CHAPTER 855: IN NEED OF AN ALLY (PART ONE)

Sir Elgon stared at Captain Devlin in shock, momentarily unable to believe that the Inquisition had set its sights on him and Captain Albyn.

He knew that Lady Jocelynn was innocent. She hadn’t done anything wrong her entire life, much less anything that would draw the ire of the Inquisition. She’d even received healing from Confessor Eleanor just the night before. That alone should have been enough to prove her innocence.

But not only had the Inquisitor rejected that evidence, he had broken with traditions that called for the Inquisition to respect people of noble birth and he’d thrown Lady Jocelynn in the dungeon. Worse, it seemed like the Inquisitor was determined to round up anyone remotely associated with their lady in an effort to find some ’conspiracy’ that didn’t exist.

Except that there was a conspiracy, he realized. He and Albyn were out there this very night, conspiring to help her escape from Bors Lothian and the Marquis’ plans for their lady. But that was a very different thing from an accusation that she was a witch or otherwise in league with demons!

"Thank you, Blue Gull," Albyn said, speaking calmly, as if the sword of the Inquisition wasn’t looming over his neck. "You took a risk to find us and let us know. You’ve done your part and more," he said as his mind raced over the possibilities, trying to navigate through the countless hazards to chart a course forward.

"Now, you should finish your drink and go," the former captain of the Dawnbreaker said. "You can’t tell what you don’t know. Lighthouse and I will take it from here."

"I’m not abandoning you," Devlin said firmly, struggling to keep his voice low in the dimly lit, smoke filled alehouse. "We came all this way to help our ladies through the war ahead. Now that the frontier is turning on our own, you think they won’t come after me when they can’t find you? We stand together or we hang together, and I for one don’t intend to dance from a hangmen’s rope."

"Blue Gull is right," Sir Elgon said as he shook off the feeling of impending doom that swirled around him along with the pipesmoke that filled the room. "We need to stand together or we’ll be picked off one by one."

"That doesn’t change the fact that Blue Gull should go," Albyn insisted as he idly rotated his flagon of dark ale on the table. "Right now, you need to look like a loyalist to the locals. You tell them that you saw us on horses headed for the North Gate if they ask, but if they don’t come to you then you keep your head down and your ears open."

"You want me to be a man inside for you," Devlin said, nodding as comprehension dawned. "But with you two missing, it won’t be long before they come for the rest of us. A few days at most."

"A few days is all we need," Albyn said, turning over several ideas in his mind and discarding each of them in turn until he was left with only the most viable solution. It made his stomach turn to consider and Lady Jocelynn might despise him for it, but if it worked to free her from the clutches of the Inquisition then he didn’t mind if she hated him for the rest of her days.

"Now, you really should go," Albyn insisted, raising his voice slightly as raucous laughter erupted from one of the other booths, followed by the sound of a hand slapping flesh and a woman’s pained, flirtatious giggle. With a quick move, Albyn placed a hand on Sir Elgon’s forearm, pinning him to the table before he could get them into trouble with the booth next door while he continued speaking to Delvin."

If you’ve got any coin on you that you can spare, I’ll take it," Albyn added before he shot Sir Elgon a warning look. "Let that soothe your conscience if it’s bothering you," he offered to his old friend.

"Scoundrel," Devlin said with a light chuckle as he fetched a small coinpurse from the pouch at his waist and dropped it on the rough hewn table, nearly knocking over the cheap, sooty candle in the process. "I thought we’d need money to run and here you are, tossing me overboard to lighten your load. That should put some wind in your sails, whatever your plans are."

The sound of coins dropping onto the table drew the attention of a few of the alehouse’s patrons, including a woman at the bar whose blouse was barely laced closed in a scandalous display of her generous assets. One glare from Sir Elgon, combined with a hand dropping to the hilt of his sword, was more than enough for people to return their gazes to their cups or their own companions for the evening.

"It’ll help," Albyn agreed as he opened the coinpurse and inspected the collection of silver pennies mixed with a few gold sovereigns. "Here," he said, tossing a pair of pennies back to the other captain. "Head south of Market Street to Cedar street and follow it toward the river until you spot the Prancing Doe. Spend the night there."

"Is that another of your hidey holes?" Devlin asked with a raised brow. He was certain that Albyn knew of more places to hide, perhaps even places that would rent out a room without asking many questions, but he sincerely hoped that wherever his old friend was sending him didn’t carry this place’s distinctive odor of cheap ale mixed with the fluids that spilled from a man who consumed too much of the swill.

"Do I need a secret knock to get in?" Devlin asked in a tone that was only half teasing. "Or enough soap to mop the deck with?"

It wasn’t that Devlin didn’t trust Albyn to stash him somewhere that would escape the notice of the Inquisition or the city watch. Albyn had evaded manhunts on a much larger scale than anything they were facing right now and he knew better than most how to make himself scarce.

No, what Devlin worried about was that Albyn’s notions of ’good places to hide’ could include anything from a mortuary to the midden heaps filled with raw sewage. So even though the ’Prancing Doe’ sounded like a reasonable enough place to lay low, for all Devlin knew, he was being sent to hide in a slaughterhouse among the hanging carcasses of yesterday’s hunt.