Chapter 366 - 366: The Part That Travels

The castle yard had more people in it than when they left, and fewer of them were doing anything useful.

Cynthia met them at the gate and started talking before the horses stopped, which was how you could tell she had been holding it in.

"The boy is in the side room. Mesterica gagged him, then he spat the gag out without using his hands, so she gagged him again and sat on a chair where he can see the sword. Father is still Father enough to refuse water. Calden tried to write a sentry count in a grain ledger and broke the quill on purpose. I think that means we still have a civil official. I would like someone to tell me we have more than that."

Rigel threw the reins at a stablehand who did not smile.

That one was still local.

"The well cover's weighted, not sealed. Jorn's on the bench. If anybody from Riverbend comes asking for a lamp, they don't go in. The rider on the north road got off his horse and walked. Erna saw the second mouth."

Erna dropped off the pony like her spine had a complaint form ready.

"I also heard my name from a child I never introduced myself to, so if your Count still thinks this is remnants in the hills, he can come argue with me after he finishes his bottle."

Cynthia looked from her to Rigel.

"Gousel?"

"Not tonight. Not by us."

He was already walking.

"A horse from here would be late to a thing that doesn't need a horse. We send word. We don't send me."

Mesterica was in the side room exactly where Cynthia had said.

Pell sat on the floor with a second gag in, eyes bright over the cloth, pleased to be visited.

Rigel pulled the gag down.

"One answer. Then it goes back in. Who left this castle toward my father's land before I arrived."

Pell's brows rose, almost impressed.

"You don't ask if the little one already heard us. That's better."

He thought about lying and then seemed to decide the truth would work harder.

"A merchant. Yesterday. Cloth and salt, same story as the men you once walked to a village. He had papers. He had a tired face. He asked the gate nothing interesting, which is how you can tell. People who belong here ask too much or too little. He asked just enough."

Mesterica's mouth went thin.

"We checked the outgoing list. There was a cloth merchant. Blade's men waved him through because he was leaving, not entering."

"Of course they did," Rigel said.

"You watch who comes in to kill you. You don't watch who leaves carrying a sentence."

Pell leaned his head back against the wall.

"He won't kick her door in. That's crude. He'll talk to the maid first. The one who already knows how to stand in a hallway and pretend the screaming is housework. After that the command only has to sound like you."

Rigel put the gag back.

Pell didn't resist.

He looked like a boy who had finished his chores.

Cynthia had followed them in and shut the door with her heel.

"Say the rest in this room, not in the yard. If something in my father is listening through the floor, I want it to hear the useful part last."

Rigel rubbed the blood off his lip and made himself speak in an order that could be carried.

"Calden writes two letters. One to Gousel mansion, Dolly's name on the outside, my hand described, a line only she will treat as an order: no guest with a merchant's story gets a room, no voice that sounds like mine gets a door opened unless it comes with the seal Father uses on tax paper. The second letter goes to Father. Short. Occupied territory is leaking people who come back asking the wrong questions. Keep the elf sisters in sight of each other and out of any room with a drawn circle."

Mesterica stared at him.

"You want Balzac to read that and not ride here."

"I want Balzac to read that and lock a door. If he rides here he brings the house with him, and the house is what they're trying to reach."

Erna, who had no reason to be in the room and had come in anyway, snorted.

"And the bag? Because it's gone quiet and I don't trust quiet from a piece of iron that was jumping an hour ago."

Rigel took the packet out.

It was cool now.

Cool like a tool put back in a drawer.

That should have helped.

It didn't.

"It already sent what it needed," he said.

"This is just the bell they rang to make us look down."

Cynthia's voice dropped.

"Then we are late."

"We were late when the miller came home asking for passages."

He put the packet on the side table, not on the floor.

"Mesterica, you ride as far as the first post and put both letters on the fastest horse that isn't ours. Don't chase the merchant. If you see a boy on the road, you don't call him Pell. You call him nothing and you come back."

"And you."

"I stay. If I leave, the lining in Blade gets a whole castle to finish copying. If I stay, they have to keep working through cracks and children and men on benches. That's slower. Slower is the only advantage we have that isn't a sword."

Pell made a small noise behind the gag.

It might have been a laugh.

From the hall, Calden knocked, waited like a person, and spoke through the wood.

"Lord Rigel. A rider came in from the west while you were on the road. Not the missing gelding. A Gousel courier. He says he left the marquis house two days ago. He also says he does not remember the last village he ate in, and he would like someone to tell him whether he already delivered the letter in his bag, because the seal is unbroken and his hands smell like flour."