The Lost Stories (10 page)

It was a sunny day and he chose to sit at a table outside the inn. The innkeeper was an attractive woman, around thirty years of age. She had a friendly nature and she smiled as she took his order. He noticed she was wearing a plain ring on the third finger of her left hand, but there was no sign of a husband anywhere in the building. When she returned and set a tankard of ale down in front of him, he looked around the inn.

“Is your husband away?” he asked, and the woman's smile faded. Sadness filled her eyes.

“He was killed in the war,” she said.

Gilan shook his head in apology. “I'm sorry,” he said, regretting that he'd caused her pain. “I shouldn't have asked.”

She shrugged philosophically. “I'm not the only woman left without a man,” she said. “And I'm better off than most. At least I have a business that I can run. Some widows are left with a farm to tend on their own, and that's no work for a woman.” She smiled again, not quite as brightly as before, and changed the subject. “So what brings you to our doorstep, Ranger?”

“Please, call me Gilan,” he said, and she reached forward to shake hands.

“I'm Maeve,” she told him. She studied him frankly. He was tall and good-looking, with a hint of humor, or even mischief, in his eyes. And he had an air of confidence about him. Quiet confidence, not arrogance like some young men. He was probably a year or two younger than she was. But it wasn't a great difference in age and she wondered if he was married.

“You were saying?” she prompted, and Gilan remembered her question.

“Oh . . . just a little business at the castle,” he said carelessly. “Administration details really, getting things back in order after the war.” He paused, then added, “Do you know Philip, the seneschal, at all?”

In the past, he'd found that innkeepers were usually well informed about local gossip. And they were often more than willing to share their knowledge. Maeve proved to be no exception.

She nodded. “A good administrator,” she said, “if he can keep away from the dice.”

“He gambles?” Gilan asked, and she paused, pursing her mouth thoughtfully before she answered. She liked Philip and didn't want Gilan getting the wrong idea about him.

“He used to. He and some of the local merchants used to gamble regularly in the Swan tavern.” She jerked her head toward a single-story building on the far side of the village's main street. “But I haven't seen him there for the last month or two. I think he's sworn off it now. He ran up quite a debt with the other players. Some of them were going to report him to Baron Douglas, but he persuaded them not to.”

“That wouldn't have done him any good,” Gilan said. As seneschal, Philip would be in charge of the castle's treasury. Douglas would hardly be comfortable if he knew his financial administrator was running up gambling debts in the village.

“Agreed. Not that anyone around here has much time for the Baron . . .” Maeve stopped warily as she realized she might be speaking out of turn.

Gilan smiled sympathetically.

“I've met him,” he said. “He's a little pompous, isn't he?”

Maeve seemed to relax. “As I say, none of the others felt they owed him any favors. They already owe him enough in taxes,” she added darkly. “He's somewhat heavy-handed when it comes to taxing local businesses.”

Gilan nodded, keeping a straight face. But inside, he was smiling. He was yet to meet a trader who didn't think he or she was being asked to pay too much tax.

“So . . . Philip doesn't come to the village much these days?” he asked.

She shook her head emphatically. “Not to the Swan,” she said. Then she paused. “But I have seen him a few times recently, late at night. I'm a light sleeper and I'll often sit at my window, watching the street outside.” She didn't add that her lack of sleep was caused by loneliness in the small hours. It was then, with nothing to occupy her mind, that she felt the loss of her husband most keenly.

“Where was he going?” Gilan asked.

She hesitated for a few seconds. “If it was him. Although I'm sure it was. I never actually saw his face, but he has that way of walking, with his head thrust forward and his shoulders hunched. He seemed to be heading for Ambrose Turner's house, at the end of the high street. Strange, I thought, since Ambrose was the one he owed the most money to.”

“Did he manage to repay the debt?” Gilan asked.

“I don't know. He must have. He'd hardly be welcome at Ambrose's house if he hadn't, would he?”

