Chapter Eleven Taken Evidence #2
Mara’s mouth twitched.
“Good. Still rude.”
“Trying.”
Orla let them in.
Mara shook water from her cloak and looked around the hall with sharp trader eyes.
“Northroad is filling early.”
Hessa’s face hardened.
“Of course.”
“Stonewatch men came two hours ago and bought dry space under the old shrine wall. Frostmere has two wagons near the salt sheds. Marr riders are at the south posts. Varric Stone is not there.”
Torren looked up.
“Not there?”
Mara glanced at him and, to her credit, did not flinch much.
“Not openly. Which means either absent or too present.”
Hessa grunted approval.
“Why come here?” Willa asked.
Mara looked at her.
“Because someone paid three boys to say Pike Hollow riders stopped my wagon and asked whether I was carrying Bluebank papers.”
Willa went cold.
“Did they?”
Mara’s eyes narrowed.
“Do I look like a woman who would still have a wagon if Pike Hollow stopped it?”
“No.”
“Correct. No one stopped me. But by sunset, someone will swear Pike Hollow searched traders for evidence.”
Hessa swore.
“They know we made copies,” Willa said.
Torren’s gaze snapped to the table.
The packets.
The copies.
The one Jory had just taken.
Mara reached into her cloak and removed a small strip of cloth.
Ocher-brown.
“One of the boys had this tied around his wrist. Said a Pike man gave it as proof.”
Jory again.
Or false Jory.
Willa’s stomach tightened.
Hessa took the strip.
“Where is the boy?”
“Gone. Boys used for coin run fast when coin is spent.”
“Description?”
“Hungry. Muddy. Twelve. Missing tooth.”
“Not enough.”
“I sell spoons, not children.”
“Fair.”
Mara looked toward the witness table.
“Whatever you are bringing to Northroad, bring less. Carry some badly, hide some well, and assume someone will try to take whatever looks important.”
Orla’s eyes cut to Willa.
Willa nodded.
“Already sent one copy away.”
“Good.”
Mara smiled slightly.
“Then you may live long enough to buy another spoon.”
“Is this concern or salesmanship?”
“Most good things are both.”
Riksa said, “I respect that.”
Perrit cleared his throat.
“Payment?”
Hessa looked at him.
“For less disaster?”
“And promptness.”
“You returned with Mara Tebb, who is useful.”
“Exactly.”
“She is useful. You are damp.”
“Dampness costs extra.”
Orla paid him before Hessa could turn bargaining into blood sport.
The hall shifted again into planning.
Northroad was filling. False rumors were already moving. Stonewatch was staged near the shrine wall. Frostmere near salt. Marr near south posts. Mara warned evidence would be targeted. Jory was already on the charcoal path with a key packet.
Willa felt unease move through the mark.
Torren’s.
Hers.
Shared enough not to matter.
“We need decoy copies,” Willa said.
Hessa smiled.
“Good girl.”
“Do not call me that.”
“Good marked terror.”
“Worse.”
“Accurate.”
Selka came to the table.
“I can make them look important.”
Willa looked at her.
“How?”
Selka’s mouth curved, small and sharp.
“Frostmere taught me what important lies wear.”
They spent the next hour making paper into bait.
Selka chose the bindings: red cord for false urgency, blue wax copied badly enough to suggest stolen Bluebank witness, a strip of green thread tied around one packet because Frostmere eyes would hate seeing their color mishandled.
Hessa added blank sheets under the top page for weight.
Orla marked them with half-seals. Mara provided a trader’s oilcloth pouch with a false bottom that looked less clever than it was.
Riksa watched all of this with deep suspicion.
“You are all enjoying paper too much.”
“Paper is safer than blades,” Willa said.
“Only until someone bleeds for it.”
The words settled.
No one argued.
By midafternoon, they were ready to leave for Northroad.
Ready was generous.
They were prepared to be insufficient in public.
That was most of readiness, apparently.
The party formed in Red Creek’s yard: Torren, Willa, Hessa, Noll, Selka, Anis, Orla, two Red Creek witnesses, Mara Tebb with her wagon, Perrit because he refused to miss a paid disaster, and six armed wolves spaced enough to look like escort rather than invasion.
Riksa remained with Arlen and Miri, but not before telling every departing person exactly how annoying their injuries would be if they returned with them.
“Especially you,” she told Torren.
He looked at her.
“I have no injury.”
“Yet. You collect them emotionally first.”
Willa turned away before she laughed.
Riksa caught her by the wrist.
“You.”
Willa sobered.
“Yes?”
Riksa’s eyes went to the mark.
“If the bond surges at Northroad, do not decide it means one thing before it has time to become clear.”
“I know.”
“No, you learned. Knowing comes later.”
Willa nodded.
“All right.”
Riksa’s grip loosened.
“And do not let Marek’s failure become your proof that you were right to be hurt. You already were.”
Willa’s breath caught.
Riksa released her and turned away as if she had merely commented on weather.
Willa stood still.
Torren’s attention touched her through the mark.
She did not look at him yet.
She needed one breath inside herself.
Then another.
