“I’m in search of the services of a huntsman. Do you know of anyone?” No reason to prevaricate.
The young man took another drink of his water, considering. “I suspect you’re willing to pay for discretion?”
“I am.”
He tilted his head subtly, gesturing to a table in the corner where a man sat alone. A man who appeared no more than a traveler, who bore only one sword and boasted none of the boisterous consistencies of most huntsmen. Curious.
Nodding my thanks to the bard and pouring him a drink on the house—something I wasn’t entirely sure Maerel would approve of—I dismissed myself and made my way to the huntsman.
“Pleasure to have the company,” the man said as I took a seat at his table, keeping my hood drawn. There was a lack of sarcasm to the statement, as if he genuinely were pleased to have a hooded stranger come upon him unexpectedly in a dimly lit tavern.
Resting my forearms on the tabletop, I leaned in, studying the stranger. His eyes, cast to the hearth, reflected the light of the fire and shone in hues of hazel—green and amber with streaks of a dark brown. The tone of his skin was olive, and his deep umber hair was short and curly.
“You do not carry yourself like a huntsman,” I said bluntly.
“Yet you know I am one.” The man turned his gaze on me and held his hand out. “Nox.”
“Lark.” I shook his hand. “I am in need of your services for a most significant purpose.”
“Tell me, Lark.” The huntsman leaned back casually in his chair. “Are the intentions of your task honorable?”
Honorable?“Never have I met a huntsman who concerned himself with the concepts of honor.”
Nox clasped his hands behind his head and raised a brow.
“My task is honorable,” I growled, annoyed by the man and his unusual candor. “The bard tells me you carry yourassignments out with discretion. I need a letter brought to the capital, delivered by hand to the prince.”
“As long as intent is honorable, I am discreet, yes. If I find it is not—” His lips twisted in a considered expression. “Well, I will weigh that at such a point.”
“Compelling.” My patience was waning.
“So sober you are, friend.” The huntsman beamed an easy smile. “The bard has played well on this night. The season is changing, outside warmth carries on the breeze. Within these walls, there is mirth and plenty of mead. Yet you are terribly dour.”
Gritting my teeth, I placed my palms on the table and stood. There would be other huntsmen.
“Is it me who has put you in a foul mood?” Nox drew his brows together. When I set him with a glare, and gave no response, he smiled. “Apologies. As I said, plenty of mead.” He swirled his tankard. The third, I’d brought him. Yet, he did not seem intoxicated, at least not beyond faintly so.
“I will find someone else to carry out the task,” I said, turning to leave.
“Not many huntsmen have access to the castle. Though I suspect as a guard, you would know that.”
The hair on the back of my neck rose, and I turned to face him. “How do you know that?”
With an expression of feigned innocence, Nox tilted his head to the side. “That most huntsmen do not have access, or …?”
I sat again, and the chair screeched across the wooden floorboards at my rough movement. “That I am a guard.”
“Well,” he mused, “I could claim it is the way you hold yourself or the way you speak, for in truth the hood you wear does very little to conceal that you do not come from the same place as these men and women do. But alas, such things wouldnot be enough to draw a clear deduction. It is simply that I have seen you before. In Urandun.”
“Yet I do not recall you.” I narrowed my eyes.
“Nox Perdere.” He dipped his head. “The youngest of Commander Perdere’s sons and his greatest disappointment. It's not difficult to overlook me, I admit.”
“A huntsman, the son of a commander?” I scoffed.
“See, now you sound like my father.” There was no malice, no condescension in the huntsman’s tone. The man had not once lost his casual demeanor since I began our conversation. “But it is because I am his son that I have access to the castle.”
“I have seen others deliver letters by hand before. You lie.”
