CHAPTER 11 #2
“His hatred of the Everards is like a pet viper he keeps in his heart,” Reynald said. “Once in a while it bites him, and he does witless things to dull the pain.”
Sauven had spent the better part of his life trying to murder Lorest in various schemes.
He got his wish in a roundabout way. The Crimson Empire had poisoned Lorest vi Everard about fourteen years ago and Ramond vi Everard became the new duke at sixteen.
When Sauven learned about Lorest dying, he was beside himself with happiness.
He had ascended the throne by that point, and he summoned the new duke to Kair Toren, expecting a sixteen-year-old boy he could suppress.
Unfortunately for him, Ramond vi Everard was a carbon copy of his father.
He’d ridden into Kair Toren in his black armor, on his vicious Andikan stallion, dismounted before the great staircase leading to Eagle Roost, and shot Fatefire in eight different directions, like the rays of a star, to prove his identity.
As the green flames burned and colored Ramond’s face, Sauven saw the ghost of his fallen enemy returned to life.
He fled into the depths of Eagle Roost, abandoning his court atop that staircase.
“Don’t repeat that to anyone,” I told Kaiden. “Sauven is unhinged, and Everard is a monster. You don’t need to be involved with either.”
“I’m not a baby,” Kaiden told me.
“I know you’re not,” I told him. “That’s why I trusted you with this conversation.”
We ate in silence for a few breaths.
“So, what’s your real name?” Kaiden asked Clover.
Clover raised her chin. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Why?” he asked.
She cut her pancake. “When I was twelve years old, a Maid Mother came to our town and scouted me.”
“Clover, are you a lady’s maid?”
She nodded.
That’s what LM stood for. I knew she had to be a part of a noble household, but I hadn’t expected a lady’s maid.
Maids had all sorts of jobs. There were laundry maids, kitchen maids, chamber maids, etc., and most of them came from the villages of a noble’s estate. They were the closest to the family, and it was essential that they were trustworthy.
A lady’s maid was often her closest confidant.
She made sure that the lady was properly dressed and put together for every occasion and kept track of social functions and her lady’s budget.
Ladies’ maids required specialized training, and a woman ascended to that position in one of two ways: by apprenticing to a lady’s maid and eventually inheriting her job or by going through training with a Maid Mother. Either way, it took years.
Formally educated lady’s maids were in high demand and their services weren’t cheap. In the hierarchy of the household, they stood near the top, right behind the stewards.
That was why Derog had kept her alive.
“It was a great opportunity,” Clover said.
“I left my family and came to Kair Toren. For three years, I lived with other girls and studied. I had top marks in everything. My Maid Mother told me that I had a bright future. When my training was finished, I was placed in a household related to a Great Family. There are girls who would kill for that position.”
I had a really bad feeling about this.
“For two years I served as the lady’s maid to the household’s young lady.
We were the same age. I was never reprimanded.
I was praised, and the lady I served called me her friend.
She named me Clover because I had a ‘soft and gentle beauty.’ I was paid well and sent money home to my family.
I didn’t make any mistakes. My service was flawless. ”
Yep, this would not end well.
“Two months ago, she was engaged to the son of an earl. There was a celebration. She celebrated with pastries. He celebrated by raping me.”
The three of us froze. Clover kept working on her pancake.
“The servants found me and dragged me before the lady, and then she slapped me until her hand hurt.”
Oh god.
“Then she kicked me, and after she got tired, she ordered the servants to kick me. I woke up in the basement of this house.”
Clover speared a piece of a pancake with her fork and dabbed it into a small puddle of jam on her plate.
“So it doesn’t matter what my name was. The girl who had that name is no longer here. Things that happened to me would’ve broken her. But I survived. I’m Clover, exactly what they made me. I’ll keep the name. It’s mine now, and I’ll make them regret giving it to me.”
She bit into her pancake.
“Which household?” Reynald asked. His voice was terrible.
“Earl Sunner,” Clover said. “Ulmar Hreban is my former lady’s brother-in-law.”
Shit. So that’s what she’d meant when she said the Hreban Family wouldn’t take anything else from her.
“Why did you stop eating?” Clover asked. “Is the food not delicious?”
The three of us grabbed our forks.
“It’s excellent,” Reynald said.
“Very delicious,” I told her.
“Mhm!” Kaiden said around a mouthful of pancake.
“I’m so glad.” Clover gave us a sweet smile.
Brunch was finished. We lingered around the table, drinking tea.
“We need to hire guards,” Reynald said.
Hiring guards seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea, but the mood had gotten heavy, and he was so deadly serious.
“What was it you said? Something about being able to hold this place against a small army?”
The blademaster gave me a look. “I have to sleep, and there will be times I might have to leave the house.”
