“It will do, I suppose,” she said, mimicking some of the finer guests at the Lady. “The servants are surly and the food marginal. But there is a view of the harbor.”
He laughed. “I’m guessing this is where King Gerard keeps some of his more valuable political prisoners.”
To be fair, it was larger and finer than the rooms at the Lady of Grace. Still, it seemed crowded with Adam in the room, especially now that she no longer wore the armor of filth and illness. At every moment, she was acutely aware of his position and the distance between them.
He was looking at her expectantly, and she realized that he was waiting for her to say something. “Ah . . . as you can probably tell, Karn made good on his promise of a bath and a change of clothes.”
“You do look different,” he said, studying her through narrowed eyes. “I’m not used to seeing you in a dress.”
She tugged at her bodice self-consciously. “This one’s a little tight across the—it’s a little tight, but the seamstress said she’d bring something made-to-measure tomorrow.” Sucking in a quick breath, she stumbled on. “I’m not used to dresses. I’ve been playing a boy for four years, nearly all the time, so it feels odd not to be wearing breeches.”
“I had no idea your hair was so many colors,” Adam said. “Copper and gold and silver and amethyst. It’s almost . . . metallic. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He reached out and fingered it, and gooseflesh rose on her back and shoulders.
“Now you know how dirty it was. My da always said that when I was a baby it looked like I stood on my head on a painter’s palette and spun around.”
Gaaah. Shut your mouth. She’d never learned to flirt—she’d had no practice at it. Besides, flirting seemed too lightweight a term to fit what was happening between them.
A prickling heat crept up from her shoulders and into her face. The memory of their kiss hung between them like forbidden fruit. Everything they said or did seemed charged with meaning. Desire crouched in the room with them like an awkward guest.
Now what? Where do we go from here? Do we back away or go forward? Maybe Adam felt the same pressure, because he seemed to be groping for something else to talk about.
“What are you reading?” He reached for the book on her lap, picked it up, and leafed through it. “Alencon’s History of the Realms? We read that at school. Highly subversive.” He cocked his head. “Karn brought this?”
He’s stalling, she thought. There’s something he doesn’t want to tell me.
When he handed the book back, she set it aside. After another siege of silence, Jenna reached out and took both his hands, looking for a clue. The only image that came to her was that of a ship, hazy-looking, shrouded in mist, more like somebody’s idea of a ship.
“I dreamed I read the cards for you,” she said.
“And?”
“And I predicted I would bring heartbreak and trouble into your life,” she said.
“Too late,” he said, staring down at their joined hands. “Heartbreak and trouble got there ahead of you.”
“You may as well tell me what’s on your mind,” she said, releasing his hands. “What’s the news? Am I to be executed? Sold into slavery?”
The look on the healer’s face said she wasn’t far off the mark. “An emissary has come from the Empress Celestine,” he said. “She’s the one Lieutenant Karn was asking you about. Apparently, she’s offering to trade a sack of diamonds, a mysterious weapon, and an army for you.” He paused, looking around the room again. “That might explain the sudden hospitality. Montaigne doesn’t want to be accused of trading in damaged goods.”
“Then he’s damned lucky you’re so good at what you do.” Unable to sit still, Jenna stood, crossed to the hearth, and poked at the fire with a stick. “Why would somebody I don’t even know be offering that kind of swag for me?”
“There’s to be a meeting in two days,” Adam said to her back. “Maybe we’ll find out then. I wanted to warn you ahead of time.”
“Good,” Jenna said, staring into the flames. “We’ll get it sorted out before this goes much further.”
When he didn’t reply, she turned back to face him. Adam was chewing his lower lip, his face all-over dread, as if trying to decide whether to keep delivering bad news or leave her in the dark.
“You’re wondering if I’m stupid or naive or both,” Jenna said. “I’m neither.” Settling down on the thick rug in front of the hearth, she patted the space beside her. “Sit with me, Wolf.”
