Bonus Scene: Aleixos meeting Beau for the first time

Salt air teased Aleixos’s hair as the ferry crawled the distance to Leaurepit. At his shoulder, Pormort huffed, unsettled by the swaying of the wooden craft, and he set a reassuring hand on the horse’s neck without looking. “Ush, ush,” he muttered.

Fixed on the shore ahead, his eyes searched for the two-story inn he’d been told to find. He wondered how Gore the charmless Fighter had ever gotten near Prince Beauregard; as Ali stepped off the ferry onto the dock at Leaurepit, he couldn’t imagine what the hell the prince might need protection from. It was a quiet, quaint community spread loose and sprawling over the face of the island. No one seemed very well-to-do, but no one was suffering in abject poverty either. A boring sort of place, low on threats and entertainment. It also had only the one noble on its shores, as far as he knew, which did a great deal to recommend it to Ali.

Aleixos led Po through the streets rather than riding so he had time to sketch out what persona he’d take on when he arrived. He never liked to plan these things in advance; he waited until he’d reached his destination so he could match it to his surroundings, to the needs. It kept him flexible, and he had no fear of stumbling over a story in the moment.

You’ve got to try the Batesian name, Crue’s cruel voice in his head said, a memory of the last conversation with his friends before he’d left. Every rumor out of the palace is that the kid is an idiot. He’ll never suspect.

He’s not stupid, Raji corrected, poring over the information the Watchers had compiled about Prince Beauregard. That’s what the notes say: ‘very intelligent but gullible and easily distracted.’ Whatever you tell him your story is, he’ll believe you.

Crue had shrugged and laughed. Sounds stupid to me.

The people Aleixos passed on his walk work simple clothing, made to weather work and wind. Ali’s plain linen shirt and dark trousers blended in decently well, but they were a bit fine for the isles; he’d need to pick up something local. Their accents were rough, homely. He ducked his head and mimicked a few of their vowels, then thought better of it. No need to sound local. He was coming from the mainland. North, probably, close to the border of Sharzhakaman. His northern accent was perfect, and people often headed south toward the capital looking for work. Lord Arshakuni’s holding had suffered those storms for most of the spring. Aleixos would be a house guard, dismissed when the money for wages blew away with the crops.

A man unbent from his work over an anvil, wiping his brow with the back of his arm. “Can I help you, friend?” he called, making friend sound like stranger.

“I’m looking for an inn, somewhere I could take a room for the night,” Aleixos’s northern accent rolled out easily, crisply, and the man’s eyes narrowed.

He nodded up the road, though. “You’ll be wanting The Powdered Hops, then. You took the ferry over for a night’s stay? Bonterre has a nice inn, back on the mainland. No need to find your way through Leau, unless you’re planning to take a ship?”

Suspicious, these isle folk. Probably nothing to do around here but imagine ridiculous scenarios where strangers were threats. Would the prince be this suspicious? “I’d hoped an island this size might have work for a man willing to sweat a bit.”

Aleixos saw the man eye the fine weave of his shirt and then flick over Pormort. Po was a fine horse—too well-bred for this island, where all they’d have were cart nags. “Aye, there’s work.” He squinted at Aleixos and said nothing more.

“Well, thank you. I’ll find The Powdered Hops.” He tugged Po down the road again and made it a few steps before the man cleared his throat.

“It’s Mistress Corlia’s place,” he called after Ali. “She’s a bit like everyone’s favorite aunt around here. Most of us come have a mug after work and check in. She knows everybody.”

Aleixos heard the faint threat: we’ll now if a stranger like you causes trouble for our innkeeper. He gave the man a flat, close-mouthed smile, fighting the constant inner voice that wanted him to describe, in detail, how futile any threat one of these islanders made against him would be. Shit at fighting by Watcher standards or not, he had enough training to kill them. “Sounds like just the woman to point me in the direction of work, then,” he said with a wave over his shoulder.

