The Rose and the Thorn Page 9

  “I judge a man by the decisions he makes, and you proved once again that you value your job over all else. Siding against me would have jeopardized your position—and Barnes paid the price, just like Rose did. So why don’t you attend to your job, and I’ll do the same. Go protect the king and I’ll find the missing Rose from Medford House.”

  Exeter left the room, his footfalls fading.

  Left alone, Richard stepped to the window and laid a hand on the sill. This room was indeed haunted. He let his fingers slide across the stone and felt the tears come again. Grabbing a cup, Richard walked to the ale barrel and drank.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE HOUSE AND THE TAVERN

  Buckets were kicked from under the feet of the three men tied by their necks to the scaffolding. The whole structure lurched with the jerk and the crossbeam bowed with their weight.

  Royce had seen many hangings and was always surprised by the silence. The cheering and insults stopped. No one spoke—certainly not the dangling men. The only sound they made was the soft flutter of their feet, which could be heard in the sudden quiet. Royce guessed it wasn’t reverence for the passing of life, and certainly not out of respect for the men. The crowd had been throwing rotted vegetables at them moments before. He could not prove it, but he suspected the silence came from the jolting thought that it would happen to them one day. Viewing death, this passage from breathing, thinking people into corpses, struck them dumb. They saw themselves hanging in their place and for the duration of those kicking feet, shuddered.

  “Scary little town,” Hadrian whispered across saddles as the three rode on through the rest of the Gentry Quarter.

  It had been a year since their first visit to the city of Medford. Arriving as fugitives in the back of a cart, they had wallowed in their own blood. Returning put Royce on edge, like visiting his own grave that bore the epitaph ROYCE MELBORN… ANY MINUTE NOW. But he had to come back. He’d left something important behind.

  They avoided the crowd in the square with its fountain, which had a stone statue of a king rearing on his horse. Veering to the left of the castle, they aimed for the Tradesmen’s Arch and the artisan section beyond. A family of ducks splashed among cattails in the moat that ringed the gray walls of Essendon Castle. The water was a murky green with lily pads dotting the surface. Royce took note of the pair of guards who stood at the gate dressed in tabards of burgundy with the stylized image of a gold falcon on them. Two more stood on the far side of the bridge. A dozen more walked the battlements, their metal helms glinting in the morning sun. Just riding by, Royce noticed two blind spots on the walls where they could be scaled out of sight of the guards. Maybe there were more guards at night.

  “Have you been here before, Albert?” Hadrian asked the viscount, who still rode behind him.

  “Oh yes, many times. I have a good friend, Lord Daref, who used to live down that street.” He pointed. “He invited me to his niece’s wedding just four years ago—when I still had clothes—and to a spring social the following year, which I had to skip because I was poor and growing poorer by the day. The nobility are always having parties, and it looks like another is approaching.” He pointed at banners out in front of the castle gates that proclaimed CHANCELLOR’S GALA. “Sometimes I think they publically announce these things just to remind those who aren’t invited how miserable their lives are.”

  The wide brick boulevards with their flower boxes and fountains turned into simple streets as they passed under the Tradesmen’s Arch. The sound of cart wheels on cobblestone and the bang of hammers on wood or steel came from all directions. Doors to workshops stood open as people passed in and out, carrying lumber, heavy buckets, and sacks. Unlike the Merchant Quarter, which was on the other side of the castle, there were no shop signs. Most of the buildings in the artisan district were anonymous. They didn’t need to hang signboards, as each workshop spilled their wares out onto porches and into the street. Wagon wheels, five deep, listed against posts, and stacked barrels formed small forests. A cobbler enjoyed the autumn sun, having dragged his table outside where he pounded the heel of a boot. Nearby he displayed a rack of the finished product. Down at the docks, a river barge had arrived and pulleys were hoisting up crates while net-covered boats dodged their way to the fishery. People moved quickly here. Workers walked fast, some even jogged. Merchants breezed through the throng of laborers. They were usually big men in brightly colored clothes. They did not jog but rather sauntered, pausing to study a barrel or bend a boot.

