She was shown to a table at the back of the room and had made her selection from the day’s menu when the Warlord walked in. He didn’t wait to be seated. He strode to her table, pulled out the chair opposite hers, and sat down. He wore a Sapphire Jewel, and the fire in his dark eyes said he was looking for a fight.
As the dining house’s owner put a glass of wine in front of her and a tankard of ale in front of him, she noticed how everyone else abandoned their meals and left, forming a crowd outside the dining house.
“I won’t insult you by pretending I don’t know who you are,” he said, wrapping the fingers of his left hand around the tankard’s handle—leaving the gently curled right hand free to close over the sight-shielded knife she was sure he had ready.
Couldn’t blame him for that. Her right hand was gently curved around the handle of her sight-shielded stiletto.
“Just what is it you think you know, sugar?” she asked.
He looked at her right hand. “You’re the wife of the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan. And you’re Dea al Mon. I’ve heard a few whispers lately that you used to get rid of problems when you lived in Terreille.”
Well, that was interesting. She looked at his right hand in the same way he’d looked at hers. “You have a problem you can’t handle?”
“That depends on why you went to see them about Lord Dillon.”
“I was asked to look into all of Lord Dillon’s . . . liaisons.”
“Then someone should tell you the rest of the story and not just what they want you to know.”
“And that would be you?” She wondered how many other people in the town referred to that aristo family as they in a tone that held nothing but contempt.
He inclined his head. Took a long swallow of ale, his eyes never leaving hers.
She took a sip of the wine. Not a bad vintage. Better than she’d expected. “I’m listening.”
“A while back, Lord Dillon came into town. He’s from an aristo family, but he’s not too far above ordinary folks. Pleasant enough. Crosses paths with the daughter of that family, and she takes a liking to him. Too much of a liking, if you follow me.”
“I follow you,” Surreal said.
“While Dillon is happy to be the girl’s dance partner or escort her to a public gathering, she can’t talk him into warming her bed on the sly. Then a letter arrives from a bosom friend in another town, and suddenly Dillon goes from being a pleasant young man who can say no to unwanted sexual invitations to being a man who is expected to provide sex to any aristo bitch who wants him, because his reputation is being trashed behind calculating smiles. I imagine you’ve heard this story in other towns.”
“Similar stories,” she agreed.
The Warlord gave Surreal a sharp smile. “The girl is a coldhearted, spoiled bitch who is serving in the District Queen’s court to get some polish. If you ask me, the polish she’ll get with that Queen is the kind that will get her killed.”
“Will it be your hand that holds the knife?”
“Probably.”
Oh, he was interesting. “I’m still listening.”
“That whole family cares for no one and nothing but themselves—and they’re a little too proud of their Terreillean bloodlines.”
That was what had left her feeling unsettled—the sense of something familiar in a place where it shouldn’t have been familiar.
“There was a woman who worked at a dressmaker’s shop just down the street. Nice woman who comes from a good family, at least by the standards in this part of town. Met a Warlord at a public dance, oh, seven years ago or so. He was a persuasive and ardent suitor—until she became pregnant. Big surprise for her, since he’d sworn he was drinking a contraceptive brew.”
“Hmm,” she said.
“He can’t marry her, of course. Too far beneath him socially for that to be a consideration. But he’ll help her raise the child and he’ll be there for the Birthright Ceremony.”
“Did he help, at least financially?”
The Warlord snorted. “She never saw so much as a copper from him, let alone anything else. Barely ever saw him again, even though he lives in this town too. But he did show up for the Birthright Ceremony and said all the right things, and that made her hopeful. If nothing else, once paternity was officially acknowledged, her daughter wouldn’t be considered a bastard.”
“But . . . ?”
The Warlord focused on the tankard. “Sweet girl—and smart enough in her own way. But she’s a little bit simple in the way she sees the world. Despite both parents wearing Jewels—lighter Jewels, to be sure, but still enough that you’d have expectations for the child—the girl didn’t acquire a Birthright Jewel at the ceremony, and it’s unlikely that she’ll ever have more than basic Craft even when she’s old enough to make the Offering to the Darkness.
“To say the girl’s sire was viciously disappointed would be gilding him with a kindness he doesn’t deserve. When the girl failed to acquire a Jewel, he refused to go through with the rest of the ceremony so that paternity could be acknowledged. He said loudly—and in front of witnesses—that he wouldn’t have his name associated with a blob of flesh that might have come from the last squirt of his cock or a half dozen other men’s. The woman was crushed, since he’d been her first—and only—lover. Her family is helping her as best they can, but she’s been struggling, barely able to leave her home because that bastard’s ‘jest’ was all over town by that evening and she’s too ashamed to see anyone. And the girl doesn’t understand why her mother is crying all the time.”
“What does this have to do with Dillon?” Surreal asked. She hadn’t been hired for what she was thinking. She didn’t have a client.
Well, Hell’s fire, she’d just hire herself—and give herself a steep discount from her usual fee. Or not.
“The Warlord who wouldn’t acknowledge his daughter because she wasn’t going to be anything useful to him is the uncle of the bitch who took a fancy to Dillon. I don’t know how Dillon heard the story about the woman and her daughter, but when the ground was pulled out from under him and the bitch’s father paid him to leave town so that he wouldn’t soil the bitch’s honor by association, Dillon gave the woman half the money before he left town.”
The Warlord drank until he drained the tankard. He set it aside. “Maybe he’s developed a skin of meanness in his dealings with the distaff gender. But that’s not who he was a few months ago. I thought you should know that.”
“I appreciate it.” Surreal looked toward the owner, who hovered out of earshot, and wondered if she would ever see her meal. “Two things, Warlord. First, tell the woman to write up every encounter she’s had with the man who sired her daughter. Make sure she records what support he provided before and after the Birthright Ceremony.”
“I told you—he didn’t provide anything. He has no interest in the girl. Never did.”
“Exactly. And make sure what occurred at the Birthright Ceremony is part of that account, including what he said. If she won’t—or can’t—do that, you write it. Have that written account witnessed and give a copy to the woman’s family. Another copy should be sent to the Province Queen. And the third copy should be taken to the Keep, with a request that it be included in the information for the woman’s bloodline and the Warlord’s.”
“What’s the point?”
“The point is to show that he shouldn’t be granted any authority over the girl, if he starts showing interest in a year or so, since he wasn’t interested before.”