Red Heir - Lisa Henry Page 0,40

Loth supposed, was probably not very restful.

“Scott.” Loth beckoned him.

Scott bobbed and dipped his way over to the table, and it took Loth a moment to realise his contortions were because he was trying to walk and bow at the same time. “Good morning, my grace. Your grace. Grace.”

“Good morning,” Loth said. “Now, Scott, what’s the plan today? Are we leaving for Callier?”

“Yes,” Scott said. “Absolutely. Unless no.” He wavered. “What is your wish, My Prince?”

Loth exchanged a glance with Cue. “I think that we should be cautious, and travel by dark.”

Scott blinked at him.

Ada stomped over. “That’s not a bad idea, actually.”

“Um, the roads are very dangerous at night,” Scott said.

“Are they?” Loth asked.

“That’s what my mum says,” Scott replied, nodding earnestly.

“Does your mum travel with an orc for protection?” Loth asked.

Scott opened his mouth and then closed it again. He shook his head.

“Then we travel by night,” Loth said. “Calarian, what’s your night sight like?”

“Like a fucking hawk’s,” Calarian said with a grin. Then he looked pensive. “Can hawks see at night?”

“Nobody in this group knows anything about animals,” Cue muttered, but he was smiling.

“Then that’s our advantage,” Loth said. “We have Dave’s muscle, Calarian’s sight, and it would take a bandit with balls bigger than a giant’s to try to rob Ada. And if we travel at night, we are unseen. There will be nobody reporting our journey to Callier until we’re knocking on this benefactor’s door to announce it ourselves.”

He looked around the group.

Calarian and Ada nodded. Dave just looked happy to be there.

“Excellent idea!” Scott exclaimed. He cleared his throat. “It is my decision that—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Calarian said, and smacked Scott around the back of the head.

Loth couldn’t have said it any better himself.

The decision to travel at night meant that they got to partake of a luxury even greater than a hot bath. Loth made enquiries of the maid in the inn, and a little while later a washerwoman turned up to collect their clothes and take them away for cleaning. Loth and Cue returned to their room, wrapped in blankets, and ate cheese and bread and pickled onions. Loth was ready to offer to teach Cue a few more of Calarian’s mysterious sex positions, but Cue crashed out in the bed before he could suggest it, and Loth didn’t have the heart to wake him.

The washerwoman returned their clothing at dusk, and it was a very different group indeed that gathered in the taproom for dinner that evening. Everyone was clean and pink-skinned—apart from Dave, who was clean and green-skinned—and their clothes, although worn and patched here and there, were no longer various shades of mud.

“Look at you,” Loth said when Cue wandered into the taproom. He was wearing a faded mustard shirt that didn’t clash too badly with his hair and was a massive improvement on the rags he’d been wearing in the dungeon cell at Delacourt. Loth suspected those hadn’t survived the washerwoman’s attentions. “You look like a new man, Cue.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“Who?” Scott asked.

“Cue,” Loth said. “Well, look at him. I can hardly call him Grub now, can I? He’s practically shiny!”

“Yes, someone’s given him a very thorough spit and polish,” Calarian said, raising his eyebrows.

Ada chuckled under her breath, and Cue turned an even pinker shade. But he sat down next to Loth in the space Loth had left him and kept his chin up.

The maid brought food, and they ate. Loth was aware of Calarian carefully counting out their money for the meal. He figured that today’s laundry had sucked their funds dangerously dry, but he wasn’t too worried. Loth had survived on a shoestring before, and there was no Swamp of Death between them and their destination this time. As soon as they were somewhere new, Loth would give his tingling fingers a workout, and bolster their funds enough to see them fed all the way to Callier.

Loth wasn’t quite on his home turf now, but he was finding his feet again. And there was nothing like a hot, filling meal of rabbit stew and fresh bread to really build up his confidence.

He should have known it was too good to be true.

“Horses,” Calarian said suddenly, tilting his head to listen. “Maybe five. Coming fast.”

Loth leapt up from his seat, dragging Cue by the wrist. He trampled up the stairs. Had he left anything in his room? Was there even time to check?

Dave lumbered up the steps behind him, Ada pushing at him.

Loth hurried