Just for a heartbeat, she thought he wouldn’t come. But then he did, crossing the room and dropping to the floor beside her. He sat, his thigh pressing against hers, one knee up, the other leg extended straight out in front of him.
She arched her back, wriggling a little, enjoying the heat and the crackle of flames while she tried to work out what to say.
“This is an argument I used to have with my da all the time. He was the kind who saw disaster waiting around every corner.”
“See? He was right,” Adam said, fussing with his collar, as if it pinched.
“He was right . . . after sixteen years,” she said. “We spend so much of our lives waiting to be ambushed by heartbreak. Why couldn’t we be ambushed by joy? Anything’s possible, right?”
“Anything’s possible,” Adam said, staring up at the ceiling, a muscle working in his jaw.
“Take a wolf, for example,” she persisted. “If he’s got a thorn in his foot, he’s miserable and snappish, like a person would be. Once you take it out, does he worry it’s going to get infected, or he’s going to step on another thorn?”
“No.” Adam shifted his body, the friction between them sending her heart into a gallop.
“Does he cut off his paw to make sure it doesn’t happen again?”
Adam snorted, his lips twitching. “No.”
“Does he beat up on himself because he was careless, or he took the shortcut through the bramble?” She shook her head. “No. He moves on. He enjoys the fact that he’s not in pain. He doesn’t know what’s coming—whether he’ll bring down a fellsdeer or break his leg and freeze to death, but he recognizes that he doesn’t know. But people—we act like we do. We write that bad ending before we even get there.”
“Isn’t that what makes us human? The ability to look at the present and predict what’s likely to happen?”
“But we’re really not all that good at it, are we?”
“No,” he said.
Jenna rested her hand on his thigh and heard his startled intake of breath. They both looked at it, a pale starfish against his dark breeches.
“Take me, for instance.”
Startled, he looked up. “Excuse me?” he said hoarsely.
“By most standards, I’ve had a miserable life. Orphan, raised in Delphi, forced into the mines at a young age. Marked for death since birth.”
He eyed her, his brow furrowed, as if waiting for the punch line. “So? How does that—?”
“And yet, dozens of times, I’ve been ambushed by joy and beauty in the most unlikely places. Things I would have missed if I’d been preoccupied by pain. A sunrise over a slag heap. Ham for breakfast when I didn’t expect it. A song that goes straight to the heart.” She ran her fingers along his thigh, feeling his muscles tighten under her hand. “Maybe it’s primitive, to live in the moment, but there are advantages. For instance, I never expected to be ambushed by love in a dungeon.”
Jenna turned toward him, coming up onto her knees so they were at eye level. She looked into his face, reading the heat and hunger in his eyes.
“Me, neither,” he whispered. Sliding his arms around her, pulling her in close, he kissed her.
It was even more intoxicating the second time, and the third. Then she lost count as his fingers tangled in her hair and he pressed his body against hers. It was all lean, hard muscle, and it fit in against hers just right.
Then he kissed her throat, and her mouth again, long and sweet. It hit her like a gulp of stingo, run
ning down into her middle and kindling a flame there. She caught his lip between her teeth, nibbling it gently, then tipped him backward so that they were lying flat on the rug.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and devoured him with kisses—his lips, his neck above the silver collar, that place just behind his ear. She slid her hands under his tunic, walking her fingers down his spine to the hollow at the base. He kissed her lips, her throat, the tops of her breasts, then crushed her to him, cradling her backside with his large hands. His fingers set off little explosions when they touched her skin that had nothing to do with magery.
She sat up then, one knee to either side of him, and fumbled with the laces on her bodice. She had no skill at it, though, and before she got far, he caught her wrists, pulling her hands away.
“Jenna,” he said, looking dazed, like he’d stood too close when a deep mine charge went off. Despite the desire in his voice, there was a “no” there, too.
