"Forgive me for being fool enough to worry about you!"
The heat had yet to fade from Justin's face, for he'd come to the earl directly after leaving his father. He sensed dimly that he ought to have given himself some time between confrontations, but for now, his anger ruled both his brain and his tongue, his nerves too raw to tolerate even the lightest touch. "I left you word that I was checking out something on my own. What more could I have said?
"You could have told me what you were doing, where you were, and who you were meeting!"
"No," Justin said, "I could not," and the look in Thomas's eyes belied his mien of easy affability.
"So you do not trust me? What have I done to deserve your suspicions? No… do not answer, for I do not really care. You can rest assured that I'll not fret about your safety in the future. From on, you're on your own!" Spinning on his heel, Thomas stalked off, shoving aside a man who'd inadvertently stepped into his path. Justin almost called him back — almost. But it was easier once again to take the path of least resistance, to let him go.
~*~
The earl of Chester was shorter than average and Justin topped him by at least a foot. But he showed none of the self-consciousness Justin had often encountered in other men of small stature, striding alongside his taller companion utter in difference to the disparity in their heights. They were out in the castle tiltyard, watching as the youths in the earl's household practiced their fighting skills, riding at the quintain and feinting clumsily with swords they could barely lift. Justin had undergone such raining, too, when he'd first entered Lord Fitz Alan's service. But these boys were of higher rank than Justin could ever have aspired to, for there was great prestige in learning life lessons from an earl.
"Does Thomas know yet that you are still amongst the living?"
"He does, my lord."
"So… where were you?"
"I cannot tell you that, my lord… not yet. I have suspicions and suspects, but no hard proof. I'd rather wait until I have conclusive evidence to present to you."
"You can do better than that," Chester scoffed. "You think if you give me a name, I'll pounce upon the poor wretch and haul him off to the gallows? What is the real reason you are so loath to confide in me, de Quincy?"
"I fear endangering those who are helping me, my lord earl."
Chester subjected Justin to a hard-eyed scrutiny before nodding grudgingly. "That I can accept… for now. I ask for no names. But I do want to know where you think this investigation is heading." When Justin hesitated, he said impatiently, "It is common sense, man, no more than that. What happens to your secrets if you come to grief back in Wales? I'll tell you what happens. They die with you."
Now it was Justin's turn to give ground. "You are right, my lord," he conceded. "I will tell you this much, then. Llewelyn ab Iorwerth is not the one who took the ransom. His uncle seeks to blame him falsely and may even have gone further than that. As for the actual outlaws, I think they were hirelings, men who may not have known what they were stealing. And they were not Welsh."
Chester's reactions were subtle: a tightening of the corners of his mouth, an upraised brow. He was silent for some moments and then swore softly, "Hellfire and damnation. It would have been so much easier if Llewelyn had been guilty. I am going to pay you the you the great compliment of assuming you know what you're doing. Just in case you do run into a stray arrow or get your throat cut in your sleep, are you saying I ought to look in Davydd's direction first?" When Justin nodded, the earl seemed more cheerful. "That I will do right gladly. In the meantime, I suppose you want me to keep this to myself?"
"I would be beholden to you, my lord, if you did."
"What of Thomas? Surely he ought to know…" The earl was quick enough to catch the faintest glimmer of doubt in Justin's eyes. "What? You do not trust him?"
Until that moment, Justin would have said he did. But hearing question put so baldly was a revelation. He looked across the tiltyard, where Thomas de Caldecott was showing one of the young squires how to execute a shifting cut, changing his sword's direction in mid-attack. Thomas appeared to be ignoring their presence entirely, but Justin had seen him shoot a covert glance their way from time to time. "Thomas has given me no reason not to trust hun, my lord," he said slowly, choosing his words with care.
"Men like you need no reasons, de Quincy. You breathe in suspicions like other men breathe in air."
The words themselves were sharp enough to wound, but oddly, the tone was neutral, as if the earl were making an observation, not.in accusation. "'Men like me,'" Justin echoed. "And what men are they, my lord?"
The answer surprised him. "Men who serve only the Crown. Spies, agents, scouts, call them what you will. I admit I was puzzled when the queen put you in charge. You seemed an unlikely choice for such a mission, lacking in years, experience, or authority. But I'm beginning to understand. Something smelled foul about this to the queen, so she sent one of her own, one of those men from the shadows, the sort who've learned to leave no footprints and cast no reflection in mirrors."
"You make it sound," Justin protested, "as if I am in league with the Devil!"
Chester's lips twitched in a sardonic smile. "No," he said, "only the queen."
~*~
There weren't that many hours of daylight remaining, but Justin did not want to waste them, and from the castle, he went directly to the waterfront. He'd known from the first what a difficult task he faced; trying to find three nameless, faceless sailors was akin to the hunt for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Even if he was right in his suspicions, the sailors could have returned to their ship and sailed for their homeport by now. Or they could have fled with their newfound wealth, and their ship could have sailed without them. He'd chosen to gamble that they would not have gone back to their old lives and that their flight would have left a hole for him to discover. But so far, he'd had no luck at all. By nightfall, he'd hunted down several ships' masters, and all he had to show for his efforts was a blister on his heel, a throat sore from asking questions that got no satisfactory answers, and a powerful desire to drown his disappointment in drink,
He was looking for a sailors' hangout and found one in a waterfront tavern. It was cleaner than most of its kind, twice as large as Nell's alehouse back in London. Half a dozen men were sprawled on benches, dicing and drinking and laughing at a curley-haired youth who was doing his best to charm the serving maid. She might have been pretty in other surroundings, another life. But in this dockside tavern, she merely looked bored and somewhat sullen, and Justin shared the majority view, that the lad was wasting both his time and his money.
Over a cup of red wine heavily spiced to hide the sour taste, Justin brooded upon the day's events. He tried not to think about that ugly scene with his father. Instead he sought to focus his thought on Thomas de Caldecott. Why was he of a sudden harboring doubts about the knight? Was it because Thomas had overreacted to his disappearance?
Why had the other man been so alarmed that he'd gone off on his own? Was it genuine concern for his safety? Or some thing more sinister? If Thomas had been the one to disappear, would he have been as worried? He thought not, not unless Thomas had vanished without a word. The message he'd left ought to have been enough to allay his misgivings, at least for a few days. Nor had Thomas seemed all that relieved to see him surface, alive and well. But would he not have been affronted if Thomas chose to withhold information about the robbery? He damned well would, so how could he blame Thomas for bristling at his secretiveness?