11

Places People Hide

-.-.-

"Give me the notebook," the hooded man repeated, his voice thick with an accent Lynn did not recognize.

"You-, you're the man Chester saw earlier," Lynn said, quietly.

"Ah yes, the jingle boy. Quite the nuisance, really. Shouldn't have let him go quietly after seeing me here. My mistake," he said, maliciously. "Even hid that notebook, so I couldn't find it when I came back. So I waited for you to return, instead. And now here you are.

"You are very good prey, I will give you that," the man said, taking a step towards them. "But it is not you I'm chasing. I will say it again: Give me the notebook," he said, extending his hand towards her.

"You were the man in the market, too, weren't you?" Lynn said, suddenly recognizing the hand that had grabbed her shoulder. "Why do you want it so badly?"

"It's nothing personal, little girl," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Just a little business I have to do for my client."

"It's that merchant, isn't it?" Landen said, quickly thinking up other words, stalling for time as the man kept walking closer and closer to them. "I knew he wasn't just a curious scholar. And you are nothing but a petty thief."

The man wagged his finger and tsked. "Thief, yes, but petty, not so much," he said. "Freelancer, or mercenary, perhaps, is more suiting. But I guess you can't be picky with names in my line of work."

As the man talked, Lynn and Landen saw the door open a creak, and a certain jingle boy, minus the jingle, silently enter the room, out of sight of the mercenary.

"You're not taking it," Landen said, suddenly banging her arm against a bookshelf. "It doesn't belong to you," he said, reaching behind the books and shoving them in front of the man's feet.

The man shrugged his shoulders, stepping around the pile of books. "That is none of my concern. What I know is that it will soon be in my possession."

"Do you have any idea what this notebook contains?" Lynn said, while out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chester pick up a heavy vase from a corner of the room.

"That," the man said, shrugging his shoulders again as the two squires backed up against a solid wall. "Is also not of my concern. I am a simple man, not much for the knowledge that certain scholars wish to control. I don't care what is written, as long as I get paid-,"

A heavy vase from the hands of a jester atop a wooden table fell onto the head of a thief who spoke too much and accomplished too little. He swayed a little, then fell down at Lynn's feet, unconscious, a shallow scalp wound starting a growing stain on his hood.

"I can see that you really don't care about knowledge, do you," Chester said, dusting his hands off and jumping down from the table. "Idiot blabbermouth. Not fit to be called a professional, don't you agree?"

Lynn and Landen laughed at the unconscious amateur thief.

"What do we do with him?" Lynn asked, stepping over his body.

"Tie him up, I guess," Landen said, sheepishly.

"I suggest deep fried," Chester said, tilting his head to the side. Lynn and Landen glared at him. "It was just a suggestion," he quickly added.

-.-.-

One day later…

"Why don't I get to go on such exciting trips?" Kipp complained over lunch in Kippernia Castle.

"Because you're a fool," Landen said, popping a small tomato into his mouth.

"Because you don't suck up to the princess enough," Lynn said distastefully, taking a sip of water.

"Because you don't hate the princess so much that you want to torture her with your company for an entire day's trip in the royal carriage," Landen said, glaring at Lynn.

"Because the princess isn't in love with you so much that she talks about you for an entire day's trip in the royal carriage," Lynn said, glaring back at Landen.

"Yes, we already went over that princess in the carriage bit," Kipp said, taking another bite of his food. "But I can't believe you got attacked by a thief from a foreign land! That is so epic!"

"It wasn't much," Landen said, turning sharply away from Lynn. "He was just a hired thug. When we handed him over to the Duke's guardsmen, he gave up the name of his employer right away."

"I should've known that merchant was suspicious-looking," Lynn said, shaking her head. "I was so busy talking and talking I didn't realize I gave him too much information."

"Yeah," Landen said. "You sure do talk a lot."

"I do not-," Lynn started, but remembered how she had been going on and on about the marketplace, about Dellour, and about herbal mixes. "Well, maybe a little too much."

"A lot too much," Landen repeated. "Especially about your notebook. If it's really important, you shouldn't bring it out in such a dangerous place."

"Meh, girls and papers. I'll never see what they see so amazing in them," Kipp said, rolling his spoon in his hand. "No need for notebooks, I say all my knowledge is stored up right here," he said, pointing to his own forehead. Lynn giggled as she remembered how the other jester absolutely loved notebooks.

"I wonder what that man's accent was, though," Lynn said, suddenly lost in thought. "It sounded kind of familiar, but I couldn't quite place it."

