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  “Are you finished here?”

  “Not quite,” he replied. “There is the small matter of an outstanding personal debt that’s owed to me. I marvel that you have forgotten so quickly, you who were so keen for me to remember all the details.” He smiled to himself as he saw her eyes flash dangerously.

  “I have nothing else for you,” Melisande frowned. “Turn back around if you’ve unfinished business.”

  Heughan remembered his conversation with Lettice and brightened. “I’m willing to be reasonable. Give me first taste of your pigeon. I’d be happy to sample that, whatever you might have done to it.”

  Melisande refusal was cold. “No. I don’t think so. Not today.”

  Heughan winked boyishly, “But I’m a hungry man. You robbed me and left me nothing the other day.”

  “Nothing was twice as much as you deserve, even so.”

  “You still owe me a half payment.”

  “Roddy says otherwise.”

  “Roddy sent me here to collect what’s due.”

  She put her hands stoutly on her hips, “Well, you won’t be collecting from me.”

  “Have it your own way. I’ll see what Sally’s prepared to offer me.”

  He made to push past her but Melisande stood her ground, refusing to give way.

  “There’s nothing else here for you, I tell you,” she said more forcibly.

  “And I tell you that I have the appetite for more, and I’m not yet satisfied.”

  He tried to manoeuvre round the other side of her but she shifted and blocked him. He felt the bump of her spurs, still in his pocket.

  He rummaged in his trews, “If you won’t be reasonable, I’ll have to give what’s in here to you.”

  The glint of a knife appeared in Melisande’s left hand. “Not while I draw breath.”

  Heughan stopped himself from drawing against her in retaliation. “Are you fucking mad?” he snarled. “Do you even know who I am?”

  “Do I even care?”

  “Get out of my way, witch! I will take what I am owed, this time.”

  In one smooth move, he slammed her arm against the wall, twisted in against her, pinning her with his body so he could grab for her wrist. He squeezed hard to make her loosen her grip and drop the knife. Melisande howled with pain as Heughan flexed her wrist to force her fingers open. She grabbed at his dagger with her free hand, snatching one of his throwing knives. As he grappled with her, she stabbed the knife into the wall, narrowly missing his fingers. He let go of her knife hand and she darted past him, slashing wildly. As she jumped onto the lower step, she gashed Heughan’s leg, stabbing him with a downwards stroke, hard enough to make him yelp. She clattered down the stairs into the arms of Red Sally, who had come bustling through at the commotion. Doors flew open and bed-tousled women stuck their heads over the bannisters to see what was happening.

  “Get back to work, you lot,” Sally yelled. “You’re not paid to stand around gawking.” The faces vanished and doors banged shut one by one, Lettice’s the last.

  Sally tucked Melisande up like a broody hen with a chick and spoke contritely to Heughan, who was rigid with anger, limping downstairs with the knife still embedded in his thigh, blood oozing from a long slice ripped up his trews.

  “That’s right, bring it here, lad. She’ll fix it for you when she’s right side out. Unless you want to risk the barber on Finkle Street,” she added, seeing Heughan’s expression of disbelief.

  She rounded on Melisande and chided her, “What’s riled you? The lad just wants his dinner,” she said, shaking her like the wind in a tree. “Why do you think I’ve been peeling turnips all morning?” She pushed Melisande in front of her, gave her a rough shove and smacked her hard on the rump with the flat of her hand. That made Heughan smile and cheer to himself. “Get down there, sort yourself out and then you can clear up this mess you’ve made.” She shook her head disbelievingly. “Moonstruck.”

  Sally had a fine nose for trouble. It had never yet let her down. She had sent word to Rodrigues as soon as Heughan had ridden up that morning and was possibly the only person who wasn’t surprised at his appearance in the immediate aftermath of the fight.

  The sight that greeted him when he walked into the small parlour was enough to make him laugh outright and have to disguise it quickly with a gruff cough. Melisande and Heughan were sat at opposite sides of the confined room, looking for the whole world like naughty siblings who were frantically trying to out-blame each other. Heughan looked up and glared defiantly at him as he entered; Melisande kept her head down. So far, so predictable, Rodrigues thought.

