“Make them put it back where they found it,” Royce said, “or I’ll be nailing hands to the porch posts.”
The two looked at him, then at their hands, and finally back to Hadrian’s sword. “Ah…” the one said, and glanced at the other, who shrugged. “Sure, why not. No need to get crazy. Just a job.” They hoisted the tun and carried it back down the steps.
That’s when Royce saw her. Gwen was at the top of the broad staircase leaning over the rail. One arm in a sling and she wore a scarf wrapped around her head and face so that only her eyes shone. While one was swollen completely closed, Royce recognized the other. It belonged to the woman who had held him when he thought he was dying. The one who promised he would be safe and who had kept that promise. No one had ever done that before. His parents had abandoned him, his friends betrayed him, but she, this stranger with emerald eyes, took care of him when no one else would. If there really was such a thing in the world as a good person, he was looking at her. And seeing the bruises and cuts that the wrap did not quite cover, he also knew he was going to kill the man who had done it, and he was going to take his time.
Royce was up the stairs before the girls had a chance to stop him, before she could get away.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled by the wrap. She started back up the steps. “Now please leave.”
“I know about Rose,” Royce told her. “And I know it was the high constable—the marquis, something, something Exeter.”
She stopped but didn’t look at him. Her hand tightened on the banister.
He waited, and slowly she turned, holding up the edges of the scarf around her face. “I … I wanted you to return.” There was a strangeness in her voice. A quaver. “Ever since you left, I looked and thought … maybe … but I never believed, not really. You’re not the type to be sentimental, the kind that looks back. But I wanted you to, only … only not like this … not now.”
She began to cry and, turning away, she climbed the stairs. She moved slowly, pulling hard on the railing, inching up, dragging a weak leg. He followed.
Reaching her room, Gwen crawled onto her bed—the bed Royce had occupied for weeks. The place was sacred to him—something he didn’t realize until that moment. The room was a sanctuary of kindness and comfort. He’d stayed there only a couple months, but coming back he wondered if what he was feeling could be what others felt about places they called home.
Gwen lay facedown, muffling her tears. “Go away.”
He sat alongside her and placed his palm on her back. She was wearing a simple linen dress. He felt the rough material beneath his fingers, letting his thumb slide back and forth, gently rubbing. He felt stupid. He wanted to help her, but he had no experience at comfort. He felt her body as she quivered, and while his left hand gently caressed her back, his right made a fist so tight it ached.
“I’m sorry,” she told him, her voice sluggish with tears. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But that’s not the real reason you don’t want me here.”
She turned over and looked up at him with a wet, puzzled eye.
“You’re protecting me again. You’re afraid I’ll do something stupid and get myself killed.”
“Am I wrong?”
“Yes. I have no intention of getting killed.”
“But you’re going to do something.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Gwen wiped her face with her good hand. “There must have been ten at least. Sheriffs and castle guards, too, I think. I don’t know all the uniforms. They wanted to know where Rose was. I told them she went to the castle—that she was invited for a party. His Lordship seemed to think she’d come back, only she hadn’t. None of us had seen her all night. We still haven’t. Lord Exeter didn’t believe me, I guess.”
Gwen paused. She touched her fingertips to her lips. “Dixon tried to stop them. They … He’s still unconscious. I don’t know if he’ll live.” She rolled over again, burying her face in the pillow. “You need to leave. You need to get out of the city, away from Melengar. Go back to where you came from and forget all about me. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I’m the one who’s supposed to keep you safe. I’m supposed to … If you stay, you’ll be killed and I’d rather die than have that happen.”
Royce’s stomach tightened, breathing became harder, and a prickly heat made him begin to sweat. She barely knows me. He squeezed his fist tighter. The hand he touched her with began to quiver and he pulled it away. “Don’t worry about me.”
She turned to face him. Her eyes, though always dark, were now blackened, swollen. It didn’t look like Gwen peering out from under the scarf, but it was her voice, the same one he had heard out in the dark, the voice that once saved him.
“No, Royce. You don’t understand. He’s too powerful.”
“You underestimate me.”
“He’s the high constable. He has an army of sheriffs and deputies and he’s cousin to the king, who has a real army. I don’t want you beaten like Dixon. I don’t want you to die.”
“Gwen, I’m not used to trusting people. It’s not in my nature. You found us bleeding and near death on the street but never asked me anything but my name. Most people would have posed a question or twenty-five. And I never offered to explain. I never told you anything about me, about my past.”
“Are you going to tell me now?”
“No. I’m going to show you.”
CHAPTER 10
THE DANDY AND THE TROLL
The Hideous Head hadn’t changed from earlier that day, except that Hadrian thought there might be even less customers at the bar and even more dead leaves scattered across the floor. As he expected, Albert was nowhere to be found, but at the same table they had shared the day before sat a dandy gent wiping his nose with a lace handkerchief and sipping a glass of cider. Until he stood up and waved, neither Royce nor Hadrian had any idea he was the same man they had saved from the barn near Colnora.
Viscount Albert Winslow had been transformed.
The beard was gone and his long hair had been cleaned, combed, powdered, pulled back, and tied with a black velvet bow. They could see his face for the first time. It was pink and lean with sharp cheekbones and a handsome chin. Hadrian had no idea why, but he only then noticed that Albert had startling blue eyes. He had traded his filthy nightshirt for a doublet of gold with a high starched neck and shimmering silk accents. The new lace shirt underneath peeked out in ruffles and embroidered cuffs. On his legs were opaque hose and he wore brass-buckle shoes, and on the table beside him was a luxuriant wide-brimmed hat with one side pinned up by a plumed feather.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” he said, adjusting his cuffs.
“I didn’t give you that much money.” Royce glared.
“No. What you gave me was ill suited to the task. You obviously have no idea the costs of being noble.”
“Then how’d you manage this?”
“Credit.”
“Credit?”
“Yes. That’s where I promise to pay later for things I want now.”
Royce rolled his eyes. “I know what credit is. I just can’t believe they agreed.”
“The first barber certainly wouldn’t. I went to a cheap one and got nicked a few times for my effort.”
“The first barber?”
“Oh yes. And the first clothier. I went to a secondhand shop in the Merchant Quarter and bought a ghastly used doublet. The thing smelled of fish. I also bought worn shoes, a torn and stained shirt—the offensive parts blessedly hidden by the doublet—and a pair of hose. Dressing myself thusly, and cleaned up as well as your coin would allow, I then went to the most expensive shops in Gentry Square. There I introduced myself as the road-weary Viscount Winslow who was in town for the celebration tonight at the castle and in desperate need of a new look. I then proceeded to buy all new clothes and visited a coiffeur, all on credit.”
“And they just let you?”