Page 11

REED

“You two fine gentlemen ever heard the one about the two cows and the old goat-herder with the giant pizzle who caught the hog pox?” Reed poked his elbows into the burly enforcers sitting too close at his sides.

They showed no reaction.

“See, it all started when the cattleman tried to pass off one of his hogs as his wife…”

Reed thought the enforcer on his left was fighting a smile, but he couldn’t be sure.

With the night long gone and the sun concealed somewhere, the barred carriage sped over the uneven road, jostling its passengers against him in a most unwelcome way. His second journey in less than a day, but at least these horses were much swifter than the merchant’s mule.

“His wife, truth be told, had somewhat of a swinish look about her, especially around the eyes. Definitely in the hips.”

The enforcer on his left turned to the window, while the other stared straight ahead, his expression as unreadable as stone.

“Anyone ever tell you two you’re no fun?” Reed decided the enforcer on his right didn’t deserve to hear the rest of the story and instead hummed a tune, the raunchiest bar song in the Glen. Enforcer Left definitely knew it, now visibly trying not to laugh.

Reed had learned long ago to appreciate small victories. He was arrested, probably on his way to the gallows. However, anything could happen.

His brother was safe from the plague and healing. That was what mattered most.

Reaching Moonglade—after a journey in which he succeeded beautifully in annoying two enforcers—Reed was dragged across the town’s cobblestone prison yard and down several uneven stairs, where he found himself unceremoniously thrown onto a pile of foul-smelling straw.

The sound of clanging iron echoed off stone as the cell door slammed shut, bolts driven home, and unease crept into his mind like swamp fog.

The room had a wide view of the jail’s office—deserted but for one portly guard busy with paperwork at his desk—and was equipped with four cots, a water spigot, and an actual hole in the ground for a latrine.

Luxury accommodations compared to any jail in the Glen .

Peering up at his cellmate, Reed smiled wide, all swamp fog lifted.

If the enforcers planned on detaining him indefinitely, they shouldn’t have put him with the Pikeman.

“Your loot was hot,” the Pikeman grunted, looking pleased about it as he lounged along one of the cell’s cots, picking at his teeth with a bit of straw.

“I won’t ask where you got it ‘cause I was bored anyway.” He spat, meeting Reed’s gaze.

“Back home, it’s nothing but compulsion, compulsion, compulsion all the time.

Lots of crying and begging. I could use a break.

Stretch my legs a bit. But I said to myself, I said, if I’m to be taken in by the Duke’s enforcers, you’ll be joining me. ”

Reed knew better than to think the Pikeman had given his name up to enforcers out of anything but his own volition, but at least that explained his arrest. He still wondered how Dulce’s jewels had been found so quickly.

Could they hold some kind of magical tracking properties inside them?

He’d heard rumors of that sort of thing—rubies owned by witches, infused with magic, and gold created in an alchemist’s lab.

He’d always thought it all a bunch of pribbling, superstitious lunacy.

Magic wasn’t real. At least, not in the filth and misery of the Glen.

“It shouldn’t be long now.” The Pikeman sighed, lying back and regarding the ceiling as if he’d miss the place. “A friendly word of advice if you don’t want to return my payment in full. You’ve got about … three minutes to prepare for acquiring its replacement.”

Reed glanced around, searching the place for any sign of valuables.

“There.” The Pikeman jerked his chin at an iron box in the far corner. “Reckon that’ll hold a pretty loot. Teach ‘ em to leave us Glen folk alone.”

Reed stood, rolling his neck and shoulders, wondering where the Pikeman’s men would wreak their havoc from. He’d heard many tales of the Pikeman’s love for chaos, and he wasn’t too keen on learning of it firsthand.

The walls of the cell appeared to be solid stone—the bars thick as his wrists. High above though, the ceiling was nothing but wooden beams across what was clearly a thatched roof, its layers of water reed and longstraw peeking between mossy sedge grasses.

Reed lowered his gaze to meet the Pikeman’s grin.

“What did you do to the jewels?” Reed asked. “If you don’t mind me inquiring.”

“Are you suggesting it was my interference that brought the law to our doorstep?”

“Well, I mea—”

“You’d be quite right.” The man laughed maniacally, still lounging along the cot as if he had all the time in the world, not bothering to put on his shoes.

Reed arched a brow at his long and filthy toenails.

