Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (19 page)

This inn was well used to scores of horsemen arriving soaked to the skin. The Shield Wall was the tavern most favoured in Ferl by guardsmen travelling from the coast to the River Rel or up and down the length of Caladhria on the high roads which crossed here. So the kitchen served precisely what hungry swordsmen relished, to soak up their evening’s ale and save the taproom from broken furniture and stubborn bloodstains on the floorboards or to set them up for a long day on horseback.

He looked though the window to assess the clouds; more white than grey and torn into rags scudding across the faded sky by the persistent wind. So there was every reason to hope they’d escape a soaking today. Better yet, this keen breeze would dry out the road under hoof and foot. Of course, that rune’s reverse meant the wind’s chill would leave men stiff in the saddle and slow to react by dusk when weary horses would be prone to perilous stumbles on frosted ground.

Corrain decided he would see how much ground they had covered by noon. Then he could choose an inn for the night ahead which they would be sure to reach in daylight. He swallowed the last of his breakfast small beer. This close to home he’d know which of the inns ahead would serve them a decent meal tonight, not just a ladleful from some stew pot which had been sitting in the hearth since Trimon was a lad, topped up daily with kitchen scraps by some scullery hand.

‘Are you done with that?’ the maidservant hovering by the taproom’s kitchen door asked.

‘I am.’ Corrain offered her the plate and empty tankard. ‘My thanks.’

As she took them and disappeared into the kitchen, the taproom door from the hallway opened. As Corrain turned, the newcomer laughed.

‘My lord Baron. I heard you were in town.’

‘Did you indeed?’ Corrain cocked his head. ‘How’s merchant life?’

Had Vereor heard of the corsair gold supposedly filling Halferan’s pockets? If anyone had picked up that rumour hereabouts, Corrain would wager honest coin on the former Ferl guard captain.

‘Retirement has its entertainments.’ The grey-bearded man’s gaze drifted towards the hearth nevertheless.

The wall was hung with guard captains’ shields, each one painted with the Ferl barony’s colours. The oldest were so darkened with age and soot that their bronze chevrons could barely be distinguished from the blue ground. The most recent was still as vivid as it had been slung on Vereor’s back or at his saddle bow before he had been honourably released from his oath three years ago.

‘Are you just here to wish me a good day’s journey?’ Corrain’s curiosity stirred.

Vereor pulled up a chair. ‘You went north for the parliament. Did you spend any coin with Ensaimin merchants while you were there?’

‘Not beyond buying my lady some kidskin gloves from a Friern trader. For my lady wife’s mother, that is,’ Corrain corrected himself. ‘The Widow Zurenne.’

The kitchen door half opened and Corrain raised his voice. ‘Some ale for my guest would be welcome, when you have a moment.’

The door opened more fully. ‘Of course.’ It wasn’t the maidservant but the tavern keeper who looked around the taproom before retreating with a scowl boding ill for the absent girl.

‘You didn’t have business with anyone from Wrede?’ Vereor raised a bristling eyebrow. ‘Maybe you looked at some furs?’

‘From Wrede? No.’ Corrain couldn’t recall ever having dealings with a trader from that distant city. Wrede was in northernmost Ensaimin, tucked into the pine-shrouded foothills where the mountains rose up to divide the lowlands from the wastes of Gidesta.

‘So why would a Wrede man ask after you around Ferl’s taverns last night?’ Vereor leaned forward, his elbows on the table. ‘Saying he owed you money after his fool apprentice overcharged you in Duryea’s festival market.’

‘Whoever he is, he’s lying.’ But Corrain wondered how many people would have pricked up their ears in hopes of doing the new Baron Halferan a good turn. It wasn’t as though this stranger was making a claim on Corrain’s purse, prompting his friends to say they hadn’t seen him inside a year. He frowned. ‘When did this suspiciously honest fellow arrive?’

‘I’ve already asked at the gates.’ Vereor’s grin showed the chipped tooth which Corrain recalled him breaking when he’d tripped and hit himself in the mouth with that very shield hung on the wall.

‘Your generous friend arrived a chime after you did, coming down the northern high road. Alas, the gate guards had no notion where you were lodging.’

