by Hilari Bell
The sheriff had followed this with considerable interest. Now he turned to Maxwell. “So he told me the truth. Will you give warrant for him? I’m not just going to turn him loose.”
Maxwell’s “no” and my “yes” clashed in midair. Our eyes met.
“I won’t have an unredeemed man in my house.” It was firm, final, and dignified. I didn’t give a tinker’s curse.
“Why not? You’ve already got me, and Michael’s a much better person than I am. Though I must admit”—I cast a glance at my employer—“he doesn’t look it.”
“No,” said Maxwell.
“He goes, I go.”
“No!” Anna stepped forward and caught my arm. “We’re your family. You can’t leave us for…for…”
“He claims me and you don’t. Who do you think I’m going to choose, Annie?”
She flinched, then took a deep breath and turned to Maxwell. “We need Nonny’s help. Give the warrant, Max.”
“No!” But it was more protest than refusal, and the tension along my spine eased, even before Maxwell went on, “He’s unredeemed, Anna. The Gods alone know what he’s done—or what he’ll do! I can’t just—”
“I thought we needed criminal types,” said Judith. “Isn’t that why we sent for Fisk?”
“I didn’t…” Maxwell looked at the faces of his women, and his will crumpled. “Oh, very well. Yes, Rob, I’ll give warrant for this Sevenson’s behavior. I only hope I don’t live to regret it. I’ve enough on my conscience as it is.”
Anna’s arms went round him. “You won’t regret it, dear. Nonny vouched for him.”
“I did? I don’t remember doing anything of the kind.”
“Fisk!” Michael muttered though clenched teeth.
Maxwell looked pained. “What is your relationship to this person, Fisk?”
“He’s my…” They were all waiting. For the first time, I noticed several strangers in the crowd. Michael was no longer my employer. My debt to him was paid. It was guilt, combined with the beaten misery on his face, that stung me into the reply I made.
“He’s a knight errant and I’m his squire.”
Their faces went blank with astonishment. It was probably the bravest thing I’ve ever said, and Michael—the coward, the rat, the traitor—gave me the same incredulous look as everyone else.
It was Judith who finally broke the silence. “Well, if you’re going to bring him to dinner, you’d better wash him, whatever he is. I must say, Fisk, life’s a lot more entertaining since you came home. If this is the drama, I can’t wait for the farce.”
I took Michael upstairs to wash and change while the others got rid of the sheriff.
“Why did you say that?” Michael hissed as soon as we were out of earshot. “Now they think we’re both crazy.”
“So? It’s better than what they were thinking before. Besides, you are crazy. What are you doing here, Mike?”
“I knew you must be going into trouble or you would have told me. You should have told me…Nonny.”
I winced. “It’s short for Nonopherian. After that idiot philosopher who went around pulling crooked petals off flowers.”
“I know who Nonopherian was, and striving for excellence in all things doesn’t make him an idiot. Though I admit, ’tis a mouthful.”
“I prefer to be called Fisk…Michael.”
“Then I will never call you anything else.” The nobility of his words was undermined by the wicked satisfaction in his eyes. I reluctantly banished “Mike” from my vocabulary, even as he went on, seriously, “You really should have told me. You know I’d not let you face a problem alone, whatever it might be. Though it seems”—his voice became grimmer—“that I may do you more harm than good.”
The anger of shame hardened his face, and I wondered, suddenly, what his journey had been like. At least I could do some mending on his tattered pride.
“Well, I told you to keep your shirt on. But I’m glad you’re here. I’m going to need all the help I can get.” I told him Maxwell’s story, as briefly as possible, while he washed.
Mr. Trimmer, a willowy old man who’d been one of the strangers in the entry, brought up Michael’s pack and assured us he’d stable Chanticleer with Tipple. I wondered if my family could afford to feed two horses, and concluded that Michael and I should buy some hay. I hoped he had the money for it.
Dinner was an anticlimax.
The second stranger I’d noticed in the entryway was the dinner guest, Benjamin Worthington. His long buttoned vest and jacket were tactfully subdued, but of excellent cloth and cut, and his manner had the subtle confidence that comes from knowing you’re the wealthiest man in the room. He was clearly an old friend of Maxwell’s and a favorite with my sisters, and as dinner commenced, I began to see why.
