Chapter 12 Breaking Bread #2
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She hadn’t heard anything about oaths being broken. No, surely he was just a man looking for excuses, determined to believe he was in the right. She’d seen that kind before.
“Just eat your soup,” the knight said. He hadn’t picked up his spoon. And he was staring at her, too hard, like if he let his eyes off her for even a second she might vanish. It was rather unsettling. What, exactly, did he think she was going to do? Stab him with the butter knife?
Oh. Poison.
Perhaps Megh had not dropped the food after all. Perhaps he’d somehow known it. Recognized the seeds, or had a taster take the first bite...
Was he trying to avoid it happening again? Or was this her punishment—he was so particular about which seat and which bowl she used because he was going to poison her?
She bowed her head, gripped the spoon tight, and took a small sip of the broth, avoiding the bits of leek and poultry. The knight gripped his own spoon in one large fist, his eyes scrutinizing her every move.
He did not look satisfied. Ayla gulped, dug her spoon back in, and forced herself to take another trembling sip of the broth.
“Is something wrong, Lady Blackfell?” he asked, his voice dangerously soft. “The food not to your liking?”
She shook her head no, fished out a piece of leek, and ate it slowly, her eyes downcast. If she was going to die, so be it. She could hardly run away from the man. She’d seen what he could do with a sword.
She took another bite. At last it seemed to be good enough to satisfy him.
The knight lifted his own spoon, braced his arms on the table, and began to eat, rapidly.
Like a starved man who’d been lost in the wild.
Or a man who’d missed a few meals. The spoon was halfway lifted to his mouth for the fourth time when he picked up one of the rolls and held it out to her.
Ayla reached forward and took it from his hand.
Lord Niel kept eating the soup, one eye still on her.
She tore a piece off, spread it with the salted butter he nudged towards her, and took a bite. Satisfied, he picked up a roll and did the same.
If he were poisoning her, Ayla decided, he wouldn’t care if she ate first. Or he’d just make her eat while he watched without taking a bite. She relaxed a little. It seemed unlikely that he meant to kill her. Not by way of dinner, at least. She finished her cup of wine in a large, relieved gulp.
“You must have some idea where your husband kept the keys,” he said.
“I don’t. Perhaps he wore them.”
“Wouldn't you, his wife, know if he did?”
She didn’t answer. The knight reached for the pitcher and poured Ayla more wine. She took a sip.
“Back to your silent act, then,” he suggested.
She drew in a sharp breath and fiddled with her spoon, eating more slowly than the knight was. She supposed there was no denying it to him now; it had been an act. But what was she supposed to say, a full confession? He wasn’t her friend, or even her ally.
Mercy, twenty-four hours past she’d slipped a deadly poison into his food. Nothing had changed since then. He was the enemy. She could not forget that.
“No matter,” he muttered, and took a slug of wine, leaning back in his chair and glaring at her with narrowed eyes. “It’s not your company that I require.”
“Then may I leave?” She didn’t mean the words to come out as a challenge. She hadn't meant to say them at all. That was the trouble with wine.
“I’m not forcing you to stay,” he agreed. “But think carefully, Lady Blackfell, before you go.”
It was a threat, but she didn’t have a clue what he meant.
“It would help to know what I am supposed to be thinking of.”
“Have you had enough to eat?” he leaned forward across the table to her, the bright flame flickering between them.
Half his face bled red from the hearthfire; the other was ominously shadowed.
It highlighted his carved features, the sharp cut of his cheeks, the heavy brow.
“Because I have forbidden the kitchens to feed you.”
She stared at him in disbelief.
“You can’t mean to starve me.”
“Of course not,” he agreed. “You’ll eat quite well. By my side.”
“My lord… I don’t know what game you are playing, but…”
“I don’t play games,” he said, his voice quiet, still leaning towards her. “Your servants adore you. They would have left when I offered an escape, and instead, they stayed. For you. I doubt they’ll try to poison me again, if it means killing their dear lady in the bargain.”
Her spoon slipped from her hand, hit the edge of the bowl, and clattered onto the floor.
“Poison?” Ayla said, her voice too high.
She scraped her chair back and bent. The knight was faster.
He was kneeling beside her in an instant, so close she could have fallen into his arms like a lover.
Only there was a dirty spoon in one of his hands.
He offered it to her solemnly, like it were the world’s ugliest rose.
Her heart thumped, and for a moment she was trapped in his dark gaze.
“Poison,” he agreed. “Do you trust them? Would they kill you to kill me?”
“They won’t,” Ayla whispered breathily. She took the spoon from him, the edge of her little finger scraping for a second against his skin. He stood slowly, looming over her, then returned to his seat and his meal. She forced her heart to calm.
Had he hurt anyone in the kitchen? No, surely Megh would have told Ayla when she’d come to fetch her, if he had.
