Chapter 48 The Stonebridge Inn
~ brEN ~
A sign hung over the pavement outside the building announcing The Stonebridge Inn, with a quaint painting of the bridge under the words.
Donavyn pushed the door open, its six small panels foggy, the thick glass twisting the view of the room beyond.
It creaked as it opened directly into the dining room.
The wide, low-ceilinged room would be hot in summer, but wonderfully cozy in the cold months due to the massive fireplace on the western wall, currently standing guard over embers that barely glowed.
Thick, wooden tables with benches and chairs lay in tidy rows, offering enough seating for fifty or more men Donavyn’s size.
There were four casks behind the bar at the back of the room, and the serving top gleamed in the dim light of the single lantern hung near the door.
Apart from the ash of the fire, the room smelled clean.
A young boy, probably twelve or thirteen years old, sat on a stool under the lantern, his head lolling in sleep. He snapped awake when the door creaked, blinked twice at the commanding sight of Donavyn Arsen standing over him, then leaped to his feet.
“Sir! I… sorry, I wasn’t—”
“Wake Horace. Quickly, boy. Tell him Duran has arrived with news of his family in the south.”
Still bleary-eyed, the boy raced off, past the bar through an arched doorway that revealed the staircase up to the Inn’s rooms, darting into a dark area behind them.
A quiet knock was followed by the murmur of voices, then shuffling feet.
I thought the boy would come back, but he must have disappeared into a different room, because when the footsteps emerged from the dark doorway, it was a balding man with glasses, suspenders holding up his trousers, and a round tummy on an otherwise unremarkable body.
“Welcome, Sir,” he said warmly, calling across the room, though his sleepy eyes cleared the moment he saw Donavyn, flicked to me, then back to his face with one brow hoisted. “I anticipate your news, can I prepare you a drink to wet your throat after travel?”
“Water is fine,” Donavyn said, his eyes just as intent on the man in return. “I apologize for the late arrival, we were held up in the storms to the south.”
The man waved a hand as if the inconvenience of being pulled from his bed in the middle of the night was nothing, and limped behind the bar to pour from a pitcher into an ale glass for Donavyn. Then he raised brows at me. “Would your companion also like a drink?”
“Yes, please.”
When he reached us with the glasses on a tray, he gestured for us to accompany him into a smaller room to the right, little more than an alcove with two or three tables wedged into the corners.
Obviously a place for men to dice. He sat the tray on the table furthest from the door, and around the corner where it wouldn’t be seen by anyone entering.
Donavyn and I slid into the seats, and to my surprise, the man sat next to Donavyn, leaning close.
There were no formal bows or salutes. I’d become accustomed to seeing Donavyn honored in that way. It felt odd to simply speak.
“What news?” he whispered. “And are you in need of the room?”
Donavyn nodded. “The news is all peace, for now,” he said with a pointed look. “But the family remains on guard. Yes, we’ll need a room. We’ll keep it for many weeks—paid in advance, of course. Though you’ll see little of us. We have much to achieve.”
Horace nodded as if it were only expected. “I’ll tell the maids it has rats. They’ll stay out of it.”
“Very good.”
“My wife has joined me for this travel, to broaden her horizons,” Donavyn said, his face strangely intent. “You should trust her as you trust me.”
Horace’s bushy brows shot up and he looked me over once, then nodded to Donavyn. “As you say. Of course. We welcome you, Lady Duran.”
I nodded once as Donavyn continued. “I’ll be traveling a great deal and my wife cannot always accompany me.
If she’s here without me, she’s to be provided my room and any resources she might need—I will pay handsomely for anyone who assists her in the event she struggles.
And if she brings you news from me, you hear her as if the words were from my own mouth. ”
“Of course. Understood.”
“Very good. Now, we are weary. The room, if you don’t mind?”
He rose and hurried into the main room, around the bar, grabbing the lantern to lead us towards the darkened archway and a tall flight of narrow stairs.
Our room was on the third floor—an attic room. Which would afford us more space, Horace explained, but with a slanted ceiling that Donavyn would have to take care not to knock his head upon.
I stifled a smile at the mental image, and nodded. Then he passed Donavyn the key, nodded once to me, and bid us both goodnight. Moments later we were alone.
I turned a circle. The walls, and the ceiling—which did indeed slant from high above the door, down below waist height on the opposing wall—had been painted a pale, dusty blue.
The two gable windows were large enough for a man to hunch and crawl out of, onto the roof outside.
Dark wood floors and door frames had been polished, and stood out in stark contrast against that blue.
There was a cluster of cobwebs in the upper corner over another narrow door at the end of the room, a double bed with an iron bedframe, a chest of drawers, and an oval mirror at Donavyn’s shoulder-height on the wall.
I took it all in, both impressed that everything seemed mostly clean, and wondering how private it truly was if the Innkeeper knew we were here.
“Our footsteps will sound on the ceiling of the rooms below ours, so keep that in mind. If you need others to not know you’re here, take your boots off and slide your feet,” Donavyn muttered. Though he clomped across the floor, then sat on the bed. The springs squeaked under his weight.
His eyes rose to mine and he gave me a brief, suggestive smile as he bounced on them for a moment, but then he was back on his feet and moving across the room—his steps no longer making any sound.
I didn’t know how he did that, but I tried to follow suit, coming up behind him where he stood at one of the windows and looked out on the dark street outside.
