“Oh, I will.” She stood up and went to the small chest that held writing materials. “This won’t take very long.”

And it didn’t. By the time he was finished changing into his guise as the carter, she had finished both letters, sanded them to dry the ink, folded, and sealed them with a blob of candlewax and her thumbprint. On the outside of one, she made a little drawing of a pen, and on the other, a mask. “The mask goes to Norris,” she said, handing them to him.

“Good. Would it sound loutish of me to say that I am relieved that this is over for you? And that I have never liked having you in this position?” he asked, taking them and stowing them in his pouch.

“No, and not half as relieved as I am,” she replied, and unexpectedly kissed him. “I make a good historian. I make a mediocre spy.”

“But if it had not been for you—” He kissed her back, feeling warm and peculiarly protective. It was a very pleasant sensation, now that she was going to be out of danger. He had deliberately not thought about her being in danger while all of this was going on. It wouldn’t have done any good in the first place, and in the second, well, it might have done both of them quite a bit of harm. They were, first and foremost, Heralds. They had duties. Only she could do what she was doing, and they both knew it.

But now he certainly knew what people meant by the phrase, “having your heart hostage to fortune.” It was not a feeling that he had welcomed.

“I still make a mediocre spy,” she replied. “And I hope you never need my peculiar mix of talents again.”

“Oh, I shall—but I hope not as a spy.” He raised an eyebrow and she flushed, but laughed. “Don’t forget to tell the innkeeper before you leave the Bell where Clerk Myste is going, and that she left in a private coach for Three Rivers a candlemark ago.”

“I won’t,” he promised. He gave her a little bow, and slipped out the back way.

The last thing he was going to do, especially after this, was to go directly from the Bell to his destination. Instead, he cut through back alleys and even through a few unfenced yards to get him to the part of town where the tanners and dyers had their workshops, before he finally headed for the inn. He never came at it from the same direction twice if he could help it, and today it would be especially important that there be no association between himself and the Companion’s Bell.

Other than that his “friend” Myste had lived there, of course.