With Galin gone when Luthene woke it, it was poor Colum who had to endure her fretting. First it was his old tunic, which now had a hole under one of his arms. “You can’t go out like that!” she insisted, unpacking his good tunic. They never did get him a new one, Luthene lamented, and she didn’t have anything with her to mend the old one. To avoid getting smothered by her worry, Colum was quick to leave for the stables to get the horses ready.

Luthene had packed and repacked everything twice when Galin returned. “All things considered, I think I am worrying just enough, and you not enough!” she snapped, then regretted it. She hugged him back, relieved that he was safe again. “I’m sorry. I woke up and you were gone, and I was afraid. I know it’s unlikely you’d be attacked again so soon, but fear is not rational. When we go into battle, I know there’s a chance one or both of us might not live through it. When we’re walking through the market in Adeluna, talking about getting new clothes for Colum, I feel safe, or at least I did.” She kissed him, and squeezed his hand. “Wake me up, next time. I might be a bit on edge, so indulge me this one thing, will you?”

The horses were brushed and saddled when Galin and Luthene got to the stables. Colum seemed proud of himself, and she crouched down to hug him before helping him into the saddle. “I bet the Maker’s priests drink all the time,” Colum mumbled as Luthene directed the horse towards the gate.

The trip back was, thankfully, uneventful, and Luthene started to relax again. Colum didn’t start to sway in the saddle until nightfall, though the cause this time was exhaustion rather than drink. Luthene was glad for it, her muscles sore from riding all day. Then they were back in the saddle early the next morning, without so much as pausing for breakfast, eating on the road instead. There was only one skin of wine for Luthene and Colum to share, and it was more water than wine, a fact Colum grumbled about. “Half rations for me, remember?” she reminded him, smiling, though he couldn’t see it.

Another long day of riding had them back by nightfall, as Galin had promised. Colum was exhausted, and Luthene offered to take the reigns from him. “I’ll take care of it. You get to bed.”

The lad shook his head and stifled a yawn. “It’s my job,” he said.

“Alright,” Luthene conceded with a smile, “how about you get started while I get us something hot from the kitchen, and if you’re not done by then I’ll help you finish.” Colum nodded, and lead the horses away. “How about you speak to Cooper,” she said to Galin, “and I’ll meet you back in our room.”

In the kitchen, Luthene put a few pieces of leftover beef on a plate, two slices of bread, and a bit of gravy over everything. She helped Colum take the saddle off the second horse, and they shared the small meal, and what was left in Luthene’s wineskin. When they finished, she saw him off to bed, and took the bag back to the room she shared with Galin. Finding the door unlocked, she expected to find him already there, and was confused to find that he wasn’t. She hung up her cloak, and started putting away their things. Her dress would go to Maria or one of the other women in the morning; Luthene didn’t think the blood would ever come out, but Maria might have an idea for it.

When Luthene was putting away the ledgers, she noticed something was amiss. Some of her papers were out of order, and she had no idea why. As she was reorganizing them, she noticed one was missing, and all the colour drained from her face. When Galin arrived, she pulled him into the room and quickly bolted the door behind him. “The coded message is gone,” she explained in a whisper. “The one that was when we took over, I hadn’t managed to decode it, and now it’s gone. Someone’s been in our room.”

Galin nodded as he nearly fell out of the saddle. It had been a grueling ride and he hated every minute of it. Even though it was expected of him, he hated to ride, still distrusting any animal as stubborn and mean-spirited as Cooper, and short of a dragon, Galin could not think of a more ornery creature than his horse. It was as though the animal’s only mission in life was to make his own a painful embarrassment and it excelled in its calling as Galin did in battle. He tossed the reins to Colum who insisted on finishing his duties, much to Galin’s secret pleasure, and smiled at Luthene. “You two handle this pain in my arse; I’ll go see to the one I left in charge and make sure he hasn’t run the whole damned company into the ground while we were gone. I’ll see the both of you back at the chambers.” He reached out and ruffled Colum’s hair and then kissed Luthene before walking, somewhat bowlegged, toward Cooper’s quarters to ascertain the state of the company. While he walked, despite his calm words to Luthene days before, his eyes never rested on one spot too long, looking for the hidden assassin that might be waiting around any corner. It would pass in a day, he knew, but knowing that one of the men was a Highland meant that, in theory, any of the company could have been found and swayed with gold and promises as he had been. It was a sobering thought, but one that Galin could not long entertain as he pushed his way into Cooper’s quarters and was assaulted by the smell of ginger from Maria’s cooking. He nearly gagged it was so strong but swallowed it down and gave the woman of the house a half bow.

