Music surrounded her, music that sounded remarkably like that made by a lute. That was puzzling, to be sure, as she’d always been led to believe that choirs of angels would attend the entrance of any soul through those Eternal Gates. But perhaps she was lowly enough—and had barely sufficed as a entrant—to merit naught but a single instrument to welcome her home.
And then the chord went astray.
“Damn.”
Lianna struggled to open her eyes. Perhaps she’d sinned more than she thought to merit naught but a lute and a lutenist who dared curse in such a place. Perhaps she was still on the outskirts of the Eternal City, trapped with those who were still seeking to make themselves presentable.
“You should have practiced more,” said a deep voice.
Lianna did manage to open her eyes then, though the sight that greeted her was no less baffling than what she’d imagined.
“I did practice. I practiced a great deal. Father vowed the sweet sounds of a lute were the way to win a lady’s heart. I practiced until my bloody fingers were bloody!”
“In between consorting with witches, warlocks, and other sorcerers of dubious origins, of course.”
“Aye, well, that too.”
Lianna blinked. She would have rubbed her eyes as well, but her hands were too heavy to lift. She looked blearily at the two great birds sitting not far from her, one with fair feathers and one with dark. The dark bird was tall and graceful, with a proud tilt to his head and shining dark eyes. He was also holding the lute and cursing now and again. The fair bird next to him opened his beak and snorted.
Did winged creatures snort? She puzzled that out for several moments, but could come to no useful decision on it.
“It isn’t as if you practiced any,” the lute-playing one grumbled.
“And as you might imagine, my bed has not suffered from my lack of it. You must have more than pitiful skills on a lute to keep and hold the attention of a woman, brother.”
“I have more skills than that.”
“As one sees from the flocks of women who fight each other to have you.”
Flocks of women? He obviously meant flocks of female birds. Lianna struggled to make sense of what they said, but it was difficult. She listened to them toss insults at each other, with increasingly unpleasant curses attached, for quite some time before it occurred to her that fowl such as these were certainly not members of any angelic choir, nor were they likely to be accompanying that choir anytime soon. A slow, steady feeling of terror swept over her.
“Nay,” she breathed, when she could manage to find the word.
The dark bird immediately fastened a piercing gaze upon her hapless self, as if he intended to make a meal of her.
She tried to focus on him, but he seemed to weave about greatly, as if either he could not remain still or she could not. After trying to divine the truth of it for several minutes, she gave herself over to the only truth she knew.
She hadn’t gone to Heaven. Heaven could not produce lute-playing birds with such foul speech. There was only one place for such as she, and she had apparently traveled there without delay. She felt tears begin to slip down her cheeks.
“I’ve gone to Hell,” she wept.
“What?” the dark one asked.
“Foul notes, foul words,” she managed.
And at that, the fair-feathered bird tossed back his head, opened his beak, and roared out a laugh.
She watched as the dark bird reached out toward her. No doubt he intended to clutch her with that hand he had suddenly fashioned himself and carry her down with him to his fiery dungeon. The saints pity her, she was doomed.
Blackness engulfed her, and she knew no more.
She woke, only realizing then that she had been asleep. She stirred, and her poor form set up such a clamor that she immediately ceased all movement save drawing in hesitant breaths. By the saints, what had befallen her? Had someone beaten her nigh onto death?
She lay still for several minutes, searching back through her memories for one of any sense. There were dreams aplenty, ones with large birds and rather pleasant strumming of a lute, but those were surely naught but madness, Had she been ill? She had very vivid memories of the pox and how her fever had raged. This was akin to that but somehow worse, as if every part of her had been assaulted by some foul thing.
She could make out the bedhangings above her. Heavy layers of blankets and furs covered her. She was abed, which was something in itself given that she’d passed the majority of her nights as a member of the king’s entourage sleeping on a straw pallet on the floor. The chamber was light, but that was from daylight, not candlelight. She turned her head to the right, wondering if she might be able to see out the window. But what she found was enough to still her forever.
Jason of Artane sat on a stool not a handful of paces away.
He was leaning back against the wall, his head tipped to one side, sound asleep. Lianna could scarce believe her eyes. How had he found his way into her chamber? And what, by all the blessed saints of Heaven, was he doing sleeping here? She looked to his right to find a serving maid curled up on the floor, sound asleep as well. Interesting though that might have been, it surely did not merit any further notice. So she turned her attentions back to the man who slept sitting up on a stool, with his hands limp in his lap and his mouth open to admit the passage of a soft snore or two.
He was almost close enough for her to touch him.
Deadly nightshade that he was.
But he didn’t look deadly at present. He looked innocent and harmless and at peace. He looked like a man who would draw a child onto his lap and tell it stories for the whole of the afternoon if asked. He looked like a man who would pull his lady wife into his arms, rest his chin atop her head, and tell her he was happy to face life with her beside him. He looked like the sort of man her father would have found no fault with.
He looked like a man on the verge of drooling.
That sort of catastrophe was seemingly enough to rouse him from slumber, for he straightened with a snort, smacked his lips a time or two, then opened his eyes. And a smile of such dazzling brightness crossed his features, she was near blinded by it.
