”You have a pretty scenery out here in Trestlebridge. Do you ever go for a walk outside the village, Mrs. Shelton?” Hellrien asked.
”Quite often.”
”Alone?”
”No. Andrew demands that one of the… town’s guardsmen goes with me.” The woman pursed her lips scornfully.
”You don’t like them?”
”No more than I like you, miss. I can’t abide violence!”
”As far as I know, the purpose of the Guard is mainly to prevent violence. As is the purpose of The Bloody Dawn Garrison as well.”
”I beg your forgiveness if I have offended you. But hiring mercenaries was Andrew’s idea, not mine. Orcs do not scare me.”
”Perhaps they should. It’s not that long ago since you almost lost your whole town to a fire during an orc raid.”
”There’s no reason for that kind of talk, miss. I didn’t see you here on the night of the fire.”
Hellrien set the mug down on the table. She squinted her eyes, and her mouth pulled into a typical lop-sided grin that revealed her irritation.
”Where is your husband?” she asked briefly. ”I can’t wait forever.”
She saw how the woman’s eyes flashed. ”I beg your forgiveness again, miss. I don’t intend to be impolite. Perhaps I am a little… ill-tempered. Trestlebridge has never before needed assistance from outsiders. It’s a little… depressing. Andrew is in town. He’ll be here any minute now. Where are you staying, miss? I can arrange a room in Nellie Boskin’s house.”
Hellrien stood up. ”No thank you. I’m staying at The Bloody Dawn Garrison.”
”You’re not leaving already?”
”I’ll be back. There is something I need to discuss with Guardsman Otley while he’s still at the barracks.”
”All right. Good bye until then.”
Hellrien crossed the market square and stepped along the main street back to the Trestlebridge Barracks. Otley stepped outside. Hellrien looked at him appraisingly. Otley was a red-headed man in his thirties. He was wearing short-sleeved chain armor beneath a brown surcoat, emblazoned with the Trestlebridge coat of arms.
”Lo, The Bloody Dawn!” His dark eyes flashed.
”I have a word from Undersergeant Blunoss”, Hellrien said. ”He would like to meet you in his office some time today, when you have time. He wants to discuss about some changes to the guard rota.”
”And when Undersergeant Blunoss dispatches his errand boys and girls to do his bidding, us lesser men must come running, right?”
”I was just asked to send a word”, Hellrien said. In a way she felt sympathy for Otley. It must have felt shameful, almost humiliating for the Trestlebridge Guard to be reinforced and supplanted by outsider mercenaries in defending their own homes. But there was something about Otley she didn’t like, something cold and contemptuous deep in his dark, beady eyes.
”Good”, the guardsman smiled below his well-groomed, ginger mustache. ”I am a very busy man, but I will drop by to have a chat with your Undersergeant Blunoss at some point today, if I can fit it into my busy schedule.” Otley raised his hands to his hips and made a big fuss about not going to move a muscle in Hellrien’s presence. Hellrien felt a hot flash going through her body. Otley might have noticed her reaction, as his nostrils grew wide, and his eyes saucered and became alert.
There was a moment of tense silence between them. Then Hellrien turned around and returned to the Mayor’s house. She found Maria in the porch.
She sat down heavily. ”What’s eating Mr. Cranes?” she asked briefly.
Maria looked at her. What had happened down at the Trestlebridge barracks? Earlier Hellrien had appeared almost impassive. Now she had a deep sparkle in her eyes, and a strange sneer on her lips. Had she quarreled with Otley or the others?
”Mr. Cranes is my brother, miss”, Maria announced. ”What do you mean by that?”
Hellrien shrugged. ”He had a picture of a young woman on his table. His daughter, I presumed, and he admitted that much, but told me she was ’dead to him’. What did she do?”
”You must mean Poppy, my niece. She might as well be dead for real, as far as anyone knows. Nobody has seen her in seven or eight years.”
”What happened?”
”There was… a scandal. She became pregnant.”
”And Mr. Cranes… didn’t approve of the father?”
Maria didn’t reply, but her eyes grew darker and more alert. Hellrien stared at her.
”Did Mr. Cranes drive her out of town?”
”Drive her? No, she left. But really, miss, I don’t understand what you’re hoping to gain by sticking your nose in other people’s business. Poppy has nothing to do with orcs or the defense of Trestlebridge!”
Hellrien sensed that there was something the woman didn’t want to tell her, and something she was lying about. But she didn’t want to press the matter further. Hellrien lit her pipe and stared at the woman through a cloud of smoke.
Maria got nervous. ”I don’t understand what’s keeping Andrew so long. I hope that…”
”He’s not out in the countryside, is he?”
”No”, Maria responded, more calmly this time. ”I… I am nervous. This is getting on my nerves. This waiting. Day in and day out.”
”It looked like it was getting on Mr. Cranes’ nerves as well.”
For the first time Hellrien spotted a slight trace of a smile on Maria’s tight-lipped mouth.
”Are you really a sellsword, miss Hellrien? Or perhaps an all-knowing wandering soothsayer?”
Hellrien responded to her smile. ”I’m no soothsayer. But I can read a lot from people.”
”Of that I have no doubt.”
They heard a booming voice.
”Here I am at last, my dear! And this must be miss Hellrien, from The Bloody Dawn? Please forgive me for being so late. Duties… he he hee.”
Hellrien stood up and shook the outstretched, somewhat bloated hand.
Mayor Andrew Shelton was exactly as she had pictured him to be – slightly red and chubby, well-dressed and dominant. But in his eyes Hellrien saw something she had seen in a thousand pairs of eyes before:
Fear.
