Masks

Chapter Eight

  White sky, fog, snowfall, snow and ice. Only the trees had more than just white to them, in shades of gray and slate and grim green in the lees and undersides of the pines. He slogged in knee-deep snow, his shoulders and back aching from carrying the bag or dragging it through the snow, whichever seemed better at a given time. The strap dug into his shoulders even through the thickness of two cloaks. When he dragged it, the strap hurt his wounded hands and wrenched his already weary back. The cloaks dragged him down as well, but he didn’t dare leave them or he’d soon freeze to death. And no matter how many times the wind blew his hat off, he forced himself to pick it up again. The wind through his sweat-damp hair chilled him too quickly without it. Compared to all that, the rapier scabbard dragging in the snow seemed insignificant.

  Less than a half hour outside the city, Neatbye had halted and refused to go forward. He’d dismounted and tried to lead her, and she followed for a while, but then he slipped and dropped the reins and she didn’t let him catch her again. As a final statement of defiance she’d kicked her hind legs in the air at him. Luckily she dislodged the roll of cloaks and his bag in the process. Without that, he would have been forced to follow her back to Seven Churches.

  He’d wanted to keep all three cloaks, but after a few miles he found he couldn’t bear the weight of his water-soaked one, so he buried it on the side of the road.

  Road—ha. Stone markers, some ancient and some new, some ten feet tall or more, kept him on the road but it gave him little advantage. The road proved to be barely more passable than the drifts and gullies on both sides. He tried to follow the furrows made from sleighs that had passed through, but it appeared that none had gone by in days if not longer and his boots broke through the crusts they made as often as not anyway. At least the road had fewer deep spots, but it still had them. The last deep stretch he’d traversed lasted over a hundred yards and he crawled much of the way to avoid what happened too often despite his efforts—sinking up to his knees in loose snow. The frequent incursion of snow into his boots had made his stockings wet. He didn’t dare stop long enough to change them.

  He wished he had gloves. Covering his face helped. Though his neckerchief stank and was wet and damp and cold, it wasn’t as bad as the fresh air slicing down his throat. He kept his hands in his coat sleeves. The bones in his fingers ached and every step on his half-frozen feet stabbed all the way up to his knees.

  Neatbye had the right idea.

  He wished he’d thought of bribing a small boat fisherman in Seven Churches. He fantasized about it. He could have found his way to the road after being let off on a beach somewhere and walked not nearly so far to his destination—the port town of Reffiel.

  He also imagined a sleigh coming along and the passengers insisting that he join them. They’d coo and fuss ...

  ... and turn him in to the authorities because he was obviously a runaway indentured servant with things stolen from dead men.

  He’d read about the wilderness and winter travel and how soldiers suffered and died in the cold, but that didn’t prepare him for the real cold, and real misery, and the real wilderness. He wasn’t even in the deep wilderness, just the uninhabited stretch along Hullundy Bay’s long shore between Seven Churches by the Sea and Reffiel. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t deep wilderness. The pines surrounded him, relentlessly empty.

  Empty, but not silent. The wind made the heavy branches shift just a trace, enough to occasionally jostle loose snow that made thick, luffing sounds as it traveled down in an uneven staircase fashion to the soft ground. Branches cracked and broke, shattering smaller limbs as they crashed down. The snow made thin, sizzling sounds as it blew across icy crusts. And the cries of gulls and rasping of crows sounded harsh and threatening with no city to dwarf them.

  It was, as Trevole had written, inhuman desolation. Mark had thought it a spiritual statement. Scholars had made it seem so. But here it eloquently described the utter lack of human love, compassion, and civilization. Even disdain and hate was better than the knowledge that if he fell and died here, he’d be covered over in an hour and everything would once again be nothing but cold white and ice.

  He hadn’t brought any food, but thirst bothered him more. His throat was raw from the cold air. Normally he’d yearn for hot brandy but all he wanted was water. He remembered from history books how soldiers who ate snow died faster, so he just let the thirst rake him until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Then he balled up a little snow until it felt like ice and let it slowly melt over his tongue.

  His shirt was damp with sweat but he didn’t dare change it for a dry one. He just end up with two damp shirts, not to mention baring his skin to the weather could lose him more warmth than he might gain. It seemed impossible to be so cold with so many heavy layers of clothing, but he was, especially his hands and arms and feet and legs. His belly and chest were so warm in contrast it made his guts squirm, and the clammy shirt made him shiver.

