“I . . .” Cas had not asked. Before he could inquire further, the steward moved away.
Soon after, a young woman approached, her arm in a sling. The nurse from the lake. Smiling shyly, she thanked him for saving her life. She did not remain long. Her face was drawn, tired, and the queen sent her back to bed.
King Rayan also stopped in briefly, councilors trailing. “You look like you’re standing on a hangman’s scaffold, not a tailor’s block.”
“It feels like the same thing.”
King Rayan laughed. Bolts of fabric lay strewn about a nearby table. He tapped on one of them. “Perhaps a strong, sturdy wool,” he suggested. “For catching young ladies who fall from trees.”
Cas winced. King Rayan still smiled, but there was a thread of annoyance in his softly spoken words. “I’m grateful to you, Cassia. You know this. But when my sister places herself in harm’s way, I should like to hear about it. Understood?”
“Understood, Your Grace. Apologies.”
Satisfied, King Rayan went on his way. There was one unpleasant incident, but Cas had braced himself. He had known it was coming. When instructed by a tailor to remove his tunic and undershirt, he did so. Conversation trailed away as his scars were exposed for all to see. More than one horrified gasp was heard, until Queen Jehan said quietly, “Master tailor,” jolting the older man into action. He hurried over with his measuring strings and worked quickly as Cas looked blankly across the room, trying to keep all expression from his face. Only a few minutes passed before he was allowed to dress. By then, Sorne had fled the room in tears.
At last, Queen Jehan told Cas he was no longer needed. He stepped down from the block. Queen Jehan said, for his ears alone, “I wonder how you can bear to have me in your home.”
Cas would not shame his brother, or Master Jacomel, by speaking his thoughts aloud. He bowed. “You are our guest, Your Grace. We are pleased to have you here. Thank you for today. Ventillas will be glad to have his clothing to himself again.”
It was hard for him to look at her and not think of his time in Brisa. Her expression said she knew this, but all she said was “There are no women in your family, Lord Cassiapeus. No older sisters. It is the queen’s pleasure.”
He was trying. She was trying. In the end, they could do no more.
11
In the keep’s archives, Cas found Lena high up on a ladder, pulling a book off a shelf. There was no one else about in the quiet space with its tables and bookshelves, its globes of every size. Stained-glass windows threw cheerful prisms over her green dress and pretty dark hair. He studied her profile from the doorway. She looked cross.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
The glance she spared him said the last thing she wanted was companionship. “Nothing at all. Today has been a delight.”
Very cross. As she climbed down the ladder, the enormous book clutched to her chest, he walked over to a table near the windows. Parchment was spread across the surface, the pages covered in heavy ink. A hurried, masculine scrawl. Before it was a spouted pot with dancing, prancing lynx painted on the sides. He could smell the richness of the drinking chocolate from within. Two delicate cups showed no signs of use. She had hoped to speak to the artist today, he remembered. Abril. The one with the sad eyes.
Cas said, “Your painter did not come.”
“No.” Lena’s response came halfway down the ladder.
“Why not go to her?” Cas felt the chocolate pot. Cold. “You said she’s staying in town?”
“At an inn. Lord Ventillas offered her a chamber here while she finished the tapestry, but she refused.” Her slippers on solid ground, Lena came over and flopped into a chair beside him. She set the book on the table. Leather-bound with gold clasps. The title had been written in gold leaf: The Heraldic Shields of the Kingdom of Oliveras. “She’ll be at supper tonight. I’ll speak with her then. And besides, I’ve just been informed I’m not to leave the keep without a man-at-arms by my side.”
Ah. Another reason for the cross expression. Cas leaned against the table’s edge. Her hair had been arranged into a single intricate braid, emerald pins tucked throughout. “He’s your brother. He worries about you.”
“My brother, yes. Not my keeper.” Lena snatched up the pages and tapped them violently against the table even after the edges had lined up. “He thinks I’m still a child.” Tap. “Man-at-arms, pfft. Do I look like I need a nursemaid to you?” Tap. She turned her face up to him, her expression full of mutiny.
Cas drew back, alarmed. “No.”
“Of course I don’t.” Setting the parchment aside, she propped her chin on one hand, mutiny transformed into gloom. “Why can’t he see that I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself?”
In fairness to the king, her horse had been stolen and Cas had been obliged to rescue her. She might still be up in that tree if he had not come around. Still, best not to say so. “Don’t ladies normally have guards, some kind of escort when they travel?”
“I am no lady, Cas!” she cried, her voice echoing in the vast space. “Not like the ladies here. I grew up in my grandfather’s house, a small one in the middle of Elvira where the booksellers keep their shops. It could fit into a corner of this archive.” A swinging arm encompassed the room. “I could go where I wanted, when I wanted. And then word comes that I’m the only one of the king’s siblings to survive the pestilence. And suddenly I’m important. Everything is different. Now I need a man-at-arms.”
She said man-at-arms in much the same way another would say hair in my soup.
Cas was at a loss. Someone kinder would pat her shoulder or murmur soothing words. There, there. Cas was no patter. Seconds ticked by before he reached for the pot and poured the cooled chocolate into a cup. He offered it to her. “The king found out you were traveling alone?”
Lena took the cup with thanks. “Until I met you, yes.” Straightening suddenly, she said, “Were you scolded too?”
“Not really.”
Lena scowled into her cup.
Cas asked, “What did you tell him exactly?”
“More than I meant to.”
Cas poured the rest of the chocolate for himself and waited.
Lena wrapped both hands around her cup. “I went to Trastamar first, before coming here. It was simpler to travel as a boy and go alone than to ask for permission and be told no.” She glanced up at him briefly. “I had to. My grandfather died in Trastamar. His words stop there. Which means that, from the day Jehan disembarked to the night she arrived at the palace, there is no official record. What happened to the people in her cortege? Did they all die of plague? You survived. Perhaps there were others. What happened to the carriages? And everything on them?”
Cas could hear it in her voice. “You found something.”
“Not in Trastamar,” she admitted. “The graves were unmarked. I could not tell who had died, let alone when. And there was no one left to ask.” Lena set her cup down, a gleam in her eye. “But I found one of the carriages.”