we tell Declan?’
‘Tell him what? That a man escorted by soldiers disguised as mercenaries met a man who came into town a couple of days ago and has been …’ Hava shrugged. ‘What? Sneaking around town?’
Almost as one, they both said, ‘We should tell Declan.’
Hava said, ‘You tell him when we get back. He knows you better and I need to …’ She almost said ‘warn Hatu’ but caught herself. ‘… let Hatu know to be careful with those two should they come by the inn.’
They continued on until Hava realized she knew where they were, just as sound from the town drifted to them on the afternoon wind. As they neared, Hava made out the sounds of a hammer and smiled.
HATUSHALY PAUSED TO WIPE PERSPIRATION off his forehead and then resumed hammering another hardwood shingle into the supporting board. Summer was approaching and the days were getting hotter, especially when spent up on the roof of the inn. He and two workers he had hired were finishing all the repairs started by Declan Smith after raiders had tried to burn down the Inn of the Three Stars.
He’d purchased it from Gwen, the previous owner’s daughter, the week before. He and Hava had discussed it at length before they made the offer. Hava had grown to like Gwen, who was to wed Declan, the smith. He had become Hatu’s first ‘friend’ in this town.
Hatu leaned back and caught his breath. The work was not exhausting, but it had been a week of very long days, up before dawn, engaging in tasks that challenged what he knew of several crafts; like most students from Coaltachin, he had spent time being exposed to many skills, for the most part to provide believable stories while acting as an agent for Coaltachin, but he was a master of none of them. This restoration had taught Hatu just how much he didn’t know about carpentry, masonry, and other building trades.
He surveyed the town of Beran’s Hill, taking the time to actually look at the sprawling, growing community. It still felt new to him, as the longest he had lived in any one place had been the school where he had first met Hava and their lost friend Donte, and he sensed his perspective on this place and the people who lived here was changing.
He was playing the part of a new husband and innkeeper, a first as either. He had trained all his life to be a member of the Quelli Nascosti, the secret assassins of Coaltachin, but in fact all of that had been a front contrived to keep him hidden from his true family’s enemies.
Hatu’s real name was Sefan Langene, so Baron Daylon’s body servant Balven had told him. He was the son of a dead king. That made Hatu king in name as well, except there was no kingdom, save one of ashes and ruin on the far side of this continent. As a baby, Hatu had been given over to Master Facaria to be raised as ‘one of his own’, and the baron hadn’t realized that didn’t mean raised in the relative safety of a castle somewhere, surrounded by guards and retainers. One of the older masters, a one-time member of the Council of Masters of Coaltachin, Facaria had indeed raised Hatu as if he had been one of his own children. It had been a difficult, violent and dangerous upbringing. Hatushaly had been reared to become a warrior, crew boss, even master assassin and spy for the Kingdom of Night, as Coaltachin was known. The irony of the dangers he’d faced growing up were not lost on him. Still, it all made sense in a convoluted way; Hatu considered himself as safe as he was ever likely to be, as there were few better students in combat than he.
He almost laughed at his situation, for if he remained a simple innkeeper and kept his hair coloured as a precaution, he was probably as safe as any man in the Barony of Marquensas. Short of being overcome by some mad desire to reclaim his lost heritage, he could spend the rest of his life in relative peace, assuming that his former masters didn’t order his ‘wife’ to kill him. That did cause him to laugh aloud and wonder what more convoluted fate awaited him as he returned to work.
He loved Hava more than he could say, for his schooling had taught little about matters of the heart. He had loved her his whole life but had only recognized that recently. She had always been there for him, a calming presence at the worst times in his childhood, an anchor to keep him from spinning off in rages, the one person who understood him, perhaps better than he understood himself. He also knew she loved him, but the question was: did she love him enough to ignore orders from her masters to leave him or, worse, to kill him? Only time would tell.
He finished a section of the roof and stood up to regard his work and found it apparently sufficient – at least until the next rain, at which time his mistakes would reveal themselves. Then he lifted his eyes and saw Hava and Molly emerging from the woods on the other side of a field. Neither seemed burdened with game, so he wondered if they’d simply not found any, or had used hunting as an excuse for Hava not working.
He doubted the latter, for avoiding work wasn’t in her nature, though he knew she disliked carpentry and the general clean-up the inn required. As game was reputedly plentiful this time of year in the forest nearby, he assumed something else had arisen and that made him curious. He stepped higher up the roof ridge and waved as Hava and Molly cut across the fallow field. Hava spied him and returned the wave.
By the time he had climbed down the ladder, Hava had reached the back gate to the stabling yard. ‘Anyone inside?’ she asked.
‘No,’ answered Hatu. ‘Samuel is on his way to Declan’s to get another bucket of nails.’ He wiped his forehead. ‘And we’re almost done.’
She motioned him to follow her inside. ‘Where’s Roary?’
‘Something to do with helping his mother do something at her shop. He’ll be back in an hour.’
Hava glanced around the now-restored common room of the Inn of the Three Stars. The day before they’d moved casks of ale, barrels of wine, bottles of wine, and whisky, into storage. They had also stocked the kitchen, which was why the roof was not quite finished. Hatu was determined that by tomorrow they would once again be open for business.
‘You know that fellow who came around the day before yesterday – dark hair, tall, looking for a room? The one you sent over to Jacob’s barn?’
‘Yes. Why?’
Hava recounted what she and Molly had observed, and when she finished Hatu said, ‘Sounds like something we may need to report to the masters.’
‘Almost certainly. Who will go?’
Hatu said, ‘It will have to be me.’
Hava’s frown indicated that she didn’t understand why that was the case, so Hatu continued, ‘Haven’t you noticed? None of the women here, except for Molly Bowman, travel alone.’
‘Odd, isn’t it?’ asked Hava.
‘I gave up trying to understand why people do a lot of things since we started travelling with the masters,’ said Hatu softly.
Hava nodded. ‘What will you tell them?’
By ‘them’, she meant the masters who would receive his report.
‘I think I’ll wait a day or two and see if that fellow and the man you said he met reveal anything.’ He glanced around the almost-finished common room and said, ‘I think we were fortunate to have chosen this business. I can’t imagine a better place in Beran’s Hill to have information come to us.’
Hava nodded. ‘I’m not sure how we’ll do as an innkeeper and wife, but if those are the roles we need to play, so be it.’