She couldn’t admit she knew anything about the poisoning. And she wasn’t going to come clean, not unless she had to in order to save the others.
“What do you mean by ‘again?’” she asked as she wiped the spoon on her napkin, frowned at it, and set it down. She wasn’t sure she wanted to put anything in her mouth that had been on Ditmar’s floor.
“Stilder berries. I’d like to say I recognized the seeds instantly, but instead I can be grateful to skilled healers and fast-working tonics.”
“Stilder berries,” she repeated in a whisper. “Is that so.” She hadn't realized there was a healer among the soldiers. Ditmar's had left with the other servants.
“I’m told they’re used to decorate here, in fall. We do the same in Eyron. Strange ones, aren't we, us northerners? Might as well stash a huckup in the cellar as hang poison on the walls.”
“Huckups aren't half so pretty, though. They don't make for nice decoration.”
The garlands were in her room, Ayla realized. She was going to have to get rid of them, without the knight knowing. Or did he already know they were there? His men had done a cursory search of the castle when he arrived. Had they taken note of the garlands? Would anyone remember?
And where could she even put them without anyone seeing? Mercy, but she had gone about this in such an idiotic, haphazard fashion. Like a panicked chicken wearing a blindfold.
“You aren’t going to do anything about it, are you? To the servants, I mean?” Her throat felt so tight it was hard to talk.
“You care about them more than most nobles,” he informed her.
Ayla bit her bottom lip and did not answer.
She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to that.
Being common born, seeing other peasants as human seemed like an entirely everyday trait.
The knight shrugged. “To answer your question, no, not unless I figure out who it was. Three cooks, a woman to deliver the food, and Mercy knows who else could have been involved. I’m not in the habit of executing innocent people just to root out a problem. ”
She touched a hand to her spoon with a frown, then remembered where it had been, and reached for another roll instead. Her forehead was still creased with thinking as she tore it in half and dipped it into the soup.
“You look like you have something to say.”
“Isn’t that just what war is? Killing innocent people to reach an aim?” she whispered, fearing with every word that she was setting herself up for a backhand across her face.
But Lord Niel only shrugged, and picked up his cup of wine.
“Depends why you’re waging war, maybe,” Niel told her. “A man like Blackfell deserves to be gutted, and I intend to do so as slowly as I can. But some poor cook with misguided notions of protecting the family he serves, that’s different.”
“I don’t see why you care about Ditmar,” she whispered. “What business is it of yours what he does to his own wife?”
An agitated look passed over his face. He frowned and turned his head to stare at the fire. One of the knight’s hands rested on the table, the fingers drumming once, twice, before settling. Just when she’d decided he wasn’t going to answer her, he opened his mouth.
“I know what it’s like. To live in the shadow of a cruel and violent man.” His words were clipped. “I have no patience for it now. I stop it, when I can. I can’t always. But I try.”
She looked him over in disbelief. Even seated, he was built more like an ogre than a man, for all he was handsome enough to make her knees weaken.
He towered over everyone in the castle, from Nyven to his own soldiers.
His shoulders were broad, his arms thick with what she felt certain was muscle and not simply layers of padding and armor.
It was impossible to imagine that any man would shadow over Lord Niel.
“You hardly look the part,” she accused.
He snorted. Then the knight turned away from the fire and studied her with tired resolve.
“Believe it or not, Lady Blackfell, I was a child once.” The words stabbed straight to her heart.
Niel picked up his bowl with both hands, lifted it, and drank directly from it.
Then he set it down hard and stood, grabbing another roll off the platter.
“Take your time eating. A servant will fetch you when it’s time to break fast in the morning.
I warn you, I wake early, and I don’t like to be hungry. ” He left the room without bowing.
She turned over her shoulder and watched as he left the room without looking back at her.
Biting her lip, Ayla reached for his spoon, then sighed and dropped it.
She wasn’t putting that in her mouth, either.
Surely a traitor’s lips were as bad as Ditmar’s floor.
Not that using a man’s spoon meant anything about touching his lips.
It wasn’t like kissing, using someone else’s spoon.
Not that she was thinking about kissing Lord Niel.
Which was a ridiculous idea to even be passing through her head.
She neither trusted nor liked him. No matter what he said, his actions proved everything she needed to know.
He was a lying traitor who’d gone to war against his own Queen, against Ayla’s own country.
He deserved to be poisoned again, but it wasn't an option. Not if he was serious about taking every meal with her. She couldn’t deny that the excuse brought knee-buckling relief along with it, and a part of her knew that no matter what dining arrangements he made, in the span of one meal he'd become too human for Ayla to ever sprinkle stilder berries on his plate again.
It was horrible manners, but she lifted her bowl with both hands and drank deeply, just as the knight had.