Sold to the Alpha novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Secretary

They brought the secretary into the great hall before the dust of the gorge had settled on the guards.

Two wolves held him by the arms.

The ink on his cuffs was smeared, and there was a smear of ash on his cheek.

The long tables had been shoved aside, and the lords of the Hold stood in a ring, grim as a row of gravestones.

I stood at the back with a tray of cups.

Hetta had put it in my hands and told me to look useful, and I did what I was told.

Ketil sat in the high seat with Sigrun at his shoulder.

He had not looked at me once.

"Ten words," he said to the secretary. "Tell me where you were at third bell."

"In the steward's office, my lord, copying the grain count.

"Ask any clerk."

"You were seen leaving it at the second."

"For a piss," said the secretary, and a few of the lords smirked.

"Four raiders knew a wagon would be in the east gorge at third bell," said Ketil.

"The hour was told to three men in this Hold, and to each of them a different hour.

"Yours was third."

The secretary went the gray of old porridge.

"A different hour," he repeated.

"My lord, that's a trick."

"It is."

"Somebody told them.

"Somebody who knew all three."

His eyes slid sideways, searching, and landed on me.

"Her," he said.

The word hit the hall.

"The girl brought the trays," said the secretary. "She carried the slips. She read them. She's Odd Lorne's daughter, a gambler's girl, ripe to sell anyone for six hundred marks."

I felt every head turn.

I felt Ketil's heart stutter in my chest, and I stood very still.

"She does look the type," said a soft voice.

Ivar Haugland stepped forward from the lords, hands folded, his eyes full of gentle regret.

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