The Desert Spear

loud pounding on the hospit door, still barred for the night.
    Everyone at the breakfast table froze, looking at the door. The apprentices had long since eaten and were bustling about serving breakfast to the patients, leaving Jizell and the others alone in the kitchen.
    It seemed to Rojer that long minutes passed in stillness, but in truth it could not have been more than seconds before Mistress Jizell looked up at them all.
    “Well,” she said, wiping her mouth and rising to her feet, “I’d best see to that. The rest of you keep your seats and clean your plates. Whatever the duke wants, it’s best you not handle it on an empty stomach.” She straightened her dress and strode out to the door.
    She had not been gone more than a second before Rojer sprang from his seat, putting his back to the wall next to the doorway to listen in.
    “Where is he?!” a man’s deep voice barked when Jizell opened the door. Rojer crouched low and tilted his head to peek around the door frame, revealing little more than his eye and a strand of red hair. A tall, powerfully built man in bright lacquered armor loomed over Mistress Jizell. He had a fine gilded spear strapped across his back, and his breastplate was emblazoned with a wooden soldier. Rojer recognized his strong-jawed face immediately.
    Rojer turned quickly to the others. “Duke Rhinebeck’s brother, Prince Thamos!” he hissed, putting his eye back around the frame.
    “We have many patients, Your Highness,” Jizell said, sounding more bemused than threatened, “you’ll have to be more specific.”
    “Don’t toy with me, woman!” the prince barked, putting a finger in Jizell’s face. “You know well—”
    “Highness, please!” a high male voice cut the prince off. “There’s no need for this!”
    A man appeared, spreading his arms between them to passively ease the prince’s arm and pointing finger away from Jizell’s face. He was in many ways the exact opposite of the prince, small and uncomely, with a bald crown and a pinched face. His lank black hair was long, falling into his high collar, and his thin beard drew to a point at his chin. His wire-framed glasses sat halfway down his long nose, making his eyes seem like two tiny black dots.
    “Lord Janson, the duke’s first minister,” Rojer advised the others.
    Thamos glanced at the minister, who flinched back as if afraid the prince might strike him. The prince glanced at Jizell, then back to the small man, but his stance eased, and after a moment, he nodded. “All right, Janson, it’s your stage.”
    “My apologies for the…urgency, Mistress Jizell,” the first minister said, bowing, “but we wanted to arrive before your…ah, guest had a chance to move on.” He hugged a leather paper case to his chest with one hand and pushed his glasses back up his nose with the other.
    “Guest?” Jizell asked. Prince Thamos growled.
    “Flinn Cutter,” Janson said. Jizell looked at him blankly.
    “The…ah, Painted Man,” Janson said. Jizell’s look became more guarded.
    “He is in no trouble, I assure you,” Janson added quickly. “His Grace the duke simply wishes me to ask a few questions before he decides whether to grant an audience.”
    There was a thump, and Rojer turned from the door to see the Painted Man rise from the table. He nodded to Rojer.
    “It’s all right, mistress,” Rojer said, stepping through the doorway.
    Janson looked over at him, and his nose twitched. “Rojer Inn,” he said more than asked.
    “I’m honored you remember me, Minister,” Rojer said, bowing as the others followed him out of the kitchen.
    “Of course I remember you, Rojer,” Janson said. “How could I forget the boy Arrick brought back with him, sole survivor of the destruction of Riverbridge?” The others looked at Rojer in surprise.
    “Still,” Janson went on, his nose twitching again, “I would swear I read a report last year from Guildmaster Cholls that said you were missing and presumed dead.”
    He looked down his glasses at Rojer. “Leaving a considerable unpaid debt to the Jongleurs’ Guild, as I recall.”
    “Rojer!” Leesha cried.
    Rojer put his Jongleur’s mask in place. The money had been restitution for breaking the nose of Janson’s nephew, Jasin Goldentone. Of course, Jasin had already taken payment in blood.
    “Did you come all this way to discuss the Jongleur?” the Painted Man asked, moving in front of Rojer. His hood cast his face in shadow, giving him a dark