Chapter Eighteen

I woke from a nightmare, but it was the pain in my bladder that kept me awake. I threw my arm over my head, rolled to one side, rolled to the other, snuggled my knees to my chest and tried to let the pull of sleep wrap around me, tried to let it drag me down, press like—

The pain persisted, angry and throbbing.

I cracked my eyes open.

Fine.

I slipped outside my tent, runched my nightgown around my hips, squatted like a hen among the grasses, tried to relax.

The sound of the sea echoed off the high ground, the drum of the waves mixing with the low knell of the wind to create a soft shh, shh .

The first night, I’d pushed my blankets aside and peed in the corner like a scared dog, but sleeping with it had been even worse. The smell. The shame.

Then the second day, I’d held it. Had crossed my legs and gritted my teeth as if sheer will could drive the urge away, because if Erik’s men knew, they would’ve turned it to cockroaches or coils or flashed the image of me with my skirt hiked up to the entire camp.

Even now, a part of me wondered if they might try something. Was the ragwort enough?

Overhead, the sky swept like a blanket, star-flecked and infinite. Grass bristled my ankles and the backs of my thighs, the cool of it cutting through my stockings and causing a chill to creep over my spine.

Go. Just go. No one else is awake.

A hiss, a patter. A dark puddle formed on the ground between my feet. I balled the wool scrap I’d brought for drying myself and—

A flick of movement, a swish in the field, there then gone.

My heart lurched. I nearly dropped the wool.

The flick again, a blurred shadow.

I yanked my underthings into place and squinted through the knotted dark. Was it actually a shadow or was it reykr?

Boulders rose and fell like the backs of gray whales. A bird flittered up from the darkness.

And there, the flick.

Only it wasn’t a flick. It was a person, a silhouette skirting the edges of the camp.

The silhouette disappeared into Erik’s tent. Moments later, a light flared, a wash of orange, a beacon, a fire.

I bit my lip and waited for the tent to warp or explode or crumble to dust like moth wings on wind.

But nothing. Only the swish of grasses and a steady orange glow.

Okay. Maybe Erik was awake.

He hadn’t slept in Karlsborn Castle, either—his duvet still folded, sheets still tight, no rumple of blankets or muss of pillows. Why was that? What was he doing?

If I was caught spying, I’d have no excuse. My tent was positioned on the opposite side of camp, pitched near a small scoop of rock, more sheltered than the rest. Erik’s tent had been placed between the horses and the narrow stream that curved through the meadow like a black-bellied snake. Between us, the men, the bags, everything. The distance had seemed so logical when I’d set up shop to cure the worms, but now I had no reason to be on that side of camp.

A few wild orchids quivered, their lips pale pink against the dusk. Moonlight spilled like a bucket of milk.

If I was caught, I’d have no excuse.

If I was caught…

I sucked in a breath and started toward the brilliant orange glow.

Better not get caught.

I ducked from tent to tent, sticking to the shadows—not that the shadows helped much, anyway. The moon was full and bright, every leaf and branch rendered in shades of smoke and steel, and all it would take was someone to pull back their door flap and I’d be seen.

Men snored. Horses snorted. An unseemly fart ripped.

I froze.

From inside the tent, the scrape of skin on blankets, a curse, a groan. Another fart.

Bengt.

My heart hammered and I dropped beside a boulder, but I couldn’t help it. I smiled.

He’d had at least three helpings of that stew. My fennel tea would have helped some , but even I couldn’t undo the damage from that much ragwort.

I waited for the groaning and cursing to subside before scooting the rest of the way to Erik’s tent. My palms pressed against the freezing soil, my nightgown rucked against my knees.

What was the best way to spy? Could I find a gap in the fabric and peek through? Could he feel me watching him? Would he know I was there? What if he was just fiddling with the map, shuffling around those black and white river stones? What if this entire trip was a waste and—

“You think I encouraged her?” The words a warning. Erik.

“I don’t know. Did you?” A second voice. Was that Kaspar?

I pulled myself onto my knees, hovered outside like a ghost, a ghoul, a whisper against the canvas.

“Of course not.”

Were they talking about me? About how I’d poisoned the men? If Kaspar suspected… I ran a hand over my face.

Erik might not have plans to tell his men, but Kaspar…?

He’d tell everyone.

I could try to pass the ragwort off as some sort of accident, could say I’d misidentified the plant. Or I could run. Would they let me run? Or would they drag me back and play with me the way a cat plays with a—

“She shouldn’t have brought it.” Kaspar again.

