Thief With No Shadow (46 page)

“You’ll have to come to the watch house, Bastian.”

He glanced up at Michaud. His friend’s face was grim.

“I’ll pay for the damage,” he said, gathering Endal in his arms and standing. He tried to be careful, but still Endal whimpered. The dog’s weight almost made him stagger. “But I’m not coming to the watch house. I need to take Endal home.”

“Don’t make me arrest you,” Michaud said.

“Arrest me? For that?” He jerked his head at Ronsard, lying groaning amid the wrecked stalls. “He deserved it.”

“The watch house,” Michaud said, his voice implacable. “Now, Bastian.”

“I
SAW IT
all,” the housewife said calmly. “It was a fair fight.”

She still held her broom.

“The innkeeper provoked him?” Michaud asked, not looking at Bastian.

The housewife nodded. “He cursed him, and then he attacked the dog.” She sat neatly in her starched white apron. Her manner was an unhurried as her voice. “Sal Vere had a right. Any man would have fought.”

She had a sturdy, imperturbable face. A woman who’d be undaunted by wailing babies and bloody brawls. Being in the watch house hadn’t ruffled her composure. She’d glanced at the straw on the floor, the scarred and stained table, the bare cells, and had sat without fuss and recounted her tale precisely.

“Thank you, madam,” Michaud said.

“You’re most welcome.” The housewife rose to her feet.

Bastian stood, too. “Thank you.”

The housewife nodded and walked to the door, the broom in her hand and her brown hair tucked tidily beneath a plain scarf.

“You’re lucky she saw it,” Michaud said, watching her go.

“I know.” Bastian sat and rubbed a hand over his face, suddenly weary. Endal slept on the straw at his feet with the pup, Lubon, sprawled alongside.

“I need an ale,” Michaud said. “And so do you.”

Bastian was too tired to argue.

The cells were empty, the other watchmen still at the marketplace cleaning up the mess he’d made. The watch house was quiet and peaceful. Michaud placed a full tankard in front of him. “I arrested Julien.”

“I heard.” He raised the tankard and swallowed deeply. His throat felt bruised. “He confessed?”

Michaud grunted. “Took a long time. I broke his story soon enough, but a confession of murder?” He shook his head. “Took all night.”

“Broke his story?” Bastian rubbed his face again, almost too exhausted to think.

“His alibi. That he and his father were together.”

“How?”

Michaud laughed, a short, flat sound that made Lubon twitch in his sleep. The watch captain raised his tankard. “Ale,” he said.

“Ale?”

Michaud shrugged with one shoulder. “That was his alibi, that he’d been going over the books with his father, drinking. I didn’t ask what. Ronsard was an alderman. His word should have been good.”

Bastian grunted into his tankard.

“When I asked again, their stories differed. Ronsard said they’d been drinking porter. Julien said it was ale.”

Bastian put his tankard down on the stained table. “You got a confession because of that?”

“Because of that.” Michaud nodded. “It wasn’t easy, Bastian. It took all night, and I had Ronsard and the other aldermen yelling at my back.” The watch captain’s bearded face was serious. “I would have given up, if not for you and that dog of yours.”

Bastian picked up the tankard again, uncomfortable with the unspoken thanks. “Where is he?” He nodded at the empty cells. “Desmaures?”

“Julien? Provincial guards took him this morning.”

Bastian nodded and drank another mouthful of ale. It was a two-day journey to Desmaures. By tomorrow night, Julien would be in gaol. “Hard labor?”

“For murder? Yes. And Ronsard’s off the town council. He’ll lose the inn, what with the fine for perjury and payment to the girl’s mother.”

Bastian felt no sympathy for the man. He deserved to lose his status and his inn, just as he deserved to be in bed with a broken head. “Why did you mention my involvement?” Vague anger stirred in his breast. Endal would have been safe if Michaud had kept his mouth shut.

“I thought it might change people’s opinion of you.”

Bastian put down his tankard, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“With the exception of me and that mistress of yours, few people like you. Have you not noticed?”

High and mighty sal Vere. He’d heard the words muttered often enough behind his back. Bastian pushed the tankard away. “Just because I have noble blood in my veins—”

“It’s not the
sal
, Bastian.”

“What then? The magic?” His laugh was angry. “Because I talk with dogs—”

“It’s not that either.” Michaud put his tankard down on the table. “Folk are used to magic. And speaking with dogs...” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “It’s not big magic, Bastian.”

Not like being a wraith.

“It’s how you treat people.”

Bastian snorted. He kept to himself because he didn’t want the townsfolk’s pity, not because he thought he was better than them. “I don’t like charity.”

“There’s a difference between pride and arrogance, Bastian.”

Heat flushed his face. “I am not arrogant,” he said stiffly.

“That’s not how the people here see it.” Michaud leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his belly. “I’ve heard it said that it served you right. The curse.”

Bastian pushed up out of his chair, his hands flat on the table. Endal jerked awake and a shaft of pain sliced through Bastian’s head.

Michaud held up a hand, palm out. “Relax.”

“Relax!” He shook his head, trying to clear it. “Liana did not deserve that curse! I did not deserve that curse!”

“I know,” Michaud said mildly. “You don’t have to shout at me.”

