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She nodded, but he could tell she’d lost interest. “Anything happening out here?”
“Nothing to report,” he said. “You should have a quiet night.”
“See you in the morning.”
After breakfast, Brandon offered to run errands for the cook, saying he was getting so restless he had to do something useful or lose his mind. She gratefully accepted his offer and handed him a list of ingredients, so he took off before Linnet had even finished her twelve-hour shift.
He didn’t have much time. Everyone would expect him to dawdle over his chores, because anyone who left the house was always gone longer than the errands would seem to justify. But he still only had a window of a few hours. He hopped onto the first chugger headed south, and exited near the bridge nearest his lodgings.
There were four or five stables in the immediate vicinity, and Brandon applied his usual criteria. He wanted one that looked clean enough to be respectable but rundown enough that its owners would be grateful for any business, and not inclined to ask questions. There were two that seemed to perfectly fit that description, and he chose the one closest to his apartment.
“I need a couple of dependable horses and all the gear,” he told the stable owner. It wasn’t hard to make his voice disgruntled, his expression irritable. “My wife says—well, I don’t think her father’severgoing to die, you know what I’m saying? But she thinks it might happen this time, and she wants to be there.”
The stablemaster nodded, trying to fix a sympathetic expression on his face but clearly putting more effort into calculating the charges. He was a broad man with massive arms and powerful legs. The bracelets he wore on both arms were made of braided leather studded with bits of gold and silver. Brandon had seen such a style employed before by blacksmiths, who were understandably wary about wearing metal directly against their skin, and workers who labored in dirty jobs.
“Would you rather rent or buy?” the stablemaster asked. “If you won’t need the horses long, you might be better off renting.”
Brandon grunted. The chances were very slim that he would ever have the chance to return the beasts. And—despite the fact that he was fast becoming the most adept liar he’d ever met—he couldn’t bring himself to swindle an honest workingman. “I’d rather buy just because—well, who knows how long we might have to be staying with him? But if you’re open to a re-purchase when we get back—”
“Might just be,” the other man answered. “Let me show you what I’ve got on hand.”
Brandon knew enough about horses to be pretty sure when he wasn’t being cheated, so he agreed to the first two animals the stablemaster suggested and only haggled a little on the price. “Might be three-four more days before we leave,” he said. “You can board them until then? For a fee, I mean.”
“Of course.”
“Good man.”
He made a few other stops to pick up the barest necessities for a brief overnight stay. A couple of blankets. Some dried food that would keep for a few weeks and travel well. A bottle of wine, just because, if they ever actually made it to their desperate refuge, they’d both probably need it.
He carried all his purchases back to the rented rooms and placed them neatly on the floor. Then he stomped around for a few minutes and knocked on the walls, just so the neighbors would realize he was present. That way they’d be less startled when he and Villette showed up in the middle of the night. Or so he hoped.
Finally, he set off for the food markets to pick up the items the cook had requested. He’d been gone longer than he planned, but he felt pretty good about what he’d accomplished. They were ready for a midnight flight. And that midnight was only a few days away.
When Brandon made it back to the house, Finley met him at the door. “Took you long enough,” she said.
He grinned. “I got distracted. Anything going on here?”
“Yes,”she answered, her voice low and full of excitement.
He raised his eyebrows, but she just shook her head. “Drop this stuff off, then come out and walk the grounds with me.”
She was clearly bursting with news, so he didn’t waste time asking more questions. He took all the food to the cook, brushed off her thanks, then headed back out the front door. Finley was already halfway down the fence line as if checking the integrity of the posts. He glanced around and located Abe near the far corner of the house, digging up something that might be a rosebush. Too far away to hear anything.
Brandon hustled to catch up with Finley as she continued walking the perimeter. “What’s up?”
“Visitors all day long! Well, two.”
“So who were they?”
“The first one was from the temple.”
Brandon felt his heart thump with anxiety. “Michalo again?”
“No.The high divine this time! He went directly up to Villette’s room and walked right in. We could hear both of them yelling.”
“Who could hear?”
“The maid and the cook and me. Linnet was asleep and Abe was in the garden. But the three of us were all in the foyer, and we could hear everything.”
