54. Dreaming

“Who was that?”

said Quinn, when she arrived having just missed a departing Isabeau.

“A former lover of my husband’s who warned me of the Lady Vinia.”

Quinn took Isabeau’s place on the fountain’s edge.

“The noblewoman who always stares at you in the baths.

River pointed her out to me.”

I nodded.

“We must tell the others to never speak to her.

The woman I was just speaking with told me her livelihood was almost destroyed due to Vinia’s possessiveness.”

“Dear gods,”

Quinn said.

“If she cannot get to me, I worry she will try to get to one of you.”

“We will go about her carefully, Edie.”

“Yes.

We will.

But first, I have decided to be extravagant and spend what coin I have on lavender oil.

Will you accompany me back inside?”

Quinn’s face fell.

“I am sorry you are all siphoning your own wages for River.

I confess I take it enthusiastically.

But please know that we are eternally grateful—”

I held up a hand.

“We are all as sisters now.

I will not hear another word.”

I was desperate to be alone.

My mind was awhirl with Isabeau’s story.

I needed to parse it out and examine how I now saw my husband, how much to fear Vinia and what any of it meant to me.

But we had to visit the brewery and I had promised to walk with Helena to the dyer’s on the way home.

She was hoping to buy ground verdigris.

I wanted to speak with her about it, but I still needed to think on it in my own head first.

I let her speak more about the mural, about the blues and greens Prince Peregrine had said he would happily fund, still acting in his role of making sure his brother’s whims were executed in as fair a manner as he could.

I focused on her contentment in painting, noting it to convey to Mischa later.

After the dinner meal, in the corridor, Luka tentatively approached Maureen and spoke shyly to her.

She became excited and nodded at what he said.

He left her and she turned to us and said, “He found kittens in the stables! But there is no mother cat to be found.

He is going to bring them to the dormitory.

There are five of them.”

This was the diversion I required.

Luka delivered the mewling creatures in a crate of hay.

He had secured a half jug of milk from the kitchens.

We spent an hour playing with the kittens and feeding them from cloth dipped into the milk.

I then made my way to our room, in need of solitude.

I uncorked my new vial of lavender and rubbed it over my hands and neck.

I poured a tin cup of water and added a small drop of lightleaf.

I sat at the desk and looked through the narrow window above it as Pikestully began to be blanketed by the night.

There was a knock at the door and my heart skipped a beat.

“Come in,”

I said, surprised at my steadiness.

My husband came inside, nodding in my direction and hung his breastplate, sword and shield on the wall and turned back to me.

“Did you have a good day in the city?”

I looked up at him and inwardly laughed at myself.

Did I expect that he would look different? He was still taciturn, still stiff of posture.

“I did.”

He nodded, placing his hands on his hips, his default standing.

I looked at him a second time, saying, “You trained on the day of rest?”

“I have been lax in my own practice.

Because of the trials.”

I shook my head.

“And you will wake before dawn tomorrow and fight a boy of nineteen with your bare hands.

You cannot go on like this.

You run yourself ragged.”

He dropped his gaze to the floor.

“Your concern is very… wifely.”

I snorted.

“My concern is very logical.

And I know you do not sleep well.”

He looked up.

“You do?”

“Yes, Alric.

We share a bed.”

It was quick and faint, but he blushed.

“Put a drop of lightleaf oil in your water or your whiskey tonight.

It will let you sleep.”

My husband shook his head.

“It makes my tongue loose.”

“I disagree.

I think it makes you talk as much as the average man.”

He looked back down at the floor.

I thought him offended, but then he said, “You are merry tonight, wife.”

Because it was the opposite of how I had felt before he strode inside, I gave a laugh and stood.

“I will allow you the room.

Your day of rest is not yet over.

You should do something restful.

Promise me you will use the lightleaf.”

I extended the cup to him.

“Take it.

You need to sleep.”

He gave a reluctant nod and reached out to take the cup.

His fingers grazed over mine.

They were callused and rough.

As I pulled away, I looked at him and noticed his eyes were on the cup.

His eyelashes were against his cheek and he looked vulnerable.

And I wondered how Vinia could have chosen another man over him? And then I wondered at my own thoughts.

Why had the thoughtful Isabeau’s coy appeal made me jealous? Why did I want to meet Vinia in the baths in the morning and tell her that her cause was hopeless? I had but known this man little more than a handful of moons and he had been my captor for twenty of those days.

And what I did know of him was like the strips of paint Helena and Maureen had peeled off of the throne room’s walls.

They had not been able to discern what the first artist had rendered.

“When I return,”

I said in mock matronliness, “I expect to find you abed and dreaming.”

I knew not why I teased him.

Maybe I needed to finally see a smile.

“You will find me dreaming, madam,”

he said, sober eyes on me as he took a sip.