Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [87]
Who was defending Cecilia? It should have been me.
Maggie nodded. She pulled her cloak far over her face. I said, “Part the cloak at the waist so they can see your boots and breeches. They must think we are two boys.” She nodded again and did as I directed—a first.
Two men sat drinking in the taproom, with another carrying in mugs of ale from a room beyond. They studied us with cold eyes.
“We need a room for the night,” I said, holding out my palm with a silver coin on it. “My brother has fallen and hurt his leg.”
Maggie began to limp.
The innkeeper looked from my coin to my face to my thick, fur-lined cloak. His voice was genial and oily. “Aye, lad. I’ve a fine room for ye, upstairs. My best. And mayhap a bit of supper?”
“No, thank you.”
“As ye wish. This way.”
I followed him upstairs. The same tiny room under the eaves, the same sagging bed. Maggie limped behind me. The innkeeper said, “Thirty pennies for the night.”
That was outrageous, but I nodded. “Fine. My brother must rest his leg, but I’ll come down with you and have a mug of ale.”
His greasy smile broadened. “As ye say, sir.”
Maggie, looking frightened, hobbled into the room. I heard her bolt the door. I followed the innkeeper to the taproom, let him bring me a mug of ale from the back room, let him charge me a ridiculous three pennies. The remaining seventeen lay on the table beside my mug. The other two men sat across from me, saying nothing. They were neither young nor old, dressed in patched brown wool, and neither had washed in a very long time. Their smell would have been even worse, except that the room was cold. Wind off the sea whistled between chinks in the walls, turning the small fire fitful. We all wore cloaks.
They would make their move soon—robbery at best, murder at worst—and I must make mine first. “Warm in here, is it not?” I said.
No answer.
“Very warm.” I made a great show of wiping my forehead and neck. And I waited.
Finally one growled, “Where ye bound, boy?” His teeth were broken, brown as his cloak.
“I’m looking for my lady mistress.”
That got both their attention, and the innkeeper’s as well.
“She fled her father’s estate a few days ago, and forgot to tell me where to meet her.”
“Forgot? What d’ye mean, boy? Speak plain!”
“I am speaking plain.” I opened my eyes wide, looking as guileless as I could, and then clutched my stomach.
“You sick?”
“No, no, just something bad that I ate . . . Yes, she forgot. And she never forgets me. I’m her musician, you see, and she is very musical. Shall I sing for you?”
“No,” he growled as I knew he would. “What’s your mistress’s name?”
“Lady Margaret. Although I think she might ...” I scrunched up my face, like a half-wit trying to remember something. “I think she might use another name. I forget what.”
The innkeeper said, “Your lady mistress runs away—”
“Not runs away—flees.”
“—flees from her father’s home to the Unclaimed Lands? Not likely, lad.”
The other man at the table was now watching me more closely. He had as yet said nothing at all. I spoke directly to him. “Have you seen her? She’s small, with brown hair and green eyes and she’s very, very pretty.”
There was a sudden silence among the three men. Finally the innkeeper said, “She does not travel alone.”
“No.” Mother Chilton had told me as much, and then had not told me whom Cecilia was with, calling me stupid for even asking.
The man with broken teeth said, “You’re a fool, boy.”
“I am told that often,” I said with a big sunny smile. “But in her haste my lady forgot me, and my brother and I must