It was two weeks before the Duke deemed Lucia fit enough to venture out on her own again. Talia did not accompany Lucia’s journey south, but the rest of the Sable Prince’s crew—in other words, Gallow and Prow—met up with her a day’s ride from Fallmire. This was to Lucia’s liking. She needed time away to clear her head, and slipping back into an imagined role would be a welcome diversion.
Time away. She was hiding from Talia, Lucia admitted to herself.
Also to her liking was the person she found in the illustrious company of Gallow and Prow. The Scarlet Spindle himself, riding his own horse to boot.
Cleft was in his typical dress, looking more like a dockworker than Cavaline’s premier lord of the criminal underworld. Unlike his typical self, however, he was rather muted, merely nodding to Lucia as she joined the group.
“What’s the job?” Gallow asked once they were half an hour down the road. Loose lips were not among his particular sins.
Lucia looked up to the treeline, basking in the warmth of the sun for a moment before answering. This was the clearest day since her date with Talia … and she was so not thinking of that right now. She dragged her mind’s eye, kicking and screaming, away from that golden afternoon.
“We’re going to hit a mercenary company, plant some evidence, then make off with their scrip. For a good cause, of course,” Lucia said as she raised an eyebrow at Prow, who was tossing a knife hand to hand. “The Sable Prince has transfixed the broadsheets for the past few months, so we might as well give them some new material to work with.”
“You read that trash?” Cleft scoffed, his typical superiority asserting itself above today’s gloomy demeanor. Prow snorted as she caught her knife by the blade, nearly slicing one of her fingers off in the process by Lucia’s reckoning.
“I do,” Gallows protested. “There’s good stories in ‘em. Partic’lary the Times, I think.”
“You just like the funnies,” Prow said.
“I do! They’re funny!”
“Pah,” Prow sheathed her knife. “Mind, I think the broadsheets have their uses, time to time. But mostly it’s all a waste of good paper.”
“Oh, they’re not a waste,” Cleft said. “Nothing like that. But actually reading it is for other people.”
“Well, whatever you think of them, they are spreading rumors of the Sable Prince to every corner of the isles,” said Lucia. “So there’s another use for all that paper.”
“Point,” Prow said, as if they were fencing. “Anyways, how far is this camp?”
***
A few moments after the conversation had died down, Cleft guided his horse closer to Lucia, something clearly on his mind. She slowed down her own mare and gave him a quizzical look.
“So, I just wanted to say,” he began as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Well. That whole business with the Marchesa, on the boat, all of … that. I had no idea how far she was going to take things, you know.”
Lucia sniffed. “How often have you dealt with her?”
“On a monthly basis, in fact. She’s a noble, so she’s used to a certain amount of deference from those she considers her lessers, which is a load of shit if you ask me,” (at this Lucia coughed but didn’t interrupt), “but you get that from every noble ass here. She’s not special, is what I’m saying.”
Lucia pondered this, eyes on the road ahead.
“But, point is,” Cleft continued, “I apologize. You were put in direct danger thanks almost solely to my actions.”
He was being sincere, at least based on the penitence ebbing and flowing through his heart.
“I accept your apology. It’s not you I blame.”
***
The camp was not far. Riding down into a small valley, they saw the pickets and other fortifications set up on the opposing bluff, a natural defense against the mercenary company’s enemies, rivals … anyone who got ideas, really. The sole gate was preceded by a half mile set of switchbacks, each bend in the trail another excuse for the company to plop down another guard. Suspicious eyes watched every inch of the approach. As the crew had not brought any climbing gear—Lucia sideyed Cleft, the man who apparently was prepared for anything—they would need to approach openly.
This was no matter. Lucia pulled a cloak and a prop cane from their cart, then practiced putting a tremor into her hand. She hunched over her cane, then adopted a limping step and a gravely tone. “Alms for the poor, my dears.”
“Ha! You could be Gallow’s own grandmother!” Prow applauded.
“Could not,” Gallows lifted his nose at the suggestion.
“And why not?”
“She’s a terrible cook.”
Lucia snorted. He had her there. Cleft gave a polite applause himself, an amused expression on his face.
“Not every grandmother is a good cook, you know,” Prow said. “Severein—you remember her? I visited her folks once, and they had downright terrible taste in cooking.”
“I ain’t saying she couldn’t be nobody’s grandmother. Just not mine.”
Lucia teetered over to Gallow. “Oh, dearie, don’t you recognize me?” And for a lark, she pulled on Gallow’s natural empathy, shriveled as it was.
“Gah! That’s … that’s uncanny, is what that is.”
“Told you,” grinned Prow.
“Well, alright, we have a beggar, but who are we s’posed to be?”
Lucia stood up straight, sizing up her three companions. Then, in that same gravely tone, she said, “Oh, my dearest grandchildren, you’ve grown up so strong!”
Cleft laughed openly, Prow beamed, and Gallow rested his forehead in his palm.