Since when had Mareen thought that? Aeryn wondered.
Merek touched Aeryn’s sleeve. “Don’t be gone too long. You know how fast rumors spread,” he said with a twitch of his eyes to Alys.
“I’m pretty sure she has proven she can handle herself,” Mareen said to Merek. She faced Aeryn and grinned. “Haven’t you, my dear?”
Aeryn spun and walked away. Bloody fish guts! How did Mareen listen to a dozen conversations at once? And how did she—and every other Lord and Lady at the table for that matter—manage to imbue their words with two or three meanings beyond the one at the surface? It was enough to twist her head in a knot and make her want to pull out her hair.
The powder room was an elegant affair, and though Aeryn lingered as long as she dared, she knew she would not be able to hide there forever. Sooner or later another Lady would discover her, forcing her back to the dining table.
Upon leaving, Aeryn made a beeline for the nearest door to the outside, ostensibly to get a breath of fresh air in the growing dusk. Only, the nearest door emptied straight into a gathering of drivers, porters and guards who had stolen the opportunity to dice and carouse.
“Don’t let me bother you,” Aeryn said as dice were hidden underfoot, tankards of ale behind backs, and hasty bows and hastier explanations abounded. Their shifting feet and eyes made it clear that that was the last thing that would happen.
Striding to the storeroom, Aeryn left a wake of whispers that questioned what a Lady was doing outside unescorted at this time of night.
A scratch on Jynx’s muzzle and she led him outside. Without a lantern to see by, and not willing to risk Drifting with so many people around, the deep twilight played tricks on her eyes, making her see things that were not there. Even Jynx was skittish, growling at dark recesses, and jumping at shadows. His fur stood on end as if he was afraid of the mice skittering along the base of the walls.
“It’s okay boy,” Aeryn said. “All these bloody Lords and Ladies just have us on edge. There’s nothing out there to worry about.”
Disdaining her words, Jynx dropped his nose to the ground and moved off.
Trying to make sense of everything she had learned over the course of the past few hours, Aeryn followed blindly, bumping into his side more often than not. It felt good to stretch her legs, even if they still ached with every other step and the dress constricted her movements. With every carriage she passed, all neatly arrayed in a single file line, her thoughts flitted from one seemingly benign comment to another, mining it for any underlying meanings.
Those that she could interpret were not only the most obvious, but also about as useful as a wagon full of rocks. What did it matter that Lord Cedric had a dirty mind, lecherous eyes and expensive taste in wine? Who cared that Piebald lusted after the all but deaf Lady Isolde? Was there any point in knowing that Lady Helda was scared of her own shadow and that her husband Lord Bornhald would pay anything to calm her nerves?
Jynx froze and twitched up his ears, sniffing at the air. Aeryn stumbled into his rump.
“What are you doing, Jynx?” she asked, recovering and walking around him. “It’s just a gaggle,” that word fit so nicely, “of nobles puffing out their chests at one another.” She snickered behind a hand at the thought of Mareen trying to puff out her chest. It turned to a blush as an image of the perfectly formed Lady Alys doing the same.
Jynx Drifted and darted off.
“Jynx,” Aeryn hissed. “Get back here.”
The draven made no move to do so.
“Bloody hell.” Aeryn knew she had to get Jynx to stop before someone saw him and raised the alarm. She did not have a clue how she would explain that her best friend was a Shadow.
“Jynx,” she said as loud as she dared without her voice carrying to the men dicing at the estate’s side entrance. “Jynx, stop.”
The draven kept on going.
Bloody, flaming, rat-spawned draven.
Aeryn ran after. Unable to move her legs freely in the black and red silk gown, she made it two steps before she tumbled to the ground. With Jynx but a black blur receding into the distance, she did not bother to wipe off the dirt and dust as she regained her feet. She just hitched her gown past her knee and sprinted after. What a sight this would be, she thought as she struggled to catch up. A street urchin dressed as a Lady, her legs barred to mid-thigh and showing underclothes, sprinting full tilt after a Shadow.