“Maria, you are looking lovely, but I am here to see your brute of a man. He’s in the back room, I suppose?” Maria chuckled and jerked her head back to the leather divider between the stone house’s small front room and the rest of the home.

“Aye and he’d best be awake,” she said, pitching her voice to carry, “or else he’ll be sleeping on the hearth with the dogs. Man’s been napping all day and me the one with child. I never did understand you northern men, all fierce and strong but Cooper? Ha!” The man stuck his head out from the curtains, doing his best to look like he had not been rousted from his nap, and glared at Maria.

“All I’ve done is run this outfit while himself was away, and with punishment on. It’s bloody tiring.” He reached out and took Galin’s hand with a smile. “Glad you’re back. This job might kill me if I keep it another minute. The men’re sullen, so they are, but they understand what’s been done. It was a rough, ugly night, the first one, but it got better. By now, they’re used to it and just gripe out of habit, so don’t think anything of it. On top of that, shite’s actually been done. Roads and ditches cleared, houses rebuilt, armory organized finally, and the Maker only knows what else. It’s been the best damned thing that’s happened to the lads since Domnall left you in charge, sir. Only trouble I can see is Deepdale realizing what it’s like to be sober and not caring for a single minute of it. Maker only knows how he’s surviving this, though I did see him on three different work parties. Maybe he’s trading sweat for drink, and I can’t say it’s the worst trade. Now, you get along, sir. Ye look like death and whatever happened in the city’ll hold til tomorrow. Anyhow, if Maria ain’t in bed soon, she’s cranky and I get an earful.”

Galin drew breath to reply but he saw the color rising on Maria’s face as she reached for a wooden spoon. “Thank you both,” he said quickly and ducked out of the house as Maria turned on Cooper like a berserker, shouting so loudly that it took the clanging of the smithy to drown it out as Galin made his way back to his quarters. He was too tired to eat but he knew that if he did now, he would be ravenous in a few hours, tossing and turning and unable to sleep. On the window sill of the kitchen, he spied a meat pie fresh from the oven and grabbed it without a second thought, biting through the flaky pastry as the stewed juices inside ran down his chin. He was pretty sure that he had burned his mouth but it was delicious and he had finished every last morsel of it by the time he got to the fortress proper.

When Luthene closed the door quickly behind him, Galin thought for a moment that she would be making up for the evening's spent in Colum's company but her words swiftly disabused him of that notion. If the coded message was missing, someone other than Cooper had been in their quarters. He had left his spare key in case Cooper needed to get to the company’s books but clearly he would have had the good sense not to steal things from his commanding officer. That meant that someone else had been there, and moreover, someone who knew what they were looking for. The message was not easily visible when Luthene organized her files and if she was so disturbed, it meant that this was not simply some prank or theft, but something more sinister, more direct. There was information in that message that someone was willing to risk his life for, Galin thought, and that meant that it was worth their lives as well to whoever wanted it. It was a blessing that had been away when the theft took place or worse could easily have happened.

“Alright, it’s alright,” he said and put an arm around her. “Someone’s been, aye, but if they’d been while we were here, we might be far worse off. So they took the message.” He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose. “You don’t expect me to believe that you haven’t made a host of copies just for a moment like this, do you? So what if they have it? They think we’re finished and they’ll leave us be and meanwhile, you can figure out what in the hell the message said. Then, when we’re good and ready, armed with something more than nerves, we can get the bastards that done this proper and settle things with whoever’s made us their new pet project. Now, love, how about a wee glass of wine with your handsome men, and you can tell me everything you know so far about the message?”

