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“Certainly Pucker has found his mark this eve if a son of the Brotherhood has graced our hall.”

Who in the devil was Pucker?

Moving through the crowd of patrons to a corridor in the back of the great hall, the man guided them down to a cellar. He said not a word as he navigated barrels of grain to a door. Opening it, as if he were a spry youth accustomed to doing this sort of thing, he began to descend rock cut steps using the lantern as a guide.

There were two doors at the bottom. Handing the lantern to Rory, the man pulled a ring of keys from his belt.

“That door,” he said, indicating the one they were not entering, “is a simple storeroom. This one”—he opened it—“is where you’ll be headed.” The man looked at her. “Will you be needing a room?” he then asked Rory.

“Aye,” he responded. The man took another key from the ring and handed it to Rory with not a word.

“Thank you for your hospitality.”

“The pleasure, my lord, is mine.”

With that he offered a quick nod to Freya and began walking back the way they had just come.

“Rory,” she began, but he was already walking. This corridor was narrower, darker, and decidedly less pleasant-smelling than the first. And the first was anything but.

“I will explain when we get to our destination,” he said.

“Which is . . . where, precisely?”

He stopped and lit the candle on yet another wooden door. “Will you hold this?”

As he handed her the candle, Rory’s fingers slid over hers. And by the glint in his eyes, she was certain it had been apurpose. With the same smile on his face that had charmed every patron of Pucker’s Mark above them, he used the key to open the door.

“A storeroom?”

Rory glanced from the left to the right, holding up the candle. Freya could see nothing but more barrels. Following close, she asked what they were looking for.

“That,” he said, indicating a longbow hung on the stone wall. “The arrow would seem to point . . .” He turned. “To that wall. Come.”

It was a large storeroom, and as they walked the length of it, Freya believed she could hear something. It grew louder, though still indistinct, as they approached the wall. Nay, another door.

Murmuring from the other side was a bit clearer now. People.

Knocking four times in quick succession, Rory waited and she behind him. Suddenly, the door opened.

Freya could not possibly have been more surprised.

Chapter Fifteen

His father had first mentioned Pucker’s Mark many years ago. When his cousin Haydn had questioned him about it, Father refused to comment further. Rory had not heard the name again until, just a few summers back, he’d attended his first council. A gathering of both the Waryn and Kerr families, typically held at Brockburg north of the border or, at times, his own home, Bristol Manor. It was only after he’d received his spurs that Rory had been allowed to attend. It was at that first council, though the topic at hand eluded him now, that Rory had heard the name again. But as before, he and his cousin inquired as to its meaning to no avail.

The day Rory had been chosen for this mission, his uncle Toren had pulled him aside. He told him, should Rory find himself west of Bristol Manor in need of news and lodging, he should come to this town. Enter this tavern. And ask the question. The secret, it seemed, was meant to shield the very room they stood before.

“’Tis beautiful,” Freya said beside him. Rory agreed, but he thought less of the room than his companion.

They walked over the threshold only to have the door closed behind them by a serving maid. Unlike the other, this one was dressed more like a lady’s maid. Indeed, the room appeared like the finest of small halls. Lush fabrics, tapestries covering every stone wall, noblemen and a few women drinking ale and wine but, oddly, not seeming to notice him and Freya at all. The other difference was the seating. Instead of long trestle tables, smaller ones, each lit with a single candle, were spaced well apart, giving each party a sort of separateness, a privacy, not found in most rooms of this sort.

In the far-left corner was a wooden screen. From behind it, a woman approached them.

“This way, my lord. Lady.” She escorted Rory and Freya to a table in the corner. A pleasant smell of sage filled the air, quite different from the odors in the tunnels they’d passed through. “’Tis your first time here, is it not?”

“Aye,” they both said at the same time.

“Well then, you’ve found your way to Pucker’s Mark, a tavern within a tavern. A place known to few and only those worthy of it. That door”—she pointed to a different one than where they’d entered—“is always open. It leads to another tunnel and then out beyond the town’s walls. If you were in need of an escape.”