“What was that, sir?” Edelmon asked.
“A stroke of genius, my good man,” Jack replied. “Draw me a bath, if you please.”
With that important bit of business attended to, Jack indulged himself in an hour-long soak in a tub of piping hot water, after which he had Edelmon summon the physician to look after the various cuts, bruises, and sprains that he’d acquired in the dungeons of Sarbreen. By nine bells he was in his bed, from which he did not stir for the next fourteen hours. He only roused himself the next morning when Edelmon knocked on the bedchamber door and let himself in.
“Excuse me, Master Jack, but you have a guest. Lord Norwood is here to call on you.” The valet studied Jack’s groggy visage and added, “Shall I tell him you are indisposed?”
Jack sat up and ran his hand through his hair.
“Norwood here?” he muttered. “What does he want with me at this indecent hour?”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but it’s already struck eleven bells this morning.”
It seemed like it would be a bad idea to turn away his benefactor out of sheer indolence. Jack allowed himself one long yawn, and gave the old valet a nod. “In that case I’ll be right down,” he said. “And ask the cook to begin breakfast; I’m famished.” Edelmon bowed and withdrew; the rogue climbed out of his bed, dressed himself quickly from his fine new wardrobe, and took a moment to drag a comb through his hair. In a matter of minutes Jack trotted down the grand zalantar-wood staircase to the front hall.
Marden Norwood waited for him there, with an armsman in Norwood colors standing unobtrusively two steps behind the lord. “Ah, there you are, Jack,” Norwood said. He studied Jack’s face for a moment, and snorted softly to himself. “My apologies if I woke you early.”
“Think nothing of it,” Jack replied with a wave of his hand. “I intend to breakfast shortly; would you care to join me, Lord Marden?”
“No, thank you. I won’t be staying long.” The nobleman’s customary geniality was nowhere in sight; his silver brows brooded low over his eyes, and his mouth was set in an even frown. “You might say that this is not a social call.”
This does not look promising at all, Jack decided. He suddenly wished that he’d feigned illness and had Edelmon send away Seila’s father. Still, there was nothing for it but to play out the scene; he could hardly avoid it now. He clicked his heels and bowed. “I am at your disposal, my lord.”
“Let us adjourn to your study,” Norwood said. He held out a hand, indicating the adjoining room with its katana-holed door. Jack glumly led the way to the study, and waited by the door until Norwood entered. “Have a seat,” the lord said, motioning toward a chair by the hearth as if it were his study and not Jack’s they were entering. Jack took the offered seat; Norwood took the chair opposite. He studied Jack long and carefully, a look of keen thoughtfulness etched on his features. Jack didn’t like it at all.
Finally Jack couldn’t stand the waiting any longer. “You have something you wished to discuss with me?” he prompted.
“I do,” Norwood replied. “You may not be surprised to learn that I have recently conducted some inquiries into the estate, family, and titles of the landsgraves of Wildhame. Do you know what I found, Jack?”
“My home and family survived the Spellplague?” Jack asked with an artfully hopeful note in his voice.
Norwood smiled and shook his head. “Not exactly. I learned that Hlath was never ruled by a king. The ruler of the city in the years before the Spellplague was Lord Darvis Shennelm, High Councilor of the city’s Council of Lords, yet you claimed your family had a home quite near the king’s palace. Clearly, you never lived anywhere near Hlath or you would have known that. Moreover, I have determined to my satisfaction that there never existed any holdings or lords by the name of Wildhame in Hlath, the lands nearby, or any realm in the Vilhon Reach.” His expression darkened, and he leaned forward to point an accusing finger at Jack. “You, sir, are an imposter, a fraud, laying claim to a place and station not your own. Who are you, really? The time for deceptions is at an end.”
Jack mustered every ounce of wounded dignity and earnestness he could summon. “Your suspicions are ill-founded, sir,” he said sharply. “Clearly your research is incomplete, or quite possibly the records of my home and family simply have not survived to this day. Your library is admirable, but it is hardly the summation of all there is to know about vanished Chondath or its proud old families.”