The inn sat, as described, at the top of a small hill. A cheerily painted but slumping structure of wood reclined atop a foundation of stones, shutters open to let the sea breeze in. As Aleixos approached, a scrawny older man examined the hoof of an aging draft horse in the inn’s yard, and a barefoot boy peered down from the roof, flicking rocks off into the grass periodically. Aleixos called a brief hello to the man, hoping he was the stableman.

“Ah, that’s a fine horse you’ve got,” the man said, eyes disappearing in the wrinkles of his smile as he squinted over Pormort’s withers at Ali. “Will you be staying in the inn, then?”

“Yes. Can I entrust Po to you?”

He handed off his horse, swung the saddlebag over his shoulder, and crossed the yard, pausing to clear the mud from his soles on the boot scraper mounted by the door before he shoved into the inn.

Low and warm, the common room had creaking wood floor painted with bright squares of morning light from the windows. Two small knots of men occupied tables, and Aleixos spotted an older, aproned woman and young cook’s assistant in the kitchen, sleeves rolled to their elbows. He ignored the silence that fell over the men as he made his way to the narrow counter between kitchen and common area.

“Excuse me,” he said. Quiet and polite was always the best base to start with when it came to a new persona, as almost no one found it objectionable and it was easy to transition into something else later, once he knew what folk expected; they just assumed he’d opened up to them and shown more of himself. “Would you be Mistress Corlia?”

The older woman lifted her chin, looking down her nose at him despite the difference in their heights. She had a warm, round face that seemed inclined to smile, though she wasn’t smiling now. “I am. How can I help you?”

“I’m told you’re the woman to speak to if I need a place to stay.”

Her nod was perfectly polite, but her eyes flicked over his clothes and saddlebag, the weapons he wore at his waist and the calluses on his hands as if she were cataloguing him. “I can give you a room, surely. What brings you to Leau?”

“I’m looking for work,” he said, dropping the bag carefully on the floor and resting his hands on the counter. “I’m a guardsman, though I have a few other skills and I’m always willing to learn more. I was told you also might be the woman to talk to about that, though for the moment, the room and maybe a mug of beer is enough.”

His quick glance around the room hadn’t indicated anyone with a prince’s bearing or Prince Beauregard’s description, and it wasn’t as if he could ask. He’d enjoy the common room tonight and find an easy way to bump into the royal by happenstance in the next few days.

Mistress Corlia frowned down at his sword again, a thoughtful crease between her brows.

“You’re a fighting man, then?” Her eyes flicked past him to the door, as though he might have brought trouble with him.

She didn’t like violence, that much was clear. He’d have to balance competence and danger in the way he presented himself. Shrugging, he spread his hands and gave her his most disarming smile. “I prefer not to fight, but yes, I’m a fair hand with a blade.”

Corlia’s expression softened a little at the smile. Most people liked the smile. The serving girl certainly did—she’d gone completely pink in the face. Aleixos didn’t look at her directly; older women got cagey if they thought he was flirting with young women under their protection, and Mistress Corlia gave off an aura of the entire island being under her protection.

The innkeeper nodded to herself, then pulled a keyring out of the pocket of her apron and waved a plump arm toward the stairs. “I’ll show you up to a room, and you can put your things down.”

“Thank you.” Ali followed, noting which steps creaked as he climbed, and peeked past her into the first door on the right once she’d opened it. She slipped the key off its ring and placed it in his palm.

“Basin’s there, and you can take a proper bath down the hall if you’d like. Just let me know and we’ll heat some water. I’ll have breakfast ready for you when you come out, all right?”

He hadn’t asked for breakfast, but he was hungry, so he nodded and thanked her again. A quick check of the room, once the door was closed, showed nothing out of the ordinary. There was a small window he could fit out of if he absolutely had to, and he didn’t think he’d break anything if he jumped the distance to the ground; better if he could slow himself by climbing down the siding. The walls were thin when he pressed his ear to them, but he heard no one in the next room, and pressing his ear to the door gave him only Mistress Corlia’s descending footsteps and the muffled sounds of conversation from the men breaking their fast.

