Lily carefully put her bag between her feet and tried to relax. They were the only people in here but that didn’t make her feel any less conspicuous. She’d seen how Colin and his men had looked at her. It had been more than curiosity that had their gazes roving up and down her.
“You’ve been here before I take it?” Lily asked Oskar. “These people obviously know you.”
“Some of them,” Oskar agreed. “The population here changes all the time depending on who needs to lie low for a while but there are some like Alan and Colin and his boys who stay here permanently.”
“Why would they want to do that?” Lily asked. “It doesn’t seem a very inviting place to me.”
Oskar snorted. “They dinna have much choice, lass. Every one of them has a price on their heads and will face the hangman if they’re ever caught. A place like this, where no lord sends out his guards on patrol, is the safest place for them.”
Lily swallowed. Wonderful. This was getting better by the minute. “Then why did you bring us here?” she asked, unable to keep the unease from her voice. “We’d be better off camping in some deserted barn!”
His eyes found hers. “Nay, we wouldnae, lass. Did ye not see the sky this afternoon? I suspect there will be snow tonight. This place might be as rough as a badger’s arse but at least it will stop us from freezing to death.”
Lily had no answer to that. Snow? She hadn’t noticed the weather change at all but then she was no expert in that sort ofthing. If she wanted to know the weather forecast she usually checked the app on her phone. She glanced to the window but could see nothing through the crack around the shutters. She shivered. This place might be grim but Oskar was right: having a roof over their heads would be infinitely preferable to spending the night out in a blizzard—if only just.
The innkeeper, Alan, returned and gave Oskar a weak smile, dry-washing his hands nervously. “Yer room is ready, if it please ye,” he said.
Oskar heaved himself to his feet. With his broad frame, muscular arms and the way he was hung about with weaponry, Lily couldn’t blame Alan for being afraid of him. After all,sheought to be afraid of him. She wasn’t quite sure why she wasn’t.
“Good. Show us.”
Oskar indicated for Lily to precede him so she grabbed her bag, then followed the innkeeper through a curtain and into a long corridor with a flagstone floor and doors all along one side. He led them to the one at the end and pushed it open. Lily stepped into a small, low-ceilinged room, which would have been called ‘rustic’ at home.
It had wide rafters holding up the ceiling, black with smoke and age, a stone floor that had obviously been hurriedly swept, and a narrow wooden bed with a straw-stuffed mattress, and a table and chairs. What it also had was a fireplace against one wall with a fire blazing in it, and that alone was enough to make this grubby little room seem like a palace.
The warmth swept over Lily like a blanket, chasing away the chill that seemed to have settled in her bones. She sank gratefully down onto a chair and held her hands out towards the fire. The flames cracked and popped merrily, casting cheerful light across the rough walls.
“It will do,” Oskar said, looking around critically. He tossed Alan a coin. “We’ll eat in here.”
“As ye say, my lord,” the man replied. He tucked the coin away and scurried out. Oskar unbuckled his sword belt and propped his sword in the corner. Then he crossed to the door, stuck his head out, and looked in both directions before closing it again.
“Expecting someone?” Lily asked, arching her eyebrow.
“Aye. And that someone is called Trouble,” Oskar replied.
He prowled around, inspecting the room, checking the shutter across the window was firmly locked, and only when he was satisfied, did he sink onto the edge of the bed with a sigh.
“I think my bones have frozen,” he muttered. “I must be getting soft. Time was when a winter trek wouldnae have bothered me. Now I long for a warm fire as much as any man.” He fell silent, looking towards the shuttered window, his expression turning pensive. Lily guessed he was thinking about Magnus and Emeric.
“Do you think they’ve caught Alfred yet?” she asked.
Oskar turned to look at her. Firelight danced in his eyes and off his copper hair. “I dinna know, but I doubt it. I think Alfred Brewer is more cunning than we took him for. We always thought he was a small cog in a big wheel and that his wife, Alice, was the dangerous one. Now I’m beginning to wonder if we havenae been played for fools all along.” His expression turned angry. “But we’ll get him. One way or the other, we’ll get them both.”
“That sounds like a personal grudge to me.”
She regretted the words the moment they left her lips. Anger flashed in Oskar’s eyes and his nostrils flared.
“Dinna speak of what ye dinna understand!” he snapped. “Ye dinna know me!”
His temper flashed like lightning, appearing out of nowhere. But Lily stood her ground.
“No, I don’t,” she snapped back. “And yet here I am, having to trust you. You clearly know the people here and some of them are clearly afraid of you. Why is that, Oskar? Why would reivers—people who you describe as thieves and murderers— be afraid of you?”
She met his gaze, challenging him. It was something that had been bothering her since the first moment they’d arrived in this hovel. Why would a so-called soldier of this Order of the Osprey be acquainted with a place like this? And why would the people here be scared of him? Who was this man she found herself saddled with?
He glared at her and she could see his jaw working as he ground his teeth. But she didn’t back down. If there was one thing she’d learned in her life, it was how to deal with difficult people. Her patients often didn’t want to comply with her instructions. They were often in pain, often belligerent, often hostile to her regimens. She’d learned to let that all wash over her in order to get to the heart of what was causing it, and finding a way to get to the core of the person within.
She was gratified when he was the first to look away. “That’s a long story,” he muttered.
