Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (27 page)

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Authors: Sharon Shinn

BOOK: Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)
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“Maybe home wouldn’t look so good then.”
 
 
“Maybe not. Maybe I’d want to stay someplace else that I’d found along the way. But I’m pretty sure I’m the type to settle, once I’ve found the place I like the most.” She took another bite of bread. She was starting to feel almost full. “So where have you been? What places did you like best?”
 
 
“Ghosenhall’s where I’ve spent most of my life, and I tend to like cities. Especially the ones around the marlords’ estates—Helvenhall, Rappen Manor, Coravann Keep. More going on there. A lot more energy. Rappen Manor’s a fortress— so’s Coravann Keep, when it comes to that.” He described them at length, dwelling longer than he probably realized on such details as the reinforced battlements, the well-equipped training yards, the degree to which the owners could protect themselves from assault.
 
 
Oh, yes, he was a soldier to the core.
 
 
No matter what role he had taken on for the moment.
 
 
“So how do you see your life going forward?” she asked him when he’d stopped talking to take a final bite of potatoes. “Do you think you’ll go back to Ghosenhall? Hire on as a guard somewhere? Do you think you’ll settle down, look for a wife, raise children?”
 
 
He made that sound that seemed so characteristic of him— a snort or a laugh or a little grunt of disbelief. “Men like me don’t usually start families.”
 
 
“Men like you,” she repeated.
 
 
He spread his hands as if to indicate his body, as if to say,
Take a look
. “Sometime mercenary, sometime vagabond, always moving on to something else. Not the steady sort.”
 
 
She watched him a moment. “You seem pretty steady to me,” she said at last. “Not quite the drifter you pretend to be.”
 
 
He gave her a half smile, somewhat mocking. “Good man in a fight,” he said. “Not so good with a baby.”
 
 
She smiled back. “Now, you don’t know that,” she said, teasing. “I’ll bet you’ve never held an infant in your life.”
 
 
He laughed. “Well, that’s true! I wouldn’t even know what to do if somebody handed me one, all wrapped in blankets and probably squalling its eyes out.” He thought for a moment, and then added in a hard voice, “Though I’ll tell you this much. If any woman ever
did
have a child of mine, I’d take care of that baby—with my own hands, if I had to, or I’d pay somebody. I wouldn’t just leave. I wouldn’t just walk away, knowing some baby I had fathered, some child who was part of
me
, was roaming the world somewhere utterly abandoned.”
 
 
Ellynor felt her throat tighten and had to resist the urge to reach out and touch his arm. Not dressed like this, not in such a place. “I think you’d make a charming father,” she said as lightly as she could. “You’d be very fierce and protective if you had a daughter, and if you had a son—well, I’m guessing you’d teach him how to use a sword before he was even two years old.”
 
 
Justin’s face had lost its bleak edge. “I’d teach a girl the same thing,” he told her. “I know plenty of women I’d trust to take my back in a fight.”
 
 
“Someday you’re going to think about something besides fighting,” she said.
 
 
“Sure,” he agreed, “when the world has changed so much that you don’t even recognize it.”
 
 
She was going to answer, but a noise made her turn in her chair. Justin’s eyes had periodically gone to the door the whole time they’d been sitting here; he hadn’t missed a single entrance or exit in the past hour. Now both of them watched the small party that entered in a manner that seemed, oddly, both bold and stealthy. There were five of them. Three looked like guards, and one was a small, blond woman who appeared faint with exhaustion. One was a strong-featured, dark-haired man whose impatient movements and brusque demand for “food,
now
” made him appear the clear leader of the group. Ellynor didn’t like his face—it was harsh yet sensual, and she imagined that he got most of his pleasures from large and small acts of cruelty.
 
 
A ridiculous thing to think. About a total stranger.
 
 
The proprietor hurried over and ushered the man and the woman to a table on the other side of the taproom. Their guards settled themselves nearby, their poses as watchful as Justin’s, their backs to their master, their faces turned toward the door. None of them wore any insignia that marked them as being from a noble House, but Ellynor was betting that this was a marlord or a serramar, traveling in disguise.
 
 
“What an interesting-looking man he is,” she said in a low voice, turning her attention back to Justin. “What do you think he—”
 
 
Her words trailed off as she realized Justin had not even heard her speaking. His hands were fists on the tabletop; his eyes had darkened with anger colored by a good deal of surprise. So this was someone her new friend recognized. Someone he obviously despised. And had not expected to see in Neft.
 
 
“Who is it, Justin?” she asked. “Who’s that man? The lord whose service you left? Are you afraid he’ll see you?”
 
 
Justin’s grunt was half amused and half disgusted. “It doesn’t matter if he sees me. He doesn’t know who I am.”
 
 
“Then why do you hate him?”
 
 
That caught his attention; he finally looked at her. “Only some of it’s hate,” he said. “Some of it’s fear.”
 
 
She felt her eyes grow wide. “Why? Who is he? What has he done to you?”
 
 
He shook his head. “He’s never done anything to me, only to people I care about. He’s dangerous. He’s ambitious. And, last I heard, he’d been confined to his estates. He shouldn’t be out riding around at will, working on his rebellion.”
 
 
Her breath caught. “His rebellion?”
 
