Free Masques of Gold by Roberta Gellis

Flael’s house. My daughter is alone there, and we can look for the seal without interference. Flael must have hidden it outside the house before the wedding, but he might have brought it back after he let us search for it.” He saw the incipient refusal in Hubert’s face and added, “We could look into Flael’s strongboxes too. I suppose the sons took something, but…”
    The suggestive drift in William’s voice changed Hubert’s mind. The thought of a chance to dip freely into a master goldsmith’s strongbox overwhelmed even his fear of his master. His disappointment was correspondingly strong when William’s blows on the door for admittance brought Halsig, still chewing but with one hand on his sword hilt. Hubert uttered a growl of frustration, but over William’s shoulder he saw two more men behind Halsig and gave up hope, at least temporarily, of making free with Flael’s gold. Nor did he utter any further protest when William turned to him and said, “Thank you for accompanying me. I am much recovered from my shock now and do not need to impose on your good nature any longer. There is no need for you to stay here. When I have done what I can for my daughter, we can finish our business.”
    Hubert had not the faintest idea what this meant, beyond the fact that William clearly wanted him to go away. Since he was accustomed to following William’s suggestions without understanding them, he mumbled some meaningless response, watched the door close, and walked back toward the Chepe. On the outskirts of the market, he saw a cookshop, which reminded him that he had not eaten, and he walked across to it, ordered a meal, and sat down to eat on a stool at the end of the plank that served as a table for the shop. He had chosen the stool because it was near the brazier that kept the food hot and warmed the air around it, but the position also gave him a view of Flael’s house.
    Puzzlement, not suspicion, drew Hubert’s eyes to Flael’s door. He was far too contemptuous of William’s cowardice to suspect him of any attempt to cheat. He had first been hired by Bowles to protect him after William’s father-by-marriage and brothers-by-marriage had beaten him nearly to death in revenge for beating his wife. After their ship had sailed, William had paid him now and then to do to others what his wife’s kin had done to him. In exchange, aside from money, William would tell him what to do when FitzWalter’s orders puzzled him or when he could not understand the dangers or advantages of offers others made to him. Several times he had not followed William’s advice, and he had suffered for it. That had been some years ago. Now he always did what William said—unless FitzWalter gave him orders.
    Everything had worked just as William said it would this time too. When that journeyman had come to him and said he could lay his hands on a copy of the king’s privy seal, William had explained just what to do, and FitzWalter had been very pleased with Hubert, very pleased, even though the journeyman had been killed before Hubert had a chance to tell his master about the seal. FitzWalter had been perfectly content with the way Hubert managed the business—by William’s advice—until Flael died. But that wasn’t William’s fault. And it wasn’t Hubert’s either. Even his master had not guessed that Flael would drop dead.
    That train of thought was unpleasant, and Hubert left it to wonder again why he had been sent away from Flael’s shop. It could not be because William wanted to be alone with the strongboxes, he thought slowly; even William couldn’t get anything out of those while the guards were there. And he couldn’t get anything from the daughter either, the thought continued. Cold bitch. She’d see her father starve before she’d give him a farthing of what was hers—and report him to the guard