Beast (7 page)

“Your looks?” he supplied for her.

When she responded simply, “My brother,” his expression froze. He was not so triumphant now, his iron gaze softening to something horrified. She looked back to her sewing. “My father lived, you know. For a few weeks. I could hear him screaming from my sickroom in the tower. He was burned worse than I, though I never saw it. Wilhelm once told me that father’s chin had melted to his neck, so he was unable to speak, but for to scream. He might have survived his burns. It was the choking that killed him. His lungs were so clogged with smoke, he would cough up great, black chunks like pine tar–“

“I won’t listen to this a moment more.” Philipe went to the door, and it took every ounce of the hatred in her heart to call him back.

And words, words she’d sworn in her deepest heart that she would never repeat to anyone. “My brother took longer.”

Only those words, and he stopped, hand splayed against the blackened wood, his shoulders tight beneath the simple sackcloth shirt.

“He lasted a few weeks,” she told him, forcing her voice to steady. “We shared our sickroom, so nurse could be with us both. And in the dark at night, while she slept, I could hear him praying for death. No matter what potions she gave him, no matter what salves they used to ease the pain, for weeks, he prayed that death would take him.”

Philipe turned, his expression unreadable as ever. Perhaps a slash of feigned caring, bolstered by self-importance, went into this mask of seeming grief. “My loss may not have been as tragic. Every day I resent my father’s decision to leave when there was so much unrest, to leave you all to bear the fire. He should have offered you help. He should have taken you, at least you and your brothers, into his protection at the palace. I pleaded with him, but I was just a boy, Johanna. I am still a boy, in many ways, unable to speak out to my father.

“You lost much in the fire. I will not claim to have suffered more, for only a fool would.” He met her eyes finally, tearing his gaze from the flames in the hearth to capture her in an expression far more honest than any she’d though him capable of. “But I did lose something that night. Something so dear to me that I may never stop mourning that loss.”

She let him go this time, and waited for the tears that would crumple her face painfully in defiance of her stiff flesh. They never came. Perhaps she had no more tears left to cry for the boy prince.

Outside, the winds lashed against each other, east blaming west for the trap they’d met in the valley. It did not matter, she wanted to tell them. Once something entered this valley, it would never leave. The mountains, once safe friends, had revealed themselves as jailers. The wind, the snow, the light, her despair, all would die imprisoned at Hazelhurn.

Lifting the edge of the cloth that held off the night air, she slipped her hand outside, against the winter-cold stone. Wilhelm rode through that biting cold, to help the man who had done nothing as they had faced grave danger. The son of the man who had destroyed their happiness, stolen their youth. What did he see that she did not? Politics? Politics were a poor salve for a wounded heart.

When she pulled her hand back, flecks of white fluff lay against her palm. It snowed in the valley. She hoped that wherever Wilhelm lay tonight, he was warm and safe.

“Be with him, Jacob,” she implored the deceased twin, conjuring his face in her mind. “Protect him.”

Chapter Five

The mornings were always the worst, Philipe found. After a night alone with his thoughts and irrational fears, he always woke to a new and prickly dawn, uncertain of what he might say or do that would unintentionally wound Johanna. This day was no different, as he dressed and washed for the day. The stubble on his cheeks had become more pronounced, almost beard-like. He wasn’t sure he liked that. Beards were for old men. He wasn’t an old man. He was a young, dashing prince.

A young, dashing prince who likely couldn’t charm a mirror out of his hostess. With every passing day, Johanna grew angrier with him, though he hadn’t imagined himself capable of doing anything to deepen her seemingly bottomless well of hatred for him. Still, it was worth trying. “You don’t by chance have a mirror, do you?”

“What would I want with a mirror?” she asked, never looking up from her sewing.

He took a patience-restoring breath. “I have want of one. I’d like to scrape off some of these whiskers.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t have at least one with you in your saddle bags,” she commented tartly. But she said no more.

