Just when Ianto and the parson visit, which, of course, is why Ianto hasn’t noticed me.”
“Yeah.” Royce nodded his head. “I can see that being a problem.”
“Exactly,” Kristin nodded along with him. “So all you have to do is come in after they’ve passed out, go downstairs, and steal me. You can leave a note telling them where to leave some ransom money…you can keep that too, by the way. Then just tie me to a tree or something and send another note saying where they can find me.”
“You know, that really doesn’t sound too hard,” Hadrian said.
“Don’t encourage her.” Royce pushed away from the chair.
“Royce, the poor woman is being locked in a box whenever suitors visit, I think maybe she could use a little help, don’t you?”
“Oh, she needs help all right, but we’re not in the helping business.”
Hadrian pointed at the purse. “But she’s also paying fifteen gold tenents. You like gold tenents.”
The door to the tea shop opened, ringing a small bell, and a splash of sunlight hit the floor as three elderly ladies entered while closing their parasols. They were warmly greeted by the owners who rushed out of the side office—a husband and wife, Hadrian guessed; he wasn’t sure. He and Royce had been working out of Medford for years, but this was the first time they’d set foot inside the tea shop. Most of their meetings were conducted in the far less affluent Rose and the Thorn Tavern. That wasn’t possible this time. Kristin couldn’t be expected to go to the Lower Quarter, much less Wayward Street. It’s likely she didn’t even know such places existed.
The three ladies glanced suspiciously in their direction. Two surly looking men with a young, well-to-do woman trapped between them raised suspicion. Especially Royce. His all-enveloping cloak and piercing glare screamed malevolence. He was the sort of man mothers described to keep children from wandering. And Hadrian wasn’t much better. Dressed in worn leather and totting three swords along with a three-day-old beard, he made the perfect accomplice. In most places they frequented, their don’t-bother-us appearance was a good thing—not so much in a gentry tea shop. At least the money had been put away.
Hadrian lowered his voice. “Come on, Royce, it’s an easy job. I’ve seen you do more on a dull night just for kicks.”
“So you’ll do it?” Kristin asked, that brilliant smile back again, all hope and butterflies.
Hadrian looked at Royce.
Royce glanced at the elderly women as they took seats across the room. He sighed, threw up his hands in resignation, then turned away.
“It doesn’t look like it,” Hadrian explained, “but that’s a yes.”
“Can I just leave the money with you, then?” Kristin asked.
Royce turned back and loomed over the little table and the young woman. “I was going to insist on that, even if we didn’t take the job.” This whispered statement was delivered with all the sinister foreboding known to make grown men shiver.
“Oh good!” Kristin jumped up, clapping her hands—her smile wider than ever. “And you’ll be there tomorrow night? Ridgewood Manor, about half a mile past the mill with the waterwheel.”
Hadrian glanced over at the trio of ladies openly watching. “We’d be happy to accept your invitation.”
#
Ridgewood Manor and the surrounding estate was a plot of land provided to the Port Minister as part of his compensation by King Amrath, ruler of Melengar. At one time it may have been grand, but the place was showing its age and wasn’t much to look at, at least from the outside. Two stories of mismatched stone, moss, and ivy, Hadrian might have mistaken it for a rustic inn or a once-fine tavern that had fallen on hard times. Three dormers jutting out of the gabled roof suggested a third story, and the two chimneys spouting on either side hinted at the owner’s indulgence for comfort. But the soot-stained manor wore an abandoned expression, a lonely melancholy reflected in the many unadorned windows that peered out on an empty countryside and an encroaching forest.
Royce and Hadrian had found the Lamb estate right where Kristin said it would be, some five miles southeast of Medford, just past the waterwheel of Abner’s gristmill. The house was nestled so far back from the King’s Road that a sign was needed. The simple plank, cut into the shape of an arrow and mounted on a listing post, was weathered to the point of uselessness. Following the arrow’s suggestion, they walked up a dirt road that faded into a two-track path as it wandered through a dense forest. After what Hadrian guessed to be a quarter mile, they found a clearing with a lonesome duck pond where a forgotten rowboat rotted. Beyond it stood t
he moss blanketed wall, the wrought iron gate, and the manor.
“What kind of person locks their daughter in a box?” Hadrian asked, staring at the house.
