Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ISOLDE
“Before the growth goes the fire.” ~ Raider’s Ban proverb
I hesitated in the shadows as the guardsmen trekked tiredly toward their mess, leaving the odd spot of mud behind them.
“…the Captain gone, surely?”
“He’ll put Smythesson in, for sure. I bet the asslicker’ll forget the coin he owes me the minute he chooses my damned patrols.”
“Smythesson is greener than the orchard in spring,” the first guard disagreed. “Who cares if his cousin is a noble?”
“Steward Daniel does,” the second guard told him, glumly. “I don’t like this. My Mara, she’s worried, too.”
“We can’t just shut our doors,” the first one said. “Lock it all out.”
The second guard fell silent, and I listened to their steps as they retreated. They’d cleared one corner too many for me to understand the next question the first guardsman asked, but I didn’t chase after them.
I wondered what a guard from the main gates might report. Increased traffic, as people took long-overdue visits to family in the country, or relocated to better climes as they’d spoken about their whole lives?
And where were these people going?
Thomas was on the door when I returned, looking the exact same as he did every day. I couldn’t imagine the energy that sort of uniformity took. I doubted he could imagine anything else.
“Mistress,” he said, meeting my eyes. “I understand the lady wishes to visit the prisoner in the dungeons.”
She did, because we needed enough of an in with this would-be assassin that she didn’t kill us on sight, or refuse our aid and complicate the whole situation. And in typical Audrey fashion, she’d also decided this woman’s well-being was at least partially her responsibility.
“I was in the city this morning,” he went on, stiffly. “It appears the illness is spreading rapidly. Everywhere.”
I paused, considering his wooden expression and how much it must’ve cost him just to utter those words to me, breaking his unblinking guardsman’s pose. “Go on.”
He glanced toward my hand on the door. “Reports are coming from local provinces. Even over the bay. I thought mayhap you might express these concerns.”
“You don’t want her to go out.”
“I don’t want her to get sick, mistress.”
I didn’t, either. Accepting the information with a nod, I returned to the rooms and found Chay waiting beside the fire, surrounded by flecks of wood from his whittling. He was lousy at it, but at least he cleaned up after himself and didn’t say much.
Past him, sitting in silence at her desk, was Audrey. Her quill swirled over the surface of a messy page to one side. She glanced up at me, the thumb that had been flipping a parchment up and down stilling.
“What was said?” she asked me, and I felt her attention like a deer felt a hunter’s eyes.
Appreciation and pride swelled in my chest. I closed the door firmly behind me.
“No one could answer my question. On the way back, I did hear, the Captain is unwell.”
Her hand stilled. “He’s got it?”
I shrugged. There were more illnesses than the one we’d come across, including self-induced ones from too much revelry. The Captain wasn’t known for such things, but when the Duke was away, the guards would play. Mortemon was proof of that.
Audrey’s expression was caught in the middle distance. I let her mind whir, going to the window to look over the city.
She’d figure out the situation with the assassin. I was more worried about the possibility of them locking down the keep. As if to underscore this concern, my eye was drawn to the thin ribbons of smoke rising from the lower city levels.
It was only a matter of time, really. The Master Steward would know that by now. An incurable, deadly illness seemed like just the thing to lock out.
Except the harvest wasn’t in.
Before I could ask Audrey what supplies the keep had, which would help me figure out how long we would have some small freedom, a knock came from the outer door. Chay rolled to his feet, hurriedly sweeping the worst of the shavings into the fire and striding out. Audrey shuffled her papers, putting a page on top that looked equally as dull as whatever she’d hidden.
As soon as I saw Steward Daniel’s heavy keys of office and patronizingly worried expression, energy rushed through my body.
We were going to have to go over the wall if they locked us in, through a sickened city. Or wait it out, knowing the castle was already compromised, and lose more of our precious lifespans to this prison.
“Unfortunately, my lady, I come to you under dire circumstances.” He eased himself down into the chair opposite hers at her desk, uninvited. Thomas and Chay marched around the back of her and took up their stations much like they did whilst she ate in the great hall.
Trusting Audrey to have this wasted seed’s measure, I opted to take the door.
I wondered if Audrey would see the opportunity here.
Chay was already known to kill infected people who approached her, after all. One more on that list would be plenty believable. Chay didn’t even need to do it himself. She hadn’t sworn another death would ever be attributed to him, had she?
