Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
And I had just crashed and burned. Damn it.
“My wife is sad. She wants someone to be held accountable.” Drugh stared at me. “I’ll make it simple. Tell me where the Magnars are, and I will let you walk out of here.”
It was time for plan B. “No.”
Drugh stared at me.
“Filderon was your family. The Magnars are mine.”
Drugh sighed. “Not smart. You think being a noblewoman will protect you.”
No, I was sure it wouldn’t. “I accept responsibility for their actions. The person you’re looking for is right here.”
The mercenary commander raised his eyebrows.
“You have a choice, Drugh. Either you kill me here and now, or we come to some kind of arrangement. But I will not let you hunt down Gort and Shana and their sons. Filderon was going to send them to their deaths. He got what was coming to him. If you persist, I will expose every dirty secret he had. By the time I’m done, his name will be mud and everything you and your wife have built will be splattered with it. Decide what you’re going to do.”
Drugh looked at Reynald. “And what about you? Are you fine with dying here, too?”
“Hadn’t planned on it,” Reynald said.
“Too bad, because that’s what—”
Reynald pulled down his lancer’s coif.
Drugh went white. The man behind him froze, too. The guy by the door wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but he caught the change in body posture and snapped to alert readiness.
Nobody spoke.
Drugh opened his mouth. “You . . .”
“Go home and console your wife,” Reynald said. “And I will forget you were ever here.”
Drugh stood up, nodded, and marched out of the room. His backup fell in behind him without a word. The door swung shut.
Wow. I knew Reynald had a reputation. I just hadn’t realized the full meaning of it.
I leaned forward and peered at Reynald’s face. His expression was calm and relaxed. He looked like himself.
“I’m so impressed,” I said. “How?”
“The Dargans did some business with the King’s Army,” Reynald said.
“We’ve met before.”
“Wow.”
Reynald refilled our cups. “This is tea is expensive. Might as well finish it.”
I drank my tea and exhaled. At least my fingers hadn’t shaken this time. Maybe I was getting better at handling the life-and-death pressure.
“This was your plan?” Reynald asked.
“Drugh was raised to be a Conqueror Knight. They’re all about loyalty to their own. He respects that. Killing me would bring too much scrutiny, and he isn’t the kind of man who would murder a woman he just met in cold blood. It would be different if I came at him with a sword, but I was armed with a teacup.”
I took another sip.
“Also, Drugh knows Filderon would sell his own mother for a noma. They’ve been estranged, so he isn’t sure what his mentor has been up to, but he’s sure it wasn’t good. I told Drugh a lot of personal things I wasn’t supposed to know. He must wonder what other secrets I keep. Dargan Company and Hedena’s weaver shop are thriving. Like you said, Drugh knows what a dead mercenary is worth.”
“Two boots and a sword,” Reynald said, his face thoughtful.
“And Filderon’s boots were shit.”
I drank my tea and looked outside the window. We’d handled Drugh.
If only the Butcher would be as easy to deal with.
CHAPTER 21
PLANTER 19
There was a fish on my desk. It was a foot long with a blunt snout, small eyes, jet-black body, an asymmetric tail, and bony plates on its head. It looked prehistoric. I had known something wasn’t right when I came up the stairs after breakfast and saw a trail of wet spots leading across the hallway to my rooms.
I picked up my reed pen and poked the fish with it, trying to get a look at the gills. Yep, pink.
The trail of wet spots stopped on my desk, right on the stack of cheap paper. I had started hiding the paper after the second fish, but we had had a late dinner last night because of the whole Drugh thing, and I’d forgotten to put it up. The stack was soaked through.
I picked it up, wrapping it around the fish, and took it downstairs, to the kitchen.
“Blackfin,” Shana declared.
“Is it delicious?”
“Yes. Where do you keep getting them?” Shana asked.
“I don’t know. I thought they were pranks at first. But now I think they’re gifts.”
Shana frowned at me. “From whom?”
“Someone who loves fish. Do we have any meat?”
I came back to my study carrying a small plate with a chunk of not-ham on it. I put the plate on the desk.
I should probably hide.
The study didn’t offer many hiding opportunities. It was mostly shelves and small chests. There was a larger chest in my bedroom for spare linens and blankets. I went into my bedroom, pulled the linens out, and climbed into the chest. From there I could see a chunk of the study with my desk and the plate of meat on top of it. I closed the lid. Claustrophobic, but tolerable.