by Bell, Hilari
By the time we’d eaten, the local baron arrived. He’d been to court, and was appalled to discover that “the crazy vagabond” the sheriff was humoring “just in case” really was the Liege Heir. But once he’d heard our story — which wasted another twenty minutes — he cut through all the crap by stating the real problem: “The High Liege will have the balls of anyone who marries his Heir without his consent.”
“But I shall be High Liege myself, eventually,” said Rupert. “And I promise you, I’ll remember this day. Either as the day you won my favor, or the day you lost it. Permanently.”
“The current Liege may not be pleased to learn that Master Noye felt free to plot the murder of the Heir on land under your control,” Michael added helpfully. “Unless, of course, his victims make it very clear to the Liege that you had nothing to do with it.”
“Besides,” I said, suddenly inspired, “you can excuse your actions by citing a writ, a Liege writ, given to you by Rupert, that orders you to give all possible aid to the bearer. I grant you, when the Liege gave that writ to Michael and me, he may not have expected us to use it in just this way...”
When I forged it, I hadn’t expected to use it for this.
“...but you can honestly say that writ commanded you to obey the bearer’s orders, in the Liege’s name. And Rupert now bears that writ.”
Michael opened his mouth to deny this, and then jerked when Kathy kicked him under the table. And Rupert followed up so smoothly, explaining how this took all the responsibility off of them, that my hopes of his making a good ruler grew even higher. Though I’d have to tell him to say he’d bought the thing in a shady tavern, in one of the towns we’d passed through.
In fact, neither the baron or the mayor looked closely at that writ — if they could claim they thought it was real, that let them wiggle out from between the rock of Rupert’s orders, and the hard place of the Liege’s displeasure. There was a bit of jostling, as they both tried to avoid being the one who administered the marriage. But the baron pulled rank, ordered the mayor to “offer the Liege Heir aid and hospitality,” and then fled.
After a few more glasses of wine, we persuaded the mayor that he could use that command to convince Rupert’s father that the baron had ordered him to obey Rupert — so it was entirely the baron’s fault, and he’d had no choice.
In truth, I didn’t think he had much to fear. The worst of the High Liege’s wrath was going to fall on Rupert, where it belonged. Whatever was left would splash directly onto us.
So we gathered in the mayor’s parlor, with the servants, under his wife’s command, whisking dust covers off the furniture and bringing in a big vase of flowers for the side table. And for me, the High Liege’s probable wrath was a dim and distant worry because, with the greater problem of Rupert’s marriage out of the way, the mayor had agreed to take Kathy’s and my oaths without even blinking.
I kept a set of clean clothes in my saddlebags, although my best coat, and even the shirt with a band of lace at cuffs and collar, made me look more like a well-off clerk than a bridegroom.
But the mayor’s wife’s clothes, which were a fair fit for Meg, would have hung on my girl’s slender grace like a sack. So Kathy put on the plain blouse and skirt she’d worn when we attacked the coach, and for the first time in our acquaintance she looked like we ... matched.
Maybe it was because of the clothes, but in that moment the thought that she’d soon be my wife became real. My thundering pulse slowed enough that I could hear Rupert and Meg make their oaths to each other, even if I paid them no attention.
Then it was time for Katherine to stand before me, her hands clasped in mine, her heart in her shining eyes.
“I’ve got the Liege’s writ that the bearer speaks for him, so the bearer can consent to the Heir’s marriage,” the mayor said.
If the writ didn’t offer the bearer quite that much power, I wasn’t about to correct him.
“But who stands as kinsman to this woman?” the Mayor went on. “To give her family’s consent to her joining?”
“I am her brother, and I do,” said Michael.
“And is there any legal impediment to your speaking for your family in this matter?” the mayor asked.
