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)
I’m looking for a man in armor. Six five, blue eyes. I almost laughed. After everything that happened, I must’ve finally lost it.
He reached me and bowed. It was a shallow bow, polite and perfunctory, a simple courtesy afforded to an unfamiliar woman of noble birth. Well, he probably did have a trust fund judging by the manners.
“Welcome, my lady. What can the Order do for you on this beautiful morning?”
His voice matched him, a smooth baritone. You could tell that he was used to roaring commands in the heat of a battle, and now he was deliberately controlling the volume, taking care to speak softer because it was just the two of us here.
“I’m afraid there has been a mistake, my lord. I’m here to see Lord Berengur.”
“Lord Berengur has left us for the time being to take care of a personal matter. However, I have known him for many years. We trust each other to handle problems in each other’s stead. Perhaps I could be of service?”
“When will he be back?”
“Not for another week, I’m afraid.”
Another week would be too late.
“In that case, I regretfully ask for permission to impose on your hospitality. May I ask your name, sir?”
At least tell me who I’m speaking with.
“Forgive me. I should have introduced myself. It has been a complicated day, and clearly, I have misplaced my manners. I am Earl Bellen. But here, within these walls, the honorifics are unnecessary. Inside the Citadel, I’m just a knight, one of many. May I ask your name?”
Earl Bellen. Bellen . . . Didn’t ring any bells. How was he not some kind of major character in the books? Of course, he could be lying to me, but I had no idea why he would. We’d never met.
“Maggie,” I told him.
He quirked an eyebrow. “Lady Maggie . . . ?”
“Just Lady Maggie, my lord.” Every time someone said Lady Maggie, it sounded ridiculous, and now I was saying it, too, and feeling stupid every time I did.
“My issue is complicated. I came to appeal to Lord Berengur for help.”
“Perhaps we better sit down then.” He indicated a table and two chairs set at the crossing of paths between the flower beds.
We strolled toward it.
“Does the scent of hafia bother you? Some people find their aroma too heady.”
“Not at all,” I said. “The scent is pleasant, and the flowers are very beautiful.”
“They’re medicinal in nature. They help to stem the blood flow from open wounds.”
“Beauty and utility in a single form.”
“Indeed.”
We reached the table, and he held a chair out for me. I perched in it. My feet quietly celebrated.
Bellen sat. The chair seemed slightly too small for him. In our world, physically gifted people played sports. If you were strong and fast, you became a football player, or a basketball star, or an Olympic athlete. In Rellas, you became a knight. I was probably looking at a descendant of several generations of martial tradition. Knighthood was in his blood.
He was something that was lost in our world because it was no longer needed. We had moved past people in armor charging at each other on a battlefield. Romantic history told us they would wash off the blood and gore and turn into gallant poets at the next formal dinner. If that gallantry had ever truly existed, it would’ve been a disguise, window dressing designed to lull you into forgetting you were sitting across from a trained, experienced killer who would take your life without hesitation. If I left Rellas and returned to my world, I would never be able to see knights in the same way. Not after watching Everard kill. Not after the Butcher. If a Renaissance faire jouster tried to talk to me, I would run away screaming.
“My lady?” Bellen prompted.
“Pardon the hesitation, my lord. Are you aware of the body found in the Dog Market?”
Bellen’s face turned hard. “An ugly affair. Not the way a knight like Shuhoven should have gone.”
“The man responsible for his murder fancies himself a hunter of people. Specifically, knights.”
Bellen frowned. “How do you know this?”
“I cannot tell you that. I can tell you that there was a second victim.”
“Who?”
“Velpor. His body was found in the plaza of the Knight Vanquisher. It was removed and hidden to avoid agitating the Order of the Conqueror.”
Bellen leaned back. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“You weren’t supposed to, my lord.”
I hesitated. One wrong word here and he could detain me. He clearly was high enough in the ranks. But knights were bound by a code of conduct. Defender Knights, in particular, made a big deal out of the knightly virtues. If he did something unbecoming of a knight, it would make his political life within the Order more complicated, and his rivals would use it against him. It was less about his explicit authority and more about how he would be seen by others. I had to leverage that against uncomfortable questions.