Chapter 12

Rhea’s POV

The knife hung on the nail above the bed all night. I lay beneath it and slept little, listening to the delegation's horses shifting and snorting in the yard and to Tessa breathing across the room.

I waited until the guard stepped away from the corridor, then slipped out before the bell. By first light I was on the straw-covered path behind the kitchen while most of the yard was still in shadow.

I had done the counting in the dark already: thirty-odd horses had come in with the delegation, far too many for the household's stalls, the surplus picketed under the open shed with rope and no lock on any gate.

One man with a book and a boy asleep against a post could not keep track of all those horses. I was counting on him not noticing one missing.

Their horses smelled different from ours, grain-fed and kept close, taller at the shoulder, and the dung steamed where it lay in the straw.

I walked the shed from the far end with my hands loose, noting the troughs, the buckets stacked three high, the rack of bridles hung in no order at all.

The grey I chose was dark, with a plain head, the kind nobody would look at twice in a line of thirty. I untied its rope from the rail and held it in my hand.

The stirrups hung too low for me, so I shortened the leathers and worked a stiff fold soft under my thumb.

I was thinking about the road east and how far it would take me in a morning if the ground held when a wide man came round the end of the shed with an empty bucket in one fist, his collar wet and his expression unreadable.

He looked at the rope, then at my face, then at the rope again.

"That one's crown stock," he said. "Royal stock, come in with the party."

"Hollis. Where's the count?" someone called.

"It's coming."

Hollis set the bucket in the straw and folded his arms.

"Yesterday we were short a bit. Today you're at my rails. You'll want to think how that looks."

Two of the delegation's men drifted up from the far end, one turning a halter over in his hands.

I did not let go of the rope and I did not put my hand on the knife. I wrapped the rope twice round my palm and held it up where he could see it.

"Then go and fetch the man who lost it," I said, "and let him look at me himself. I'll stand here while he does."

No man from the court was going to accuse a woman over a missing snaffle in front of his own grooms. I was counting on that.

"That one's mine," said a voice from behind the shed, easy and unhurried.

A young man came round the corner with a wet brush still in his hand and his sleeve pushed above his elbow.

Hollis turned on him. "Then you'll give me the tack number, my lord, and it'll match my book."

"Forty-seven," the man said. "Count it again."

Hollis went back to his book on the barrel, counted, and came back looking annoyed, but did not argue again.

Then he went off down the shed without looking at either of us.

I let the rope out through my fingers and stepped back, and my left arm had tightened from wrist to shoulder.

He took the rope from my hand, led the grey two steps to the rail, and mounted.

The horse jerked its head down and spun as soon as his weight settled. He slipped sideways out of the saddle and hung on to its front with one hand, one boot out of the stirrup.

I got both hands on the pommel and the near side of the neck, turned the head into my shoulder, and held it while the animal spun twice on its hocks and stopped with its ribs heaving under my palms.

He got himself upright, breathing hard, and looked down at me with his hair in his eyes.

"It's the inspector's," he said, quiet enough that the men at the rails would not hear. "He paid a great deal for it. I thought I'd find out what for."

A laugh escaped before I could stop it.

I looked to see who had heard. Nobody was near enough except him, and he made nothing of it.

He dismounted, led the grey back to the rail, and began brushing its back in long, even strokes.

I stood with my shoulder against the post and worked the mud off my boot on the corner of the timber.

"Where were you taking it?" he asked.

"Looking for a road. I'm going to the court to find someone."

"All right." He nodded. "There's a track off the east side, past the old charcoal burners. It floods in the wet and costs you a day in the mud if you guess wrong, but in the dry it brings you round half a day ahead of the main road."

He turned the brush over and used the flat of it. "Not many use it. It isn't on the maps."

I looked at him properly then. "How do you know what's east of this house?"

He looked at the horse. "The boys who fetch the water know the roads. They told me."

"I'm glad you told me. I've been standing here talking to you a while now," I said, "and I don't know your name."

He turned to face me, giving me the same unhurried look he had given the horse. "Kieran Voss."

"Rhea Calder."

By the time we came round the front of the shed the yard was filling. I walked along the rail with him and pointed out three horses: the one that bites, the one with the bad back, and the one that would do.

He mounted the third, and it stood still beneath him, and he laughed like a boy who had got away with something.

"You know horses better than the men who keep them," he said.

"I know what to look at."

Adrian came out of the main house then with a roll tucked tightly under his arm, Owen a step behind him.

I drew a quick breath before I had time to think.

Then I let it out, and my voice came out flat.

"Finally free, are you?" I said.

He shifted the roll into his other hand. "I sent a man to look for you earlier, but you turned him away," he said.

Kieran moved his horse aside.

He gathered the reins, backed his horse half a pace, and said cheerfully to nobody in particular, "I'll go and see whether forty-seven still knows me."

"What is it?" I asked.

Adrian took a moment. His thumb moved once on the cloth and stopped.

"The roads outside the estate," he said at last, evenly. "Drawn on cloth, so you can carry it."

I did not reach for it. "Just have someone send it up to my room. I'll look at it when I'm back. What I've said I'll do, I'll do myself."

He looked at me for a while, the roll still in his hand, and then he said, "All right."

He turned and gave the roll to Owen, then told him to separate the delegation's horses from the household's and picket them by the east rail, where the ground was higher. The grooms were to keep the tack separate, and Owen was to find the man with the book and settle the count before midday.

Every order followed the one before and his voice didn't change once.

I was still standing there with my fingers on the hilt when he left.