Dark Moon Defender by Sharon Shinn
After leaving Ellynor at the Gisseltess place, Justin circled the neighborhood once, just to make sure she hadn’t been cast out of the house when the others failed to believe her story. But, somewhat to his disappointment, Ellynor did not reemerge. He returned to the stables to find Delz there and irate that Justin had left the place unattended.
“Anyone could have come in and walked out with half the horses!” the older man fumed. “And the Silver Lady only knows how many came by, wanting to leave their mounts behind, but there was no one to take their reins—or their money!”
“I was only gone twenty minutes,” Justin said, which was a lie, but he was guessing Delz hadn’t been back much longer than that. “Nobleman asked me to lead his horse while he hauled a package halfway across town. Didn’t want to offend him, did I? He might be back needing more favors.”
Delz looked both mollified and skeptical. “Marlord?” he asked.
Justin shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t tell one from another.”
“He pay you?”
Justin pulled out a silver coin and flicked it to Delz. “Here. Keep it. Didn’t mean to make you worry.”
Delz pocketed it but still looked disgruntled. “You’re not as steady as I’d like,” he grumbled. “Gone a lot when a man expects you to be in place.”
“I get restless.” A pause. “I can look for work elsewhere if I don’t suit.”
“No, no. I still need the extra hands. It’s just that—you’re gone a lot.”
Justin shrugged again. “Well, I’m back now. What’s left to be done?”
They worked together the next couple of hours, cleaning stalls, forking out hay, and pumping fresh water, and by then Delz was back in charity with Justin. He hadn’t seemed to notice that his new employee wasn’t particularly talkative, or maybe he didn’t mind carrying the bulk of the conversation, for he frequently engaged in long, rather dull monologues about episodes in his life. Just from boredom, Justin had put together a fairly coherent picture from the tales Delz told out of sequence. Farmer’s son, once married, wife ran off, almost married a second time but the girl’s family had decided Delz wasn’t good enough for her and made her a better match. Odd jobs in Fortunalt and along the southern coast before he ended up here. Now that he was a business owner, he hoped to find a third woman who might be persuaded to take him, and to stay.
Justin thought he’d rather still be living on the streets of Ghosenhall than endure such a life.
A half dozen riders came in as they were doing the evening chores, dropping off horses for a night or two. This hour of the day, and early morning when travelers headed out again, were their busiest times. Delz mostly handled the money while Justin got the animals settled in. The tired and placid ones were the easiest to put away, but Justin liked the spirited ones better, nervous and edgy around strangers. “Come on, girl,” he said, coaxing a particularly wary mare into a stall. “I’ll take care of you. No need to be afraid at all.”
Once it was true night, they were less likely to do any business, so Delz took off for his dinner and Justin finished sweeping. Delz owned a tiny house not ten yards from the stable. He had rigged up a cord that customers could pull at the stable door to ring a bell in his house, so he could be on hand in minutes if someone needed him.
This meant no one had to stay overnight with the horses.
Once Delz returned from dinner, Justin was free for the day. By this time he was ravenous, so he usually took his meals at one of the local taverns, most often the Golden Boar. Tonight he sat alone at a small table in the corner; other nights he might take a seat at the bar counter. He always ate in silence, keeping a look of indifference on his face but listening as hard as he could for any information someone might drop. So far, nothing of interest had been inadvertently revealed to him over his meals. He’d heard plenty about the road conditions, the king’s misguided foreign policies, the excellence of Helven beer, a certain woman named Dorina, and what kind of opportunities there might be for employment in Forten City, if a man wasn’t afraid of the sea. But nothing about Coralinda Gisseltess or her activities.
No mention of troops leaving the convent in secret and carrying out illicit raids for the Lestra. No reports of houses burned down in the night, of fights between the Lestra’s men and the civil guards paid to keep a minor nobleman protected. Such things had been whispered back in Ghosenhall. There had been dreadful tales of mysterious fires started in the night on the property of aristocrats who had done something to offend the Lestra. Tales of whole families gone missing after an unmarked cadre of soldiers passed through.
But Justin hadn’t seen any large body of convent men march down the streets of Neft. The biggest contingent of soldiers he’d seen had been the group torturing the mystic Lara.
And the ones who’d come to town yesterday escorting Coralinda Gisseltess and a smattering of her novices. That particular group of soldiers had holed up in a small inn on the other side of town and hadn’t been seen all day. If they were doing damage to nonbelievers, they were doing it in a high state of secrecy.
Justin needed to get to the convent itself. He needed to be able to watch the various roads that led to and from the compound in order to judge what kind of activity the Lestra’s guards were engaged in. He wouldn’t learn much loitering here in Neft.
