As soon as Harric was gone, Caris unlatched the door. Rudy and two grooms stumbled in like clowns. She hurled an armored fist into Rudy's vapid mouth, sending him backward over a groom into the stairwell, where he hit the wall so hard that he broke three boards and fell part way into the resulting hole.
The grooms gaped, speechless. As she polished the knuckles of her gauntlet for another blow, they broke into stammered apology, retreating.
"Your Eminence! So sorry."
"This knave here told us a —
" — very sorry — "
" — a bastard jack — "
" — you know our master, Lord Ellentane?"
The four bowed and scraped and backed from the room, stepping on each other and on Rudy's unconscious body, nearly tumbling down the stairs in their haste.
When the sounds of their muttered oaths faded, Caris opened the purse and examined the nut Harric gave her. Her nose creased. It was wrinkly and brown, vaguely obscene, with ink scratchings:
My (heart shape) .
- Harric
She sensed he meant it to be funny. A reference to the size and hardness of his heart? She turned to toss it out the window after him, but it opened and nearly spilled its contents.
It wasn't a nut, after all. It was a very clever container. A tiny hinge held the two halves of the nutshell together on a spring, revealing three delicately crafted circlets of witch-silver inside. Each circlet was about the size of a lady's finger ring, but interlooped with the others like a three-link segment of chain. The metal wasn't precious, but the craftsmanship was very fine.
Any meaning it would have had from Harric was sullied by his dishonesty. Even thinking of it made her angry, and sad. He'd been the only man beside her brother who didn't think her simple and wasn't put off by her hugeness. Ultimately, however, the circlets hadn't come from Harric, but the Phyros-rider, and as such they were a symbol of hope, not betrayal.
She studied them in the palm of her glove, where they fell naturally into a common center, as if a single ring. Tugging her glove off with her teeth, she slipped the rings on her smallest finger. Warmth and regret filled her, and she realized she would miss Harric in spite of herself. The realization surprised her, but unaccountably it pleased her as well. It also seemed not only possible but probable that she would find the Phyros-rider and against all odds find a mentor in him.
Replacing the gauntlet over the trinket, her mind turned toward the stables and escape. Her rank would protect her, if it came to a confrontation, but the Sapphire would almost surely know her father, and she did not want word of her whereabouts to reach her family. If she could saddle her horse unmolested, she was as good as free. With any luck, her armor would in fact be an effective disguise; she did not want trouble or bloodshed to complicate things further.
As she made for the stairwell her wrist brushed an unfamiliar lump on her belt. Her brow furrowed as she uncovered a sock of coins tucked carefully behind a buckle. After a moment's puzzlement, she recognized it, and muttered a curse that included Harric's name.
It was her share of the squire's coin.
*************************************
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The Jack of Souls (Multi-award winner!)
Fantasy************************************************************************************** An outcast rogue must break a curse put on his fate, or die on his nineteenth birthday. To survive, he'll need the sword of a maiden, the aid of an immortal, and...