  When it started to get dark he tried walking faster, but it exhausted him and he ended up plodding forward at an even slower pace. Then the hour that he’d dreaded crept up on him. A fog moved in from the sea. He couldn’t see or hear the bay, but he smelled salt in the air. The sea still held much of his fate in its grasp. As the bay’s night breath spread all around him with the twilight, he couldn’t tell road from drift or marker from tree, and he had to stop.

  At first he thought to leave the road to avoid the people hunting for him, but he feared he’d get lost, so he settled in the lee of a large road marker. There he dug himself a hole. He used Obsidian and Lake’s purses for protection for his hands after he emptied the contents onto the snow. He didn’t bother to keep their things separate, and just scraped them all into one purse afterward. He was afraid of getting buried should the snow start to fall heavily, so he only made the hole a couple of feet deep, and rolled himself up in the cloaks.

  The darkness closed in. His breath warmed the inside of his nest. Surrounded by wool, no longer burdened with the hateful bag, his body eased a little at a time until all at once he relaxed. His hands hurt and his back and his shoulders ached but he wasn’t fighting to make step after step anymore. He felt safe enough to wad up a little more snow for water.

  The little bit of packed snow eased his thirst enough that at last he could sleep.

  Mark woke to darkness, all but smothered in wool, and thrashed free. Cold air slapped his face. Thin daylight and heavy snowfall surrounded him. Snow, helped by a bully wind, had covered him and filled his tracks such that he had to look hard to see which way he’d come from. He hoped that he remembered correctly that he’d sheltered at a marker on the left side, or he might end up doubling back toward Seven Churches, or worse, stray off the road altogether.

  His belly growled and twisted up tight with hunger. He ate a little snow, then wrapped himself in the cloaks and waited until he felt good and warm again before he began to gather his things. Everything ached, especially his back and shoulders and knees, but he felt stronger than he’d been at the end the night before. He just wished he knew how far he’d come, and how much farther he had left to go. Another whole day? Two? Three?

  This time he didn’t want his feet to get so cold. After he changed his stockings he tied neckerchiefs around the tops of his boots so that snow would have a harder time getting inside. He wrapped another one around his face and over the top of his head.

  He went through his bag with a more critical eye this time. He rid himself of the stationary case, and a deck of cards he didn’t remember taking. He tossed them and they fluttered away across the snow like leaves in the wind.

  He cut off the ends of the damp pair of stockings from the day before to use as long mittens. He also changed his shirt and left the damp one in his nest. The brief cold from changing only made the bliss of warm, dry clothing that much more wonderful. He used the damp neckerchief, the silk now frozen, to tie his hat on his head like women sometimes did with diaphanous scarves when they went
riding. He didn’t care. No one would see him and even if someone did, embarrassment wouldn’t be his highest concern.

  Mark’s hands traced over the mask he kept tucked in his jacket, and then the signet ring and book tucked in his waistcoat. All safe.

  He willed himself to begin his march across even deeper snow than the day before. The strength he’d gained from rest quickly ran out. He guessed he’d walked less than an hour before his legs gave out and refused to lift him again. He knelt awkwardly in the snow until his knees began to burn, then shifted to sit more comfortably. His throat was so dry he couldn’t swallow.

  Mark ate a little snow and drew the purse with the book from his waistcoat. He carefully removed the ring from his inside waistcoat pocket as well and cleaned the blood out of the design. If Professor Vinkin had presented him with something like this, he would have been eager to decipher their importance. Now he only felt a weary need to understand before they got him or someone else killed.

  The script on the signet ring seemed to form letters. He turned it around several times before he settled on a direction and decided they must read RT in Hasle. It was in the royal script, which had no equivalent in the Cathretan alphabet, sort of a capital letter but only used for the first letters in a noble’s names or in place names. He’d hated reading certain translations from Hasle in Cathretan because the translators often used a doubled capital letter to signify the usage, and it popped up in strange and seemingly incorrect ways.

  In any case, the ring could be a noble’s initials, or a household signet, or even a city official’s mark. Regardless, it would have belonged to a nobleman.

  Or woman, he reminded himself.

  Obsidian shouldn’t have had it. Had Gutter given it to him?

  A powerful anger boiled up from nowhere. It shocked him, but it gave him new strength. Obsidian’s death and all the other deaths and harm that came from the fire and the signet ring—if Gutter was really to blame, Mark could never forgive him. Yesterday his mind had been so wild with confusion and fear and so dulled by exhaustion that he didn’t know what to think. He still didn’t want to believe, but the possibility that Gutter had caused so much suffering overshadowed everything else.

