The Jaguar Knights Read Online Free PDF

memory.
    “Inquisitor Schlutter committed suicide.”
    “He was murdered!” she shouted, shaken out of her flippancy at last. “By an outlaw Blade, while you stood by and did absolutely nothing to help him!”
    “It is bad manners to interfere in a private quarrel.”
    “You murder and then joke about it?”
    “You expect a serial killer to weep? We were sent to arrest Lord Gosse. He and his Blades had flown, leaving Sir Rodden behind to delay pursuit. Inquisitor Schlutter drew on him—drew on a Blade defending his ward! Coroners usually call that suicide, Hogwood.”
    “But Schlutter was in charge. You were supposed to defend him. That was what you were there for! Instead, you waited until Rodden killed him and only then did you kill Rodden. You snuffed him like a candle, they said. If he was so easy for you, why did you wait until it was too late to save Schlutter?”
    “It was my going-away present for the boy.”
    She stared at him aghast, knowing that he spoke the truth.
    Rodden had been Lynx’s best friend at Ironhall, and his death was entirely Schlutter’s fault. When Gosse’s other two Blades spirited their ward away, they left Rodden to cover their getaway, although he was by far the youngest. That was a breach of the code and Rodden quite rightly resented it. The trail was at least a day old by the time the King’s men arrived, so there was time to argue and heroics would do little good. He had understood that. Wolf could have talked himinto letting the King’s men go past, and that would have saved his life, if not his sanity. But Idiot Schlutter tried to arrest him at swordpoint. Rodden resisted, of course, and after that there was no hope for him.
    Wolf’s turn. “Give me your professional opinion, Inquisitor. I know you have a golden key to open locked doors. Will it raise a portcullis?”
    “No.”
    “Knowing my brother, I am certain that Quondam was locked up tight three nights ago. Can you suggest any way the murderers could have entered such a fortress?”
    “Treachery or conjuration.”
    “Has the Dark Chamber any theories on who the raiders were?”
    “I was told it does not.”
    “A curious evasion.”
    Her chin jerked upward. “Agents are told only as much as they need to know. To burden me with theories might bias my investigation.”
    Her investigation? The child had grand ideas.
    “Does the Chamber know why they went to such lengths just to kidnap Celeste?”
    “Their purpose is something we have to discover. The Baroness may be irrelevant. My turn: Why did you accept binding to a man you hated?”
    Her excessive interest in Wolf’s past probably meant that she was after the Celeste story, which he had no intention of sharing with her, relevant or not.
    “Stupidity.”
    “His or yours?”
    “Both. By the time Malinda abdicated, I was ripe for binding. One fine spring evening Grand Master summoned us seniors for a little pep talk. The new King was on his way, he said. For five years, he reminded us, Ironhall had given us bed and board, refuge and education. We were rightly proud of what we now were, but Ironhall had made us so. When His Majesty chose to present the bill, it behooved each of us to honor that debt. Of course we all knew that the paradigm ingrate, the one who had refused binding many years before, had been the new King’s father, Radgar Æleding. There would be an odor of justice in the air if any ofus chose to turn that table on Athelgar himself, but we all promised solemnly not to weasel out.
    “Who would be chosen? There were fourteen seniors and Grand Master was sure to hold back four or five to seed the next crop. Lynx and I were eighth and ninth, although we did not know which was officially which. I was privately resigned to being left behind as Prime. It was two years since I had shamed Athelgar at fencing. Judging by the way I had caught him looking at me on subsequent visits, his pride had never healed, so he would not want me lurching around the