The King Slayer Part 4

The feel of his hands on my skin, of mine on his. His lips on my neck, his hair tangled between my fingers, his breath in my ear. I can't think. Maybe it's the control we spent staying apart while living so close in this house, maybe it's the control spent keeping ourselves together today, but it's falling apart now. My heart is racing, my breath is coming fast, we're doing what we've done before but it's never felt like this: all urgency and carelessness and need, and I want it all to carry me as far as it will take me.

A flurry of wind blows through the window then; the candle on the bedside goes out with a hiss. The room plunges into darkness. The sharp, opaque scent of sulfur from the extinguished flame; the mattress creaking under our weight; the feel of his bare skin pressed against my own. At once, I'm not in John's room, kissing him, feeling his body on top of mine. Instead, I'm in Ravenscourt Palace, in Malcolm's room. I'm coerced, I'm unwilling, and I'm frightened.

The heat I felt just moments before gives way to a sudden snap of cold. I push him off and away from me. Scurry to the head of the bed, pulling my nightgown down to cover my bare legs. My breath is still coming fast.

I can't see through the darkness in the room, not really, but I can make out John's silhouette as he sits up. His breath is still coming fast, too.

"Hold on a minute." John gets up, fumbles around for his s.h.i.+rt, pulls it on. Makes his way to the table. I hear the scratch of a match, watch as he relights the candle in front of him. He glances at me, then crosses the room and lights three more, set into brackets at intervals along the wall. Light floods the room.

"I'm sorry," I say, before he can say anything. "I don't know what happened. I don't know why I did that."

"You don't have to know," he replies. "And you don't have to apologize."

"I guess it was the dark," I continue. "It reminded me of being somewhere else, with someone else-"

"Elizabeth." John moves to the bed again and sits at the very end of the mattress, as far away from me as he's able. "You don't have to explain it to me."

He slides his hand forward across the mattress until his fingertips touch mine, tentative.

I'm reminded of the way he did that on the morning after we first went to Veda's, after I reacted the way I did in the tunnel beneath her cottage, remembering my final test, filled with so much fear I couldn't stand, couldn't walk, couldn't do anything but curl into a ball. Reminded of how he carried me in his arms back to Nicholas's, stayed with me all night. How, even then, he cared for me in a way no one else had before.

I'm also reminded of how none of this is easy for him. Nothing about me, or him and me, is simple. I know it would be easier if I had never come into his life at all. If he had stayed with Chime, if he'd preferred her over me. The guilt eats at me, but I can't tell him this. Because if I do, it will be just one more burden he will take on for me, when he's already taken on so many.

"I should go." I swing my legs over the edge of the mattress.

"Wait." He catches my arm. "Please, stay. I'll sleep on the floor," he adds quickly. "You don't have to if you don't want to. But I don't want you to go."

I start to say no, that it's best for me to leave. But just like every other day, when I stay when I know I should go, I don't.

"All right," I say. "But you're not sleeping on the floor." I turn back to the bed, sliding under the clean, lavender-scented linen sheets.

John pauses, then slides in beside me, pulling the bedcovers over both of us. He's careful not to touch me, too careful. But after a moment I roll over to face him, wrap an arm around his waist. He pulls me closer, my head resting on his chest, his face buried in my hair.

And we sleep.

COUGH.

The sound cuts through my slumber, pulling me awake. I open one eye, then the other, taking in the dark paneled walls, the deep blue bedcovers, John's arm slung around my waist. We're still in the same position we fell asleep in, curled up in each other.

Cough.

Peter.

"G.o.d's nails," John murmurs into my hair.

"How long do you think he's been out there?" I whisper.

Cough. A pause, then a horrible choking sound of Peter clearing his throat. Cough.

"Judging by that noise he's making, I'd say awhile."

I press a hand to my mouth to smother a laugh.

"Shh, you'll make it worse," John says, only he's laughing, too. "I guess I'd better talk to him." He pulls away from me and climbs out of bed. His warmth goes with him, leaving me cold.