Galin put his arm around her, and Luthene learned against him. “I didn’t think it was all that important, at least to us,” she admitted. “I made copies, sure, but mostly just because I was trying to decode it. I didn’t think it would be taken! And anyway, my copies are gone, too. There might be one more, I made one for Lajaka as well, thought she might be able to help…” She sighed, paced a moment, then decided maybe Galin was on to something with his wine suggestion. Pouring a cup for each of them, she drank a generous mouthful of hers, and found it felt heavy in her stomach. She sat down on the bed, and put her cup on a nearby table, unsure if she would drink more.

Once Galin had joined her, she went on. “I don’t know much about the message. We used coded messages a bit during the war, though not extensively because, well, what’s the point when most of the army is illiterate, and there are bloody telepaths all over the place. But we did code our written messages, and I imagine they had people decoding them, just as we did. The message I found didn’t use the same type of code we used in the war. Those, you just substituted one letter for another. I tried that, however, and the message never made any sense. I’m not sure what else to try, but it was only ever a curiosity, before. The only thing I can say with any confidence is that it was left over from when Arnholt lived here. That, or the bandits stole it. I doubt they wrote it, bandits would bother to code messages at all, never mind something with this complexity.”

The wine was sitting better, so Luthene took another drink, and then leaned against Galin. “I don’t think us being away was lucky. Just the coded message and my attempt at cracking it were taken. I never would have noticed, except I keep things organized, and the wrong paper was on the top of the pile. It was probably an accident. There’s no reason to put everything back so nearly, though, unless they knew we’d be back, and hoped perhaps we wouldn’t notice. They assumed we’d be alive, I think. And the fact that someone was able to get into our room, my fear is that whoever did it lives here. Who else would be able to get to our room unnoticed?” She reached for his hand and held it in both of hers. “Tomorrow, we’ll have to see if anyone has left. I hope someone has, it means the person responsible may be gone. But if not…” She sighed. “This person is literate. Not only is the message gone, but so are my attempts at decoding it. Nothing else is missing, though, which says to me that this person knew how to read what they said. That may be where we’d have to start, if we wanted to figure out who did this, figure out who can read.”

Luthene turned to face Galin and held both his hands in hers. “Until this is sorted out… I think it would be better if I kept on with the tea. Even after our handfasting, if we haven’t put a stop to whatever this plot is by then.” She knew that it was unlikely they’d work it out so soon. “I can’t take the chance that you might be attacked again, and I’m stuck back here, instead of at your side like I ought to be. I wouldn’t be in good condition for a fight, either, if it came to that. Or someone might try to get at you by attacking me. I’m sorry Galin, but I just can’t chance it.” She squeezed his hands. “I’d rather wait. I don’t want to lose you, and right now, the most important thing to me is to be at your side and ready to fight off an attack if need be. A child will have to wait. At least a little while, anyway.”

Galin listened to Luthene’s understanding of the message and nodded as she spoke. There was talk of coded messages and men of letters were plucked from the ranks to help break them whenever they happened to be captured. It was never something Galin had experienced, considering up until a few months before, he was functionally illiterate, at least in the language of Adeluna. But now he found himself thrust into a world that he did not understand after his rooms were violated and, seeing that Luthene was calming some, he let his guard down and allowed the anger that was seething under the surface to have its day. He was a private man, his cheerful demeanor aside, and violating the sanctity of his one refugee in the camp bothered him deeply. “I don’t care who it is, I’m going to flay someone for this,” he muttered, his jaw tense with stress and anger. “I am not a man to worry about the code, as you know, but now it’s your priority to break the damned thing. Use the copies, use whoever you need from the company. Break it.” He downed another cup of wine, glaring at the door of the chamber as though it was to blame for this situation. “And no, love, I think you’ve got this backwards. You are looking at it like a scholar, not like a soldier. Allow me to explain.

“Of course it is someone from the fort. Look at this room. Three windows, all high on the wall, horn coverings, and barely big enough for Colum to wiggle through and he ain’t the biggest of lads. Then there’s the door.” He pulled up the latch and opened it, showing Luthene. “Look here at the lock,” he said, learning close to examine it himself. “Bring a candle, love.” Taking the taper from her, he put the flame near the lock, and squinted. “I can’t be sure, but I figure the lock’s been forced. Come morning, I’ll have one of the lads in Padraig’s third section come and have a look. He had a bit of a reputation in Dunholm as a cracksman, so he’ll know better than I do, but it looks a wee bit scratched. And there,” he continued, dabbing a spot of tallow on the metal lock. He held his finger up near the flame. “Tallow. Grease the lock, make it easier for the pick, I figure.”

