“Marvelous!” Judith Angwedd gushed, and clapped her hands together twice, as if in anticipation. “Just as I’d hoped.”
Piers was wary. Although Judith Angwedd had a penchant for the cruelly dramatic, he didn’t think she was being sarcastic.
“I would not be so enthusiastic, were I you,” Piers warned. “I have proof of your treachery, and once the king hears of it you will lose all.”
Judith Angwedd wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “No. I think not, really. I’m rather looking forward to you disavowing your claim to Gillwick before the king.”
“There is naught you could say that would sway me,” Piers growled. “You are a liar and a thief, and you will get exactly what you deserve.”
“Oh, I am certain I will,” she parried. “And I don’t have to utter a single word to convince you to make way for Bevan and me. I’m actually going to give you a gift, and then you may decide on your own. You are completely and utterly in control of how this all plays out. I am more than willing to negotiate with you, which is why I brought you”—her teeth sparkled like ivory blades—“a peace offering of sorts.”
“You mean a bribe,” Piers snorted.
Judith Angwedd conceded with a slight tilting nod.
Piers shook his head. “Whatever it is, you can keep it. Nothing you could give me, promise me, will convince me to let you have my father’s home.Myhome.”
Her smile was secret and small now. “Nevertheless, it would be foolish of you not to at least consider it. But before I give it to you, I only ask that you realize that Bevan is not with me at the moment. You will be able to guess his company soon enough though. Only keep that in your thoughts before you would do anything foolish. If you try to cheat the negotiations in any way, my offer will become immediately void, and Bevan will have my blessing to do as he pleases. You know how …spiritedhe can be.”
She held out her arm, her fist clenched palm down.
Piers didn’t want to extend his hand. He looked down at her fist, white with bulging blue veins, cold, like a swirl of milk caught in a block of ice. He looked up into her eyes.
“Take it,” she said softly, teasingly. “It won’t bite you, foolish boy.”
Piers held out his hand, and Judith Angwedd pressed something small and light into his palm. Her smile widened.
“Think well upon it,” she advised. “I shall see you in the morn, when we shall both hear what you will tell Edward. I am simplyalivewith anticipation!” She swept away from him, and Piers watched her go. She gave him not another glance as she waggled her fingers at this person or another while she walked through the hall. No one returned her greeting.
When she was gone, Piers looked down at the object she’d placed in his hand.
It was a bracelet, its wooden beads carved inexpertly into crude renditions of little pomegranates.
Alys’s bracelet.
All the air left Piers’s body and his face raised slowly, looking for Judith Angwedd to be standing across the room, beaming in triumph. But she was truly gone.
“My lord,” a voice behind him called, but it seemed too far away, and Piers was not accustomed to people addressing him by that noble title.
I only ask that you realize that Bevan is not with me at the moment. You will be able to guess his company soon enough though. Only keep that in your thoughts before you would do anything foolish. You know how …spiritedhe can be.
“Lord Mallory,” the voice said again, and Piers turned. He knew his lips were slack, his eyes wild. At the man’s wary look, Piers closed his mouth.
“Sorry. Yes?”
“The king will indeed hear your plea on the morrow, along with your stepmother’s,” the keeper of the doors advised with a frown as he glanced down at the wooden beads dangling over Piers’s fist. “But I am to warn you that if you are playing about with something you are not lawfully entitled to, he is prepared to see you punished straightaway. He does not well tolerate having his time wasted.”
Piers nodded faintly. He barely comprehended what the man was saying to him.
Bevan had Alys. Piers recalled the fleshy boy who had gleefully tormented and tortured Piers after he’d lost his mother, when Piers had been too small and frightened to fight back. And now the drunkard, who had once kicked a dog to death when it had dared to sniff at his boots. Bevan, whom Piers suspected had raped more womenthan he’d ever spoken to, and who not even the most heartless lords in the land would accept as a husband for their daughters. Piers knew nothing weaker than Bevan was safe in his presence.
And that man was now holding a delicate and innocent woman such as Alys in his evil and depraved clutches. Piers’s Alys. His wife.
“I understand,” Piers said and nodded again. He understood too well, perhaps. “My thanks.” Piers began to turn away, feeling as though he were lost in a thick fog the color of terror.
“My lord,” the man called Piers’s attention once more.
Piers half turned.
