Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
AUDREY
Continue to target. Track Spring Flowers and Bloodmoon. Do not let them identify you. Sending Spiced Eggnog to replace you with information on new target. Full handover requested upon their arrival. —Nightingale to Wren in a coded missive
La’Angi Keep
Luca got in the way.
It had always been true. It was more true now that I had so much to manage. Carving out time to get out into the orchard was hard, but the heady brew of hope and pride was making me feel queasy. Isolde was right. I needed to get out.
“They’re gorgeous,” I assured the two young tailors in front of me. I’d gone from Bernadette to Kaelson to Ettie and Thomas’ eldest, Sandra, sat awkwardly across the table from me in the mess hall, waiting for this chance meeting to wrap up so I could figure out what sort of tutors she’d need.
“They’re fashion from three years ago,” the more confident tailor told me. She clucked her tongue in disapproval. Her elaborately piled blonde hair was twined with purple and green ribbons. “But, as a basic concept…”
I wasn’t getting out of this without agreeing to dresses.
I’d need plenty in a few moons, anyway. “Can I make a time to see you? Tomorrow?” I tried to remember what I had committed to and what I could move.
The thought of Storm and the orchard made my head ache.
I just wanted out for a little while. But I wasn’t going to get it.
“Of course. Would you like us to bring along any examples of work, or fabrics?” Ribbons turned to another page, a full-color print Inker-copy of an elaborate sketch more art than advertisement. The garment was a brilliant example of formal Azashi-standard, elaborate enough for royalty.
They weren’t messing around with that sort of picture.
They were staring at me, and all I could think of was how ungainly the oversized sleeves would be or how the bustle would make my back ache.
I didn’t want to be admired for my beauty.
It was a pleasant realization, and I smiled at the two tailors who’d invested a small fortune into this portfolio.
“How about I come to you?” I offered, knowing I wasn’t going to be the patron they were hoping for.
“But, before then, I’ll let you consider this; my goal isn’t to make La’Angi into a second capital, but to make it prosper in a way that’s sustainable and ethical.
I don’t care what I wear, except that by making specific choices, I might help sway trends in a useful way for our local economy.
” I looked over at Sandra, a few years younger than I, wearing mismatched, outdated finery, color in her cheeks.
“Would you like to come with me?” I offered.
Her color deepened. “I’d be honored, my lady,” she said, enunciating every word with painful precision.
I wondered how Thomas felt about her working so hard to conceal her roots. While I couldn’t fault her for it, I hated that she felt it necessary.
“Would morning work for you?” I asked them, unease tightening knots in my neck. “When the watch calls the ninth hour?”
The door to the hall opened with a creak. Yesterday it had been propped open, but today no one had bothered. It was a sound I was accustomed to. Yet, with unease buzzing in my veins, I turned.
The sight of the once-black tabard over the wide chest of my father’s best-behaved dog made a chill race up my spine.
Conversation ended abruptly as Sullivan walked in.
His steel-shod boots left flakes of mud across the floor.
Sweat had carved tracks in the dirt on his face, and the hair on his cheeks was a dark orange that didn’t match the brown on his head, especially now that it was darker due to lack of washing.
My body was already responding to the threat he posed before I registered the way he was rolling his eyes over me. I stood, stepping away from my chair. Shoulders back, stance relaxed. My hands lingered by my side, offering to be weapons, defenses or counterweights.
“You look well, my lady,” he said, glancing around. “Where are your chaperones?”
“D’you mean us?” Chay asked, appearing in the open door behind him, Thomas at his shoulder.
Sullivan flicked his attention toward them. “You, and the handmaid. Did the plague take her?”
My heart squeezed. “Your concern is welcome but entirely misplaced, sir. Have you urgent news?”
Isolde wouldn’t be far. She never was when I needed her. Judging by the way this man moved comfortably toward me in public…
I couldn’t rule out anything. Not really. I’d seen him kill a child once, in cold blood. No one had bothered to tell me why that’d happened. I’d walked through the bailey at the wrong time and been too terrified to ask a single question.
Luca is here.
I didn’t have time for that thought.
I’ve taken wealth his family tried to claim as their own. The Lyles had been quiet for some time, though. Those who were unhappy had left. The others had settled into the rhythm of life.
“Not for you, my lady,” he said, looking back. “But I expect you’ll have news for me.”
Just like that, he was simply another bad-mannered guardsman. “You’ll be disappointed, then,” I told him, wondering where Kaelson was, and whether Sullivan had come alone. “All my news is already on the way to the Duke.”
He was close enough that I could smell him, now, and I resisted the urge to cover my nose.
His poor horse. Over his head I saw the door open again.
Kaelson appeared, holding the door for Isolde.
What were they up to? But their body language said it was a chance meeting, not a continuation of something.
“Much of the city works at a different pace, post-plague, but the bathhouse is still fully operational,” I offered the knight before me as politely as I could. “I’ve a full day, but I’ll be back to share the night meal at dusk if you’re free, sir.”
He reached over his body. Chay already had his sword naked in hand.
I didn’t recall him being so quick to whip his steel out.
Sullivan glanced at him, eyes narrowed, hand lingering by one hip. Chay kept the sword angled at his neck as Thomas flicked Sullivan’s cloak back.