The addition of Michael demolished whatever seating plan Anna had intended. Maxwell sat at the head of the long table, with Worthington to his right and Anna to his left. As hostess, Anna should have been seated on Worthington’s right, but instead she set Lissy between Worthington and me, and Michael between herself and Judith. Watching her shrink from Michael’s presence, it wasn’t hard to figure out that she’d rearranged the seating to keep the unredeemed man from sitting next to Lissy.
Trimmer served the soup, cream with onions and potatoes. The conversation would have been stilted, but Worthington started an intense discussion by telling Max that the Shipbuilders’ Guild had petitioned for permission to tear down the North Tower to expand the wharves. This caused an immediate outcry, for the towers were the lower town’s oldest landmarks.
I’d been gone long enough not to care, though I understood the fervor it roused in the others. As Trimmer replaced the soup bowls with various vegetables and a roast goose stuffed with apples and onions, I took the time to study Worthington more thoroughly. Beyond his clothes, he was a large man, though not overly given to fat, passing into that unnamed time between middle and old age. He must have been ten years Maxwell’s senior, and his hair, now half gray, would have been plain brown in his youth. Indeed, plain brown described him well—his speech and manners were those of a well-to-do craftsman with no pretensions. Was his wealth self-made? If so, it betrayed a degree of ambition that nothing else about him showed. Watching him steer the awkward conversation into comfortable channels, I could see why my sisters liked him.
When the North Tower conversation died a natural death, he brought up the subject of shipping goods from the new mining towns. This was clearly a hobbyhorse of Maxwell’s, for his quiet manner became quite impassioned as he spoke of manufacturers who used unskilled men to produce shoddy goods, bringing down the reputation of the town. He hadn’t been that ardent when he asked to marry my sister.
“Make a good profit, do they?” I put all the interest I could into my tone, though I admit I said it only to annoy him. Max looked appalled and opened his mouth to reply—then he realized he’d been gulled and scowled.
“They don’t make as much as you’d think,” Worthington interposed smoothly. “But they’ve cut into the Smiths’ Guild’s profits enough to make them howl.”
“Not to mention the fact that their workmen have no guild to offer them security,” Maxwell put in, his voice determinedly level. “They hire men off the farms with the promise of good wages in the mines, and when they fail—and without the support of a guild they often do—the men come here instead of going home. When they get no work, they take to begging, or even crime, and the expense of that falls on the whole town, not just the smiths.”
“’Tis difficult,” said Michael, “for men in the countryside. If a farmer has more than two sons, he’ll be hard put to find a living for them, and apprentice fees come high.”
Everyone stared and he blushed—he’d become so involved in the conversation, he’d forgotten his own situation.
Anna, who seemed to have forgotten it too, flinched away, but Lissy fixed her bright gaze on him. “Sheriff Potter said you got involved in a brawl, Master Sevenson. How
did that come about?”
“’Twas foolish,” said Michael shortly. But Lissy’s pretty, curious face would have thawed a glacier, and he relented and told of a dandy, a ribboned walking stick, and a dog. Both stick and man were evidently known to my family, for soon they were chuckling and, by the end of the tale, laughing aloud.
“Well, I think it’s unfair that you should meet Loves-the-Rope Thrope as soon as you rode into town,” said Lissy, still giggling. “And I promise you Mi—Master Sevenson, we’re not all that spiteful.”
“Please, call me Michael,” said Michael. Then he realized they might not want to call an unredeemed man by his first name and fell silent.
“I must admit,” Maxwell put in quietly, “I used to think Thrope a pleasant person, despite his poor taste, but now…” He was staring at Michael’s downcast face, probably realizing that Michael hadn’t been unredeemed very long. Old Max was never a fool.
“Ah, but that was when you outranked him, Max,” Worthington said comfortably. “I may not be an educated man, but I’ve traded from Landsend to D’vorin, and I’ve seen his sort before. Besides, you were a better judicar than he’ll ever be, and he knows it.”