  And if Gutter had set the fire, had he also killed the woman for which the ship had been named? And what might have he done with her captain?

  Alone, surrounded by winter, the answer seemed far more clear than it had in all the years he’d spent in Pickwelling Manor. Mark knew he didn’t have the truth of all of it. He might still have most of it wrong. But at least, after years of lying to himself and hoping and believing Gutter was his savior first and foremost, he could be honest and accept the possibility that the mighty lord jester deserved his fearsome reputation. That acceptance gave him strength, and a desire he hadn’t felt since he’d held his mother in his arms for the last time.

  He wanted justice. Not the way the Church performed it, but the way the Church promised to fight for it, the way it was supposed to.

  To have justice, he first had to find the truth.

  He placed the ring back inside his waistcoat pocket and then opened the clasp on the purse.

  The purse held a small, square book covered in leather with flapped edges to protect the pages from the weather. The crisp and bright paper had a smooth texture, and the ink had the distinct, clean edges and sharp scent of something recently written and not yet exposed to years of alternating damp and dry. The writer used good, dark ink, something a noble could afford for everyday use.

  It described a code, a particularly devious code that employed single symbols not just for letters but for common words, and some of those common words and letters had more than one symbol designated for them. It also had single symbols for several common letter combinations—tor, ing, ed, man, old. A letter written in such a code would be practically indecipherable, especially if the writer additionally wrote backwards or some such.

  Its main fragility revolved around the difficulty of memorizing the code, which required either an exceptional memory or copies of the code book for everyone who needed one. The more copies, the more vulnerable the code. Its second fragility lay in the fact that anyone who put their hands on a document written in it would immediately recognize that he or she had something of secret importance. That usually inspired an investigation that could expose that secret regardless of whether or not the code was deciphered.

  So who was using it? Gutter? If so, then why would Obsidian care if Gutter had this particular copy of the book or not?

  Maybe Obsidian didn’t care as much as he cared about losing the ring, if even for a little while, and what Lake might unwittingly reveal by showing it around. That would explain why Obsidian felt safe leaving the book with Mark. But then why ship the book to Perida instead of asking Mark to give it to Gutter if something happened, as something awful had?

  Mark put the book back in the purse, noticing that he had in fact broken threads when he’d opened it. Those broken threads might matter to Mr. Rohn Evan, but Mark had no need to worry about that until got to Perida.

  If he got to Perida.

  And if he was taken by the Church before then?

  He’d better get rid of the book and the ring in that case. Hopefully he’d see the riders coming in time to surreptitiously shove the book and the ring in the snow. If he pretended to fall while running away, they wouldn’t know to look for anything there. The ring would survive but he doubted anyone would find it. Weather would destroy the book and keep its secrets safe.

  Mark worked his way back up to his feet, covered his hands in the cut stockings, and slung the bag onto his shoulder. Even through two cloaks, a coat, waistcoat and shirt, it bit into the bruise from carrying it the day before. His back cramped up. At least it wasn’t unbearable, and it weighed a bit less. His clothes weighed him down more, but he rejected the idea of parting with any of them. He’d need them tonight, especially if the snowfall and wind kept up.

  At first he sang softly under his breath to keep his spirits up and keep himself company, but he soon grew too breathless to sing. Cold and exhaustion reduced him to a mindless thing that shuffled from marker to marker because it didn’t remember how to stop. His body worked so hard he tasted blood, and his lungs burned even worse than his legs. Often the snow would start to fall so hard he couldn’t see even a few steps ahead. He’d allow himself a rest until the snow eased, and then force himself onward. Sometimes he thought he heard his father’s voice, talking about the islands. The islands were always warm, and green, and the sea was green too and warm and alive, full of stone forests and colorful fish that flocked from copse to copse as if they were birds in the scrublands.

  He hadn’t even seen scrublands, but he could imagine those too, and the mountains that sheltered Saphir City—all the places he’d never been. If he could just take one more step, and another, and another, they could all be his.

  Maybe he could even go back to Gutter someday, if Gutter turned out to be innocent of everything Mark feared he’d done. Though Mark missed his father, that man was only a faint memory. Gutter was real, and strong, and he would never vanish and leave Mark alone as his own father had. And if Gutter was good ...

  A jester must do it for good. Not his own good, often not even for his lord’s good, but for a higher good. He must decide for himself what is right and do it, no matter how unpleasant the task ....