I sipped my tea. “If only we knew someone who was an expert in martial arts and also aware of a lot of veterans in need of a steady paycheck.”
Reynald raised his eyebrows at me. “You’re bold this morning.”
“Clover’s delicious brunch restored me to my natural state. Who are you thinking of hiring?” I asked.
“A man named Gort Magnar.”
One of my college professors was a retired homicide detective. He used to say that cops did not believe in coincidence. Yesterday I decided to go after the salt. Today, Reynald wanted to hire Gort, who was in the salt subplot up to his eyeballs.
I hadn’t even done anything yet. I had only decided to do it, and here was Rellas, shoving the mercenary dilemma at me front and center.
Reynald paused with his cup halfway to his mouth, watching me.
“What?” I asked.
“Waiting for you to tell me some earth-shattering secret about Gort.”
The most earth-shattering thing about Gort was that he was devoted to Reynald.
He would follow him through fire and death.
When Reynald was an officer in the King’s Army, Gort was his sergeant-at-arms, his right-hand man.
If we brought him and his sons into the house, and I did something Reynald didn’t like, one word from the blademaster, and Gort would chop my head off with his axe.
And he wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over it.
But it didn’t even matter. Of the two of them, Reynald was the better killer, and if he really wanted to do away with me, he wouldn’t need Gort to do it for him.
And Gort had a grudge against Hreban. The kind of grudge that would put either Gort or Hreban into their grave.
“Anything?” Reynald prompted.
I could tell him what I knew, but it wouldn’t hurt to find out how he would present Gort. It could tell me more about where Reynald and I stood.
I shrugged. “I told you. Some people have big parts to play and others small. I don’t know everyone’s story. What’s Gort like?”
“He’s a solid soldier. Good with an axe.”
I waited.
“He has a leg that never healed right, a souvenir from a hard campaign. It doesn’t slow him down unless there is a forced march coming.
If you needed a man to defend a bridge, you could put Gort there and tell him ‘Nobody crosses this,’ and he would die on that bridge with about a hundred bastards that tried to get past him. ”
That checked out.
“He’s a survivor,” Reynald continued. “He also badly needs the work. He has a wife and two grown sons, both mercenaries like him. He trained them himself and they have experience, but their last job went sideways.”
“What happened?” Clover asked.
“They didn’t get paid, and they didn’t take it well. Now people are afraid to hire them.”
“They didn’t take it well” was code for “They almost started a revolt in the lands of the noble who’d hired them, drove a flaming cart through the fortress gates, and nearly kicked him out of his own tower.” Because that’s how the Magnars rolled.
“Should we be afraid?” I asked.
“No. Gort and his sons follow orders.”
At his core, Gort was a professional soldier.
The son of a blacksmith in a small village, he had enlisted in the King’s Army when he was nineteen.
He met Shana, his wife, while he was in that service, and he’d fully intended to do his twenty years, get the Green Purse, and settle down.
It was a good, simple plan, but it was shattered on the rock of Ulmar Hreban’s ambitions.
Reynald had been transferred by that time, but Gort had been part of Lerem Siege.
He’d made it almost all the way, until he took an arrow to the side during one of the final battles, fell off a siege ladder, and broke his leg.
His side was fine, but his leg didn’t heal right.
He was discharged with eighteen years in.
No Green Purse, no chance at his own farmstead, nothing.
Hreban was the reason why Gort’s sons had become mercenaries instead of tradesmen or farmers.
Between his hatred of Hreban and his loyalty to Reynald, Gort was almost tailor-made to be our guard.
Reynald was waiting for my answer.
“Do you trust Gort?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then hire them. We can afford it. We got paid last night.”
Reynald narrowed his eyes. “How?”
“The head of the Shears scaled the wall and dropped the payment off.”
“And you’re just telling me this now?”
I hid a smile. “Why are you mad? This helps your case. Clearly, we need Gort and his sons to guard us at night.”
Kaiden snickered.
“Maggie, if anybody from the Shears comes here again, I need to know about it. Not after it happens but immediately, while it’s happening.”
“It was the middle of the night. What was I supposed to do, scream?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me. I stared back. It was really difficult to hold his gaze.
“Next time I will scream,” I promised.
“Thank you.” He didn’t sound grateful.
“Will you come to my rescue?”
“Yes.”
He said it with absolute certainty. If I screamed, he would come running. It felt so . . . reassuring.
“How long will it take you to find Gort?”
“I know where he is. He can be here today. We will likely need a few more people, but Gort and the boys are a solid start. His wife is a good cook, too. She’d be an asset.”
He went back to his tea. I let him drink a mouthful.
“If Shana came to work for us as a cook, do you think she would make her famous rudberry pastries?”
“She better,” Reynald said. “As much as Gort’s been boasting about them for years . . .” He stopped and swore.
I laughed, and the kids laughed with me.