When Gods Die

Sebastian dropped a coin into the outstretched receptacle. “Where’d you serve?”

Drawing in a deep breath, the beggar squared his shoulders proudly and said, “Antwerp, sir,” in a heavy Scots brogue. Beneath his unkempt beard and matted hair and sallow, scarred skin, he was actually quite young, Sebastian realized, probably no more than five-and-twenty.

“You here every day, are you?”

A grin stretched the Scotsman’s scarred cheek and deepened the lines prematurely fanning out from his pain-filled gray eyes. “Aye. This be me spot.”

“There was a young woman came past here, last Wednesday afternoon. Dark haired. Pretty. A lady, actually. Wearing a red gown and pelisse. Did you see her?”

The man gave a breathy laugh. “There be nothing wrong with me eyes. Very fetching she was, too, to be sure. She gave me five shillings, she did.”

“Did you happen to see where she went?”

The soldier jerked his head toward the ancient inn behind him. “Aye. She went in the Norfolk Arms here.”

Sebastian knew a rush of triumph and expectation quickly dampened down. “How long was she in there? Do you know?”

The man thought about it a moment, then shook his head. “Can’t rightly say. I don’t recollect I saw her come out.”

Chapter 26

Sebastian stayed talking to the ex-soldier for some time. He bought some beef roasted on a spit and some ale, and they ate it together and discussed in soldierlike detail the Portuguese campaign and the hardships of the last winter and Colonel Trant’s daring exploits in Coimbra. It was another ten minutes or more before Sebastian slowly brought the conversation around, again, to the dark-haired beauty in the red pelisse.

The soldier was convinced the lady had been alone. But he still could not remember seeing her leave; nor could he remember any of the other visitors to the inn that day.

Sebastian slipped another coin in the man’s cup and turned toward the inn door. Ducking his head to avoid the low lintel, Sebastian pushed into a common room thick with the smell of ale and warm, closely packed bodies. A roar of boisterous male voices mingled with the clatter of platters and the clink of pewter tankards. Then one man’s voice, louder than the others, carried clearly. “If you ask me, they ought to let the poor old King out and lock up his son. That’s what they ought to do.”

There was a moment’s hush, as though everyone in the room had paused at once to draw breath. Then another man, this one from the shadowy recesses of the darkly paneled room, grumbled, “Lock up the lot of them, you mean. They’re all as daft as me Granny Grim-letts. Every blasted one of them.”

A chorus of laughter and Hear, hear’s, swelled around the room as Sebastian worked his way toward the bar.

As unassuming as a shy young man just up from the country, he ordered a pint. Then he stood with one elbow resting on the bar, his gaze drifting slowly around the crowded room to the wide upward sweep of carpeted stairs just visible through the open doorway. Guinevere would never have come in here to the common room. But the inn had rooms upstairs and doubtless a private parlor, as well. The place might be far from fashionable, but it was nonetheless respectable, at least from the looks of things.

As for what a lady such as the Marchioness of Anglessey was doing here, in Smithfield, it seemed to Sebastian that the number of possible explanations was rapidly narrowing. There was only one reason he could think of for a lady to avoid the smart, fashionable hotels such as Steven’s or Limmer’s and seek out an inn so hopelessly outré that there could be no danger of her encountering any of her acquaintances here. But it was a reason Sebastian found himself oddly reluctant to credit.

Still sipping his ale, he shifted his attention to the innkeeper. He was a big man, tall and muscle-bound, with a shiny bald head and the broad nose and full lips of an African. But his skin was the palest café au lait, hinting at a heritage that was at least half-white, if not more.

The man was aware of Sebastian in that way all good innkeepers are aware of a stranger. When Sebastian ordered another pint, the big black man brought it over himself. “New to town, are you?” said the innkeeper, slapping the pint on the ancient, scarred boards between them.

The man’s accent was a slow drawl that whispered of magnolias and sun-baked fields and the crack of an overseer’s whip. Sebastian took a sip of his ale and gave the man a friendly smile. “I’m secretary to Squire Lawrence, up in Leicestershire. But my father spent some time in Georgia as a young man. Is that where you’re from?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “South Carolina.”

“You’re a long ways from home. Do you miss it?”

The black man peeled back his lips in a hard smile that showed his strong ivory teeth. “What do you think? I was born a slave in the summer of 1775, exactly one year before them Yankees come up with what they call their Declaration of Independence. You ever heard o’ it?”

“I don’t believe so, no.”