“Can I get another round here?” Hadrian shouted.
Royce sighed. “So you’re just going to sit here and drink?”
“That’s my plan at present. I’m making it up as I go.”
Royce stared at his friend a moment longer, then finally stood up. “I’m going to Gwen’s.”
“Listen.” Hadrian stopped him. “I’m sorry about this. I guess I can’t explain it. I don’t have any metaphors with daggers I can use to express how I feel. I just know I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing anymore. I’ve tried to find meaning in it. I’ve tried to pretend we achieved some greater good, but in the end, I have to be honest with myself. I’m not a thief, and I’m not a spy. So I know what I’m not. I just wish I knew what I am. That probably doesn’t make much sense to you, does it?”
“Do me a favor at least.” Royce purposely ignored the question, noticing how the little silver chain Hadrian wore peeked out from under his collar. “Since you’re going to be here anyway, keep an eye out for the messenger from the castle while I’m at Gwen’s. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Hadrian nodded.
“Give Gwen my love, will ya?”
“Sure,” Royce said, heading for the door and feeling that miserable sensation creeping in, the dull weight. He paused and looked back.
It won’t help to tell him. It will just make matters worse.
It had been only a day and a half but Royce found himself desperate to see Gwen. While Medford House was always open, it did not do much business until after dark. During the day, Gwen encouraged the girls to use their free time learning how to sew or spin, skills they could use to make a bit of coin in their old age.
All the girls at the brothel, better known as the House, knew and liked Royce. When he came in, they smiled or waved, but no one said a word. They knew he enjoyed surprising Gwen. That night they pointed toward the parlor, where she was concentrating on a pile of parchments, a quill pen in hand and her register open. She immediately abandoned it all when he walked through the door. She sprang from her chair and ran to him with a smile so broad her face could hardly contain it and an embrace so tight he could barely breathe.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered, pulling back and looking into his eyes.
Royce marveled at Gwen’s ability to read him. He refused to answer, preferring instead to look at her, drinking her in. She had a lovely face, her dark skin and emerald eyes so familiar, yet mysterious. Throughout his entire life and in all his travels he had never met anyone else like her.
Gwen provided use of a private room at The Rose and Thorn, where he and Hadrian conducted business, and she never blinked at the risks. They no longer used it. Royce was too concerned that Sentinel Luis Guy might track them there. Still, Gwen continued banking their money and watching out for them, just as she had done from the start.
They had met twelve years ago, the night soldiers had filled the streets and two strangers had staggered into the Lower Quarter covered in their own blood. Royce still remembered how Gwen had appeared as a hazy figure to his clouding eyes. “I’ve got you. You’ll be all right now,” she told him before he passed out. He never understood what had motivated her to take them in when everyone else had shown the good sense in closing their doors. When he had woken, she had been giving orders to her girls like a general marshaling troops. She sheltered Royce and Hadrian from the mystified authorities and nursed them back to health. She pulled strings and made deals to ensure no one talked. As soon as they were able, they left, but he always found himself returning.
He had been crushed the day she refused to see him. It did not take long for him to discover why. Clients often abused prostitutes, and the women of Medford House were not exempt. In Gwen’s case the attacker had been a powerful noble. He had beaten her so badly she did not want anyone to see. Regardless of whether the client was a gentleman or a thug, the town sheriff never wasted his time on complaints by whores.