Page 72 of Untempered
The second guard fell silent, and I listened to their steps as they retreated. They’d cleared one corner too many for me to understand the next question the first guardsman asked, but I didn’t chase after them.
I wondered what a guard from the main gates might report. Increased traffic, as people took long-overdue visits to family in the country, or relocated to better climes as they’d spoken about their whole lives?
And where were these people going?
Thomas was on the door when I returned, looking the exact same as he did every day. I couldn’t imagine the energy that sort of uniformity took. I doubted he could imagine anything else.
“Mistress,” he said, meeting my eyes. “I understand the lady wishes to visit the prisoner in the dungeons.”
She did, because we needed enough of an in with this would-be assassin that she didn’t kill us on sight, or refuse our aid and complicate the whole situation. And in typical Audrey fashion, she’d also decided this woman’s well-being was at least partially her responsibility.
“I was in the city this morning,” he went on, stiffly. “It appears the illness is spreading rapidly. Everywhere.”
I paused, considering his wooden expression and how much it must’ve cost him just to utter those words to me, breaking his unblinking guardsman’s pose. “Go on.”
He glanced toward my hand on the door. “Reports are coming from local provinces. Even over the bay. I thought mayhap you might express these concerns.”
“You don’t want her to go out.”
“I don’t want her to get sick, mistress.”
I didn’t, either. Accepting the information with a nod, I returned to the rooms and found Chay waiting beside the fire, surrounded by flecks of wood from his whittling. He was lousy at it, but at least he cleaned up after himself and didn’t say much.
Past him, sitting in silence at her desk, was Audrey. Her quill swirled over the surface of a messy page to one side. She glanced up at me, the thumb that had been flipping a parchment up and down stilling.
“What was said?” she asked me, and I felt her attention like a deer felt a hunter’s eyes.
Appreciation and pride swelled in my chest. I closed the door firmly behind me.
“No one could answer my question. On the way back, Ididhear, the Captain is unwell.”
Her hand stilled. “He’s got it?”
I shrugged. There were more illnesses than the one we’d come across, including self-induced ones from too much revelry. The Captain wasn’t known for such things, but when the Duke was away, the guards would play. Mortemon was proof of that.
Audrey’s expression was caught in the middle distance. I let her mind whir, going to the window to look over the city.
She’d figure out the situation with the assassin. I was more worried about the possibility of them locking down the keep. As if to underscore this concern, my eye was drawn to the thin ribbons of smoke rising from the lower city levels.
It was only a matter of time, really. The Master Steward would know that by now. An incurable, deadly illness seemed like just the thing to lock out.
Except the harvest wasn’t in.
Before I could ask Audrey what supplies the keep had, which would help me figure out how long we would have some small freedom, a knock came from the outer door. Chay rolled to his feet, hurriedly sweeping the worst of the shavings into the fire and striding out. Audrey shuffled her papers, putting a page on top that looked equally as dull as whatever she’d hidden.
As soon as I saw Steward Daniel’s heavy keys of office and patronizingly worried expression, energy rushed through my body.
We were going to have to go over the wall if they locked us in, through a sickened city. Or wait it out, knowing the castle was already compromised, and lose more of our precious lifespans to this prison.
“Unfortunately, my lady, I come to you under dire circumstances.” He eased himself down into the chair opposite hers at her desk, uninvited. Thomas and Chay marched around the back of her and took up their stations much like they did whilst she ate in the great hall.
Trusting Audrey to have this wasted seed’s measure, I opted to take the door.
I wondered if Audrey would see the opportunity here.
Chay was already known to kill infected people who approached her, after all. One more on that list would be plenty believable. Chay didn’t even need to do it himself. She hadn’t sworn another death would ever beattributedto him, had she?
“It would appear the plague has spread across the city with frightening speed,” he said, leaning forward, and that word made me pause. Was it a plague, now? “As you saw yourself some days ago, it is also in these walls.”