“Let go, Wolf.” She shifted, pulled, trying to free herself. She could feel his body respond, and that made matters worse.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I’ve been here too long already. The blackbirds. They could come in at any moment.”
“Damn the blackbirds.” She was strong, but he was stronger. It was like a cruel joke. The more she struggled, the hotter she burned, and the harder it was to let him go.
Finally, he rolled her over so she was on her back and he on top, sitting astride her. He pinned her hands to the floor and looked down at her, breathing hard, like he’d been running a race.
“You are . . . making it . . . really difficult to do the right thing,” Adam gasped. “You know that, don’t you?”
“This is the right thing,” Jenna said, arching her back so she pressed up against him.
With that, he straightened his arms and his weight came off her as he levered himself to his feet, putting the chair between them.
Jenna hung her head, cheeks burning. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I—I only—”
“Don’t be sorry,” Adam said, his hands clenching the back of the chair, his eyes glittering in the firelight. “This is the right thing. It’s just not the right time. I don’t want it to be like this—” He gestured, taking in the tower room. “Hasty, and furtive, under constant risk of interruption.”
She knew he was right, but still, she couldn’t help saying, “If not now, when? What if this is it, and we never—” Her voice broke. She tried again. “What if we look back and say, If only . . .”
He crossed the room to her and gripped her shoulders, his eyes darkening to the color of the deepest lakes. “I promise you, Jenna,” he said, his face fierce with purpose, “this is not it. I will find a way to—”
She pressed her hands against his lips. “No promises, healer.” She pulled his head down and stopped the promises with kisses.
33
PLAYING THE KING’S GAME
Was the king burning his “gift” of living silver or not? That was the question. For all Ash knew, the vial he’d given the king was rolling around in a drawer somewhere. He’d shot his poison arrow into the air, but he didn’t know if it would hit a vital spot, and whether it would be soon enough to allow him to keep the promise he had tried to make to Jenna.
He’d reviewed the telltale symptoms in Taliesin’s leather-bound book. Tremors, mental and emotional impairment, skin changes. Montaigne didn’t need to die from it—only feel poorly enough to call on Ash for treatment so he could finish the job.
Though he watched the king carefully, he saw nothing promising. Montaigne remained astonishingly, annoyingly healthy.
Meanwhile, Ash kept adding to his arsenal of easily hidden, easily deployed, easily explained assassin’s tools. Fortunately, many of the medical tools in his healer’s kit were dual-purpose. Shivs, scissors, scalpels—these were all edged weapons that could be used on either side of the line. A garrote was threaded through the hem of his tunic. He still had the sting under his collar, ready to deploy, if the opportunity presented itself.
All he needed was the smallest of openings to make sure of him, but the multiple attempts on the king’s life had put him on his guard, and it was challenging to get anywhere close to him. Ash wished the competition would either succeed or get out of the way. At least there hadn’t been any more tries since the wassail incident—that he knew about, anyway. Give it another year or two, and the king might grow careless again.
That was a problem. He didn’t have a year or two, he had a day. Now it was the Feast of Saint Malthus, on the fourth day after Solstice, and the king’s meeting with the empress’s emissary was scheduled for tomorrow. He toyed with the idea of killing the emissary instead, but the Carthians stayed on their ship, out of reach.
Instead, Ash found himself in the queen’s bedchamber, trying to prevent the king of Arden from undoing his hard work. He’d been called in because Queen Marina had wilted while her attendants were trying to dress her for the annual Saint’s Day dinner. She lay back in bed, dark hair spread across the pillows, her usually dusky skin nearly as pale as the sheets save for the places where blue veins showed through.
She’s skin and bones, Ash thought. She has no reserves.
Montaigne paced back and forth, ablaze with all the badges of his office, his boots clicking on the stone floor. He was in a dangerous mood, even for him. “Can’t you give her something, healer, to get her through this? Every thane in the kingdom is here. Rumors are flying that the queen is dead. They need to see her alive and well.” He paused. “Especially now.”