"Wait." I sit up. "You can't go out there looking like that."

"Why?" John looks down at himself. At his wrinkled trousers, his rumpled s.h.i.+rt that looks exactly what it is: slept in. What he can't see is his tousled hair, or the smirk on his face that makes him look as if he's been up to no good-or quite a bit of good, depending on the one looking.

"Because you look as if you've been doing exactly what your father thinks we've been doing."

"Ah." John grins. "Here's the thing: If I go out there with neat hair and proper clothes, he'll think I've got something to hide. Because if I were really guilty of something, there's no chance I'd go out there looking like this."

"Oh." I think about this a moment, then scowl. "Done this before with other girls, have we?"

"I've never done this with other girls. Only you." He dips his head, brushes his lips against mine. "You'll always be the only girl."

My lips curve into a smile as I kiss him back.

Cough.

"Into the breach." John crosses to the door, flinging it open with a flourish. "Sounds like you've got the croup," he announces, stepping into the hall. "That's quite a feat, you know. Croup is almost exclusively a child's illness, and exceedingly rare in old men."

John closes the door then, but I hear Peter's response anyway.

"I'll give you the croup, young man."

I press my hand against my mouth again to stifle my giggles.

John and Peter continue talking, their voices m.u.f.fled through the wood so I can't hear what they're saying. I can't exactly leave and go back to my room, not with them standing in the hallway. I could climb back out the window, but there's no point in that now. May as well wait until John returns, to hear our punishment.

I climb out of bed, examine the tangled sheets and coverlet before pulling them over the mattress, smoothing them tight. Then I remember what John said about looking guilty and pull them back down again.

The window is still slightly open, the cold morning breeze slipping inside. I pace the room, and in the light of day I can see just how transparent this linen nightgown is, how you can see nearly everything underneath. So I sit down at John's worktable and tuck myself in as far as the chair will allow.

It's a mess. Books, parchment, ink, and quills scatter the surface. Scales, mortars and pestles, strainers and stirring sticks made from wood and gla.s.s and metal. Half the drawers in the table are open, spilling forth with herbs and powders, roots and leaves. I'm overcome with an urge to clean it all up, but I leave it all be. I've seen enough of the way John works to know there's some sort of method in his madness.

A familiar scent hits me then, drifting in with the breeze. It's deceptively soft and sweet, like scented talc.u.m, but with a bite that lingers in your nose afterward-a warning. I peer into drawer and there it is: Aconitum. Also called wolfsbane, or devil's bane, it's extremely poisonous. It can cause paralysis; it can stop someone's breathing; it can stop a person's heart.

While devil's bane is recognizable by scent in its raw form, it can be mixed with other herbs to become neutralized, making it odorless, tasteless, untraceable: the perfect poison. There's no use for it except to kill.

I look through a few more drawers. Dig through more sachets, more jars, more bottles. Find more poisons. Belladonna. Mandrake. Foxglove. Why does John have them? More than that, how did he get them? Even in Harrow, where magic is allowed, these herbs are banned. Fifer said that Harrow's prison, Hexham, was once filled with wizards who tried to settle one grudge or another using poison: a salting of devil's bane in someone's soup or a dusting of deadmen's bells on a letter.

I set the poisons on the table, thinking to ask John about them. Then I reconsider. If he hasn't told me about them, there's a reason for it. So with the skill born of years spent ransacking wizards' homes-finding things they didn't want me to, rearranging them back the way I found them before leaving and filing a formal report with the office of the Inquisitor, and eventually, inevitably, returning to arrest them-I tuck them back into the drawers.

When John returns moments later, I'm sitting in his bed on top of the blue coverlet, smoothed tight over the mattress again. I've plaited my hair down my back, securing it with a piece of twine I found on his table. My hands are folded in my lap. John stops on the threshold, takes one look at me, and starts to laugh.

"I've never seen anyone look guiltier than the way you look right now."

I don't reply, not right away.

"What did your father say?" I finally manage.

