Chapter Eleven The Lion’s Test
Chapter Eleven
The Lion’s Test
“Thank you for stating the obvious, Lion,” a different voice snapped. “I could have told you that. Do you have any idea why she’s here?”
From my vantage point on the floor, I saw a circle of faces hovering over me, white teeth splitting mustaches and beards into amused grins.
“She should not be here at all,” said the first, sonorous speaker. “This is a grave breach of protocol. In the third chapter of my book, you will find—”
“We know the rules. Someone send for Angelique, she’ll sort this out. And give that woman some air. I think she’s hurt.”
Murmurs of assent arose from the assembled gentry. The assorted beards above me pulled back, leaving me staring at the high ceiling. I regarded it for a few moments, then rolled my head to the side. A pair of slippered feet approached, scattering tiny round green balls across the flagstones.
Why was the floor covered in dried peas?
“Are you injured?” A woman knelt beside me, placing a cool hand on my shoulder. Long blue-black hair brushed against my cheek.
I looked up into a gentle smile and a wide-set pair of warm brown eyes. “I…My arm. I don’t know if it’s broken or only bruised.”
For a simple fracture, I thought, manipulate the ends of the broken bone until they line up properly. This will hurt. A lot. Splint the arm to hold the bone in place. Allow six to twelve weeks for the injury to heal.
The woman’s forehead knitted with concern. “Can you wiggle your fingers?” She ran her hand down my sleeve. “Maybe you should stay on the floor for the moment.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” I replied.
“Who are you? From your accent, I’m guessing you’re from Skalla?”
The tromp of heavy footfalls sounded behind me, and I looked back to see one of the hunters entering the room.
“Her name is Clover,” he said.
Blood on his breeches. Jack.
“She’s come to see to the wedding arrangements on behalf of the Skallan princess,” he added. “Monsters attacked her in the woods.”
“Did they?” The woman examining my arm narrowed her eyes. “And your merry band just happened to be there to rescue her, I take it? That’s rather a coincidence.”
“A very fortuitous one,” he agreed. “I can’t imagine Skalla would have taken her death well. They might have gone so far as to call off the marriage.”
The woman was poised to say more, but before she could, the nobles watching the exchange melted away as fast as a herd of antelope fleeing from a predator. And in their wake, the predator stepped forward.
If you have ever seen a lion up close, you know they are big. Bigger than you would expect, even if you are expecting something big. And the kingdom’s talking lion was larger than that.
He was easily ten feet long from his nose to the tip of his tail.
Most of that was solid muscle. His head overtopped the height of the tallest people in the crowd.
His shaggy mane shaded from tawny at the forehead to a dark brown around his powerful shoulders.
An incongruous set of spectacles perched precariously on his nose.
The lion looked at Jack and frowned. Lion mouths are not human mouths and do not readily shape themselves into human expressions.
When you spend time with a cat, though, which having a sister like Calla makes inevitable, you quickly find out they have their own ways of expressing pleasure, or anger, or disdain.
And the feline expression he wore at that moment was, unmistakably, a frown.
“You did not disturb the peas when you walked,” the lion rumbled.
“Peas? What peas?” Jack asked, glancing down. “Oh, are there peas on the floor? How odd.”
“You have altered your behavior. But when your fellow conspirators enter the room—”
As if on cue, eleven more masked men in green poured through the door, walking with a heavy, deliberate tread, stamping on the peas.
One of them frowned in puzzlement when he saw me on the floor.
Sam, I guessed, the moment before I confirmed it by checking his claw-torn shirt.
If they’d stopped to change their clothes, I’d no doubt have been at a complete loss.
“You must have been warned about the test!” the lion said. “Who warned you?”
“Or perhaps,” someone new cut in, stepping out from behind the great cat, “your ridiculous test has failed, Lion. Admit you were wrong, and leave it be.”
“I was not wrong!” the lion protested. “I will find a better test!”
