"Not well," Bennet said dubiously. "As soon as I saw Gamberell, my one concern was getting out of there ere he noticed me. The other man… he was steering the serving wench over to their table, so I did not get a good look at his face. I could not even tell what color his hair was, for he had a hood on, a fancy one, too, not attached to his mantle, with a little cape over his shoulders. I suppose that is not much help?"
"No," Justin said ungraciously, but soon repented of his rudeness; he could scarcely blame Bennet for wanting to avoid an encounter with a sheriff who loved him not. "I'll have to go in," he said reluctantly, for he could not risk losing this chance to see Oliver's mystery partner, even if it meant revealing himself to be a spy.
That did not strike Bennet as a particularly good idea, but he had no other suggestions to offer, and he waved Justin on with forced cheer, wishing him luck and asking if he could bring back an ale. That got him a quick smile, and then Justin was gone, and Bennet leaned against the wall of the closest building, marveling at the madness of this entire enterprise of theirs; what did it matter to him, after all, if King Richard never set foot again on English soil?
The interior of the alehouse was better lit than Justin had expected; each table held a large tallow candle or an oil lamp. It was more crowded, too, with more than a dozen men and several women sheltering from the rain at the end of a dreary, autumn day. Justin noticed the sheriff at once; there was a conspicuous space around the table where he was seated with several of his deputies or serjeants, a boundary line drawn between the law and the less lawful. But there was no sign of Oliver or his hooded companion, and Justin drew an alarmed breath. Where in blazes were they?
"Is there a rear door?" he demanded of the serving maid, and she looked at him incuriously, then nodded and pointed. In three strides, he crossed the chamber, barely missing a collision with a tipsy sailor who rebuked him in a foreign language that sounded vaguely Germanic. Jerking open the door, he found himself looking out into a small, dark, and very empty alley. There was no point in pursuit. His quarry was long gone.
He'd attracted the attention of the other alehouse customers, including the sheriff. "If it is not the queen's man," he said, sounding none-too-happy about it. "For someone looking for a ransom in Wales, you seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in Chester, de Quincy."
Having nothing left to lose, Justin bore down on the other man's table. "The men you were drinking with, you know where they've gone?"
Gamberell looked faintly surprised. "That old man and the coxcomb? No, why should I? I never laid eyes on either of them till tonight."
"I see. You always drink with men you do not know?"
"He does if they're buying," one of the serjeants volunteered with a cackle, which caught in his throat when the sheriff shot a withering glance his way.
"Whilst he was waiting for the old man, the younger one offered to buy me an ale," Gamberell said shortly. "What of it? How does this concern you?"
"I need to find them straightaway. What can you tell me about the younger man, the 'coxcomb'? Did he give you a name? Say anything that might enable me to seek him out? What did he look like?"
The sheriff glared at Justin, irritation giving way to outright antagonism. "I know nothing about the man. Nor would I tell you if I did. In Chester, we judge a man by the company he keeps, and the company you've been keeping reeks to high heavens!"
~*~
On the next day, the waterlogged residents of Chester got a rain reprieve, their first glimpse of the sun in more than week. When Molly opened the door of the alehouse, she let in a blaze of light that did little to dispel the gloom that held the common room in thrall. Bennet and Justin acknowledged her entrance with such a lack of enthusiasm that she knew their news had to be bad. Hurrying over to their table, she pulled up a stool.
"Well? What happened last night? Did Oliver's phantom friend fail to turn up again?"
"He put in an appearance," Bennet said glumly, "but disappeared in a puff of smoke ere we could get a good look at him."
Molly was surprised, for she knew how good her brother was tracking without leaving telltale footprints. "He was lucky to lose you," she said. "But surely there will be other opportunities?"
Justin shook his head. "Oliver stopped by the castle this morn and asked when I'd be returning to Rhuddlan. He was done in Chester, he said, and hoped we could travel together for safety's sake. So smug he was, I wanted to hit him."
He told Molly, then, of the sheriff's unexpected involvement, and she fell silent for some moments, pondering this new development. "If we assume Gamberell was telling the truth," she said thoughtfully, "then we are left with an interesting question. Why did our phantom buy the sheriff a drink?"
"We've been thinking about that, too," Justin said. "We came up with three possibilities. One: Oliver somehow got a message to him that he was being followed and they made use of the sheriff as a distraction. Two: pure coincidence. Or three: that he was amusing himself by seeing how close he could come to the flame without getting burned."
"Three," Molly said promptly. "That seems the most likely and the most troubling. Some men lust after danger the way others do after whores. If the phantom is one of them, Justin, you'd best beware, for men like that are unpredictable and reckless."
Justin shrugged, irked by her continued use of the term "phantom," for that only stressed how easily Oliver's confederate had outwitted them last night. Bennet was not eager to dwell upon their failure, either, and diverted Molly's attention by revealing Justin's more immediate problem, that the Earl of Chester was still gone from the city.
"Justin needs to send a letter to London, and he fears that if he waits until Chester gets back, weeks could go by. He is not likely to return until his sister recovers or, Jesu forfend, dies. Since this letter is overflowing with scandalous accusations against the Welsh prince and his consort, he needs to make sure it does not fall into the wrong hands. I offered to take it for him, but he says he cannot trust me not to sell it to the highest bidder."
Justin was not surprised when Molly rolled her eyes, for she held no high opinion of male humor. What she did not know, of course, was that he'd joked to keep from telling Bennet that his London letter was meant for the English queen. He remembered a common folk wisdom — that it took only one drop too many to cause a bucket to overflow — and he did not doubt that his revelation about Queen Eleanor would be that drop.
He was lost in thought, regretting the need to lie to his friends, and did not hear Molly's comment. It was not until Bennet gave him a playful poke that he focused again upon the alehouse and their conversation. "What…?"
"Molly has solved your problem, Justin. It is so obvious, too, that we ought to have thought of it ourselves. You do not need to wait for the earl to return. You need only ask the bishop to send a courier with your letter."
Justin's eyes cut accusingly toward Molly. She met his gaze blandly. "Is there any reason why you'd not want to ask the bishop, Justin?"
"Yes," he said tersely. "We had a… a misunderstanding the last time we spoke."
Molly riposted with a wicked smile. "Well, this will give you a chance to make peace."
~*~
Justin was on the defensive even before he'd set foot in the precincts of the bishop's palace, already anticipating his father's rebuff, and that gave his voice a conspicuous edge as he requested an audience with the bishop. When he was told that the bishop was entertaining guests, he was too tense to wait and insisted that he'd need but a few moments of the bishop's time. He was still arguing when the bishop's steward happened by. One glance at Justin's face and Martin took over, smoothing ruffled feathers on the bishop's staff and offering to let Aubrey know of Justin's arrival.