Player's Ruse by Hilari Bell Read Free Book Online Page B

looking down at my wrist, his mouth tight with disdain.
    I felt almost as resigned as Fisk looked, for I knew what would follow.
    Sometimes, especially if they saw the flogging scars on my back, they made a speech. In fairness to my father, and myself, I should explain that those scars had nothing to do with him or the law, but were acquired in the course of a somewhat uncomfortable good deed. Whether they gave a speech or not, they ordered me out of town, sometimes out of their lord’s fief entirely. One particularly sanctimonious son-of-a-bitch held me in lockup for two weeks. When his deputies escorted me to the border, the deputies of the next fiefdom met me there. I crossed four lords’ holdings under such escort, before they released me onto the lands of someone whose neighbors didn’t care to warn him.
    But Todd surprised me. “I don’t suppose it’d do much good to ask how you came by this?”
    He meant that I’d not tell the truth. Remembering how complex the tale had become the last time I’d tried to explain that for all her faults, Lady Ceciel had not committed the murder of which she was accused, and that due to some obscure matters of inheritance and taxation her trial wasn’t likely to be fair, and especially when I’d tried to explain why my father had set such terms on my redemption in the first place . . .
    “Probably not.” I pulled my wrist from Todd’s grasp and wrapped my cloak about myself, for I was now very cold.
    The sheriff’s serious, scholarly gaze rested on my face for some time. Then his eyes went to the dead girl, and then past to the line of blanket-wrapped bodies at the base of the bluff. Surely he couldn’t think I was involved with the wreckers? They’d been working on this coast for three years, and I’d just reached town. ’Twas—
    “Don’t leave Huckerston, Master Sevenson,” Todd said curtly. “You and your friend are witnesses. I know you’ve told us what you saw, but other questions may arise.”
    My jaw dropped. “Don’t leave town?”
    “That’s what I said. For now”—he was already turning away—“I believe we can dispense with your assistance.”
    “Don’t lea —”
    “Yes, sir,” said Fisk smoothly. “Come along, Michael—we’re going.” And he hustled me off, as is his practice when he thinks I’m about to do or say something that might cause us trouble.
    “Well, that was a surprise,” I said, still struggling with the concept of being ordered to stay somewhere.
    “Don’t worry,” said Fisk. “I’m sure it’ll work out just as badly in the end.”
    I laughed, which restored me somewhat. “At least we’ll see those warm beds Joe Potter kept promising before dawn. Although . . .” I turned and looked back at the beach—at the dead. “Truly I had rather stay, and do what little I can. We should have gone to investigate, Fisk. We might have caught them in the act. Seen their faces.”
    Fisk snorted. “And I thought this wasn’t my lucky day. Ignoring that fire was the best decision we ever made, Noble Sir.”
    “You don’t mean that.”
    “Oh yes, I do. These people kill when they’re crossed. I don’t even care how large the reward is. I don’t want to know how large it is. All we want is to stay out of their way, right? Michael, say yes. Please, say yes.”
    “Don’t fret so. If the sheriff and his deputies haven’t uncovered them in three years, ’tis not likely we could find them.”
    “I knew you wouldn’t say yes,” Fisk said gloomily.
    Even as I laughed, I realized he was right. For all its unlikeness, if a chance to stop these monsters should come into my path, I would seize it with both hands. ’Twas the least a knight errant could do.

Chapter 3
Fisk

    T o my surprise we reached our beds not merely before dawn, but in time to get a bit of sleep. The only thing we passed on the road was a pack of hunting dogs, no doubt brought in to track the wreckers. Michael’s face lit with hope when he saw them, but