The man walking around the lion wore clothes no finer than those of the other nobles. But my attention was drawn to the gold circlet, studded with jewels, making a dent in his curly black hair.
My first view of King Gervase, my intended husband, was from the floor. I could see up his nose.
His gaze locked with Jack’s. “You’re back.”
“Yes.” Jack seemed likewise unable to tear his eyes from Gervase. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. There were no incidents here.” The king glanced at the bloodstains spotting Jack’s breeches. “But you’re hurt.”
“Just a scratch.”
I took the opportunity to study my betrothed.
There was nothing obviously wrong with him.
He had a long, narrow face with a prominent nose.
Thin lips framed by a neatly trimmed mustache and beard.
Olive-toned skin and dark eyes. Not entirely to my tastes, but it was a face I might get used to in time. If I had to.
“What happened?” he asked Jack.
“Nothing important. A minor skirmish.”
That was something of an understatement. “I’d hate to see a major one, then,” I said. “I could have died.”
The king finally deigned to look in my direction. To do him credit, his tone was apologetic as he crouched down to talk to me. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said. “And that you have received further injuries here.”
“Injuries?” Sam asked. “What injuries?”
“She slipped on the peas,” the dark-haired woman explained.
Sam scowled at the lion belligerently, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.
“Did I hear right that you’ve come about the”—the king paused—“the wedding arrangements? With the princess of Skalla?”
His mouth curled down at the corners. He looked no happier than Jack had been at the prospect of Princess Melilot. Was anyone pleased by this marriage?
“What did Jack say your name was?” he asked.
I hesitated.
This would have been the perfect time to reveal my true identity. Whatever secret the huntsmen were hiding, they had kept their word and delivered me safely to the castle. All I had to do was declare myself, and I would surely be cosseted, fussed over, wined, dined, and made comfortable.
Something Jack had said when he entered the room, however, niggled at my mind.
Monsters attacked her in the woods.
Attacked her. Not us. Me. And he was right.
The trap had been laid for a traveler on the road.
The road a princess arriving from Skalla was almost certain to take.
Even after Jack had told me the monster attacks were planned, I’d still assumed I’d merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But what if, instead, it had been an attempt on my life?
An assassination attempt, targeting me. The real me, Melilot, not Clover the handmaiden—because no one makes plans to eliminate handmaidens who don’t actually exist. Was there someone who did not want this wedding to take place?
So much so that murdering a foreign princess was a reasonable alternative?
“Clover,” I said. “My name is Clover. And before the princess arrives, I think we need to have some words about your health and safety standards. Will there be any peas on the floor in the wedding venue?”
At that, the king’s face cracked into a rueful smile.
“I assure you that won’t be an issue. And I hope your arm isn’t hurt too badly.
” He straightened out of his crouch and turned to the woman hovering over me.
“Angelique, would you see that our guest’s needs are taken care of?
Make sure that includes a visit to the chirurgeon. ”
“Of course. Are you able to stand?” she asked me, offering a hand. Since I didn’t think lying on the floor for the rest of time would be the best of choices, I accepted her help and let her pull me up by my uninjured arm.
“We’ll discuss the wedding plans when you’ve had a chance to rest,” Gervase said. “In the meantime, please make yourself welcome in my kingdom. I wish you could have had a better introduction to it, but things have been”—he searched for the right words—“somewhat unusual, of late.”
“So I’ve heard,” I muttered as Angelique led me off. Sam took a step after us, but Jack put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head.
“Finally, the sanctity of the Great Hall is restored,” the lion rumbled.
“Or partially restored, at any rate…” He began complaining once again that his test had been interfered with, whatever that might mean, and the interrupted argument between him, the king, and the huntsmen resumed as the assembled nobles murmured and tittered behind us.
There was too much happening that I didn’t understand. Huntsmen in masks, a king unhappy to wed the bride he’d sent for. Peas all over the floor.
The only thing certain was that someone had enemies here. And it was entirely possible that the someone in question was me.