A frantic clash of metal on metal came from a small thicket ahead. The very one she and Will had stashed their ill-gotten loot in so long ago. The sounds spurred her on.
As the bushes reared up, she caught sight of an indistinct gray form dashing toward the wall. She altered course and followed.
Hitting the wall, the form leapt. With its torso against the top, it flipped its legs up and over and disappeared. Aeryn jumped, grabbed the top and hauled herself up. She saw nothing, not even a patrolling soldier. She would need Jynx to track it.
Jynx! Where was he?
“Jynx,” she shouted. She had more pressing concerns than staying hidden, now. “Where are you?”
The draven let out a surprisingly dog-like bark that he must have picked up from Gerald’s hounds.
Dropping back to the ground, she ran towards the source of the noise. She pushed her way into the thicket through branches that tore her delicate silk gown.
In the opening at the center, Jynx marched in circles around a body. Glassy eyes reflecting the last rays of the day’s light, the body’s right hand held a simple wood-hilted dagger, while its left clutched a matted wound in its chest. It wore plain robes that Aeryn knew all too well. A Shade.
A man, this one garbed in the uniform of a coachman, barreled into the opening across the body from Aeryn. A pair of guards were fast on his heels.
“My Lady,” the man said, panting, “I heard you yelling. What happ—“ He slid to a halt in the blood-soaked mud.
“Vanin, what is it?” came a call from closer to the house. “What’s going on?”
The coachman locked eyes with Aeryn. The guards drew their swords in a rasp and immediately began to search the darkness.
“Vanin? Vanin!”
“Send for Lord Merek,” Vanin called over his shoulder.
“Why? Vanin, what happ—“
“Do it, Ren!” Vanin shouted.
Aeryn’s head swam as Jynx brushed up against her leg and licked at her slack hand. If the coachman thought that she had killed this man, if he gave the rumor life. . . It would all be over for her and for Jynx. Aeryn felt her knees go weak.
“I. . .,” Aeryn stuttered, looking at the corpse, “I didn’t—“
“It’ll be alright,” Vanin said. His hands closed tightly around Aeryn’s waist. “It’s just a body. It can’t hurt you anymore. Now come on, let’s get you—“
“This better be important,” Merek said as he strode into the clearing. “Dessert was being served. I’ve a table full of Lords and Ladies back inside if you hadn’t noticed.”
“I’ve never known Vanin to cry wolf, my lord,” Ren said.
“You better be right,” Merek said.
In the clearing now, a second pair of guards at his side, Merek froze. He took in the scene in a blink of an eye.
“You,” he said to Ren, “give me your coat.” The man immediately obliged. “Run and fetch Reeve.” The man was gone in a heartbeat. “You,” Merek said, rounding on Vanin, “gather up the drivers and porters I saw back there. Don’t let anyone but my chamberlain out of the house. As for you,” he addressed the guards prowling the clearing for a threat that had followed Vanin a minute ago, “I want every man that can hold a sword to grab one and patrol the ground. Those that can’t are to hold lanterns and light their way. I don’t care who your Lord or Lady is, they will be kept safe and inside my house until I am convinced the danger has passed. You do what I say and you do it now.”
The guards snapped a salute and dashed off without a word of protest.
“But, my lord,”
Vanin said, hanging back, “the Lady here fainted and—“
“What’s your name?” Merek asked.
The coachman seemed confused. “Ah, Vanin, my lord.”
“Well, Vanin,” Merek said. “If you had your hands full with one Lady seeing this, can you imagine what would happen if ten walked out to find this? One Lady is nothing compared to the mass hysteria we’d have on our hands.”
Vanin’s eyes widened. “Yes, my lord. Yes, you are absolutely right.”
“And Vanin,” Merek said. The coachman looked up. “No one, no matter how much they protest or what orders they give you, is allowed past you but my chamberlain. You understand?”
Vanin handed Aeryn over to Merek as though she was a porcelain doll, nodded hastily, and ran off toward the house, shouting orders to Ren.
