Oathblood by Mercedes Lackey

sending him tumbling across the room—
    â€”where he tripped and fell into the cold fireplace, his head meeting the andiron with a sickening crack.
    Silence fell, thick as the heat, and Tarma got a sinking feeling in her stomach.
    â€œOh, hell—” Tarma walked over to the fallen drunk and poked him with her toe.
    No doubt about it. He was stone dead.
    â€œOh, hell. Oh, bloody hell.”
    The innkeeper appeared at her elbow as silently and mysteriously as he’d vanished. He looked at the shambles of his inn—and took a closer look at the body.
    â€œBy the gods—” he gulped. “You’ve killed Lord Gorley!”
    Â 
    â€œYour husband may not have been much before, Lady, but I’m afraid right now he’s rather less,” Tarma said wearily. Somewhat to her amazement, the innkeeper had not summoned what passed for the law in Viden; instead he’d locked up the inn and sent one of his boys off for Lady Gorley. Tarma was not minded to try and make a run for it—unless they had to. The horses were tired, and so were they. It might be they could talk themselves out of this one.
    Maybe.
    The Lady had arrived attended by no one—which caused Kethry’s eyebrow to rise. And she wasn’t much better dressed than a well-to-do merchant’s wife, which surprised Tarma.
    It was too bad they’d had to meet under circumstances like this one; Tarma would have liked to get to know her. She held herself quietly, but with an air of calm authority like a Shin‘a’in shaman. A square face and graying blonde hair held remnants of great beauty—not ruined beauty either, just transformed into something with more character than simple prettiness.
    She gazed dispassionately down on the body of her former Lord for several long moments. And Tarma longed to know what was going on in her head.
    â€œI’m afraid I have to agree with your assessment on all counts, Shin‘a’in,” she replied. “I shan’t miss him, poor man. Neither will anyone else, to be frank. But this puts us all in a rather delicate position. I appreciate that you could have fled. I appreciate that you didn‘t—”
    â€œNo chance,” Kethry answered, without elaborating. She’d signaled to her partner that her damned ensorcelled blade had flared up at her the heartbeat after Lord Gorley breathed his last. Plainly his Lady would be in danger from his death. Just as plainly, Need expected them to do something about this.
    â€œWell.” Lady Gorley turned away from the body as a thing of no importance, and faced Tarma. “Let me explain a little something. In the past several years Kendrik has been more and more addicted to the bottle, and less and less capable. The Viden-folk took to bringing me their business, and when Kendrik hired that gang of his and began extracting money from them, I began returning it as soon as it went into the treasury. No one was hurt, and no one was the wiser.”
    â€œWhat about—” Tarma coughed politely. “Begging your pardon milady, but that kind of scum generally is bothersome to young women—”
    She smiled thinly. “The men satisfied their lust without rapine—Kendrik knew I wouldn’t stand for that, and I was the one who saw to his comforts. One week of doing without proper food and without his wine taught him to respect my wishes in that, at least. And the one time Kendrik took it into his head to abscond with a Viden-girl—well, let us just say that his capabilities were not equal to his memories. I smuggled the girl out of his bed and back to her parents as virgin as she’d left.”
    â€œSo that’s why—”
    â€œWhy none of us cared to see things disturbed,” the innkeeper put in, nodding so hard Tarma thought his head was going to come off. “Things was all right—we’d warn travelers, and if they chose to disregard the