  The words gave Mark strength to go onward. He didn’t have to be a jester to trust in the sentiment. Yes, he was running from his lord and risked defaulting on his indenture. Yes he’d stolen a horse, and had even taken things off of dead men, but he believed this would all work for something good in the end. He swore to himself that if he lost that sense of higher good, he would stop.

  As he dragged himself onward, too often he saw Obsidian dying, and he remembered what the steel told his hand as he pulled it free of Lake’s body. The memory of the shot that had killed Obsidian rang out so clearly that sometimes it startled him m
id-step and he’d turn to look. The emptiness would close in then, reminding him how alone he was, showing him with buried trees and barely exposed road markers how quickly he’d disappear once his legs gave out for the last time.

  Mark thought his eyesight had begun to fade from weariness, but he looked up and realized dusk had darkened the sky. He labored up a long rise, stockings wet and icy up to his knees. What he saw at the top woke him from his daze.

  The road dwindled into a path cut into a cliff. Hundreds of feet below the cliff curved, inviting Hullundy Bay deeper inland before it joined with the last broad stretch of the Trossmare River. Countless dark projections intruded into the water, docks and ships made tiny by distance. A lighthouse flashed on a large but barely definable island that twinkled with tiny gas lights. Lines of lights on the mainland suggested roads.

  He’d reached Reffiel, but he had no idea how to get to it.

  The path down the cliff didn’t look continuous. It couldn’t possibly be the way down. “This is insane,” he gasped. “This can’t be right.” I must have strayed from the road. He dropped the bag with a small cry of pain and turned in place, looking for somewhere that the road might fork and veer away to circumvent the cliffs, but he saw no markers to the east, nor anything that distinguished itself from the steep fields and rugged forest that lay in all directions.

  The path that seemed to present itself could easily be ridges of ice clinging to the cliff that could give way when he tried to walk on them.

  He started to walk into the woods, hoping to find a way farther south, but quickly sank up to his thighs in a snow drift. He didn’t see any more road markers. Mark stared in place at nothing for a moment before he forced himself to slog back to the cliff’s edge. This top portion at least didn’t seem so bad. It was wide enough to accommodate a sizable coach, though barely. Mark took a few steps down, then a few more.

  He had little choice. He’d go as far as he dared. He could always turn back if he had to.

  The snow reflected enough light to glow in sharp contrast to the dark, ice-coated rocks, but as the dirty, faded sunset dimmed he felt in constant danger of misjudging the slope and plummeting to his death.

  The snow gave way and he began to slide. One of the mittens slid off his hand and he gripped with a clawed hand, scrambling with his feet over ice—

  He stopped short of the cliff’s edge. He’d traveled forty feet closer to Reffiel.

  Very slowly he reached for his rapier and drew it as far as he could, and then put his hand on the bare steel and drew it out the rest of the way. He turned it about and gripped the hilt.

  If this doesn’t work I’ll slide over the edge.

  He lifted it and brought it down hard on the ice-covered snow. The pointed flare on the crossguard broke through and held.

  He needed another tool, but he didn’t have a dagger with him. The cloak pins were too narrow, as was his hat pin.

  His body flattened on the slope had stopped on its own. He had to trust that if he stayed low, he wouldn’t simply slide off the path.

  He didn’t want to trust anything.

  I can’t stay here all night like this.

  Very carefully, moving one limb at a time, he edged away from the cliff’s edge toward the thin security of the path’s inside line. When he couldn’t go any farther without moving the rapier, he lifted it.

  He didn’t slide.

  Mark sat up, teeth chattering more from fear than cold. Inch by inch he moved over until he could put his hands on the icy rocks on the path’s safe side. Hanging on with one bare hand and one still in a mitten, he stood.

  Behind him, the mitten he’d lost was just a few steps away, but it seemed impossibly out of reach. He didn’t want to go back up, and he didn’t dare walk down.

  The rapier.

  He sheathed the rapier, un-strapped it from his belt, and used the sheath as a walking stick with one hand on the rocks. He let the bag drag behind him. It served as a kind of anchor until it began to slide. Mark could do nothing to save himself when it hit his feet except fall into the rocks.

  He banged his knees scrabbling for purchase, but he held on. Twenty more feet closer to Reffiel.

  Mark minced his way down as close to the cliff’s wall as he could manage, and grabbed for purchase in the ice and snow with his bare hands every time he slipped on the steep slope. The ice cut his skin and turned it white.

