Murder in LaMut by Raymond E. Feist, Joel Rosenberg Page B

you’d seemed too craven to lead them in battle.
    ‘So,’ Durine said, ‘what say we get the caravan back to LaMut–keeping an eye on the Baron, not the lady–then draw our pay, and watch the ice floes breaking in Ylith from some seaside tavern?’
    Kethol started to say something, then stopped.
    ‘Go ahead,’ Pirojil said, knowing what he was going to say.
    ‘I like this baron,’ Kethol said. ‘He didn’t have to intercede for us over last night’s…embarrassment, and he didn’t have to load us up with gold. All he’s asking is that we do our best…’
    ‘Yes. Our best. Which suggests,’ Durine said, ‘that he’s got some reason to worry about the loyalty of at least some of his own men.’
    ‘Or maybe he has some idea about how good we are at what we do.’
    Their survival was proof enough that they were not just lucky, but good. The Tsurani were tough opponents, singly or en masse , and there were few soldiers, regulars or mercenaries, who had survived half the fights against them that the three of them had.
    Durine shook his head. ‘No. Have you ever met a noble who wouldn’t be happy to tell you that his own troops were the best there ever were? I think that what makes us so attractive to this baron is our political connection–we don’t have any.’
    Pirojil nodded. ‘I think you’re right.’ It had been just what he was thinking.
    Kethol frowned. ‘I think can we watch out for the lady, too,’ he said.
    ‘Yeah, and we can–’
    ‘Shh.’ Pirojil waved the two of them to silence. ‘If you two can shut up for a moment and let me think…’
    If the Baron was as near death as Kethol said that he seemed, whoever was next in line for the barony would certainly not mind if, say, Lady Mondegreen broke her neck in a fall from a horse, leaving the succession open.
    But that only made sense if……if she was already pregnant, and if the child was Mondegreen’s.
    And from what Kethol said, it was unlikely that her husband was up to the task…
    Which began to explain that Lady’s reputation.
    She wasn’t some insatiable noblewoman, intent on riding every stallion. She had been, perhaps even with the connivance of her husband, trying to get with child. He tried to remember all the men with whom the rumours had associated her. Were they all, like Morray and Steven Argent, dark-haired and grey-eyed like her husband? Perhaps she picked out her paramours for their physical similarity to her husband, hoping for a match.
    Wheels within wheels within wheels.
    From the Baron’s and his lady’s point of view, it seemed that this trip home had been engineered entirely to place Lady Mondegreen in her husband’s bed, at least one last time before he died, making the child the unquestioned heir, rather than throwing the barony into a succession dispute. That was the last thing that was needed anywhere in the Kingdom, even more so here in the West with the jostling already underway to see who would replace Vandros as Earl in LaMut when he became the next Duke, and of course, all those damn Tsurani running around trying to add to the gaiety.
    It all sounded reasonable, if devious, and nobility anywhere was nothing if not devious.
    Damn, in just a few minutes, this Baron Mondegreen had won over Kethol, and the last thing that the three of them needed was dissension between themselves.
    Pirojil nodded. ‘We protect both of them–but the priority is Morray, understood? He wears that sword for more than just vanity, I’ll wager, so he might be foolish enough to draw it and start flailing about if we’re not close by. So, make sure there are two of us with him, one with the lady, whoever’s closest, if things turn dodgy. And if it’s a choice between them, save the Baron first.
    ‘You win on us watching out for Lady Mondegreen, Kethol, but Durine wins on us taking our pay and getting out of LaMut as soon as we can. No more waiting for this thaw–we settle them in at the Earl’s castle in LaMut, and