“He is proposing,” answered Quinn. “Remember the king said the two sergeants had to betroth themselves to one of us and that the captain had to marry Edie today.”
The bread in my gut churned at the thought of this afternoon.
“He is going to marry my mother?” Maureen asked.
“I think he finds your mother very beautiful,” I answered, trying to comfort my niece.
“Sure he does,” Mischa spat. “Sheis. And she a lady too good for the likes of him.”
I sighed, now on two straight nights of little sleep. “Mischa, he is the best of the worst. He intervened and beat her attacker half to death and then secured her the preventative paste. He is also why we had clean dresses on the road to Pikestully and he is the one who went to Alric about us not having to stand all day in the pig’s wagon. There are worse men.”
“Edie, he is our enemy! He—” she cut herself off when Helena returned to her seat on the bench across from me and Mischa.
River leaned towards my friend and said, “Are you now betrothed?”
Helena picked up another slice of pear. “I am.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
She avoided my gaze. She did this when she was unsure of something, but she did answer me. “He said that he and the man called Perch had to ask one of us to wed by luncheon. The weddings will not take place until the shark’s mating season, this winter. He said he would offer me and my daughter the protection of his rank and that when the time came for Maureen to reach her majority, he would happily put up the coin for her to have a dowry or for her to purchase an apprenticeship if she would like to enter into a trade.” She paused to look at her daughter. Then she continued, “He said I never had to share his bed as long as I lived and that as his bride, no man would dare touch a Procurer’s woman.”
Mischa gripped my hand under the table.
“Maureen and I will be moved to a second-floor dormitory for infantry families though,” continued Helena. “Infantry families and higher level keep staff.”
“So will we,” River said eagerly. “Beryl said Quinn and I will go to the second level too.”
“And I,” added Catrin. “As a lady-in-waiting.”
“And Edie will be sleeping with the captain,” said Mischa, speculating.
“Thank you for your delicacy,” I sniped, peeling a nut.
“Well, where does that leave me?” Mischa cried. “You will all be on the second level and I will be stuck on the first, all alone. Oh, I can’t have this.”
“We will think of something,” I said.
“I wonder who the Perch man will ask,” wondered Maureen.
“Do you hope it to be you?” asked Catrin, teasingly. “He is the best looking.”
“He is our captor!” Mischa exclaimed.
Maureen shook her head. “I am seventeen! But he must ask one of us. I hope not me.”
“I would not allow it,” said her mother, taking another pear slice.
“I think it should be Mischa,” I suggested.
“Excuse me?” She was outraged.
“You will move with the rest of them to the second level that way.”
My friend paused, her mouth open to retort. “That is an idea.”
“But you cannot stand the man,” said Helena, an indulgence on her face, almost a smile. She turned from Mischa to me. “Honestly, it is Perch not Mischa I would pity.”
Hope filled my chest at her little joke.