He stashed his saddlebag behind the small bedside table where it wasn’t visible from the doorway, checked his weapons, and scrubbed his hands and face at the basin before he slipped back downstairs. He’d remembered the creaking steps correctly; his descent was nearly silent.

Mistress Corlia spotted him the moment he reappeared, eyes flicking to the sword again. Aleixos supposed she considered it poor manners to wear the thing in the common room, but Ali had found he was just a little too pretty to be believably deadly unless his marks’ first impression of him included weapons. He wanted to be wearing it when he did cross paths with this prince.

Breakfast was simple and delicious, and Aleixos ran through his options for happening upon the prince as he ate. He was injured, the dossier had said, so he might be in his room, having all his food and entertainment brought to him. Or maybe there was a doctor in town who had recovery rooms in which the prince was rehabilitating. Ali had been surprised to hear the prince was staying long-term in a place as small and shabby as this inn, but perhaps Leaurepit simply didn’t offer better.

He supposed he could ask if there were any merchants or nobles in the area who might be looking for a guard; that was a reasonable question, and the innkeeper was sure to mention a prince in such a list. If the prince turned him down right away, though, it became much more difficult to find a second way in. Better to observe the man, if he could, and discover what he was looking for before they had any real interaction.

Mistress Corlia thumped two mugs of beer down on the table in front of him as he was wiping gravy up with the last bite of biscuit, and Aleixos frowned at them. “I wonder if you’d do me a favor,” she said, “and take the second mug up to my boy? He’s on the roof and can’t manage the stairs at the moment, and my serving girl’s made a run to the market.”

There was something sharp around her eyes, a light of manipulation that Aleixos recognized and resonated with. Why did she want him to meet her boy on the roof? He very much doubted it was a trap intended to do him any harm; the isle folk seemed wary of strangers, but not outright dangerous.

Given the slight pat she gave his hand as he nodded and she returned to the kitchen, he thought it more likely that her son was still single at an age she considered too late for such a marital state, and she sent any halfway decent fellow she happened on his way in the hopes of matchmaking. It wouldn’t be the first time an overinvolved mother tried to set Aleixos up with her son or daughter, and it likely wouldn’t be the last.

He picked up both mugs and trudged up the stairs again, letting his steps squeak on each step as he climbed. There was a second, narrower set of steps at the back end of the hall, which he assumed led to the roof. He climbed these as well and shouldered the hatch open.

The boy he’d seen dangling his bare feet over the edge of the roof sat exactly where Aleixos had last spotted him, and it was clear now why. What Ali had thought was a white shirt was, in fact, a mass of bandages over his bare torso, wrapping his neck, his back, and the full length of his left arm. The arm had been tucked against his stomach and wrapped there to hold it in place. He turned his head slightly, not quite far enough to see who had arrived on the roof.

Aleixos had to amend his estimated age upward when he saw the shadow of a beard on the young man’s face, and then the dark curls and the injury and the age all struck him at once—this was the prince.

My boy? The innkeeper had a deep attachment to him, then, or perhaps was keeping his identity quiet. Aleixos adjusted his grip on the mug, quickly running through his options of how to approach. Prince Beauregard was an odd duck, the write-up had said, blunt and driven to strange pastimes. He kept common company and never seemed to call on or correspond with other nobles. He was an unknown.

So Aleixos discarded his usual approaches and instead went for bold. He plunked down at the edge of the rooftop beside the prince, holding one mug out as if Prince Beauregard had asked him personally for it just a moment ago. He grinned at the surprise on the young man’s face and said, “I believe you’re in need of me.”

Prince Beauregard had large, sad hazel eyes, but their color was rapidly consumed in the black of his pupils as they flicked from Aleixos’s eyes to his smile and back again. Ah…he’s interested in men.

“Uh—” the prince said belatedly. “Do I? Who—who are you?” He glanced down at the offered mug and took it, wincing as the minute movement pulled at his back.

Aleixos lightly clinked his mug against the prince’s and said, “Elias Batesian. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”