Chapter 1745: Unrecognizable (Part One)
Chapter 1745: Unrecognizable (Part One)
"Now, it’s time to make you disappear..."
Telent’s hand moved from the iron box to a small bell, ringing it to summon a servant from one of the other rooms in his suite of chambers. When the door opened, it revealed a servant Valeri had never seen before, a stocky, nondescript man with close-cropped hair and strong hands that bore the burn scars of work in kitchens or near a forge.
In his hands, the servant carried a bundle of rough-looking fabric, a set of metal tools, and a small wooden bowl filled with water.
"This is the one who’ll hide you away," Telent said. "Don’t ask for his name, you haven’t paid me enough to learn it. He’ll hide you in the bowels of the manor’s servant quarters until the gates open and the city’s looking the other way. Do as he says, and you’ll be beyond the walls before the week is out."
"That’s not good enough," Valeri said, glowering at the servant who had come to stand uncomfortably close to him. "I need to escape tonight, to be on my way as soon as possible, before..."
"Forget it," Telent interrupted. "Lady Ashlynn’s men hold the manor’s walls and gates, with help from Loghlan Dunn and every other lord who’s thrown their lot in with her. Her grip on the manor is tighter tonight than it was last night, and it will grow tighter still in the days to come. Trying to escape now is foolish."
"The best I can manage is to hide you away before we’re all under so much scrutiny that even that becomes impossible," Telent explained. "We’re lucky that she’s too busy securing the city against the arrival of the demons, or we wouldn’t even have this opportunity. But if you keep protesting and questioning at every stage, even this opportunity will vanish," he said, glancing out the window at the setting sun.
"Once her Dominion’s vampires wake up for the night," Telent said. "I make no promises about hiding your movements. Choose now or stop wasting my efforts," he finished sharply.
"Fine, if I have to hide, then I can hide," Valeri acquiesced. There were certain to be a few people within the household who would be happy to have a baron owe them a favor for helping him now. If they kept their lips sealed and truly helped him to escape, he might even repay that favor when the Church and the Crown arrived to put down the witch’s rebellion.
"Put these on, your lordship," the servant said, holding out a bundle that proved to be servant’s clothes; coarse, undyed wool gone gray with washing, a tunic stiff with old sweat at the collar, and trousers worn through at one knee. They smelled of another man’s body and, faintly, of lye.
"You cannot be serious," Valeri said, wrinkling his nose as the scent reached his nose.
"There aren’t many servants as hale and hearty as you, your lordship," the servant said, gesturing at Valeri’s solidly built figure. He might have lost a considerable portion of the strength he’d possessed as a younger knight fighting in the War of Inches, but years of training had left him with a figure that was still more robust than most of the underfed servants of Lothian Manor could manage.
"Fine, I’ll make do," Valeri said, glowering at Telent, who seemed content to relax in his armchair and watch while Valeri endured the humiliation of stripping out of his finery to don a servant’s garb.
No sooner had he donned the foul, rough clothing than the servant guided him into a chair before revealing that the metal tools were a pair of iron shears and a straight razor.
"Now wait just a minute," Valeri started, only to feel the servant’s strong hand pushing him firmly into the chair while Telent shook his head at his repeated protests.
"You’ll go missing," Telent said as the servant gathered up the neat tail of Valeri’s silver-streaked hair and placed the edge of the shears against it. "Tonight, Betrys is unlikely to complain about your absence. She might even be relieved that you’ve found somewhere to hide yourself away, but by this time tomorrow, she’s certain to start worrying. The morning after that, Lady Ashlynn will start searching for you."
"Long hair is rare among working men in the kitchens or the stables," Telent said. "But it’s much easier to shear a lion’s mane than to grow one in. When we return your silver to you, consider saving a penny for a stout wool cap," Telent suggested in a helpful tone before nodding to the servant to start cutting.
The man was anything but gentle. He worked with mechanical efficiency, and long hanks of Valeri’s silver-streaked hair fell onto the floor in dull, lifeless coils before the servant came back with the razor and enough soap to shave his head completely smooth. When it was done, the servant gathered them up by the fistful and fed them to the hearth.
The smell was immediate and foul, an acrid stink that filled the small room as the fire caught the hair and curled it black. Valeri watched the hair burn while his scalp felt like it had been gripped by icy claws, pinning him in place.
"From this moment," Telent said, standing up from his chair at last. "You have no name but ’Leri.’ If a man asks who you are, you’re Leri, a drunk the kitchens are well rid of, and you’ve never seen a nobleman up close in your whole life. Hold to that, and you might live to be a baron again. Forget it for one careless breath, and you won’t."
"You’re enjoying this," Valeri spat. "A hundred years my house has stood taller than most in this march, and now that we’ve stumbled, you sit there and savor it, you slick, grasping little..."
Telent’s expression did not so much as flicker as Valeri vented a stomach full of bile and venom. Instead, he crossed to the table and poured a measure of the dark wine into a cup. Then, almost lazily, he flicked his wrist and dashed half of it across Valeri’s face.
"Drink the rest," Telent said, pressing the cup into Valeri’s hand. "All of it. You’re meant to reek of it. You don’t want to look out of place where you’re going, and it’s easier to stash you away if you arrive looking like you can barely walk," he said as he stepped back from the man. "Stagger. Slur your words or better yet, say nothing at all. Be the small, sodden, forgettable thing that walks out of here alive. Can you manage that much, Leri?" Telent asked.
Valeri looked at the cup in Telent’s hands, and then his gaze slid to the cold box where his ring now lay. At this point, did he really have any choice left?
"I won’t forget everything you’ve done for me, Telent," Valeri said curtly as he snatched the cup and gulped down the strong wine. It tasted like it had started to go to vinegar as it burned its way down his throat, and Valeri swore silently as he gulped down yet another insult before the servant’s fingers closed around his upper arm in a vice-like grip.
This time, however, Valeri didn’t fight it. He slumped against the burly servant’s shoulder and allowed himself to be led, stumbling and staggering, out of Telent’s chambers.
But while his body capitulated, his mind was already turning with the things he intended to do once his ring was back on his finger. He was already looking forward to the day when he could repay ’everything that Telent had done for him.’ He just had to endure a little longer before he could make good on his ’debts’...