His voice grew gentle on the last words, but even so an uncomfortable silence fell. Someone should have found a tactful way to break it, but I wasn’t feeling tactful—at least, not toward Max.
“Is Thrope the one who got your job?”
“The town had to appoint someone.” Maxwell sounded resigned. “And Thrope was best qualified. I hold no grudges. Frankly, I’m lucky I didn’t end up before my fellow judicars.”
Anna’s hand shot out to cover his. “No one believed you were guilty, my dear. It was just that the scandal was so great, the town couldn’t keep employing you.”
“That’s not precisely true,” said Maxwell dryly. “They didn’t think it was just to convict me on the evidence of a woman who couldn’t be questioned. And I had friends. Have friends,” he amended, smiling at Worthington. “A few of them haven’t deserted me.”
He turned to me so suddenly, I was startled. “I don’t know if you’ve been told, Fisk, for Anna didn’t know this when she wrote to you, but Councilman Sawyer came to see me the other day. He’s councilman for the Ropers’ Guild,” he added to Michael. “I worked for the ropers as a clerk before my appointment to judicar. Sawyer said that they couldn’t disregard the scandal, but if any doubt could be cast on the evidence against me, he’d hire me back in my old capacity.”
“As a clerk?” Worthington’s mouth was tight. “That’s a cursed insult, Max.”
“On the contrary, it’s a generous gesture of trust and a good position. I started my legal career as the notary in charge of the ropers’ charities.”
“You were about to be appointed to the governing board of the ropers’ charities,” said Anna. “Ben is right. It’s an insult, even if Sawyer means well.”
“I am on that board,” said Worthington glumly. “Believe me, you’re not missing anything.”
But no one believed him, and the silence that fell this time was even more awkward. It was Trimmer who broke it. “Mistress? Mrs. Trimmer is ready to put the children to bed, if you’d like to see them now.”
Children? Nobody’d said a word about children.
Mrs. Trimmer led them in, and what followed seemed to be an evening ritual, for the boy went straight to Anna and scrambled onto her lap while the girl went her father. They both wore nightgowns, with bed robes over them and thick woolen stockings, but there the similarity ended. The boy, perhaps two, was the younger, with his father’s serious gray eyes and thin face. He cuddled against Anna and looked at the rest of us curiously, but he was hardly noticeable with his sister present. Where had she come by that hair?
It was redder than a copper pot, and it roared around her freckled cheeks like a nimbus of flame. Hair darkens as a person grows older—my mother’s chestnut hair might have been that color once. But frankly, my first thought was to wonder if Annie had played Maxwell false, and I knew she wasn’t the type. Still, I hoped old Max had a trusting nature.
It seemed he did, for the girl climbed into his lap as if she owned it. “Mrs. Trimmer made me play with dolls all afternoon, Papa, and I don’t want to tomorrow, so you tell her to stop. I want to go all the way to the marish for holly, and not buy it in the market, ’cause that’s boring. And I want maple cakes for breakfast and not porridge.”
I choked on a laugh and began to cough, and her determined gaze turned to me. “Who’s that?”
“This is your Uncle Fisk.” Max was clearly relieved to put off dealing with the rebellion for a moment. “He’s going to stay with us for a while, along with his friend, Master Sevenson. Say how do you do, Becca.”
“Howdoyoudo.” Uncles obviously weren’t very interesting. “Papa, you have to tell Mrs. Trimmer—” Something connected in the young brain, and her gaze shot back to me. “You have horses.”
“I do?”
“The ones in the stable. Thomas and I want to ride them, but Trimmer said we couldn’t ’cause we didn’t have the owner’s permission, but you own them so you have to tell Trimmer we can ride them ’cause we want to really bad.”
The owner was clearly in for either a fight or a horseback ride, so I took the sensible way out. “They aren’t my horses. They belong to Michael, ah, Master Sevenson here.”
The intense gaze switched to Michael, and the boy, who’d been talking to Anna, added a garbled plea. Michael didn’t appear in the least flustered. “’Twould be an honor to take you riding, Mistress Becca, and Master Thomas, too, if your parents say you may.”