  “This is the way, isn’t it?” Hadrian asked as they turned right onto Artisan Row.

  Royce looked around, unsure.

  “I thought you knew the way?” Albert asked.

  “We know the way out better,” Hadrian said. “On the way in we didn’t see much. In fact, I was unconscious.”

  “I’m guessing the two of you were caught stealing something?”

  “Not really—that is, we were never caught. Stabbed and shot with an arrow, but not caught. And the job wasn’t here. It’s just where we ended up. What we’re looking for is a section of town they call the Lower Quarter.”

  Albert shrugged. “As you might guess, I spent most of my time in Gentry Square, with the occasional foray to the Merchant Quarter. I never had occasion to come down this way.”

  “I remember that carpenter’s shop.” Royce pointed. “That’s the one she did most of her business with.”

  Each of the quarters had its own entrance gate, but vines suggested they had never been closed. By process of elimination they finally found the Lower Quarter and the streets narrowed dramatically once they entered it. Buildings rose to either side like canyon walls. Three-story shops with living quarters on the top floors jutted out over the street, casting the dirt lane in shadow. The buildings were stained and cracked, and instead of workers plying their trade on the street, the poor clustered in makeshift hovels. There were no sewers here, so the streets sufficed, giving the neighborhood a pungent odor.

  The farther they went, the worse the conditions became. When they finally turned onto Wayward Street, they knew they had reached the bottom. The buildings were poorly built and leaned to one side or the other. Four rats enjoyed a feast of apple rinds, bones, and waste dumped from a window above. Three stories up, clothes hung on lines to dry, none without a patch, tear, or permanent stain. At the end of the street were two businesses that couldn’t have been more different. On the right was The Hideous Head Tavern and Alehouse. Without the badly painted sign that misspelled the word hideous, it would easily be mistaken for an abandoned shack. Across from it stood a beautiful building—as nice as any in the Artisan Quarter and as well cared for as any in Gentry Square. It looked like a quaint home with a broad porch complete with a bench swing and flowerbeds. The sign above the door simply read MEDFORD HOUSE.

  “You came all this way for a whore?” Albert asked, and Royce shot him a harsh look.

  “Don’t call her that if you want to live a long and happy life,” Hadrian said as they dismounted.

  “But this is a whorehouse—a brothel, right? And you’re here to see a woman, so—”

  “So keep talking, Albert.” Hadrian tied his horse to the post. “Just let me get farther away.”

  “Gwen saved our lives,” Royce said, looking up at the porch. “I beat on doors. I even yelled for help.” He looked at Albert, letting that image sink in. Yes, I yelled for help. “No one cared.” Royce gestured toward Hadrian. “He was dying in a pool of blood, and I was about to pass out. Broken leg, my side sliced open, the world spinning. Then she was there saying, ‘I’ve got you. You’ll be all right now.’ We would have died in the mud and the rain, but she took us in, nursed us back to health. People were after us—lots of people… lots of powerful people—but she kept us hidden for weeks, and she never asked for payment or explanation. She never asked for anything.” Royce turned back to Albert. “So if you call her a whore again, I’ll cut your tongue out and nail it to your chest.”

  Albert
nodded. “Point taken.”

  Royce climbed the steps to the House and rapped once.

  Albert leaned over to Hadrian and whispered, “He knocks at a—”

  “Royce can still hear you.” Hadrian stopped him.

  “Really?”

  “Pretty sure. You have no idea how much trouble I got into before I learned that. Now I never say anything I don’t want him to know.”

  The door opened and a young woman greeted them with a smile. Royce didn’t recognize her. Maybe she was new. “Welcome, please come in, gentlemen.”

  “Wow, this is really nice and so genteel,” the viscount marveled as he entered the parlor. “It’s like I’m in the Duchess of Rochelle’s salon again. I’ve never seen a”—he paused and smiled at Royce—“a house of comfort that was so clean and… pretty.”

  “Gwen’s wonderful,” Hadrian stated as he stood awkwardly, looking at the dirt on his boots.