Galin eased the door closed again and set the latch. “So, the way I figure it, there’s someone about here that knows how to pick a lock, got into the fort, and got into the rooms without arousing suspicion.” Galin chewed his lip, thinking it over. Of course it could have been anyone in the company but there was no reason for them to wait as long as they had. They knew Galin’s schedule as well as he did and could easily have made a move before he left for the City. That, to him, meant that it had to be an outsider. Once he decided on that, the rest of the details started to make sense. He paced the room in silence, thinking quickly, his fingers beating a tattoo on the side of thigh. His brow furrowed and then his face cleared and he turned back to Luthene. “Now let me talk this through, yeah? I think I can save us a great bit of trouble, speed things up and find this pain in the arse and get back living in secure comfort.

“So the lock was picked, yeah? So what does that tell me? It says it ain’t most of the men in the company for a start. Live in a wee vill like me and most of us done, there’s no reason for a lock on your door, so the place is just a wee simple latch and that’s the end of it. So I figure, the man that done this, he is from a proper city, like the fella from Dunholm. You need locks to learn to pick ‘em, after all. So we’ve got only a handful of lads from cities in the company, and if they wanted to, they could have just walked in when I was out training and been done with this a month ago. Instead, they waited til I was out for a few days, so I figure it ain’t someone that knows me as well. So not the company.” He paused to refill his cup and nodded to himself as the rest of his thoughts organized themselves.

“So someone from a city, right, and someone that isn’t from the company, and someone that ain’t been around long enough to properly know the comings and goings around here. So I figure it would be one of the new folks that have come in since we settled in. The locals wouldn’t be likely, since the ones that would know the fort were driven off between us and the bandits, so it’ll be an Adelunan from the city proper. Someone that’s adept with his hands, so likely not a proper laborer type, as well, though that ain’t set in stone. My bet, someone in the new tavern setup we’ve got running in the vill is in someone’s pocket back in the City and he used us heading out for the tax shite as his window. Narrows it down some, I think, and may make it a mite easier to weed through rather than having the entire damned place under suspicion.” He sat alongside her again, and smiled crookedly. “I could be wrong of course, but it’s the best I’ve got for a dumb lump of a soldier.”

The tea. Her comments made him stop thinking and simply listen and he saw and felt the struggle in her voice. “I understand, Luthene… and as much as I wouldn’t mind you stopping it soon, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have by my side if things get rough. So, I guess what I’m saying is that I love you and don’t want to risk our future, same as you. So I’ll have you on my side, right where I always want you and then we’re sure to see this through. Then, maybe, we can start dumping the tea.” He grinned, leaned in, and kissed her deeply before lifting her up out of her seat. “It won’t hurt to get a wee bit of practice though,” he said with a wink, and headed toward their bed, kissing her as he went.

Luthene took her time waking up the next morning. When she first opened her eyes, it was not quite dawn, but there was enough light that she could just make out Galin’s face as he slept. It had been a late night for both of them. Luthene had been reluctant to sleep, and even when she finally did, it was restless. She woke periodically, and moved a bit closer to him, feeling for the rise and fall of his chest that told her he was still breathing, still alive. When she woke that last time in the pre-dawn hour, Luthene was content to watch him for a little while, but it was hard to keep pushing away thoughts of what she would need to do that day. Finally, she kissed him, tenderly, and when she saw his eyes open, she said, “You don’t have to get up, yet. It’s just before dawn. I’m going to talk to Lajaka, and then I’ll be back with our breakfast and Cooper.” Wiggling out from under the blankets, she got out of bed, and tried not to trip as she put on her trousers and tunic (which didn’t seem to fit right).

Few people were awake as Luthene made her way to the newly-converted barracks where Lajaka usually slept, and found the woman was, in fact, in her own bed. Luthene gently shook her awake, and had to lean back to avoid being swatted. “The fuck do you want?” Lajaka mumbled, then opened her eyes and saw who it was. “Oh, you’re back. Well, what d’you want?”