“I cleaned them in the usual way,” he continued with a shrug, “with boiling peppermint water. That ring put up quite the fuss at that. Don’t include that fobbing bauble in my payment.

The pearls I’m happy to take back though. Ah. Here my boys are now…”

The Pikeman stood on his bed, his shoes tied before Reed could blink, and the ceiling burst into flame. The lone guard at the desk showed no reaction, too immersed in his work to bother with a couple of degenerate Glen scum, the cell’s low walls protecting the flames from his view.

A braid of silk fell like a twisting serpent through the smoky clouds above to unwind at the Pikeman’s side, and the pawnbroker secured one foot into its knotted base, wagging his fingers at Reed before using both hands to grasp the fabric.

“You have ten minutes to bring my payment to the Rowan Inn’s alleyway,” he said with a wink. “After that, you’re acquiring quite the pretty interest. Don’t waste time having too much fun.”

“Wait!” Reed shouted as the Pikeman was lifted into the air. “You’re leaving me here? At least give me something to pick the locks with!” The enforcers had already confiscated the knife in his boot, so he’d been left with nothing of use.

The guard at the desk finally noticed the smell of burning thatch and rushed from the room, shouting.

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out!” the Pikeman called down to him, followed by a chorus of laughter.

“Ruttish, plume-plucked, measly wagtail puttocks,” Reed muttered.

A beam cracked like a sinking ship’s wails overhead and tumbled to the cell floor with a crash, igniting the straw along it. Reed lifted the cup next to the water spigot and banged the metal against the bars.

“Fire!” he yelled. “Somebody, help! Even Gallows’ prisoners have the right to humane execution! You paunchy bunch of full-gorged ratsbane maggots! Fire !”

The roof fell in at an alarming rate now, smoke descending like fog, choking him, the cell a fountain of sparks and flame as beams continued to rain down.

Reed soaked his scarf in water and wrapped the sodden wool around his face, protected from the worst of it by the time the guards’ lumbering steps pounded on the stairs, one holding the keys to his cell.

Hiding under the cover of smoke, he waited for the lock to disengage, and, when the man slid the bars back, Reed hurled himself forward and smashed the metal cup into the guard’s face.

Snatching the keys from his limp fingers, Reed spun to elbow the second guard in the throat as the sound of fire bells rang outside the gaping roof.

Surprised by his attack, the first guard held his broken nose and stumbled forward into the cell, a falling beam narrowly missing his head. Reed kicked his choking companion forward to join him, pulling the bars back into place and locking the cell once again.

“Oye!” the first guard screamed in rage. “You won’t get away with this, you roguish lout! I’ll have your head, you graverobbing scum! There’s nowhere you can hide, do you hear me? Nowhere !”

Reed did hear him of course, but he paid no attention, focused instead on the metal box in front of him. One problem at a time , he told himself. Get free of the Pikeman’s debt, then get free of the law.

“You’ll hang before the next sunset, that’s a promise!”

That was quite the threat when Reed was no longer the one locked behind bars.

The other guard regained the use of his voice, and croaked, “Where’s the second maggot trash gone off to?”

“Maybe he burned,” Broken Nose offered.

“Nah, the smell isn’t right.”

Reed ignored them and at last managed to get the box open, prying apart its hinges with an iron crowbar left in plain sight beneath a window next to a broom.

Inside, he found a red velvet pouch, the Duke’s own crest embroidered across it in golden thread.

Untangling its delicate cord, Reed discovered a treasure that was quite something to behold.

Every conceivable coin in the land—presumably confiscated by corrupt enforcers from drunks and gamblers—as well as jeweled knives, silver spoons, and even a golden engraved baby rattle. Dulce’s pearls and ring stood out amongst the rest, their luster far exceeding the worn rabble surrounding them.

The harsh crackle of flames signaled he needed to leave soon.

Reed stood, letting the box fall shut. Scanning the room, he discovered what he wanted immediately.

The paperwork-conscious enforcer had left his hat and coat in his haste to raise the alarm.

Reed spared a few seconds to trade his cloak for these, hoping their oversized dimensions would go unnoticed as he tucked his white hair beneath the cap.

He was running out of time to meet the Pikeman.

Tying the velvet sack and stuffing it securely beneath his jacket, Reed pocketed the ring.

He couldn’t say why, exactly, since he didn’t mean to ever sell it.

