Page 3 of Paladin's Hope

All four humans looked down at their own feet. They were all wearing leather boots with wooden soles. Stephen tapped his foot and it made a characteristic clicking sound.

“Clerks wear leather soles,” said Galen thoughtfully. “Lawyers. Priests who don’t go outside a great deal. If you’re inside and can afford it, you change your shoes. These are indoor shoes, then?”

“So somebody rammed a stake through him indoors…” murmured Stephen.

“Or he went outside not expecting to be long,” said Mallory. “Or he couldn’t afford a better—no, that doesn’t make any sense, wooden soles are cheaper and last longer, leather has to be fitted.” He rubbed his face. “All right, Earstripe, you’ve convinced me. The shoes might be significant.”

“Not many bulls goring people indoors,” said Galen.

“Thank you for that exceedingly helpful observation, Paladin Galen.”

“I live to serve.”

“And thank you for your time, doctor,” said Mallory, in clear dismissal. “And thank you, gentlemen, for being so kind as to bring Doctor Piper to us. We won’t detain you any longer.”

“Our honor is to serve,” said Stephen, putting a fist over his heart. Unlike Galen, he actually seemed to mean it. Piper felt a wash of secondhand embarrassment.

He took a little extra time standing up, cleaning his gloves first and poking the body a few more times, not because he expected to learn anything but because the dismissal had annoyed him. Still, there wasn’t much more that he could do.

“Do you require an escort back, doctor?” asked Stephen.

“No,” said Piper. “Since I’m out here, I might as well pick up something for dinner.”

“I’m amazed you can think of dinner,” muttered Galen. “Or fish.”

“The dead are dead,” said Piper, not bothering to mention that he definitely wouldn’t be eating fish. “The living still need to eat.” He nodded to the paladins and the guards and turned away, still thinking vaguely about bone chips and leather soles and things that did not quite add up together.

Two

“Is it just me,” asked Galen, as the two paladins left the docks together, “or was Mallory distinctly chilly toward me just now?”

Stephen gave him a thoughtful look. “You’ve been gone a while,” he said.

“Oh, you noticed?”

Stephen rolled his eyes. Galen struck a tragic pose. “Months up north, frozen hellscape, terrible food, actual honest-to-god shapeshifters, and all I get is ‘oh, you’ve been gone a while.’ I’ll have you know, I nearly died on multiple occasions.”

“And how is that any different than normal?”

“There were nuns.”

“Mmm.”

“A round dozen of them. I had to escort them back to their convent, then spend a month lugging rocks around helping them rebuild it. And Istvhan was no help at all. He and his lady love were making calf-eyes at each other the whole time, when they weren’t sneaking off every five minutes to play hide-the-bratwurst.”

“It’s nice that he’s happy.”

“Disgustingly so.” Galen gave up. Stephen did have a sense of humor, unlike some of the other former paladins, but he was clearly not in a bantering mood. “So what’s been happening while I was freezing my balls off?”

“The Bishop,” said Stephen.

Galen grinned. Bishop Beartongue was the leader of the Temple of the White Rat within Archenhold. She was a pleasant, soft-spoken older woman who devoted most of her time to solving administrative problems. She also had a mind like a razor and the ruthlessness of a hired killer. Galen would have laid his life down for her without hesitation.

“So what did the Bishop do to get Mallory pissed at her?”

“It’s not just Mallory. If you think he’s chilly, the other guard captains will give you frostbite. She’s been pushing for better recordkeeping by the guard. Wanted someone in each guard station to record arrests, make copies, and keep a central log. Apparently a few too many people have been sitting in cells because the guard ‘forgot’ how long they’d been in there.” Stephen smiled grimly. “Shane was on honor guard duty the day she presented all her arguments to the Archon. Apparently the head of the guard—that’s Commander Tamsin now, Commander Burge retired while you were up north—said that he’d be more than happy to do it, he could absolutely understand her concerns, but of course much of the guard was not terribly literate and the budget was stretched thin, so unless she wanted to pay for trained scribes at each guard station, he just didn’t see how he could accommodate.”

Galen rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “And?”

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