And at that moment, she was firmly and irretrievably lost.
He dropped to his knees at her bedside. “The saints be praised,” he said, looking at her with visible relief. “Can you speak?”
She swallowed. “Aye,” she whispered.
He put his hand to her forehead, and she received another pleased smile as a result.
“Your fever is but a slight one, though I daresay you’re still recovering from the fierce one you’ve already had.” Then he looked at her and frowned. “Do you know who I am?”
“Jason de Piaget.”
“Well done, though we certainly cannot thank my brother for an introduction. And you’re the lady Lianna, though you needn’t thank my brother for that either, for he was very closemouthed about you. I had to pry all I know of you from the servants.”
She could only imagine what he’d heard. She managed a snort of disgust.
“Nay, my lady, they were very few, those tales, and surely pleasant enough,” he said with another smile. “Now, tell me how you fair. Shall you have a drink? I daresay food is beyond you still, but a bit of watered-down wine might suit.” He looked toward the servant. “Aldith?”
The servant sat up sleepily and rubbed her eyes. When she saw Lianna awake, she rose to her knees.
“The saints be praised.”
“Aye,” Jason agreed. “Fetch a bit of the king’s finest, won’t you, and water to go with it. If anyone forbids you, tell them I commanded it and they’ll answer to me if they deny you.”
“Aye, my lord,” she said, and quickly rose to her feet and left the chamber.
Lianna watched him turn back toward her, and she could scarce believe that Jason of Artane, master of dark arts and other sundry unsavoury habits, was kneeling by her head and now reaching for her hand to hold it betwe
en his own.
Odder still that she had no desire to flee in terror.
Indeed, looking at his beautiful blue eyes and even more pleasing visage, she wondered why anyone would find him anything but a harmless pup.
“The wine will come,” he said confidently.
She managed a smile. “You are unused to being gainsaid, I suppose.”
“What is the use of a foul reputation if it serves you nothing?” He looked down at her hand. “You’re trembling. I daresay you’ll be weak for some time.”
“What befell me? Was I beaten?”
He looked at her quickly, one eyebrow raised in surprise. “Beaten? Nay. Poisoned, rather.”
“Poisoned?” she breathed.
“The wine you drank. I would imagine your solar companions were ill-pleased with the time you passed with Kendrick.”
She thought back. “I remember having a very sour stomach.”
“Aye, well, best to forget that night,” he said, patting her hand. “You were gravely ill, and I feared the worst. The following days were little better.”
It took a moment or two to realize what he had been telling her. Had he stayed with her the entire time? She looked at his face and noted several days’ growth of beard there. How many days had it been? Vividly her dream of the two birds came back to her. Had those been Jason and Kendrick, keeping watch by her bed?
And then an even more horrifying thought occurred to her, one that made her turn her head away from Jason in shame.
He had seen her visage. Not only had he looked on it whilst she dreamed, he had been forced to gaze at it whilst she spoke to him as boldly as a harlot. She reached up with the hand he was not holding and pulled some of her hair over her face.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said, and her voice sounded horribly choked, even to her ears. “I don’t know how I can repay you for your aid.”
He said nothing.
She could not bear to look at him to see how he reacted to her words. All she could do was pull her hand free of his and turn more fully away from him.
“I daresay I’m well enough now. You needn’t stay any longer. Surely a servant can tend me.”
He was silent. Indeed, he was silent for so long, she wondered if he were struggling to master his disgust before he quit the chamber. But she heard no movement. In truth, she could hear nothing but shame pounding in her ears. How bold she had been! More the fool was she.
Then he cleared his throat. “Do you, my lady, know of my former master?”
She frowned. Why ask such a foolish question? Who didn’t know of him? Christopher of Blackmour had the very blackest of reputations, full of violence and evil. He could change his shape, weave foul spells, do all manner of things she had never wanted to hear about after the sun went down. He was a dragon who caught unwary travelers in his claws when he wasn’t loping over his land in the shape of a ferocious wolf, devouring all who dared set foot on his soil.
And Jason of Artane had been his squire.
The saints only knew what he had learned at his master’s knee.
“Aye,” she managed finally. “I know of him.”
“Well, if you knew him as I do, then you would judge me differently,” he said.
She could only imagine how.
“Now, I will go, if you wish it, but I will not go unless you look me in the face and tell me to.”
Ah, what kind of man was he to be so cruel? Had Blackmour taught him that as well? She could only shake her head in misery.
He was silent for a goodly while, then spoke again.
“Why do you hide your face?” he asked gently.
“Why do you think?” she cried out, then bit her tongue.
“Do you think me so poor a man as that?” he asked quietly. “So weak-minded? So vain? So hollow in my character that I look only for perfection? Obviously, you have confused me with my brother.”
She couldn’t stop a smile at that, but neither could she face him.