Perhaps it was because Dulce had mentioned how her beloved mother had left it to her upon her death.

Maybe even then the idea of seeing the heiress once more was forming in some shadowy part of his mind.

Slipping into the alleyway behind the jail, Reed walked at a leisurely pace until he reached the guard stables. The animals were alone, seemingly every groom and stable boy having run off to help put out the fire, and only one mangy dog announced Reed’s presence.

Not bothering with a saddle, Reed placed a simple bridle over the nearest horse—a bay gelding—and led the creature out through the hay delivery doors.

Not a soul noticed him.

Two blocks from the jailhouse, Reed mounted the horse from the crumbling steps of a cloth merchant’s shop and raced into town, praying the Pikeman still waited at the inn.

He did, much to Reed’s relief. Being in the Pikeman’s debt was a fate almost worse than death, if one believed the gossip. Something Reed was inclined to do, after everything he’d just witnessed.

“I told you he’d come.” The Pikeman laughed, his hand out for payment to three of his men.

They grumbled, their faces hidden in the shadows of their dark cloaks, as they paid the bet they’d lost against Reed’s escape.

Reed grinned at them as he dismounted, the velvet sack swinging cheerfully while he sauntered toward the Pikeman.

Reed was a wanted man now, but that didn’t mean they should feel any kind of sympathy for him. Sympathy meant weakness, and weakness would only get one killed in the company of animals such as these.

The Pikeman stood before a nondescript trader’s carriage, two plain and scarred horses, perfectly ready to disappear back into the Glen, where no man, woman, or child would ever dare to give up his location.

Reed threw the sack of treasure to him, and the pawnbroker caught it neatly. Looking inside, his eyes sparkled with satisfaction.

“Good boy,” he said. “Our business is concluded.”

Reed bowed his head a fraction. The Pikeman had gotten at least three times the coin he’d given Reed—of course the weedy-snouted bastard was satisfied .

As if sensing Reed’s judgment, the Pikeman announced, “Take Rusty’s cloak,” snapping a finger at one of the men—presumably Rusty—who tossed the garment at Reed.

He opened the carriage door, preparing to leave, and the others scrambled to find their places on its exterior.

The horses stamped their hooves, impatient to be on their way as the Pikeman called, “Let me know when your next fight is, and we’ll make another pretty penny, eh? ”

A cracking whip split the air, in a chorus of hooves on cobblestones, and they were gone.

Reed stood in the deserted alleyway, and the fog thinned, revealing cobblestones littered with rotting cabbage, onions simmering in puddles of filth.

He threw aside his enforcer disguise. Securing the cloak over his shoulders, its fur-lined hood over his white hair, he thought about what he should do next.

The Pikeman would have the full support of the Glen, fear of the man and his volatile insanity demanded this.

Reed wouldn’t be so lucky.

He had nowhere to go. If he went back home within the next fortnight, it would only put Philip in danger. His brother needed to mend his weakened health and continue to work in peace until he was strong enough to travel. Reed owed him that much, at least.

Every enforcer within a day’s travel would be searching for him—it was only a matter of hours. He had to get out of sight, and quickly.

There was only one place to go. The one place the enforcers would never suspect he would return to.

Dulce’s manor.

Setting the horse loose to graze in a field of black prince snapdragons at the bottom of the hill, Reed made his way to Dulce’s manor on foot, keeping his steps within the cover of hedges and trees.

Reaching the stone wall, he snuck through the door as he’d done the night before and slipped into the garden unnoticed.

The sun shone down, its warm rays dispersing the thick fog, turning the branches of an enormous weeping willow to glowing green as it kissed the sparkling waters of the lake.

Crows watched him from the branches of an elm when he passed, song thrushes singing in the crisp breeze while flowers, dark in nature, bloomed along the hedges and vines.

Reed thought it must be a dream to live in such a place.

Approaching the looming manor, the enclosed cemetery in sight, Reed froze.

Two men, one elderly and one appearing no more than sixteen, dragged a dead man across the grass by his bare feet, his torn-open middle trailing his insides like rubbery worms. The grave Reed had carefully refilled lay once again open, a pile of dirt and rock at its side.

The men didn’t notice or care when the dead man’s head bounced over a stone with an audible crack , instead carrying on their hushed conversation as they tossed the body into the waiting grave.

Maybe coming here wasn’t such a good idea after all …