“Paladins?” Beartongue’s eyebrows shot up. “Why—forgive me, but if you were planning a covert spy mission, I don’t think our paladins would be my first choice.” She considered this. “Or my second choice. Possibly not even my third.”
“There is a certain bull-in-a-pottery-shop quality to the late Saint’s chosen,” Rigney observed.
Marguerite sank back in her chair. She’s interested. She’s going to help me. It was important not to show the depths of her relief. The Sail had been baying at her heels for so long that even this first small step felt like a victory. “People are already trying to kill me,” she said. “Ruthless people with very deep pockets. When they learn that I’m trying to get to this artificer before they do, I imagine that it will get even worse. What I need are people who cannot be bought and who are very, very hard to kill. People that I can trust.”
Beartongue grunted. “Well. When you put it that way…the paladins it is.”
The two paladins were as different a pair as Marguerite could imagine. One was a woman a bit taller than she was, and—there was no getting around it—rather dumpy. Frizzy hair, soft chin, muscle and fat in equal quantity. You would not look at her and think paladin. You would likely not look at her and think much of anything, until you noticed that she was carrying an axe strapped to her back. Marguerite was immediately delighted.
The other one was tall and well-muscled, rather more like her stereotypical view of paladin-kind. His eyes were a blue so pale they were almost white, and the rest of his face had been devoured by a beard that had passed scruffy and was firmly lodged in regrettable. Like many blonde men, his beard had come in red. It was not a good combination. It looked as if a woodchuck had latched onto his jaw.
“Shane and Wren are both paladins of the Saint of Steel,” said Beartongue smoothly.
“Former paladins,” said Shane. His voice was deep and very calm, despite passing through the beard.
“Your god may be dead, but you still serve,” said Beartongue. “Do not make me break out a theological argument, Shane, I’ll do it.”
Wren grinned. “We’d never argue with the bishop of a god of lawyers.”
“Never? That’s news to me. You argued with me last week.”
“Yes, and I was right, too. You should have let me kill him.”
“Everyone gets a fair trial, Wren.”
“We caught him eating that old man’s face! I saw it with my own eyes! So did you!”
“It was,” said Beartongue heavily, “a particularly eventful trip to the library.”
Shane’s beard assumed an expression of saintly forbearance. Marguerite did not wince, although it was a near thing. Well, you wanted a paladin. Looks like you got one. Complete with stick in uncomfortable places.
“At any rate,” said the Bishop, “you will be accompanying Mistress Marguerite to the Court of Smoke. Wren, I apologize for what I am about to ask you to do, but do you think you can impersonate a noblewoman at court?”
“Technically I am a noblewoman,” said Wren a bit dryly. “I can’t say I relish revisiting it, but in a good cause, certainly. What do you need?”
Beartongue gestured to Marguerite, who said, “Information. We are trying to locate an artificer who has done a very impressive disappearing act. We know that artificer has a patron at the Court of Smoke, and that they have thrown themselves upon said patron’s mercy. Unfortunately, we do not know who that patron is. They are likely to be the only one with knowledge of the artificer’s current whereabouts.”
“Hmm,” said Wren. “I can definitely pretend to be an airheaded noblewoman and listen for gossip, but the sort of circles that I’d be moving in aren’t necessarily going to have the information you want.”
Marguerite nodded. “It’s a long shot,” she said. “But I don’t need much. Even a bored wife dropping a line about how her husband spends his money hiring artificers could be enough to set us on the right track. I’ll be there as well, in my usual role as perfume seller to the rich and idle, but I move in…ah…slightly different circles.” She nodded to the male paladin. “Which is where you come in.”
He lifted an eyebrow at her, waiting.
“Shane, you will stand as Mistress Marguerite’s bodyguard,” said Beartongue. “You’ve attended me at court often enough that your manners are impeccable and you won’t cause an international incident. Also, of course, you’ll be spying on her in case she decides to double-cross us.”
“Naturally.” Marguerite had suspected as much, but having it out on the table was oddly refreshing. She recognized the same impulse that had her setting out her weapons as a show of good faith. “Though I’d be a great fool to let something incriminating slip in the presence of my bodyguard.”
“Naturally.” The Bishop raised her mug of tea in a gesture that was more than half salute.
Shane cleared his throat. “I do not wish to second-guess you, Your Grace,” he said, “but I suspect that I am familiar to those at court who have seen me in your retinue. If any of those attend the Court of Smoke, will they not recognize me?”
“Not once you shave off that disgusting mop you call a beard,” said Beartongue. “And the barber will do something with your hair. The people who will recognize you after that are few, and they would likely learn that the Rat is involved in this venture by some other method anyway. I shall leave it to Mistress Marguerite, in the moment, to decide what use to make of that.”
