“Fine,” Hadrian said, then trotted into the Lower Quarter.
He took a side street, or an alleyway; it was hard to tell the difference in the Lower Quarter. He’d never been down it before but guessed it would get him to the central square faster. In the dark he nearly hung himself on a clothesline that appeared at the last second in a shaft of moonlight. A quick turn allowed the thin rope to graze past his ear. It hurt, but not as bad as it might have. The alley narrowed until he was climbing through garbage where he disturbed a family of rats that hurriedly retreated, squeaking their displeasure. He was regretting his shortcut when at last he squeezed through a rickety fence into the square. He got his bearings and headed for Wayward Street.
When Hadrian reached Medford House, he was out of breath. He pounded on the door, then bent over and rested his hands on his knees. His legs were wet. It wasn’t sweat. Why can’t it ever just be sweat? In the light of the House’s porch lanterns he saw the dark red stains. I should get a butcher’s apron. At least none of the blood was his this time.
Jasmine opened the door.
“Did they make it?” he asked.
The girl stared at him and took a step back. “Oh … dear Maribor. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Did the sergeant and Rose make it? Are they here?”
“Rose?” Her expression of fear and confusion shifted to delight. She took a step backward and in a hopeful, earnest voice asked, “You saw Rose?”
“Yes, she was coming here. Where is she?”
Jasmine shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Rose isn’t here.”
“Hadrian?” Gwen said, coming out of the parlor. She was limping, leaning on a homemade crutch. The scarf was off. Ugly black and blue marks inflated her face. Gwen’s lips were bloated, puffed, and split. The whole right side of her head was a dark bruise, one eye swollen shut. Cuts left black tracks of dried blood. Looking at her, Hadrian stopped feeling sorry for the sheriffs and wasn’t embarrassed for the blood on his clothes.
“I’m looking for Rose.” His voice harsher, louder.
“Everyone is,” Gwen replied.
“No, she was just with me. A castle guard was escorting her back here—”
“Rose was with you?” Several of the women pushed past Hadrian, stepping onto the porch.
“They were attacked by a sheriff and some deputies, and I”—he looked down at his clothes—“I helped out a little.”
“I see,” Gwen said.
“Rose! Rose!” the women on the porch were shouting.
“They should have been here by now. The sergeant and Rose were ahead of me.”
Gwen looked at Jasmine. “I was on the door for the last two hours and no one has come by.”
“Maybe they ran into more trouble,” Hadrian said. “Keep an eye out.” He turned.
Gwen stopped him. “Where’s Royce?”
Hadrian looked back. “He’s … ah…”
“Is he okay?”
“Was when I left. He’s … um…” Hadrian couldn’t manage to think of a way to say it that didn’t sound terrible. He had that problem with Royce a lot. Normally it didn’t matter so much. Royce never cared what anyone thought of him—but Gwen was different.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I was just—You’re covered in blood, and alone. I was just worried; that’s all.”
“Sorry,” he offered. “I’m going to look around. Maybe they ran into others.”
Hadrian went back down the steps. The ladies stopped shouting. Nothing moved on the street. Most of the thoroughfares branching off Wayward and all of the alleys were just dirt paths that sliced between narrow shacks. Only the porch lanterns of Medford House and the windows of The Hideous Head provided any light. Far away, a dog cried. Hadrian could think of few night sounds as lonely as a dog’s distant howl.
He walked down the street, listening, watching. Where’d they go?
At the start of Wayward he passed the well, pausing to peer into alleys. Manure filled most of them, like the one he’d cut through to get there. Horses made a huge mess of roads, and in the finer quarters, street sweepers were paid to haul the droppings away. In the Lower Quarter, the road apples looked to be shoveled aside. Hadrian imagined the place reeked in the heat of summer. The odd lumps and piled shapes lost in shadow made it hard to tell anything, and if it hadn’t been for a fortuitous sliver of moonlight catching the hem of her dress, Hadrian would have never found Rose.
In a narrow alley between a pawnshop and a decrepit shack, it took only two steps into the manure-packed crevice to be sure. The girl lay on her side, her skirt high on one hip exposing a pale thigh. No movement. Her eyes were closed. She might have been sleeping except for the bloody slice across her throat. No blood. The pile of manure drank it up.
Hadrian stood staring. In the shaft of moonlight he could see his breath puffing. The night was growing colder by the second. His jaw clenched tight, his hands made and unmade fists. He wanted to put a sword in his hands, to swing, swing hard, but there was no one to swing at. There was just a beautiful girl—a girl who once spilled soup on him, who he’d once danced with—lying in an alley, dumped like garbage.
He looked around for the sergeant but Rose was alone.
Light, Hadrian thought.
Carrying Rose in his arms, she hardly weighed anything. He cradled her as best he could, taking extra effort to keep her head up. He didn’t want it to drop back, not with the slice across her throat. Gwen’s girls had cleared a table, but he was reluctant to lay her down. Her body was still warm, still soft. He placed her gently on the dining table that had been dressed with linen as a dozen sobbing women circled him. Hands to faces, some on their knees with their heads bobbing over their laps.
Gwen stood at the head of the table, eyes moist, wet lines on her cheeks. She just stared, her hand braced on the table. She placed a quivering palm on Rose’s forehead and caressed her as if soothing a troubled child, then bent and kissed her brow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and more tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. “Clean her up.”
Gwen led Hadrian away. She took him into the drawing room, a smaller, homey space with a glowing fire in a stone hearth. Soft chairs and delicate furniture huddled inside the hug of dark wood and the smile of bright floral wallpaper.
“I don’t understand,” Hadrian said. “They were safe. They were only a few blocks away from here.”
“Etta,” she called to one of the girls. “Bring Hadrian a basin and a cloth. He needs to clean up.”
“And even if they found them, why would they have killed her like that? The others didn’t seem to want to kill her. They just wanted to take her back to the castle.”
“You know who killed her?”
“The sheriff pa—” He stopped. She was right. He didn’t know who had killed her. Sure, there were a lot of sheriff patrols, but not that many. And what happened to the sergeant? And why would they have killed her and just left the body in an alley?
Etta entered the drawing room with a pretty blue and white porcelain basin of water and a towel over her shoulder. She was rushing. Rose’s death had everyone on edge. There was a sense of urgency. A drive to do things fast even though there was nothing really to be done. Etta sat him down on a stool, kneeled, and began to wash his face and hands.
Hadrian hardly noticed her. His mind was elsewhere—running up and down Wayward Street and the alleys branching off it trying to make sense of things. Had I missed them by taking the shortcut? If I hadn’t gone that way, could I have stopped it?
At the gate he remembered the sergeant had said that Exeter was trying to kill her, but the sheriff they had run into ordered his deputy to take her to Lord Exeter, not kill her.