CHAPTER 854: A PLACE TO TALK

The night outside Lothian Manor was oppressively dark as rain and hail pelted the cobblestone streets. The balls of hail were the size of small peas, and in some places, gusts of wind had piled them up against the edges of buildings or the fronts of shops before the rain could wash them away.

Few people moved through the streets at night, illuminated only by the light spilling from the windows of homes and businesses that hung a single lamp or placed a candle to burn through the night in keeping with the city’s ordinance. Those people who did have business that pulled them into this abysmal weather wore heavy cloaks with hoods pulled over their heads, and they all walked with hurried steps to escape the cold and wet as quickly as they could.

One such figure leaned against the leeward side of a building, taking shelter from the gusting winds as his eyes searched the pools of light for a familiar figure and his less familiar companion. He’d already been standing in the cold for over an hour, but compared to a night watch at sea, this little bit of wind and rain was far from enough to make him give up on spotting the two men who should be returning from the storehouses, assuming they hadn’t already been captured.

"Dawnbreaker!" the hooded figure called when he finally spotted a pair of men approaching from the right direction. The shorter of the two wore a familiar cloak of waxed canvas popular among sailors rather than the taller figure’s fur-lined cloak, and the polished bell-guard of his distinctive falchion peeked out from beneath his cloak as he walked.

"Blue Gull," Captain Albyn responded almost automatically, wondering why Devlin had chosen to call him by the name of his old ship in a place like this. In the bustling docks of Blackwell Harbor or virtually any other port in the Kingdom of Gaal, it was a common practice for captains to be known by the name of their ships, and prevented confusion in gatherings where many men could be addressed simply as ’captain’, but they’d both sold their shares in their ships when they left the salt water behind for the frontier.

"What in the Six Seas are you doing lurking out here in the dead of night?" Albynn asked once they’d drawn close enough to speak without shouting over the wind.

"Walk and talk," Devlin said, throwing an arm around the other man’s shoulder and turning him away from the road leading to Lothian Manor. "And if you’ve found one of your backroom bars with stiff drinks and dim lights, then take us there," he said quietly.

"Aye, I know a place," Albyn responded as he waved for Sir Elgon to follow them.

Lady Jocelynn had sent them out to source the non-perishable supplies they’d need for their escape, everything from tents and blankets to pans and cookstoves. There were countless things that would be needed to travel through the countryside for half a month or more in the depths of winter.

The two men had finished finding merchants who could provide most of what they required hours ago, but they’d chosen to take their evening meal in a tavern in the city in the hopes that the weather would improve before they had to make the long walk back to Lothian Manor. By the time they’d given up, it was well past sunset, and most of the town had closed up for the night.

Now, Albynn led the knight and his fellow captain through a twisting warren of back alleys, looking up from under his hood occasionally as he tracked their progress through streets that barely had enough light to avoid falling into a puddle.

"The place we’re going," Albyn said quietly as they walked. "Don’t use names and don’t lower your hoods. Let me do the talking. And Lighthouse," he said directly to Sir Elgon, clearly referencing the prominent lighthouse in the coastal knight’s crest. "Square your rings away now, and wrap your sword hilt."

"There’s no hiding a knight," Albynn added as he took in the taller man’s perfect posture and the fine doublet he wore under his expensive, fur-trimmed cloak. "But we don’t have to announce your family with signets and crests," he said with a pointed look at the engraved pommel of the knight’s sword.

"Where is it you’re taking us?" Sir Elgon asked with a frown while he pulled out a pocket square and wrapped it around the pommel of his sword, tying it in a quick knot to conceal the distinctive coat of arms of a lighthouse flanked by a knight’s lance.

"Somewhere that people don’t use names," Albyn said as he led them to a stairway that descended beneath the street level. Hail had piled up on the well-worn stone steps, and their boots crunched loudly every time they took a step further into the darkness. "A place where men who want to drink away their sorrows without catching the attention of the city watch can go, and a lonely man can buy an hour with a woman that he intends to be rough with."

"Remember, say nothing," he hissed as he knocked on the heavy oak door at the base of the stairs. "And leave your virtues at the door. The women here might need rescuing, but you aren’t the one to do it, and now isn’t the time."

A few heartbeats after Albyn’s knock, the door opened just wide enough for a grimy hand with rough, bitten nails to appear in the spill of light that only felt bright because of the deep darkness of the night. A few snips of polished tin fell from Albyn’s hand into the other man’s hand before the door opened fully to reveal a dimly lit room that reeked of alcohol and less savory things, cloaked in a thick haze of pipe smoke.

"Give us a booth to ourselves," Albyn told the wiry, gap-toothed man who opened the door fully once he received their payment. "And three flagons of ail stout enough to stand a fork in," he added as he walked into the room with a swagger that was distinctly different from his usual bearing.

"This way, sirs," the wiry man said as he led them across a floor covered with straw that was at least two months old and starting to rot.

The room wasn’t very large as alehouses went, with less than half a dozen small tables in the center of the room and a row of booths along one wall opposite the bar at the far end. Each booth had room enough for four to six men on bench seats with tall wooden walls to separate it from its neighbors, while a single candle burning in the center of the table provided the only illumination for the booth.

Two of the other booths were already occupied, and in one of those booths, a woman with cold, empty eyes laughed and giggled between two rough men as their hands roamed under her skirt and blouse. At the bar, another woman perched on a man’s lap, pouring cheap wine into the man’s goblet with one hand while the other roamed around the waistband of his trousers.

Sir Elgon stiffened at the sight, and his sword-hand clenched into a fist when he noticed the dark bruise on the woman’s cheek and the slightly paler finger-shaped bruises on her forearm, but he firmly reminded himself of Albyn’s warning, even as he swore to do something about this place as soon as the crisis of the moment passed.

Once the men were seated, Devlin clearly wanted to speak, but he held his tongue at Albyn’s gesture until the wiry man returned to their table with three large flagons of a dark ale topped by a thick head of foam. It wasn’t until the man had returned to his stool near the door to the alehouse that Albyn broke the silence.

"All right, Blue Gull," Albyn said. "This place is as safe a spot to talk as any you’ll find in this city, barring the expensive ones like the Gilded Horns," he added. "So speak, what happened that has you so nervous?"

"An Inquisitor has taken La- er, our lady, to the dungeons below the manor," Devlin said, stumbling slightly over his words as he remembered Albyn’s warning not to use names in this place.

"We expected that she’d be questioned," Sir Elgon said, frowning at the former ship captain. "But she’s done nothing. She should be free in a matter of hours once the Inquisitor verifies the truth of her testimony."

"If we were home, maybe it would work like that," Devlin agreed. "But the guards at her room overheard the Inquisitor saying that she’d be in his care ’all winter long’, and that there was ’plenty of time to get the facts out.’"

"But it’s worse than that," he added in a hushed tone barely above a whisper. "This Inquisitor, he’s not just taking our lady. He’s taken the Confessor, the lord’s physician, the head cook, and half a dozen other people as well. He’s even had the other ladies who had tea with our lady confined to their chambers."

The orders from the Inquisitor had been as shocking as the presence of more than a dozen temple guards, sweeping through Lothian Manor and placing shackles on more than half a dozen highly placed servants on the Marquis’s staff. The entire manor had erupted into whispers and rumors, which had only grown louder when the Inquisitor posted a list of people who were ’called to answer the questions of the Inquisition.’

"Dawnbreaker, Lighthouse," Devlin said as he met both men’s eyes. "The Inquisitor posted a list of names, and you’re both on it. If you go anywhere near the manor, you’ll land in a cell next to our lady, or worse..."