“As for you,” Merek turned to Aeryn, “that was quick thinking pretending to faint like that. But I need you to cut the act and help me before Reeve gets here.” Leaning down, he flicked out his knife and began to cut away the body’s clothing.
“I didn’t faint,” Aeryn said.
Merek waved her words away. “No time for that. Surely you saw this man’s clothing?”
Aeryn nodded that she did.
“Then you know this is a Shade. Now can you tell me what would happen if Alys, Helda, and all the others back there,” he gestured back toward the house, “found out a Shade was killed a hundred feet from where they were dining?”
Adrenaline coursing through her veins, Aeryn ran through a hundred possibilities in an instant. None of them ended well. She went to her knees and started tearing away the sliced fabric.
“Good,” Merek said. “Now tell me what happened, and quickly, mind you, Reeve will be here any second. You can fill me in on any details you miss later.”
Aeryn decided to start with the most important part. “I didn’t kill him. I came outside to check on Jynx and. . .” Working as she spoke, she hit all the main points and barely managed to shred the clothes and mat them with dirt before Reeve arrived.
A rapid conversation with the chamberlain and Reeve left, Jynx at his side, the coachman’s coat draped over the draven’s back. Jynx was not happy to leave Aeryn, and Reeve even less so to do the work of a “common peasant” as he put it, but a stern word from Aeryn and Merek put them both in their places.
“Look terrified, like you just saw your life flash before your eyes,” Merek whispered.
“How?” Aeryn asked.
“Lean on me. Hold your arms together tightly, lower your eyes and think of something sad. Put on the best show you can. Our lives might just depend on it. On second thought, it might be easiest if you pretend you were Lady Helda and you had just seen a mouse.”
Aeryn chuckled at the image.
“That’s not what I had in mind,” Merek said with a frown.
Aeryn cleared her throat. Shaking the grin off her face, she huddled next to Merek and rubbed her arms as if she had been doused in water in the middle of a blizzard.
“Better. Now keep stay like that until I get you to your room. I hope you’re ready; it would seem we’re out of time.”
Aeryn had no problem holding a terrified expression after that. Merek had had more than a decade to come to terms with the idea of killing a God. Aeryn on the other hand, had only made up her mind early that very morning. As if her life had not been perilous enough, it was now downright fatal.
17
A Ship's Anchor
A stone skipped away on the cobbles. Knife clenched tightly beneath his cloak, Merek jerked his head around, playing the part of a scared Lord. At least, that was what he kept repeating to himself; he was just playing the part. He could not afford to give in to fear. Not now. Not after he had spent so long biding his time.
A Shade appeared and looked about every bit as cautiously.
“Did you come alone, Asher?” Merek asked. He kept his hand on the blade just in case.
“Of course I did,” Asher said. “I’ve been doing this for as long as you have, remember. And don’t use my name,” he added with a hiss. “I may be alone, but if anyone was to overhear. . .”
Merek injected heat into his voice. “I think we’re a little beyond that now, don’t you? Gods! A bloody Shade was killed on my door step.”
“Do the other nobles suspect anything?”
Merek grabbed the young man’s arm—even after all these years, he still saw Asher as the young man that had courted his daughter Bethany—and pulled him further out of sight. “Who gives a damn what they suspect? A Shade was killed,” he paused to lend weight to his words, “at my estate.”
“I heard you the first time. Now answer me: do the others suspect anything?”
Merek shook his head. “I don’t think so. No one but a pair of coachmen, guards and my chamberlain saw anything. The former wouldn’t know a Shade from a Shadow, as luck would have it the guards were your mother’s, and the latter won’t say anything, I can guarantee that. But even the thought of a street urchin—which is our cover story—much less a Shadow, making it past the Lord’s Gate and to my house, not to mention getting killed less than a hundred feet from where they were eating, has riled them up like a bear sticking its hand into a beehive.” Merek gave the younger man a good stare. “I answered you. Now answer me: what the bloody hell happened?”
