worry about my little shelf,” she said, rattling her fingers on her belly. “Flood babies are a hardy lot. More important, how did you get here?”
Folly jumped in excitedly. “I went to find her. There was a storm—”
“Rat in the jacks! There you are, Folly,” Faye interrupted. “I’ve hardly seen you the past two days, love. Your chores are piling up.”
Folly’s face fell.
“We’ve got freebooters in port,” Faye continued, with a nod to the crowd of sailors circling the brawlers. “There are bar rags and linens in need of washing. You can play with your friends after you’ve finished.”
Folly frowned at Rye with a look that said I told you, and slumped off.
“As for you, Riley dear, Abby is around here somewhere.” Faye glanced about.
But Rye’s gaze had already found her. Her mother’s face seemed even more lined with worry than it had just days before, but to Rye she was still the most beautiful woman in the whole village. Rye felt her eyes well up with tears.
Abby opened her arms wide. Rye stepped forward and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. She didn’t let go for a long while.
Rye started to ask questions but Abby just pressed her head back to her shoulder and held her close. Once Rye had settled, Abby eased her towards the Mermaid’s Nook, the secluded corner of the inn that housed Rye’s favourite table. Rye set her walking stick on the carved tabletop and sat down.
“Mama,” Rye said finally, “the Willow’s Wares?”
“Don’t give it another thought,” Abby said quietly. “It was just a building. No more than brick and wood. What’s important is that we are all safe now.”
“Are we?” Rye asked.
“Of course,” Abby said.
“But we were attacked this morning.”
Rye explained their encounter with the sniggler and detailed the Constable’s announcement on Market Street. Abby listened intently.
“And this,” Rye added, unfurling the crumpled parchment in her pocket.
Abby looked over the Earl’s proclamation. Rye watched her mother’s grim face. Abby was silent.
Finally, Abby spoke. “Do I always look that cross?” She arched a playful eyebrow.
“Sometimes,” Rye said, but she was not calmed by her mother’s jest. “The Earl is searching for us,” she said matter-of-factly.
Abby nodded. “It seems so. Not that he’ll find us easily.” She gave Rye just a hint of a knowing grin. “No one here knows our names.”
The correct answer when asked about someone’s identity at the Dead Fish Inn was always, Who? Never heard of him. Abby tossed the parchment into the roaring fireplace.
“But why come after us now?” Rye asked. “Does he believe this new Constable will protect him?”
Abby shook her head gravely. “That I don’t know. But if Longchance seeks trouble hard enough he’s sure to find it sooner or later. I expect your father will be here shortly. When he arrives … he, your uncle, the others … will be certain the matter is addressed.”
Rye looked across the inn to where Bramble had joined two men at the bar. They sat casually over numerous empty mugs, their mud-caked boots tapping on the rungs of their stools. But Rye sensed a wariness in their constantly shifting eyes, like hungry predators watchful for their next mark.
“Bramble told me to give you this,” Rye said, remembering the battered box. She took it from her coat and handed it to Abby.
“Did you look inside?” Abby asked as she pried apart the bent clasp. She opened it a crack.
“No,” Rye said, shaking her head, and was surprised to realise that, for once, her curiosity hadn’t got the better of her. “What’s in there?”
“Memories,” Abby said. A warm thought seemed to cross her mind.
Abby removed a small metal object from the box. It was a hair clip in the shape of a dragonfly, its silver so tarnished it was almost black.
“Someone gave this to me long ago, but it seems you could best use it now,” she said. She pushed Rye’s unruly hair from her eyes and clipped it back. “Much better.”
Quinn arrived and placed two mugs of plum cider on the table along with his handmade helmet. His eyes widened and he stared slack-jawed at the realistic, life-size mermaid carved into the tabletop. Abby strategically slid the helmet across the table to afford the mermaid some degree of modesty.
Bramble joined them with goblets for himself and Abby. “What do you have here?” he asked Rye, examining her hand staff on the table. “May I see it?”
“My walking stick? Sure.”
Bramble felt its heft in his hands. He squinted and examined its polished features.
“A walking stick, you say?” He sounded amused. “This, my dear niece, is a High Isle cudgel. Made from the hardest blackthorn ever felled. I haven’t seen one in years.”
Abby raised an eyebrow.
“Like a club?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, like a club,” Bramble said. “But nastier.”
With two lightning-quick strikes, he brought the cudgel down against Quinn’s helmet on the table. Rye, Abby and Quinn all jumped at the sound. Shortstraw fled under a chair. The rest of the inn hardly noticed.
The steel crown of the helmet was crushed as if pummelled by a boulder. Rye was relieved nobody’s head was in it.
Bramble chuckled and handed the cudgel back to Rye. “This is a rare find. Guard it closely until you learn how to use it.”
Quinn stared at his bashed handiwork.
“Apologies, Quinn,” Bramble said. “I’ll buy you another.”
Rye noticed Quinn’s fallen face and didn’t think that cost was the point.
“Your uncle and I need to discuss a few matters,” Abby said to Rye while shooting Bramble a reproachful look. It always amazed Rye how a glare from her mother could give pause to even the most dangerous of men. “Why don’t you and Quinn go find your sister? She’s made herself quite at home here so I can’t say where she is … in trouble, no doubt.”
There was a heavy thud in Rye’s lap and a warm furry mass stretched across her like a blanket.
“Shady!” Rye hugged him around his thick neck.
“Obviously someone else has missed you too,” Abby said. “He’s taken a liking to the inn himself. The twins guard the door well, so he’s stopped trying to escape.”
Shady’s kind were known as Gloaming Beasts – mysterious cat-like creatures who could go years hiding in plain sight. Rye had always taken him for a simple house pet. That is, until he revealed his true nature by helping Harmless thwart a clan of ruthless Bog Noblins. Gloaming Beasts were the bog monsters’ only natural predator. They were also renowned for their wanderlust, which was why Abby kept him under lock and key.
Rye set him on the floor and she and Quinn headed off to find Lottie. Shady snaked in and out of Rye’s gait as she walked, rubbing his back against her legs.
The freebooters were still hard at the grog and their gambling.
“Round six!” barked a man at the centre of the crowd.
His thick hair was the colour of steel and tied into a ponytail that stretched down his back. One eyelid sagged at half-mast, a hollow, empty socket peeking out from under it. He held six fingers in the air.
“Get your bets in