“Do you remember the message I wanted you to look at?” Luthene whispered. “Do you still have it?”

“Yeah, it’s around here somewhere…” Lajaka grumbled, getting out of her bunk and feeling around under it for her things.

“Not so loud!” Luthene said, a bit louder than she had intended. “Get it, and meet be outside.”

The morning air was crisp, and there wash’t any sun yet to warm it. Lajaka met Luthene outside, papers in hand, and snickering. “You must’ve had a good night,” she said. “Late again?”

“It was a bit late when Galin and I got back, yes,” Luthene said.

“You’re walkin’ funny again.”

“Well, we were riding hard all day yesterday and the day before—“

“Aye,” Lajaka interrupted, “and that ain’t the only thing you were riding hard last night. Nice tunic, by the way.”

Luthene flushed, then looked down at what she was wearing. She had grabbed Galin’s tunic by mistake; no wonder it felt wrong. “Never mind that,” she said, trying to force Lajaka to the reason for this early-morning conversation. She looked around and, seeing no one else, continued. “The message I gave you to decode. Do you still have it? And have you made any progress with it?”

“Aye, it’s right here.” Lajaka showed her the page, in Luthene’s hand. “Haven’t really cracked it yet, but I think what you gave me might be a copy, what somebody else wrote down to try to crack it. So first I had to work backwards and figure out what the original might’ve said.” Lajaka produced another page, this time consisting only of numbers. “Same nine letters used over and over again makes me figure they weren’t letters in the first place. They were numbers. What they mean, I ain’t figured that out, but then when all the extra chores I’ve been doing, I ain’t exactly had time.”

Luthene looked at the numbers, trying to make sense of them. Part of the real ledger, perhaps? She hoped so, but it was hard to tell where the numbers divided. “I’ll take these,” Luthene said, folding both pages. “Tonight, when you’re released, come to my room, and Galin and I will explain further. Tell no one about this message.”

Lajaka’s jovial expression faded. “Something’s wrong, ain’t it?”

“I’ll tell you more later,” Luthene promised, then left for the kitchen. Maria was there, thankfully, and getting food ready.

“Up early for a change, are you?” Maria said, winking. She had also noticed the larger tunic. Pulling a fresh loaf of bread out of the oven, she placed it on a tray with two boiled eggs and some fresh cheese, then gestured for Luthene to take it.

“A cup of hot water?” Luthene asked.

“I don’t know why you need the stuff anymore,” Maria said. “He’s given you a ring, hasn’t he? It’s as good as done! And you’re getting on in your years for a first.”

“Galin and I are waiting a bit longer,” Luthene replied, and it was hard to hide the sadness in her voice.

Maria stopped what she was doing and embraced the other woman. “I’ll talk to that man of yours.”

“No, it’s alright,” Luthene protested. “It’s my decision, too. Actually, I was wondering where your man might be. Galin needs to speak to him.”

“Again? He was just there last night!”

“Something else has come up,” Luthene explained.

Maria shrugged. “I’ll fetch him and send him your way. Best bring Galin his breakfast, though, he’ll get fussy if you wait any longer.”

Luthene laughed, and picked up the tray, then went back to her room, to Galin, to wait for Cooper.

“All right, lovely,” he murmured and kissed her again before curling back up under the blankets, still warm from her body. It was a rare moment where he was not the first of them awake and he was going to take full advantage of it. It may only have been another quarter hour but it was the principle of it all. It was decadence for him and he relaxed into the well-stuffed mattress and drifted, halfway between waking and sleep, and tried to make sense of his predicament. There was the attempt on his life and then the break in in his quarters. A soldier, he knew, made enemies, especially a foreign hired blade living far from home. It was easier to hate him for the actions of another and strike at him as a proxy. Still and all, there was nothing he could do until he could figure out who in the hell was trying to kill him in the first place. Now it was like the chaos of a broken line of battle, all dust and screams and panic, no sense of order or direction. He hoped that speaking with Cooper and Lajaka might do something to restore some order and give a direction for his frustrated anger.

