Read Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) for Free Online Page B

infinitesimally. That had been just enough. Any more ranting would draw too much attention. He just wanted to have a story in place, a persona that had been shaped from the very first moment he rode into town, in case anyone seemed interested in him later and started investigating. He stood, tossing coins to the table, and turned to go, Cammon right behind him. Then he paused and turned back to the table of seven men.
     
     
    “So, if I’m going to stay a few days,” he said, with studied disinterest, pretending he didn’t care. “Where would be a good place to put up? Honest place, not too expensive, but clean.”
     
     
    “Harry’s got rooms by the week at his place,” said one of the men at the table, and his companions all murmured agreement.
     
     
    “Left as you walk out the door, then not but a quarter mile from here,” someone else directed. “Two-and-a-half stories. Easy to find.”
     
     
    “Appreciate it,” Justin said, nodding again, and walked out the door.
     
     
    They found Harry’s with no trouble, and Justin haggled just loud enough and long enough to convince anyone who might be listening that he didn’t have much money but did intend to stay awhile. Eventually, they agreed on the attic bedroom, Justin to take care of all his own needs, and a weekly bath thrown in. When they climbed to the third floor, they found two narrow, lumpy beds, a window that wouldn’t open, and severely slanted rooflines that allowed Justin to stand only in the very center of the room.
     
     
    “Well, you definitely don’t want to be courting a woman if this is the place you’d be bringing her back to,” Cammon said.
     
     
    “Slept in worse,” Justin said, slinging his travel pack onto one of the beds. He’d left the bulk of his possessions with his horse at Delz’s stables. “So have you.”
     
     
    “And will again,” Cammon agreed, stretching out on the other bed. “So what will you do tomorrow?”
     
     
    “Go back to Delz. Take his job. Spend a couple of days in the city looking around, trying to see if there’s any activity. I want to be in place a few days before I go off roving toward the convent. I don’t want to make people suspicious.”
     
     
    “How long are you going to be here?”
     
     
    Justin shrugged, irritable again. “Senneth thinks a couple of months. I don’t know. I suppose till they call me home.”
     
     
    “Maybe I can come back and visit in a few weeks.”
     
     
    “That’d be good. Tayse said he’d send messengers now and then so I can give him news. Maybe he meant he’d send you.”
     
     
    Cammon sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His odd eyes were alight with excitement. “I know. You can try to send me information. See if I can pick up on it all the way in Ghosenhall.”
     
     
    Justin laughed in disbelief. “And do you think you can?”
     
     
    “I don’t know. Maybe. I knew something was wrong with Senneth the other day, and I was worried, but she’d only turned her ankle.”
     
     
    “ And you were both in Ghosenhall,” Justin reminded him. “Not hundreds of miles apart. Besides, what kind of information do you think I could send you? Details about troop movements? Names of nobles who’ve come to visit Coralinda Gisseltess? You can’t pick up on anything so specific, can you?”
     
     
    “I don’t think so,” Cammon said regretfully. “But you could try. ”
     
     
    Justin rolled his eyes. “All right. I’ll try. If I remember. We’ll see how good you really are.”
     
     
    They talked awhile longer, but they were both tired, and these were the first real beds—however uncomfortable—that they’d had for more than a week. So it wasn’t long before they both started yawning, then dropped off to sleep.
     
     
    In the morning, they shared a quick breakfast and headed to the stables. Cammon was gone with a cheerful wave, and Justin was left moody and alone.
     
     
    Well, alone except for Delz. “So did