John shuts the door and leans against it. He's grinning. "He says I'm to remember my manners, and your modesty. I'm also to consider my future instead of my present, weigh my intentions against my impulses, eschew vagary and vulgarity, caution against capriciousness, reject foibles, and embrace virtuosity."

"Those are a lot of words."

"There were a lot more besides that."

"He talks a lot, doesn't he?"

"You have no idea." He tilts his head, his grin fading into a look of sympathy. "You look so glum. Don't be. If this were at all a problem, I would tell you. It's not. It's just his way of showing he cares. It's odd, I know. But believe me, if he didn't act this way there would be a problem."

"If it's not a problem, then why are you still standing there instead of over here?"

John's grin is back. "Because he's on the other side of the door, waiting for me to escort you back to your room."

"Oh."

I get up, cross to the door. Stop in front of him. He looks down at me, his eyes full of warmth and amus.e.m.e.nt and something else, too: love. When he leans down to kiss me, I push down my guilt, as far as it will go. Wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back.

"Vagary," he whispers.

"Vulgarity," I whisper back.

The following day, Harrow is. .h.i.t with another attack. Five more archers, just like last time. Only this time they get farther, all the way to Gallion's Reach, the very center of Harrow. Where the high street is, where the shops and taverns are, where a hundred or so people were when they came roaring through in a swirl of inky-black cloaks and arrows and violence. They fired at random, killing two unarmed men, a horse when they missed, one of Peter's pirate brethren when they didn't.

The archers escaped as quickly as they invaded, before what little guard we have could rally a chase. Our men spent the morning picking through the surrounding villages but came up empty, the attackers no doubt returning to Upminster to fill Blackwell's ears with yet more information on Harrow: the layout, the security and lack thereof, where people congregate, where people do not.

Nicholas and the other council members spend the week increasing and adding to the spells around Harrow. Before, only those without sovereignty were disallowed. Now there are three veils of magic: sovereignty, sanction, and intent. Three chances to pa.s.s, three chances to fail.

But as Blackwell's men are armed with magic, magic is not enough. So within that same week, the Watch was formed-a group of two hundred armed men patrolling the thirty-odd miles of Harrow's borders, day and night, determined to prevent another breach. Peter and John were among the first to volunteer. Not wanting to disrupt the fragile peace that's settled between us, I encouraged it. And when they packed their bags and stowed their swords and left Mill Cottage, I hid my reservations beneath a smile and a bid of good luck for Peter, a kiss and a whisper of care for John.

While Peter and John and every other able-bodied person inside Harrow either guards the border or a.s.sists in setting up camp inside Rochester, Schuyler and Fifer decide to use the time to try to make me battle ready.

They come for me one morning at dawn, the pair of them striding into my room with a bang of a door and the knock of a boot on my bedpost.

"On your feet, bijoux."

I sit up, squinting at Schuyler's tall, pale frame at the end of my bed. Fifer stands beside him, a fiery contrast.

"What time is it?" A glance at the window shows no light behind the curtain.

"Time to take a little pounding." Fifer tosses a handful of clothes in my direction. A pair of trousers, a tunic, a pair of boots, and a steel-buckled belt nearly hit me in the head.

"Watch it," I grumble.

"Blackwell didn't coddle you during training, so neither will we." She yanks the covers off me, the cold predawn air an a.s.sault.

"At least give me a minute to wake up," I say. "Or eat? You can't expect me to work on an empty stomach."

Schuyler tosses me something, and I s.n.a.t.c.h it out of the air just before it hits my face. It's bread. "According to my sources"-he taps his forehead, reminding me of the power he has to hear my thoughts-"this is what you ate, the only thing you ate, every morning before training. Any more and you'd vomit it up, any less and you couldn't finish. So get it down and let's get going."

"We'll wait for you in the hall," Fifer adds, then shuts the door.

I climb out of bed, a sick sense of dread roiling in my stomach. It's the same feeling I had every morning of every day spent at Blackwell's. Wondering what I would face, how much I would be hurt, if I might die. I stare at the piece of bread in my hand. It even looks the same. Not white manchet bread made from fine flour but coa.r.s.e, gray wheaten bread. I take a bite; it tastes like gravel.