  A moment later, another girl joined them in the parlor. “Hello, gentlemen, I’m called Jasmine. How may I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Gwen,” Royce told the girl, who he was certain had been called Jollin the last time they were there.

  “Gwen?” she replied cautiously. “Ah… Gwen isn’t taking visitors.”

  “I didn’t mean that. Ah… I’m Royce Melborn. You might remember us. She—well, all of you—helped my friend and I last year. I just wanted to thank her again, maybe buy her dinner.”

  “Oh… ah… wait here just a minute.”

  Jasmine scurried up the stairs.

  “Jasmine?” Hadrian said, watching her leave. “Didn’t she used to call herself Julie?”

  “I thought it was Jollin,” Royce corrected.

  “It smells like apples and cinnamon in here.” Albert sat down on one of the elaborately embroidered couches. Hadrian had loaned Albert his thick woolen winter trousers and his cloak, which he had wrapped about him. Underneath he still wore his filthy nightshirt.

  “The girls smell even better,” Hadrian said.

  “I can only imagine. And it’s quiet. Usually you can hear the creaking of the bed frames overhead. This place is great. Must be expensive, and popular, and yet I never heard of it. Is it new?”

  Hadrian shrugged. “We were only here the one time.”

  “We need to get you cleaned up,” Royce told the viscount, realizing just how unpleasant the noble looked. He didn’t want to meet her with him like that, but he didn’t have a choice now. “Hadrian, while I take Gwen to dinner, do you think you could maybe—”

  Hadrian laughed.

  “What?”

  “Do you really think you’re fooling me?”

  “I just thought that—”

  “You just want time alone with Gwen.”

  Royce made to protest, but Hadrian held up his hand. “Relax. I’ll deal with Count Nightshirt.”

  “Viscount.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “A whole lot of money.”

  Jasmine came back down the stairs, moving much slower than she had gone up. “Um… Gwen asked me to tell you that… she doesn’t want to see you.”

  Royce wasn’t certain he’d heard her correctly. “I don’t understand. She doesn’t want… but why? Did you tell her I just wanted to take her to dinner? Did you tell her Hadrian is with me? We’ll all go together if she prefers. It won’t be just the two of us, if that’s the problem.”

  “So much for my shave and new clothes,” Albert said.

  “I’m sorry, she really made herself quite clear,” the girl replied. “She won’t see you under any circumstances. I really am sorry.”

  Hadrian placed his elbows on the table and frowned when it rocked. “I hate when they wobble like this.”

  They were in The Hideous Head Tavern and Alehouse across Wayward Street. The place had looked destitute from the outside, similar to the barn in which they’d found Albert, and Hadrian had thought it couldn’t be any worse inside. He was wrong.

  Thin planks of uneven widths formed the walls, leaving gaps between warped boards that granted ample passage to both sunlight and cold air. The shoddy carpentry turned out to be a benefit, as the place had few windows—none that opened—and the fireplace was poorly ventilated. The gaps helped provide an escape for the smoke and an exit for the rats that appeared to frequent the storeroom.

  “We passed, what, four carpenters on the way here?” Hadrian was looking under the table and rocking it. “I mean, how hard can it be to level a table?” He pulled his short sword and, drawing it along his chair’s leg, planed off a small wedge-shaped sliver, which he tucked under the table. He tested it and smiled.

  “I don’t understand,” Royce said for the third time. “Why wouldn’t she even come out?”

  “Perhaps she didn’t recall your name,” Albert suggested. “Also she might have been busy.”

  Royce shook his head. “The girl said she wasn’t accepting guests. I’m not even sure she does that —not anymore at least. She never entertained when we were there. I think she just manages the place. And if she was busy, we would’ve been told to wait, not, ‘She won’t see you under any circumstances.’ ”

  Hadrian knew that it was those three words at the end that irked Royce the most. He almost never saw his partner caught off guard. Royce expected the worst of people and, unfortunately, they rarely proved him wrong. But this was different. He had seen Royce’s face when Jasmine, Julie—or was it Jollin?—had said those words. Royce had been visibly stunned. To be honest, Hadrian had also been surprised.

