“We do not find this amusing either. And it is known wide our king particularly favors his cousin, Queen Silence. And thus, I also don’t think he will find it amusing. My advice, I would start being smart, and I would start being that right about now, milord.”

Johan gulped.

The man resumed guiding him down the hall, but it could be more described as dragging him.

His humiliation, he would find, was not yet complete.

This, when he was not taken out a back way, or similar.

But instead, he was paraded through the social parlor of the brothel.

And it was a busy night.

He kept his head held high even in the silence that descended when he entered the room, and through the attention he received as he was pulled through it.

However, before he was drawn through the front door, he saw a large, dark man in sandstone leathers, a black mantle edged in red falling from his shoulders, his black eyes homed in on Johan.

He was leaning against a wall with his arms crossed on his chest. And he was clearly not there to look over the girls and find one to use.

One side of that Firenz animal’s lips ticked before he pushed from his spot and then he walked through a door Johan had never used, but he knew it led to a back hall that would lead out a back door.

By the time he’d stepped up into the constabulary’s carriage, Johan was shaken.

Thus, he looked down at the officers and stated, “I believe there’s been a terrible mistake.”

“And his plight dawns on him,” one muttered.

“How about we let your solicitor sort that out, hmm?” the other one suggested.

And without another word, or allowing Johan to have one, they shut the carriage door right in his face.

And Johan Mattson’s blood turned to ice as he heard the bolt turn.

130

The Report

Sir Alfie Henriksson

The King’s Informal Study, Birchlire Castle, Notting Thicket

WODELL

Alfie did not like sitting behind True’s desk, though when he received reports like this one, both Tor and Apollo (Tor being a king himself, Apollo being head of a House in his land, that being titled gentry, with command of his queen’s army) advised him he should.

And True told him to make his study Alfie’s own when True was gone and Alfie was acting in his stead.

So he sat behind the desk and listened to the reports of the swiftly waning power of The Rising.