  Heughan held an ominously blood-soaked cloth over his leg. “What happened?” Rodrigues asked suspiciously as he stepped forwards to have a closer look.

  Heughan slammed Melisande’s bloody knife onto the table. “You should ask her,” he said churlishly. Rodrigues cocked an enquiring look at Melisande’s downcast face and crossed his arms. He sighed in exasperation. “Mistress Meddlesome, why must you always think to involve yourself in matters which are not your concern?” he asked quietly. Her chin snapped quickly up and she pouted angrily but said nothing. He shook his head in a small movement but a smile danced on his lips.

  “Trouble always comes looking for you, my little peacock, and it doesn’t have to try very hard to find you.” She opened her mouth to reply but he held one finger up to still her, “Curiosity, Melisande, is the original sin of woman and the way that the devil recruits his witches.”

  She made a strangled noise through clenched teeth, as though the effort of staying silent was costing her dear.

  Heughan was highly entertained by the one-sided exchange and caught off-guard when Rodrigues rounded on him and asked what he had done to upset her. His eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he indicated his bleeding leg, protesting his innocence with wordless eloquence.

  Just at that moment, Sally shied through the door, bumping it open with her expansive behind, her hands bearing a tray of wine cups. She tut-tutted at the sight of Heughan’s leg and handed a cup each to him and Rodrigues, before manoeuvring Melisande to the window seat, persuading her to drink and whispering urgently to her. They exchanged looks and then Sally turned to Heughan.

  “Why don’t you let her fix your leg, dearie, and then perhaps we can clear up the rest of this misunderstanding?” she said out loud with encouraging cheerfulness.

  “I’m not letting that mad witch come anywhere near me,” he answered coldly.

  Rodrigues stood between Heughan and Melisande. He kept his eye on Heughan but it was to Melisande that he spoke over his shoulder. “Why is his leg still bleeding, Melisande? Was there poison on the blade?” he asked, swigging from his cup.

  “Shit!” Heughan sluiced his own cup of wine over his leg and looked wildly around for more. Rodrigues backed away, carefully nursing his own drink.

  “Roddy, give me the damn wine, you arseworm! She’s poisoned me!”

  “It’s empty. I already finished it. Heughan, the wine…” he dropped the cup, clutching at his chest, spluttering and with wine spilling from his mouth. Heughan was at his side in two strides, hammering hard on his back, his own predicament forgotten. Rodrigues grabbed his wrist, begging him to stop with bulging eyes, turning gradually more puce until, as Heughan stared in rigid disbelief, the coughing gave way to whooping laughter.

  “You bastard, Roddy,” Heughan swore in disgust, dragging him to his feet by the scruff of his neck. Rodrigues was still laughing hoarsely. “That went down the wrong way. If you would have let me finish, I was about to say that the wine was far too good to waste on baptising yourself. Even Christ himself made do with water for that. Just let her stitch it, will you? She knows what she’s doing, see?”

  He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a jagged scar running up the inside of his wrist. Heughan, mildly surprised, asked, “Did she do that?”

  “She healed the wound, if that’s what you’re asking me. It was a nasty business…”

  “If yo
u want me to help, I’ll need brandy, fresh linen and a sharp needle,” Melisande interrupted. “It’s not poisoned, but I can’t promise it won’t hurt.”

  She flashed unrepentant eyes at Heughan as she rummaged in her satchel for a few other things. He looked at Rodrigues, who was uninterpretable, refilling his wine cup with a smile on his lips and humming quietly to himself.

  Neither said another word until she had finished cleaning, stitching and binding the wound. Kneeling at Heughan’s feet, she looked up at him through lash-veiled eyes. He felt a jolt, as though someone had prodded him in the chest. Three of Swords flashed across Melisande’s mind. “Accept her loss, accept the pain and it will pass,” she said so softly that he wasn’t sure she had spoken. He suddenly felt quite weak at the knees and glad to be already sitting down.

  “Keep it clean and out of water,” she instructed before reluctantly adding, “I am sorry, it was my misunderstanding about the payment terms.”