He sat on the bench and rolled his shoulder, biting back a pained sound. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he expected sympathy. Something wasn’t right with the wound, though, a pulsing, insistent flame burned deep in it. She’d dressed and bathed the wound the night before, and she’d remarked on how well it had looked. More to the point, she’d said, “Looks like you’ll be gone from us in a few days.”

Though he’d let that pass without comment at the time, he could no longer stand her sharp replies and stiff posture. “I won’t leave you alone, you know.”

Her needle hovered above the fabric, but still she did not look up. With a breath, she resumed her stitching. “You left me alone before, easily enough. We’ve established that.”

“We have.” He had no desire to undergo the same torturous conversation again. “This is different.”

“I see no difference, for me. At the beginning, we lost two, sometimes three survivors a year, to death or to the lure of an easier life under some fatter lord. I will survive without my brother, as I survived with him.” Her bored affectation was that, and no more. A mask that no more tricked him into believing she would be fine on her own than it tricked him into believing a common peasant was a dragon.

He would let her have her pride, for now. “If you need anything, you know you may always turn to me.”

“I did not, but now I do.” She made a derisive little snort of laughter. “Very generous of you to offer when you’re on the run from the crown.”

From the window, he saw the valley spread out beneath the full moon’s light. Empty, undisturbed snow lay for miles. “He might not come back, Johanna.”

“I know.” There was no fight left in her answer, and when he turned back to her, her shoulders had sagged, her embroidery forgotten in her lap.

Though his arm throbbed and he knew he would likely receive a shriek or a slap for his troubles, he went to her and knelt beside her chair. “When I vowed that I would help, I meant it.”

She took his hand in hers and squeezed it, soundless tears splashing down on her knuckles.

This was not the outcome he’d planned for. He’d not imagined she would give him leave to actually comfort her. Now, he didn’t know what to do. “He might be all right. Perhaps the narrows to the valley became impassible. When my arm heals, I will ride out in search of him.”

“And conveniently never return,” she bit back.

Let her slap him for it, he did not care. He reached over and pushed her chin up until she faced him. Looking her in her ruined eyes through the veil of gossamer black, he swore, “I would not. I won’t abandon you again.”

He waited for her denial. When it did not come, he rose and went to his bed.

“Wait.” She called to him, tears still evident in her voice. When he turned, she continued, “I would feel more… I would be at ease, if you would sleep in Wilhelm’s bed. Just until he returns. I do not like to be alone up there.”

“I’ll sleep there, then,” he told her, and went to the door. Upstairs, Wilhelm’s cot was still neatly made from the morning he’d left. Johanna had done that, with her two loving hands, so it would be waiting when her brother returned. Guilt lanced through Philipe’s heart. Perhaps his father had been right. He truly did destroy everyone around him. He’d helped his sister into exile, had led Jessop to his death. Now, Wilhelm likely awaited trial in Lord Fueil’s dungeons, unless he’d been hanged already. And Johanna. He’d destroyed her life twice, once when he’d been so cowardly to leave her behind then cast her aside, and a second time when he’d ridden wounded to her doorstep.

His arm hung limp at his side, too painful to move as he undressed for bed. He’d slept most of the day out of boredom, yet he still felt as though he could slumber for days. That did not bode well, he knew, but he would not let himself fret over it. It was an impossibility that he would not recover. He’d made a vow to Johanna. He would be damned if he broke another to her.

Though she could ignore Philipe’s perspiration and struggle to remain upright during their supper, she could not let his grunts of pain go unanswered in the chill of the night. She pushed aside the bed curtains and went to the hearth to light a candle from the coals, carefully tucking her nightgown around her legs to prevent a stray spark from setting her alight. She lifted the candle high above his bed. His face was drawn and shimmering with sweat, his eyes fixed on the wall beside the pallet.

She pressed her hand to his forehead. Though he perspired, his skin still burned, and she drew her fingers back. “Damn you, Philipe.”

“I didn’t…” his teeth chattered pitiably as he tried to speak. He didn’t move, but his eyes canted toward her. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

“And why would I be worried about you?” she snapped, pulling the coverlet back. He lay nude beneath, but his body held no fascination for her in illness.