Shane’s beard looked dismayed. Wren slapped her fellow paladin on the back. “Don’t mope,” she said. “I’ll probably have to wear a dress. Which reminds me, Bishop, I haven’t got a dress.”
The indefatigable Rigney coughed politely. “We can arrange a certain amount of travel clothing,” he said, “including what might be considered appropriate for a minor noble from—forgive me, Lady Wren—a small backwater holding.”
“It’s fine,” Wren said, wrinkling up her nose. “It’s all true. It’d be strange if I showed up looking fashionable. Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I’d recognize if I was fashionable or not. How long should we expect to be gone?”
“Court lasts three months,” said Marguerite. “If the gods are kind, we won’t have to stay that long, but if we receive a good lead on the artificer’s location, I’ll want to leave from the Court and go there directly.” She glanced at Beartongue, who nodded. “Can you both ride?”
The paladins exchanged glances. Marguerite raised her eyebrows.
“Technically,” said Wren. “I used to, anyway. Horses don’t care for berserkers much, so it’s been a while. Shane?”
“I was trained in riding in my youth,” said Shane. Marguerite placed him in his late thirties, possibly even early forties, but his hesitant manner of speaking made him seem oddly young.
“We will find you reliable horses,” said Beartongue. “You’ll only need them for a few days up river anyway. Court is in the western mountains this year, and I presume you’ll go by boat most of the way?”
Marguerite nodded. The Court of Smoke was where the elite went when the weather got too hot to stay in the city. Those who had chateaus or estates somewhere more pleasant went to them. Those who could not afford such, or who did not wish to leave the glittering swirl of court life, went instead to the Court of Smoke, which was held in a fortress in the highlands and hosted by whichever courtier was currently most fashionable and wealthy enough to afford the extravagant expense. It was a summer-long party that hosted the scions of multiple nations. A spy could hardly miss it. Too many deals were brokered there, alliances made and broken, fortunes lost and won and lost again.
Marguerite had attended almost every year, in her guise as a perfume broker, and even though by mid-August she was ready to chuck the whole job and become a dirt farmer, by the next April she was already planning her journey again. The past two years, she hadn’t dared risk attending, and the knowledge of how much she must be missing itched at her like a nettle.
“Make your preparations,” said the Bishop. “Be ready for a long stay. If there’s any duties here that need to be handed off, you know the drill.” And as both Wren and Shane moved toward the door, “And for the Rat’s sake, if you need new equipment, tell someone. I realize complaining is practically anathema to you people, but if your boots are about to wear through, we can fix that!”
Wren chuckled. Shane’s beard looked martyred.
The door closed behind the paladins. Marguerite transferred her gaze to Beartongue, who had the fond look of a teacher whose pupils have performed well. “I think they’ll do fine,” she said. Better than fine. I might actually be able to sleep if I know those two are on guard. “But tell me, Your Grace, is there anything I should know about them in advance, to make this all go more smoothly?”
Beartongue steepled her fingers. “Not a great deal. They’re both superb fighters, of course, but you presumably know enough about the Saint of Steel to know that once the battle tide takes them, you won’t get them back easily. So don’t point them at anything you don’t want turned into mince.”
Marguerite thought of Stephen, the gloomy but good-natured paladin that her dear friend Grace had fallen madly in love with. “I’m familiar with the type, yes.”
“Then as to specifics…Wren will never tell you if she is injured or overmatched. If you ask her to fight an army singlehandedly, she’ll salute and march out to do it. Shane will tell you if he thinks she’s suffering, but that is probably the only thing he will volunteer information about. He is actually a far keener observer than he gives himself credit for, but he will not offer his opinion unless you ask.” The Bishop tilted one hand back and forth. “He is polite, self-effacing, apologetic, and you’ll probably want to throttle him before too long.”
“Oof.” Marguerite rubbed her eyes. “Well, good to know. But decent court manners, you say?”
“Impeccable, and he keeps his mouth shut. Like a very polite shadow. Although he’s a terrible liar, so do not put him in a situation where he has to flatter someone.” She grimaced. “I learned that one the hard way.”
“Oh dear.”
“Other than that…well, they’re both loyal unto death, but that goes with the territory. They cannot be bought, they cannot be intimidated, and I assume that’s why you wanted them in the first place.”
Marguerite traced a circle on the polished wood of the desk, feeling the smooth gloss under her fingers. “If you were up against an enemy who could meet almost anyone’s price, who would you want to watch your back?”
“Precisely. That said, you will have to pull rank if you want to do something…ah…expedient...in front of them. They will argue with you, but they will probably obey.”
“Probably?”
“There are some things that a wise woman doesn’t ask a paladin to do,” said Beartongue. The Bishop held her gaze and Marguerite had the feeling that they understood each other very well indeed.