We spend the next hour making our plans. We will sleep one more night here, then leave as soon as it is light enough to see. I make another small fire in the hearth and set the mud and herbs for another poultice to boiling. When the mixture is nearly hot enough to blister skin, I fill a linen square with the mud and herbs, wrapping it as quickly as possible so the heat does not escape, nearly burning my fingers in the process.

As I move away from the hearth, the jailor comes in from the yard, where he has collected every weapon d’Albret’s men carried. He sets them down next to Beast, then moves to take a turn at the dwindling embers in an attempt to prepare something for our empty bellies.

Beast hisses as I lay a poultice on his shoulder. “Lie still,” I tell him.

“I am,” he says between clenched teeth, then hisses again as I place the second poultice on his festering leg wound.

He glares at me. “You needn’t enjoy this so much.”

I send him a scathing glance. “You are deranged if you think I am enjoying being trapped in an abandoned hut with an ogre and a gargoyle as my only companions.” I turn away from him to collect the linen strips I made from the soldier’s unused shirts, surprised to realize I am enjoying this. There are no vipers slithering about underfoot nor nightmares lurking in the shadows.

When I turn back to him, I make sure none of my thoughts show on my face. “Can you sit up so I can bind your ribs?” If he cannot sit, best we know it now so we can alter our plans. He grunts an assent, the muscles in his abdomen shifting and rippling like waves as he pulls himself into a sitting position. His eyes close for a moment.

“Are you going to faint again?” I hurry around to block his fall so he will not crash to the ground. Although like as not he would just take me to the floor with him.

“No,” he grunts.

I wait a minute to be sure he isn’t fooling himself, then go back and pick up the linen strip and begin wrapping it around his torso. Even after being locked away for more than a fortnight, he is as thick as a tree trunk.

“For a woman with a sharp tongue, you have surprisingly gentle hands,” he says.

“I think your injuries have caused you to lose the feeling in your body, for while I am many things, none of them are gentle.”

He says nothing but watches me, as if trying to peer past my skin and my bone to my very soul. Under his scrutiny, my movements grow clumsy. “Here,” I say shortly. “Hold that in place.” I turn and fetch another piece of linen.

“Did these brothers of yours suffer broken ribs often?” he asks.

“Once or twice,” I mutter, busying myself with the second strip. “They were clumsy lads and constantly falling from their horses.” I do not meet his gaze, for of course they were not. Pierre’s ribs were broken when, at twelve years of age, he was unseated from his horse by a blow from a lance in tourney practice. My father kicked him until he rose to his feet and remounted his horse. He suffered far more from my father’s kicks than from the fall.

And Julian—ah, Julian. His ribs were broken while trying to protect me from my father’s wrath.

“What’s wrong?” Beast asks softly.

“Nothing,” I tell him, pulling the bandage so tight that he grunts in protest. “I only worry about how we will get you back on your horse if you fall off.”

Beast says nothing more until the gargoyle motions to us that our supper is ready. I secure the last bandage and hand Beast the bowl of what appears to be gruel with something unsavory-looking floating in it. “So,” I say, taking my own bowl. “Your man cannot tend wounds, nor even wash your face properly, nor is he a cook. What, precisely, is he to you?” I ask.

Beast ignores me and shovels the gruel in as fast as he can. If his appetite has returned in full, that is a good sign. Or perhaps he is merely afraid that if it grows cool it will be inedible. Certainly that is my fear.

When he is done, he sets the bowl down and turns his steady gaze to me. “Yannic was once my squire. When my sister left for d’Albret’s household, I ordered him to accompany her and send me regular reports on her well-being.”

I gape at him, then turn to stare at Yannic. I am certain I never saw him in our household, although that would not be so unusual. My father has hundreds of servants and thousands of vassals, many of whom I have never met. “Could he speak then?” I am afraid I already know the answer.

“Aye,” Beast says grimly. “And write, too.”

I glance down at Yannic’s right hand to see that the top half of each of his three middle fingers has been removed so he cannot hold a quill. Unwilling to look either of them in the eye, I pretend I am busy fishing for a piece of sausage in my bowl.

Did d’Albret remember this connection between his prisoner and his sixth wife’s attendant and use it as one rubs salt into a wound? Or was Yannic the only one available who lacked the power of speech and so made an ideal jailor? One could never be certain with d’Albret. “Does that mean Yannic would not mind if we asked him to pile the dead soldiers into the cart and set fire to them? It would be better to leave no signs of our stay.”

The two men exchange a dark look, then Beast answers. “No, he would not mind a bit.”

“Good, because we should not waste an opportunity to lead our pursuers well away from us. The smoke from such a large fire should get their attention, and the dead bodies will make them question just how many are in our party. If Yannic can drive the cart a mile or two east of here, the fire will also lead them in the wrong direction.”

Beast grins. “If you ever tire of being Mortain’s handmaiden, I am certain Saint Camulos would be more than happy to accept your service.”

I roll my eyes at the mere idea of such a thing, but his words please me, all the same.

Chapter Eighteen

WE TRY TO GET AN early start the next day, but between the little gnome of a jailor, the wounded giant, and—what role do I assign myself? The charioteer?—we are like a mummers’ farce. At last we get the horses ready and the gear packed and—most difficult of all—the lumbering, crippled Beast onto his saddle. I am exhausted before we even leave the yard, but when we finally do, I breathe a sigh of relief.

In spite of what Beast claims, he is far from well enough to travel. We should stay at the hunting lodge another day or two to allow him more time to recover, but we dare not. While the lodge is well off the main road and not widely known, I have no doubt more of d’Albret’s men will find it soon enough. Luckily, I do not think it will be the first place they look, for they will assume we want to put more distance between ourselves and our pursuers. And they are right. The back of my neck tingles with foreboding.

Brisk winds have blown the rain clouds away, and the sky above is clear and blue. All that clear sky makes a perfect backdrop for the thin trickle of smoke that rises from the smoldering remains of the night-soil cart and its inhabitants nearly a mile away.

Please Mortain, let it buy us some time.

But in case it does not, we are each armed with weapons scavenged from d’Albret’s men. With Yannic’s help, Beast has altered a scabbard so he may wear the sword on his back within easy reach. I, too, have a sword, but it is strapped to my saddle next to the crossbow that hangs there. Beast has also purloined the woodcutter’s ax from its place near the lodge’s woodpile. It hangs from the left side of his saddle near his injured arm. Although how he expects to wield it, I do not know.

We ride out in silence. Beast is wisely conserving his energy, and I have far too much to think about to waste time in idle conversation. If all goes well, we should be there in four days. If the fever does not consume Beast’s weakened body, and if he can stay in the saddle, and if d’Albret’s riders do not find us.