Read Online Rogue's Home by Hilari Bell - Free Book Online

wiggled through the crowd, trying to display more courage than I felt. “I was just riding in when all this started.”
    â€œI see. Check him out, Ferrin. And unless the rest of you have something to add…”
    â€™Twas a clear dismissal, and most of the men shuffled from the room, but the man I’d guessed to be the apprentice’s master stepped forward instead. “Stranger he may be, Rob Potter, but he did a good thing this day. The Lock Makers’ Guild will remember it.” He glared at the dandy, but I paid little heed, for one of the guards had taken my wrist and was undoing my cuff buttons.
    â€œI can see why the judicar’d be angered,” the lock maker went on. “But he’d no call to beat an honest boy, and if this…” His voice trailed off, for no one was listening.
    They were staring, frozen, at the broken circles on my wrists.
    The silence stretched for a long time, and it was Judicar Thrope who broke it. “I don’t believe I needto say another word. You know your duty, Sheriff.” He turned and minced out.
    The lock maker looked at my wrists, then at Sheriff Potter as if to speak, then at my wrists again. He turned and followed Thrope without another word. If any hand be turned against thee, thou mayst claim no redress from thy fellow men.
    Sheriff Potter was watching me. “You’re a bit young for this, aren’t you? Pull his shirt down, Ferrin.”
    I flushed with shame and anger, but ’twas useless to protest, so I undid my doublet and removed it, and the deputy pulled my shirt from my shoulders. He whistled, long and low, turning me so Sheriff Potter could examine the scars on my back, which he did for an absurdly long time—it took no more than a glance to see I’d been flogged.
    â€™Twas by a half-mad shipmaster for spilling a pail of paint, and had nothing to do with the law. But no one would ever believe that, and I was fuming at the injustice of it when the guard finally let me turn round again.
    â€œSo, stranger.” The sheriff rounded his desk and sat down. “What’s your name?”
    â€œMichael Sevenson.” He didn’t ask me to sit. I felt as if I was standing before my tutor’s desk, or my father’s, waiting to be scolded for some misdeed, and set myteeth over simmering resentment. The man was only doing his job.
    Potter signaled all but two of his guardsman to leave the room, and I pulled up my shirt and put my doublet back on, trying to keep my fingers from quivering as I did up the buttons.
    â€œWhat brings you to Ruesport, Michael Sevenson?”
    This would surely bring Fisk more trouble than any help I could give him would be worth.
    â€œDoes it matter?”
    â€œI think it might.”
    Then he waited, as if he’d all the time in the world, until I shrugged and said, “I’m seeking a friend.”
    â€œDoes this friend have a name, Michael Sevenson? Or is it Sir Michael?” He’d caught my noble accent, even in the few words I’d spoken.
    â€œNot anymore,” I said, and one of the guards snorted contemptuously. When a noble goes unredeemed, ’tis usually for a crime that would have hanged a humbler man.
    They thought my family had bought off some judicar. My cheeks burned, but the sheriff asked patiently, “Your friend’s name?”
    He would persist until I gave it. “Fisk.”
    A slight frown creased the man’s brow. “Is he a stranger here too?”
    â€œYes. No. That is, I believe he lived here once, but he doesn’t anymore.”
    â€œFisk, Fisk,” the sheriff murmured, in the manner of a man trying to remember. Then his eyes widened. “Maxwell let him come—” He broke off the unguarded exclamation, and sat silent a moment, factoring new information into some equation. “So.” His gaze returned to me. “You’re a friend of young Fisk. I’d hoped he’d do