“Thank you, sir. Your clothes, then?”
“A moment.” As I began to strip off my sweaty shirt and crumpled trousers, Ash went to Lord Feldspar’s traveling trunk and began to pull out garments. “This won’t do,” I heard him mutter. “Nor this. Not now. What’s this? Perhaps.”
But when I turned back to him to accept the clothing he was offering me, his eyes were very wide. “What’s wrong?”
“Sir, what happened to your back? Were you attacked? Should I request a private guard for you? One on your door?”
I reached around to touch the sore spots on my back. I was startled that they were not completely healed. One was still oozing and two others were sore to the touch. And I could not think of a ready lie to explain what must look like a number of small puncture wounds on my back. “A bizarre accident, not an attack. My shirt, please.” I tried to sound as if I were accustomed to having some young man as my valet. Wordlessly, he shook it out and held it open for me. I turned and met his eyes. He glanced away. He knew I was lying about my back. But was I? It had been, after all, a bizarre accident. I said nothing as I accepted clean smallclothes, trousers, and stockings. I was pleased that he had chosen clothes far more sensible than those Lord Feldspar had been flaunting. There were still a multitude of buttons, but fewer that poked me. My boots, newly cleaned, were ready for me. I felt a measure of relief as I sat down to put them on. “Thank you. You’re good at this.”
“I served my mother and the other women of the house for years.”
I felt a little sinking of my heart. Did I want to know more about this apprentice of Chade’s? But that sort of an invitation could not be heartlessly ignored. “So I heard.”
“Lord Chade was never my mother’s patron, so you need not fear he is my father. But he was always kinder to me than most. I began running errands for him when I was about ten. So, when my mother was … killed, and I was forced to flee, he sent someone to find me. And he saved me.”
Tumbling facts falling into place. Chade was a patron of the house where Ash’s mother worked, just not his mother’s patron. Some kindness, and probably the boy had begun spying for him without even knowing he was doing it. Some coins to run an errand, and a few casual questions, and Chade would learn things about the other patrons. Enough to put the boy’s life in danger when his mother died? A story there. Too many stories. Which noble son had taken his deviation too far? I didn’t want to know. The more I knew, the more involved I would be. Last night, I’d been netted as neatly as a fish. I already knew that the more I thrashed, the tighter the web would become. “I’m tired,” I said, then amended it to a weary smile and, “I’m already tired and the day has only just begun. I’d best check on my friend. Ash, count me among the friends you could run to, did you ever need that again.”
He nodded gravely. Another noose of spiderweb wrapped around me. “I’ll take these to the washerfolk for you, and bring them back this afternoon. Do you require anything else of me?”
“Thank you. That will be all for now.”