Nikoles (Tuyo Book 2) by Rachel Neumeier

Author:Rachel Neumeier [Neumeier, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2020-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

6 --

Nikoles set the letter on his lord’s desk, in the exact center. Then he drew his knife, pricked his thumb, and let a single drop of blood fall on the stiff, cream-colored envelope, just below the wax seal. He sheathed the knife then, and laid it down beside the envelope. He stood there for a moment, looking at the empty width of the desk, at the knife, at the envelope with the neat, formal scrollwork of name and family name and title across its face, and the seal, and the drop of blood below that.

Black ink for the name. Red ink for the title. Blood to make it plain that the declaration was irrevocable. That would be clear. It would be very clear to Lord Maiokes, from the first glimpse of that envelope, what the letter inside must be. He would not know why, or not clearly. Not until he read the letter.

Nikoles turned and walked out, leaving behind the letter and the sheathed knife and the empty room.

The king’s scepter-holder was making ready to depart. Already the separate encampment of his own men was half packed away, his people moving with a quiet, unobtrusive efficiency that seemed all of a piece with everything Lord Gaur did.

Well, why not? The problem was over. No need to linger. Certainly the half sullen, half morose, entirely exhausted atmosphere that pervaded the town was not likely to tempt visitors to stay for a visit. Even if they had nowhere else they urgently needed to be, which in Lord Gaur’s case, Nikoles knew, they certainly did.

Even so, Lord Gaur himself had not yet come out into the tavern yard. His young fire bay gelding was in the stableyard, but the animal had not even been saddled yet. Plenty of time, then. If the scepter-holder cared to make time to see Nikoles at all, when he must be sick to death of the whole lot of townsmen, and the town and the entire county besides ... and Nikoles was delaying, deliberately. The moment he recognized that, he stepped out into the sunlight, walked steadily across the yard, and went into the building. Up the stairs without pausing, and along the short hallway, to step between the two soldiers stationed at the door and present himself to the scepter-holder.

Lord Guar was seated behind a small table, his scepter of gold-inlaid ebony lying near his hand. A scroll and a scattering of loose papers lay beside the scepter; a half-empty goblet of wine and a plate with a few scattered crumbs had been set to one side. A carafe of wine, mostly full, and a few more goblets stood on a sideboard.

The scepter-holder had been speaking with a man of his, but he glanced up even before Nikoles rapped on the doorframe. “If you’d kindly see to that, then, I would appreciate it,” he said to his soldier. He waited for the man to nod and leave, then said to Nikoles, in much the same brisk,

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