“I do not think anything is wrong with you.”
“Fine,” Niel said. He stood, arms crossed over his chest. “If you tell anyone about this…”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Larkin reassured him. “But it's going to be a long, cold winter. Would it be so bad to invite her to your bed?”
Niel reached forward to grab the healer by the collar, one-handed, as Larkin wheeled back, eyes wide. For a second Niel stared, his vision red with fury for reasons he could not understand, before he let go abruptly, muttered an apology, and went to sharpen his sword.
A Loyal Girl
It was only when her head cleared that Ayla remembered Isalde had been with her, until someone had taken the girl away. Ayla was certain it was no coincidence Isalde had been in the pantry when the Enarian soldiers came in. The question was whether the knight had come to the same conclusion—and what he’d decided to do about it.
Still shaken by the attack and by Niel himself, she wanted nothing more than to hide in the safety of her room as she’d spent the last three years doing. But Ayla had already failed the folk in the kitchen by doing so after the poisoning. True, the knight hadn’t hurt any of them then, which was odd enough, but would he act differently when he knew exactly who was at fault?
Ayla tried the kitchens first. They were a flurry of activity. Nyven and Sarella were cooking supper for the castle, Nyven inconsolable as he prepared a haunch of smoked meat, Sarella’s eyes rimmed with red as she separated preserved quince from shards of the shattered ceramic jar the fruit had been in. Theywere both terrified what might become of Isalde, and neither knew where she was. Soldiers and servants from other parts of the castle streamed up and down the cellar stairs, carrying foods that needed to be stored anew if there was any hope of avoiding spoilage.
The soldiers couldn't tell Ayla where Isalde was either. They’d been sent immediately to repair the mess in the pantry, since food was a precious resource in a siege. And they had too many questions about what had happened down there, questions she had no appetite to answer.
Outside the kitchen she found another soldier, a short man with large ears and a dark trim beard, carrying a basket of laundered clothes down the corridor. It seemed like an unlikely activity for a man in chain mail, but she supposed with the servants in short supply it had become a necessity.
“That girl who was down there?” he asked when she gave him Isalde’s name. Ayla nodded and clutched at her skirts. “You want the floor below. In that room with all the linens.”
“What, folding them?” If Isalde had been set to house work, she had nothing to worry about.
“As a holding cell. Since we can’t use the dungeons.”
“Ah,” Ayla said, and wondered if the chapel was a good enough hiding place for the keys, or whether she ought to drop them down the privy-chute to keep the knight from ever being able to use the dungeon. “Well. Thank you. Good day.”
She descended the narrow, winding stair. Two soldiers worked in the laundry, singing a bawdy song loudly and off-key. They sloshed their laundry-poles in the water in time with their song. A third lounged in front of a closed doorway, picking at his nails and humming along.
“Is she in there?” Ayla asked, approaching from the side.
“What’s that?” The man straightened up off the wall, gripping his spear like a staff. He was a tall man, with crooked teethand scars on his cheeks, and he spoke with the thick, almost incomprehensible accent of one who’d grown up in an isolated Kettalist village. “Go on back upstairs.”
“I need to speak with Isalde,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. The man didn’t seem impressed; no reaction showed on his face. Unease prickled her spine. The urge to turn tail and race back up to her room was a strong one, but it was not, as far as Ayla was concerned, an option. “So I’d like to go in.”
“I’m sure you’d like many things.” He smirked at her.
“She’s only fourteen, a child still. She’ll be frightened,” Ayla tried.
“So?” His eyes narrowed lazily, the smirk still there.
Fear of men wasn’t enough to stop her from wanting to smack him across the face. It was only enough to stop her from actually doing it.
“You must at the very least let me see that she is unharmed. I am the lady of this castle, and I would like to speak to my servant for a minute.” She could hear her voice trembling, weak when she needed most to be strong, but she managed the whole speech. Isalde hadn’t done anything worse than Ayla; Mercy, the child had merely—what, helped pry the stones from the walls to usher the warriors in? It wasAylawho’d tried to kill.
“Told you, go back upstairs.”
“I cannot. I am the lady of—”
“Not anymore,” the man said. “You aren’t shit, Enarian bitch. Go back to your kennel before I make you.”
She flinched at the words, feeling the familiar fear rise up in her like bile. But Ayla couldn’t make her feet move. Isalde was on the other side of the door. What if they’d beaten her? What if they were going to kill her? The girl wouldn’t even have stayed in the castle, if it weren’t for Ayla and the other servants who’d decided to remain.
She stared at the doorknob behind the man.
“Please,” she whispered. “Have you no sisters, no mother? A girl cannot—”
“Are your ears broken?” he said, and straightened, an angry twist of his lips replacing the smirk. The soldier straightened. “She's troublesome. Move her,” he called, loudly, looking over her shoulder.