Royce settled in behind a thick patch of blackberry bushes near the eaves of the forest. The summer wind was somewhere else that evening, and nothing moved except the occasional flight of birds and a pair of mallards dunking their heads in the leaf-strewn pond. The sun was still high enough so that shade was welcomed, but the shadow of the manor was long enough to reach the rotting rowboat.
“People do strange things. For instance—you took this job.”
“I didn’t hear you say ‘No.’”
Royce knelt down, peering through the leaves, his sight methodically panning the grounds. “Actually I did. You just weren’t listening. You were swayed because she’s cute.”
“She is cute. People like cute things: puppies, kittens, babies—not you, of course, but most people. The fact that you hate puppies is really disturbing, by the way.”
Royce showed no sign of listening.
“If you really didn’t want to do this, we wouldn’t be here,” Hadrian said. “In fact, we could have just kept her money. Not like there was anything she could have done about it. So if it was such a stupid idea, why are we here?”
“Professional integrity.”
Hadrian laughed.
“Quiet,” Royce scolded, his head turning, eyes darting around.
Hadrian covered his mouth, the laughter reduced to airy snorts.
Royce scowled.
“Do you even know what the word integrity means?”
Royce sighed and shifted a foot to get a better look at the yard near the gate.
“No seriously,” Hadrian said. “Why are we here?”
Royce shrugged. “Curiosity.”
“So you want to know why he locks her in a box too?”
“That…and other things.”
“Oh? Ooh.”
Royce looked over. “What?”
“This isn’t about the woman at all. This is about her father.”
Royce pointed up at the house. “Lord Darren Lamb all but killed Medford’s underground trade when Amrath appointed him Port Minister. For more than a year, nothing moved in or out of the city.”
“Nothing illegal, you mean.” Hadrian struggled to find a safe place to sit among the thorny tendrils of the dense thicket, then he removed his left boot. While the trip from Medford was a generally pleasant walk along country lanes, somewhere near the gristmill Hadrian had discovered a pebble near his heel.
“Right—and he actually enforced the king’s tariffs.”
“The man was clearly insane.”
Royce smirked. “The point is he successfully corked the flow of contraband for the first year after his appointment, and then everything went back to business as usual. You don’t find that interesting?”
“You heard Kristin. The man’s wife died—and not from some fever. Think about it—wolves. That kind of thing can mess some people up. Do you really think he was concentrating on his work after that?” He paused holding his boot absently and looked once more toward the house. “I didn’t even think there were wolves around here anymore.”
“Maybe it wasn’t wolves.”
Hadrian turned the boot upside-down and began shaking it. “What do you mean?”
“Any man who shuts off the flow of contraband is going to have a lot of nasty enemies.”
“You know, not everything is a conspiracy.”
Royce turned and looked squarely at him. “And the steel box?”
Hadrian looked up. “Okay, you’ve got me there. But as you said, people do strange things. Maybe Kristin is right. Her father could just be overly protective.”
“Overly protective fathers threaten suitors with a thumbscrew by saying it won’t be used on their thumbs. They don’t lock their daughter in a steel box.” Royce pulled back a branch to give them both a clear view of the front gate. “I think something else is going on in that house after dark.”
“Like what?”
Royce smiled. “That’s why we’re here.”
As the sun was about to set, a carriage carrying two men rolled past Royce and Hadrian. It entered the gate and the door to the house opened before it came to a stop.
A richly dressed man rushed out. “Finally!” His voice carried easily across the duck pond to the blackberry thicket. “I thought you might not be coming.”
Two men stepped out. “Sorry. Too many last minute things. Lost track of the time,” said the larger man.
“Well, I had Leta save dinner for you.”
“Kristin?”
“She’s safe. I locked her in for the night a few minutes ago. I don’t take chances anymore.”
They went inside. The door closed with a distant clap, and as Royce and Hadrian waited in the forest, the sky darkened and night fell.
#
There were times Hadrian wondered if Royce was actually a cat that some mischievous witch had turned into a man and then lost track of. The similarities were too numerous to be coincidental. An irritatingly-superior aloof nature, fastidiousness, a habit of roaming at night, and his general propensity for solitude were all evidence. But it was when he was hunting, as he was that night, that Hadrian really saw the cat in Royce. The man could sit perfectly still, eyes wide, for hours. He even breathed differently, as if smelling his prey.
