Read Online Liar's Moon by Elizabeth C. Bunce - Free Book Online

friends. But now?
    “Durrel said his father won’t see him, thinks he’s guilty.”
    That drew a pause. “You’d have to ask them about that. Did you meet the family?”
    It took me a moment to catch up. “You mean the Ceid? Just the two children, Barris and Koya.”
    “Entertaining, aren’t they?”
    “That’sone way of putting it.” I looked up at him, shielding my eyes with my hand. “What’s the story with Durrel and Koya?”
    A slow grin spread over his face. “Our boy caught himself a bodice full of trouble this time, I’ll tell you that.”
    “If there’s a point, you’d better get to it. They’re about to open the gates.” Across the landing, a bell was clanging, heralding the lowering of the drawbridge.And the lawyer was long gone now. I’d missed my best chance for nicking a pass. A pox on Greenmen.
    “Listen, peach, I’m going to be late for muster,” Raffin was saying. “Wouldn’t want them to take away my baton, now, would I?” He bent low, as if to kiss me on the cheek, and whispered, “We’re not to touch you, you know. Lord High’s orders.”
    “What?” I pulled back to stare at him. “Why?”
    “I don’t know. But word came down that you are not to be disturbed by the Acolyte Guard, at least until His Worship decides what he wants to do about you. Looks like you have a free pass in this city, greensleeves.”
    A hands-off order from the Lord High Inquisitor? What was my brother up to? “Not from everyone,” I said. “I was arrested the other night.”
    “Were you? And yet here youstand. Might as well enjoy it. You know how His Grace is, sun one day, shadow the next. But if anything changes, I’ll warn you.”
    I was suspicious. “Why? What do you want in return?”
    He edged a little closer than was comfortable. “Just take care of our boy. Something’s off about this whole affair. Do the job you’ve been engaged for.”
    “Wait — what ? What do you know?” I asked, myvoice cold. “Did you have anything to do with this, with getting me pinched?”
    “My, my, such self-absorption!” he cried. “As it happens, I’ve been far too busy dragging old women from their beds.”
    “You’re hilarious.”
    “And you’re not listening.” Raffin pulled me closer, and his grip on my arm was exactly what I remembered of Greenmen. “ Something is going on here, and Durrel is trappedin the middle of it. You are in a unique position among all his acquaintances to look into it.”
    “That’s ridiculous. You’re a Greenman; that has to be more useful than some petty street thief. Why don’t you look into it?”
    “I am trying,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “But I’m just two months on this job, and my father paid twenty thousand crowns for my commission. Thereis no way I can go poking around asking questions, particularly of other guards.”
    The pieces were starting to click together, with Raffin Taradyce holding the purse strings to this whole situation. “Whoever paid to have me arrested also put up my bond. Fifty marks.”
    That wolfish grin again. “Extraordinary! Be flattered, peach. I don’t normally shell out nearly that much money on a woman.You can pay me back later.” He finished the kiss he’d started and, still bent close to my cheek, whispered, “Help him. You know he’s innocent.”
    And he passed me something before he ducked away, whistling and swinging his nightstick, and clearing crowds as he went.
    It was a rolled-up parchment, thickly inked, with a royal seal stamped in its center, right above the words Admit the namedbearer, CELYN CONTRARE, into the presence of His Majesty’s gaolers at Bryn Tsairn Prison. Good for three months from the date of issuance, and Signed by the Left Hand of His Exalted Majesty, Bardolph the Pious.
    A visitor’s pass. Made out to me. I glanced up to see Raffin across the landing, still watching me, a blot of green against the brown sunlit docks. He gave me a brisk salute beforeturning