Chapter 254: Considering your rank

“I learned early that class is universally admired. Almost any fault, sin or crime is considered more leniently if there’s a touch of class involved.”

Frank Abignale, Catch me if you can

The door opened to reveal Frau Ingar still in her nightshirt. “Lord Silversea? An incident?” she asked as she held the door ajar before her a little defensively. My knocking had clearly woken her, but I was surprised it had brought her rather than her husband to the door.

“Yes, I apologise for the intrusion, but this will need your family’s personal touch to resolve. Is Lord Njord available?” I hastily explained my reason for waking them before asking for her husband. We could either flee in the night or go straight to the top and hopefully leave town without being declared murderers in the morning.

“He’s still sleeping off some of what he imbibed last night. Exactly what has happened?” she demanded once more. It looked like I would not be seeing the Jarl straight away. First, I would have to convince his wife, the current gatekeeper.

I could always wait a few more hours for her husband to awaken, but I wanted to get this sorted before the sun rose. I sighed as I explained in a little more detail, “I was attacked in my sleep, and there was a death. I understand this might be a little hard to believe, but honestly, it would be better if I could show you.” Much of my argument rested on being able to show her the evidence of the secret passageway and the bloody body of the assassin draped over the blood-soaked sheets of my dagger-stabbed bed.

“Give me a few moments.” She raised a hand to stop me from saying anything more before closing the door in my face. A few minutes later, more appropriately dressed, she exited their rooms with a short dagger strapped to her side. “Lead the way,” she commanded.

I led the way in silence back to my room. A picture was worth a thousand words, but I hoped the evidence would be worth a million. Before answering her questions in further detail, there was no reason not to get the most impact from it.

We arrived at the other end of the lodge where we had been accommodated, and I opened the door announcing our arrival to Namir, who had stayed with the body to ensure no new surprises arrived from the secret passageway. It had been decided that I was more likely to be able to bring the Jarl if I approached him alone. I was seemingly significantly less of threat than Namir represented.

“Xenodochus!” Frau Ingar gasped as she realised exactly who had made an attempt on my life. She had been prepared to see a body but still found herself surprised by his identity. She turned towards us to demand a more detailed answer and possibly defend herself from us.

“The man arrived in the middle of the night through this secret passageway.” I pointed out the dark corridor alongside the fireplace defensively in case she had missed it when focusing on the man draped over my sheets.

“He did?” Frau Ingar asked as she turned to examine the tunnel that had allowed my attacker to arrive in my private rooms unannounced. “I never knew the lodge held such secrets,” she added, intrigued by what else might be hidden in the walls. Anything hidden from the rulers of the valley was bound to reflect poorly on the proprietor.

“Yes, they were a surprise to us too,” I told the truth. They had failed to appear in my senses until they opened, hidden as they had been by their sigils.

“No doubt, no doubt. You were lucky then that he didn’t catch you unaware with his advantage and sudden arrival.” She agreed and praised my luck sounding a little sceptical of my supposed survival.

“Less luck and more the prowess of Namir.” I deflected some of the attention away from myself toward my retainer. “He caught him before he could kill me, but the nature of the threat left little room for manoeuvre and resulted in his death,” I told my first lie of the night. There was no need to explain his capture and questioning when it would only create more questions to be answered.

“Why would he risk so much? What could he hope to gain?” she mused as she surveyed the scene.

“I guess we will never know all his reasons. Possibly our wealth or my companion?” I referred to Nyx, whom Namir was carefully holding to prevent her from muddying the waters by nibbling on the fresh kill. She did not care for the meat's former status. Food was food.

She could have blinked out of his arms easily enough, but the physical reminder of my command helped her to remember, and with a dragonling occasionally squirming in his arms, Namir appeared less of a threat to the lady I was asking to assess our situation. Still, I reached out for Nyx and enjoyed watching her blink out of Namir’s arms and into my own.

