Gwen felt her cheeks reddening. “Really, I don’t think—”
Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “Do you truly want to fight me on this? As of today, you’re undefeated. Do you want to ruin your record?”
Gwen swallowed and began pulling off her dress.
Once she was down to her undergarments, Olivia had her pull the back of her shift over her head and sit down. Gwen sat, clutching the fabric to her front, and let the other woman examine her. Olivia gave only a soft intake of breath, but from her the sound might as well have been a shout of dismay.
Gwen felt herself stiffen. “Is it that bad?”
Olivia ran expert fingers over Gwen’s shoulder, then slid them down along the shoulder blade to the ribs. Gwen hissed, instinctively twitching away, muscles tightening in reaction.
Olivia let her hands fall away. “The shoulder’s been partially dislocated. You’re going to have to let me pop it back into place, and we’re going to have to strap it up well next time you ride, and cross our fingers you can avoid getting hit. The ribs are bruised, but not broken, I think, and once your shoulder’s right, they shouldn’t hurt so much.”
Gwen eyed the woman apprehensively. “Pop it back into place?” she echoed.
Olivia’s eyes narrowed again, and this time, Gwen spied a hint of humor in them. “Don’t tell me you’re scared, Sir Knight.”
Gwen rolled her eyes upward, gathered the fabric of the shift against her chest, and nodded at Olivia to get it over with. Olivia waited until there was a particularly loud round of laughter and exclamations from the suite of rooms beyond Gwen’s door, braced her knee against Gwen’s body, andwrenchedat her arm.
Gwen had to sink her teeth into her lip until she tasted blood, but she managed to turn what would’ve been a shriek of pain into a low groan. She wasn’t aware of passing out, but she did have to pause and breathe, waiting for the stars sparking in her eyes to fade. By the time she could properly see again, Olivia had pulled a number of things out of the satchel and spread them on the bed, and was dipping a linen cloth into the basin of water.
The cloth was icy cold on Gwen’s skin, somehow far more shocking than the pain of popping her shoulder back into place.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Olivia commanded severely as Gwen tried to flinch away. “The cold will help with the swelling.” She ran the cloth in a precise pattern around Gwen’s shoulder joint and down her arm, rinsing and wringing it out every few seconds to keep the fabric cold.
Gwen was watching Olivia’s arm move for quite a while before she realized her eyes had fixed on a faint, oddly shaped scar running down the edge of Olivia’s forearm and curving a few inches above her wrist.
“How long have you been Isobelle’s maid?” Gwen asked, keeping her voice light.
Olivia’s eyes stayed on her task. “Three years, give or take.”
“And before that? What did you do?”
Olivia’s eyes flicked toward hers. There was nothing in them to hint at surprise, or even discomfort. She merely smiled a little, turned her gaze back to her task, and murmured, “Why, are you thinking of hiring me yourself?”
Gwen ground her teeth. Every conversation she’d ever had with Olivia went the same way. Anything that had happened since she came to be Isobelle’s maid, she was perfectly willing to discuss. Anything prior to that... well, Olivia was as slippery as the last bit of soap on wash day.
“You must have had some experience working for a physician,” Gwen said, trying another tactic. “To know how to do what you just did with my shoulder.”
Olivia dropped the cloth into the basin, wrung it out, and slapped it back onto Gwen’s skin.
Gwen chewed at her lip. “Was that when you worked with Archer? When you devised some system of communication involving that owl token you gave Isobelle to show him?” Olivia did not flinch so much as take hold of Gwen’s shoulder and squeeze, sending a sharp stab of pain down her arm and causing Gwen to blurt, “Ow, son of a bitch!”
Olivia instantly released her and smoothed the palm of her handacross Gwen’s shoulder. “Keep your attention where it’s meant to be, Sir Gawain. I am a mystery for another time. Get Isobelle out of this mess, and then, if you are so desperate to find dragons to fight, you can keep searching for them in my past.”
Gwen clenched her jaw, feeling oddly petulant, as she hadn’t done since she was a child. “I was only asking,” she muttered. Olivia’s bedside manner left something to be desired. Gwen found herself missing her father quite fiercely all of a sudden—and then felt a deep, wrenching ache. She couldn’t go visit him now, not with all these bruises and injuries. He’d see how stiffly she was moving and know something was up. Gwen swallowed, fending off the sadness that came with that realization.
Olivia tossed the wet cloth back into the basin and stooped to fetch a little glass tub from where she’d unpacked it on Gwen’s bedspread. She pulled off the lid, which bore a word Gwen didn’t recognize, or possibly a name: Kadija’s.
The tub itself contained a vivid green ointment, the pungency of which made Gwen’s eyes begin to water as Olivia crossed back over toward her.
“Oh, what the hell is that?” she asked, leaning away from Olivia and trying to breathe through her mouth. The strength of the herbal concoction was enough that even the back of her throat could smell green.
“Healing ointment. Imported from the land of the pharaohs. Good heavens, you’re almost as squeamish as a real knight. Hold still.” Olivia dipped her fingers into the ointment and began applying it all across Gwen’s shoulder.
Gwen braced herself, but it seemed that Olivia did know what she was doing—the cool cloths had calmed the burning in hershoulder. She drew an experimental breath, keeping it shallow so as not to aggravate her ribs.
“So, if you won’t tell me about Archer... will you tell me what you learned about the women who came to the dragon bonfire, who were arrested?”
