The maid poured the tea.
Lovel waved away Branstock’s objection—and the maid. She curtsied and went out as he was saying, “I have no doubt the bailiff and his men will…”
The door closed behind the maid.
“…have the men in irons soon enough,” Lovel finished, then doubled over in silent laughter. So did Miles.
When they had managed to recover themselves, Miles wiped tears from his eyes and said, “What a pair of charlatans we are!”
“More than a pair of us, Miles,” Lovel chuckled. “Many more, I hope.”
When Branstock left the courthouse in the middle of the afternoon, Lovel came out of his study looking somber. “Tell the bailiff to see me as soon as he returns,” he told his guards, and when the bailiff came home to report failure—the trail of the bandits had mysteriously disappeared—Lovel told him gravely, “We seem to have overlooked some rather serious matters, bailiff,” and went on to give him a list.
The bailiff, of course, immediately summoned his watchmen and proceeded to give them a lecture—so there was no question about it in anyone’s mind, and by noon of the next day, everyone in town knew that “merchant Branstock” had really been an inspector-general-in disguise, as they always were.
The tinker strolled along the high road, his pots and pans clanking and clattering to the rhythm of his steps—and to that rhythm, he sang,
“Oh, mistress mine, where are you roaming? Oh, mistress mine, where are you roaming? Oh, stay and hear! Your true love’s coming…”
He’d been singing it for the last mile and was growing very tired of it when at last a band of men in worn homespun clothing stepped out of the woods to surround him. “We’ll have those pots and pans, tinker.”
“Oh, spare a poor man, sir!” the tinker cried, and backed away—straight into another bandit, who chuckled in his ear and clamped a hand on his arm.
“All right, then, we’ll take you, too!” the first bandit cried, and the men surrounded him, forcing the tinker into the trees, squalling protests.
When they were a few hundred yards from the road, though, the bandits let go of the tinker, and their leader ducked his head in greeting. “Well met, Miles.”
“Well met indeed!” Miles sighed. “I could have sworn I’d go hoarse from singing that dratted song! I thought you had men guarding every mile of roadway in this district.”
“Every mile, yes—but you had to pace half that mile before you passed me,” one of the other bandits said. “I recognized the song, though, and knew that you wanted a conference right away.”
“That I did,” Miles sighed, and swung his pack off his back. “What a relief!” He rubbed sore shoulders.
“What did you need to tell us?” the bandit leader asked. “Send word to the city—Reeve Plumpkin in Dore Town will be replaced next month. His replacement will be Magistrate Gole, coming from Belo Village.”
“He’ll be driving up the south road, then.” The bandit leader’s eyes glittered—they didn’t get a chance to place one of the cured madmen as a reeve very often. “We’ll be ready for him—and we’ll hold him until the city can send us a man to take his place. Where’s Plumpkin going?”
“North to Milton Town. Rumor has it that he’ll be promoted to inspector-general.”
“What a coup that would be!” one of the bandits breathed. “A blow for the New Order indeed,” Miles agreed, “so tell the city to send two men.” Then the glow died from his eyes, and hunger replaced it. “Tell them to send Ciletha, too, to meet me a mile outside of Grantnor.”
A few of the men gave lascivious grins at that, but the leader only looked sympathetic. “Of course, Miles. No doubt she’ll have a lot of news for you.” He glared darkly at the bandit who opened his mouth with a ribald look on his face. After a moment, the man closed his mouth and lost his leer.
Ledora had tried to catch a magistrate, but one of the local girls with less mind and more beauty had caught him instead—so she had found a place as a cook with a reeve’s guardsmen. The Reeve’s Guard was a small army a thousand strong, and as she dished food onto their plates, she heard them talking about comrades who were ill. She spent her free hours seeking out the sick ones and curing them, and before long, she had become the army’s nurse. That gave her time alone with men who were feeling too poorly to try to molest her, but well enough to listen to the occasional word she dropped about the ways in which they were all just virtual puppets of the Protector and his reeves and magistrates. The soldiers turned thoughtful as they recovered, and now and again at mealtimes, she heard them discussing the ideas she had planted. Her bosom swelled with pride at the good work she was doing for the New Order, and she prided herself on how quietly and secretly she had done it—until the heavy hand fell on her shoulder.
CHAPTER 20
Pain bit through her thumbs, and Countess Vogel woke up screaming. She looked about her frantically, looked up at the stone walls, the smoking torches, the strange, macabre machinery with the brown stains, and the bare-chested men in black hoods.
She also saw the gaunt man with the burning eyes, dressed likewise in black—black robes, round black hat, even a black stone in his ring. He leaned forward over her, demanding, “Tell us what you know!”
“I know nothing!” she cried. “How did I come here? Fiend, you have kidnapped me!”
The man nodded at someone behind her head—she realized she was lying on her back with her hands bound above her coiffure—and the pain bit into her thumbs again. She screamed; the man nodded, and the pain eased. She lay gasping in terror.
The man saw, and nodded, pleased. “Tell us what you remember, Nurse Ledora.”
“Nurse? What nurse? I am the Countess Vog—” The black-robed man nodded again, disgusted, and she broke off, screaming. The pain lasted longer this time, and when he nodded again to ease it, and she had managed to stop her screaming, he said, “Look about you, and see how much worse the pain could be.” He pointed. “That is a rack, to stretch you and hold you stretched until your bones begin to pull apart from one another. That is the iron boot, to hold your foot imprisoned for days until the pain becomes excruciating. That is the iron maiden, and that is the cangue and that is…”
He listed them all for her, and she turned to jelly within—but she could only protest, “I am no one but the Countess Vogel, and know nothing but dancing and dalliance!”
“I am the Questioner Renunzio.” He nodded at the unseen torturer, and pain bit through her thumbs again. Over her scream he bellowed, “Tell me what you remember, nurse!” Nurse …
Ledora spun about to stare into the stern face of a bailiff she had never seen, a face that spoke and said, “Nurse Ledora, I arrest you for sedition and treason against the Protector and the Realm!”
“I remember a hard-faced man who arrested me!” she cried. “Before that!” that same hard-faced man snapped.
“Before that … before that…”
“You were a nurse!” he thundered.
Yes, Ledora had been a nurse, had talked with wounded soldiers about human rights, about people being subject only to themselves, but how did Countess Vogel know that? It must have been a dream…
Even as this was a nightmare.
“Did you tempt men into treachery!” Renunzio thundered. “Ledora did!” the countess screamed. “It was Ledora!”
“You are Ledora! You are the traitor! You must suffer the punishment!”