Hadrian crawled from the brambles and walked beneath the eaves for a time before finally just lying on the lawn and staring up at the stars. He used to gaze at the night sky often as a kid. Having grown up in a tiny manorial village there wasn’t much else to do at night—and it appeared there still wasn’t. These stars were different than the ones he had grown up with. The manor was too. Difficult to form a precise thought, the place had a lonely, sad feeling. It was impossible to imagine someone as alive as Kristin living there.
Hadrian fell asleep, and when he woke a full moon was in the sky. He crept back to Royce who remained just as he’d left him—a cat on the hunt.
“Have a nice nap?” Royce asked.
“How long was I sleeping?”
“Few hours.”
“Anything happen?”
His answer was a howl that rang through the night.
“Was that a…?”
“A wolf,” Royce said.
“But we’re only five miles outside of Medford.”
Royce shrugged.
“First time you heard it?”
Royce shook his head. “Off and on for a while now.”
“Getting closer or farther away?”
Royce peered thoughtfully toward the house. “Neither.”
While Hadrian was pondering this, Royce stood up. “Getting late. Time to steal an heiress.”
The wall around the manor was only four feet, and they hopped it, landing in a small front-yard garden. Despite the season, no flowers bloomed. The hedges were ragged and grew over the stone walk. The bird bath was dry, filled with only old leaves and a water stain. Royce peered in the dark windows, then looked up toward the roof.
“Just wait here,” Royce said as he moved to the corner of the house and began climbing the irregular edge stones. Designed as a pretty border, they made an excellent ladder for the likes of Royce. Hadrian waited among the overgrown beds and empty planters watching the ghostly form of his partner creep along the roof to one of the dormers where he slipped inside an open window.
Another canine howled, closer this time but muffled—behind the house perhaps? The night had turned chilly, the ground wet. Morning would be coming soon, and Hadrian wondered—if only for a moment—if Royce had let him sleep out of kindness. He still made the mistake of thinking of Royce as a normal person, at least what Hadrian thought of as normal. The two had debated the nature of what normal was on far too many nights. Royce won those arguments because he had a way with logic which eluded Hadrian, unless Hadrian was drinking. At those times, at least in his own mind, Hadrian declared himsel
f the victor. Royce hadn’t been giving Hadrian his rest out of kindness; he was waiting for the right time. This was the witching hour, the small of the morning when the living left the world to ghosts, goblins, and thieves. Everyone inside would be asleep.
The front door opened and a shadow waved him to enter.
“Three of them asleep in the big room.” Royce pointed into the darkness. “Drunk, I think. Stairs are this way. Stay close. Be quiet.”
Oouuuwwoo.
The wolf howled again—much louder.
Hadrian stopped Royce by grabbing his arm. “That’s—it’s…”
“In the house—yeah.”
“Can’t be a wolf then. Has to be a dog.”
Royce only shrugged. “Heiress,” he said, and led the way down a hall into the kitchen. Walls of stone with an obstacle course of pots and pans on the floor and dangling from overhead beams, it smelled of smoke and grease. Royce led Hadrian to a set of stairs beside a barrel and a pile of wood. Down they went, leaving most of the light behind. Only a single shaft bled down the steps to a cellar filled with racks of wine. In the center of the basement floor, Hadrian could barely make out a trapdoor with a metal ring and a big brass padlock, holding it fast.
“Kristin?” Hadrian called softly.
Oouuuwwoo.
The thieves stared at the metal door, then at each other.
The trapdoor had a jailer-style peek window that Royce slid back.
All Hadrian saw was a pair of vicious eyes and bright canine teeth that caught the light as a wolf snarled and snapped.
They both stepped back in shock as the caged animal growled and yipped louder than before. Hadrian heard the sound of feet rushing across the floor above them.
“Damn it!” Royce said, pulling his dagger from beneath his cloak. “Let’s get out of here.” He moved toward the stairs.
Hadrian took one last look at the wolf. It lunged at the opening, a long snout punching through the hole. When it drew back, the light glinted on a silver chain and heart-shaped locket around the animal’s neck.
#
“Who are you? What are you doing in my house?” Lord Darren Lamb was short, plump, in his late forties, and still in possession of his own hair. He stood just outside the kitchen, blocking their path with a spear and struggling to wipe his eyes clear of sleep.