Hadrian gave him a nod, picked up his bag, and jogged to the dock where a man waited at the gangway of a long flat boat.
CHAPTER 2
Gwen knew she would be too late the moment the screams began on the second floor. The ceiling shook, casting dirt into the drinks of those huddled at the bar. Overhead, the pounding sounded like he was taking a club to Avon’s head.
No, not a club. He’s hammering her head against the floor.
“Avon!” Gwen yelled, charging the stairs.
Unwilling to slow for the turn, she slammed her shoulder into the wall at the top of the flight, knocking loose a little mirror that fell and shattered. Gwen sprinted down the hall. The screams sounded inhuman, like something from a slaughterhouse-the futile cries of the doomed.
Stane is killing her.
Gwen clawed at the latch and pushed, but the inside bolt had been thrown. The door refused to budge. She threw herself against it, but the wood ignored her slight weight. Inside, the pounding softened, turning mushy. No longer a muffled thump, it had become a wet smack. The screams faded to whispered moans.
Gwen wrenched open the door across the hall where Mae had been entertaining a redheaded man from East March. Mae screamed in fear. Whatever business they had been engaged in had stopped with Avon’s shrieks. Gwen kicked at the loose post of the bed’s footboard. The carpenter had constructed the frame from solid stumps of maple, but he’d done a lousy job fitting the pieces together. Two more kicks and the leg toppled, collapsing the mattress to the floor along with Mae and the redhead from East March.
Running like a jousting knight, Gwen drove the post into Avon’s door. The impact threw the ram from her hands but left a sizable dent in its surface and splintered the frame. Scrambling, she grabbed it once more just as Raynor Grue appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Damn it, ya stupid bitch! Stop!”
With every ounce of her strength, Gwen rammed the door again, aiming for the same spot and hitting it, more or less. The frame shattered, and the door burst open. The momentum carried her through, and she landed on the floor in a pool of blood.
“Great Maribor’s beard!” Grue cursed, standing in the doorway.
Stane was on top of Avon, his hands still around her neck. “She wouldn’t stop screaming.”
Avon’s eyes were open but not seeing, her blond hair stained crimson.
“Get outta here!” Grue said, grabbing Gwen and dragging her into the corridor. “Go downstairs! Ya owe me for a new bloody door and a bed.”
“Is she dead?” Stane asked, still straddling her with his naked legs, his skin slick with sweat, his chest splattered with blood.
Grue nudged Avon’s head with his boot. “Yeah, ya killed her.”
“You bastard!” Gwen launched herself at Stane.
Grue caught her and shoved her backward, causing Gwen to stumble and fall. “Shut up!” he yelled.
“I’m sorry, Grue,” Stane offered.
Grue grimaced and shook his head, surveying the blood spreading across the wooden floor. Gwen could tell from the way he stood and the downward curl of his mouth that he wasn’t seeing Avon as a beautiful young girl gone before her time but merely as a mess to be cleaned up.
Grue sighed. “I don’t want no apology, Stane. You’re gonna have to pay for this. Avon was popular.”
“How much?”
Grue thought a moment the way he always did, chewing on a toothpick and sucking on his teeth. “Eighty-five silver tenents.”
“Silver? Eighty-five? She only cost six coppers!”
“Ya done killed her, ya stupid son of a bitch! I’m out everything she would have made in the future. I should charge ya gold!”
“I ain’t got that much.”
“You’ll have to get it.”
Stane nodded. “I’ll get it.”
“Tonight.”
Stane hesitated, then agreed. “Okay, tonight.”
“Gwen, get a bucket and clean this up. You, too, Mae. Red, you’re done for the night. Go on and get outta here, and send Willard up on your way out. I’ll need help getting her body down the stairs.”
“You can’t let him get away with this,” Gwen said through clenched teeth as she got to her feet. The tears hadn’t started yet, and she wondered why. Maybe she was still too angry. The smashing of the door had gotten her blood up, and she hadn’t calmed down yet.
“He’s paying for the damages, just like you will.”
“In that case, I’m not done damaging.” Gwen picked up the bedpost and charged at Stane’s head. She might have made it, but Grue caught her arm. He spun her, striking her cheek hard with the flat of his hand. She fell backward again. The bedpost hit what was left of the doorframe and rolled harmlessly down the hall.
“Get your ass downstairs! Mae, get in here with that bucket, and where’s Willard? Willard!”
Gwen sat, dazed. If he had used his fist, she would’ve been down awhile, maybe spitting teeth. But Grue knew how to handle his girls, and he avoided marking them if he could. With the heat still on her cheek and the jaw-rattling pain reaching around her face, Gwen got up and ran downstairs. Everyone in the bar got out of her way as she barreled through the front door of The Hideous Head Tavern and Alehouse, heading straight for the sheriff’s office.
The night was cold with the blow of an autumn wind, but she barely noticed as she ran through the cracked-mud streets of Medford. No one was out-all the decent folk were asleep.
She didn’t knock, just shoved the door open.
Ethan was asleep in a chair, his head nestled in his arms on the table. Gwen kicked the table’s leg, and he popped up like a flushed quail.
“What the-” He sounded angry.
Good.
She wanted him furious. She wanted him seething.
“Stane just murdered Avon at The Hideous Head,” she yelled, making Ethan flinch. “The bastard hammered her head against the floor until he split her skull. I told Grue he’d do it. I told him not to let Stane back in, but he didn’t listen. Now get over there!”
“All right, all right.” Ethan grabbed his sword belt off the chair and buckled it as he followed her out.
“He blackened Jollin’s eye just three days back,” she told him as they walked down Wayward Street. Ethan wasn’t moving fast enough to suit her. Not that time was essential. Avon wouldn’t be getting any better, and Stane wouldn’t be getting any smarter. Still, she wanted to see justice done, done right and done fast. Stane didn’t deserve to live any longer than Avon, and every breath he took was a crime in Gwen’s eyes. “And he broke Abby’s arm a little more than a month ago. Grue was a fool to force Avon to go with him. She knew, and she was scared, but that’s how Stane likes us. Fear excites him, and the more excited he gets, the more damage he does. And Avon-Maribor love her-she was absolutely terrified. Grue should have known better.”
The door to the tavern was still open, casting a long slant of light across the porch and into the rutted road. Maybe she had broken that one too; she hoped so. The drunks had left, likely chased out. Grue and Willard were bringing Avon down, wrapped in the blanket from the bed. One end was dripping a dark line down the steps.
“What ya doing here, Ethan?” The cords of Grue’s neck stood out from the strain. He wasn’t yelling, just angry, which meant he was back to normal.
“What do you mean? Your girl came and got me.”
“I didn’t send her.”
“Well, she woke me out of a dead sleep, so here I am. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Grue said.
“Don’t look like nothing. Is that Avon in the blanket?”
“What’s it to you?”
“It’s my job to make sure justice is done. Stane upstairs?”