“Yes, my lord, Thrace Annabell Wood of Dahlgren Village.” She awkwardly curtsied again.
“Okay, well—Thrace.” Hadrian struggled to continue with a straight face. “Royce and I are not lords, so there is no need to bow or curtsy.”
The girl looked up.
“You saved my life,” she told them in such a solemn tone Hadrian stopped laughing. “I don’t remember a lot of last night, but I remember that much. And for that you deserve my gratitude.”
“I would settle for an explanation,” Royce said, moving to the windows. He began closing the drapes. “Straighten up, for Maribor’s sake, before a sweeper sees you, thinks we’re noble, and marks us. We’re already on thin ice here as it is. Let’s not add to it.”
She stood up straight, and Hadrian could not help staring. Her long yellow hair, now free of twigs and leaves, shimmered in waves over her shoulders. She was a vision of youthful beauty and Hadrian guessed she could not be more than seventeen.
“Now, why have you been looking for us?” Royce asked, closing the last curtain.
“To hire you to save my father,” she said, untying the purse from around her neck and holding it up with a smile. “Here. I have twenty-five silver tenents. Solid silver stamped with the Dunmore crown.”
Royce and Hadrian exchanged looks.
“Isn’t it enough?” she asked, her lips starting to tremble.
“How long did it take you to save up this money?” Hadrian asked.
“All my life. I saved every copper I was ever given, or earned. It was my dowry.”
“Your dowry?”
She lowered her head, looking at her feet. “My father is a poor farmer. He would never—I decided to save for myself. It’s not enough, is it? I didn’t realize. I’m from a very small village. I thought it was a lot of money; everyone said so, but …” She looked around at the battered love seat and faded curtains. “We don’t have palaces like this.”
“Well, we really don’t—” Royce began in his usual insensitive tone.
“What Royce is about to say,” Hadrian interrupted, “is we really don’t know yet. It depends on what you want us to do.”
Thrace looked up, her eyes hopeful.
Royce just glared at him.
“Well, it does, doesn’t it?” Hadrian shrugged. “Now, Thrace, you say you want us to save your father. Has he been kidnapped or something?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. As far as I know he’s fine. Although I have been away a long time looking for you. So I’m not sure.”
“I don’t understand. What do you need us for?”
“I need you to open a lock for me.”
“A lock? To what?”
“A tower.”
“You want us to break into a tower?”
“No. I mean—well, yes, but it isn’t like—it’s not illegal. The tower isn’t occupied; it has been deserted for years. At least I think so.”
“So you just want us to open a door to an empty tower?”
“Yes!” she said, nodding vigorously so that her hair bounced.
“Doesn’t sound too hard.” Hadrian looked at Royce.
“Where is this tower?” Royce asked.
“Near my village on the west bank of the Nidwalden River. Dahlgren is very small and has only been there a short time. It’s in the new province of Westbank, in Dunmore.”
“I’ve heard about that place. It’s supposedly being attacked by elven raiders.”
“Oh, it’s not the elves. The elves have never caused us any trouble.”
“I knew it,” Royce said to no one in particular.
“Leastways, I don’t think so,” Thrace went on. “We think it’s a beast of some kind. No one has ever seen it. Deacon Tomas says it’s a demon, a minion of Uberlin.”
“And your father?” Hadrian asked. “How does he fit into this?”
“He’s going to try and kill the beast, only …” She faltered and looked at her feet once more.
“Only you think it will kill him instead?”
“It has killed fifteen people and over eighty head of livestock.”
A freckle-faced woman with wild red hair entered the parlor dragging a short potbellied man who looked like he had shaved for the occasion, his face nicked raw. The woman was laughing, walking backward as she hauled him along with both hands. The man stopped short when he saw them. His hands slipped through hers and she fell to the wooden floor with a hollow thud. The man looked from the woman to them and back, frozen in place. The woman glanced over her shoulder and laughed.
“Oops,” was all she could manage. “Didn’t know it was taken. Give us a hand up, Rubis.”
The man helped her to her feet. She paused to give Thrace a long appraising look, then winked at them. “We do good work, don’t we?”
“That was Maggie,” Thrace told them after the woman hauled her man back out again.
Hadrian moved to the sofa and gestured for Thrace to sit. She sat gingerly and straight, not allowing her back to touch the rear of the sofa, and carefully smoothed out her skirt.
Royce remained on his feet. “Does Westbank have a lord? Why isn’t he doing something about this?”
“We had a fine margrave,” she said. “A brave man with three good knights.”