“Oh, I did not rely on my library alone,” Norwood replied. “The day I received word of your arrival on my doorstep at Seila’s side, I engaged the services of three different sages in two cities. When they reported failure, I hired diviners to determine the truthfulness of your claims. It has been a very expensive undertaking, I might add; as generous as I was with your reward, I have spent even more to plumb the truthfulness of your claims. You are not Jaer Kell Wildhame, because no such person has ever existed. So, I repeat my question: Who are you?”
“I am afraid you spent your coin imprudently, Lord Norwood. Your sages and diviners have failed you. Is it so hard to believe that a small estate erased a hundred years ago might escape the notice of both mundane and magical researchers?” Jack straightened in his chair, and allowed a little temper to show in the set of his mouth and the timbre of his voice. “I am who I say I am.”
“I thought that you might say that,” Norwood remarked. He leaned back in his chair, fixing Jack with his stern gaze. “Very well, then; here is how I will proceed. Since the available evidence indicates that you are a liar and a scoundrel, I will treat you as the fraud that you are unless you somehow produce irrefutable evidence to support your claims. In other words, sir, the burden of proof is on you. Demonstrate the validity of your claims, or retract them at once.”
“Fine,” Jack answered. “Your resources may have failed you, but I am certain I will have better luck. I will find the proof you require, Lord Norwood … although I must say it will be a long time before I forget the distrust you have shown me. Perhaps it would be best if we concluded this conversation at once, before either of us says something regrettable.” He stood and motioned to the door.
“As you wish.” Norwood straightened slowly and tugged at his tunic, settling the fit to his satisfaction. The old lord walked to the study door, paused as he noted the sword-hole in the panel, then turned to speak again. “I am not quite finished, Jack. I care little what you call yourself or who you inveigle with your lies. I might be inclined to overlook the matter, if you had no dealings with me or mine. After all, you did render me an invaluable service by rescuing Seila from the drow, regardless of your motives for doing it. But you clearly presume to trade upon my name and toy with the affections of my only daughter, and that cannot stand. Keep the reward I offered for Seila’s return; I would have given it freely to any man for bringing her back to me. But I expect you to vacate Maldridge by the end of the tenday. And—let me be very clear about this—you are not to see Seila again, or communicate with her in any way. In fact, it might be better if you removed yourself from Raven’s Bluff altogether.”
“You can’t do that!” Jack spluttered in outrage.
Marden Norwood smiled, but his eyes remained as hard as flint. “I am a very influential man in this city, my young friend. Believe me, you would be amazed at the things I can do if I decide they must be done. If you defy me, I will arrange for a whole world of troubles to descend upon you; do not try my patience any further. Good day, sir.”
Jack considered any number of retorts, rebuttals, or rejoinders, and somehow found himself doubting that anything he said would help his case. He instead drew himself up, squared his shoulders, and simply said, “You misjudge me, my lord.”
Norwood did not bother to reply. He strode out the front door, with his guard a step behind him; Jack watched the old noble climb up into his waiting coach in the street outside before Edelmon closed the door behind him.
Jack muttered a vile oath under his breath and gave the study
door a good kick. “This is a catastrophe,” he snarled.
Edelmon cleared his throat by the front door. “To what address shall I forward your things, sir?” he asked.
“Nowhere!” Jack shouted, waving his arms. “I have until the end of the tenday, and I’ll be damned if I vacate the premises an hour before I must.”
“I can make inquiries with various property owners and reliable brokers, if you like,” the valet said. “Or, if you prefer, I can obtain sailing schedules and book your passage. Travel broadens the mind, or so it is said.”
Enough was enough. “Is my breakfast ready yet?” Jack demanded.
“I believe the cook has just set it out in the dining room, sir.”