 
Justin nodded. “He wants to knock the king off the throne so he can take it for himself.”
 
 
“Who is he?”
 
 
Now his sardonic expression was very pronounced. He watched her as though curious to see if she would believe him. “Marlord Halchon Gisseltess. Brother to the Lestra.”
 
 
CHAPTER 13
 
 
IT seemed to Justin that Neft was suddenly the most popular destination in Gillengaria.
 
 
First, Ellynor had been there an entire week, and every day she had managed to get free and come spend a little time at the stables. Justin couldn’t believe how much he looked forward to her visits, how much they found to talk about. He was not used to having long conversations with
anybody
, let alone someone he scarcely knew, let alone a woman. And yet there was so much to tell her. There was so much to learn. Every time she left he remembered something else he’d meant to ask, something else he should have said.
 
 
Every time she left, he was afraid he might not see her again.
 
 
Every time she returned, his relief was almost as profound as his delight.
 
 
She was gone from the city now, but she had seemed hopeful she would be able to return eventually. “Serra Paulina told me she can sense that she’ll have a relapse as soon as I’m back at the convent,” she had said with a laugh. “I hope the Lestra will feel obliged to humor her.”
 
 
“I’ll miss you.”
 
 
“Oh, and I’ll miss you, too! I’m so sad already, and I haven’t left yet!”
 
 
“Stay away from Halchon Gisseltess,” he recommended. “If he’s at the convent now? Keep clear of him.”
 
 
“What do you think he’d do to me? Does he have a reputation for hurting young women?”
 
 
“I don’t know about that. Just—stay away from him. He’s a bad person. A terrible man.”
 
 
She didn’t laugh at him. She didn’t ask him how he knew or what, exactly, the marlord was guilty of. “All right,” she said. “I know how to make myself disappear. He won’t notice me.”
 
 
“Good.”
 
 
Neither of them had known how to say good-bye—surely they should not hug, and a handshake seemed faintly ridiculous—so he had just put his big palms on her delicate shoulders and smiled down at her. “Take care. And I mean that truly, watch yourself.”
 
 
“You, too. Don’t get into any fights defending some other girl’s honor.”
 
 
Another laugh, a wave, and she was gone. He’d felt a little off balance ever since.
 
 
But her arrival and departure, much as they’d disturbed his peace, didn’t shake him up as much as the appearance of Halchon Gisseltess. What was he doing off his estates? Why was he in Neft? Stopping here briefly on his way to see his sister, no doubt—to discuss what? Formulate what kind of dreadful plans? Justin had to get word to Ghosenhall. He was reluctant to put sensitive news in a letter and send it with a courier he did not absolutely trust. Fortunes had changed hands many times because of a dangerous missive gone awry. He would have to be careful about committing any words to paper.
 
 
Fortunately, two days after Halchon passed through, one of Tayse’s messengers arrived. He was a young man from the king’s civil guard—not a Rider and probably never good enough to be a Rider, but earnest and enthusiastic and eager to do his best. Justin sat with him an hour, giving him concise details about the things he’d seen and guessed so far, and sent him on his way the next morning. It chafed him to have to sit still in Neft, awaiting word from Tayse. Surely he had seen enough by now to know Coralinda Gisseltess was plotting against the king? Surely the fact that men of her guard were murdering nobles in their homes was reason enough to have King Baryn move against her? Surely there was very little else Justin needed to stay here to learn?
 
 
But if he was called back to Ghosenhall, he would never see Ellynor again.
 
 
He didn’t want to stay. It was so strange to realize that, even more, he didn’t want to leave.
 
 
Three days after Ellynor left, another visitor arrived in Neft, this one even more welcome than Tayse’s messenger.
 
 
Justin was alone in the stalls, checking a horse’s legs for injuries, when he heard an imperious voice raised outside. “Hey, there! Boy! Boy! Isn’t there anybody who works here? Will someone come take my horse?”
 
 
He straightened, left the stall, and hurried out toward the front, a grimace on his face the whole time. It sounded like some rich, fat, old noblewoman who wasn’t used to waiting, who was about to leave him with some high-strung animal that would take half the night to settle. Hard to believe a woman like that would be traveling alone, wouldn’t have servants with her who could lead the horse to its quarters for the night while she made herself comfortable in the only truly respectable inn the city offered.
 
 
But when he emerged into fading daylight, he found that the new arrival was indeed all alone. He’d been wrong about the fat part, but he’d gotten the rest of it right. She was an elderly woman, white-haired and scowling, but sitting poker-straight on the back of a magnificent night-black stallion. She was dressed in silk and velvet, a fortune in jewels around her throat, and even the horse’s bridle looked expensive. When she saw him, she tossed her head and allowed a look of distaste to cross her patrician features.
 
 
“Are
you
the only one here?” she asked in accents of disgust. “You don’t look like you could be trusted to run the kennels, let alone manage a spirited animal like mine.”
 
 
Justin had the lowest possible opinion of the nobility, but such rudeness was almost unprecedented. “I can be trusted,” he said in a level voice. “How long will you be staying?”
 
 
Her scornful glance swept over what part of Neft she could see from this admittedly inferior district. “As short a time as possible. A day, perhaps two.”
 
 
“We’ll be happy to feed and water your horse for you. Groom him, too, but that’s extra.”

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