Page 59 of Retribution

“What color is his hair?”

“Black,” he said. “As are his eyes. Black as night.”

With that, the armed man went back into the tavern, disappearing from view. Everald waited with great anticipation, pleased at himself for coming up with a good fabrication. He stood back from the door, though he was still focused on the interior, watching groups of people in conversation and at least one game of chance where everyone who lost had to take a drink of something that was evidently vile. That game had his attention mostly because he was trying to figure out what was so horrible that some of them retched right after they drank it. As he stood there, watching one man try to avoid the drink while someone held his head and someone else tried to pour it down his throat, he heard a quiet voice from behind.

“Why are you following me, Everald?”

Startled, he turned to see Langford standing behind him. Hissing a curse, because he knew immediately that the armed man had taken his money and betrayed him, he struggled to come up with an answer.

“I do not know,” he said honestly. “I saw you leave and you appeared as if you were doing something you should not be doing, so I followed you.”

Langford cocked a dark eyebrow. “And how do you know what I should be doing?”

Everald shrugged. “You never leave Cambridge’s side,” he said. “Yet I saw you run out of the livery yard as if the devil was in pursuit, so I followed. What are you doing, Langford? Who are those men you are meeting with that you do not want Cambridge to know about?”

“Who says I do not want him to know about them?”

“Then you will not mind if I tell him what I saw.”

Langford looked at him, puzzled. “Why?”

“Why not?” Everald said. “Unless it is something you do not want him to know, in which case, you must pay me for my silence. The more you pay, the longer I shall remain silent.”

Langford stared at him for a moment as he came to realize that Everald saw this as a moneymaking opportunity and nothing more. “De Beaumont,” he finally said. “I hardly know you and you hardly know me. We’ve said, mayhap, five words to each other in the past three years. I know that you are a weak fool, dependent on poppy, and that Cambridge keeps you supplied with it for a variety of reasons. What makes you think he would believe you if you told him you followed me to The Pox and saw me speaking with men you did not recognize? He would think you were spouting hallucinations from your feeble, poppy-addled mind.”

“Shall we find out?”

Langford shrugged. “Go ahead,” he said. “He will believe me without question and you risk losing the man who is keeping you supplied with your beloved poppy. Your information will only anger him when I deny it.”

Everald didn’t like being on the losing end of his own blackmail scheme. “Then we shall find out whom he believes,” he said. “I not only intend to tell him that I saw you, but I intend to tell him that I overheard you speaking of stealing from him. Better still, murdering him in his sleep. Those men you met with are murderers and you have promised them riches if they will do away with your liege, a man you detest. Will you risk that?”

Langford didn’t say anything right away. He simply looked at him. Then, he burst out into laughter, revealing stained and crooked teeth. “You are a bigger fool than I thought,” he said. “But mayhap you are right. Mayhap that is really what I was doing. Mayhap those men are murderers, because if they are, you will be their next victim before you can open your stupid mouth and lie to Cambridge.”

Everald took a step or two away from him, backing up to the open door of The Pox. “They can try,” he said. “But they will have a fight on their hands.”

“From whom?” Langford said. “A useless knight who failed in the Levant and then came to England and failed here, as well? You are a failure, de Beaumont. The only thing of value you ever did was father Cleodora, who is a genuinely sweet and intelligent lass. It was her horrific misfortune to have a worthless father like you. God help the woman, truly.”

Everald’s features tightened with rage. “You will not say such things.”

“Or what?” Langford said. “What could you possibly do?”

Everald intended to show him. He produced a dagger, one of the only possessions he had left that he hadn’t sold for money for the poppy. As he took a step toward Langford, someone grabbed him from behind and threw an arm around his head, grabbing his face and pulling it upward. The same person then dragged a razor-sharp dagger across Everald’s throat, cutting him so deeply that he nearly decapitated him.

As Everald fell to the ground, bleeding out and unable to call for help because his windpipe was cut, Langford watched without emotion. So did two other men who had come out of The Pox behind him, one of them having cut Everald’s throat when he made a provocative move toward Langford.

The three of them watched Everald die.

There was no remorse.

“You did your good deed for the day,” Langford said, glancing up at the man nearest him. “Thank you, Perrin.”

Perrin de Lohr was still looking at Everald. “Who is that?” he said.

Langford’s gaze moved to the dead man on the ground. “The father of the Pearl,” he said. “Cambridge’s Jewel. That bloodied corpse is Everald de Beaumont and he is as foolish and dishonorable as they come, so you just did Lady Cleodora a good turn. Now she doesn’t have to worry about her father selling her again to the highest bidder.”

Perrin glanced up at him. “Is that what he did?” he said. “He sold his daughter to Cambridge?”

Langford shrugged. “More or less,” he said. “He had the power to stop her from becoming a courtesan had he protested enough and got the church involved, but once Cambridge started giving him coin, his protests died. Trust me when I tell you that you did the world a service, Perrin. No one will miss him.”