“I don’t care about the sisters. Where is my horse?”
“Outside this whole time,” Lena admitted. “Cas. I am so desperately sorry.”
Cas did not care if she was sorry. He thought only of getting to his horse and riding to Elvira. Ventillas would need him.
Lena watched him make his way to the stairs. “It’s not safe for you to travel alone. You’re hurt. Please let me help you.”
Cas turned. He wanted to make sure she heard him. “You’ve helped enough, Lady. Don’t come near me again.”
She looked stricken. He left her there. Upstairs, the doctor lay on the floor. Outside, the moon settled high in the night. There were two horses. He untethered his mare and rode away without a backwards glance.
28
In the capital city of Elvira, Cas learned what it was to be out of favor with the king.
They would not let him beyond the palace gates. He, a lord of the realm, who had always been granted a guest chamber when he had visited with his brother, could go no farther than the jagged teeth of the portcullis. He had given his name, his title. He had flashed the rings on his hand. It made no difference. Even worse, the Palmerin soldiers were also shunned. They had been relegated to the outer barracks by the wharves, where the soldiers for hire usually slept.
“What can you tell me?” Captain Lorenz said when Cas tracked him down. They stood on the quay, the air smelling of seawater and rot, and watched the fishing boats return with the day’s catch.
“Very little,” Cas admitted. Two nights had passed since he had left the doctor’s house of horrors. He had been forced to stop at an inn along the way. His mare had needed the rest. So had he. The innkeeper—a cheerful, inebriated man—had tended to the wound on his head. Cas looked behind them at the tumbledown barracks and felt a simmering anger. That the men of his city, loyal men, fighting men, who had protected the king and his family in Palmerin, should be treated this way. And it was all his brother’s doing. A soldier, no matter the rank, shared in his lord’s glory and in his disgrace. “What happened when you arrived?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Captain Lorenz said as a rat scuttled by. He kicked it, sending it flying into the water, where it landed with a splash. “We rode up to the palace, settled in the barracks there. Lord Ventillas took up his usual rooms. There was a feast to welcome the king and his family home. Everyone went back to their beds full of wine and food. Then your friend Bittor—”
“He’s not my friend.” Cas’ teeth set.
A sideways glance. “Then the soldier Bittor tears into the courtyard, looking as though he’d been beaten by some very large men.” Another assessing look. “Same as you. Everything changed after that. A note came from Lord Ventillas instructing me to comply with whatever the guards demanded and to await further orders.”
“He’ll send further orders?” Cas could have sunk to his knees with relief. That was a good sign. An excellent sign. It meant Ventillas wasn’t chained up in some dungeon somewhere, tortured and maimed.
Captain Lorenz was quiet. “The note said to wait on orders from you, lad.”
Me? Cas’ heart plummeted. Panic wrapped around his throat, a chokehold. And the captain, who had known him all his life, missed nothing.
“Does he need rescuing?” Captain Lorenz asked, all practicality. “I have a plan.”
“No.” Cas looked again at the dingy barracks and the palace, high atop the hill. “I can tell you this, Captain, and trust in your silence. We’re the ones in the wrong here. Ventillas has broken his oath to the king.”
Captain Lorenz was shaking his head. “I can’t believe that.”
“Do you think I want to?” Another rat appeared nearby, this one sniffing around some discarded fish guts. “I’m not certain it can be made right. I’m going to try.”
Silence. “Are the men in danger?”
“From the king? No,” Cas said with absolute certainty.
“Are you?”
Cas hesitated. It had not occurred to him to wonder. “I don’t think so.”
“That is not comforting, Cassia.” Captain Lorenz cupped his hands around his mouth and blew warmth into them. “I’ll have the men work on drills. It will keep them out of trouble. We have your trunks here. Where do I send them?”
“Nowhere. I’ll stay here.”
Captain Lorenz said, askance, “This is no place for a lord of Palmerin.”
“For you either, Captain. I’m not sleeping at an inn. If the men are here, then this is where I’ll be.”
I grew up in my grandfather’s house, a small one in the middle of Elvira where the booksellers keep their shops.
It cost him a half civet, paid to a young apple seller, to learn where the king’s sister lived. Dusk had fallen by the time Cas found the townhouse in Elvira’s central parish. The building was made of stone, tall and narrow, with a green door.
Cas did not knock or even approach the house. Instead, he crossed the street to a shop that was shuttered for the day. He settled in to wait.
Lena could not have been too far behind him. If she had followed the same route. If nothing had gone amiss. It was the last part that frightened him.
Cas was not a good person. Maybe before his imprisonment. He had been different then. Now he was the sort who deliberately infected men with plague. The sort who left a lady behind to ride alone, knowing full well the dangers that travelers faced, women in particular. And what about Bittor? His almost friend? Cas did not like to think what would have happened if Lena had not stepped between them. He thought he knew the answer, and it shamed him.
Two men on horseback cantered by. Lena’s green door opened, but it was only a servant come to light the outer lanterns. Cas rubbed his hands together for warmth as the rain began to fall. Thankfully, the shop’s roof jutted out overhead, protecting him from the worst of it.
This parish suited her. The street was full of bookstores and parchment sellers. The shop behind him sold bottles of fine ink. Cas could imagine her growing up here, easily.
An hour passed, then two. The rain grew heavy before finally tapering off. A rider appeared.
Surely she could hear Cas’ heart beating all the way from here. Lena did not see him. She rode past the green door, dismounted before the stable gate, and pulled on a rope. A bell rang out. “Why, Lady Analena!” a man exclaimed when the gate opened. “But . . . are you alone? Where are your guards?” The man stuck his head out and looked up and down the street. Cas drew deeper into the shadows.
“It’s just me.” Lena’s voice was quiet, weary. She said something else, too soft for Cas to hear. They disappeared behind the gate, leaving Cas alone in the night.
It was all he had come for. To see for himself that she made it home. But as he walked away, he only felt worse. Thinking of his last, bitter words to her. Wishing he could take them back.