Sadly, the reality of the morning broke through the pleasant, warm haze of sleep and he pushed back the piled blankets and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He saw his trousers in the grey half-light starting to filter through the high horn windows but could not find his tunic. Grumbling, he tugged on his trousers and pulled on his cloak before stepping across the room’s cold flagstone floor to the door. When he hauled it open, he frowned and walked into the hall. Colum was supposed to be ready in the morning before Galin woke, as was the proper way for a young soldier learning his trade, and see to the fire in Galin’s quarters before starting his chores for that day. It taught him to place the well-being of the rest of the company above his own and trained him to be ready to act in those first, sleepy minutes of the day where surprise was so often deadly. This morning, however, he was not in the hall and Galin stormed down to his door and hammered on it with his fist. “Up, up now Col, you’re bloody late and no soldier’ll make it long in this company if he can’t be where he’s told when he’s told. Up!”

The door squeaked open two minutes later and a bleary-eyed Colum blinked up at him. “Sir, it’s not even dawn proper yet, and Miss Luthene said I was to get some rest, see? So I was thinking that,” he stammered before Galin cut him off with a growl.

“Are you a soldier yet, Col?”

“No sir.”

“So who does the thinking, Colum? You or me?”

“You, sir.”

Galin bit his lip to contain a smile and squatted down to look him in the eyes. “Confirm your orders with your officer before assuming next time, little man. That way everyone’s thinking the same and no one ends up getting their hide tanned by an irate man that looks suspiciously like myself. Now get you over to the wood pile and split me enough for the day in the hearth, and then for the barracks as well. When you’ve finished, get yourself cleaned up and over to the kitchens for a bite. We’ll be training in the yard later, so I can’t have you fainting like a wee girl, now can I?” He ruffled the boy’s hair and sent him off with a patter of feet. As he left in a blur, Galin laughed to himself at the earnestness of the boy when it came to matters of soldiering. If he didn’t do something stupid, Galin had every confidence the boy would make a creditable soldier when he was grown. Leaving Colum to his work, Galin shut the door to the boy’s small room and turned when he heard more footsteps in the hall.

Luthene, and a few jogging steps behind her Cooper, came toward the room and he held the door open for them both, winking at Luthene as he tugged on the hem of her borrowed tunic. “Maker, woman, people will talk,” he whispered and kissed her warmly before Cooper caught up. When they were all in the room, he swung the door shut and latched it, leaning against it a moment before he started to speak. He could smell the bread from the tray Luthene had brought and he licked his lips a moment, but forced himself to focus on the task at hand. He started to explain the situation with the taxes to Cooper, though in broad strokes because the intricacies of the finances were not really something that would either interest or enlighten the section leader. Galin paused a moment, his eyes narrowing, and he pulled his war sword from its scabbard near the door. He motioned for everyone to be silent then eased the latch on the door out of its brackets and pushed the heavy oak aside.

On the other side of the door there was a rustle of skirts and a squeaking cry as Galin stepped out and leveled his blade at whoever had been listening at the door. When the flustered woman pulled back her cloak, he saw it was Maria and glared at her, then Cooper, then her again. “Let me guess. You were just wanting to see if we’d finished with the breakfast tray, you insatiable gossip. Well, you’ll hear better inside anyhow, and Maker knows Cooper will tell you to avoid that spoon again. Now move it, before I change my mind,” he growled as he pulled the door shut behind them again. “As bad as blood Colum you are… So, Luthene, before I filet your friend, I’ll grab a bite, you take up the tale, yeah?”

“People already talk,” Luthene pointed out, colouring a bit. “And if you try to tell me you mind, I’ll call you a liar.” She set the tray down on the table and was preparing her tea when Cooper joined them, and Galin shut the door behind him. While Galin explained the situation with the ledgers— vaguely, she noted— and their meeting with the magistrate, Luthene cut into the bread and spread some of the soft cheese on it. She couldn’t wait for the meeting to end before she could eat; unlike him, she had chores to do, detestable hard labour, and she couldn’t be late.