‘Remind me to leave you a purse to buy those lads a few flagons.’ It was good to know he still had friends among Ferl’s troopers. They would have readily guessed he would bring Halferan’s men here but they would need a compelling reason to share any guard captain’s business with a stranger.

Corrain chewed his lip as the tapster arrived with a jug and two pewter tankards. ‘Your ale, Masters.’

‘I never thought to look for anyone following us on the high road,’ he admitted to Vereor as the kitchen door closed behind the man.

‘Why should you, safe in Caladhria?’ Vereor shrugged as he poured them each a drink.

Corrain glanced through the window to see that Reven had the Halferan troopers checking their horses’ hooves one last time. ‘What did this merchant from Wrede look like?’

‘Middling tall, middling broad, dressed like any one of ten men on the road.’ Vereor grimaced as he raised his tankard. ‘Nothing to help us catch him if he stole a horse.’

‘Just the man to send asking questions in a strange town.’ Corrain took a thoughtful swallow of ale. ‘Did he say where someone might leave answers?’

‘At The Dapple Grey Mare.’ Vereor grinned wolfishly. ‘Shall we try to pick up his scent and ask a few questions of our own?’

Corrain rose to his feet. ‘By all means.’

He was the baron. If he wasn’t back by the time Reven had the troop ready to ride, they would just have to wait for him.

All the same, he tapped on the kitchen door. ‘Tell my sergeant I have business in the market place. I’ll be back soon.’

He didn’t want Reven sending the whole troop out in search of him any more than he wanted the Halferan guardsmen hunting for this stranger before Corrain knew a little more himself.

‘Of course, my lord.’ The tapster acknowledged his request with a brief bow.

Leaving through the inn’s wide front door, Corrain and Vereor strode purposefully through the busy streets. Ferl men and women were seizing this chance to run errands without risking a drenching. Corrain had no great concerns about heads turning to wonder why a nobleman was walking among them. He boasted none of the gold rings which the likes of Baron Karpis flaunted and his cloak was the same sturdy brown wool that kept the Halferan troopers warm.

He and Vereor soon reached the prosperous square overlooked by The Dapple Grey Mare.

‘Shall we see how their cellar man keeps his ale?’ the Ferl man suggested.

Corrain turned to hide his face from the inn across the square. ‘Is that your man? Talking to the lass with the yellow braid around her hems.’

Vereor frowned. ‘No. Who’s the girl?’

‘The maid who served my breakfast at The Shield Wall.’ The one who had taken herself off without the innkeeper’s permission. ‘What’s she doing?’

‘Still talking to the man in the Tormalin top boots.’ Vereor narrowed his eyes. ‘I’d say he was born and raised in Imperial lands with those black curls and a bronzed cheek even in midwinter. Whoever he is, he’s very interested in what she has to say,’ he added.

‘But this isn’t the man from Wrede?’ Corrain was growing more concerned. One curious traveller following him down the road could just be happenstance. Two hinted at conspiracy. Corrain didn’t believe in coincidence.

‘They’re heading off.’ Vereor stiffened. ‘I don’t think they’re looking for a dry wall to rub up against. She’s definitely leading the way.’

‘Someone must have told her that news of me could be turned into coin.’ Though Corrain couldn’t imagine what knowing he’d had blood sausage for breakfast was worth. ‘Let’s follow them back to The Shield Wall and they can answer for themselves there.’

He didn’t doubt that Reven would drive the Tormalin man off, with a whip if needs be, if he tried asking questions among the Halferan guardsmen. As long as he and Vereor were there to block the stranger’s escape, the man in the topboots could pay for his freedom with some answers of his own.

Corrain raised his cloak’s hood like any number of passers-by foiling the cold. ‘You take the lead.’

If the girl recognised Vereor, she’d have no cause for concern. A retired guardsman had plenty of business around the town and the tavern.

‘Keep your wits about you.’ The older man sauntered across the square.

Corrain waited for a count of twenty before following. He frowned. They were taking the southerly lane where a cloth market’s prudent awnings flapped in the breeze above trestles and boards piled with bolts of linen, fustian and calico. This wasn’t the way back to The Shield Wall.

