His gold was good, though, and it wasn't as if I hadn't fended off such advances before. Especially from employers.
Asta shifted restlessly. I steadied him with a pat on the withers. From the edge of the woods, I observed the gates of an ancient castle. Its walls were burned blacker than a new bride's biscuits, yet they stood stout and formidable.
Quiet, too. The old stones kept their secrets. Nothing moved on the parapets, no sentries, no pennants stirring in the breeze, not even birds.
On the bank of the moat, charred ribcages stuck up like driftwood, a legbone here, a skull there. Scattered among those, a few rusted tools-rakes and hoes mostly-stark testimony to the evil of the queen who dwelled inside.
If she had a name, no one used it. Leonardo, whose sister-in-law she was, called her the "Evil Queen," or sometimes the "Old Witch," though his voice dropped when he spoke of her, and he tended to look over his shoulder a lot.
I brushed a hand through a shock of tangled black hair that had strayed over my shoulder. I wanted a bath, but I guided Asta in a slow circle around the castle, careful to keep out of sight beneath the surrounding trees.
I disliked kidnapping cases; I disliked magic even more. Sorcerers, wizards, witches-all river rats as far as I was concerned, best left to the night. But Leonardo had paid me well and promised more, enough for an office and a secretary if I ever chose to settle somewhere. I liked the idea of a secretary; some masculine piece of candy to lounge across my desk, who'd taunt me with his efficiencies on slow, hot days. Someone to take a little shorthand, or even a little longhand.
A low branch slapped me across the face. I dismissed my fantasies and brought my mind back to business.
The Old Witch-all right, Leonardo hadn't really said "witch"-had poisoned his brother Clarence and seized control of neighboring Anchovia, crushing all opposition with her black arts. "But I have a nephew," Leonardo had continued as he squeezed my thigh. "Clarence's son, the rightful sovereign of Anchovia. He hasn't been seen since Clarence's murder."
I'd lifted his hand from my leg and pressed it firmly into a bowl of mashed potatoes. Lord Parfum had sniggered, then quickly raised his napkin to hide his grin. An uncomfortable silence had filled the dining hall as Leonardo stiffly wiped his hand on the tablecloth's hem. When he leaned close again, I had the creepy feeling he had enjoyed that.
He'd resumed the conversation as if nothing had happened, describing his nephew: nineteen, fair of face, blue eyes, hair black as his mother's heart. Leonardo had winked then. "And a manner that can charm the skin off a snake. He's known as Prince Charming."
From the far side of the table, Lord Parfum had murmured, "The prince takes after his uncle." He'd smiled slyly, showing perfect teeth like the boards in a white picket fence. "If you could bottle and sell whatever that boy's got, you'd make a fortune."
I could learn nothing more from the outside of the castle. I turned Asta and followed a narrow stream to the village a half mile away. It wasn't much of a village. It lay nestled in a valley among the wooded hills, nearly abandoned now. The cottages on the outskirts were aged and deteriorated. Shops and businesses were ill-kempt or empty. Mud and filth had long buried the paving stones of Main Street.
I remembered those charred bones outside the castle walls. Perhaps the populace had decided living next to a wicked witch wasn't such a great idea.
The inn looked a little better. A sign hung on rusty chains above its door, and a pale stick figure over faded black letters proclaimed the inn's name: THE THIN MAN. I draped Asta's reins over a post and tugged my saddlebags from behind the saddle.
An old woman, her face as rough and rutted as the street outside, glared at me over a bucket of water and a mop as I entered. She eyeballed my armor and sword, then resumed her work. "Ye looks like trouble," she grumbled. "I don't needs no trouble in my place."
"Trouble is my business," I answered. Moving carefully around the wet edge of her floor, I lay a gold sardeenmar on a counter. "I need a room, a bite to eat, and some wine if you have it. A bath, too."
She leaned on her mop and licked her lips as she looked at the small, gleaming fish. Her tongue painted a smile where a frown had been. "Well now, milady," she said with newfound cheerfulness, "yer business don't be any business o' mine. An' I gots a fine room with a sunset view freshly made up."
I held up a second coin. "Can someone stable my horse?"
She snatched the sardeenmar from my fingers and swept up the other in the same motion. "Done an' done," she answered. "We gots a stable out back, an' feed's no extra charge." She winked. An ornery glint sparkled in her eye. "I can even digs out a spare sweater for ye. Come evening ye might gets a bit chilly in that outfit."
It had been a long day. I was tired from the saddle and itchy with scratches from brush and tree limbs. My manners and my patience melted. "Most men think the less I wear the hotter I am. Not that you'd understand that."
She barked a laugh. "Now I know how ye makes so much money." She parked the mop in the bucket of water and beckoned as she led the way across the room and down a corridor. "All yer tartin' won't earn ye much here, milady. We don't gots but one real man in this town, an' he be locked up in the castle."
That caught my attention. "Prince Charming?"
She glowered over her shoulder, a look that on a younger woman I might have construed as jealousy. "Aye, every woman what's left in this dunghill town pines for that beautiful boy," she admitted, "an' all their husbands be sulkin'." She pushed open a door. "I'll fetch ye a bite to eat now. The bath'll be a basin bowl an' a pitcher o' water. I'd heat it up for ye, but seein' as how ye're so hot already…"
I sighed and offered another goldfish as I entered the room.
"… Seein' as how ye're so generous with yer riches," she corrected, "I'll heat it nice an' hot." She backed out with a mocking bow, closing the door, muttering as she went, "An' if'n ye scald yer pretty pink opportunities it's no fault o' mine!"
The room, as promised, was meticulously clean. A polished little oak chair stood by the door. Dropping my saddlebags, I sat and wearily began pulling off my boots. For a moment, the place reminded me of the domestic life I'd left behind. The floor gleamed in sunlight that came through the open-shuttered window. A dainty oak table and another chair occupied the center of the room. On the table, a vase of fresh flowers rested on a crocheted doily.
The bed made me gasp. It was piled with feather mattresses, pillows, and covered with elaborate piece-quilts.
I fumbled with my belt, let sword and purse fall to the floor, armor next. Forgetting all else, I stretched naked on that plushness. With no intention to sleep, I closed my eyes. For an instant, I heard singing saucers and dancing teacups-a strangely recurrent nightmare-then even that melted away.
"Let me die in such a bed!" I breathed.
"I can arrange that."
A gloved hand settled over my mouth. I opened my eyes. The bare edge of a dagger teased my breast. My uninvited visitor added, "But it would be such a waste."
I lay still, irritatingly aware of my sword belt out of reach on the floor and the open window through which my guest had come. His eyes gazed into mine as he slid the dagger over my belly.
"Bad Rose," he murmured. "You don't look so bad to me. Not bad at all."
A grin spread over his weather-beaten face. As faces went, it wasn't unpleasant; the smattering of dark whiskers and the broad mustache gave it character. A falconer, I assumed, for on the shoulder of his laced jerkin, a black bird was embroidered, and I recognized it-a Maltese falcon.