“Oh, for God’s sake.” Dyer grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to the floor, and Javel realized that he had spent the night on a barstool, his head on the counter. It would not be the first time, but oh, he thought he had put those days behind him.
“My wife—” But he hesitated at that. Could he even call Allie his wife anymore? “She was dressed like a—”
“A whore?” Dyer asked. He looked at Javel frankly, no sympathy in his gaze.
“Yes,” Javel whispered, thankful that he did not have to say the word out loud. But a moment later his eyes flew open as wetness dashed across his face. Dyer had doused him with water. Dimly, Javel noticed the publican behind the bar, watching them with the disinterested gaze of a man who has seen everything.
“Let me get this straight, Gate Guard. You found your wife in a Mort knockhouse.”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“She said to leave her there. She said she was happy. She said—” Javel swallowed, for this last was the worst to admit. “She said she wanted no part of me.”
“My God.” Dyer hauled him toward the door, tossing a few marks on the counter as he went. The publican didn’t even blink, merely nodded and cleared the money from the surface in one smooth motion.
Outside, the sunlight seemed to cleave Javel’s skull. He moaned, clutching his head.
“Shut up, you waste of space.” Dyer yanked him along. They passed the apothecary, and Javel restrained the urge to spit in the doorway.
“She was laughing,” he told Dyer. He didn’t know why he was talking to this man of all people, a Queen’s Guard who would have liked to watch him swing for treason. There was no one else to listen. “She was happy.”
“And that makes you angry?”
“Of course it does!” Javel shouted. “Why shouldn’t I be angry?”
Dyer grabbed him by the neck and slammed him into a wall. In the moment before pain flooded in, Javel wished he were dead.
“Since you’re a fucking idiot, Gate Guard, I will explain it to you. Your wife was taken more than two hundred miles in a cage. When she got to this city, she was stripped naked, searched, and placed on a platform in front of the Auctioneer’s Office. She may have stood there for hours, while strangers debated her worth and children catcalled her for being a Tear. If she was purchased by the knockhouse outright, as the Auctioneer’s documents seem to suggest, she was expected to perform on command, and if she didn’t, she was likely beaten, or raped or starved. Six years.” Dyer’s voice deepened and roughened. “Six years, and where were you all that time? Working your day job and drinking your pay away at night.”
“She’s still my wife.”
Dyer shook him, hard, rapping his head against the brick.
“Your wife is doing what she has to. Did it never occur to you that pretending to be cheerful about it makes her life easier here?”
“Cheerful!” Javel snarled. “She’s pregnant! She’s going to have another man’s child!”
“I really don’t know where you get the gall, Gate Guard.” Dyer released him, his voice disgusted. “Your wife was shipped to Mortmesne while you stayed behind, a free man, and you think you have the right, any right at all, to question how she survived?”
“I love her,” Javel repeated brokenly. “She’s my wife.”
“She seems to have moved on.”
“But what about me?”
“You should do the same. Let her go.” Dyer’s gaze was still pitiless, but when he spoke, his voice had softened a bit. “The Queen saw something in you, though for the life of me, it escapes my vision. Your purpose here is gone, but you might still be useful to us. To her.”
“To Allie?”
“To the Queen, jackass.” Dyer shook his head. “The Captain is coming, and when he arrives we will break the Queen out of the Palais or die trying. We need more men.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
Dyer held up a sealed letter. “These are the Captain’s latest orders. He wants to send a messenger back to New London to bring more guards, but none of his people can be spared. Galen and I cannot go either.”
Spared, Javel thought bitterly.
“The Captain will arrive in four days. We will need reinforcements no more than two days after that. Therefore, we need a messenger who can ride like the wind.” Dyer stared at him, measuring. “I watched you on the way here. You’re a fine rider, when you’re off the slop. If you leave early tomorrow, you could make it.”
Javel frowned, calculating time, though it hurt his head. He would have to reach New London in no more than three days. Not long, but it might be long enough.
“You’ll need to stay out of the pubs along the way, of course.”
“What about Allie?”