“We need to go,” Donavyn murmured, his arm sliding around my waist at the back. “You need to change.”
I nodded. The bag I’d brought from camp held a set of leathers—thank God.
We’d needed to arrive with me appearing common, in case anyone questioned locals with a description.
But we would leave—apparently from the window, if I read Donavyn’s darting eyes and measuring gaze correctly—and I would return to being a woman who rode dragons.
I remembered Donavyn’s words when we’d made the plan.
“A traveling farmgirl with her soldier husband, taking a room at an inn is nothing to remark on. And a fighting woman leaving the city is a trouble avoided. But the reverse? The reverse is something that might stick in the mind of an ordinary man. You must always measure every appearance through the filter of who might be watching, and what they will think they see.”
I changed quickly, making as little noise as possible, leaving the blouse and skirts hanging in the wardrobe in case I needed to return and disguise. When I was dressed in my leathers, Donavyn beckoned me over, squatted next to the window, and clasped his hands.
I took one, longing look at the bed, then sighed and placed my knee in his cupped hands.
He squeezed, stroking my knee with one thumb.
“I considered it as well,” he graveled. “But with that squeak, the neighbors would be woken, and I don’t think I could do justice to you in the short time we have. Just a few more hours, Love.”
I leaned down to take his face in my hands and kissed him, then braced one hand on his shoulder while he lifted me to the window, and I clambered as quietly as I could, out onto the roof of the building.
Silently, Donavyn led me along the roof, then down the ladders at the back of the Inn that stopped above the windows on the first level. Then we walked through the city again, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, not speaking, except in our minds.
‘Tell me every step we took to get here and to leave, and how you’d do it alone,’ he said, passing me the key to hide in the jacket of my leathers.
I quickly recounted the steps, the location, the name of the Innkeeper, the code to notify him of who I was, and the escape from the window and down the ladders.
‘Very good. In a dire emergency, or the event someone comes for you at the Inn itself, if there’s only time to hide, Horace has cellars under the Inn—the access is around the corner from the ladders, but you can get out there by running straight back through the hallway we saw at the base of the stairs.
Don’t hesitate if there’s any chance your life or identity are in danger.
Better to hide when you don’t need to, than to waver and be caught.
‘This is your bolt-hole. Your safehouse. If you enter our rooms at the castle and believe someone has been there, or feel like you’re being watched, you leave and come here.
If you’re attacked and escape, you leave and come here.
If you’re ever with the nobles in the city and your instincts say there’s danger, you leave and come here. I will find you, you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘But if something happens to me, if I don’t follow you, you don’t stay here more than a night and a day.
You know if you disappear, this is the first place I’m looking.
If I haven’t found you within a day, something has happened.
You get your ass out of Emberholt and straight back to the king and queen, reporting everything you know. ’
‘I will.’
‘I’m deadly serious, Bren. You don’t stay here and remain in danger because you’re worried about me.’
‘But, what if you were hurt, or trapped and I could—’
‘There is no but.’ We’d reached the main Wall Road and would soon be out of the city.
Donavyn turned and took my hand, pulling me into the shadows under a nearby lean-to.
He tipped my chin up and locked eyes with me, staring intently as he spoke in the link.
‘The difficulty for us will be separating personal needs from our jobs, but I cannot be clearer than this, Bren: It is the job of every Fang member to protect the kingdom. We all vowed to lay our lives aside—that means each other, as well. When we are in the field, if there is an attack, or we’ve been revealed, it is every man—or woman—for themselves.
Not out of selfish gain, but because one of us has to get back to the king and inform him what’s happened.
Even Ciar, in his misery, fulfilled that role. ’
His tone was urgent, and brimming with authority. I blew out a breath and nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘Don’t wait for me if there’s a problem.’
‘But, would you wait for me?’ I asked genuinely.
Donavyn frowned, then straightened, rolling his jaw. ‘I shouldn’t.’
‘Donavyn—’
‘It would depend on the circumstance. If I thought I could get you out—’
‘—you can’t do it either!’
He clawed a hand through his hair and nodded.
‘No. I know. I will honor my own instructions,’ he said.
But he didn’t meet my eyes as he said it.
‘Don’t worry for me, and I won’t worry for you.
We’ll get out of the city and back to our dragons, and we’ll be reunited in Vosgaarde, if not before,’ he said firmly, as if the universe was listening and would obey.
I touched his face, and he kissed me quickly, then we were moving again, and we didn’t stop until we reached Kgosi. Just before we mounted, he pulled me against him in the darkness of Kgosi’s shadow, as his dragon rumbled.
‘There won’t be time we can be certain of being alone after this,’ he murmured in the link. ‘From now on, whenever we speak of the mission, we speak in the bond. Any word that leaves our mouths must be one we wouldn’t mind another overhearing.
‘Thank God for the bond,’ he added. ‘We’ll work on expanding our reach to each other while we’re here, as well, since duties and relationships will take us apart.
But from now on, this is it. This is the only way we communicate with any openness, you understand?
Even back at the camp with the servants and Faye. ’
‘I understand.’
He kissed me deeply, then. His hands shook as he cupped my face and stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. Then he inhaled deeply and straightened, staring down at me.
“Are you ready?”
I shook my head, but smiled.
And he smiled back. “Yes, you are.”