“No,” Erik agreed. “She shouldn’t have.”

Wait. Erik had complained I’d brought too little, no tent, no horse. But if they weren’t talking about me, then who? Signey was the only other woman on the trip.

Wind lifted the door a fraction, revealing Kaspar fingering a silver flask and Erik, sitting on his bedroll, his knees up, head in his hands, his shirt open at the throat.

“You’re not going to get rid of it?”

Erik raised his head, his eyes glittering. “I might need it.”

I scooted around the side of the tent.

“You can’t be serious.” Kaspar again.

“We need any advantage we can get.”

“Do we? Because this is turning out to be a lot easier than we thought. Or is this still about proving yourself?”

“I don’t need to prove anything.”

“You sure? Because I think this has something to do with what happened with the ships—”

“Shut up.”

“That wasn’t your fault. Lothgar was—”

“I said, shut up!”

I dropped to my belly, just as the flap was flung open and Erik stalked out.

He glared at his tent once, his gaze skimming the shadows. Then he threw up his arm and vanished into the hungry night.

“And suddenly there were no rocks and I was up to my ass in river water. And guess what happened? Just guess.” The man I was treating—Tyr—leaned back against the blankets, beard scruff unshaved, eyes gleaming a bright and mineral blue. Handsome in a roguish sort of way. One of my ragwort casualties.

I pressed the back of my hand to the tea kettle, the iron mostly cool. What happened with the ships? And what did Kaspar mean Signey shouldn’t have brought it? Shouldn’t have brought what? The weapon?

“I saw a water snake,” Tyr supplied. “But was it a real snake or a reykr snake? It’s hard to tell. I assumed it was a reykr snake—something about the color seemed off—but then…”

And if the weapon was here, did that mean I could steal it and bring it back to Karlsborn Castle? It had to be small if she’d stowed it in her bag.

“… and I thought, surely snakes don’t act this way in the wild. Like I said, it had two heads. Two heads! I grabbed a stick and—”

“What do you know about Signey?”

Tyr opened his mouth, then closed it, rubbed the scruff of his jaw. “The bitch queen? She was actually pretty cool until Lothgar picked Erik to be his second. Then she went—” He let out a quick whistle. “Yesterday, she nearly had my head off for touching her bag. I was just setting up tents.”

I’d noticed the men divided into groups each evening, some on tent crew, some on dinner crew, some on horse crew. Bo claimed it made camp set up and tear down quicker. But Signey came at Tyr for touching her bag? Interesting.

I poured Tyr his cup of tea—ginger because I’d run out of fennel.

“You know, you’re easy to talk to,” Tyr added.

I wasn’t. I knew I wasn’t. I was hard like a tortoise, prickly like a sea urchin, all barbs and spikes and iron walls.

Tyr fixed his mineral eyes on me. “I bet you get that a lot.”

I stared at my hands, my knuckles reddening, my nails rimmed with dust from the road. “You were setting up tents?”

“Well, yeah. Most people keep extra spikes in their front pockets. Not you, obviously, because Erik gave you the…” He glanced up. “Oh, never mind. Anyway, Signey’s tent was missing a spike, so I reached for her bag to see if she had any extras, and she bit my head off.”

“Sounds strange.”

“Like I said, bitch queen.” He nodded at his mug of ginger tea, a smile teasing out the dimple in his cheek. “Anyway, eleven more days, right?”

“Eleven more doses .” I passed him the mug.

“You wound me. I could do eleven days of worm treatment so long as you’re my doctor.”

I…wasn’t sure what to say to that. Luckily, I didn’t have to because he winked and left.

Tyr was my last patient of the morning. The rest of the men were already breaking down the tents and saddling the horses. I gathered up the blanket, the kettle, dumped the rest of the tea into a thatch of carrot blossoms.

Signey, the bitch queen.

Signey and her bags.

It had been more helpful than anything I’d gotten from the other men.

“She’s scary,” said one.

“Stay away from her,” said another.

“Lothgar’s lackey. Does his dirty work.”

I should stay away from her, I should. Everyone in the camp seemed to give her a wide berth. But if I wanted to know what she’d brought, what she was hiding, then I’d have to get into her bags.

I plucked one of the white flowers, rolled it between my thumb and forefinger.

Ordinarily, I’d have no reason to snoop around Signey’s bags, but if I helped with tent duty, then maybe I could rifle through it under the guise of looking for a spike.

My heart hammered. The noose came back around my neck. Because if I could find what she was hiding, then maybe, maybe, I could steal it.