When she did look, he was watching her.
Not asking.
Waiting.
She walked to him.
“Old,” she said.
His eyes softened by a fraction.
“Yes.”
“But not open.”
He touched the edge of her cloak.
“Good.”
They rode.
Northroad smelled wrong before they saw it.
Too many horses. Too much wet wool. Too much cooking smoke laid over fear. Spring mud churned under wheels and hooves until every scent mixed with every other, a perfect place to hide a lie if one did not mind getting dirty.
The gathering spread along the old trade road near the shrine wall and witness circle, stalls clustered under patched awnings, wagons angled for defense as much as commerce.
The shrine stones rose dark and slick with rain.
The old spoon table, repaired badly after the crossbow bolt, stood under Mara’s awning like a veteran.
Willa’s throat tightened at the sight.
Torren rode beside her.
“Fear?”
“Some.”
“Old?”
“Some.”
“Marek?”
“Some.”
His mouth almost moved.
“That is many somes.”
“I am a complex woman.”
“Yes.”
The mark warmed.
Good.
That helped.
Then Willa saw the shrine wall.
Stonewatch men stood there.
Gray cloaks. Easy posture. Too easy. Road guards pretending to be watchers. One had a limp.
Left leg.
Willa went still.
Torren felt it.
So did Noll.
“There,” Willa said quietly.
Noll’s gaze followed hers.
“Burned leg?”
“Maybe.”
The man turned slightly.
His hood shadowed his face, but beneath the hem of his cloak, his left boot stood angled outward to avoid pressure on the shin.
Osa Grey’s boiling water had marked someone.
Good old woman.
Noll murmured to Brann, who slipped away.
They did not move toward the man.
Not yet.
Exact.
Northroad noticed their arrival.
Heads turned. Voices dropped. Eyes went to Torren, then Willa’s mark, then Selka, then the packets at Orla’s side, then Mara’s wagon.
Willa felt every glance.
The mark felt some too.
Torren’s attention grew sharper, darker, but he did not move in front of her.
Good.
Hessa dismounted first.
“Mara,” she said. “Spoons.”
Mara blinked.
“Now?”
“Always begin where people least want you to.”
Mara laughed.
Willa dismounted and walked to the spoon table.
Just as before.
Davra had once tried to interrupt Willa buying ordinary things and make her throat the subject.
Today, Willa picked up a spoon.
The market watched.
“This one is crooked,” she said.
Mara stared at her.
Then smiled.
“That one survived a crossbow.”
“Then it should be cheaper.”
“Then it should cost more.”
“Sentimental pricing is theft.”
“So is surviving loudly and pretending you do not want the good spoons.”
Hessa said, “Buy the good spoons. We are not poor in spoons.”
Willa looked at her.
“Is that a philosophical statement?”
“No.”
“It sounded like one.”
“Buy spoons.”
Willa bought spoons.
The market did not know what to do with that.
Good.
Let them be confused before frightened.
Then the murmur shifted.
Frostmere riders approached from the salt sheds.
Oren Vale rode at their center.
Willa had not seen him since the old life had fully broken.
He looked the same.
That offended her.
Tall. Silver at the temples. Frostmere-green cloak clasped perfectly. Face carved into noble concern over a hard mouth. Alpha Oren Vale had always known how to make cruelty look like burden.
Beside him rode Davra.
Behind them, three Frostmere men.
Not Marek.
Willa’s hand tightened around the spoon.
Torren stood twenty paces away, exactly where they had planned, visible, not hovering.
His anger hit the mark so hard she nearly dropped the spoon.
Mine answered.
Not now, she told both herself and him.
Oren’s eyes moved over Willa.
Stopped at the mark.
Something flickered in his face.
Not regret.
Possession thwarted.
She hated him more for that than for anger.
“Willa Renn,” he said.
Torren’s voice came from twenty paces away.
“Marked mate of Pike Hollow.”
Oren’s eyes shifted to him.
“Alpha Pike.”
“Oren Vale.”
No title.
Frostmere heard it.
Pike Hollow heard it.
Willa heard it.
Hessa looked pleased.
Oren smiled with fatherly sorrow.
“This is an unfortunate stage for wounded matters.”
“Then leave,” Hessa said.
Davra’s gaze cooled.
Oren ignored Hessa because powerful men often mistook ignoring older women for survival.
“Where is my son?”
Selka, standing beside Willa, went very still.
Davra’s eyes touched her.
Willa saw the move.
Not asking after Marek.
Calling Selka’s bond to attention.
“You do not know?” Willa asked.
Oren’s smile thinned.
“Marek received an inflammatory invitation. He is distressed. He has not come under Frostmere authority.”
Good.
Marek had left their control at least physically.
Whether courage had followed remained to be seen.
“He chose Northroad,” Orla said.
Oren looked at her.
“Mistress Orla, Red Creek’s involvement in private Frostmere grief is becoming troubling.”
Orla replied, “Red Creek becomes involved when grief leaves bodies on roads.”
The market murmured.
Oren’s eyes hardened.
Then softened theatrically as he looked back at Willa.
“Willa, this has gone far enough.”