I pick up the clothes Fifer tossed my way, starting a little when I see what they are. Black trousers, white s.h.i.+rt, tan coat, black boots. The belt I thought was for my trousers is for weapons instead. Witch-hunting clothes.

d.a.m.ned Schuyler.

I pull them on. Tie my hair back the way I used to, twisted into a knot at the nape of my neck. Walk to the dressing table, look at myself in the mirror mounted above it. Freckles standing in relief against pale skin, pale blue eyes made paler by uncertainty. I'm wary and I'm afraid but I cling to it, comforted somewhat by the familiarity.

As promised, Fifer and Schuyler wait for me in the hallway. Without a word they lead me downstairs, past the dining room and through the kitchen, out the back door. The sun is just now creeping over the horizon, the sky gray and cold, the air misty with dew. I hurry after them, past John's physic gardens and the low stone fence that surrounds them, into the rolling meadows, the frozen gra.s.s crackling under our feet.

"Where are we going?"

Fifer points ahead, where the meadow begins sloping upward into a hill. "We need privacy," she says. "We thought about doing this at Nicholas's, but Gareth is always popping in and out like some d.a.m.ned spying specter. But he never comes out this way, and neither does anyone else, really."

"Privacy?" I repeat. "What are you doing that you need privacy for?"

Fifer turns to face me, now walking backward. "Scared?" She smirks.

"You wish." But I am, and she knows it.

We reach the top of the hill, and there, in the flat ground below, I see what they've got planned for me. It's a tiltyard. No sand, stands, or crowds, but a tiltyard nonetheless. Long and narrow, measured and marked by small flags and lined with weapons. Rows of targets, racks of polearms, crossbows, and swords, and a large wooden chest that I can only presume holds even more. Despite my fear, I feel a little thrill rush through me.

The pair of them walk to the edge of the tiltyard and I follow. Schuyler kicks open the lid on the chest and pulls out a mace, a battle-ax, and a handful of knives. One by one he tosses them to the ground; they land on the gra.s.s with a wet thud. Finally, he pulls out a set of mail-a hood and a long-sleeved tunic, the small iron rings tinged red with rust.

I pull a face. "Mail? Only pageboys wear mail. I never wore it, not even when I was a recruit. Not even when I knew nothing. Not even the time I got sick and could barely-"

In a blur, Schuyler whips a knife off the ground and flings it at me. It spins end over end, heading straight for my heart. I dive to the ground as it whistles overhead, lifting my head just as the blade buries itself in a birch sapling ten feet behind me. The trunk is barely three inches wide.

"Have you lost your mind?" I wipe mud from my face in a furious swipe. "You could have killed me."

"Better wear the mail, then."

I haul myself to my feet. My trousers are already stained and wet, my hands and face dirty, and we haven't even begun. Fifer holds up the offending mail; I pull off my coat and slip it on over my s.h.i.+rt.

"Headpiece, too." Schuyler flips his wrists, miming the motion of putting on a hood.

I pull the hood over my head, cursing the way the metal rubs against my ears, the way it blocks my hearing, the way it tugs on my hair, cursing Schuyler with every profanity I can think of.

"Stop complaining." Fifer pulls out a necklace, one I recognize-bra.s.s chain, ampoules filled with salt, quicksilver, and ash-and slips it around my neck. "So he can't hear you during the fight." She grins. "Don't say I never did anything for you."

Schuyler watches me, his face impa.s.sive. Then he s.n.a.t.c.hes a sword off the ground, tosses it to me. Walks to the rack, s.n.a.t.c.hes up a swallow: a long, double-sided sword. Spins it around and around, the blade a flas.h.i.+ng blur.

We step into the center of the field. Schuyler circles me, slow; I match his movement step for step. He strikes. Once, twice. I parry the first two; the second he lands a hit, knocking the sword out of my hand and sending it skittering along the gra.s.s.