But then, and more to the point, he had been very gentle with her, when he held her. He needn’t have done so much as let her onto his land, and he had all but forcibly pressed hospitality onto her. Despite his threats and words, he hadn’t locked her in a cellar or shown anything but concern and kindness.
Amara stirred her feet in the water, frowning. The Steadholder was clearly a man who commanded some measure of respect in his people. His steadholt was solid and obviously prosperous. The holdfolk she had seen had been clean and well fed. His reaction to the boy had been severe, in its own fashion, but restrained by the standards of most of the Realm. Had the man wanted her, he could simply have taken her, and not bothered with crafting her into a frenzy.
The contrast of his strength, physical and otherwise, against several demonstrations of gentleness was a surprising one. Though she had no doubts that he could be a hard man when called upon, she sensed a genuine kindness in his manner and an obvious love for the boy.
Amara drew her feet from the tub and patted them dry with the towel, then lowered herself from the table and perched gingerly on another stool. She reached for the paring knife and one of the tubers and started skinning the peel off of it, dropping the peel in a smooth spiral into the tub of water she’d just used and depositing the flesh of the root into the bowl the Steadholder had left her. The task was soothing, in its own way, repetitive, comforting.
She had been through a lot in the past few hours. Her world had been shaken, and she’d faced death at close quarters more than once. That might explain the sudden vibrance of her emotions, of her pure physical reaction to the Steadholder. He was, after all, an imposing and not unattractive man, she supposed. She might have had the same reaction to anyone in such proximity to her. Soldiers reacted that way often, when death was so near at hand, seizing at any opportunity to live life more richly, more fully. That must have been it, Amara decided.
But that got her no closer to accomplishing her mission. She blew out a frustrated breath. Bernard had neither confirmed nor denied the encounter with the Marat. Any mention of it, in fact, seemed to have made him increasingly evasive. Much more so, she thought, than was reasonable for the situation.
She frowned over that thought. The Steadholder was hiding something.
What?
Why?
What she wouldn’t have given, at that moment, to be a watercrafter, to have been able to sense more about him — or to have had more experience in reading people’s expressions and body language.
She had to know more. She had to know if she had a credible witness to bring before the local Count or not. She had to know if the First Lord’s fears were viable.
Bernard came back a few moments later, carrying another bowl under one arm. The Steadholder lifted his eyebrows, his expression surprised. Then he scowled at her, coming over to stand by the table.
“Sir?” she asked. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Crows, girl,” Bernard said. “I thought you’d still be warming your feet up.”
“You wanted me to peel these, sir.”
“Yes, but—” He made an irritated noise. “Never mind. Sit back, let me see your feet again. And your arm, while we’re at it.”
Amara settled back on her stool, and the Steadholder knelt down on the floor in front of her, setting the bowl to one side. He lifted her feet, grunted something, and then reached into the bowl, drawing out a small jar of some kind of pungent-smelling ointment. “You’ve got some cuts, from the hills,” he said. “Doubt you even felt them, as cold as your feet were. This should help keep them clean and numb some of the pain, when you start getting the feeling back.”
He smoothed on the ointment with broad, gentle fingertips, on both feet. Then he drew out a roll of white cloth and a pair of shears. He wrapped her feet carefully in the cloth and finally drew from the bowl a pair of slippers with flexible leather soles and a pair of grey woolen socks. She began to protest, but he shot her a glare and put both socks and slippers on her. “Big feet, for a woman,” he commented. “Had some old slippers that should do for a while.”
She studied him quietly, during the process. “Thank you. How badly off are they?”
He shrugged. “They look like they’ll be all right to me, but I’m no watercrafter. I’ll ask my sister to take a look at them when she’s feeling better.”
Amara tilted her head to one side. “Is she ill?”
Bernard grunted and stood up. “Move that cloak back and roll up your sleeve. Let me have a look at that arm.”
Amara moved the cloak back from her shoulder. She tried to roll the sleeve of her blouse up, but the injury was high on her arm, and the cloth bunched too much to allow it. She tried anyway, and the sleeve pinched in on the wound. Pain flashed through her arm again, and she sucked in a shaky breath.
Bernard said, “That’s no good. We’ll have to get you another shirt.” He lifted the shears and, carefully, started snipping the bloodied sleeve away, a little above the first cut in the fabric. He frowned at it and then at the scarlet cloth of the bandage. The frown only deepened when he unwound the bandage and found the cloth clotted to the wound. He shook his head, fetched fresh water and cloth, and began to soak the bandage and to pull gently at it.
“How did you hurt your arm?”
Amara used her other hand to brush at her hair, pulling it back from her face. “I fell, yesterday. I cut it.”
Bernard made a quiet sound and said nothing more until he had soaked the cloth and teased it gently off of the cut without tearing it open. He frowned, and with the cloth and water and soap, cleaned it gently. It burned, and Amara felt her eyes tear up again. She thought she would break down crying, simply from the exhaustion and the constant, relentless pain. She closed her eyes tightly, while he continued the slow, patient work.
There was a rap at the kitchen door, and a nervous voice, belonging to the boy he’d called Frederic, said, “Sir? They’re asking for you outside.”
“I’ll be there in a moment.”
Frederic coughed. “But, sir—”
The Steadholder said, voice hardening slightly, “Fred. In a moment.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said. The door closed again.
Bernard continued with the wound and murmured, “This should have had stitches. Or someone to craft it closed. You fell?”
“I fell,” Amara repeated.
“Apparently you fell along the blade of a sharp sword,” the Steadholder commented.
He rinsed and dressed the wound once more, his hands gentle, but even so her arm throbbed and ached horribly. More than anything, Amara wanted to go somewhere dark and quiet and curl into a ball. But she shook her head and said, “Sir, please. Is the boy’s story true? Were you really attacked by the Marat?”
Bernard took in a deep breath. He walked away and then came back to her and draped a soft, gentle weight over her shoulders—a blanket. “You’re asking a lot of questions, girl. Not sure I like that. And I don’t know if you’re being honest with me.”