  The ground grew icier and more brittle farther down. He sat and slid on his bottom, using the crossguard on the rapier to slow his descent. At any moment he could lose control. He clenched his teeth so tight he thought they’d break, and fresh blood made his bare hand slippery.

  The road turned around a peak and dropped precipitously toward the port, or what he assumed was the port, since all he saw in the deepening dark was cast in black silhouette. Rocks and distant buildings, trees and ship masts weren’t readily distinguishable from each other. The snow didn’t cling to the road in this portion, with the wind veering this way and that. Ice coated bare stone, a deadly glitter under the bleak, cloudy, twilight sky. The road hung treacherously over the cliffs, with an awful view of the black sea and even blacker rocks. The wind blew more fiercely and froze his face.

  Mark sat and rested before he allowed himself to contemplate traversing this next stretch. He couldn’t feel his feet anymore.

  Loose rock littered the path. Rough rock. He gripped a piece that fit neatly in his hand and rubbed it on the ice. It bit in.

  He found another piece for his other hand and continued downward, sliding on his ass. Darkness surrounded him, and he seemed to move along only by inches, uncertain of where the cliff’s edge might be. All he could do was trust that as long as he had a rock wall near his shoulder, he had to be away from the deadly fall that waited for him on the other side.

  At last he made it to a stretch of soft, dry snow. He stood unsteadily and limped on the slanted shoulder nearest the cliff, touching the rock wall when it was in easy reach to assure himself he wouldn’t wander off the road. Hints of shadows and the blue glow of snow served as his only visible guides.

  The ocean sounded closer.

  The road leveled out and broadened. Snowy roofs shone ahead. His spirits lifted, but he couldn’t hurry any more than he could fly. Once among the colorful houses he saw an occasional light in a window, not in this area but ahead, and the steady light of gas lamps at street corners. This was a modest neighborhood. He guessed that the occupants saved their oil and candles by going to bed early every night.

  The houses improved in size and quality and he staggered into a town square, where a sacred guard armed with a heavy sword and a large pistol paced on his watch past a gas lamppost. He wore a crimson greatcoat trimmed in blazing white, thick white trousers, tall, blood-red boots and a steel helmet padded in white fur. Fur-lined gauntlets covered his hands. Mark stopped, amazed to see a human being. A moment later his cold-numbed mind thought guard, bad.

  The guard saw him and approached. “Milord?”

  “I want a coach.” A shudder went through him, the closest his body had managed to a shiver in hours.

  “Immediately, milord.” The sacred guard hurried back to the square and around the corner out of sight. He seemed to be gone a long time, but finally he re-emerged and hurried back. “What happened to you?”

  Mark stared at him. He thought maybe he should come up with a clever story, but the words wouldn’t come. The cold had stolen his mind.

  “I’ll send for the mavson.”

  Mark’s shoulders tightened with alarm. “No. No. I need to get warm first.”

  The guard, who’d started to leave again, walked back to him.“Of course, milord.”

  Now that he wasn’t moving, he slid deeper into misery and cold.

  If I don’t move I might never move again. Mark started walking.

  The guard caught up with him and put a hand on Mark’s arm. “Milord, you should wait here. A coach will arrive shortly.”

 
“Isn’t there anyone here who might let me in?”

  “By the time I get someone to answer a knock the coach will be here.” The guard drew a flask from his side. “Here, have some brandy.”

  He doubted he could swallow it. “Do you have water? Warm water.” The thought of warm water inspired him to take a few more steps. He could think of no finer luxury.

  “Please, milord. The coach won’t be long. May I help you unburden yourself?” He held out a hand.

  Mark shrugged off the bag. It fell gracelessly onto the snowy ground. The guard picked it up for him as if it weighed nothing. “Thank you,” Mark told him.

  “Did you come from the east?” A shrill edge of disbelief sharpened his question.

  It seemed unwise to lie. He didn’t know the town well enough to offer an alternate explanation.

  “Are you hurt?” the guard asked.

  Mark had to think about it, though the answer was obvious. “Just my hands, I think.”

  “Where are the others in your party?”

  Of course someone like a lord wouldn’t travel alone and on foot. He couldn’t reasonably claim that he’d traveled alone, though it happened to be the truth, without telling the guard that he was a jester. He didn’t like the footing that would put them on.

  Obsidian and Lake rushed forward in his mind, along with the horror. Grief came too. Two days ago, though he’d staunched the flow of Obsidian’s blood with his own hands, he felt little sorrow, just panic and raw pain. Now grief rushed him and stole his breath and choked him. “Dead. Killed.” Mark struggled to steady his breath. He squeezed his palms against his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, milord.” He sounded more uncomfortable than compassionate.

