“Chancellor Braga is foreign-born,” another man said. This one had managed to pull a blanket with him on his way out as well as a misshapen hat that he tugged down over his reddening ears. “He’s had no time to make alliances. Lord Exeter commands the guards and all the sheriffs. Given a choice between the two, even if it can be proved that Exeter killed the royal family, I don’t know which way the army will side. We could be looking at civil war.”
“It’s a dark, dark day,” the woman muttered, hugging the child tight and twisting at the waist.
With one last look up at the burning castle, Hadrian pushed out of the crowd. He slipped into the empty streets of the Gentry Quarter. Away from the castle, away from the burning heat, it was cold. A wind was picking up, a northern wind, a breath of winter.
He aimed for Gentry Square, deciding to cut through to the Merchant Quarter. He’d try poking his head into The Hallowed Sword. Maybe Royce had returned the carriage to Dunwoodie and was waiting there for him. As he entered the square, he found another crowd forming. About twenty people stood around the statue in the center, holding up lanterns and torches. As he got closer, he saw why.
The body of a man hung from the statue. Horribly mutilated, the corpse had been strung up by ropes and decorated in macabre fashion with candles. He wore the black and white uniform like the sheriffs. His eyes, ears, and several of his fingers were missing. Nailed to his chest, held there by what Hadrian assumed had been the man’s own jeweled dagger, was a sign printed in large letters:
NOBLE OR NOT, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS
TO ANYONE WHO HARMS
THE LADIES OF MEDFORD HOUSE
Royce had found Lord Exeter after all. Hadrian turned away. He’d seen enough for one night.
When he reached The Hallowed Sword, he found Dunwoodie’s carriage and Diamond tied up out front, but Royce was not there. Dunwoodie himself was still sleeping, and Hadrian decided to leave him to it.
He wanted a drink but the place was deserted. Everyone who was awake was at the castle or in the square.
Hadrian left the Merchant Quarter, passing once more near the castle, which was still burning. Flames were shooting out of the rooftops, and one of the peaked cones of a lower tower had caved in, taking the falcon flag with it. A communal Ohhh! went up from the crowd. The bucket brigade had given up on the castle and were now hoisting water from the moat and splashing it on the courtyard’s outbuildings, trying to save what they could.
Hadrian slipped back into the shadows, this time entering the Artisan Quarter. Once more he found a crowd in that quarter’s central square. Only five people stood witness where another body was strung up. This one was mutilated in much the same way. The dead man was missing his eyes, ears, and fingers. The note nailed to him read simply:
He killed a lady of Medford House.
A man wearing a bright red stocking cap was trying to read it out loud for the benefit of those who couldn’t. “Ka-ki-killed, ah laaadee…” Hadrian listened as he methodically struggled through the seven words.
“That’s Stane,” one of those in the small crowd said.
“I was there the night he killed that poor girl,” another mentioned. He looked familiar, wearing a carpenter’s hammer where a sword would be.
“What was her name?” the speaker with the red cap asked.
“It was a year ago. Don’t even remember now.”
“I knew he would end badly.” An elderly woman wagged her finger. “Always said so.”
Hadrian remembered the name Stane. He was the one Grue had said killed Gwen’s friend. The murder that caused her to leave the tavern. Hadrian looked back at the sign. Technically she was a whore from The Hideous Head at the time, but he could see Royce was keeping to a consistent message. The townsfolk didn’t seem to mind him blurring the details.
Hadrian continued on through Artisan Row and the gate to the Lower Quarter. The bodies were gone, as if the fight had never happened. Dark spots remained to reassure him it had. He realized too late that he should have gone the long way around and avoided the scene, but he was too tired. It had been a long night, and he was hoping Gwen would give him a bed. He’d look for Royce again in the morning. Knowing Royce, he’d find Hadrian if he was alive.
Hadrian didn’t take the shortcut this time. He took the main street through the Lower Quarter’s central square. Each quarter had something. The gentry had their fancy statue, Merchant Square had pretty benches, and even the artisans had a fountain. In the Lower Quarter all they had was the old common well and a notice board. Even before he got close, Hadrian knew that a new notice had been tacked up that night.
He wasn’t disappointed.
One more body hung, stretched in the now-familiar grotesque design. Blood dripped and was warm enough to raise steam off the icy street. No crowd surrounded it. The square was deserted, and Hadrian stood alone, looking up at the grisly display. Of all the men who had died that night, this was the only one he had known. Still he couldn’t muster any sympathy.
Royce had indeed been busy that night, and he was thankful they had separated. Hadrian walked on, heading for Wayward Street, turning his back on the square, the well, the notice board, and the mutilated body of Raynor Grue.
CHAPTER 20
Years of working for Raynor Grue had warped Gwen’s internal clock to the point where she rarely slept at night. Those had been her working hours and the habit persisted. Like an owl, she couldn’t fall asleep until after sunrise, which was just one of the reasons why she was dressed when the soldiers came.
The Lower Quarter never invited much activity, and there was no mistaking their arrival. Last night the ruckus had resulted in her being dragged and beaten by the lord high constable. As Gwen waited in the parlor, she noticed they were louder this time. Angry shouts and the clatter of hooves rolled in like a storm. She also heard wagon wheels-so much heavier and duller than a carriage.
Staring at the front door, expecting it to burst open, she waited stoically. Gwen told herself it would be all right. She told the others the same. No one believed her.
They didn’t knock-she hadn’t expected them to but had wondered just the same. Medford House, she thought, looked worthy of a little respect these days. She and the girls had done a fine job with the place. The old ruin was gone and a building finer even than the original Wayward Inn stood in its place. The House wasn’t finished; Gwen didn’t think it ever would be. She was always finding ways to improve. She had plans to put a pretty fence out front, some crown molding in the bedrooms, and she hadn’t given up her dream of painting the whole thing blue. Still, it was the finest building in the Lower Quarter, a building that wouldn’t look out of place in the Merchant Square. It didn’t matter. The soldiers knew it was only a whorehouse.
They opened the door rather than breaking it down, and she was grateful for that. A dozen men entered with torches, dressed in chain mail, their dull metal helmets on. Gwen almost failed to recognize Ethan under all that steel.
“May I help you?” she asked. It was an absurd question, but so was the whole affair. A dozen men in chain barged in, only to be greeted by her standing on a crutch with a broken arm and a bandaged face and her pleasant inquiry.
“You’re all under arrest for the murder of Lord Exeter, the High Constable of Melengar.”
Gwen didn’t recognize the man who spoke. He was old and beefy with gray in a chest-length beard. She looked instead to Ethan, the only one she knew. Ethan had been the sheriff of the Lower Quarter as long as Gwen had lived there, and while she couldn’t say she liked him, she respected him. At least he tried to be fair. Ethan looked back and she could see the conflict. He was upset like the others, but not necessarily with her. There was even a little fear in his eyes, but that night, everyone was scared.