The scroll-shaped, oiled leather pouch in Sullivan’s belt was the obvious target. I clicked my tongue. “No news?” I asked him. “Just a sealed letter from the Duke?” When Thomas untied it from Sullivan’s belt I waited, hoping I was right.
“This is unnecessary,” Sullivan told Chay. “We’re wearing the same sigil, boy.”
“It’s been a hard winter,” I told Sullivan. “I’m sure you understand.”
Sullivan’s eyes swung to me. I saw him as the man in Mikus’s shadow, as I’d viewed him as a child.
Tall and lean, dark and dangerous. I saw him as the knight he was, as I knew him as an adult.
Tired from the road, with dulled reflexes and a stink that’d make the Wife hesitate to serve him.
A small part of me felt his hands on my flesh. What. Raider’s. Ban. Men. Do.
Except they didn’t.
I reached forward, forcing my mind to unstick itself by moving my body as I took the oiled parchment from Thomas’s hands and unraveled it.
It was sealed. I cracked the wax with the flex of parchment and my nail, ignoring the way the texture of the wax lingered.
The feel of it wedged up high between the skin and the firm surface that had been clean of debris at the top of my nail.
Now the dark wax sat there, tacky and thick.
The letter had been coiled so long it didn’t open far. I skimmed enough of my father’s blunt hand to know it had been penned before the most recent updates from him. It was addressed to the steward.
Why Sullivan had gone for it at all…
The sound of Chay sheathing his sword was as familiar to me as the sweet smile I spied on Isolde’s lips when she settled beside me.
“I’ll go over this,” I told Sullivan. “And come to you with any queries. Thanking you for its safe delivery.”
He watched me like a fox watched a hen. That fox didn’t realize this hen was actually a steppe cat.
The door opened again, and a group of unfamiliar, road-worn men came in, looking around.
They started toward where the food was waiting, but their gazes kept dancing back toward us.
Clearly, my father had answered my desperate requests for more guardsmen.
However many there were, I was confident we could put them to use.
“You’re looking at me like there’s something else,” I said, because I was tired of waiting. “Is there anything else, sir, or have you forgotten your manners entirely?”
“That’s an interesting question, my lady,” he said, looking from me to Kaelson to Chay and back again. “An interesting question.”
I didn’t have time for his cryptic nonsense. The stench of him was coating my throat. “When you’ve a simple answer, do let me know.” I turned back to the tailors and Sandra. “Pardon me.”
They nodded. Kaelson fell in beside me as I left. “A moment, my lady,” he said.
“Of course.” Thomas grabbed the door for us, and I went to follow him.
A red-faced runner barreled around a corner, scrabbling to slow down before they crashed into us. Kaelson caught him by his collar and lifted him, not unkindly. The runner shot the older man a relieved look. “M’lady,” he gasped. “Captain. Steward. The steward’s dead.”
Everything seemed to slow.
“Easy, lad,” Kaelson said, shaking his head. “Which steward, son? What’s happened?”
The boy doubled over, panting. “South bailey,” he said, jerking back upright. “With all them that’re back from the war. Keeled over.” Pant. “Clutching his chest. He’s dead.”
The ramifications of that death spread out before me. I barely registered the way Kaelson confirmed it was the recently returned, disgraced Steward Daniel, who’d promised to be such a thorn in my side.
If it had been Isolde, it would’ve been a bloody, probably private, death. Poison was a possibility, of course, but it wasn’t her weapon of choice. When I glanced over, her eyes were narrowed as she listened to the boy. Feeling my attention, she glanced up.
There was nothing in her expression that indicated she’d known this was coming. Not a hint.
“I’ll see to this, m’lady,” Kaelson told me, with a nod.
It had nothing to do with my delicate feelings and everything to do with how suspect I would be. The hall behind me, far from empty, was entirely silent.
“We need the truth of this,” I said to Kaelson, knowing my words would carry. “I won’t have anyone murdering those they disagree with.”
“Of course.” He bowed briskly. “Come, lad. Were you there?”
The boy trotted off, two steps to every one of Kaelson’s. “I was. I didn’t see much, Cap’n. I was fetching water.”
The tension in my belly was a familiar knot.
I stayed where I was, letting them go, knowing I would be observed.
My disagreements with the steward were hardly a secret, after everything that had transpired.
Yet he’d died on the other side of the keep, from what sounded like it could be natural causes.
I could do nothing. Say nothing. I’d been planning on going to see Kaelson, but now I couldn’t. Disoriented, I turned toward my rooms. Accusations would come, of course. But useful that Sullivan had been with me, and the newly returned men had been surrounding the steward.
What had he been doing in the bailey?
In the shadows beside my tower, I spotted the disguised figure of Luca.
I didn’t know if I had patience for him, even with his newly discovered respect for me.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the conversations we had, but I didn’t want to have that doubt in the back of my head right now.
I didn’t have the space in my mind for second guesses.
“How guilty will I look if I saddle Storm and leave this all behind?” I asked Isolde.
“Very.”
I sighed and changed course, taking a side-corridor toward the kitchens. I was practiced at feigning ignorance. A steppe cat might not have needed that skill, but this one didn’t want to fight on too many fronts at once.