Fool’s Assassin

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 don’t know, Tallman. She’s gone. I’m going to go see if those three are still here.”

“You do that. If they aren’t there, they can’t be far, in this weather. You want I should send a lad to Stocker’s Holding, ask to borrow their tracking dogs?” He shook his head and added sourly, “I’ve said many a time, it wouldn’t hurt us to have our own hunting pack.”

“Thank you, Tallman, but no dogs. The way the snow is coming down, I doubt there’s any trail to follow.”

“You change your mind, Tom, you let me know. I can have my son go fetch those hounds in a heartbeat. And”—and now he was calling after me as I beat a retreat—“if you come to your senses about keeping our own dogs, you let me know! I know a great bitch, will have her pups by spring! You just let me know!”

“Later, Tallman!” I shouted the words back to him, and got a mouthful of snow for my trouble. The snow was still coming down, and the wind was rising. I suddenly felt certain that those I sought were still within Withywoods. No one would be desperate enough to try to flee during this storm. I reached for Nettle. Is all still well with your mother?

I left her sleeping, with Hearth sitting in a chair by her fire. I told him to latch the door behind me, and I heard him do it. I’m with Riddle and Just, and our guests. We have discovered nothing out of the ordinary. There is no sign of the messenger.

Dead? Fled? Hiding within Withywoods? It had to be one of the three. There were three minstrels who came late. Two men and a woman. Web seemed unsettled by them. Are they still among our guests? I pictured them for her in my mind.

I saw them earlier. But they did not look like musicians to me, nor behave like them. They gave no indication of wanting a turn on the dais.

Send Just to me, please. We’re going to do a quick search of the unoccupied wings. And let me know if you and Riddle find the three strangers.

Just and I divided Withywoods and went room-to-room, looking for any sign of intrusion in the unoccupied areas of the manor. It was not an easy task in the rambling old place, and I relied on my Wit as much as my eyes to tell me if a room was truly empty. Nettle and Riddle found no sign of the three strangers, and when she asked our other guests if they had seen them, the responses were so conflicting as to be useless. Even our servants, who sometimes irritated me with the close attention they paid to family doings, had nothing to report. The three and the messenger were as gone as if they had never visited us at all.

Toward the small hours of the morning, when our guests were sated with food and music and were departing for their homes or seeking the chambers we had offered them, I called off the search. Riddle and the lads joined Revel in seeing that all the outside doors were secured for the night, and then made a quiet patrol of the south wing, where we had housed our guests. While they were doing that, I resolved to slip off to my private den in the west wing. From there I could access a spy-network that only Patience, Molly, and I knew existed. It was my low intention that I would wander it tonight and peer in on our sleeping guests to see if anyone had offered the strangers shelter in their rooms.

Such was my intent. But when I reached the doors of my study, the hackles on my neck arose. Even before I touched the door handle, I knew it was not quite latched. And yet I recalled clearly that I had shut the door behind me before I had followed Revel to join Riddle. Someone had been here since I last left it.

I drew my knife before I eased the door open. The interior of the room was dim, the candles guttering out and the fire subsiding. I stood for a time, exploring the room with my senses. There was no one inside, my Wit said, but I recalled that earlier the strangers had been almost transparent to Web, a man with a much more finely tuned magic than I possessed. And so I stood, ears pricked, and waited. But it was what I smelled made me angry. Blood. In my den.