The Jack of Souls (Multi-award winner!)

Chapter 5a - Betrayed

The frontier is haven to all manner of outcasts and swindlers. The most infamous was the Mad Lady of Gallows Ferry. Banished from the court to the edges of the frontier, the Lady made a living by seducing other outcasts, who were never seen or heard from again. Let travelers beware! The frontier has little changed since the Mad Lady's time, and visitors do well to arm themselves with wits and steel.

—From Traveler's Guide to the Free Lands, Sir Arlis Craft, late reign of Chasia

The courtier's carriage slowed to a halt in the crowded stable yard. Harric's stomach fluttered as he studied the vehicle for clues as to which con might best suit its occupants.

Either he would achieve his twentieth con on that carriage and break his mother's curse, or he would fail and...then what? His doom would find him, and it would be over.

The green paint of the carriage wasn't loud, nor its application too showy; that spoke of old money, with all its assumptions of taste and superiority. Yet this lord wasn't rich. The exterior woodwork was modest, and the vehicle leaned overmuch, suggesting a chassis meant for cobbles and courts, never refitted for the frontier. Nor could this lord afford a porter or doorman to ride outside, so the driver would double in that regard, and the team of four horses huffed as if they needed a fifth and sixth. A younger son of old gentry, Harric concluded. Landless, but used to reverence if not rich living.

A variety of suitable short cons ran through Harric's mind: the Bait Drop, the Pig-in-Poke, the Junk Sale. Nothing simple would do for this one. Then he caught a glimpse of several tiny witch-silver talismans, hanging from the bits of the lead horses, and that decided him: a Junk Sale of witch-silver charms.

He made a show of swapping out the price board on his sign pole, dropping the price from frontier market rate to Queen's price.

"Feed grain!" he cried. "No grazing left on the road! Buy now! Fair prices!"

The carriage inched to a halt in the stubborn crowd, still a stone's throw away, but its driver heard Harric's cry and squinted at the price board. Harric hadn't seen a four-horse carriage yet that didn't buy grain in Gallows Ferry, and no one else would be dropping prices at this time of night. The driver's eyes locked on the sign as if it were a mirage that might vanish if he looked away.

Bait laid. Hook set.

Harric dragged the grain sacks from the back of his cart to the front. While his back was to the carriage he counted out seven glittering witch-charm pendants from the many beneath his shirt, and lifted them outside his collar to hang in plain view. Each was a raw nugget of the white metal, polished smooth by the northern streams they once filled in abundance, and coveted by Arkendians for supposed witch-foiling powers.

"Harric." Caris spoke from the foot of his cart, interrupting his thoughts. She managed a forced smile before dropping her gaze to stare at his boots. Perspiration shone on her neck and forehead, and her cheeks flushed with sun and exertion.

Good. She hadn't balled up and hidden in the stables. She'd gone for a long ride.

He could see by the furrow in her brow and the way she pulled at the strings of the grain sacks that she wanted to talk about what had happened that morning, but her timing could not have been worse. He wasn't ready to explain to her the full nature of his mother's training, and he definitely didn't want her to learn of it by witnessing him performing a con.