My heart skipped a beat, and began to pound sickly. I had thought the mayor was too tipsy to care, but he evidently didn’t want to earn Baron Sevenson’s wrath any more than he did the High Liege’s. If Michael swore there was no impediment, that let him off the hook ... but there was an impediment. Michael was unredeemed. His father hadn’t just disowned him — he had no legal standing at all. He’d also spent the last two years refusing to lie about it, as a point of principle, and gotten us into no end of trouble.
I saw the sudden panic in Kathy’s eyes, and cast wildly for something I could do or say.
“There is no impediment,” Michael said firmly. “I speak for my family, as Katherine’s kinsman, and I consent to her marriage.”
“Oh, very well.” The mayor sighed. “I suppose it can’t get much worse. Do you, Nonopherian Fisk, plight your future to this woman’s, taking her into your home and family as your wife? Do you bind your fortune to hers, as she will to you, to share your lives until death do you part?”
“I do,” I said hastily.
Katherine’s smile blossomed like the sunrise.
“Do you, Katherine Sevenson, plight your future to this man’s, going into his home and family as his wife? Do you bind your fortune to his, as he has to you, to share your lives until death do you part?”
“I do,” said Kathy.
That tiny flame of love burst into a conflagration, and consumed me.
I sat down for breakfast with the mayor and his lady, and none of us were astonished when my companions failed to appear. They did turn up for luncheon — and the sleepy glow in my sister’s face, and Fisk’s secure smile, made everything right.
When I took up errantry, I swore to myself that I would take my honor as seriously as the knights of old, and never smirch it with greed, deceit, cowardice or lies.
Then I took up with Fisk.
I could never be sorry for that, for Fisk had taught me that lies can sometimes be a force for good, and some truths cause terrible harm. I had learned to see how little in this world was all evil, or all good, but a muddled mix between. This might be less satisfying than “right” and “wrong,” but ’twould keep me from ever becoming what Wheatman was. And I knew who I had to thank for it.
After luncheon, the mayor told us that the sheriff had asked Rupert to call on him “at his convenience,” and I wanted to see which of Noye’s carriage horses might make a suitable mount, so we all went off together.
The sheriff willingly agreed that his deputies would convey Noye to Crown City, and Rupert graciously assured him that he didn’t mind that the sheriff wouldn’t be able to release the men to do it until next week. The hitch arose when the sheriff said we couldn’t take the coach horses. Not that he didn’t want to oblige the Heir, but they were branded as the property of a posting inn, to which they had to be returned. In fact, a rider had taken them away this morning.
This was the normal practice — you paid for the horses’ return as part of the lease — but it meant we had no horse for Margaret. And after spending so much longer on the road than we’d intended...
“I could demand the baron loan us a horse,” Rupert said. “But that’s not like asking him to take our oath or arrest a criminal, which he should do anyway. That’s the kind of thing that pisses your liege people off in a way they tend to resent. And remember.”
“Ah. One of my deputies has a cousin who works for the baron,” the sheriff put in. “He says the baron left first thing this morning, to visit his sister. Which will probably be quite a surprise to her.”
All things considered, I wasn’t surprised at all.
“How much money do we have?” I asked.
“One hundred and eighty-four gold roundels, seven silver, and assorted copper fracts,” said
Fisk, who had counted it. “But that makes me wonder what Noye was doing for coin. We didn’t find much money in his saddlebags...”
The sheriff agreed to let us search the coach again, though he insisted on watching while Fisk tapped on panels and wiggled the upholstery tacks. He found the secret compartment inside a cupboard under the front passenger bench — and it looked as if Master Noye had gone though most of his funding as well. But after the sheriff brought in a clerk to count and record the sum, he was happy to let Rupert take charge of it. He even gave us directions to the home of a townsman whose wife was getting too old to ride, and who might be willing to part with a smooth-gaited mare.
By the time we purchased the neat little bay, the afternoon was almost over. But the sun sets late in summer, and I thought we could travel a reasonable distance before it vanished.
Rupert claimed that Margaret was still too tired from her ordeal to set off today.
“Why do I have to be the weakling?” Margaret complained. “Why can’t Kathy be tired? Or one of you men?”
