Sir Henry endeavored to explain to Alcazar that once he was in Freya, he would be under Freyan protection. The Rosians could not harm him and he at last persuaded Alcazar to agree to go to Freya, if his brother and his family could accompany him.
Sir Henry spent several days making careful arrangements. He and Pietro Alcazar were to travel to Freya on board the merchant vessel, Silver Raven, on which Pietro’s brother, Manuel, served. Manuel’s wife and children would be smuggled out on a different ship, so as not to arouse suspicion, and transported to the Aligoes Islands. From there, they would be taken to Freya.
Since Alcazar’s brother, Manuel, was currently on board the Silver Raven and it was somewhere between Bheldem and Westfirth, he could not be reached. Sir Henry discreetly approached his wife. With a passel of small children to feed, she was living on the meager earnings of a sailor and was only too happy to agree to leave Westfirth, especially with wealth in the offing.
All Henry had to do now was await the return of the Silver Raven. The manifest the captain had filed with the port authorities stated the ship was expected back in port in approximately a week, give or take a few days due to uncertain weather.
Sadly, the genius, Pietro Alcazar, remained in a state of perturbation. He was certain the Rosian guard was on his trail and feared that any moment they would break down the door and arrest him. He trembled whenever he heard a footstep in the hall and this morning he had nearly fainted when a troop of soldiers came marching down the street on their way to the Old Fort. It was at this juncture Sir Henry seriously considered skewering the journeyman. Instead he had to appease him, keep him happy.
“You are in no danger whatsoever,” Sir Henry assured the wretched Alcazar. “But it is true that we have stayed in one place too long. We are going to switch to a new location.”
He and Alcazar had moved from the inn to a seedy boarding house much like the one in which Alcazar had lived in Evreux. Sir Henry had been alarmed that morning when the old biddy down the hall tried to engage him in conversation. Probably quite innocent, but he wasn’t one to take chances.
Henry often used the city of Westfirth as his base of operations when he made his secret trips to Rosia. He had loyal people in his employ and vast and extensive connections with the Westfirth criminal underworld. Smugglers and assassins and thieves knew him by a different face, a different name (“the Guvnor”). He had money, disguises, documents, and weapons of all kinds stashed in various locations throughout the city. He went out the next day, made the necessary arrangements, and returned that night to collect Alcazar.
Sir Henry spent long moments observing the dark street from the window of his room, making certain no one was loitering in the shadows. The street was empty. He and Alcazar, both heavily cloaked, left the boarding house in the dead of night and walked to another house with a “For Let” sign in the window. Sir Henry had procured a key and the two entered.
Drawing the heavy curtains, Sir Henry lighted a lantern and placed it on a dust-covered table.
“I brought you a change of clothing,” he said, opening a large portmanteau.
Alcazar stared, astonished, at the contents.
“You want me to dress as a woman?”
“An excellent disguise, don’t you think?” Sir Henry said coolly. “I have rooms for us at the Blue Peacock. I went there in the guise of a servant and told the proprietor that my master, a noble gentleman of substantial means, is planning a secret assignation with a married woman whose husband must not know of the affair. I will be the noble gentleman. You will be my mistress.”
Pietro Alcazar was a slender, lithe man with long, soft brown hair and large brown eyes. His hands were working man’s hands, not the soft hands of a lady, but gloves would hide that defect. His effeminate build and features had given Sir Henry the idea for the disguise.
In an age where marriages were arranged for either monetary or political convenience, men and women of the noble classes often indulged in affairs. All parties knew what was going on; husbands knew about their wives’ lovers; wives knew about their husbands’ mistresses. The only rule was that the affair was to be conducted with secrecy and discretion so as not to compromise the family’s honor. Such an arrangement as Sir Henry had proposed was not at all unusual. The innkeeper of the Blue Peacock was accustomed to entertaining wealthy guests who gave false names and arrived heavily cloaked, veiled, and masked.
Alcazar started to protest, but the expression on Henry’s face, especially the glint in the flat, cold eyes, caused Alcazar to shut his mouth and put on his petticoats.
