Page 70 of Paladin's Faith

He straightened. “She says she’s fine.” Almost certainly she is, too. She’s a professional and you’re a fool.

Wren nodded. He had a brief, mad urge to drop to his knees and beg his fellow paladin to hear his confession, but the idea of pouring out his guilt and frustrated lust to Wren, of all people, was not to be borne. He’d die with his soul unshriven first. The gods would understand.

The ones with little sisters, anyway.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Marguerite slept late the next morning, only waking up when the maid came to clean. She tumbled out of her room to let the woman work, and found the other two already awake and polishing off breakfast.

“Shane says you got something!” whispered Wren, bouncing in her chair.

Marguerite glanced over her shoulder, but it seemed unlikely that Ammy could hear her over the thumping sounds of the bed linens being changed. She nodded to Wren. “He had a letter from whoever he delegated handling the artificer to.”

“So we need to find that person?”

“Thankfully, no.” She gratefully accepted the mug of tea that Shane handed her. “We know where she went, so we can just go straight there.”

“I can be ready within the hour,” Shane said immediately.

Wren’s excited expression faded so quickly that it might as well have been lopped off with a knife. “Oh,” she said. “So we’re going, then?”

It did not take the skills of a spymaster to guess the reason behind Wren’s dismay. “I can help you write him a note,” said Marguerite gently. “There’s no reason you can’t see him again when this is all over.”

“I haven’t exactly mentioned what I do,” said Wren glumly. “And he probably doesn’t think of me that way.” She rubbed her forehead. “How long do we have?”

Marguerite shrugged. “Not long, I don’t think. The letter said ‘sent to the Nallans at the ford.’” She heard the maid approaching the door and hastened to finish up. “We just need to find the Nallan family and we’re golden.”

“Sorry, ma’am?” asked Ammy, popping her head into the room.

“Nothing, Ammy.”

The woman frowned. “Thought I heard my name. Though no, of course you weren’t calling me—you said Nallan and I haven’t been a Nallan in thirty years.”

Marguerite raised both eyebrows. “Nallan?” she asked. Hope mingled with suspicion. It couldn’t possibly be this easy, could it?

“Aye, that was my maiden name. One of the Snowpeak Nallans, I was.” She thumped her chest.

Shane caught her intention without having to be asked. “Where is Snowpeak?” he asked. “I don’t know the highlands at all, I fear.”

Ammy sniffed. “Fair distance from here. I don’t get back as often as I’d like. In summer I’m working for you lot, and in winter—well, nobody goes to Snowpeak in winter.”

“That’s a shame,” he said, with what seemed like genuine sympathy. “I’m sorry you can’t get back to your family. The Nallans, you said?”

Marguerite’s hopes soared. It was almost too convenient, but sometimes you did get lucky in this business. And even if Ammy was an enemy operative and trying to throw them off the scent, this sort of thing could be checked, although perhaps not until they were closer to Snowpeak.

“Oh, aye,” said Ammy. “O’ course, there’s Nallans all over, you ken.”

Soaring hope faltered. “There are?” Shane asked.

“Bless you, of course there are.” Ammy swatted playfully at him with her dustcloth. “Comes from the old word for warrior, they say, which is why there’s so many of us. Can’t scarcely throw a pot of piss out the window without hitting one.” She sniffed again, while Marguerite felt her hopes crash to earth. “’Course I wouldn’t trust half the people who call themselves that. No better than lowlanders, some of ’em. No offense to yourself.”

“No,” said Shane, in his grave voice, as hope picked up a shovel and began to dig downward. “None taken.”

“Not anybody’s fault where they’re born,” Ammy continued magnanimously. “But there’s Nallans everywhere you go. Why, I daresay we’re in every county in the highlands!”

“I suppose I could seduce Maltrevor again,” said Marguerite glumly, after the maid had left and they were all draped over chairs, nursing their disappointment. “Look for more letters, if there are any.”

Shane looked up sharply. “I don’t think that would be wise.”