‘Excuse me, ladies.’ He slipped past a gaggle of women casting disparaging looks at wooden bowls of brass buttons and horn toggles.

Vereor was already a plough-length ahead. The maid and the man in the Tormalin boots were in some hurry and it wasn’t lust spurring them on. They had already passed two accommodation houses which Corrain knew full well rented rooms by the chime.

As he reached the end of the cloth stalls, there was no sign of Vereor even though there were no crowds here to hide the old guardsman or his quarry. Corrain spotted a narrow lane cutting between a cobbler’s workshop and a draper’s warehouse. Turning into it, he was relieved to see Vereor striding purposefully towards the far end.

Corrain followed, pausing at the far end to get his bearings beside a shop selling crocks and pots. Vereor continued, leading him down the street, through another alley and along two further lanes raggedly pocked with puddles still frozen in the shadows.

The girl was taking the Tormalin man to a district of Ferl where a nicely-reared maid should hesitate to go even in broad daylight. Corrain adjusted his sword hilt. Never mind gold rings. Scoundrels here would happily rob him of his cloak. At least he’d have no one to answer to if he drew steel to kill a footpad. Only Baron Ferl could hold a fellow nobleman to account and he was still days behind on the high road, travelling at an easy pace.

Vereor halted beside a timber-framed building scabrous with flaking plaster. The gates to a down-at-heel tavern’s dung-strewn yard hung askew on their hinges. Now Corrain knew where they were.

‘Will you wait here while I waste some Halferan coin on undrinkable ale,’ Vereor asked as Corrain joined him, ‘to find out what they’re doing in there?’

‘No, I’ll show my face and we’ll see what they make of that.’ Corrain settled his scabbard on his hip. ‘How soon could you whistle up some swords if they choose to make trouble?’

Vereor sucked his teeth. ‘Around here? Probably best if you keep it civil. I’ll cut around to the front,’ he offered. ‘If you shout for Halferan, I’ll kick in the door and we can both make a run for it?’

‘That should be good enough. Let’s roll these runes.’ Corrain headed for the tavern’s open back door.

The last time he’d been at this particular inn, he’d had the whole Halferan troop with him. It had been the only accommodation available when the parliament had been summoned out of season, meeting here in Ferl with the express intention of denouncing his marriage to Ilysh, to dishonour his claim to Halferan. Corrain hoped that whoever was in the taproom now remembered how emphatically he had won that battle.

He walked cautiously into a grimy kitchen. A small white dog with black ears was licking rancid dripping from a tray beneath the spit in the hearth. Corrain moved as quietly as he could to avoid attracting the beast’s attention. That was easier said than done as his boots stuck unpleasantly to flagstones which hadn’t seen a mop in years.

The door to the tap room was closed. Corrain opened it and stepped quickly through before the startled dog had offered a half-hearted bark.

The girl from The Shield Wall pressed guilty hands to her mouth. A second girl dropped a letter onto the frayed and filthy rushes covering the floor. The only other person in the tap room was the black-haired man.

He took a step back, shoving a purse back into his breeches’ pocket. There was no doubt he was a Tormalin native, and a wealthy one judging by the cut of his long-sleeved velvet jerkin and the ornamentation on his slender sword’s hilt.

Corrain wouldn’t hesitate to fight him. The Tormalin man was fresh faced and slightly built, only a few years older than Kusint.

‘I believe that’s addressed to me.’ Corrain nodded at the fallen letter.

‘I was keeping it safe,’ the resident maidservant wailed, ‘against the day you returned, my lord.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Corrain said with calculated menace. ‘Otherwise you’ll face the baron’s assize for selling a nobleman’s correspondence.’

‘Could such a crime be proved,’ the Tormalin man mused, ‘while a letter’s seal stays unbroken? Letters must pass from hand to hand if they’re ever to reach their destination.’

The Shield Wall’s maid seized that excuse. ‘I came to collect the letter, my lord. I remembered—’

Corrain silenced her with a raised hand, looking at the Tormalin man. ‘You kindly offered to escort her?’ He didn’t hide his disbelief.