“Papa, you have to tell him—”
“We’ll see, Firebug. Not tomorrow, anyway, since you have to go to the market for juniper boughs.”
Becca recognized a bribe when she heard one and considered it. In the silence I heard Thomas murmur that the gray horse was big and the little one had spots all over, just like Cory Seaton’s dog.
“Can we go get holly in the marish?” Becca had decided to bargain.
“No, it’s too dangerous for children. We’re not going to have holly this year.”
My mother had told me the marish was dangerous, too—every parent did. To go down to the end of the road and creep among the weedy hillocks was a dare every child in Ruesport accepted, sooner or later. But none went in too far, for the silence was eerie. I’d been certain the rustling in the cattails was caused by poisonous frogs, even though my father said quite firmly that there were no such things.
“But everyone has holly. And if we go to the marish and cut it ourselves, it won’t cost anything.”
Max winced, and I realized he’d tried to keep the children from learning of his financial troubles. Not a chance. Children always know everything.
“No. If we went to cut it ourselves, we might end up taking some magica holly. And you’ll eat whatever your mama fixes for breakfast.”
“But—”
“No, Rebecca.”
A crafty look stole into her eyes. “All right. Thank you, Papa.” She smacked a kiss on his cheek and got a hug and a kiss in return before sliding from his lap and heading for Anna. I wasn’t in the least surprised that her first words were “Mama, you have to fix maple cakes for breakfast tomorrow.”
“Master Maxwell.” It was Trimmer’s lugubrious voice. “Master Tristram Fowler has called to ask Mistress Elissa if she would care for a stroll in the orchard. I said I’d inquire—”
“Oh!” Lissy jumped to her feet. “I’ll get my cloak.”
“With dinner not finished and the night as dark as the inside of an egg?” Mrs. Trimmer demanded. “No decent young man would dream of calling at this hour.”
The young man who’d followed Trimmer into the room was meant to hear it, and color appeared on his prominent cheekbones. He was tall and gangly, no older than Lissy, with a beaky nose and a determined chin. His eyes met Maxwell’s steadily, but it was Lissy who replied, “He has to work during the day�
�when else can he call? We’ll keep to the orchard, so it’s perfectly safe. Uncle Max?”
Max looked helplessly at this wife.
“You’ll freeze, Lissy,” Anna began. “And—”
“I’ll wear my warmest cloak. Thank you, dearest!”
Rebecca should have taken lessons from her aunt—it would be almost impossible to say no in the face of that warm gratitude. But young Fowler’s eyes remained on Max’s face.
“Oh, very well.” Max sounded harried.
“Thank you, Sir.” Even Fowler’s smile was steady and determined, but the light in his eyes as he turned to my sister roused brotherly instincts I hadn’t felt for years. Just how private was this orchard? I had no right to ask—Lissy’s well-being was Max’s responsibility. The knowledge revived an old ache, and I sat silent as Lissy whisked the young man out.
“Well,” said Mrs. Trimmer. “You know your own business best, Master Max, but if you ask me, that’s trouble with a capital T.”
It might have been an indication of concern, but Mrs. Trimmer’s dress was newer than my sisters’.
“But no one asked you, did they?” said Judith, beating me to it by half a breath.
Mrs. Trimmer opened her mouth, but Anna cut in briskly, “Bedtime. And if you go with Mrs. Trimmer quietly, I’ll make you maple cakes in the morning.”
The children were led off by their grumbling nursemaid; Thomas looked sleepy and Rebecca looked satisfied.
“You know, Max, as things are, she could do worse than young Fowler.” It was Worthington, plain and sensible. “He may not be rich, but he’s sound and honest. There are worse things than starting from scratch.”
“I know.” Max sighed. “I suppose I should be grateful she has any suitors left. It’s just that, pretty as she is, she could have married anyone before…” His voice trailed off.
“So what?” said Judith, with more than her usual tartness. “Things are what they are. Frankly, she’s lucky he’s willing to lower himself to wed her. Besides, Max, you’re in no position to lecture anyone about marrying beneath himself for love.”