  The coach finally arrived with another sacred guard riding on the back. They helped Mark step up. He sank gratefully onto a plush bench. He didn’t care what it cost, as long as he didn’t have to walk or stand in the cold anymore. The first guard placed the bag at Mark’s feet. They shut the door and the coach began to move.

  He must have dozed off despite the sway and rattle of the coach, for the next thing he knew the coachman had woken him and taken up the bag. His feet felt like they’d been cut apart, sewn back together by a palsied drunkard and set on fire.

  The coachman offered his hand and helped Mark down out of the coach. “I’ll fetch the proprietor,” the coachman told him and hurried off.

  Mark waited by the coach, not certain he could walk without help. A hairy, short man arrived in haste not long later.

  Though it was a weary hour, the hairy man looked awake and eager, dressed in a delicate brocade coat with matching waistcoat and breeches and proper white stockings. His cravat had plenty of lace. “My lord, my lord! What have they done to you? My goodness, come in.” The coachman and the proprietor supported him by the elbows, but even the slight weight on his feet agonized him. They helped him up white steps. He had only a vague impression of overdone architecture like a ridiculously frosted cake. They ushered him into a red and gold entryway. He thought he’d been taken accidentally into a lord’s mansion, a lord with very poor taste. He saw no sign of servants, so perhaps this wasn’t a lord’s house.

  “Is this a hotel?”

  “Yes, my lord, the finest in Reffiel.”

  He saw no other patrons in either of two well-furnished side rooms where the hearths had been banked for the night.

  “Perhaps a hot bath, my lord?” the proprietor offered.

  Anything to get warm quickly. “Yes. And hot water to drink. And hot brandy.”

  “Immediately my lord.” Servants had begun to emerge and responded to the proprietor’s hand signals to them with haste.

  “What do I owe you, coachman?” Mark asked.

  “Oh, we shall pay for you, my lord, no need to fuss with a mere coachman’s fee,” the proprietor protested.

  The coachman and the proprietor helped Mark up a short, broad flight of stairs. Ahead of them, a young woman in a white maid’s uniform hastened to light gas lanterns on the wall. “Do you have hot food available at this hour?” Mark managed to ask.

  “Of course.” Another hand signal and a servant dashed away.

  Maybe a priest would come to investigate. He wasn’t sure if they kept late hours of if something unusual like this would wait until morning. “I don’t want to be disturbed during the night.”

  “Never!” the man protested in shock. “I will have any servant who dares disturb you whipped to the bone.”

  Mark quieted at the reality behind those words, though it looked like the man had exaggerated. “Allow me to decide if it’s a whipping offense.”

  “Of course, of course. I only meant to display my devotion to your comfort, my lord.”

  “I just need to rest and recover in peace.”

  “I will turn any visitors away,” the man assured him. “But perhaps I can send for a doctor?”

  “I will ring for help if I need it.”

  There weren’t many doors down the short hallway at the top of the stairs. They took him to the first door and the coachman held him up while the proprietor opened the door.

  It reminded him of Argenwain’s rooms, except that the suite smelled of gardenia rather than an old, sometimes incontinent man and his favorite perfumes. Doors led off everywhere. A servant worked at building a healthy fire in the hearth, and he heard water pouring near the rear of the suite.

  “Thank you,” Mark told them as they settled him into a chair. “I want privacy as soon as the bath is poured.”

  “Yes my lord,” the proprietor said, showing his first sign of hesitance. “But would not my lord prefer some assistance? Clearly you have had a trial of some sort.”

  “I have.” Maybe it was the warmth in the room or growing dread, but his mind was starting to work a little better. “I’ll discuss the particulars of my adventure with a mavson when I’m ready. In the meantime I want to eat and sleep.” He’d sounded more curt than he’d intended. “If you’re worried about payment, I can give you an advance.”

  “Payment? No, my lord, my concern is for you,” the proprietor assured him.

  “Thank you.”

  “Immediately, my lord.” He clapped his hands and the servants left, including the one from the bathroom. A waft of rose scent and warm bread and ham followed in her wake.

  As soon as the door shut he bent to the ground and crawled to the fire. He knelt there, worshipping the heat on his bandaged hands, though it burned his wounds and the tips of his fingers relentlessly. A moment later his strength drained away and his eyes closed ....