Murder in Lamut. Joel C Rosenberg
thing would be for Pirojil to take the first watch, then Durine and Kethol. Stolid Durine could will himself to sleep almost instantly, no matter what had been going on, and once Pirojil was down for the night, nothing short of an attack could easily get him out of bed.
Besides, Kethol liked watching the dawn, and the eastern window at the end of the corridor would have given him a nice view of the sun rising beyond the far wall.
But he just didn’t feel like it, not tonight. Too busy wool-gathering, he supposed.
He walked over to the heavy oak door and carefully, gently, slowly, tried the knob, pushing the door open a scant inch, just enough to assure himself that it wasn’t locked from the inside.
Any attack was unlikely, and one that could reach the Residence itself quickly even more so, but you had to take every precaution you could think of, and pray to a soldier’s god that it would be unnecessary this time.
He sat down in the big leather chair next to the end table and nibbled at the mutton. Not enough garlic, and too much salt, but that was to be expected. Probably a little off, too, but the rabble could hardly expect to get the best cuts.
He was still nibbling away at what remained of the joint when Durine finally reappeared up the stairs, his hair damp and slicked back from the bath. After a quick nod, the big man disappeared into their room.
Kethol would have preferred that Durine stay up for a while to chat, but he wouldn’t ask that of the big man. Sleeping time when you were taking a one-in-three was scant enough.
The trick when standing watch by yourself was always to stay awake and alert. Too much food would be a bad idea, and only an idiot would drink wine on watch. Kethol had known an old, moustachioed sergeant from Rodez who claimed that he was a bit sharper, a bit brighter on watch with a couple of skinfuls of wine in him, and if there was any justice in the world – always a bad bet – somebody had run a spear through his guts soon after Kethol, Pirojil and Durine had lit out, as they had not at that time been desperate enough to be serving under an idiot.
That was the good thing about being an independent: you could be a bit choosy, if you weren’t too choosy. Kethol wouldn’t much care what a sergeant’s personal habits were – he could prefer that his bedmates be large-breasted blonde women, or slender brown-haired boys, or flaming goats, for all Kethol cared – but you stood enough chance of getting killed as it was without having to rely on somebody who made it easy for the enemy.
The distant sound of Durine’s snoring came to his ears, a regular snorp-bleep, snorp-bleep that announced that the big man was resting for the night. Good. Kethol didn’t know why Durine didn’t do that when they were out in the open, when something as innocent as snoring could tell somebody where you were, but he didn’t much care.
The trick was to not close your eyes on watch. Not ever; not for a moment.
Once, as a young man, he had decided to rest his eyes for just a moment on watch, and the next thing he knew, the sun was shining in his eyes in bright reproval. That he had got away with it, that nobody had known of his shame, then or ever, made it worse than if the sergeant had found him asleep and kicked him bloody.
The problem was –
He jerked upright in the chair. He’d heard something.
Damn! There were groans coming from Baron Morray’s room.
‘Pirojil! Durine!’ he shouted, but Kethol didn’t wait for them; he kicked through the door, careless of any damage to the jamb, and rushed in, sword in hand.
The room was dark, lit only by a flickering fire in the hearth up against the wall.
Two bodies were struggling on the massive bed up against the far wall. The simple thing to do would have been to stick a sword-point into the writhing mass, but –
‘Stop.’ Baron Morray, his torso bathed in sweat, was sitting up in his bed. His fingers clawed for the knife on the bedstand, but he had Kethol transfixed with a glare.
Durine and Pirojil were close behind Kethol; he more than saw them, knowing that Durine would move to his right, while Pirojil would guard him on his left.
But not from this.
A pair of eyes peeked out from under the blankets, accompanied by giggling.
‘I’d ask what the meaning of this is,’ the Baron said, ‘but it’s all far too clear, I’m afraid.’ He ignored the giggling, and the way that his bed companion’s struggles to hide herself under the blanket momentarily revealed a flash of a particularly shapely rump.
The Baron patted her on it and snorted. ‘I don’t see much point in hiding, young Kate,’ he said.
She shrugged, and let the blankets drop below her shoulders, brazenly revealing the high young breasts that were every bit as firm as Kethol had imagined they would be.
Just as Kethol had suspected – too late it seemed – it was the serving maid who had delivered the food to the three of them. Easy for a young wench to turn up her nose at a trio of soldiers when she had what no doubt were more rewarding arrangements already made.
Beyond and to the right of the bed, a wooden panel in the inlaid wall had been swung wide open, revealing a dark passage behind it, through which the Baron’s bedmate had apparently arrived.
‘I apologize,’ Kethol said, ‘but –’
‘Get out,’ the Baron said. ‘Just get out of this room. Now.’
It was a bad time to argue with him, but since the Baron wasn’t raising his voice, and probably didn’t want to raise a ruction now, maybe it wasn’t the worst time.
‘No.’ Pirojil’s voice was quiet, but insistent. ‘No, my lord. Not until the door to the hidden passageway is secured.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s no concern of ours who comes and goes into your rooms with your permission, but it’s every concern of ours that nobody can gain access to your rooms without getting by us.’
Durine had taken a lantern down from the wall and was examining a piece of wainscoting on the far wall. ‘There’s another one here,’ he said, grumbling.
And you didn’t see it before? Kethol didn’t ask. It was the sort of thing that they should have thought through, but this sort of bodyguarding was a new thing to the three of them, and they were bound to make mistakes, and Kethol didn’t much like it. He knew enough to act as though the walls had ears, but the walls having doors that could swing open and shut more often than a whore’s crib?
Bloody hell!
‘Well, what do you propose to do?’
There was nothing vaguely unusual or remotely dangerous about a baron inviting a serving girl into his bed, but it was clearly not the sort of thing that Morray would want bruited about, particularly not around Lady Mondegreen.
Kethol walked to the open panel to the hidden passageway and closed it. There was some trick bit of lockwork hidden in the bric-a-brac, but he didn’t trust it, so he slid a dressing chair in front of it, and balanced a clean chamberpot on top of the chair, leaning it against the panelling.
Somebody might still be able to get into the room, but not without making a lot of noise.
Durine had rigged a similar improvised alarm on the other hidden panel, while Pirojil leaned back against the door, his arms crossed in front of him.
‘You’ve done what’s needed. Now get out,’ the Baron said. ‘I can assure you that there will be some discussion of this in the morning.’
Kethol wasn’t at all sure about that. He hoped the Baron would just let the matter drop, but he followed Pirojil’s lead, and bowed his way out of the room.
Durine just shook his head.
Morning broke with Baron Morray off to the east wing of the keep to visit with the ailing Baron Mondegreen and Pirojil, along with Durine and Kethol, barred from the Mondegreen Keep’s private