A Rogue Got Past

Chapter 18

"A rogue got past the guards," he said. "I handled it."

It was the third time he'd said it, and this time he said it in front of four other men.

We were in the small study and there was a map on the desk with pins in it. Two of the men were older, Councilmen, gray and stiff and wearing the kind of coat that costs more than a horse. One of them was the man with the clipboard. The fourth was the doctor.

"Forgive me, my King," the older Councilman said, "but three men is not a rogue. Three men is a plan."

"Three men and a lot of blood in the road," Lucifer said. "That's one rogue and some very brave castle guards."

I was standing by the window because nobody had told me to sit. I was supposed to be the maid. I was supposed to be invisible.

"When did it happen?" the Councilman asked.

"Eleven-forty. I caught the scent on the wall and went down myself."

"Alone?"

"Alone."

The Councilman looked at the doctor. The doctor looked at his shoes.

"And the woman?" the Councilman said.

"What woman."

"Come now." The old man smiled. It was an awful thing, watching a smile happen on a face like that. "There's talk that a servant walked out of the gate at eleven and came back through it at midnight in the King's coat. Half the wall saw it."

Lucifer didn't blink.

"She went to the village," he said. "I sent her."

"You sent a servant out at midnight on a road with a rogue on it."

"I sent a servant out at midnight on a road that was supposed to be watched. She's new. She doesn't know any better." He picked up a pen off the desk. "She won't be doing it again."

"Does she know anything about this rogue?"

"She's a maid, Abel. She knows how to make a bed."

The old man's eyes slid over to me.

"Does the maid have a name?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters if she's out on my roads at midnight."

"Then I'll have her beaten," Lucifer said. "Will that satisfy you, or do you want to watch?"

The room got very still.

Abel picked up his gloves off the table.

"The fourteenth," he said. "Ten in the morning. Bring the girl."

"Bring the girl?"

"Not for the beating. She's a witness. If there's a rogue on the ridge road and a servant who walked out and came back, the Council wants a word with her." He pulled the gloves on one finger at a time. "You'll understand why we're being careful. There's a lot of talk in this valley about what walks these walls at night, and a lot of it isn't the rogue."

He got the gloves on.

"Good day, my King," he said, and the four of them went out.

The door shut.

Lucifer didn't move for a second. Then he sat down heavily in his chair and put his face in his hands.

"A rogue got past the guards," I said.

"Don't."

"A rogue got past the guards, Lucifer. There's three men in the road in black wool with your crest on their coats and you just stood there and told four people it was a rogue."

"One of them's dead."

"One of them's dead, yeah, because the thing that kills rogues got him, and now you're telling the Council his name is Feral Animal Number One." I walked up to the desk. "He was one of yours. You know he was one of yours."

"I know." His voice came out through his fingers. "I know exactly who he was. His name was Owen Pierce and he's been on my west wall for six years and he's got a wife and a kid in the village and I've been to his house for dinner."

"Then why—"

"Because if I tell the Council that three of my own men tried to kill a girl on my payroll four days before they sit," he said, "then Abel gets to ask who paid them. And when he asks who paid them, he's going to look at the man who can't remember what he does at night and he's going to say, well, my King, why don't we ask the letter she found that names your own guard's smoke break."

I stood there.

"He'd burn you," I said.

"He'd burn me. And then he'd burn you. And then he'd put a Councilman on this seat and this valley would get a man who can shift, which is the only thing Abel's ever wanted." He lifted his head. "So yes. A rogue got past the guards. That's the story. That's the only story that gets us both to the fourteenth alive."

"And the men in the cells?"

"Won't wake up."

"You said they were on a drip."

"They were. This morning." He looked at me. "The doctor just told me. Both of them slipped into something he can't get them out of. He says it's the trauma. He says head injuries do that."

"Is that true?"

"I don't know. I'm not a doctor." He rubbed his eyes. "But I know it's convenient."

I sat down in the chair in front of his desk without asking.

"The thing I don't understand," I said, "is why Owen Pierce would do it."