Gilan frowned. “No. He wouldn't be,” he said thoughtfully. Maeve, who had been perched on the edge of his table as they spoke, glanced up as a group of customers arrived, calling cheerfully to her as they went into the taproom.

“I'd best see to them,” she said. “Your meal will be here shortly. Nice to talk to you, Gilan. Call by again,” she said. There was a slightly wistful look in her eyes as she said it.

“I'll do that,” Gilan said, smiling. But his mind was working overtime as he mulled over what she had told him. He had a lot to think about.

 

He rode back to the castle slowly that afternoon, still thinking on the information he had gleaned, assembling the facts in his mind.

The seneschal was, or had been, a heavy gambler. Worse, he was an unsuccessful one and he'd run up a large debt with some of the local traders. That was a dangerous combination. As seneschal, Philip had access to the castle's funds. If he had repaid the debt—and as Maeve had said, he'd hardly be welcome in the village if he hadn't—then his most likely source of money was from the castle treasury.

There was another possibility. Philip's gambling made him a prime subject for blackmail. If the Baron discovered that he was a gambler, and that he owed money to local merchants, he would be dismissed immediately.

Suppose Foldar had discovered Philip's secret? He might have paid the debt for him, then threatened to expose him. Once he had the man in thrall, he could well have forced him to become his informant in Castle Highcliff, telling him when pay convoys or tax payments were being transported through the fief.

Tax payments! The quarterly tax payment to the King would be due in a week. Had Philip been passing information to Foldar about the amount of money that would be sent to Castle Araluen? Or about the date of departure or the route the wagon containing the money would take?

That might explain his late-night, clandestine trips to the village. What if he were not visiting the merchant Ambrose, but meeting with Foldar or his agents? After all, Maeve had never actually seen him go into Ambrose's house, and it was at the end of the high street. Philip may well have passed through the village and kept going to a rendezvous with Foldar.

His mind whirling, Gilan nearly missed Blaze's warning rumble and the toss of her head to the left. Fully alert once more, he glanced left and saw two figures rising from behind the cover of a fallen log on the far side of the stream he was riding alongside. He registered the men and, a fraction of a second later, the fact that they were both armed with crossbows, and those bows were aimed at him.

Kicking his feet from the stirrups, he hurled himself sideways from the saddle, diving to his right so as to keep Blaze between him and the two ambushers. He heard a wicked buzz close to his head as he dived, and felt something pluck viciously at his cloak. Then he hit the ground on his side, rolling to cushion the fall.

He grunted at the impact, then called softly, “Blaze! Panic!”

The bay pricked her ears as she heard her name. Then, at the second word of command, she went into a remarkable performance. She whinnied loudly and reared onto her hind legs, her forelegs thrashing at the air. As her front feet crashed back to the ground, she whirled in a circle, still whinnying and neighing. Then she ran a few meters back the way they had come, stopped, hesitated and ran in the opposite direction, curving in a large circle, tossing her head and mane as she did so.

It was a carefully rehearsed routine, one of many that Rangers and their horses practiced from their first days together. The noise, the movement, the apparent panic were all designed to provide a distraction. As Gilan left the saddle and dropped to the ground, it was almost impossible for an observer not to take his eyes off the Ranger and look instead at the plunging, rearing, neighing horse.

That gave Gilan time to roll over several times, wrapping himself in his cloak as he did so. He realized that his cowl had fallen back from his head as he jumped. There was no time to replace it, so as he rolled, he pulled a fold of the cloak up over his face as a mask. He came to rest lying flat on the ground, facing the direction from which the attack had come. Then he lay absolutely still, barely breathing, as Blaze apparently recovered from her sudden panic and stopped, head down, ten meters away from him.

Trust the cloak.
It was a mantra drummed into all Rangers during their years as apprentices. Gilan followed the rule now, lying unmoving in the muddy grass, the gray-and-green pattern of the cloak rendering him, to all intents and purposes, invisible.

His attackers were barely thirty meters away, with the deep creek between him and them. He could hear them clearly. “Where's he gone?”