He had just laid his fork down and pushed his plate aside when a man dropped into the seat across from him. Keeping an impassive expression on his face, Justin inspected the newcomer. Older man, possibly in his late fifties, with disorderly gray hair and a lived-in face, wearing clothes that he might have had on his back for the last four days. Everything about him looked rumpled. His expression was mild, but his eyes were extraordinarily keen. A smart man who didn’t mind being taken for a fool, Justin decided.
“You look like the gambling sort to me,” the older man said and laid down a pack of cards.
Justin relaxed a little, smiling slightly. “I can play most games,” he said. “Don’t like high stakes, though. I have a lot of other uses for my money.”
His companion shuffled the deck with enough competence to show he wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t know what he was doing. This was not an attempt to con; this was an attempt to combat boredom. “Still, you have to put money down, or what does it matter who wins?” the other man said. “Care for a few hands?”
“Sure,” Justin said. “Name your preference. I’m Justin, by the way.”
“Faeber. How about two-point cross-cradle?”
Justin nodded. “I’m in.”
They played a few rounds, talking sporadically, watching each other over the cards. Their luck was pretty even, although, within an hour, Faeber pulled ahead by a few coppers. Justin was interested to note that most of the other men who came and went through the tavern doors glanced in their direction, and nodded if Faeber noticed them, but no one else came to join them.
Justin took the next hand, winning back the coins he’d lost and a few of Faeber’s. “That was neatly done,” the older man approved. “You play a patient game.”
Justin grinned broadly and shuffled the cards. “Only sometimes,” he said. “I can be reckless in a certain mood.”
Faeber leaned back in his chair. “Feeling reckless this afternoon?” he asked in a genial voice.
Justin kept his gaze on the cards, but all his senses sharpened. He had wondered if anyone had witnessed his brawl in the street, and if so, whether someone would come to investigate. “I saw a young woman who looked like she needed help,” he replied quietly. “I could have walked on by. That wasn’t the mood I was in this afternoon.”
“Perhaps you didn’t notice that the man you took issue with considers himself a nobleman.”
Interesting phrasing. “Perhaps you hadn’t heard that the lady he accosted was a Daughter of the Pale Mother,” Justin countered.
“Oh, I’m absolutely certain you did the right thing by protecting one of the Silver Lady’s own. Wish I’d been there myself to ea
“And why would you be the one he complained to?”
Faeber resettled his weight. “I’m magistrate of the town. We have a small civil guard in Neft, and they answer to me. But there always seems to be something else that folks think I should be responsible for. So now I collect taxes for the king. I mediate disputes between merchants. I officiate at weddings. I say a few words at funerals. Kind of have my fingers in a whole lot of different pies.”
“So some idiot who’s probably not even Thirteenth House thinks he can behave like a ruffian and then complains to you when somebody stops him,” Justin said.
“That’s right. I told him I’d find you and take care of everything.”
Justin lifted his eyes to give Faeber one unfriendly stare. “And how do you intend to take care of me?” he asked in a level voice.
Faeber’s face split in a grin. “Why, buy you a drink, of course! I’ve wanted to punch that boy in the face many times these past three years. Assaulting women in the streets. My streets. And then whining when a good man steps in to stop him!”
Justin laughed. “You hardly know I’m a good man. Can’t judge by just one thing.”
“You don’t cheat at cards,” Faeber observed. “So that’s two things.”
“Well, I’d appreciate the drink, in any case.”
Faeber called over the waitress, an older woman who was plain and efficient, and they sipped a couple of glasses of ale, idly talking. Well, the conversation appeared to be idle. Justin was well aware that Faeber was still trying to gauge what kind of man he was, while Justin was engaged in his own complicated game, trying to appear honest and harmless, if a little malcontented.
“So how long do you plan to stay in Neft?” Faeber asked as they finished their drinks.
Justin shrugged. “Till I figure out something different to do.”
“Heard you had a little trouble up Storian way. Or was it Danalustrous?”
Justin didn’t know the Twelve Houses well enough to know whether Storian boasted daughters of the age to be forming disastrous liaisons with soldiers, but he was ready to bet Faeber did. Just his luck, Justin knew plenty about the serramarra of that other House. And Kirra would be only too happy to pretend she’d had a relationship with him, if he was ever required to produce proof.
“Danalustrous,” he said shortly.
“I hear marlord Malcolm has two daughters, both of them beautiful. One’s a dark-haired thing, one’s fair.”
“That’s right.”
