The Lascar's Dagger (38 page)

She gave a tight little smile. “Turn back? And let you go on to kill an innocent man? I think not.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Saker, innocent? Are you out of your mind? Weren’t you there when the Lady Mathilda told the King what that rutting cleric did to her?”

“Indeed I was, and almost every word of it was a lie, told in the hope that the King would not send her away as a virgin bride when she patently was no such thing. Losing her virginity was her idea, not Saker’s. And she certainly had no plans to lose her maidenhead by rape.”

His mouth gaped foolishly open. It was a moment before he thought to snap it shut. Mathilda
lied
?
He groped for words to deny what must be a calumny. “Have you no modesty, you – you – saucy…” Words failed him, until in the end he shouted, “You lying-tongued viper!”

He’d never been so furious. How dare this nobody, this servant from some unknown Shenat family, defile his sister with her words? He sprang at her, dagger still in his hand, and this time he did have murder on his mind. She dodged behind the roan again, but that placed her at a disadvantage because she was hemmed in by the dapple grey on the other side. There was nowhere to run except across the heath. He expected her to try, and yelled at his hounds to guard her. They approached her from behind, growling, but they were half-hearted about it. Va-damn, they knew her as someone likely to feed them titbits, rather than present a threat to him.

She ignored them and faced him instead, with surprising calm. “Think about it, your highness. Think about what the Lady Mathilda said. Consider what you know about your sister’s character. Do you
really
think she would rise in the middle of the night to go to the chapel to
pray
? And if she did, do you think she’d go without me or one of her ladies-in-waiting? And consider what you know about Witan Saker. Is he really the kind of man to force himself on a woman? Let alone the Princess!”

She stood tall and proud in front of him, dressed in her ridiculous clothing, looking him directly in the eye. She didn’t appear frightened, or embarrassed by her lack of skirts, or intimidated by his position. She didn’t do any of the things he thought a normal woman would do under the circumstances. Instead, remarkably composed, she said, “So, would you like me to tell you the whole story?”

Nonplussed, he hesitated, aware that his moment of sheer rage had passed. “You can try,” he said. “If you lie, I’ll kill you.”

She gave the faintest of smiles and said, “Oh, I suspect you’ll be more likely to kill me if I tell the truth. Still, here’s the true story of what happened that night. The Princess woke me about midnight. She told me she wanted to borrow a dress and my cloak in order to leave the solar, disguised as me. I wanted to know why. She wouldn’t tell me. She ordered me to help her, and when I objected and called her behaviour foolish, she threatened me with dismissal. Your highness, I have nowhere to go. I have no money, no family who has any interest in my well-being, nothing except what Lady Mathilda gives me.”

“So you’re telling me that instead of performing your proper duties as a handmaiden and protecting your princess, instead of acting in her best interests, you allowed her to leave in the middle of the night dressed in your clothes, to go Va knows where?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I did do. I’m not proud of it.”

“And as a result she was raped by a man we all trusted – her spiritual adviser.”

“No, your highness. Her plans didn’t include rape. I’m guessing she chose Saker to seduce because he’s a very handsome man, and because he’s in love with her. Any woman with her eyes open could see that. So she went to his room and knocked on his door.”

“But you weren’t there! How can you possibly know what happened?”

“I followed her, how could I not? Oh, I thought the passage was safe enough – there may not have been guards outside our door, not then, but the main entrances to all the corridors in the royal wing are guarded, after all. But I couldn’t be sure where she was going, and I wanted to make certain she was safe. I saw her knock at Saker’s door. I saw the door open. Va help me, I turned around and went away, leaving them alone.”

She flushed. Colour filled her cheeks, suffused even her neck.

“And I do know what she told me afterwards,” she added. “When she returned to our apartments I was sitting up waiting for her. She said she’d set out to seduce him, and succeeded. She came in with a smile on her face. She looked triumphant, not devastated by – by some sort of bestial attack.”

His rage returned. He reached out, seized her shoulder with one hand and placed the point of the dagger to her breast. “You lie!”

“Do you want to hear the rest?”

He couldn’t understand it. She still didn’t seem to be afraid. She wasn’t even trembling under his hand. She met his gaze fearlessly.

“Go on,” he said, forcing the words out when he would rather have hit her. But even as he spoke, he pressed down on the knife until he felt it slip through the cloth of her clothing to break the skin beneath.

She flinched, but continued her story. “Lady Mathilda changed out of my clothes and into her own. While she dressed, she told me what she’d done. ‘I’m no longer a maid,’ she said, and she was
so
smug about it. ‘Saker is an accomplished lover.’ So I asked her why she’d done such a thing, when she was about to go to Lowmeer to marry. In truth, I was shocked. I know Lady Mathilda can be giddy at times, but I never dreamt she would do anything that dizzy-eyed. I never considered that Saker would…”

She stopped and took a deep breath. “That’s when she told me she was going to the King. She thought that as she was no longer pure, he would not – could not – send her to the Regal for marriage.”

Calmly she laid her hand over the top of his where it clasped the dagger, and said, “Would you mind not doing that? The point is hurting me.”

