Free The Cup and the Crown by Diane Stanley Page B

with the coroner. The strangers won’t suspect you. It’ll give you an advantage.”
    “Your Eminence,” said the messenger. “Lord Minister. Please excuse me, but there’s something else. It appears that one of the principal witnesses in the case . . .”
     
    And so the day went, from one appalling development to the next, until crisis was capped by disaster in the form of two letters, one arriving hard on the heels of the other.
    The first, hastily written, came from the judge who’d presided over the trial. He wished to inform the Council that Pieter, the barrister for the defense, had taken it upon himself to invite two foreigners into the city, an outrageous breach of Harrowsgode law and custom.
    Then they heard the same news a second time, in more measured tones, from the barrister himself.
    Pieter explained that the girl in question wasn’t really a foreigner but a lost descendant of the Magnus clan. She was, in fact, the granddaughter of William Magnusson, who’d so famously hidden his prodigious gifts in the guise of a simpleton and then when his little charade was up, escaped through the river channel.
    The Great Seer nodded as he read this. Pieter had done the right thing—though he shouldn’t have made the decision on his own. The girl could have waited in the anteroom till the Council had been consulted.
    Then he came to the second paragraph and despair washed over him. He dropped the letter on the table and cradled his head in his hands. Was incompetence spreading through Harrowsgode like the very plague? What in the name of Magnus had the barrister been thinking—letting a foreign lord into the city? It was absolute madness!
    He looked up. The room was filled with officials, among them the Deputy Minister of Security, who was standing in while his superior was away in the village.
    “I want the barrister Pieter arrested,” the Great Seer said, unable to keep the fury out of his voice.
    “I’ll see to it, Your Excellency, as soon as—”
    “Yes, I know. The bloody papers.”
    “And the foreign gentleman?”
    “He’s included in the warrant I issued earlier. But don’t arrest him yet. We might need to trot him out to reassure the lady till we’ve brought her safely into the fold. I should have that taken care of by tomorrow.”
    “And after that?”
    “We won’t need him anymore.”

10
The Ratcatcher
    THE RATCATCHER OF HARROWSGODE, Richard Strange by name, sat in solitary splendor eating his dinner. He enjoyed the small luxuries his salary made possible; and though he regrettably had no lady-wife or friends to join him at table, he dined on quail stuffed with almonds and dates, a selection of fine aged cheeses, rare fruits, white bread, and some pretty little butter cakes he hadn’t been able to resist. He ate them off a silver plate and drank his wine from a crystal goblet etched with a floral design and rimmed with gold (a recent purchase, one of a pair).
    He’d lingered rather longer than usual over his meal, it being a warm and lazy afternoon. Now he got up, fetched a silver tray, and carefully set his platter, goblet, knife, and fork upon it, ready to carry them out to the kitchen where—since he was his own servant as well as lord of the manor—he would wash them all himself and put them away.
    He was perfectly aware of how comical it was: a ratcatcher putting on airs. He’d discussed it many times with Charley, his ancient and beloved rat terrier. They’d agreed that the incongruity added a layer of delight to the situation.
    He’d just set the tray on the kitchen worktable when Charley announced with a frenzied bark that someone was coming up the path. A messenger no doubt, carrying news of suspicious droppings found behind the flour sacks in a bakeshop storeroom. Or perhaps it was merely a rustling in the eaves, a darting rat-shape spied in the shadows at night. Whatever it was, it would mean a trip across town to meet with the client and size up the situation.
    But