The low flame that had burned inside Ash ever since his father’s death blazed up.
This is the man who declared war on the Fells when my mother refused to marry him, Ash thought. They’d been at war ever since. She’d paid a high price. They all had. But it could be Raisa lying here, being dithered over like a side of beef with no agency of her own.
No, he thought. She wouldn’t have lasted this long. One or the other of them would be dead. Ash was beginning to recognize just what his mother the queen had accomplished in keeping this southern tyrant out of the Fells.
“There’s just one problem, Your Majesty,” he said through his teeth. “The queen is alive, thank the Maker, but she is not well. What she needs is rest, and quiet, and good, nourishing food. Not a public ordeal.”
“We cannot have people think it is a simple matter to murder a sovereign. That would send the wrong message.”
“What kind of message would it send, Your Majesty, were the queen to collapse during dinner?” Ash said in a barely civil tone. “If tongues are wagging now, that would only make matters worse.”
“It’s your job to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Montaigne said.
“Never mind, healer,” the queen said. “The king is right, of course. I need to be there.” She propped up on her elbows and nodded to her ladies, who carried several dresses to the bedside for Marina to choose from.
Ordinarily, when the queen was indisposed, as she often was, Lady Estelle would step in as hostess. The king of Arden saw no reason to keep his mistresses hidden away. But Estelle was dead—killed for the crime of hosting an assassination attempt on the king. Wittingly or unwittingly. Hence the current crisis. The king needed to make show.
“I want my queen by my side at dinner,” the king said. “Why is that so difficult to understand?” He ripped a dress from the hands of one of the queen’s ladies and thrust it into Marina’s face. “Put this on. And drink a measure of rum, if that’s what it takes to put a little color in your cheeks. Our guests are already seated, and I don’t like to give them time to conspire together in my absence.”
The queen sat frozen in her bed, holding the dress up like a shield.
“I told you to get dressed, you stupid slut of Tamron. Are you deaf?”
“Your Majesty, please,” Lady Argincourt, one of the queen’s ladies, murmured, gesturing at the crowd of blackbirds in the room. “If you could give the queen a little pri
vacy?”
“I want to see you downstairs in less than fifteen minutes,” Montaigne said. “Freeman, you will attend the queen in the dining room to handle anything that might arise. And find something other than that bloody healer brown to wear. Having a healer hover over her would also send the wrong message.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Ash said.
Signaling to his blackbird guard, the king strode from the room, leaving Ash with two questions: Would he at long last get close enough to the king to do some actual damage? And where could he possibly get hold of dinner clothes in the next fifteen minutes?
When he was sure the king was gone, Ash turned back to the queen. “No rum, Your Grace,” he said. “Not while your liver is still recovering from the poison. I suggest small beer or tea.”
“Tea suits me well, Master Freeman,” the queen said.
“Good,” Ash said. “And, finally—would any of you know where I could find some suitable clothes in a hurry?”
Fifteen minutes later, Ash was shadowing the queen into the state dining room. Somehow, Queen Marina’s ladies had managed to scrounge up some black breeches and a doublet in green velvet and leather that fit—more or less. Happily, he had a fine silver collar to go with.
It had been a long time since he’d worn anything resembling court garb. It felt like he was wearing a costume.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, Ash could tell that something was wrong. The tension in the room was as thick as day-old porridge and the room was lined with more blackbirds than was usual, even these days. The main course had been served, but most of the plates looked to be untouched. The women in the room were staring down at the table as if they hoped they could disappear.
All eyes were fixed on a tall muscular thane with a bristle of gray hair and a black eye patch. He stood at the end of the table nearest the door, surrounded by a handful of men-at-arms. He was the kind of hard-bitten soldier who looked out of place in civilian clothes. Next to him stood a much younger edition of the thane, maybe twelve or thirteen, this one in mudback brown.