“You’re her handmaiden, right?”
When Sherwood was interested in a noblewoman, he usually worked through her handmaiden. They were the front door to any lady’s heart—or at least her bed. Noblewomen maintained a distinct delineation between servants and gentry, but exceptions were often granted for their personal maids, who were sometimes as close as sisters. This was one of the reasons why he’d always made it a point to say good morning to Rissa Lyn. He’d even brought her pretty shells from his walks on the shore and flowers from the roadside.
Rissa Lyn nodded, but behind her eyes was that same fear.
She’s not afraid of Fawkes. She’s afraid of Lady Dulgath.
“What’s wrong?” He set the haul back on the edge of the well.
“Nothing, sir. Thank you for the help, sir. And please, don’t tell nobody that I was the one who saw His Lordship, sir. I only told you because…I have to go, sir.”
She grabbed up the two buckets and ran off, spilling much of the water as she went.
Sherwood stood in the well niche, watching Rissa Lyn disappear into the dark of the castle. She left an intermittent trail of damp spots.
“She’s hiding something,” a low voice said in his ear.
Sherwood jumped, pushed away, slipped, and fell on the decorative stone that fanned around the base of the well. Over him appeared a man in a long black cloak with the hood drawn up.
“I want to ask you some questions.”
When Sherwood’s heart stopped racing and his ability to breathe returned, he realized he knew who the man was—one of the two who had met Nysa the previous morning.
“Too bad. I don’t want to answer any.” Sherwood got his feet back under himself. “Go away.”
“Your wants aren’t my concern.”
Royce Melborn—at least he thought that was the man’s name—reached menacingly into his cloak.
Sherwood was already preparing his feet to run when the hand came out. He’d expected a dagger. What he saw instead stopped him. The man in the cloak was holding the glass bottle of Beyond the Sea. “I thought…I expected you would’ve destroyed that. Thrown it away or something.” He held out his hand. “Give it back.”
“No,” Melborn said. “You gave it to me.”
“I threw it at you.”
“Gave, threw—same thing.”
“No, it’s not.” He reached for the vial, but Melborn snatched it away.
“Better be the same thing because otherwise sending it my way could be interpreted as assaulting a constable. That’s a serious offense.”
“You’re not a constable.”
“I have a writ. Do you want to see it?”
“Have you forgotten I was there when you were presented to Lady Dulgath? I know you’re not a constable. Any writ you have is a forgery.”
“I don’t need a writ to get answers. I have better ways to extract information. Let’s go up to your room where we can speak in private.”
“No!”
Royce smiled and tossed the bottle of pigment high into the air. It spun, glinting in the sun.
Sherwood gasped as it came hurtling back down. He expected a brilliant burst of blue on the stone at their feet, but Melborn snatched it out of the air.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk?” Melborn asked, and motioned as if he were about to throw it again.
“Don’t! You don’t know what you’re doing!”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you even know what you’re holding?”
“This?” Melborn looked at the bottle, turning it back and forth. “This is Ultramarine, commonly known as Beyond the Sea, a pigment made from pulverizing the semiprecious stone lapis lazuli into a powder. It’s ideal for dyeing cloth or mixing with egg yolks to make tempera for painting.”
Sherwood stared openmouthed for a moment. “I actually use oil.”
“What kind?”
“Walnut.”
“Try linseed sometime.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Used to be in the business.”
“You were a painter?”
Melborn shook his hood. “Illegal imports. Beyond the Sea is one of the exclusive trade items brought in through the Vandon Supply Company—a pretty way of saying it’s pirated. This stuff goes for one hundred gold tenents an ounce. What is this?” Melborn held up the bottle to his ear and shook it. “Two, two-and-a-half ounces?”
“Three. Unless you’ve poured some out.”
“Nope, all still here.” Melborn began tossing the bottle back and forth between his hands. “Sure you don’t want to invite me to your room for some tea and cookies?”
“I don’t have either, but…” Sherwood’s stomach lurched with each toss. “Are you saying you’ll give that back if I cooperate?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Okay.”
“And one more thing.”
Sherwood cringed, knowing the offer was too good to be true. “What?”
“I want an apology for throwing it at me. That wasn’t very nice.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There, doesn’t that make you feel better?” Melborn stepped past him and led the way back across the yard.
Sherwood realized that the dark clouds had retreated a bit. That bottle—if he did get it back—would save his career and possibly his life. As much as he would loathe doing it, he could sell it in Mehan and use the coin to replace at least some of what was lost. There would be enough to get him painting again. Sherwood wouldn’t be able to take any noble commissions, not without his precious blue pigment, but merchants liked portraits, too.
As he watched Melborn’s cloak whip behind him, and the man slipped into the shadows of the porch, Sherwood was reminded of the thing in the shadows. The thing that wasn’t quite human. He’d found his ghost.
Chapter Eleven
Brecken Moor
Scarlett Dodge led Hadrian up the trail that corkscrewed around the balding hill. They were a few miles outside the village on the far side of the river—the bad side, as Pastor Payne called it. Didn’t seem bad to Hadrian.
Down by the mill, where a big waterwheel turned, Scarlett had taken him across an arching stone bridge that was about as picturesque as they came. The rushing river churned below, its deep green waters frothing between sun-bleached boulders. A small mountain rose from the edge of the far bank. The river had cut a gash through it, revealing iron-rich layers of stone. There were no homes on the far side, no mills, no tilled fields, and everything was uphill. The little trail they followed had worn the roots of nearby trees, polishing them until the wood shone. Where the path passed over rocks—which was often—the surface of the stone was buffed as smooth as finished marble.
The path started in a thick canopy of cottonwood and hawthorn. As they ascended, it graduated to birch and juniper. Farther up, the trail widened when they reached a world of fir, aspen, and pine. The “bad side” of the river had an enchanting, mythic quality. Moss and lichen covered the rocks, some of which were the size of two-story houses. They looked to have been dropped and forgotten by neglectful giants.
“It’s beautiful here,” Hadrian said.
“It is,” Scarlett agreed, striding up the trail with all the stamina of a mountain goat.
“Some of the rocks are shaped like faces,” he observed. This was the sort of comment that made Royce cringe, and Hadrian expected the same reaction from Scarlett.
Instead, she nodded and smiled. “People used to believe stones like these were alive, you know? Trees, too—they believed everything had spirits. People worshiped river gods, the sun, the moon, and the four winds.”
“Is that what the monks think, that there are spirits everywhere?”