"If it's accents you want, I'll help you with it," Kipp said, with a mock salute, mimicking Sir Galadore's voice and accent. "What did it sound like?"

"Well," Lynn said, giggling. "It was kind of singsong, like alternating up and down, and…" she said, thinking.

"Was it nasal…" Kipp asked, holding his nose. "Or guttural?" he said, doing a lower tone.

"More guttural, I think," Lynn said. "You almost had it there."

"Oh, you mean like this?" Kipp continued. "Like this like this like this…"

"Yes, very much like that," Lynn said, pointing at him.

"That's Colton's accent when he first came here," Kipp said, jerking his thumb towards the forge. "Fun and easy to learn, too," he said, copying it.

"Really? Colton's accent?" Lynn asked, bewildered. She started scouring her mind for the times she'd heard Colton talk. Admittedly, there weren't too many memories of that.

"Yeah, you're right, Kipp," Landen agreed. "That's too far back for Lynn to have known, though. I remember now why that thief's accent sounded familiar. Colton still has a bit of it now, too, actually, sometimes."

"You'd probably find out where that foreign thief was from if you ask where Colton came from," Kipp said. "Though I doubt you'd get much out of that freaky dude."

-.-.-

"Hometown?" Colton asked, putting down his hammer.

"Yes, your hometown…" Lynn said, fidgeting. "That is, if you remember."

"Hmm," Colton said, sitting down on the bench. Lynn remained standing.

There was an awkward silence. Colton appeared to be thinking.

"Desert," he said, after a while.

"Desert?" Lynn confirmed.

"Desert," Colton repeated, nodding his head. "Brick houses. Palm trees, and lutes."

"L-lutes," Lynn repeated. "Got it. Thanks."

She walked back into the kitchen where the others were eagerly waiting.

"Well? Well? What did he say his hometown was?" Kipp probed.

"I don't think he remembers anything about his hometown," Lynn said, shaking her head.

"That boy doesn't remember anything about anything," Kipp said, groaning. "And now we've lost our lead as to the nationality of that thief that attacked you."

"We aren't totally clueless, though," Lynn continued. "He said something about a desert, then brick houses, palm trees, and lutes."

Landen nodded. "That's out west alright. Which is basically no different from what we've known all along about Colton."

"Wait!" Lynn said, clapping her hands together suddenly. "I read something about lutes. Let me go look it up. Wait right here," she said, running to her quarters within the castle.

Kipp sighed and sat down on a stool. "I really thought Colton would open up to her, though."

"Open up to her?" Landen asked, pulling up another stool from nearby as Amber went back to her cooking. "Why?"

"Oh, well, you know," Kipp said, waving his hand around. "Because."

"Because what?" Landen said, leaning forward.

"Because!" Kipp said, exasperated. "Because I think he likes Lynn."

"And what makes you think that?" Landen laughed.

"I don't know," Kipp said, scratching his head. "Doesn't he?"

Landen snickered. "What a joke."

"Hey, I don't know about that. Lynn is an amazing girl," Kipp said, matter-of-factly. "Heck, even I can't help-,"

"Stop joking around, Kipp," Landen said, standing up, nearly knocking his stool over, his voice suddenly becoming serious.

"What? I'm just saying-," Kipp said, standing up slowly, rising to his full height, taller than Landen.

Landen walked up to Kipp and gave him a menacing look. "You can not like Lynn," he said.

"Oh yeah?" the taller jester said, looking down on Landen. "Why not?"

"Because," Landen spat out. "Because-,"

"What are you two doing?" Lynn suddenly asked as she pushed open the door to the kitchen, carrying her notebook in a cloth pouch.

"Seeing who was taller," Kipp suddenly said, cheerfully facing her. "Landen wouldn't believe me and had to get in my face about it."

"It's just your big head that differentiates us, fool," Landen laughed back.

"Yeah, well, I think I know what Colton's hometown is," she said, as she brought out her notebook and turned to the pages where she had written about lutes. "Way west of here," she pointed out a name on a page.

"Salmari?" Kipp and Landen read at the same time.

"Salmari," Lynn nodded. "I'm headed over to the castle library to read more about it. I'll be back in time for dinner," she said, as she walked off.

As she closed the door behind her, she thought she heard the two of them start tussling again. She tried to control her heartbeat, which had been thundering in her chest since she last entered the room. She had heard their conversation earlier, hiding behind the door. And she tried to hide her feelings away.