After reassuring Somhairle that no similar large-scale deception had been ferreted out since—strict measures had been taken to ensure no such plots could similarly fester—Faolan escorted him upstairs. On the steps, Faolan explained that the Queensguard had proven loyal to the Queen by leading the raid on House Ever-Loyal. Allegedly, one of the Queensguard had herself brought evidence of Tomman Hail Ever-Loyal’s treason to Catriona.
Once he’d been encouraged to start speaking, Faolan seemed unable, or unwilling, to stop.
Somhairle’s heart felt heavier than his head. He wanted only to trudge to bed and mourn in peace.
“I lied to you before,” Faolan charged on, with such cheerfulness that it pulled Somhairle from his inner realm. “I suppose I do have gentler feelings, and I don’t want you to worry. Know this.” Faolan’s features sharpened, every bit the young lord orphaned early yet shrewd enough to lead his house to glory. His words were like hammered metal. “At present, the Last and I are researching something that will crush all treason, all memory of treason, down to its final gasp.”
They stopped in front of Somhairle’s bedroom door. With one gentlemanly flourish, Faolan the blade vanished behind an air of coy amusement. He wore again the expression of an insouciant dandy as he opened the door and stepped aside.
“That’s supposed to prevent me from worrying?” Somhairle asked.
Faolan bowed. This time, it was mocking, but Somhairle didn’t get the feeling he was the target. Who was? “All your birds are dead, I miss my damned dogs—might as well do something to enjoy myself.”
“Or you could do something to make things better,” Somhairle murmured wearily, but Faolan had already left, having provided Somhairle with more new questions than old answers.
26
Cab
Cabhan of Kerry’s-End had defected from the Queensguard for a number of reasons. Reasons he’d since forced himself to stop chewing over in the hopes of sleeping decently for a change.
He’d put the promise of promotion, all the bloodlust and murder disguised as patriotism, behind him. He’d chosen to live on the run, and he hadn’t glanced back.
He figured adventure was likewise behind him, the price he had to pay for his freedom. Nameless and unrecognizable as the lad he’d once been, he’d returned to Kerry’s-End, wearing clothes he’d gathered from three separate drying lines.
If his shirt scratched him at night because it’d been sewn with quickbeam seeds for protection, well, that was what he got for stealing.
For abandoning his post. For returning to the superstitious countryside.
Cab hadn’t looked anyone in the eye since he’d been back. He’d taken on odd jobs for minimal pay in order to keep his body busy. He had to tire it out so well that he could stumble straight to sleep when he finally lay down for the night.
So he could forget the things he’d seen.
Or pretend he forgot.
For three nights now, he’d slept in Tithe Barley’s barn while he cleared the weeds from her sowing fields. The endless repetition—pulling and digging, stooping and gathering—numbed his head and his heart just fine.
“Most boys leave Kerry’s-End, don’t show up here asking for work,” Barley’d said on Cab’s first day. Squinting at him like she imagined she recognized him, then squinting at him like she realized she didn’t.
“Thank you,” Cab had replied. Her offer of work was a kindness, and Tithe Barley had been good to his ma before widow’s lung took her.
They hadn’t shared more than two words since, but someone left cooked meals at the barn door morning and night. Cab guessed that meant Barley was satisfied with his work.
People in Kerry’s-End kept to themselves, to their private, difficult lives, which was what he liked best about them. He craved the bluff, glancing nature of his country folk, already too full with their own secret sorrows to probe after their neighbors’.
His boots were the only thing he’d allowed himself to keep from his Queensguard uniform. They were battered and muddy now, unrecognizable, but the soles had good years left in them. Couldn’t toss them. Practicality trumped sentimentality. Needed to, for a man’s survival.
Time might have sweetened the sour taste left in his mouth by politics on the Hill. Maybe he would’ve found a way to return to the boy he’d been: a lad with no more complicated aspirations than serving his Queen and country. He might have forgotten the startling warmth of a stranger’s fresh blood on his skin. It wasn’t particularly noble to want to move past something like that, to bury