  Rodrigues, who had been drinking and idly gazing out of the window, rounded back to challenge Heughan with a questioning look. Heughan retold his side of the story, admitting with chagrin that he had been with Lettice. Rodrigues frowned and looked at Sally.

  “That’s not part of our arrangement?”

  Now it was Melisande and Sally’s turn to exchange looks.

  “You paid from your own pocket?” Rodrigues asked Heughan, somewhat incredulously.

  Heughan took a long time to reply, “Not exactly.” He prattled on defensively, “I like Letty, I thought I would help her, she offered but then she wouldn’t take anything from me. She said I could have her for a smile and a song…” he trailed off as Rodrigues looked him slowly up and down with a discerning smirk.

  “Did she now?” he said evenly, causing Melisande and Sally to cast their own appraising looks over Heughan until he was nervous.

  Rodrigues drained his cup and banged it on the table. “Business is business. You,” he pointed at Heughan, "payment is always collected in coin. No substitutions. Bed and board means sleep and eat. Stay away from the ladies or sleep in the barn with the other stallions.

  "Sal’, you daft whore, I mean it. Don’t let him con you with his sad, soft eyes. He gets nothing on the slate and everything comes directly to me.

  “Mele, if he doesn’t behave,” he grinned evilly at Heughan, “you can geld him next time.” Rodrigues grabbed Heughan by the arm and propelled him out of the chair in a whirl of elaborate bowing. “Ladies, always a pleasure doing business with you,” was his parting pleasantry as he whisked a bewildered Heughan out of the house and marched him the short distance down Grape Lane to the wine shop.

  Sally put her hands on her hips and let out a long-held breath. “Well, I guess that sorts that out,” she said. “Though I shall be having sharp words with Letty. ‘A smile and a song?’ What on earth was she thinking?”

  Melisande remained quiet. Seven of Swords, she remembered, the card for secretiveness, hidden motives and dishonesty. “I don’t trust him,” she said. “What’s his game, Sal’?”

  Sally shrugged, “Heughan? He’s a broken man, disowned of a name. He’s not one of the families, answers to no one in particular. Plenty of the local lads are happy to follow him and call him heidsman. I heard he spent time as a mercenary in Ireland or somewhere. He’s a hard man, reiver to the core, but right enough.”

  “I thought he was Roddy’s man? Is there more to his story?” Melisande asked.

  “Smuggling,” Sally replied in surprise, certain that it was common knowledge. “He’s part of Roddy’s business, the Irish part. Though if you want to know how big that Irish part is, you’ll have to ask Letty.”

  Melisande ignored Sally’s lewdness. “That’s not news, Sal’. I’ve had enough dealings with Roddy to know the extent of his business. What I meant was why he had asked you to give Heughan lodgings.”

  “What I got told was that Sim the Laird torched Heughan’s bastle when he was last over in Ireland. Heughan was too late back to go hot trodding against Sim, so he and his lads took the cattle, fired a farmstead. Sim’s leman was killed. ‘Accident,’ Roddy says. ‘Murder,’ says Sim. And he won’t let it rest there. Eye for an eye. It’s stirred up an old family feud, and Roddy wants Heughan somewhere that he can keep his eye on him until things quieten down.”

  “And how long do you suppose that’s going to take?”

  “Well, how the buggery would I know?” said Sally exasperated. “Roddy doesn’t discuss every decision with the likes of me, and it’s not like I’m the one hobnobbing at the Lord Warden’s table every day. Your lord keeps his dodgiest dealings with the riding families well-hidden even from you.”

  Melisande shook her head, “All of that’s true, Sal’, but from what I know, Heughan rides for the Kerrs, amongst others. That’s reason enough for Roddy to want to keep away from Ross and the Armstrongs both. There’s no love lost there. They trade with the Johnstones over the border if the money’s right but that’s all. Business might be business, as Roddy says, but I can’t shake the feeling I’m missing something. Just because he claims he trusts Heughan, that’s not a good enough reason for me to like the double-crossing bastard.”

  “Reivers, eh? You can’t really trust any of ’em, girl. But you can lead them around by the cock any day of the week, especially that Heughan, I’ll wager. All they’re interested in is fighting, drinking, whoring and coin. Thank goodness! It’s what pays the bills.”

