“We’ve been performing all over Tsaftown,” Cole said, the statement awkward and out of place.
Drustan snorted. “More like begging for scraps.”
Mistel shot the lousy hunx a glare, then dove in to help steer the conversation. “We heard your family owns the Black Boar. Someone told us to speak with a man named Fenris about playing there. Do you know him?”
“He’s our best customer,” Drustan said. “We rent rooms to him and all his men. It’s perfect because now we never have vacancies.”
Nash’s grip tightened around his goblet, his smile polite but strained. He cast Drustan a brief glance before answering. “Technically, I own the Boar. My father passed control to me last year. I’ve left the day-to-day to Drustan, but with it being Fenris’s base of operations, most assume he runs the place.”
“Sir Fenris has been protecting this town since the army went south,” Drustan said. “That’s why people think he’s in charge.”
“Protecting it?” Mistel raised an eyebrow. “How noble.”
“Not noble—practical,” Drustan said. “He’s rich and has his own army.”
From what Zanna had told Mistel, the Howlers hardly counted as an army but more of a band of lowborn mercenaries who broke skulls first and never asked questions.
“Rich yet he lives in a tavern?” Kurtz asked.
“Wealthy men don’t do their own dirty work,” Drustan said. “They hire it out, like Nash did with me.”
“Fenris used to have an estate,” Nash said, “but years ago he helped his father try to take over House Livna. The former lord threw them in Ice Island for treason.”
Kurtz grunted and drained his drink.
Mistel raised her eyebrows. “Mercy! That sounds like the start of a ballad.”
“Depends whose side you’re on,” Drustan said.
Cole leaned forward to see Nash around Kurtz and Drustan. “How does a man who lost his estate afford to rent rooms and pay mercenaries?”
“A fair question, that is,” Kurtz said.
Nash poured himself another glass. “Not through honest work, that’s for certain. While we built our fortune breeding the finest animals in the kingdom, Fenris had another approach—burn down a house and steal its gold.”
Drustan lounged back in his chair. “He didn’t steal it. That gold was his father’s. Rightfully his.”
Zanna tilted her head. “What gold?”
Nash exhaled. “Frederick Yarden’s estate was seized after the coup, but before that happened, the old man hid his wealth with friends so he could get it later. He never got out, though. Rotted away in prison. But Fenris? The moment your young king pardoned him, he went straight for his father’s gold.”
“Where was it?” Cole asked.
“Buried in an estate south of the city,” Nash said, sipping his drink. “A place called?—”
Drustan tossed his wadded napkin at Nash. “Don’t tell them that.”
“—Glodwood Manor,” Nash said.
Mistel perked up. She knew that name.
Drustan groaned and fell back in his chair. “Remind me not to tell you my darkest secrets.”
“And they just gave the money back?” Zanna asked. “After so many years?”
Nash barked a laugh. “Of course not. They claimed it was gone. Said they’d never seen it.” He leaned forward, voice dropping. “But Fenris didn’t buy that. Oh no. He tortured the lot of them until they talked, then killed them, took the gold, and burned their house to ash.”
Mistel’s hand flew to her mouth. “He didn’t!”