Bastian hissed a breath at him between his teeth. At his feet, Endal whined. He crouched and touched the dog’s head lightly, while rage bellowed inside him. He wasn’t arrogant.
He was not.

He’d seen Melke as arrogant, had detested her for it, when all she’d had was the pride not to show her fear. He would detest her still, if Endal hadn’t shown him the truth.

Michaud was showing him the truth now.

Had his own pride made him arrogant? He’d not wanted to be sneered at for his poverty, for the copper coins that he counted out so carefully. He’d not wanted pity.

I was like Melke.

The realization made him flush. He stayed crouching, patting Endal, until the hot blood was gone from his face. Then he stood.

Bastian picked up his tankard and drank from it again, not meeting Michaud’s eyes. “The curse is broken,” he said stiffly.

“I guessed.”

The answer pulled his gaze to Michaud. “How?”

“The first thing you did when you arrived this morning was buy a horse and cart.”

“How do you know that?” he asked, frowning.

“I’m the watch captain. I know most things that happen in this town.”

Bastian lowered his weight into the chair. “Arrogant?”

Michaud shrugged with one shoulder. “Not any longer, I should think. She was a dockside girl, Bastian.’’

“Helene.”

Michaud nodded.

“Her mother? Is she all right?”

“No,” Michaud said simply. “The girl was her only child.”

She was nothing
, Ronsard had yelled.
A dockside slut.
“I’m glad I broke his head,” Bastian said, looking down at his bruised knuckles. He flexed his fingers, remembering the flaring satisfaction of punching the man, of seeing blood spill from his mouth.

“She’d like to see you. To say thank you.”

He looked up. “The mother?”

Michaud nodded.

“Not today.” Bastian reached for his tankard and drained it. “I need to get Endal home.”

Michaud nodded again.

Bastian set the tankard down on the table.
Come, Endal. Time to go.

Endal shakily sat up. He didn’t have to tell Bastian that his head ached. He felt the dog’s pain, sharp inside his own skull, and winced from it.

Lubon yawned and clambered to his feet, his tail wagging. Bastian patted him. The pup wasn’t as thin as he’d been. His ribs were scarcely visible beneath his brindle coat.
Goodbye, little friend.

The pup understood goodbye. He licked Bastian’s hand and nipped at his fingers with needle-sharp teeth. Puppy’s teeth. Salamander’s teeth.
No
, Bastian told the pup firmly.
Do not bite people.

Lubon was contrite. He licked Bastian’s hand again.

Bastian bent and gathered Endal in his arms, grunting as he lifted the dog’s weight. “Goodbye.”

Michaud nodded farewell.

Let’s go
, he said to Endal.
Home to Liana.

And to Melke.

And to whatever decision he was going to make.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

B
ASTIAN DIDN’T ARRIVE
home until late. His face was grim as he shouldered open the kitchen door. He carried Endal in his arms.

Liana stopped slicing potatoes. She laid down the knife.

“Endal’s hurt,” her brother said. He knelt and laid the dog carefully on the flagstones.

Liana wiped her hands on her apron. “How?”

“Someone hit him.”

“What?” She reached down hastily to touch the dog. She felt his pain, the confusion in his head, the underlying nausea. “Why?”

“Because the son of a whore was too cowardly to hit me.”

Alarm jerked her head up. “Hit you? Why would someone want to hit you?”

Bastian pulled a chair out from the table and sat. She saw weariness in the way his arms and legs moved. He rubbed a hand across his face. “It’s an unpleasant tale.”

Liana knelt beside Endal. She examined the gash, sticky with blood. “Tell me.”

He told her while she healed the dog, knitting the faint crack in his skull and coaxing the edges of the wound together. The swelling and bruising eased beneath her fingertips like ice melting in sunlight. She chased away the nausea:
shoo, let him be.

She looked up at Bastian when he was finished. “You did the right thing.”

He shrugged with one shoulder. “Ronsard doesn’t think so.”

“He did this to Endal?”

Bastian nodded. She saw bruises on his knuckles as he rubbed his face again.

“You hit him?”

“Broke his head.”

The words shocked her. “Broke his head!”

“He’ll live,” Bastian said shortly.

Liana bit her lip. What Bastian had done was just. She was foolish to be dismayed by the brutality of it.

She rose to her feet, stiff from kneeling so long.

Bastian’s face lost its grimness. He reached down to touch the dog. “Endal’s all right?”

Liana nodded. “He’ll be fine.”

Bastian swallowed. He blinked, but not before she saw the shine of tears in his eyes. He stood and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet. She smelled sweat and blood on him, felt his warmth, his strength. “Thank you, little one.”

She sat at the kitchen table while he ate and Endal slept, stretched out on the flagstones. He talked of the things he’d bought in Thierry, a horse and cart and more provisions. He told her how he’d arranged for fresh slate for the roof and new glass for the windows. His mood was distracted. He didn’t answer several of her questions.

She had a feeling that more than the innkeeper troubled him.

Finally he pushed the plate away. “How was your day?”

She wanted to talk with him about Hantje, who’d refused again to let her heal the scar beneath his lower lip, but now wasn’t the time. He looked exhausted. “Fine.”