The next morning, both of the Lords rose late, evidently suffering a little as a result of their late night drinking, and so the servants were allowed a late wakening as well. Once everything was prepared for the morning, Griffin and Jackdaw stole off to their own quarters again, and Jackdaw furtively glanced up and down the corridor before pulling Griffin into his room rather than letting him carry on walking to his own. He closed the door carefully behind them, and then took Griffin over to the window at the other side of the room before he would finally speak.

“I didn’t want to tell you before, since there was enough pressure with a big visitor arriving as it was,” he began, keeping his voice quiet and his mouth close by Griffin’s ear.

“Tell me what?” Griffin prompted, feeling a stab of worry hit his gut. There had been far too many unexpected things since he moved in to this place already.

“Lord Sheffley is important,” Jackdaw said, with a conspiratorial air. “As in, important to the plan.”

“So, he’s involved?” Griffin asked, frowning a little as he tried to work out just what was happening in this strange world that Jackdaw had introduced him to.

“Not yet,” Jackdaw replied, pausing and then putting a hand to Griffin’s shoulder as he always did when he wanted him to listen particularly carefully. “That’s why it is imperative that I am able to speak with him alone tonight.”

“Well, what do you want me to do? Form a distraction?”

“Not quite. I have an inkling...” Jackdaw paused again, glancing out of the window as if to check that no one was listening through it. “That Lord Carridon will want to show off his new toy. That means sending you in to Lord Sheffley tonight. What is important is that you take your time in getting there, and let me do the rest.”

Griffin pulled back a little to stare at him. “And if you don’t take care of the rest?”

“Well,” Jackdaw grimaced. “Then I suppose you’ll have to let him do as he will. Trust me, though, I know how to deal with him. I can get him on our side.”

“How are you going to do that?” Griffin demanded. “No avoiding the question this time. I need to know at least a few things, Jack.”

“Let’s just say that I’ve seen Lord Sheffley more than once, and not just where I ought to have seen him,” Jackdaw said, with an air of annoyance at having to reveal a few of the cards which he had pressed close to his chest. “On top of that, the Master does business for him, not with him, and a man with his tastes is not always welcomed in polite company. What this adds up to is that he may make himself into a liability that Lord Sheffley can no longer afford. Particularly if people such as you and I decide to make that liability for him.”

Griffin looked at him carefully, and finally nodded. “Alright. I’m in. So, I wait until the Master tells me to go to him, and then make my way there slowly. Anything else?”

“Yes,” Jackdaw said. “If I’m not there when you arrive, stall as much as you can at the door. Call it shyness, make a long speech, whatever you need. I’ll be on my way, that I promise you, but once the doors are closed behind you I’ll have no excuse to come in.”

“Alright. Tonight then,” Griffin nodded again, accepting the part that he needed to play.

Jackdaw clapped one hand to the side of Griffin’s head, shaking him slightly and grinning, as if he had just agreed to turn wood into gold. “That’s the spirit,” he said, and then raised his voice back to a normal level, brushing the topic aside. “Now, I wonder if our Lords have awoken from their deep slumber yet?”

They headed back through the corridors, meeting Silence on the way, who shook his head without a word. Lord Sheffley was still sleeping, then; Jackdaw peeled off from their group in order to briefly put an ear to Lord Carridon’s door, but the sound of snoring therein was enough to turn him back to them with a similar shake of his head. They shrugged at one another, and headed down to the kitchens, where the staff there were busy trying to make sure that they were prepared to serve breakfast within a matter of minutes of the arrival of the Lords in the morning room.

“Nothing yet?” Patience asked as they approached, already seated on a low-slung bench at one side of the room, with Thought by his side.

“Nothing yet,” Jackdaw confirmed, and all five of them sat down with their backs against the wall, enjoying the warmth of the kitchen and the smells that arose within it.

They sat in a reflective quiet for a while, each of them enjoying the rare chance to take a break in which their services were not needed, and eventually Griffin stirred. He was not used to sitting around for long hours at a time; even when he had had free time at the Breckenridge estate, he had spent it chasing after Ilona, and he was not sure what to do with it now. He felt restless, and the fact that he had not been outside in weeks now was not helping.

“I’ll check whether they’re awake or not,” he said to the other four, stretching his arms above his head in an effort to wake up his limbs, and ambled out into the corridors of the house again to go in search of some signs of life.

He was passing the morning room when he realised that he could hear voices, and that the Lords must indeed have risen and made their way down there recently. He was about to turn and go back when something in the tone of the voices that he could hear stopped him, and he pressed closer to the door for a moment in order to see if he could hear what was happening.

“- But their suspicions are always high. They question me at every turn,” Lord Carridon was saying, sounding uncharacteristically defensive. For a man who was almost always completely in charge, it almost sounded as though he was trying to make excuses for himself.

“And why is that, I wonder?” Lord Sheffley’s tone was bitingly sharp, full of venom that did not fit the size and shape of the man who uttered it.

“They harass me, Milton. They have some sort of vendetta against me.”

“They know your tastes, man!” Sheffley sounded furious now, as if he were standing and shouting down at the other Lord.

“Tastes which you share, need I remind you?”

“Perhaps you may need to do so, for in public that is not something which is known in my case. As for you, you might as well hang a banner! If the inspectors ever need a reason to knock on your door you can be sure that they will do it, Corwin, without a moment’s hesitation. Do you not see the risk? You need to get yourself a wife, some pretty bit to parade who you can say made you change your ways.”

“I will not take a wife for the sake of a business deal,” Carridon replied, his voice cold and snapping. “I do not need some harlot strutting around this place and getting under my feet. The inspectors can go hang.”

“Hang?!” Sheffley spat. “It’s you who will hang if they look into those crates. Your one job here is to transport the goods safely and without inquest, and if you do not find some way to avoid the scrutiny that you are putting them under then I do not know why I pay you so handsomely to do it.”

“Have we been discovered yet?” Carridon’s voice was dripping bile, but there was uncertainty there too, as if he knew that his defence was only a shallow one.

“The question is ‘yet’, Corwin. How many days before I have the inspectors asking me if I had any business with you, hmm? How many pieces of paper will they find to build a pyre that links both of us?”

“I will not listen to these accusations any longer,” Lord Carridon said, and Griffin had the sense then to rush back into the corridor as fast as he could – not a moment too soon, as he heard the door open behind him just as he swept around the corner and towards the kitchen entrance. He almost collided with Jackdaw there, who put out a hand to steady him, looking startled at his appearance.

“They’re awake,” Griffin gasped out as he sucked in air to his lungs, looking beyond Jackdaw to the other three servants who had followed him. “We should serve them.”

When the other three had turned away, Griffin held back a moment to catch Jackdaw’s eye, and give him a secret nod that he hoped the other man would understand. Lord Carridon’s means of removal was being placed directly into their waiting hands, it seemed.