“You don’t think he’s in on it?” I ask.
“Why ask a stupid question…” Veronica stammers.
“Well, he gives you a common description of a woman. His partner. So he looks like the good guy…”
“Except I saw a woman take the Tear of Astra…” Jennifer says. It sounds like she was about to say more but her voice just trails off. But I can see her thinking. As much as I want to interject I need her to come to the conclusion herself. “And if she was his partner and, if we arrest the woman we’re after, and she doesn’t have the Tear of Astra on her Bernice gets away with the treasure.”
“If he’s the Thief of Dunmire!” Veronica bellows.
“Maybe that’s how he always gets away with it. He leaves some patsy to get caught because no one thinks he’s capable of anything,” I say.
“Get Bernice! We need to talk to him!” Jennifer says. Finally, all that pointing at Bernice is paying off.
“At once,” some guards say as they run off.
“Veronica, you had better get to your room,” Jennifer says. Yeah Veronica. People are staring at you and this time it isn’t because you’re beautiful!
Veronica stiffly steps forward, escorted by a pair of guards. Bridget and I step out of her way to make sure we don’t get anything on us.
“You…you won’t get away with this,” Veronica hisses as she passes me.
Yes I will.
“Go inside Bridget,” Jennifer says.
“Where is Blaise?” Bridget asks.
“He’s fine. Go inside with Mary,” Jennifer says. Bridget doesn’t like being the young one being told what to do. She’s an adult Jennifer! And why the hell am I defending Bridget?
“Come on,” I say, taking Bridget by the hand. She smiles and we both go inside. I have to trust that my sister can make her escape. Now I will have to do the same and meet up with her. We have a lot of work ahead of ourselves tonight.
I close the door and think about what I’m going to say to Bridget to break up with her and leave her here. Alone. Without any satisfaction. A pain I will share with her. I still hate Blaise for walking in on us! I hope Corvina did something…sinister to him.
“I had a thought,” Bridget says, walking over to the table where the pastries were sitting earlier.
“I had one as well,” I say.
“Where did you say you got those pastries from again?” she asks.
Where did I say I got those from? Damn it!
“Um, the, hall. There was a plate of them,” I say.
“Not the kitchen?”
Shit. She knows. She turns to me and I can see it in her eye. She knows. How to play this off…I got it!
“What if I did get them from the kitchen?”
“That would make you guilty of assaulting a noblewoman,” Bridget says. There isn’t the anger in her voice that there should be. Maybe this is Bridget angry? Maybe she’s one of those slow burning angry people that are all calm until they smack you.
“Or self defense,” I say.
“Was it self defense?” Bridget asks.
“If I were there, would you really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know,” she says.
Are we having our first fight?
“Well, she slipped and fell and I can’t take too much credit,” I say. Then I add, “She did look ridiculous, didn’t she?”
“She did,” Bridget says with a smile. “She had it coming.”
She did, didn’t she?
“The way she was strutting down the halls?” I ask.
“She was so condescending with me. Trying to keep us apart.”
“Is that what was so important that she wanted to talk about?”
“Yes,” Bridget says. “Stay away from that servant. Mind your own business you cow!”
“Damn right!” I say.
“I’ll still heal her,” Bridget says.
“What is injured other than her pride that a bath won’t cure?” I ask.
“Her hair looks…a lot shorter.”
“You…you can fix that?”
“Easily, actually,” Bridget says.
“Well, she better be nice to you then,” I say.
“Damn right she better,” Bridget says.
“Oh! I like seeing you stand up for yourself like this,” I say.
“Why thank you. Maybe I’ll let Veronica stir for a bit. A few days staring into a mirror with her hair so short might teach her to treat me like an adult. She’ll sit there putting on her makeup, short hair, thinking, if only I was nicer to Bridget, the one person in the castle that can give me my lovely locks back. And, oh, does she wear so much makeup!”
“I know, right?”
“It’s kind of sexy, but…”
“All the better to target with a pie,” I say.
“Did you?”
“Yes,” I say.
“What did she look like?”
“Just this mouth, all open like…” I say as I simulate what she looked like. Bridget laughs.
“How did she fall into that molasses?”
“She tried to come after me. She climbed out on the table and slipped,” I say, again, simulating with my face and arms how Veronica looked. Bridget laughs.
“Would you pie me?” Bridget asks.
“Well, as a stuck up princess I think you might deserve it,” I say.
“Well, maybe I would pie you back,” she says.
“Maybe I’ll make you clean it off,” I say. She smiles at me.
“Too bad we ate the pastries. We could put that to the test,” she says.
“So, what are you going to do now?”
“With the Thief of Dunmire in my bed chambers? Why, I might scream for help,” she says softly.
She doesn’t want to scream. Not for help anyway.
“What if your tongue was too busy to make out any words,” I say walking up to her.
“Then no one could come to my rescue.”
“Do you need rescuing?”
“It depends on what you are going to do to me,” Bridget says. I embrace her and kiss her. She doesn’t notice me untying the laces of her dress behind her. Ever so delicately so it just hangs off her hips.
We separate and I back up.
