Royce hadn’t said anything. What better illustration than the cold body of a beautiful young girl to really drive home an argument. Only the thief remained silent. Previously Hadrian might have wondered why, but he was getting to know Royce now. More to the point, Royce was getting to know—if not entirely understand—him.
The majority of the mourners filed out of the graveyard. A long silent procession of bowed heads and weeping eyes. Most were women—none wore black. Hadrian imagined it was the one color that the ladies didn’t own. The procession to the graveyard through town had brought stares and glares of disgust. More than a few commented on the “harlot colors,” but Hadrian knew they all wore red in deference to Rose.
Royce and Gwen lingered beside the grave. For once the thief was the most appropriately dressed. Gwen cried. She stood quivering, her hands to her face. It took a moment, a few beats of delay, but then Royce awkwardly slipped an arm around her. At his touch, she buried her face in his chest and sobbed. He stiffened. Her arms circled his waist and squeezed so that his cloak tapered. For a man so adept at movement, so agile and quick, Royce moved at the pace of a watched pot. His arms inched out around her shoulders, his cloak enveloping her. They stood that way, joined as one person in the center of the graveyard at the end of Paper Street.
Watching them, Hadrian sighed and it came out as a little fog that was snatched away by the cold wind.
He doesn’t deserve her. Then he shrugged. Who does?
First Arbor, now Gwen. Perhaps this is the way it would always be. Whenever he found the perfect woman, he would lose her to his closest friend. He breathed in a cold swallow of air that hurt.
Better to let it go.
Movement to his right caught his attention. A set of eyes peered at them over the top of a headstone. Hadrian recognized the forehead. It was Puzzle.
Hadrian’s only surprise was that it had taken this long. Since the night of the fire, they had not seen a member of the Hand. Now they were standing on their doorstep, and as inappropriate a time as it might be, they could hardly let it pass. More eyes appeared among the crypts and stones. None looked happy. They must have been aware of Royce and himself for some time, and while in the back of his mind Hadrian acknowledged the kindness that they held off, he wasn’t in a good mood. With the burial of Rose, he was back in a serious drinking state of mind. He often got that way when he thought too much, when he took inventory and found his shelves bare. His mind always spiraled down to thoughts of the tiger, his father, and the emptiness—an emptiness he tried to fill with drink. It took a day or two, but eventually he always succeeded in drowning the hatred, the deep loathing of the one person he held responsible for all his failures—himself.
Of course, a good fight could help too. And it was with this eager eye that Hadrian watched the Crimson Hand rise out of the crypts and gather around them. Hadrian wondered if Royce saw them. He was unusually distracted at that moment, but then he lifted his head and drew Gwen away, positioning her between himself and Hadrian.
Top Hat approached with his trademark lid, to which he added a long wool cloak. He glanced at the grave. “My condolences,” he said, tipping his hat. It even sounded sincere. He looked at Royce. “I heard back from Colnora.”
“Let her go first,” Hadrian ordered.
Top Hat looked at Gwen. “No need. I wouldn’t dare harm a lady of Medford House. Not after the chancellor’s edict. And…” Top Hat’s voice lost its bravado and he looked to Royce. “Not after what happened to Lord Exeter”—he turned to Hadrian—“and the sheriff’s men. They’re saying the king did it, you know? That he made an example of what happens to traitors. It was adequately gruesome, and very public to be sure, only a bit odd. Kings usually like executions done in daylight with torture and lots of screams before a cringing crowd. It also tends to happen when he’s actually present, not drinking with old friends.”
Top Hat paused. Maybe he expected them to say something. When they didn’t, he went on.
“But I suppose it had to be the king. No one else would be crazy enough to kill Exeter, and no one would be mad enough to hang him up like that for everyone to see. I mean, if it wasn’t the king, who could have done such a thing—done it and got away? Unless you’re wearing a crown, you don’t kill a noble and walk away whistling, now, do you?”
Hadrian watched. He began sizing them up, determining the biggest threats and their distance from him. Only the thieves didn’t close in as before. They didn’t circle. Top Hat stood the closest, and even he kept to the far side of the grave.
“Thing is, I heard something like this happened before. I heard it happened down south—down in Colnora. ’Bout two years ago, there was a bunch of murders there. Magistrate, lawyers, powerful folk, and nobody saw nothing. But it didn’t stop there. Seems after killing the cream, this shadow began targeting members of the Black Diamond itself. Thieves were killed, butchered and strung up in the city squares—works of bleeding art like Lord Exeter. And if killing a noble is crazy, I’m not sure there’s a word for declaring war on the BD, but someone did. They call it the Year of Fear. The year an assassin turned on his own. They say one guy did it all, and they say he was never caught. Some still have nightmares.”
“Sounds awful.” Royce still had an arm around Gwen; the other was in his cloak.
“Yeah.” Top Hat glanced at both of them. “Hate to have something like that happen here.”
“I heard that same story when I was down in Colnora,” Royce said. “The way I heard it, the killer was provoked.”
“Really?”
“A pleasant fellow otherwise.”
“A regular gentleman, I suspect.”
“No, not in the least, but also not the sort to bother his neighbors so long as they don’t bother him.”
This left Top Hat thinking for several minutes. He glanced at the grave and then back at his thieves. Finally he looked back at Royce. “You planning on staying in Medford awhile, then?”
At this Gwen tilted her head up to look at Royce.
“Hadn’t really thought about it, but … what do you think, Hadrian?”
“It’s a nice enough place.”
Royce asked Top Hat, “You got a problem with that?”
“It’s … ah … it’s not customary to allow non-guild thieves to practice—”
“The Black Diamond had similar restrictions,” Royce said, his voice dropping in degrees.
Top Hat licked his lips and adjusted his hat. “That so?” The guild leader looked like a bartering shopkeeper being swindled. “Well, I’ve never cared for the Black Diamond. And I suspect they’d think twice about pushing into this territory if they knew who was calling it home. I don’t think there would be any real harm letting just the two of you pick a few pockets.”
“You won’t even know we’re here,” Royce said.
“I like that. Don’t suppose you’d be willing to pay me a percentage of your take?”
“No.”
“Become a member?”
“No.”
“Couldn’t hurt to ask.” Top Hat looked to his brood and raised his voice. “From now on, these two are our guests. No one touches them. No one as much as stares at them. Got it?” Top Hat looked back at the grave and this time took his hat off, revealing a balding head. “I was serious. I liked her. Grue was an ass.” He spoke these three sentences like a eulogy, then replaced his hat and took a step back. “Stay on your side and we’ll stay on ours. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Top Hat turned to move away, then paused. “How’d you do it?”
“Do what?” Royce asked.
“Kill Exeter.”
“Never heard of him.”
Top Hat smiled, nodded, and walked away.