“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 evenputthem 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 rollinstead. 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 ofyourswhat 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 puttingthatin 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 matterwhatdining 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.
Rights of a Hostage
Outside the window, the sky was black, the last scattered stars beginning to fade. The fresh-baked braid of bread and the bowls of fruit porridge had been steaming when the food arrived, as had the tea, brought by a yawning kitchen girl who’d been too tired to act afraid or even deferential.
The smell made Niel's mouth water as he sat moodily beside the fire and waited for the castle’s lady to arrive. On the plaster wall next to the hearth was a painting of a knight in green being run through with a lance, the blood spraying in a halo of perfectly shaped drops. The jouster's day was off to a worse start than Niel's, but not by much.
How much time did a womanneedto get ready in the morning? Mercy’s sake. Niel knew it was early, but he’d summoned her to breakfast, not an audience with his father. She had only to roll out of her bed and make her way down the staircase. She could come with her hair tangled and her dress onbackwards, for all he cared, so long as shecame,and let him eat. His supper the night before had been scant.
The green jousting knight's mouth curled down horribly at the edges, like an arch knocked onto its side. Niel groaned, planted his elbows on the table, and stared at the food he didn’t dare touch.
The steam was all gone by the time Ayla finally knocked and stepped inside the sitting room. Her black waves were loose and shining, her dress high-necked and covered with a thick wool cloak, the same color as the dried plums in the porridge must have been when they were picked in summer. Lit by only the fire in the hearth beside him, from across the room she looked as delicate as a spider’s gossamer web, so faint that if he breathed too hard she might vanish. And yet.
He was damned hungry and tired of waiting.