“As much as I do want to stay…and I do…I don’t want Veronica to get any ideas about tossing me into a dungeon.”
“What if I held you down?” Bridget asks.
“I would have to find something else for you to hold onto other than me,” I say with a smile. She smiles back and takes a step. Her dress falls and she is naked underneath.
Her beautiful mouth forms the cutest ‘o’ as she gasps and her hands fly to her womanhood to shelter my prying eyes.
She…she was preparing to do this for me. She really does love me!
She looks up at me, her face a twist of pleasure and frustration. She knows I can’t stay. We both want me to stay. But it can’t happen.
“Are you just going to leave me here like this?” she asks.
“Standing there, mouth agape, holding your, sweet mound, powerless, unable to do anything. Why, I’m sure an uppity noblewoman like yourself has earned this treatment,” I say. She stammers but doesn’t say anything. “The next time we meet,” I say as I reach for the door handle. “Just remember that I can tie you up, without rope.”
She smiles. She still has a hungry look in her eyes. Or am I just seeing my own desires in her? No. She is feeling the same as me. Otherwise she would have run off to the guards.
I open the door and walk out into the hall. Everyone is standing around and gabbing to one another. Most of the guards are off looking for my sister. A few guards look at me but apparently Jennifer told them I’m okay.
I can make out some of what the others are saying. I hear words like, did you see, and do you think they’ll have to shave her head. Veronica is usually the center of attention with all that makeup she paints herself with. It’s nice to see that without it she
is still popular. Although now I’m trying to imagine her with a shaved head and…I smile. I can’t help it. She better be nice to Bridget. That’s all I’m saying.
I reach the first floor and see that the gates are open. And there is Bernice near the front gates, held firmly by two guards, one for each arm.
“Unhand me! I’ve done nothing wrong! I’m on your side!”
“Then you won’t mind answering some questions.” a guard says. Bernice sees me leaving the keep.
“There! Her! She’s the one!”
“Hold it,” a guard says, looking me over.
“She’s not the one,” the other guard says.
“But…but I know she is!”
“The one we’re after should have a bruise on her face,” a guard says.
“What? No…wait…you! You won’t get away with this!” Bernice yells to me. The second time I’ve been told that tonight. And for the second time, yes, yes I will get away with this.
The guards don’t give me any attention once they see my face. How badly did my sister get hit? I hope she’s all right. I’ll know soon enough.
The streets are all wet and the sky is overcast. It is still raining a little bit but the brunt of the storm has trailed off over the horizon. There are a few people sloshing around in wet streets but most of the people are indoors. It will be night in a couple of hours so it’s an early end of the day for many.
I make my way to the stables. I’ll need to get that wagon and pair of horses that I was having him hold for me. The stable master approaches me and he looks surprised to see me.
“Leaving so late in the day?” he asks.
“I have to get some things ready if I want to leave early tomorrow,” I say. It’s a believable story, and the truth to boot. Kind of.
“All right. Let’s see. Five silver…” before he can finish I have the five silver coins in my hand ready to hand over to him. “Yeah. That’ll do. Wait out front. I’ll get one of my boys to bring your wagon around to you.”
“Thank you. Oh! Here,” I say handing him another silver. “For some feed.”
“A silver’s worth of feed? No problem,” he says pocketing the coin. “Larry! Get up!” he yells to some teenage boy lying around in the back somewhere.
I walk out to the front of the stables and wait for Larry. The young boy appears in about a minute and he has my wagon and my horses. I thank him and ride down the street.
There is a young woman standing in an alley and I resist the urge to wave to her. I almost do wave to her though. We’re not done yet, we’re still at risk! I’m such a klutz at this thieving thing sometimes.
I ride right up to her and I can see the bruise on her face in the dim light afforded to me as she climbs up into the wagon. She has a sack in her lap as she settles in beside me.
“You did get hit,” I say.
“I did,” Corvina says to me. “Wait? How did you know?”
She’s feeling her face.
“It’s kinda swollen,” I say.
“Is it…”
“Red and maybe a little black and blue? Yeah.”
It’s this nasty bruise on the side of her face. Someone hit Corvina hard.
“How did you know I got hit?” Corvina asks again.
“They were looking for it,” I say.
“Oh. Well, the princess is quicker than I gave her credit for.”
Princess?
“Bridget didn’t do that! Did she?”
“I should say yes…but no, the other princess.”
“You mean Melinda?” I ask as I drive down the street to Bernice’s.
“Yes. She was going by the name of Jennifer. You were real close to her,” Corvina says.
“Oh. Yeah. That makes sense,” I say. I should have known that. Why didn’t I make that connection earlier?
“It was all a trap,” Corvina says, a little bit mad.
“But, you managed to get it, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Oh, that reminds me,” Corvina says as she holds up two Tears of Astra. I can plainly see that one is glass but the other? Oh, the other is precious!
“You got it!” I say excitedly.
“Keep your voice down. Here,” she says as she hands me the fake Tear of Astra.
“Oh,” I say.
“It’s not to keep,” she says.