“I hope you can see why I approached you directly despite the hour. We do not want this to delay our departure, yet an early exit would only incriminate us in your husband's eyes if he were to find us departed when he discovered this.” I explained as I stroked Nyx’s back, handing her a treat to make up for the fact that she was missing out on Xendochus.

“Yes, it would not look good,” she admitted eyeing my dragonling. Still, as far as I can see, the evidence supports your story of what happened, and I see no reason to delay your departure with further questioning other than working out where this passage leads.” She pointed to the opening next to the fireplace. Facts being as they were and with no small potential for future profitability with the Wester Isles distant as they may be, she was willing to accept the story as I had outlined it.

“We haven’t explored it yet, wanting to get a witness to the events that transpired as swiftly as possible,” I explained our hesitation. I had been keen to look but wanted to get things squared away as swiftly as possible.

“Well, let’s take a look before I return and awaken my husband.” She suggested as she was equally interested in finding out what was at the end of the passageway.

With Namir leading the way, myself in the middle dragonling draped over my shoulders, and Frau Ingar following, we headed into the corridor carrying the lantern Xenodochus had left behind to light our way. The corridor was tight causing us to follow in single file but it was not far at all before Namir pointed out the first point of note. “Here.” He said as he used a claw to twist a cover, revealing a small hole from which we could view the room next door.

“How odious!” Exclaimed Frau Ingar, “I would never have suspected.” She added shocked by the fact that the man had been able to spy in on everyone’s rooms.

With my senses fully deployed and the concealment broken now that we were within the passageway, I could also spy the mechanism that would unlock an entrance. “Here is the handle to unlock the secret door into the room.” I pointed out to them both identifying the lock and latch that was a little lower than the spyhole at eye height.

“Let’s keep going.” Frau Ingar, pressed us on. “I would like to see if there is more to this than a way to spy on his guests voyeuristically.”

The passage led on, and we passed a few rooms, each with its own hidden entrance or spy hole from which the occupants could be watched. Eventually, we arrived at a hidden room within the walls. “I recognised this room. It was his office.” Frau Ingar commented as she turned away from the spy hole she was looking through to consider the room we had uncovered.

I peeked through to consider the room beyond. It appeared he had a hidden replica of his office to escape through to. Everything was laid out precisely the same.

“Why have them identical?” I asked, surprised by the similarity.

“There are a few ploys that I could think of on top of the simple extra layer of security it would offer.” She commented.

“More trouble than it’s worth.” Was Namir’s curt comment as he started to rifle through the desk. “Coin, correspondence and charms.” As he laid out the results of his search.

“Half and half?” Asked Frau Ingar.

At Namir’s nod, they began to split the loot between the pair of them while I flicked through the correspondence. There was nothing of particular note in the actual letters. For the most part, it was completely irrelevant to me, but the list of contacts, their services and locations might prove useful on our journey south alongside the journal of his opposing journey north, provided I could get past the level of self-centred narcissism it was written in.

With the loot divided, Frau Ingar turned to the two of us. “I see no reason to delay your journey further and will explain everything about Xendochus to my husband Jarl Njord and ensure everything is cleaned up.” She waved away my worries. “We will have to appoint someone new to run the Lodge in his absence.” She added as if to herself.

“Thank you for considering our situation carefully.” I bowed in thanks at the smoothness with which it was being handled. It looked like we would be escaping without any further complications.

“Considering your rank, it was the least I could do.” She smiled demurely. “I wish you all good fortune, and may you walk in the light of the Lodestar. Feel free to depart. I wish to spend a while reading this before I depart.” She said, referring to the documents I had skimmed through while they had been splitting the worldly wealth of our attacker.

With our legal problems resolved, we returned to my room, where the cooling body was a grisly sight on my sheets as the sun began to rise. “Let’s go before anything else happens.” Namir opened the door for us to depart, and we made our way to the lodge's common room and the path that traversed the bluff upon which it was built.

We were nearly out the door when we were stopped by Njordson sitting up from the chair where he was resting. Though his presence was not a surprise, his words caused Namir to groan.

“Before you go, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind . . .”