LITMIR.BIZ

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me or himself? No time to wonder.

      ‘Thank you, Revel,’ I told him and left him with a clap on his shoulder. I moved swiftly down the corridor, already reaching for Nettle with my Skill-magic. The moment our thoughts touched, my daughter’s outrage blasted into my mind. Riddle told me. How dare anyone do this in our home! Is Mother safe?

       She is. I’m on my way down. Revel is on watch on her door, but I’d like you or one of the boys to take his place.

      Me. I’ll make my excuses and be right up. A heartbeat’s pause, then, fiercely, Find who did this!

       I intend to.

      I think she took satisfaction in my cold assurance.

      I moved swiftly through the corridors of Withywoods, every sense alert. I was not surprised when I rounded a corner and found Riddle waiting for me. ‘Anything?’ I asked him.

      ‘Nettle’s gone up to her mother’s room.’ He glanced past me. ‘You know that you were probably the target in some way.’

      ‘Perhaps. Or the messenger herself, or the message she bore, or someone seeking to do injury to whoever sent the message by delaying or destroying it.’

      We were moving swiftly together, trotting side by side like wolves on a trail.

      I loved this.

      The thought ambushed me and I almost stumbled. I loved this? Hunting someone who had attacked someone else in the sanctity of my own home? Why would I love that?

      We always loved the hunt. An ancient echo of the wolf I had been and the wolf who was still with me. The hunt for meat is best, but any hunt is always the hunt, and one is never more alive than during the hunt.

      ‘And I am alive.’

      Riddle shot me a questioning glance but instead of asking a question, he gave me information. ‘Revel himself took the food and tea to the messenger. The two pages who were on the front door recall admitting her. She came on foot, and one says that she seemed to come from behind the stable rather than up the carriageway. No one else saw her, though of course the kitchen staff recall making up a tray for her. I haven’t had a chance to go out to the stables and see what they know there.’

      I glanced down at myself. I was scarcely dressed to appear before our guests. ‘I’ll do that now,’ I said. ‘Alert the boys.’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘It’s their home, Riddle. And they are not really boys any more. They’ve been talking of leaving for the last three months. In spring, I think they’ll fly.’

      ‘And you have no one else to trust. Tom. When this is over, we are going to talk again. You need a few house soldiers, a few men who can be brutes when the situation calls for it, but can open a door and serve wine to a guest as well.’

      ‘We’ll talk later,’ I agreed, but grudgingly. It wasn’t the first time he had pointed out to me that I should have some sort of house guard for Withywoods. I resisted the idea. I was no longer an assassin, living to guard my king and carry out his quiet work. I was a respectable land-holder, a man of grapes and sheep now, a man of ploughs and shears, not knives and swords. And there was, I had to admit, my conceit that I could always protect my own household against whatever limited threats might find their way to my door.

      But I hadn’t tonight.

      I left Riddle and trotted through the halls on my way to the stables. There was, I told myself, truly no indication that whatever bloodshed there had been was deadly. Nor did it have to be related to me or to my own. Perhaps the messenger had enemies of her own who had followed her. I reached a servants’ entrance, pushed open the heavy door and dashed across the snowy courtyard to the stable door. Even in that brief run, I had snow down the back of my neck and in my mouth. I slid back the bar on the stable doors and pushed one open just enough to slip in.

      Inside was the warmth of stabled animals, the pleasant smell of horses and soft light from a shielded lantern on a hook. In response to my entrance, Tallman was already hobbling toward me. His son, Tallerman, supervised most of the work of the stables now, but Tallman still considered himself in charge. On days when there was a great deal of coming and going, as there was tonight, he rigorously controlled which animals were stabled where. He had strong feelings about teams left standing all evening in harness. He peered at me through the gloom of the stable and then gave a start as he recognized me. ‘Holder Tom!’ he cried in his cracking voice. ‘Shouldn’t you be dancing with the fine folk in the great hall?’

      Like many another oldster, his years had diminished his regard for the differences in our status. Or perhaps it was that he’d seen that I could shovel out a stall with the best of men, and he therefore respected me as an equal. ‘Soon enough,’ I replied. ‘The dancing will go on to dawn, you know. But I thought I would wander out here and be sure all is well in the stable in such a storm.’

      ‘All’s well here. This barn was built sturdy two decades ago, and it’ll stand for a dozen more, I reckon.’

      I nodded. ‘Steward Revel tells me that you had visitors here tonight, ones that made you uneasy.’

      His querying look changed to a scowl. ‘Yes. If you act like a horse thief, I’ll speak to you like you’re a horse thief. Don’t come prying and peeking around my stables and then tell me you’re a minstrel. They were no more minstrels than Copper there is a pony. They didn’t smell right to me, and I took them right up to the door.’ He peered at me. ‘That Revel fellow was supposed to warn you. You didn’t let them in, did you?’

      Hard to admit it. I nodded once. ‘It’s Winterfest. I let everyone in.’ I cleared my throat at his lowering stare. ‘Before that. Did you notice anyone else here at the stables, anyone odd?’

      ‘You mean that foreign girl?’

      I nodded.

      ‘Only her. She came in here like she thought it was the house. “I need to speak to the master,” she told one of the hands, so he brought her to me, thinking she wanted me. But she looked at me and said, “No, the master with the crooked nose and the badger’s hair.” So, begging your pardon, we knew she meant you and sent her up to the house.’

      I dropped my hand from where I’d touched the bridge of my nose and the old break there. This was just getting odder and odder. A vanished messenger who had come seeking me with only a description rather than my name. ‘That’s all?’ I asked.

      He frowned thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Unless you want to hear about Merchant Cottleby trying to get me to stable his horses here when both have signs of mange. Poor creatures. I put them under shelter in the woodshed, but they’re not getting anywhere near our stock. And if his driver wants to complain, I’ll tell him what I think of his horsemanship.’ He looked at me fiercely as if I might challenge his wisdom.

      I smiled at him. ‘A small kindness, Tallman, for the horses’ sake. Pack them up some of the liniment you make.’

      He stared at me a moment, then gave a short nod. ‘Could do that. Not the beasts’ fault they’re ill cared for.’

      I started to leave, then turned back. ‘Tallman. How long between the time the girl arrived and the three you took for horse thieves?’

      He lifted his gaunt shoulders and then let them fall. ‘She came before Caul Toely arrived. Then came that tailor fellow, and the Willow sisters on those matched ponies of theirs. Those ladies never ride in a carriage, do they? Then the Cooper boys and their mother, and …’

      I dared to interrupt him. ‘Tallman. Do you think they were following her?’

      He stopped. I waited impatiently as he weighed what he knew. Then he nodded, his mouth tight. ‘I should have puzzled that out for myself. Same sort of boots, and they came right to the barn and were trying to peek in. Not looking for horses to steal, but following that girl.’ His eyes met mine angrily. ‘They hurt her?’

      ‘I

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