“I know that!” I say. I didn’t though, but she doesn’t know that. Although she does.
“Now then, you be the mouth in there. I’ll be your silent back up,” Corvina says.
“I’ll switch this out with the real one before we leave,” I say.
We ride further down the street and stop in front of the general store owned by Bernice. That puke green door really needs to be painted to some other color.
“Bernice is inside the keep still?” Corvina asks.
“Yes,” I say. “The guards wanted to ask him some questions.”
“Good. We can handle this without violence then.”
“And if the men with him are, you know, with him?”
“I doubt he would broadcast his selling thieves out to the prince,” Corvina says.
“Yes. That’s true. But if they are all in it together, or the men are plants by the prince or…”
“We’ll take them out,” Corvina says. She reaches down into the cart and pulls out four daggers with sheaths. It always pays to be prepared.
I pull out the knockout poison that I have when she hands me all the daggers.
“I have just enough for these four.”
“That will be enough. One cut and they’ll be out,” Corvina says. I quickly poison the blades and hand two to my sister. She smiles and ties them around her thigh. I do the same, under my skirt, since we don’t have belts to tie them to.
We both get off and I tie the horse to a hitching post nearby. We walk in and see two large men, Bernice’s hired thugs. They are the same that I saw earlier when I came to meet Bernice.
“What do you want?” one asks.
“Where’s Bernice?” I ask.
“Not here. Come back later,” he says to me.
“There is no later. Damn it! We had a deal!” I say, pretending to be pissed.
“Wait,” the other man says to me. “You’re the one with the Thief of Dunmire.”
“So you know that I’m not going to wait,” I say.
The men look at one another. They aren’t scared of me, just my name.
“Do you have the payment or not?” I say.
“Do you have the Tear of Astra?” one asks. Corvina reaches into her pocket and pulls out the Tear of Astra.
“Here,” Corvina says.
“Now, your end of the agreement,” I say.
“Let me see that,” one of the men says, approaching Corvina.
“It’s the real thing,” I say. Corvina hands it to him and the man looks it over. He nods and starts to walk off.
“You’ll have to wait…”
“I’m not waiting,” I say, snatching the Tear back from his grasp.
“Hey!”
“No payment, no Tear of Astra!”
“Then leave!” he shouts.
“Fine,” I say, turning to leave. Corvina opens the door for me and I’m in the threshold when…
“Wait!” he cries. “Come back, come back.”
I turn around and walk back in.
“Now, do you have my money?” I ask.
“Yeah, about that…”
“You were here when Bernice showed it to me.”
“Bernice never said nuthin…”
“What did Bernice say to me when I left?” I ask.
“I really should wait for Bernice…” the man says.
“Look. I am not going to sit here and wait with the Tear of Astra in my hands, waiting for Bernice. Either you pay me now or I walk,” I say, firmly.
They both look at one another. I can see them weighing their options, get in trouble for paying me or get in trouble for letting the Tear of Astra slip away from Bernice’s
grasp.
Of course they could all be working with Bernice more closely than I imagined. And if that’s the case walking away with the Tear of Astra is better than nothing at all. But a man like Bernice isn’t going to have a lot of accomplices. The more ears that hear him planning on backstabbing people coming to him for his work as a fence will be more tongues that flap that to the wrong person and soon, no more Bernice.
Finally, one man turns to me.
“Fine,” he says. He’s the hired help that I hoped he was.
“Great. Start loading it on the wagon,” I say.
“Pull it into the alley,” the other man says.
“I’ve got it,” Corvina says. I nod to her and lean back against a wall and wait. One man is staying there with me while the other walks off to the cellar where Bernice has all his wealth stored.
“This would be a lot quicker if you help him,” I say. Gold is heavy, damn it.
“And leave the store unguarded?”
“You are loading up crates of gold and precious items. What do you think I would want here that you are not already paying me with?”
Seriously. Help move the gold and stop guarding the crap.
“Yeah,” he says, finally moving to help his comrade. “No need to be bitchy.”
Bitchy? Bitchy? Oh, you haven’t seen bitchy yet…
No. Stop it Mary. He’s giving you piles of gold for a little bauble. They’re just words. Think of the gold Mary, the gold! And all the men you can hire to harass this man later. Assuming Bernice doesn’t kill him, of course.
I can hear the door opening into the alley and my sister’s voice carrying to the front door. She isn’t loud enough for me to hear what she is saying, specifically, but I can make out the two men grunting something affirmative to whatever she said. I walk back behind the counter into the back room and I see the cellar door is open. The men are groaning and heaving as they carry the heavy loot to the wagon. Our loot!
I smile, brimming from ear to ear.
Corvina tosses me a scolding glance. I respond by sticking my tongue out. We both resume our roles quickly as the first man climbs up to the top of the stairs. In his grasp is one of the chests of gold.
“This should do it,” the man says.
What? What? A single chest of gold for the Tear of Astra? What?
“No,” Corvina responds before I can spit out any words of my own.
“This is a lot of gold,” the man says.
The Thief of Dunmire and the Tear of Astra (The League of Sinister Means Book 1) Page 20