She was just finishing her egg and about to gulp down her tea when she heard Galin pause, and she noticed the tension in his body. Luthene stood up as he drew his sword, and held her breath when he opened the door… and found Maria. She entered the room, Galin shut and bolted the door again, and asked Luthene to continue the story while he ate his breakfast. “Oh, you’ll do no such thing,” Luthene said when Galin suggested filleting Maria. “She’s half the reason you and Cooper didn’t kill each other, and we all know he’d be even more insufferable without her.”

Gulping back her tea, Luthene invited Maria to take her chair. “I still say you don’t need that anymore,” Maria said.

“You’ll understand soon enough,” Luthene replied, giving her a stern look. “Galin was just telling your Owen about our meeting in the city, with the magistrate. Afterwards, we walked through the market, and we were talking about getting a new tunic for Colum—“

“Oh, good, that one he’s been wearing is way too short and—“

“Maria, please,” Luthene interrupted, “Let me finish, and you can give your commentary later. Anyway, we were in the market when a former Company man, Andrew Milner, approached Galin and threatened to kill him if he didn’t hand over his purse. There were two other men with the attacker, Mamlak men. Galin disarmed Milner, and the Mamlak men attacked. Galin and I killed them, then I went to Colum while Galin went after Milner.” Luthene had wandered over to Galin in the telling, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Maria was white, but stayed silent. “He had a pouch of gold crescents on his person, and Galin’s name scribbled on a piece of paper. Unfortunately, he preferred to die rather than be questioned. We don’t know who hired him, just that he said, ‘he’ll get you before long’, as though we needed any further confirmation that someone was hired to do this.”

Cooper looked ready to speak, but Luthene shook her head. “There’s more. When we got back last night, I noticed the door was unlocked. Galin figures it had been picked. I noticed my papers were out of order, and something was taken.” From her pocket, she produced the pages Lajaka had given her, and held up the one in her own hand. “This is a copy I made of a message I found at the desk here when we moved in.”

Maria picked it up, then handed it to Cooper. “What’s it say?”

“I’m not sure yet. It’s in code, and I’ve been trying to break it. I didn’t get very far, but I made a copy for Lajaka, and she thinks what I found was a copy, and the original version contained numbers.” This page she handed to Galin, hoping he might make sense of it. “The message I found, and any copies I made in trying to decode it, were taken. Nothing else. To men, that suggests whomever did it was literate, and Galin says I’m looking at it too much like a scholar, and we need to look at people who have the skills to pick a lock. We both agree that the person responsible probably lives here, and that’s how they were able to come and go as they pleased. Galin doubts its any of the Company, most of them from small villages. Probably someone from a city, and newly-arrived.” She turned to Maria. “Alright, go ahead, I’m sure you can think of plenty of possibilities.”

Maria could, indeed. As Luthene had hoped, Maria knew just about everyone around the fort, and a few in the village who they often did business with. There was Leopold, the mason, and his wife, Marcella; there was Renata, a washer-woman from the village who had recently started spending more of her nights with Eamon and inside the fort rather than outside it— not likely, being a village woman, but Maria stressed how bright the woman was; in the newly-established tavern, there was Adam, from the city, Cait, a serving woman with a bit of a side business ‘if you know what I mean’, and Gina, who had been doing the same, but now preferred one man exclusively, Padraig; and so on and so forth, until Luthene had heard about fifteen names, occupations, and who they might be sleeping with.

“Now we’ll have to try and eliminate possibilities,” Luthene said. “It’s very important, especially for you, Maira, not to let on that you suspect anyone of anything.” She looked out one of the windows, at the rapidly-brightening sky. “I suppose that conversation will have to wait. Cooper, I’ll see you outside for whatever delightful task my section is assigned to.”

“Aye, I think we need another latrine pit dug,” he replied with a grin, escorting Maria out.

When the door closed behind them, Luthene grabbed her own tunic. “Don’t look,” she said, taking off Galin’s and putting her own back on. She handed it to him, and kissed him. “I know, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, but you might get tempted and then I’ll be late. Hang on to those messages I got from Lajaka until I can copy them. Perhaps see if you can talk Colum into doing it, he could use the practice, and he might not grumble about it so much if you’re the one to ask.” She kissed him again, and held on a bit longer. “I love you. I’ll see you later.”