“You would part with them.” Niel raised his eyebrows.
“If it means lasting longer. Fewer mouths. Surely we can manage the castle work without them,” Ayla told him briskly, with a confidence she didn’t feel. Niel sighed.
“If you’re afraid of being handed back to him, don’t be. So long asyoudo not kill me first, I’ll be the end of him.”
“As if I could do that,” she told Niel uneasily. The last thing she needed was him suspecting who had put the stilder berries into his food.
Niel shook his head.
“Very well. Then tomorrow, you will lose your servants, and the girl. I would say enjoy your last meal made by real cooks, but… well.”
“Yes, this one does leave something to be desired,” Ayla murmured, and nonetheless forced herself to take another bite.
“Was there anything else you needed to discuss?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I had a bird of my own to pluck. Is your mattress too soft for your liking?” He asked abruptly, just as she placed a tough bite of meat into her mouth.
Ayla stared at him openly, her eyes wide. The brawny knight was still bent over the table, his elbows planted firmly on either side of his plate, but his eyes were hard on hers.
Was he trying to invite her into his bed? Mercy save her, if he thought losing the servants meant he could cross that boundary. She chewed as quickly as she could and choked down the mouthful.
“I am perfectly comfortable,” she told him stiffly. The man was undoubtedly handsome, knee-weakenly so, but it was unthinkable. She didn’t trust him. And she was still married, technically, no matter how gruesomely miserable she found it.
Besides.Is your mattress comfortablewas the type of opening flirtation she’d have expected from the miller’s boy back home, not a full blooded knight who’d come fresh from killing a dozen men earlier that day.
“Hm,” he said, and looked back down to his plate for a moment to spear a piece of quince on his fork. “Odd.”
“What is?” Ayla asked, keeping her tone as disinterested as she could, lest he think she was open to being propositioned.
“The books under your mattress. I wondered if they served a purpose, considering you said you do not know your letters.” His voice was calm. He might as well have been discussing that day’s snowfall.
She blinked rapidly, biting her lower lip. He set his fork down, picked up his goblet, and leaned back in his chair. His narrowed eyes stayed on her.
“You searched mybed?”
“Not personally. I told my men to search the whole castle, in case any others had gotten in through the tunnel and lay in wait.”
“I…” Ayla gaped at him, her meal entirely forgotten. “It isn’t as though soldiers could have hidden between my mattress and the frame.”
“Why lie about knowing your letters? What aim could that possibly achieve?”
She shook her head quickly, still reeling, and shrugged.
“I did not want to write to Ditmar. And he wouldn’t like it if I did. He keeps to the old ways.”
“The old ways,” the knight said sarcastically.
“He wanted me to be better bred,” she admitted. “But I am merchant's blood, through and through. I should not have kept my books. But I could not endure without them, so I hid them.”
The knight was staring at her so hard now that she wondered if he thoughtshewas the insane one. And perhaps she was,clinging on to books she’d read so many times she could have recited them from memory.
“That’s not true,” he said.
“I’m not lying.” She frowned at him.
“No. About books having anything to do with ‘breeding,’ as you call it.”