Sir Henry also changed clothes. He had that morning gone to the Blue Peacock dressed in the somber attire of a gentleman’s gentleman. Henry the Manservant had been soft-spoken, retiring, with lowered eyes, not daring to look upon his betters. Sir Henry the Rosian Nobleman wore a silk waistcoat, embroidered vest, tight trousers banded at the knee with velvet rosettes, silk hose, buckled shoes, and an overlarge, frilly lace collar. He applied a black goatee and mustache with spirit gum, put on a periwig, slid several flashy rings onto his fingers and, smoothing his mustache with the tip of his finger, transformed himself into the flashy and arrogant count.
Henry spent the rest of the night drilling Alcazar how to walk in the voluminous silk skirt and petticoats and dainty shoes without tripping over the hem or turning an ankle. He showed him how to hold his fan in one hand and catch up his skirts in the other, then marched Alcazar ruthlessly up and down the empty room until he was satisfied that onlookers would take Pietro for a lady, albeit a clumsy one.
The “count” and his “lady” arrived at the Blue Parrot at midmorning. They descended from a coach, decorated with a false coat of arms, and driven by one of his agents. The proprietor was on hand to greet them. The two were immediately whisked up to their suite of rooms at the top part of the inn. Alcazar stumbled over his petticoats while ascending the stairs. Sir Henry covered this by laughing boisterously and teasing his lady about imbibing too much champagne.
Sir Henry’s Rosian was flawless, his accent unimpeachable, no matter what accent he chose to use. He could converse as a dockworker with a dockworker or discuss religion as a monk with the Archbishop of Westfirth and no one would guess he wasn’t who he claimed to be.
Confident he had not been followed, Sir Henry did not grow complacent. He was far too skilled for that. But he did allow himself to relax a little, take some champagne with his breakfast, and reflect on the fact that the next few days should pass peacefully enough and then he and Alcazar would be on the way back to Freya.
He lay down for a nap and rose refreshed in the afternoon. He changed his clothes and demeanor to those of Henry the Manservant, left the inn, and went to take his daily stroll through a quiet churchyard. The exercise cleared his mind; he ran over his plans and found no flaws. As he walked through the old, picturesque cemetery, he went to pay his respects to a certain grave.
Sir Henry stopped, stared. The tomb was quite old and weather beaten. The carving was mostly worn off. The fragment of a name, “Henri,” was all that was visible. Lying on the tomb was a bunch of purple clover tied with a bit of black ribbon.
Sir Henry stood gazing down at the clover for long moments, then, frowning, he walked on, his peace of mind shattered.
James Harrington left Evreux heading for Westfirth on the afternoon of the day the Cloud Hopper sailed out into the Breath. Harrington had not been planning a journey to Westfirth. Quite the contrary, his orders from Sir Henry had been quite clear-he was to remain in Evreux. The arrival of a letter, however, caused Harrington to change his plans. A ship would be the fastest way to reach Westfirth, but there was not time to book passage. He acquired a seat on the post chaise-wyvern-drawn carriages that carried the mail to various locations throughout Rosia.
The carriages had room for up to four riders and were the fastest way to travel overland from one point to another. The carriages stopped at posts along the way to change wyverns and deliver the mail. Mindful of the need for speeding the post on its way, the changing of the wyverns was accomplished with such rapidity that passengers were permitted to get out only to stretch their legs before the whip cracked and they were off again. Since the carriages were noted more for speed than for comfort, those passengers who took the post chaise generally did so because they needed to be somewhere in a hurry.
Harrington arrived in Westfirth two days ahead of the Cloud Hopper. He took up residence in an inn and did as Sir Henry had taught him. He enjoyed the pleasures of Westfirth. Harrington frequented taverns and gambling dens, strolled along the docks, walked about the shops. He mingled with the crowds in the park and took a stroll to view the wondrous new cathedral, which was being built on the old church grounds. He bought a bunch of clover from a pretty flower vendor. He walked through an old cemetery and read the names on the tombs. Everywhere he went,