  Melisande wasn’t convinced.

  “The Roddy I know always likes to be two steps ahead of everyone else. All that tomfoolery was just meant to distract me. No, he’s up to something.”

  “Well, if I was you, I wouldn’t go sticking my nose too far into reiver business, especially not if you’ll as like end up on the wrong side of an Armstrong feud. I just do as I’m told. I turn my face to the wall and let them ride by and get on with it. And you’d be wise to do the same. Mele, love, you’re putting too much into this. You mind your pretty head doesn’t split open like an overripe peach with the effort of thinking, just as the Bishop warned. That’s men’s work.”

  Sally cackled roundly as she caught Melisande’s muttered expression of disgust at His Lordship’s misogynistic suggestion. “That’s not a very ladylike thing to call the Bishop, is it?”

  “Bugger the Bishop. What’s Heughan’s game? There’s something more to this, I just feel it.” She chewed at the corner of her lip, worrying at her concerns.

  Knight of Swords. A restless and impatient man who would charge headlong into your life and rush out of it again just as quickly. She didn’t need a flighty distraction like Heughan.

  The Six of Pentacles. The Master maintaining balance by dominating others. Oh, that was Rodrigues through and through! She did not like the implications.

  Sally smoothed her skirts and gathered up the cups. “If there is any more, I don’t want to know about it, Mele. Don’t involve me in your dangerous stuff, ta very muchly. The Spaniard’s right; curiosity is costly. My customers are aye ready to let slip their little secrets as it is. You’d be amazed how many jacks want to tell you everything once you’re rubbing their cock in your hands.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard the Crown commissioners make similar claims.”

  “Shut yer mouth, that’s not funny, Mele,” Sally shuddered. “Don’t you go conjuring up those devils by speaking of ’em. You mark my words, one of these days, Ross Middlemore will find someone wondering if it’s really a coincidence that certain families have managed to evade his patrols all this time and ask themselves what’s properly going on. God help us all when that day comes.”

  The World, reversed. An uncertain future. A profession that cannot be sustained and must be released.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences, Sal’. I believe in using my head, even at the risk of it exploding. For a start, I want your new girl, Sorcha.”

  Sally opened her mouth to protest, caught Melisande’s eye and, changing her mind, nodded. “Roddy’s correct about o
ne thing,” Melisande continued, “payment is always collected in coin. I’ll take her with me and pay her debt to you to have her work for me as my lady’s maid.” She put some small coins on the table and met Sally’s stare. “No substitutions.”

  Rodrigues kept Heughan propped up with hearty camaraderie until they were both through the wine shop, the warren of stores and stables, and secure in the privacy of his inner sanctum. Even then he said nothing until he had poured them both another cup of his best French wine. He waited until Heughan spoke first. It wasn’t the explosive anger Rodrigues had expected, and Heughan surprised both of them with his calmness.

  “I have neither your talent nor patience for games, Roddy,” he said baldly. “I am a direct man and I prefer direct action. I can’t hide behind a woman’s skirts any longer. I only agreed in the first place because it is a means to an end but I grow tired of pretence and truth will out.”

  Rodrigues was contrite and ready to apologise to Heughan. “The men know how things truly stand, Heughan. They gladly follow you. I am just playing my part too,” he offered.

  “The men only know the part of it we tell them. Some things are safer kept between the two of us. Just mind you don’t over-reach yourself,” Heughan warned. He stood to pace the room and winced as he thoughtlessly put his full weight onto his injured leg. The new stitches strained and blood seeped through. Heughan cursed under his breath. “What’s the latest news?”

  Rodrigues distractedly rustled through some papers on his desk, “Cecil’s still championing the cause of James of Scotland to the queen. He’s likely to be successful too.”

  “No,” sneered Heughan, “The English still regard Scotland as a foreign country. It’s only here in the Borders that we know the truth of one another. They’ll never put a Scotsman on the English throne; ol’ King Hal himself forbade it. They’ll plump for Arbella Stuart; dizzy, frivolous thing, easily manipulated. She’d be so biddable compared to the old harridan that we’d have Ireland back within a week.”