Faeber took the last sip of his beer. “That yellow-haired girl, they say she’s a mystic. A shiftling.”
Justin’s hands stilled on his glass. “She is.”
Faeber shook his head. “People around these parts, they don’t care much for mystics. Well, let me put it more plainly, son. If that girl were ever to think of coming to visit you here? Anybody who knew about it would want to stone her in the street.”
Justin refrained from retorting that anyone who tried to harm Kirra would find himself slashed to ribbons by a great golden cat—or whatever shape Kirra chose to take at that moment— and would undoubtedly be further mauled by Donnal, who was never far from her side. He also had to discard the idea of saying she was unlikely to come visiting him here, because it was exactly the sort of thing Kirra might do—show up unannounced and start looking for entertainment. Instead he leaned back in his chair and coolly inspected the other man. “I’d think the magistrate of a town would have something to say about that,” he said softly.
Faeber’s mouth twisted. “You would think that,” he said. “It was truer before the Lestra’s men started running tame in Neft. I’ve broken up a mob or two in my time, but I’ve found it’s easier to warn people off. The Lestra’s made it plain that she abhors mystics, and what the Lestra does, people around here are like to take up. So I’d just as soon turn mystics back at the city limits. Let ’em find someplace else to go, and not bring their magic here.”
Justin pushed his empty glass back and forth on the table. “So you don’t despise mystics yourself?” he said.
Faeber’s keen eyes grew keener. “Didn’t exactly say that.”
Justin shrugged. “You don’t know me. You don’t know where I stand. But I can tell you now that I’m not wearing a moonstone, and I wouldn’t lift a rock to throw at any man just because he was different than me.”
“Might draw your sword to defend someone, maybe, if you saw anybody else throwing those rocks?”
Justin shrugged. “Maybe.”
“You might not be saying that out loud to too many folks here.”
“Well, I haven’t bothered to have that many conversations,” Justin drawled.
Faeber let loose a crack of laughter. “You’re a tough one, aren’t you?” he said, but his tone was somewhat admiring. “I don’t quite have you figured out.”
“In an hour? I wouldn’t think so.”
Faeber placed his hands on the table, as if getting ready to push himself out of the chair. “You’d be surprised how many men you can read in five minutes,” he said. “But I know enough about you now, I believe.”
Justin looked inquiring. “What do you think you know?”
Faeber hauled himself up, but stood there a moment gazing down at Justin. The look on the magistrate’s face was considering. “You’re a dangerous young man,” he said abruptly. “But you’re not looking for trouble. At the moment. I imagine that when you do, you can be fairly destructive.”
Justin gave him one long, sober look. “All I did was take on one bully in the street. I’m not trying to make a name. I just want to settle in and lead a quiet life.”
Faeber nodded. “See that you behave yourself then.”
“I’ll do my best.”
SO there had been at least one unfortunate consequence of coming to Ellynor’s aid: Justin had drawn the attention of the local magistrate, who was likely to keep watching him. But even that might not be so problematic, if Justin had read Faeber as correctly as Faeber had read him. The older man wasn’t pleased by having his town overrun with convent soldiers, though he probably didn’t waste his energy trying to control them. And he didn’t hate mystics. He hadn’t said so outright, but he hadn’t burst out with the virulent rhetoric Justin would have expected if Faeber was a true believer. So that was something to keep in mind. If he ever had need of an ally, Faeber might be one. Particularly if Justin asked for help as a King’s Rider. He thought he was likely to get a great deal of assistance then.
And even if he’d guessed wrong—even if Faeber was at this very moment telling his own men to pay special attention to this sullen new arrival, to watch him night and day—he couldn’t be sorry he’d interfered this afternoon. Not if it meant he’d saved Ellynor’s life.
There was still the matter of how to get enough free time to take a closer look at the convent, which Justin judged to be about a four-hour ride away. He wasn’t sure Delz would be moved to give him a couple days off merely because Justin announced he had “business” to attend to. He was in luck, though. Three days later, Delz’s nephew arrived for a brief stay, and Delz himself came sidling over to Justin.
“It’s my sister’s boy, and I’ve promised him some work,” the stablemaster said. “Now, I’m not saying there’s not enough here for three sets of hands to do, and I’ll certainly pay you your share while he’s here, but if you were wanting to take off a couple days, well, this would be the time to do it.”
Justin scowled. “You said you had work for me. You didn’t mention that it would dry up every other week.”
“No, no, the boy’s only been here one other time in the past six months! Feel free to stay! I’ll set him to mending tack and fixing the back stall where it’s been kicked out. I just thought if you were looking for an opportunity—”