The horse reared suddenly as a slight young man, giggling drunk from the sound of him, stumbled and rolled directly beneath the horse’s hooves. The big stallion crow-hopped backward a few feet and dropped again to all fours, sidling a bit as two more young men spilled from a tavern and stooped to pick up their friend. I controlled the horse, waiting until they had the drunken lad on his feet before speaking. Not that the purported rescuers were in any better shape, I noted.
“There are easier ways of killing yourself than being trampled to death,” I observed dryly to the wobbling trio before me. “Or by drinking yourselves to death,” I added as an afterthought. Two of them seemed to find this exceedingly funny, while the third, the one who had fallen in the street, took offense, drew his rapier and brandished it theatrically in my general direction. The battle-trained stallion, seeing the flash of steel before his nose, reared again, lashed out with one hoof and caught the would-be warrior neatly in the chest. I heard a bone snap; the youth dropped his sword into the half-frozen muck and stared at it stupidly for a few seconds before crumpling into an untidy heap beside it. Cursing, I vaulted from the horse’s back, dropped the reins to the ground, and knelt next to the fallen bravo. The other two stood gaping stupidly for a time before one of them spoke.
“We were going to the stews,” he said plaintively.
“Go then,” was my terse answer. The speaker shook his head.
“Roger was going to pay,” he said, mournfully indicating the figure at his feet. I snorted.
“Help me get him back inside, fetch a surgeon, and I’ll pay,” I said with distaste, and finally carried the young man back inside by myself, the other two being too drunk to help. When I stepped into the light the taller of the two gasped.
“It’s him,” he hissed to his companion. “Prince Kryštof, that Her Majesty banished from Court the last time we were there!”
“When did she?” the other asked bewilderedly.
“While you were outside spewing your tripes up,” he spat, then turned tome. “I am Sir Henry Warren, your grace, and this is Sir Edward Selby. That’s the Earl of Almsbury,” he added, indicating his unconscious companion. “We’ve been most anxious to meet you—” he withered under my baleful one-eyed glare, and the two beat a hasty retreat, returning shortly with a stooping gray-haired man, who wheezed and clucked, but seemed to set the collarbone competently enough. The young man regained consciousness at some point during the process, but fortunately seemed too drunk to feel it. As he turned his blond head to the light and opened his incredible violet-blue eyes I started: it was my young companion from the cemetery, Roger Randolph. I had seen Almsbury swanking around the court, but had never really paid him enough attention to recognize him. The boy smiled at me then sank into a stupor again. I turned to the other two asking where they lodged, but couldn’t get an intelligible answer. I flipped the two a gold noble and they departed, arguing over which brothel to patronize. I was between keepers at the moment, Nicolas having departed to spend a few months seeing to our business interests in Paris and Rózsa’s arrival from there being delayed by storms in the Channel, and that aided my decision. I shrugged and made arrangements to take the wounded man with me to Chelsey.
The innkeeper, seeing gold spent so casually, was as helpful as could be, bundling the young man’s dropped sword so it could be tied to the saddle, and assigning his largest stableman to lift the cloak-wrapped casualty to my saddlebow after I had mounted. The round-faced little man had stepped forward to attend that office himself, but one look at the stallion’s laid-back ears and rolling eye had been enough to convince him of his folly. I settled the lad against me then felt in my purse for coin. The innkeeper gasped as he deftly fielded the coin tossed to him, knowing it for gold by the weight, before he ever lifted it to the light. A silver piece followed, slipped to the stableman, but from the look on the master’s face, the hostler wasn’t going to see much of it. I frowned and asked the big man to check the girth, taking the opportunity to speak quietly to him.
“If you should find yourself wanting other employment, come to