“I’m tired,” Fisk said hastily. “Subduing villains takes it right out of me. I’m tired for days afterward. Ask anyone.”
“In fact,” I said, “it does no such—”
“Ask anyone else,” said Fisk.
The upshot was that we set out late next morning, to the mayor’s carefully concealed relief. We could have cut at least a day off the ten days it took us to ride back to Crown City, if all four of my companions hadn’t developed a sudden penchant for long evening walks. Away from camp, and in different directions.
But they all returned looking ridiculously content — and I think Rupert and Margaret actually spent some of the time in walking and talking. I even obliged my sister and my new brother-in-law by keeping Fearless with me. My heart ached a bit, as Fisk became less my partner and more Kathy’s husband with each day that passed. But seeing the two of them so happy reconciled me to this, at least somewhat. And if I lost him as a partner, I had gained him as a brother ... which meant he’d never be completely rid of me.
Even with four of the five of us dragging their feet, we reached Crown City on the afternoon of our tenth day of travel.
Despite Champion being tacked out and groomed like a normal horse, several people glanced at him, and then at Rupert — but the Heir’s disguise was better than his horse’s and no one ventured to speak to him. The nearer we drew to the palace, the stiffer Rupert’s spine became, and Margaret’s expressive face was wooden.
I couldn’t help either of them. The news of their marriage would bring trouble enough. The letters Rupert carried would break lives.
But he was thinking of his wife, as well as his father. As we crossed the street that led to the Merkle’s manor he brought Champion to a stop.
“Do you want to go to your parents, Meg? Tell them you’re all right, mayhap spend a few days there? I’d understand. ’Tis going to be miserable.”
“It is,” she said. “And I’ll send them a message as soon as I can, and visit them tomorrow. But now, I want to go home.”
Rupert’s bleak face brightened, and I saw Kathy and Fisk exchange a look I didn’t understand. Would I ever find a woman with whom to exchange such looks? I remembered Rosamund fondly, but she’d been married almost a year now, to the man she loved. It suddenly seemed foolish to spend the rest of my life pining over that.
But now ’twas time to put romance aside, and we rode on to the palace. The guards on the wall blew their trumpets — which I’d thought they did only for ceremony — as soon as Rupert was close enough they could be sure ’twas him. As he rode up the drive, servants and courtiers flooded out to see for themselves that ’twas really the Liege Heir, returned. And with “that woman” beside him.
By the time Rupert reached the courtyard, and we pulled our horses to a halt before the steps that led to the great double doors, the High Liege and his Lady had come out onto the portico to greet him, along with assorted courtiers, including Advisor Arnold and Captain Varner. The expression on the Liege’s face was an apoplectic blend of relief and fury — and mayhap a deeply buried hint of pride. His scholarly son had completed his difficult quest ... even if ’twas a quest of which he disapproved.
The Liege Lady’s expression was harder to read; the smile she pasted on her lips might have looked genuine, to anyone who didn’t look closely.
Rupert dismounted, then turned to help Margaret down, before leading her up the steps beside him.
The Liege’s brows shot up, then lowered in a deep scowl as he gauged the significance of this. The buzz of gossip around us grew to a roar that only abated when Rupert reached his father and everyone strained to listen in.
“Do you have any idea,” said the High Liege, “how much this escapade of yours has cost me?”
“It hasn’t cost you a fract,” said Rupert. “Well, except for the traveling stipend you gave Master Sevenson — and that wasn’t enough, by the way. I need to talk to you, and Master Arnold, I think, about several things. But first, I wish to present my wife, Lady Margaret.”
The crowd gasped. The High Liege scowled. The Liege Lady’s expression sobered appropriately, and I couldn’t tell what was going on behind that lovely mask.
Margaret’s spine was even straighter than Rupert’s, and if red flags of anger and embarrassment flew in her cheeks her head was regally high. Indeed, she looked so much like an Heir’s Lady that the Liege himself took a second look at her.