“It would appear the plague has spread across the city with frightening speed,” he said, leaning forward, and that word made me pause. Was it a plague, now? “As you saw yourself some days ago, it is also in these walls.”
Interesting that he could acknowledge both facts. Most La’Angi men only saw the information that best suited them.
“We have our best working on developing cures,” he said. “Please, don’t be alarmed.”
Audrey’s brows rose fractionally.
“But you do need to take this seriously.” He took a folded piece of paper magically from somewhere and offered it to her. I wished I’d been able to see that move. Paper was easier to hide than knives, but if it were actually a slight of hand trick with some skill, he’d bear watching closer than I thought.
“This is a list of symptoms, as closely as we can identify them. I knew you’d want to know them. And my lady…it may just save you if you do.”
Audrey took the paper and set it before her. “What is your current strategy?”
“We’re pouring as much support into the harvest as we can,” he told her, and that sickly-sweet patronization faded. “Captain Xavier is setting up a field hospital in the lower marketplace.”
“Why not the more central marketplace?” she asked, frowning.
His smile was paternalistic. “Because, my lady, the poor have a harder time carrying their sick than the rich do.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, but before she could question him, he was resting a hand on her desk. “I need to ask something of you, my lady. Something that will help.”
Unease crept up my spine at the urgency in his tone. I saw Chay shift slightly. Thomas may as well have been hewn of wood.
“Ask,” Audrey said. And I hated that her eyes were no longer narrowed.
“I need to quarantine you, my lady.” She opened her mouth to object, and I watched with no surprise as he held up a hand to silence her. “You are the bastion of hope for our people. If they know you are still well, they will continue to work.”
“How—”
“The plague may take some of us, or many of us, my lady, but the winter will take us all without provisions.” The patronization was gone and his second hand was on her desk, the aged, ink-stained fingers laced together. “I need you to be safe so you can continue to encourage the people. I know you’ve a soft heart. The Duke, may the One smile on him, disapproves of that, but it’s your strength.”
She was looking at me, now, fury and hunger in her gaze, in the thin line of her lips and the razor set of her shoulders. “For how long?” she asked.
“I’ve no way of knowing?—”
“Draw your battle line, Master Steward,” she said, and the words were so cold I felt a chill wash over me, encasing the heat of pride in my chest. “I will not agree to indefinite terms on such an arrangement.”
He sighed with regret, as if he actually cared, and I didn’t even laugh. “Would you give us until the end of winter, my lady? For La’Angi?”
She scoffed, and I admired the derision she managed in that one small, ladylike sound. “Over a season of being cooped up inside?”
“As we often are anyway,” he agreed. “We face hard times in the city, but ’tis the perfect season to be securely inside, if there must be such a time. Please, my lady. Remain where it is safe. For the good of your people.”
Whatever argument she’d been having with him paused instantly. “I’ll do it,” she told him. “If I see you write my father asking for aid.”
I resisted the urge to laugh at the myriad of emotions that flickered over Steward Daniel’s face at this simple but effective way to ensure the his honesty.
“The trip out of the tower might put you at risk.”
“Then allow me to witness,” I offered, and Audrey nodded firmly.
He shook his head. “With respect, mistress, your movements put the lady at risk every bit as much as her own movements do. If you are to catch sick, surely she will follow.”
He was right, and that irritated me.
Audrey turned and looked at her guards. Chay stood stony-faced. Thomas glanced hesitantly between us all.
Somehow, I managed to keep the glee from my tone as I requested, “May Thomas be the lady’s representative in the castle?”
The Master Steward, when pressed, had no real right to refuse. He had to be the one to ask for aid, but Audrey would stay out from under his feet. He didn’t realize how excellent a deal he’d made. She could do a lot of damage if left unattended.
Things were shifting. She could see it, too. It was in the thoughtful set of her mouth as she watched Steward Daniel leave with Thomas at his side, in the crease between her brows, and in the light in her eyes.
People were going to die. Nothing that was important was ever easy, and the locways meant too much to these people to trust their participation.
I didn’t gloat. But I did cross to where she stood and press my hand to her shoulder, holding firmly. She wasn’t the type to solve everything with a stroke of the knife. Perhaps that was best.
“He’s scared,” she breathed.
“As well he should be.” I squeezed her shoulder. “Come. Train.”
She shook her head a little as if to dispel the shock, then settled her gaze on me, firmed her shoulders, and followed where I led.