“Yes, sir,” Amara said, and sketched a small curtsey. It was then that her ankle chose to give out on her altogether, and she wavered to one side with a little yelp.
Bernard’s hand shot out and gripped her shoulder, through the scarlet cloak, steadying her—and closing tightly over the painful cut on her upper arm. She let out an involuntary gasp of pain, and her balance swam.
The big Steadholder stepped forward and simply picked her up as though she weighed no more than a child. “Crows, girl,” he muttered with a scowl. “If you were hurt, you should have said something.”
Amara swallowed, as a pang of relief from her beleaguered body warred with a nervous anxiety at the Steadholder’s sudden proximity. Like Aldrick, he was an enormous man, but he exuded none of the sense of placid, patient danger that surrounded the swordsman. His strength was something different — warm and reassuring and alive, and he smelled of leather and hay. Amara struggled to say something, but wound up remaining awkwardly silent as the Steadholder carried her into the great hall and then into the kitchens behind it, where warm air and the smells of baking bread wrapped around her like a blanket.
He carried her over to a table near the fire and promptly sat her down upon it.
“Sir, really,” she said. “I’m all right.”
Bernard snorted. “The crows you are, girl.” He turned and drew up a stool to the table and sat down on it, taking her foot quite gently between his hands. His touch was warm, confident, and again she felt soothed, as though some of that confidence had transferred into her by the touch. “Cold,” he said. “Not as bad as it could be. You used crafting to keep your feet warm?”
She blinked at him and nodded mutely.
“No substitute for a good pair of socks.” He frowned over her foot, fingers moving smoothly. “Hurt there?”
She shook her head.
“There?” Pain flashed through the whole of her leg, and she couldn’t keep the grimace from her face. She nodded.
“Not broken. Sprain. We need to get your feet warmed up.” He rose and walked to a shelf, withdrawing a small copper tub. He touched a finger to the spigot above the washbasin and held his hand beneath it until the water streaming out steamed and turned his skin red with its heat. Then he started filling the tub.
Amara cleared her throat and said, “You are the Steadholder, sir?”
Bernard nodded.
“Then you should not be doing this, sir. Washing my feet, I mean.”
Bernard snorted. “We don’t hold much with that city nonsense out here, girl.”
“I see, sir. As you wish, of course. But may I ask you another question?”
“If you like.”
“The boy, Tavi. He told me that you were attacked by a Marat warrior and one of their war birds. Is that true?”
Bernard grunted, his expression darkening. He tapped the spigot again rather sharply, and the water cut off with an apologetic little hiccup. “Tavi likes to tell stories.”
She tilted her head to one side. “But did it happen?”
He placed the tub on the stool he’d sat upon a moment before and took her foot and part of her calf in hand. For a moment, Amara was acutely conscious of the sensation of his skin upon hers, the way the cloak and her skirts had fallen to reveal her leg nearly to the knee. She felt her face heat, but if the Steadholder took note of it, he gave no sign. He slipped her injured foot into the water, then motioned for her to put the other there as well. Her cold-numbed feet tingled unpleasantly, and steam curled up from the tub.
“How did you hurt your leg?” he asked her.
“I slipped and fell,” she replied. She repeated to him her story, about carrying a message to Garrison on behalf of her master, adding in a fall just before Tavi found her.
The Steadholder’s expression darkened. “We’ll have to send him word. You’re not in any shape to continue traveling for another day or two. Wait until your feet have warmed up. Then dry them off and have a seat.” He turned toward a larder, opened it, and withdrew a homespun sack full of tubers. He dropped that, a large bowl, and a small knife on the table. “Everyone under my roof works, lass. Once you warm up, peel these. I’ll be back directly to see about your arm.”
She lifted a hand, resting it over the bandage on her opposite arm. “You’re just going to leave me here?”
“With that ankle you won’t be going far. And there’s anotherstorm rising. The closest shelter, other than this hall, is the Princeps’ Memorium, and it looks like you’ve already cleaned that place out.” He nodded toward the scarlet cloak. “I’d be thinking about what I was going to say to Count Gram about that, if I were you. Safeguarding the Memorium is his responsibility. I doubt he’s going to be terribly happy with you. Or your master, whoever he is.” Bernard turned and started to leave through the doors to the hall.
“Sir,” Amara blurted. “You didn’t tell me if it was true or not. What Tavi said about the Marat.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t.” Then he left.
Amara stared after the man for a moment in frustration. She looked from the doorway he’d vanished through, down to her feet in the steaming basin, and then back up again. Sensation was returning to her feet in an uncomfortable ripple of sharp pinpricks. She shook her head and waited for the feeling in her feet to return to something closer to normal.
A maddening man, she thought. Confidence bordering upon arrogance. She would not be so poorly treated in any court in the Realm.
Which was the point, of course. This was not one of the cities. Here, on the steadholt, his word was literal law, on nearly any matter one could name — including the disposition and nondebilitating punishment of a runaway slave. Were she a slave in fact, rather than in fiction, he could have done nearly anything to her, and as long as he returned her in one piece, and capable of fulfilling her duties, the law would support him as though he were a Citizen. Instead of caring for her and leaving her in a warm room with her feet in a hot bath, he could have as easily stabled her with the animals or put her to any of a number of other uses.
Her cheeks flushed again. The man had affected her, and he shouldn’t have. She had seen him riding an earthwave — he was an earthcrafter, after all. Some of them could affect the temperaments of animals and the base natures of human beings, as well, draw out raw, primal impulses that otherwise would never surface. That would explain it.