And then—at last—the gang reached the door.
A forest of arms reached forward, grabbed them all, and yanked them out of sight.
The door slammed.
The killer whirled.
“It’s over, mate,” the redhead said. “You might as well—”
Give yourself up, was what the Guard was probably going to say. But he never got the chance to finish the sentence.
With a scream of outrage, the killer threw away all his weapons, turned, and ran himself onto the redheaded Guard’s sword.
EPILOGUE
“I C’N think’a better ways t’ get a holiday,” Mags said “I C’N think‘a better ways t’ get a holiday,” Mags said weakly.
Bear nodded as a servant girl handed him a dose of his medicine. “Wouldn’t have been my choice either,” he replied.
They were not in the Collegium; they had been set up in a luxurious suite of rooms in the Palace. The very rooms, in fact, that had been occupied by the arrogant foreigners.
“Still . . . this’s better than my room or the stables,” Bear continued. “And nobody’s going to come all the way over here to ask me some stupid question about herbs that they can look up the answer to.”
He sounded more than a bit cross, and Mags didn’t blame him. Exactly that sort of thing was why he and Bear had been moved over here in the first place.
Bear was still not supposed to leave his bed or couch unless he had to, but Mags was under no such restrictions, and spent much of their first day here searching the room for anything the foreigners might have hidden there.
He knew of course, that far more competent people than he had already gone over the place; if they had actually found anything useful, he and Bear would be the last people to be told. But he couldn’t help hoping he’d find something overlooked. After all, they had left in a terrible hurry, so much so that it was hard to tell if they had taken anything with them.
“No luck with the beds, I suppose?”
Mags shook his head. He had gone over the bedsteads in meticulous detail, examining every seam, every place where the finish seemed to be a bit rougher than it should be, every place where even the tiniest of objects could have been hidden. He had found nothing, of course, and it was no use to look in the mattresses and pillows as he was certain those had been replaced and taken apart before he and Bear were brought here. In fact, it seemed that only a few innocuous things had been left behind by the first group of searchers.
“Do you ever wonder if those men were even from the country they claimed to be from?” Bear asked.
“I s’pose they could be.” He shook his head. “Not sure it matters.”
“And why did they wait a whole day after that madman killed himself to leave?” Bear continued. Clearly, he had forgotten that he had asked that question already, not once but several times. It was the effect of the medicine, Mags had been assured—just as he had been told that he was here with Bear as much to keep an eye on his friend and provide him with company as to recuperate himself. He didn’t mind. In fact, he was rather pleased that they trusted him so much.
“I reckon—I reckon they had somethin’ they needed t’ get or someone they needed t’ talk to.” Truth was, he didn’t know, and really couldn’t hazard a guess, but Bear seemed to find the answer satisfactory.
“And how could they get out and not be seen?” Bear continued—as he always did.
“Oh, they went over th’ wall. Guards found the place even afore anyone knowed it was them that went.” That had been all over the Palace and from there to the Collegia in very short order.
“They must have been better in snow than they made out.” Bear sighed. “I wish I had paid more attention when I was treating them.”
“I wisht I had paid more attention to ’em in general.” Every tiny bit Mags had observed had been gone over by so many people that they all blurred together in his memory. “Mebbe somethin’ would have tol’ us how t’ catch ’em.”
But according to rumor and the very, very little that the King’s Own would tell him, the foreigners had managed to very quickly muddle their trail in a manner that astounded even the best of the trackers. And now? Well, they’d had more than enough opportunities to arrange for escape routes, for people to conceal them, for ways to disguise themselves. The snow would probably hinder them, but not as much as it would hinder pursuit. There were people in the city who would not scruple to help them for enough money. There were probably even people in those huge manors near the Palace who would do the same.
Mags poked at an odd book written in their tongue and illustrated with incredibly beautiful colored drawings of plants. It seemed strange that so violent a set of men could create such art—and poetry, for that was what was in the book. Love poems. It made no sense.
Nor did what the killer had screamed when he first saw Mags. “Not you?” Mags couldn’t shake the impression that the man had recognized him. And that was just as disturbing as everything else.
And they still didn’t know why it had been Bear that had been used as bait in that trap. Had it just been opportunity? Had they really wanted him for his Healing skills? Had it been something else entirely?
“I shouldn’t have gone to the Archives alone,” Bear sighed. “I should have told you. But . . . I didn’t want you to know I was looking for—” He flushed. “I thought I remembered some pretty nasty rumors about that girl’s family. I thought if I could confirm them with Guard reports, my parents would give over the idea of marrying us.” His face turned a deeper red. “That’s a pretty underhanded way of trying to get out of it.”
Mags shrugged. “Whatever works,” he replied. “You don’ got to answer to us.”
“Yes, I do,” Bear said softly. “You’re my friends.”
Mags shrugged again, but he felt warm inside. Friends. That wasn’t at all bad. Maybe he didn’t need to know about his family. Not when he had friends like this.
And right now, all those other questions could wait, too. He was hardly the one best qualified to puzzle out the answers, after all. He was only one Heraldic Trainee in his first year.
:Only?: Dallen seemed amused.
:Quiet, you.:
“Well, then ye answer t’ me in a couple a days,” he replied, and chuckled. “ ’Cause right now . . . I be on holiday. And so be you!”
Valdemar 03 - [Collegium 01] - Foundation Page 32