"Money."

"Does he have money trouble?"

"Everyone in that village has money trouble."

"No, that's — that's not what I'm asking." I leaned forward. "He's got a wife and a kid and a house and six years on the wall. He's not a bad man, right? You went to dinner at his house. So what does a man like that get told that makes him grab a rope and walk three miles out on a ridge road?"

Lucifer didn't say anything.

"Because it's not money," I said. "I know money. My father sold me for money and I saw his face when he did it and that man was not having a good time. He did it because he was drowning. Owen Pierce wasn't drowning."

"What's your point?"

"My point is somebody told him something that made it feel like the right thing to do." I tapped the desk. "Not a bribe. A reason. Something like, she's the reason the curse is worse. She's the reason it can't be cured. Get rid of her and it all goes back to the way it was."

Lucifer looked up.

"That's what you'd tell a man with a wife and a kid," I said. "That's how you get a good man to grab a rope."

The fire cracked.

"Get out," he said.

"What?"

"Get out. Go downstairs. Clean something."

"No."

"Ella."

"Stop doing that." I stood up. "Stop saying get out every time I say something you don't want to hear. I've been in this castle six days and I've been threatened by a Beast and lied to by a king and there's blood in the road and the Council thinks I'm a witness and my sister's writing letters telling people to kill me and you're sitting there rubbing your eyes like you're the only one in this valley with a problem."

He stood up.

"You want to know why Owen Pierce did it?" He came around the desk. "I'll tell you. Because I've got a man in this castle — somebody with a key to rooms I don't have keys to, somebody who knows when my guards smoke, somebody who knew you'd be in that tower before I did — and that man, whoever he is, has been telling people for a very long time that this valley would be better off without me. And Owen Pierce believed him. And he probably had good reasons. And I'd probably believe him too if I were a man with a wife and a kid and a king who wakes up with blood on his hands."

He stopped in front of me.

"So don't tell me about the fourteenth," he said. "I've been walking to the fourteenth for eight years. You've been doing it for six days."

I looked up at him.

"Then let me help," I said.

He didn't answer.

"Lucifer. Let me help. You said yourself you can't do it alone." I held his eyes. "I can talk to people. I'm a maid. Nobody looks twice at a maid. Let me talk to Owen's wife."

His jaw moved.

"Absolutely not."

"Why?"

"Because she'll know."

"Know what?"

"That you're the reason her husband's dead." He said it flat. "She'll know because that's what they'll have told her. And when you walk up her garden path and knock on her door and tell her you're sorry, she's going to look at you and she's going to ask you one question. Why did my husband have a rope?"

"And what do I tell her?"

"Nothing. Because you won't be going." He turned away. "Go and clean something."

I stood there.

Then I picked my bucket up off the floor.

"You said the letter came through the mail room," I said.

He stopped.

"The pigeonholes. Some of them had labels. Ridge. North Post. Courier." I got the door open. "Whoever was running that room wasn't just reading letters. They were sending them. Every one of those labels goes somewhere, and if I could figure out where, I'd know where a fired housekeeper would hide."

He turned around.

"Ella."

"I'm going to clean something," I said, and shut the door.

I got three steps down the corridor before he came out after me.

"The fourteenth is four days away," he said.

"I know."

"If you go near Owen Pierce's house—"

"I'm not going near Owen Pierce's house." I turned around on the stairs. "I'm going to clean the west corridor. Because that's my job. And while I'm down there, I'm going to knock on a door that's been painted shut and see who answers."

He stood at the top of the stairs.

"She didn't answer you last time," he said.

"No," I said. "But I got a good look at her shoes."

He blinked.

"You did what?"

"She walked past me in the dark and I couldn't see her face and I couldn't see what she took." I started down the stairs. "But she left a flour line from the store room to the east stair, and there's only one set of shoes in this castle that leave a print like that."

I got to the bottom.

"What kind of print?" he called down.

I turned and looked up at him.

"Men's," I said. "Size eleven. With a nail in the heel."

Chapter 18 Ends