“Then that is all, Edelmon.” Jack stormed off to the dining room, where he found his customary breakfast awaiting him, and threw himself into his seat. Somehow he had lost his appetite, and he glared at the plate of eggs and ham in front of him for a long moment before taking a piece of toast and buttering it angrily. His prospects were not all that poor, really; he still had several thousand crowns of Norwood’s reward to his name, and of course turning in the Sarkonagael could easily double his fortune. Giving up Maldridge would not hurt too badly, although there was no denying that he had become rather fond of the place and enjoyed the lifestyle of a gentleman of leisure. A couple of thousand crowns would buy him a fine house in a good neighborhood, along with a servant or two, although of course it would not be so grand as the manor he now inhabited. No, the most galling development was clearly Norwood’s severance of any possible continuation of his association with Seila. Setting aside his deeper designs on the Norwood fortune, he liked Seila and wasn’t ready to give her up without a fight.
He gave a cursory glance to the correspondence waiting for his attention, wondering if he should even bother to accept any more invitations. How long would it take for the well-heeled folk of Raven’s Bluff to drop him once word got around that he was no longer welcome at Norwood Manor? Or would Marden Norwood simply denounce him as a fraud outright, in which case not only would the nobility have nothing to do with him but he might actually find himself the object of the civic authorities’ attention? Was that what Norwood meant by a world of troubles, or was the old lord willing to employ sterner measures to get his point across?
“I might have to take up a life abroad whether I want to or not,” Jack sighed.
He spent the next hour pushing his breakfast around on his plate and trying to distract himself with the morning’s handbills, to no avail. So it was that he found himself slumped in his chair, staring straight ahead with his head in his hand, when Edelmon knocked and entered the room.
“Oh, what now?” Jack said.
“A young lady is here to see you, Master Jack,” the valet replied.
Jack sat up sharply. “Is she armed?” Myrkyssa Jelan was almost certainly out of Sarbreen by now, and although he was reasonably sure that she would respect the unspoken truce by which he’d left her with the means to make her escape, there was always the chance that she entertained a different view of the business in the Temple of the Soulforger. He’d beat her to the prize fair and square, but perhaps she was a sore loser. An angry Myrkyssa Jelan was about the last thing he cared to see on his doorstep at the moment.
“Ah, no. I should have been more specific. Lady Seila Norwood is at the door.”
“I was wrong,” Jack muttered. “That is the last person I wanted to see now. She is doubtless here to tell me exactly what she thinks of me before storming off, never to be seen again.”
“Shall I tell her that you are—”
“No, damn it.” the rogue answered. Seila was a more generous soul than her father; she might see things differently than he did. And even if she didn’t, at the very least Jack wanted to make sure she heard his side of the story, too. “I might as well have done with this.”
He dropped his napkin on the table and marched out to the foyer to meet his fate, steeling himself for the worst. Seila waited for him there, pacing in a small circle exactly where her father had stood an hour before. She looked splendid in a burgundy dress; when he entered the room, she simply looked up and met his gaze for a long moment before saying softly, “Oh, Jack. What a mess you’ve made of things. Why in the world would you make up a noble title? In some lands you’d be executed for that sort of chicanery.”
Jack briefly considered bluffing his way through the conversation by insisting on the veracity of his claim, but reluctantly discarded the ploy. He might be able to keep Seila in doubt for a time, but sooner or later she would have to decide whether she believed him or her own father. Worse yet, if he tried to carry on the claim and failed to win her over with his a show of earnestness, she would be through with him. No, it was better to put the best face on the matter that he could, and hope that her affection for him was strong enough for her to set aside his misbehavior.
“I am sorry,” he said at last. “I never meant for the whole thing to go so far. It seemed like a harmless enough game when we were both prisoners of the drow, and when we reached the safety of your father’s manor, I suppose I just didn’t know how to set the story straight.”
Seila folded her arms and fixed a stern gaze on him. “All you had to do was tell the truth. Was it that difficult, Jack? And is that even your name?”
“Yes, Jack is my name; Jack Ravenwild.” He hung his head in a show of shame, thinking quickly as he assembled his play. “Seila, I have never met anyone like you,” he began with a note of uncertainty. “Men of my station do not associate with ladies of yours. I was afraid that once the truth was known, I would be shown the door, and I might never see you again.”