“That will have to be discussed,” he said. “Inside. Just the three of us.”
“I think Meg should lie down for a while,” said Rupert. “She’s carrying my child, and she’s had a hard month. But you and I need to talk.”
The Liege’s expression changed again. “She really was kidnapped? But why would... No, you’re right. We should talk privately.”
The Liege Lady’s expression was impassive, but her eyes slipped aside, toward the gate.
Rupert hugged Margaret and released her, but Kathy darted up the stairs to escort her, acting so clearly as Margaret’s lady-in-waiting that even though another buzz of gossip arose, the crowd stepped aside for her.
It seemed to me that someone should do something about the Liege Lady now. I was nerving myself to say so when Rupert caught Advisor Arnold’s arm, turning him so his back was to the Liege Lady before he leaned forward and murmured into the man’s ear.
This was just as well, for the Advisor’s jaw sagged, and only Rupert’s grip stopped him from turning to stare at his liege’s wife. Then he straightened, and signaled to one of his clerks.
The matter had clearly been placed in the proper hands. It could have been enough. It should have been enough.
On the other hand, I was done with underestimating that woman.
I left Fisk to escort Kathy and Margaret back to the cottage, while I jogged up the stairs and approached Captain Varner.
She came into the stables less than fifteen minutes later, wearing a dress so ragged I had no idea where she’d come by it. And she might have fled, or even tried to fight when Varner’s men stepped out of the shadows, had it not been for the little boy in her arms.
She did try to order them out of the way — she was the Liege Lady, after all — but Varner wasn’t having it, and he stiffened his men’s spines.
She would have fought, I think, when they arrested her, but the child’s lower lip had begun to quiver. The adventure his mother had promised him had turned into a nasty adult quarrel, and he didn’t like it. He shrieked when Captain Varner lifted him from his mother’s arms, but she told him it was all right, that the nice lieutenant would take him back to his nurse, and they’d go on a picnic and play in the stream some other time.
When they carried him out, her eyes followed him ... and found me.
“You! I should have known... I did know, curse it.”
They were binding her wrists now, and I was not surprised she’d stopped resisting — her only chance to see her son again was to find some oth
er way out of this snare she’d sprung on herself.
“Know what?” I asked. “I didn’t even know for certain you’d try to escape. I just warned Captain Varner that you might.”
“And I knew better than to ignore a tip from Michael Sevenson,” the captain said.
I grimaced, and to my surprise the Liege Lady’s mouth quirked wryly. “That was why I went to check you out, you know. I’d heard what you did with Roseman, but I thought it had to be exaggerated. Then you turned up at the levee, on Rupert’s heels, so I went to see for myself. You and your partner. And I knew...”
I waited, but whatever her Gift had read on Fisk and me, ’twas evidently too incriminating to say aloud.
“Was that why you set Wheatman after me?” I asked.
“Who’s Wheatman?” she said.
’Twas a valiant effort ... but in the face of so much evidence against her, no pretense of innocence could last.
I returned to the cottage, which was hot, stuffy, and smelled faintly of dust. Fisk had thrown open all the windows, and Kathy had sent to the palace for a meal, and also a maid who’d been assigned to her from time to time, and whom she liked.
Margaret’s own maid, Griswold, arrived soon after I did, along with a small tide of Rupert’s servants. She was promptly fired — her first act, Margaret said, as the Heir’s Lady, and a most worthwhile one.
Her second was to send a message to her parents. But after that there was little to do besides dine, and wait for the storm to break.
Then the storm broke.
At the end of it, the Liege Lady was removed, under guard, to a small estate where — if she behaved herself — she’d be permitted to live out the rest of her life. And see her son for five days in every two months, since young Liam was not allowed to go with her.
This much was conveyed to us by Mistress ... Lady Margaret’s new maid, who kept returning to the palace for a better pillow, or a tisane suited to a pregnant woman, and returning more laden with gossip than with pillows and tisanes.