Page 39 of Untempered
Warily, I positioned myself better to defend against a cut from the tool. “What isn’t?”
He lifted the axe, wordlessly, pointing it toward the dresser I’d just shoved.
I glanced at it. I wasn’t one for furniture, but I saw no reason to smash this one.
“Look inside it,” he said, annoyance in his tone.
I narrowed my eyes at him. His oath to Audrey didn’t extend to me, the same way Mikus’ oath to Victor hadn’t extended to Audrey.
I’d deal with him, later. For now, I gave the door of the dresser a nudge. I watched his shadow as I glanced in, keeping track of his movements even as I saw the completely empty hutch. Empty, except for a tiny brown handprint on the side of the door where a child had pulled it closed.
The bottom dropped out of my belly. I threw it open. Some streaks here, on the ground. Dragging. Small feet, pushing away from the door, into the hiding place. Another handprint on the bottom of the cabinet. Coming or going, she’d needed purchase.
She’d been here. She’d seen it.
I drew back, staring at the floor, disgusted with myself.
The stones beneath the bed and dresser weren’t faded. The others were stained.
My stomach churned.No survivors.It was the mantra, the warning, when the locals were bold enough to speak. And yet there was one. Why hide that?
The whole assassin tale never sounded right to me. Not when I’d seen the violence that man turned against his own daughter. The world spun around me, making my stomach lurch uncomfortably.
Chay said nothing, watching me with impatience.
Disgusted, I realized he’d seen it long before I had. But the oath was doing its job if he was getting me to defend her against old demons. I didn’t care how grudging he was. I cared about the final victory.
“Give me time to get her downstairs,” I told him, resisting the urge to hold my skull.
Lips thin, he nodded, waiting as I left.
Audrey was standing with her hands on her hips, looking at the bed like it was a vase that didn’t quite match the décor of the room. “Well, it’s too big, it can’t stay here.”
She wasn’t going to sleep up in the top room, not with the ghosts that lived there. And she was right, the bed was too big for any of the three little rooms on this level.
“Leave it here,” I told them. Her knees were wet from the water. Had she seen the brown of old blood seeped into the stones here, too? Had she recognized it for what it was? “After all, why not?” I asked her, at her surprised look. “Look. A spot for a bath.” I pointed to one of the side rooms. “For me.” Point. “For your clothing.” Point. “It’ll be warm, protected, and central. We can use the downstairs space for entertaining, and the upstairs space isn’t really needed. It’ll be cold up there, too.” And a perfect empty space to train together. I went over to where the bed was propped on one side against the ground. “Unless it isn’t to your tastes?”
She looked around and chewed her lip. “I suppose here would work. I was thinking?—”
“Oh, but the sunlight here, milady,” Beatrice said, rallying. “Those small chambers, they’re fine, but look—look here.” She threw open the shutters and showed Audrey a view of the gardens. “Imagine waking to that, milady.” There was a smile in her voice. “Mistress Isolde, she knows what’s good for you.”
The woman didn’t know how right she was. Audrey met my eyes, relief in her shoulders and in the sheen of tears in her eyes. She nodded once, sighing. “It seems excessive, but if it just won’t fit…”
“The downstairs, that was for the guards, back in the day,” Thomas said, as he lifted his end of the bed without too much difficulty. I made note of that, grimly. A soft belly didn’t rule out strong arms. “But there’s only two of us. We hardly need it. There are two bunk rooms—we’ll use one as a sitting room.”
Audrey was about to argue, but I had Chay’s warning ringing in my ears. “Let’s go look,” I suggested brightly, looping my arm in hers and tugging her toward the staircase just vacated by the bed as Grahame and Thomas settled it in the center of the room.
Behind us, I heard the crash and splinter of Chay’s demolition. Audrey flinched. Her smile widened. “There’s a lovely window,” she said brightly, her feet skimming down the steps, “that overlooks all the baileys. I’m glad you’re feeling better now to look at it, because you’ll love it. Back when La’Angi was the capital, in The Country That Was, this was where royalty lived. Look. Don’t we need a window seat here?” She swept over to the wide window, with its curling, beautiful prison bars.
I had no interest in a window seat. I skimmed my eyes over the space. “Put your desk there,” I told her. “It has the best light.” It had the only real light on this level, with the other side all reinforced stone and steel. She needed the light with the hours she spent lost in reports and scrolls.
“Well, I suppose I have no window seat to put here,” she said sadly. “I do like to think of you here, watching.”
She was right. It was, strategically, an excellent position. It was also a vulnerable one, if they had a sharp bowman. It wasn’t so much one window as three, with tall pillars of stone placed between to allow watchful eyes to track people’s movements. “You ought to sit back a little, with that desk,” I said as she began to shove the heavy thing over, her body held to protect her muscles and maximize their power. “You don’t need the wind and rain on your books.” Or to make herself an easy target in case our assassin’s friends came to visit.
She nodded her agreement, stopping somewhat back from the windows. There were no sharp bowmen I knew around these parts. The greatest threat to Audrey came from the man who had unrestricted access to everything in this city. Still, the small layer of protection that distance and angle afforded her made me feel better.
Audrey reassembled her desk. Tapestries were hung, and the fire was stoked. I stood, leaning against the wall, exhausted and sick. She was hurting. She was hurting and scared, and there was no time or safe place for her to process that. I let her go because this busyness was a way of coping. It gave her a measure of control.