  After catching an arrow in the back and passing out in Tom the Feather’s barnyard, Hadrian had woken up on a comfortable bed surrounded by lovely women. He thought he’d died and regretted every time he’d ever cursed Maribor’s name. Gwen had spent most of her time with Royce but had ordered the girls around like a seasoned marshal and she saw to it his every need was met. Not knowing how they had arrived there, Hadrian assumed Medford House was a refuge Royce had used in the past and that he and Gwen were old friends. But as the days passed, he learned that they had never met before the night they showed up on her doorstep.

  Hadrian wasn’t sure how many days he had lost, drifting in and out of consciousness while the Nyphron Church had continued to search for them. Patrols entered the Lower Quarter. Questions were asked. Gwen had made preparations to hide them at a moment’s notice, but no one ever attempted to search the house. After the first week, things had calmed down. By the end of the first month it appeared they had been forgotten. Still, he and Royce rarely set foot outside.

  It was Royce who had finally announced that they would be leaving. He hadn’t heard of any disagreement between the two and Gwen gave them both a tight hug, and Royce received a kiss when they left. That kiss had shocked Royce too. Maybe she did it because she liked spooking him. Royce often reminded Hadrian of a cat, a bit too self-assured and surefooted. It was entertaining to see him knocked off balance. They had left on good terms and that’s why her refusal to see them made no sense. She had seemed genuinely sad when they had gone away.

  Albert sat with his back to the bar, his hands folded on the table, looking over his shoulder longingly.

  “We’re here for a meal,” Hadrian reminded the viscount. “The nonliquid kind.”

  Albert turned back, licking his lips. “Right… of course.”

  Hadrian stared at the viscount. The man was the very picture of poverty, his face little more than a pair of eyes peering out of a wreath of grimy hair. “You know, it’s hard to imagine what you’d look like without that beard. Is there really a face under there?”

  Albert sat up straight. “Of course, and a handsome one at that. I was a looker when I could afford it.”

  “I just don’t understand,” Royce mumbled again.

  “Understand what?” A man approached the table, wiping dirty hands on a dirtier rag.

  The moment he saw him, Hadrian thought of the scarecrows that had dotted the farms along the country roads. There ha
d been one in particular, with a pumpkin for a head and a straw-stuffed hat, that could have been this man’s twin. The main differences being that the man was far older and less attractive than the pumpkin.

  “Why there is such a shortage of fetching barmaids,” Hadrian answered for him. Hadrian had meant it as a joke, but the man scowled back, causing Hadrian to rethink whether he had anything in common with a pumpkin at all.

  “They’re all across the street,” he replied with a sour look at the wall, which if it had a window would look out on Medford House. His stare was so intense and sustained that all three followed his line of sight. “Had a whole passel working a year ago, but she made them all leave.”

  “She?” Royce asked.

  “Yeah,” the barman said with a sneer and a dismissive wave of his hand at the wall. “That Calian whore that runs the joint. She used to work here. Then the bitch betrayed me. She left and took the rest with her. Now look at the place. A man can hardly make a decent living with them across the street.”

  “How about we get a round of ale?” Hadrian said quickly, causing Albert to brighten.

  “I’d prefer rum,” Albert declared.

  “No rum,” Hadrian said. “Oh yeah, and no ale for him either—just bring a small beer for him and a pint for me. How about some wine, Royce?”

  “No.”

  “Well, think on it while I get the others. Only got two hands anyway,” the man said. “Name’s Grue, by the way… Raynor Grue. I own this place.”

  “Royce?” Hadrian asked after Grue left. “Whatcha thinking?”

  He only smiled back.

  For most people smiling was a good thing, but Hadrian couldn’t recall if he’d ever seen Royce smile from pleasure. Or maybe what gave Royce pleasure was different from most people. In any case, he’d learned that it was rarely a good sign, especially if accompanied by a raised hood and an eerie silence.

  “Are you sure you want to eat here?” Albert asked. “I’ll bet it’s cheap, but we’ll need to check our pork chops for tails.”