“If you knew my master as I do, you would realize that he made me into a man who judges not by the sight of his eyes, but rather one who has learned to look deeper and trust what his heart tells him. Now, you do not know me, and you have unfortunately passed already too much time with my cocksure sibling and must, therefore, be permitted a bit of doubt about my character given what you’ve seen of his. I must tell you, though, that I cannot leave—nay, I will not leave—until you look me full in the face and tell me to go.”
It was the hardest thing she had ever done. Indeed, it took more courage than facing the king’s company at dinner. It took more courage than passing hours in a solar, closeted with women who loathed her. It took almost as much courage as it had taken to press on after her parents had died. Indeed, she suspected it might require more, for ’twas not her past that she faced.
It was her future.
She couldn’t have said why that thought had come to her, but the truth of it burned within her breast. It was the same feeling that had fair set her on fire the first time she’d heard Jason’s voice in her ear. It was the feeling that she was facing her destiny.
If she could face him, that is.
So she took a deep breath, brushed the hair back from her face, and turned to look at him.
She couldn’t see him, of course. Her eyes were too full of tears.
“Stay or go?” he asked neutrally.
Ah, but that was too much to ask. How could she bid him stay when it might be against his will? She shook her head.
“That was unfair, I suppose,” he conceded. “Let me ask it thusly: I wish to stay, though perhaps you might wish me to leave and at least change the clothes I’ve been wearing for the past several days. I will only go if you cannot bear my presence any longer. Now, shall I stay?”
She was having trouble enough just looking at him without giving in to the almost overwhelming desire to hide her face. But she supposed he would kneel there all day until she gave him some kind of answer, and there was only one answer she could possibly give. So she took what courage was left to her—and it seemed to be increasing by the moment—and cleared her throat.
“Stay,” she said, and she was almost surprised by the firmness in her tone.
He smiled and inclined his head. “As my lady wishes. Shall I play for you as well? Whilst we await your wine?”
“Aye,” she said.
He hadn’t but set fingers to the strings before the door burst open and Kendrick bounded into the chamber, his smile almost blinding in its sunniness.
“Ah, Lianna,” he said, beaming down at her, “you’re awake! And none too soon. The saints only know what sorts of frightening sounds Jason has subjected you to whilst you slept. Actually, I was here to hear them, and I would not be lying to tell you they were foul ones indeed.” He sat himself down on Jason’s lap, completely obscuring his brother from her view. “You look much improved.”
“Aye, I am,” she croaked.
“Jason is too, if you’ll notice. No more sneezing. But the spells he had to cast! The brews he brewed! ’Tis enough to leave any sensible soul trembling—”
Jason reached around and set his lute upon Lianna. “Hold that for me will you, lady? I have this large lump of refuse to remove from your chamber.”
She watched in fascination as the brothers engaged in a friendly tussle, which became less friendly after but a moment or two, then seemed to escalate into an all-out war.
“Excuse us—oof,” Jason said as doubled over with Kendrick’s fist in his belly.
“I’ll return brief—aargh,” Kendrick said as he was propelled out the door thanks to Jason’s hands at his throat.
They did pause in the doorway long enough to taste wine that Aldith had brought, then waved her inside and continued their exercises. Aldith crossed the chamber and smiled at Lianna.
“Ye’re lookin’ well, milady,” she said. “And with two such handsome men to attend ye, how could ye not?”
How indeed, Lianna thought, bemused.
r /> But even as she enjoyed that thought, she couldn’t help but wonder in the back of her mind just who it had been to give her poison and why.
Six
Jason walked along the passageway and wondered, as servants scattered before him like leaves before a strong wind, if there ever might come a time in his life where he could walk about without frightening everyone he met. Then again, it might serve him. He could be quite an asset on the battlefield. All he would need do was have a herald call out his name and watch the enemy disappear. Surely the king might have a use for him thusly.
But such service would have taken him far from where he wanted to be. He paused before Lianna’s door and bowed his head, resting his palm against the wood. That he remained at court of his own will was startling enough. That his noble crusade was seeming less noble and more foolish by the moment was what had driven him to leave a sleeping Lianna’s side and pace about the inner bailey, trying to find either his reason or his wits.
Neither of which he seemed to possess any longer.
But when the door opened before him and a very unsteady, though garbed for walking, Lianna of a place no one would tell him stood there clutching the doorway for support, he thought that perhaps his wits and reason hadn’t left him after all.
Staying at this woman’s side seemed the wisest thing he’d ever contemplated doing.
And he was almost certain his father and his former master would have approved.
“Where go you?” he asked, suppressing the urge to pick her up and carry her back to bed before she could answer.
“To seek my stitchery,” she said weakly. “I can lie abed no longer.”
Jason frowned. “Surely you’ve no desire to sit and sew amongst such women as those.”
She was silent for a moment, then she lifted her face and looked at him. “What would you have me do else, my lord? I cannot ever hide from them. If it is not them I must endure, it will be others like them.”
Jason doubted she could find four more vicious women to subject herself to, but he refrained from saying so. For one thing, she was looking at him without hiding her visage. For another, she was standing there without a hooded cloak around her shoulders for use in hiding later. If she had found the courage to allow the court to see her and not shrink, who was he to gainsay her?