“I got him. I know I got him.” The second voice was excited. The first, when he spoke again, was heavy with sarcasm.

“Then where is he? There's no sign.”

“There must be. I know I . . .” The voice trailed off.

Eyes slitted above the cloak, Gilan watched as the two men moved out from behind the cover of the fallen log and advanced cautiously to the edge of the stream. The senior of the two men, the sarcastic one, looked doubtfully at the dark, swift-flowing water.

“Hop across and look for him then,” he ordered, but the other man snorted indignantly.

“Hop across? Not likely! That water must be three or four meters deep and I'm no swimmer! Hop across yourself.”

Belatedly, the two would-be assassins realized that they hadn't reloaded their crossbows. They did so now, grunting with the strain as they heaved the heavy cords into place. Gilan looked to where his longbow lay, a few meters away. He'd released his grip on it during his fall, in case he landed on it and broke it. For a moment, he considered his next move. He could rise and move in seconds to retrieve it. Another two seconds to draw an arrow from his quiver and nock it. Then a half second to draw, aim and shoot. And that assumed that his cloak, wound around his body as it was, had left his quiver free. More likely, the quiver and its arrows would be hopelessly tangled in the folds of the cloak, adding precious seconds to the time it would take him to shoot.

No. He'd missed his opportunity while they stood with their bows unloaded. If there were one of them, he might chance it. But with two crossbowmen at such short range, the risk was too great. A second after he made this decision, he was glad that he had. A third voice joined the discussion.

“You two! What's going on?”

The voice was cultured but the tone was sharp and demanding. Gilan's eyes flicked in the direction that it came from. He daren't move his head. He could see a dark figure right on the edge of his vision. Whoever it was, he appeared to be dressed in black. Then his identity was made clear as the first of the crossbowmen answered his query.

“Just checking, Lord Foldar.”

Gilan stiffened. So Foldar was here after all, he thought.

“Checking? Checking what? Did you get him?”

The two shooters exchanged a worried glance. Then the senior man called again.

“Yes. We got him, my lord. He's down, well and truly.”

“Then make sure of him!” Foldar ordered angrily.

Again, the two men exchanged a worried glance. If they couldn't see Gilan, how could they make sure he was dead? Then the senior man shrugged slightly. “Very well, my lord,” he called, and raised his bow. He aimed at a random spot three or four meters to Gilan's left and squeezed the trigger lever on the bow. There was the usual ugly smack of the crossbow mechanism releasing, then a
hiss-thud
as the short quarrel buried itself in the ground.

Gilan decided that this had gone on long enough. Blaze was still standing some meters away. He whistled softly, a pulsing, three-note whistle that was another prepared signal. Quiet as it was, the bowmen across the stream heard it and looked up suddenly, not sure where the noise had come from.

“What was that?” the younger one asked. But then Blaze took a hand once more. She raised her head, ears pricked, and looked away from Gilan, into the nearby trees. She whinnied and began trotting in the direction she was looking.

“Someone's coming!” said the senior bowman. “Let's get out of here!”

Gilan watched as they crashed clumsily through the undergrowth on the far bank of the stream. He heard a brief, angry exchange between them and Foldar, in which they assured their leader that Gilan was dead. Then all three figures merged into the trees on the far side of the stream.

Gilan waited a few minutes, then slowly sat up. He whistled and Blaze came trotting back to him.

“You were remarkable,” Gilan told her. “In fact, I'm wondering if you weren't really panicking.”

Blaze snorted in derision.
Me, panic? Over two ham-fisted crossbowmen? Why didn't you shoot them?

“I dropped my bow,” Gilan said, and immediately wished he hadn't. Blaze turned her head sidelong to look at him.

He remounted and rode off thoughtfully. After a few kilometers, he voiced his thoughts aloud. “Why would Foldar send men to ambush me? It's hardly a good plan if he wants to remain unobtrusive. You don't try to kill a Ranger and expect it to go unnoticed.”