“How do you know?”
“I talked to them.”
“You talked to me too.”
“You’re not nice people.”
“I know, I know, I have those wolf eyes that good old Sebastian warned you about. Remember him? The nice man who, along with his nice lady friend, was planning to slit your throat?”
“He was right about you at least.”
“That’s my point. Pick anyone and the odds are pretty good that they’re not nice. Everyone looks nice. Everyone dresses up in fine clothes and wears wide smiles like Dougan behind the bar, but I guarantee if you scrub the surface of that coin you’ll find tin. People always pretend to be pleasant, kind, and friendly, especially cutthroats and thieves.”
“You don’t.”
“That’s because I’m surprisingly honest.”
“I’m not killing them.”
“Then why are you here? Arcadius said we were to be a team. I was to show you the business. He said you were this excellent fighter, a hardened soldier. Okay. I didn’t like it, but I can see the benefit of having a skilled sword along, for just such occasions as this. So what’s your problem?”
“I don’t like killing.”
“I’m not an idiot. I gathered that much. The question is why? Did Arcadius lie to me? Are you really some sword merchant and that’s why you carry all that steel? Did he send you with me to get your first taste of blood?”
“I’ve drank more than my share-believe me.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I discovered it was wrong.”
“Excuse me? Did you say wrong?”
“Yeah, you know, wrong, the opposite of right.”
“How young are you? Do you also believe in fairy godmothers, true love, and wishing on falling stars?”
“You don’t believe in right and wrong? Good and bad?”
“Sure, right is what’s good for me, and bad is what I don’t like, and those things are very, very wrong.”
“You really were raised by wolves, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I was.”
“So you boys are from Rhenydd, eh?” Lord Marbury came over, pulled up a chair, and sat down.
Hadrian hoped the lord hadn’t overheard anything. Not that he was afraid of him. Even with his sword, the man wasn’t a threat. As with most high-ranked nobles, he had no idea how to fight. To them swords were like fur and the color purple-emblems of nobility and power-but Hadrian would be embarrassed if the lord had listened to their debate about committing murder. He liked the man, and Marbury seemed the honorable sort.
“Any news from the south?” His Lordship asked. “Things are as boring here as a dead goat that can’t attract a single fly.” He let out a solid belch. “All I have to get me by is ale, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the church took that away next. So what’s the word from the palaces of kings?”
Royce stared directly at Hadrian with an angry look.
“Didn’t really visit any palaces. Wouldn’t let me in dressed like this,” Hadrian said.
Marbury hit his fist on the table and chuckled. “Wouldn’t let me in either, I suspect. I’m like a mir-half human, half elf-only in my case I’m a cross between a noble and a peasant. A lord in a land where nobility is outlawed. Did you know my family fief goes back to Glenmorgan?”
“How the blazes would you know that?” the priest asked from his seat at the bar.
Marbury twisted around, nearly spilling his drink with his elbow. “Did I invite you to this discussion?”
“No, but they didn’t invite you to theirs either.”
“Harding, go bless yourself.”
“Bless you too.”
Lord Marbury turned back to Hadrian and Royce. “As I was saying, my family got our fief from Glenmorgan.”
Hadrian nodded. “I just learned about him. He almost rebuilt the empire, except he never was able to conquer Calis. Too many fractured kingdoms, too many warlords, and of course the goblins.”
“That’s him. Wouldn’t call him emperor. The church dubbed Glenmorgan the Steward of Novron because they refused to give up on their dream of finding the lost heir.” He leaned back in his chair and waved his hands about like he was trying to clear the air of smoke. “Glenmorgan ruled all this, everything. Rhenydd too. He built the Crown Tower where the Patriarch and the archbishop live. You must have seen it on your way in. That was only part of his castle. You’re right-he never took Calis, but his grandson Glenmorgan III, saved Avryn. My great-great-great-and so on-father fought beside him in the Battle of Vilan Hills, where we stopped the goblins from overrunning Avryn. That was Glen III’s downfall really. His nobles and the church, who’d gotten fat under the pitiful rule of Glen II, didn’t like that Glen III was as strong as his grandfather. All those comfortable gentlemen of fur and the bell-ringing bishops betrayed him. They locked Glenmorgan III in Blythin Castle, down there in Alburn. They charged him with heresy. And when the people rioted, the church, being the virtuous sort, blamed the nobles and then frocks took over everything.”
“Frocks?” Hadrian asked.
“People like me,” the priest spoke up again. “He means the church.”
“I do indeed.”
“You realize that’s both treason and heresy.”
“I don’t give a pimple off Novron’s ass if it is. You gonna send for the seret to drag me off to some tribunal? Invite a sentinel to scourge Iberton?”
Hadrian had no idea what a seret or a sentinel was, but the prospect didn’t sound pleasant.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” Marbury lowered his voice, addressing the table again. “Some days I wish he would, but there’s no need. I’m a castrated bull. Good for nothing but wandering the fields and making barley ale.”
“Never saw a bull make ale this good before,” Hadrian said.
Marbury laughed. “I like you, kid.” He looked at Royce. “I like him too. A bit on the quiet side, but that makes him the smart one, right? Quiet ones always are. They know better than to babble like old, castrated, noble, ale-making bulls.”
Hadrian looked across at Royce, who had dipped his head down, hiding his eyes. “He likes to think he is, but he doesn’t know everything.”
“I never claimed to know everything,” Royce said. “Just what matters.”
“To whom?” Hadrian asked.
“To me.”
“Yeah, you’re right. That’s a long way from everything.”
“It’s enough to make intelligent decisions. You let emotions get in the way of sense.”
“I have just the opposite problem,” Lord Marbury said. “I let sense get in the way of emotion. For example, I should have put my sword through the belly of Harding over three years ago, and would have if I had trusted my emotions.”
“I can still hear you,” the priest declared.
“I know that, you miserable frock.”
“He seems like a nice enough man,” Hadrian said.
“He is. He’s a damn fine fellow. I got the fever two years ago and he stayed with me when everyone else left for fear it was the plague again. Why, he even washed my backside for me. That’s not something you forget. Harding is a pillar of this community.”
“I heard that too,” Harding said.
“Shut up.” Marbury took a swallow from his mug. “The point is he’s still one of them-the snakes that slither and poison everything. The ones that crashed Glenmorgan’s empire and put families like mine out to pasture. The ones that turned me from a knight serving an emperor into a farmer serving ale, and if I was half the man my great-grandfather was, I’d have lopped his head off years ago.”
“It’s not too late,” Royce said.
Marbury laughed and slapped the table. “Hear that, Harding? The one in the hood here agrees with me.”
Outside, the sun had slipped behind the hills, leaving the world in a ghostly light of diminishing sky. The children had disappeared, the dogs curled up on the side of the trail, and lights spoke of life in the settling darkness.