Chapter 5.1

The next morning, when I woke in my bed, I was in a better mood than I had been in for years. Somehow I had made it out of the greenhouse, and my guards had gotten me back to my room, with no one noticing the disarrangement of my clothing. I hoped Elise had been as fortunate.
I stood, stretched, and threw open the shutters to greet the new day.

A sheet of wet wind wrapped around me.

"It’s still raining," Charles said, as if this were something lighter than a downpour.
"We’ll thank the mountain god if the town don’t wash away," Jason said, his spin-dice in his hand. He spun the four-sided dice on its corner, then tossed the others – six-sided, eight-sided, and twelve-sided – before it could land on a side.

"Twelve, eight, six." Ison peered at the spin-dice, then picked up the four-sided to see its hidden side. "And four! That’s five straights in a row! Are these honest?"

"They’re charmed by a warlocker," Jason admitted, as he raked the common pool over to his side. "She passed ‘em under a black cat’s nose, rubbed ‘em with herbs, and buried ‘em in a bog while the moon passed over. Promised me my luck’ll roll better than the dice."

"What did it cost ye?"

"Three scales from a freshly-killed dragon."

"You killed a dragon?" Ison dropped three coins into the space between them, spun the dice, and got a two, a one, a five, and a three. He spun again and everything came up twos. "Damn."
Jason smiled, dropped three coins, and spun the dice. The twelve-sided came up a one, the eight-sided came up a two, the six-sided came up a three, and the four-sided landed on four. A reverse straight. His smile dropped as he shoved half his coins, as well as the six in the center, toward Ison. "Not yet. When I do, the charm will be perfect."

The game rattled on.

Friendship is a set of dice, a pair of knives, and no blood on the floor.

Chapter 4.3

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Hands curled around my chest, and breath brushed my ear. The scent of bread and roses hung behind me.

“They won’t take notice of us,” a woman whispered in my ear. “The lady and her lovers are deaf to the world, once she starts with ‘em.”

I turned and saw Elise in the faint light. She leaned in and kissed me, hard. And then she led me to her great hall, and bade me take my leisure.

Chapter 4.2.2

The light dropped as Lady Victoria shielded her lantern. There was still enough for me to peer down at them, and I watched as she knelt beside Sharp and touched his face. "What’s this? Do Bards cry?"

"It is for the memory of a dear friend."

"What do mean?" She pulled his head to her breast. I caught my breath.

"The songs I sing: they were written by a man I knew, whom I loved as a brother. It hurts me to sing his songs."

"Is he dead?"

Blunt, wasn’t she?

"I believe so," Sharp replied, as if he had not looked me in the face earlier that evening.

"Why do you sing his songs, if they hurt you so?"

Because he cannot protest, I argued for him.

Sharp’s answer was different. "To fire my anger, to fuel my vengeance. Lord Reinard destroyed him, and so I will destroy Lord Reinard. I have come here to wreck his plans for marriage."

"Good luck." The lady touched his face with his her fingers. "Lord Guerney is quite determined for it to be completed, despite the complication."

The what?

He caught her hand and kissed her fingers, then lifted his face to the base of her neck. He kissed her skin, then pulled her neckline lower and nuzzled the curve of her breast. "What is that?"

"She’s pregnant."

His hand, already pushing up the hem of her gown, stopped. "I had not heard that."

"Neither has Lord Reinard." Sharp’s hands were nowhere near her girdle, but it fell away.

He lifted her hem higher, revealing her calf, her knee, and then the silken curve of her thigh. "He does not know he has a child coming?"

Lady Victoria laughed and leaned back, pulling Sharp over her. "They’ve not been face to face, much less belly to belly. The child is not his."

What kind of a harlot did my Lord seek to make the Lady of Songless Castle? How many times would she hang horns on his ignorant head? What was the true price of a piece of weed-filled, wizard-cursed woods?

"And what will Lord Reinard do when he finds out?" Sharp’s hand was above her creamy hip, and his belt lay to the side. I shifted, uncomfortable.

"My Lord intends for him not to find out, before the vows are given and the marriage sealed. I know I can trust you to keep silent."

Instead of a reply, he kissed her lips, her neck, the valley between her breasts...

Chapter 4.2

#

Much later, after my heart had been bled dry, I left the hall with my guards. They led me by a different route – one I supposed was meant to avoid trouble, until I found myself outside the greenhouse door. I stopped, awakened by the thought of the Silver-eyed and their taint within.

"Eh, go on," Ison said, giving my shoulder a shove. "Charles and I’ll watch the door, and ye can take as long as ye like. I need to teach him a thing or two, anyway."

I raised my palms, questioning. Why am I here?

Ison shook his dice bag. "Don’t ye worry. I’ll leave him with his weapons."

Charles leaned forward with a smile. "If you do find trouble, just scream. Like the time you found the drowned rat in the armory."

That had been a forgettable memory – in the dark, with my bare feet.

"But do it louder," Ison added. "I barely heard ye, all the way on the other side of the keep."

But why am I here? I shrugged my shoulder and looked around.

"She’s coming, never you fear." Ison opened the door and gently pushed me through.

Inside the greenhouse I moved cautiously, trying to remember the path from earlier. A few small braziers flickered, giving off just enough heat to drive the frost demons away, and just enough light to let the shadows dance on the glass ceiling. I walked past the silent bower, but at the crystalline flowers, glowing with their own cold light, I turned and made my way into a stand of ferns. I found a spot where I could huddle among the fronds, knees to my chin – and for the first time in many days, indulge in solitude.

It had been a common pleasure back at Songless Castle. There was the hayloft, where I slept before the Old Lord died, and there were fields and woods. The castle itself had more rooms than people. Here, though, I was a gilded prisoner, watched constantly by guards. Well-meaning guards, to be sure, but guards non-the-less.

Why had the gods sent me here? Why had they not left my in my comfortable nest of sorrow, at least with people who understood me? At Songless I was a commoner, a servant – but here I was something worse. I was a monkey, a fool, an idiot. I could speak to no one, therefore, it was assumed I heard nothing. Even my childhood friend treated me with contempt.

On the far wall something scraped, and then a light appeared in the wall. I frowned. – a secret entrance? A possible way to escape?

The light moved forward, and then shone upon the Lady Victoria. She wore a gown and gold-trimmed girdle, nothing more. Her curling hair lay on her shoulders; her bare feet pressed the grass. This was who I was to meet, the lady who had rudely scorned my flowers? Her beauty was dazzling, but...

I decided to stay quiet and let her walk past.

But she did not. She paused at a spot not ten feet away and lifted her lantern, thus revealing another secret of the greenhouse. Beyond the crystalline plants there had been dug a shallow in the ground, and at its center was a fish pond. Beside it stood a bench, and on the ground before the bench, Sharp had spread his cloak.