Page 59 of Untempered
Steward Daniel glanced over at me, his smile fixed to his face. “We will of course assist this woman,” the Master Steward assured Impatient Guard, returning his attention to them.
“Your assistance isn’t working,” the guardsman said, continuing to earn the nickname I’d given him. “That’s Mick’s wife, Master Steward. You said he’d be the last we’d bury.”
I halted behind Isolde. Her needle kept moving steadily through the fabric. She didn’t miss a single stitch.
“What’s this about a sickness?” I asked, and Isolde angled herself slightly, though Thomas, on the other side, didn’t move. Like a bridge being lowered temporarily, they were allowed partial access to me.
“It’s nothing for you to worry on, my lady,” the Master Steward told me. “It’s under control. We’ll help Mick’s wife, guardsman. Thanking you for bringing this to us.”
Steward Daniel turned to leave, but Impatient Guard’s hand shot out. It was pale against the forest green velvet the Master Steward was wearing, and shock skimmed across my skin.
Isolde was, once again, in front of me. And now Thomas had allowed the tip of his spear to droop over the doorway, barring passage to both of us. And trapping us inside.
When Isolde did it, it felt safe. WhenThomasdid it…
“Please, Master Steward,” Impatient Guard said, releasing the fistful of scrunched fabric almost instantly. “We need to do more.”
“None can do more,” Steward Daniel told him, lips thin. “Go. I’ll see to them.”
I watched as the guardsman, his face as pale as his hand, turned smartly and left. His steps weren’t hurried now, but the measured rhythm of the La’Angi-trained.
“A word, please, Master Steward,” I said, but Steward Daniel just gave me a brief bow, gestured to his assistant, and vanished. I stood, incredulous, as the assistant vanished in the other direction.
As if they’d done this a thousand times already.
“What is going on?” I breathed.
Isolde settled her needle through the threads and lowered the hoop. “There’s been a strange illness,” she told me. “I thought nothing of it.” Her expression clearly said that had changed.
“’Tis just the normal, my lady,” Thomas assured me. “And if it isn’t, best you let others manage it.”
“You’re no Healer,” Isolde agreed.
Mayhap not, but I did havesomepower, as my father’s heir. It was possible that if I kicked up enough of a fuss, the Master Steward might be forced to take more action than…whatever he was doing.
“Whatishe doing?” I asked them.
Silence met my question.
My head felt fuzzy at that complete non-answer. Then Isolde met my eyes, and the world stopped for a moment.
There was nothing good happening here. Nothing at all. And I’d been completely unaware?
The guard had said they were in the small west hall. I already had inconvenienced my watchdogs to get information, hoping it might be useful. I may as well follow up.
So I set out for said hall, and they damned well had to fall in around me.
“Curse it, Audrey,” Isolde hissed. “Even if thereisan illness, what is the point inusgetting it?”
“We’ll take precautions,” I assured her. “They aren’t going to justtellus, Isolde, you saw the Master Steward! What other choice do I have?”
“I could ask a hundred other people,” Isolde told me, clearly frustrated.
They’d been shown to the hall. That wasn’t where you’d place someone highly contagious, but nor was it somewhere to settle a sick family to administer aid. I turned it around in my head, ignoring Isolde as she strode along beside me. How did someone saturate every movement with disapproval, and how did I learn to replicate this?
By the Wife, how I wanted Steward Daniel to know the depths of my disgust for him.
I didn’t know what was happening, but I despised all of it. And I knew damned well some of that disgust should’ve been for me, too, because I’d been sitting in my tower counting down days and ignoring everything else.