“He,” there was little doubt who Asher meant, “thought I had arrived same as him: by following a trail of blood.” Asher fingered his knife. “As in an actual, literal trail of blood. It seems three street thugs had their throats ripped out earlier that morning.”
“I heard about that. Some,” Merek cleared his throat, “rogue Shadow or something.”
“Oh, it gets better. In addition to the droplets, there was also the matter of bloody paw prints. Both of which just so happened to waltz right up to your estate and over the wall. At first he thought they were from some wild animal, or perhaps an oversized dog that had fed on the corpses, but that was easy enough to rule out. Aside from that brutish huntsman of yours, no one is crazy enough to live with such feral beasts. Then there was the matter of her walking out ever so casually and letting the draven loose from your storeroom. You need to keep her in check. If I hadn’t been there when I was. . .” Asher held his arms wide. “Our heads would be decorating a set of iron pikes.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Merek said, “but it sounds like she ended up saving our necks.”
“They wouldn’t have needed saving if she hadn’t put them on the block in the first place.”
“I told you I’d talk to her. But you know as well as I that sometimes, people—and Gods—need to be disposed of. So what do we do now?” Merek asked before Asher could argue further about an event they could not change.
Asher scowled, clearly seeing through Merek. “See that you do,” he said, getting in the last word. “As for the mess, I cleaned it up as best I could. The trail stops at the Lord’s Wall now, not at your estate.
“That still leaves the little matter of the dead Shade. The other Shades, the Voices, and Nameless, will find out he is missing soon enough. All our plans will be for naught.”
Merek dropped his head and ran through the possibilities left open. He could run back to his country estate and try to weather the coming storm. How long could he hold out? A month? Two? Another possibility was to keep moving forward and try to salvage what he could of this disaster. That presented its own risks, not least of which was being drawn and quartered, a gruesome death by any standards. Given the choice, he knew he would choose the latter this time around.
Aeryn had no idea of course, but she had taught him nearly as much as he had taught her. Merek smiled. Aside from the fact that her “business” had nearly gotten them all killed, Aeryn had come a long way in the months since she had barged her way into his house a destitute street urchin struggling to survive.
“No,” Asher said.
No? Merek looked up. “What do you mean? Even if you killed him before he could re
port on what he knew, he is still dead. We’ve uncovered.”
Asher vehemently shook his head. “I don’t think so. He was a loner, one of those ‘true believer’ types, always preferring to stay in the field as long as possible.” It sickened Merek to think that they called Maerilin’s streets “the field,” as if it was some kind of battleground. “He said Nameless demanded nothing less than his absolute dedication. The Voices always gave those types the long assignments. I should be able to fake his reports. For a time at least.”
Merek frowned in thought. Did he dare hope? “How much time can you buy?”
“Two months. Three at the outside.”
“We’ll need to move quickly then.”
“My thoughts as well,” Asher said with a nod. “Send her in as soon as possible. I’ll escort her around myself since it is only a matter of time before everything unravels now.”
Eyes lightening, Merek said, “We might yet pull this off. She put on a good show that night; good enough that no one paid too much attention to the details. I’ll say I’m sending her in to ease her mind. I’m still worried that someone will connect the dots, though.”
“Give me the draven and I can give the Voices their Shadow. It’ll draw attention off us; give us a chance to gather our forces.”
“Absolutely not. She’ll never agree.”
“Who cares if she’ll agree? It’s the only way to ‘solve’ the murders and appease the Voices.”
“No,” Merek said. He met Asher’s eyes squarely. “Find another way.”
They stared at each other for a good minute before Asher broke the silence. “Fine.” He grunted. “Have it your way. I’ll see what else I can come up with.”
“Good. But I can’t send her in until we procure—“
Asher held up a small cloth bundle. “Already got it.”
Taking the offered bundle, Merek peered inside. He was barely able to make out a set of featureless servants uniforms. He turned to leave. There were preparations to make. Asher caught his arm.
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