The Seventh Friend (Book 1) Read Online Free

sense.”
     
    “I fear that it may.”
     
    Caster shook his head and handed the note back, finally putting his glass to his mouth he swallowed more than might have been considered genteel.
     
    Poor returned with two serving girls from the kitchens. He somehow looked stern and worried at the same time. The girls looked terrified. They stood between Poor and Narak with their hands clasped and their eyes lowered. He held up the note.
     
    “Look at this,” he said, and they did, raising eyes just enough to know what it was, looking at it a moment too long to suggest guilt. “Did either of you leave this paper on my table?” he asked.
     
    One shook her head; the other – the bolder of the two – answered him. “No, Deus.”
     
    “Which of you placed the wine jug on the table?”
     
    The bold girl looked up again, met his eyes for a moment. “I did,” she said reluctantly.
     
    “And when you placed it there did you place it upon the table, or was there something beneath it? Was this beneath it?” He showed her the parchment again. Narak found it reassuring that she did not answer at once, but closed her eyes in an effort of concentration.
     
    “No, Deus, I placed it upon the bare table, on the wood.” She spoke with certainty.
     
    Narak looked down at the note again. He had to be sure.
     
    “I do not wish to threaten you,” he said to the girls. “But I must be certain of you, of what you tell me, so I will tell you now that if you lie to me you will lose my favour and be banished from Wolfguard. Do you understand? The truth will bring no consequences.”
     
    They nodded, and it pained him to see the fear in their eyes.
     
    “You are both certain that you have never seen or touched this paper before?”
     
    Both shook their heads in vigorous denial, and the bolder said; “No, Deus. Never.”
     
    Narak smiled at them. “Thank you, I believe you” he said, and turned to Poor. “Please bring the main meal now. We will dine immediately.”
     
    Poor chased the girls out of the door.
     
    “They told the truth,” Caster said, sitting down. “But if they told the truth, then how did the note come to be on your table?”
     
    “I must think on it,” Narak said.
     
    The food arrived, hot and aromatic, filling the lair with savoury invitations. The girls who brought it, the same two, placed it on the table before Narak on two chargers with due deference, and then withdrew. He nodded and smiled to let them know that they were still in his favour, though his mind was working all the while.
     
    The message itself disturbed him. Dogs were his only eyes in the cities, and only once before had they been slaughtered in numbers. By Seth Yarra. In Afael.
     
    Who? That was what bothered him most. Someone had known the exact moment to place the parchment there, between the serving girls leaving and Narak entering the room, and they had wanted him to know that they knew, that they could see into Wolfguard and knew when the room was unattended. It was an intrusion into his most private space.
     
    It could have been a mage. Mages of several kinds could work such a trick, but the timing would be beyond most. The matter of the script, however, persuaded him otherwise. He suspected the Bren. If he was right, if Pelion’s children were sending him notes, then it was a grave matter indeed.
     
    Narak was hungry. He forced himself to eat, but the food gave him no pleasure. His appetite was blunted by a deep sense of foreboding that he could not shake.
     
    Conversation during their meal was desultory. He was not good company tonight and time after time he found himself slipping into silence, his eyes fixed on some point not within the room, his knife hanging lose in his hand. Caster did his best to keep the mood light, but all too often he stared wordlessly at Narak, unable to discover a phrase for the moment. He was too old a comrade not to feel the worry that troubled the wolf god.
     
    The atmosphere grew so