“The ball is coming up, and we still haven’t finished the drawing rooms. You need them for … for feeding?” Her mouth twists. “Am I right?”
“Winnie, you can’t?—”
“I came here to do a job, and professional pride won’t allow me to leave until it’s done. We haven’t even got to the ‘Neutralise’ and ‘Sustain’ parts of the Winnie Wins System yet.” She raises her chin in defiance. “I dare you to find another professional organiser willing to take on this big a job at the last minute when their neck is literally on the line.”
This woman. This beautiful, strange, infuriating,impossiblewoman. “There are more dangers in this house than me. You’re not safe here?—”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“I want you to stay. Forever.”
I cannot lie to her. My arms ache to hold her.
“So …” She shrugs. “Here we are.”
“Sit.” I kick bottles out of the way and gesture to the chair opposite mine, the chair I now can only think of as hers. “I will tell you everything I should have told you from the moment you walked into the pub and your scent drove me to madness. Only once my tale is complete can you decide if you still wish to stay with me.”
“A professional organiser doesn’t desert a client,” Winnie says as she settles herself into the seat. Mirabelle leaps up and settles on her lap. “It’s part of our code of ethics, along with not stealing stuff and annoying said clients with our awesome cleaning playlists. But I do think I deserve the full story.”
I lower myself into the seat opposite her. My hands tremble. I reach for another bottle, but decide against it. I take a breath, and, with Winnie’s soft mouth and piquant scent to steady me, I begin.
“I was born in what was then known as Saxony, over five hundred years ago. I have stopped counting. My father was a blacksmith, my mother spun wool. I was the eldest of six children, and the only boy. I have been a monster so long now that I barelyremember being a boy, but I do remember being happy despite our poverty. My father taught me his trade, and my mother taught me to laugh. When I wasn’t in the forge, I spent my days running wild in the fields with my sisters, imagining the world beyond our village. My father was well known for his skill, and warriors came from all corners of the kingdom to have their swords made in his forge. I spent far too much time with those warriors, learning the art of the blade and the vocabulary of war.
“One day, soldiers came to our village. They descended like a heavenly host, although they brought only blood and desolation. They burned the fields where we children played. I hid in the forge while they smashed through our home. They impaled my father on his own sword, and what I saw them do to my mother and sisters, I …”
Winnie reaches out a hand to me, but I refuse it. For all the cruelties those soldiers inflicted upon my kin, I’ve done a thousand-fold worse, and she must know it all if she is to truly know me.
I take another breath.
“When they passed on to the next village, all they left behind were piles of ash and bone. I found the bodies of my family, and gave them what burial rites I could. And then, I strapped two of my father’s finest swords to my back and set off with no purpose except revenge.”
“How old were you?” Winnie’s voice trembles.
“Fourteen summers,” I reply. It seems I remember some things clearly.
Reginald appears, setting down an iced chocolate next to Winnie. He gathers up the empty bottles littering our feet. “I shall see that your mother doesn’t disturb you,” he says as he backs out of the room.
“Thank you, Reginald. Please return to light the fire for Ms Preston.”
“Yes, my lord.”
My Thrall closes the door lightly behind him. I force myself deeper into my memories, conjuring the acrid stench of burning bodies, the bitter taste of rage and desolation, the hollowness in my chest where my heart should reside.
“I was but one boy, and they were many, but I had the skills passed on from the finest warriors, and I wasn’t temperedby age or drink or months on the march. And best – or perhaps worst – of all, I had a heart hardened by vengeance.
“I caught up with them three villages later. I waited until their battle-lust was sated, their blades dulled with dried blood, until they had taken their fill from the terrified women of the village and collapsed in a drunken stupor beside their fires. Then I stole into their camp.
“I slaughtered them in their sleep.”
Winnie’s mouth twists. I could sanitise this story for her, but I need her to knoweverything. She’s the only person who has ever looked at me and not seen a monster, and I’m terrified that she’ll never see me the same again.
But I’m more terrified of her staying because she believes I’m something I’m not.
“There was no music to my dance of death, no finesse, but it was the first time I had drawn a blade against flesh. I had nearly made my way through the whole camp when I was ambushed by one of the warriors. He had only pretended to sleep, waiting for me to get close enough to subdue. He didn’t kill me, but instead he dragged me before his king, made me kneel, and told a hushed court what I had done in my rage. The king gave me two options – die immediately or join his army.
“And so, I sharpened my father’s swords and became a warrior. I marched across Europe, razing villages, taking castles, tasting dirt and blood and glory. And the warrior who saved me, Hrodebert, became my dearest friend. He said that when he’d hauled me from the corpses of his comrades, he’d seen the fire of god in my eyes, and he knew I was destined for the lord’s bloody work.”
Reginald returns to the hall and fusses with the fire. Winnie sips her chocolate, her fingers stroking Mirabelle’s soft fur. I cannot tell what she’s thinking. For centuries now, everything in Black Crag has been known to me, but she is unknowable.
