Continued from §.14
Luned gasped as she spied Oeric Adair through the keyhole of her flat. The comitem walked patiently, yet eagerly, behind the corpulent, key-jangling landlord, Hoston Sprill. Both men advanced slowly, but steadily, down the corridor; scant minutes from the door.
“Damn that conniving wind-tossed scoundrel. This is all his fault.” She muttered, backing past the divan and the sofa, swiftly towards the tiny apartment’s only window. When she turned full round, she nearly screamed.
Casually lounging upon the sill was Drake Dren, shorn of his recently riven coat, smiling like a jackal.
“How goes it?”
“How many times must I tell ya not to do that, damn thee. Where in blazes have ya been?”
Luned straightened as the sound of Hoston’s fist resounded upon the door of the cramped and peeling flat. Then a pause and a voice following.
“Ms. Luned? Mr. Dren? Anyone home? Its Hoston. Hello? I’ve a gentleman whose most desirous to meet ye.”
“What say you? Shall we stay and chat with Hoston and his friend?”
“Of course not – its Adair. Thou hath said-”
“Of that later. Come.”
Without hesitation, Drake took the woman’s left arm and guided her through the open window to a ladder he’d laid against the side of the tenement to reach the sill. Where he acquired the ladder, Luned had no idea. The man threw his legs out, grabbed the sides of the ladder and slid down a little, smiling at his own successful display of agility, as Luned gasped and redoubled her grasp.
“Curb thy trepidation. Manful make thy heart.” He whispered up to the woman with a grin before sliding all the way down to the bottom of the contraption.
“Mettlesome blighter.” She huffed hotly before beginning her descent.
When the woman made it to the bottom of the ladder, Drake withdrew the device from the side of the tenement and, to Luned’s very great surprize, began folding it up as one might a newspaper, speaking in tones of feigned offense all the while.
“To reproach me for thy own proclivities is to reproach thyself. Or didst thee forget how came our divan and sofa? A simple ‘thank ye’ would be sufficient.”
When the portable ladder was folded to the size of a large suitcase, Drake stuffed it in a heavy and battered leather pack that lay in the alley adjacent their sill and surveyed the alley.
“Where on earth did ya get that?” Luned inquired, gesturing to the pack.
He shushed the woman and drew up his hood, turning away from the woman, and moving into the shadows as a grim figure ambled into view at the leftern end of the alley.
“Who’s that?”
“A man best avoided,” he whispered without pausing, heading to the right exitway.
“Its him isn’t it – the assassin?”
“Aye. He knows me not in my present state and thou art wholly foreign to his experience. Quell thy tongue and shift away.”
She nodded and moved up to his side. Together they passed swiftly to the far right side of the alley, whereupon a considerable throng had gathered in the great thoroughfare beyond. The avenue, however, was obstructed by two large men who stood shoulder to shoulder, clad in heavy haurberks of the paramount.
“Excuse me, sirs, may we pass?”
“Sorry miss,” the smaller of the two guards replied courteously, “Baron Avarr has recently arrived at the outskirts, enroute to Tor. Consequently, the Lord Paramount has commanded the main thoroughfare sealed, to make way for his lauded guest’s procession. Considerable is the host, even now, and word has yet to fully spread; when it does, there will doubtless be all manner of disorder, which our dispensation shall, our lord hopes, in some measure abate.”
The sound of cheers, trumpets and drums flared in the distance.
“I’ve heard he contributed considerably to the war-effort.”
“Aye. Victoriously he returnth.”
The larger guard gesturing flippantly towards the opposite end of the lane, “We’ve answered ya query. Begone. Both of ye.”
Luned and Dren exchanged looks whereupon Dren drew forth, cleared his throat and pulled from his shoulder-slung pack Adair’s plumed cap, revealing the tag to the guards.
The guards furrowed their brows, perplexed.
“Recognize ye the crest?” the thief intoned in his best Adair impression.
The smaller guard’s eyes widened.
“The crest of House Adair! My comitem… please accept my apologies. I recognized thee not.”
“That is precisely as I had intended it – for thou art doubtless primed of the dire circumstance which previously dogged me.”
“Aye milord. And so the cloak.”
“Indeed.”
“A wise precaution. We are pleased to see thee safe.”
The guards then parted and Dren, assuming an air of amiable regality, extended his arm to Luned who took it with a grin.
Arm in arm, the designing pair passed beyond the lane to the great and crowded thoroughfare as a cacophony of ringing steel foretokened the baron’s arrival.
*
continued in part 16 (forthcoming)
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