“Do you think I am so ungrateful that I would allow my father to treat you like a servant when I owe you my life? Is that really what you think of me, Jack?”
“It isn’t your gratitude that I doubted, Seila. Tell me truly: If I had admitted my common birth, would we have been allowed to spend so much time together in the last couple of tendays?” Seila did not answer immediately; Jack pressed his point. “You told me the day of the party that your father intends for you to marry well. How long would he have tolerated the presence of a … distraction … like me?”
Seila sighed and looked away. “Not for long,” she admitted. “But if my hand is my father’s to give away, then my heart is my own, and I am not quite finished with you, Jack Ravenwild.”
Jack’s heart gave a small skip, and he smiled. “I am pleased to hear you say so, but I’m afraid your father’s instructions to me were very clear on that point.”
“Well, he might not have the final say in the matter.” Seila turned to Jack, then took two brisk steps and kissed him very soundly. Jack found his arms circling her slender waist as he drank deeply of her perfect lips until she gently reached up and pushed him back to arm’s length. “For now, do as my father says,” she said. “I will see what I can do to bring him around. We can still correspond with care, and we may find occasion to see each other. In fact, I hope I can persuade you to join me at the opera tomorrow night.”
“The opera?” Jack asked.
“Tomorrow night, a new production opens at the Rundelstone Opera House; the Ravenaar Opera is playing The Fall of Myth Drannor,” Seila explained. “Everybody who is anybody will attend the opening, of course. My family has a box with a good vantage; you’ll see half the nobles of Raven’s Bluff in one sitting.”
“Ah, you hope that I will spot Fetterfist for you.”
“It’s the only thing I can think of that might win you some small credit with my father at the moment.”
Jack smiled. “And I thought you intended to defy your father simply for the pleasure of my company.”
“Well, I think that with some care my father won’t have any idea that I am defying him. He has other business tomorrow and won’t be in attendance, but he will not be surprised if I go in the company of a friend or two. The box is private enough that no one else should notice exactly who is
with me.”
“I have ways of not being seen when it suits me,” Jack replied. “Perhaps I could go in the guise of one of your many suitors—say, that Skyhawk fellow?”
Seila laughed and shook her head. “For Leira’s sake, no! He is very likely to be there, and might notice himself sitting with me. Some other guise, if you please.”
“Very well, I should be delighted to attend the opera.” Perhaps they’d spot the slaver, and perhaps not, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt his cause to spend several hours at Seila Norwood’s side. “Given the circumstances, I suppose I should just meet you in your box at the Rundelstone?”
“That would seem to be for the best. The show begins at eight.”
“Excellent! I am looking forward to it already, and I am sure we will expose that dastardly felon before the end of the first act.” Jack took her hand and raised it to his lips. “Tomorrow night, then.”
“Tomorrow night,” Seila said. She leaned forward to kiss him again, lightly this time, and then slipped out the front door.
Deciding to heed Seila’s advice and demonstrate attention to Lord Norwood’s requirements, Jack spent most of the rainy afternoon looking into alternative lodgings. It was possible, after all, that given time Seila might succeed in moderating her father’s stern stance against him, although it was clear that the days of posing as the Landsgrave Jaer Kell Wildhame were at an end. Somehow Jack doubted that Norwood would ever countenance any relationship between him and Seila, but at least he was still in the game; after all, the old fellow might be struck down by a runaway carriage tomorrow, and then Jack’s failure to come clean under Norwood’s accusations might not reach anyone else’s ears.
Unfortunately, a long afternoon of eliminating one genteel neighborhood after another from his prospects as he compared asking prices for comfortable homes to the state of his accounts left him footsore and discouraged. Nothing in Tentowers or Swordspoint seemed likely to fit his budget; Sixstar and Mortonbrace held possibilities, but they could hardly be considered trendy districts. “If I were not a generous and forgiving soul I might at this very moment be engaged in arranging a coach accident,” Jack grumbled to himself as he roamed the streets. “Then I wouldn’t need to abandon Maldridge or make unpleasant adjustments to my lifestyle.”
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