Lira Neswick's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

The innkeeper's note came three days later. Lira read it at her writing table. He knew her seal. He knew her gryphon. He wanted coin for his silence, or he would carry her secrets to a rival noble. She set the note down and did not reach for her purse. A man paid once would ask again. She would not spend her life feeding him. She rode to the inn at dusk. She did not bring money. She brought a story. The innkeeper met her at the door. Flowers climbed the wooden frame, painted shutters bright against the old boards. He wiped his hands on his apron and grinned. "The woman in silk," he said. "You got my letter, then." "I did," Lira said. "You've been clever. But you don't know what you're holding." His grin thinned. "I know enough to sell it." "You know a mark and a bird," she said. "You don't know whose. Lord Cassimer keeps a ledger of my visits. He thinks he owns me. If a noble learns you've been peddling his scribe's secrets, he won't pay you. He'll ask who told you. And then he'll ask why you kept quiet so long." The innkeeper's hand stopped on his apron. She saw the thought reach him. He was not a seller of secrets now. He was a man who had held one too long. "You witnessed nothing," Lira went on. "You held a room under a false name and asked no questions. That was wise. Stay wise. I'll pay you a keeper's fee, plain and honest, for a room I'll use again. No secrets. Just custom." She placed coins on the sill, beside a twisting vine of silver blooms that grew along the stone. Fewer coins than he had hoped. Enough to look like ordinary rent. He stared at them. "And if I talk anyway?" "Then you're the man who blackmailed a noble's scribe," she said. "Guess which of us the court believes." He took the coins. His shoulders dropped. The threat had left him, and he knew it. "A room," he said. "That's all this ever was." "That's all," Lira agreed. She rode home under the lanterns. The innkeeper was bought, not with fear of exposure, but with fear of his own guilt. He would keep her room and keep his mouth shut. One thread of her scheme was knotted off. But she had said a true thing aloud. Lord Cassimer kept a ledger of her visits. She had used his name to frighten a stranger, and the words stayed with her on the road. Cassimer was still counting. The innkeeper had only seen a mark and a bird. Cassimer saw the pattern. He wrote down every door she entered. A frightened innkeeper she could manage in an evening. A patient lord with a ledger was another matter.