“You might be worried you’ll have to bury me,” he managed, and though his words were very grave, she still heard his humor behind them. At least, he was not too far gone for that.

She tucked the blanket around his chest. His shoulder was angry red, with streaks reaching toward his heart like poisoned lightning. Johanna recoiled.

“As bad as all that?” he asked, and a tremor passed through him, making his words a sob.

She forced herself to scold him. If she treated him kindly, he would know the extent of his illness. “You’ll live, I fear. But something must be done. It’s gone sour.”

“Do you know how to treat it?” He shivered and spit burst from his lips as he breathed hard. The cords of his neck strained beneath the skin.

“That, I won’t know until I’ve seen the wound.” She went to the laver beside the bed and plunged her hands in, scrubbing her hands as clean as she could with the cold water. Nurse used to say the only thing that had saved Joanna’s life after the burns was cleanliness, and Johanna had taken it to heart. It would do no good if she were to introduce some different foul humor into his body while tending to the one that already lurked there.

She went to his side and lifted the corner of the bandage. The impossible heat beneath her fingertips confirmed her suspicion before the rancid smell assailed her. She had sealed the wound too soon, trapping disease inside. This was her fault.

“It isn’t as bad as all that, is it?” he asked through chattering teeth.

Though she’d found it difficult to drum up pity for him before, she certainly felt it now. Perhaps it was just guilt. “I’ll have to reopen the wound and purge the infection. I’m sure Nurse left something for that.”

“Yes, that sounds brilliant. Let’s cut me open and smear some ancient salve from a dusty box into the fresh wound. That should heal the infection from the old one.”

She ignored his venom, pushing herself to remember what Nurse had taught her.
Mold to purge, honey to cure. Was it the other way?
She remembered the moldering bread downstairs, and rushed to retrieve it.

The lower room was dark, but for the faint red glow from the embers in the hearth. She tiptoed across the room, one eye warily on those coals. The fires of Hazelhurn had burned for days after, with that same red malevolence. She sucked up a fortifying breath and knelt down to snatch up the bread Wilhelm had carelessly discarded. On the table, a kitchen knife glittered. She wiped the blade on her dress and hurried back upstairs.

“Are you to make a meal of me, then?” Philipe asked, when he saw the honey and bread.

She poked at the coals in the fireplace and used a long handle to hang a kettle over the cinders. “It’s a trick of my Nurse’s. The honey is hers. Did you know that honey will never rot?”

“I’ll remember that when I am too poor to buy fresh honey or too infirm to climb a tree and steal some.”

“I believe that time has come,” she said, and realized uncomfortably that she chided him not solely out of hatred. “But use some sense, highness. If honey does not rot, and I pour it onto your festering, vile, pestilent arm, perhaps it will send the rot there scurrying away. It was how Nurse explained it to me.”

“Then I will thank your Nurse personally when her medicine kills me.” He laughed weakly. “Do what you will.”

When the water heated enough to be effective, she retrieved the kettle and wet some clean linens. She pressed them over the wound, and he hissed. She hoped the heat would draw up the foulness and rend the original tear, so that she would not need to use the knife. After a time, she lifted the cloth and pressed at the reddened skin. It gave way, the healing pink flesh giving way to spill free the putrefaction inside. Philipe groaned in relief. “I realize this is disgusting, and you will never look at me without remembering it, but I don’t care.”

She smiled, but turned away to hide it. It seemed wrong to find anything about Philipe amusing, and especially now, with Wilhelm missing…

Put some steel in your spine, woman!
she scolded herself. She had spent fifteen years tending the soil of her anger. She would not allow Philipe’s manufactured charm to wilt the fruit of it on the vine. “You don’t have to pretend that you care about retaining my good opinion. I know I am not the type of woman you’d drag to your bed.”

“I have never had to drag anyone,” he said through clenched teeth as she pressed a fresh, hot cloth to the wound. “You were the only person to refuse me.”