Her cold serenity astonished him. He had control over her life or death, and the only person who could gainsay him was King Edwayn himself. So why wasn’t this nondescript woman afraid of him? He poured his fury into his words. “Just who do you think you are to tell me what I can and cannot do?”

She did not move. “Are you going to kill me for telling the truth, your highness?”

“Why should I believe you instead of my royal sister?” He pushed the dagger in a little further. She gasped this time, and blood seeped out, staining her tunic. “So what do you have to say now, Mistress Marten?”

Her face was white, but she still didn’t beg for her life. “If I must die in an attempt to save an innocent man, then I will. Perhaps you might also care to consider the well-being of Lady Mathilda’s soul, so that on her death she can choose her place of rest for all eternity. If Saker dies, he’ll die because of
her
lies. And think about this, Prince Ryce – could I have come on this journey without her help? Where would I have got the money from? Your sister sent me on this – this pilgrimage to save Saker’s life. I suggest that you think twice before you stab me.”

He felt ill. Nauseous, as if not only his assumptions had been turned upside down, but also his stomach. Thilda wouldn’t have done this. She couldn’t have. And then, heartbroken,
Mathilda, how could you? You shame us all!

When she pushed his hand and the dagger away, he didn’t resist. His mind was saying,
Tell me it’s a lie. Sweet creation, tell me this is all a lie
… But his memory was of his grandmother calling Thilda a cunning scallywag.
She manipulates you so easily, Ryce.
You must be more alert to her wiles.

Oh, Va. It’s true.
Thilda
betrayed Saker. She seduced him and then threw him away, knowing where he’d end up, as though he was a piece of offal.

He still had his hand on her shoulder, but he held the dagger loosely in his other hand now. Something had died inside him.
So this is what it is going to be like to be king
. “I’m not sure it makes any difference what Thilda did,” he muttered. “Saker committed treason when he lay with her.”

“Of course it makes a difference!”

“Mathilda has to marry the Regal. It’s a – a concern of trade and commerce and Ardronese prosperity. So it’s essential that no one knows of her lack of innocence. How it occurred is of no consequence. What matters is that you know and Saker knows. And so you both have to die. I’m sorry, mistress. I think Saker still deserves to die for what he did. It was his duty to advise his charge, not to take her to bed. And it was your duty to protect her. You both failed.”

Yet I don’t want to do this.

He took a deep breath, preparing himself to stab the knife upwards between her ribs and into her heart, knowing that this time there was no stepping away from his duty as Prince of Ardrone.

A
ren’t princes supposed to be noble defenders of the Kingdom?
Sorrel thought bitterly.
Protecting the people and upholding the law? Pox on this calf. He’s forgotten he’s supposed to have grown up.

Well, she’d be cursed if she’d give up so easily. Besides, Ryce’s determination had no more ice to it than summer snows. His hand quivered as he hesitated.

Sorrel allowed her face to appear to melt like butter in the sun. Under his horrified gaze, her skin sagged, then shifted into shapeless runnels. Eyes, nose, mouth flowed into the flux. He stumbled backwards away from her, appalled, then paralysed with shock.

She began to untie the horses, but kept a watchful eye on him. As soon as she saw he was beginning to regain his wits, she altered her appearance once more. This time she chose to become Mathilda. Perhaps he’d find it difficult to kill someone who was the image of his sister.

Smiling at him, she imitated the curve of Mathilda’s lips, changing her dark hair to golden as it blew around her face. She even added the solitary freckle to her cheek, the blemish Mathilda hated so much.
There you are, your highness: your sister, blue eyes twinkling at you, wearing her favourite dress. And you should recognise that necklace; I believe it once belonged to your mother.

Twice he tried to say something, but no words would come.

She had the grey untied, but the reins belonging to the roan had become hooked into the furze. Struggling with the thorns, she unsettled the roan, and that agitated Saker’s horse in turn. Worse, it was so hard to maintain a smiling Mathilda while trying to deal with the horses and her own growing fear.
I don’t want to die. And what happens to Saker if I do?

“Thilda?” Ryce whispered, a tentative sound she hardly heard. Then, as if he realised that was nonsense, “Who –
what
are you?” His two hounds sniffed around her skirts, but without alarm.

“What does it matter?” She tried to sound like Mathilda.

“Witchery!” He spat the word at her.

“That’s right,” she agreed, tugging the reins free at last. “And witchery is granted by Va, remember. It’s not an evil thing.”

She stepped past him to mount the grey, but he grabbed her by the arm. “You can’t trick me this way! I know who you are.”

The hounds lost interest and disappeared as if they’d smelled something new. Pulling herself free, she flicked her appearance back to her Celandine face, but kept the blue dress. She plumped the imaginary material up into the full overskirt and kirtle, to disorientate him if he grabbed for her again.

The calm in her voice was at odds with the skipping of her heart, “Your highness, you can’t kill me like this. You are an honourable man, and my death would haunt you. Besides, Lady Mathilda needs me, you know that. She’s panic-stricken about her marriage and I can calm her. And think on this: I have the witchery of glamour, granted at the shrine that day you and the Princess met me in Melforn. I can spy for Mathilda at the court of the Regal. Think how useful I can be to the Princess of Ardrone.”

“I can’t trust you. Mathilda can’t trust you! If you – or Saker – were to speak of what was done to her…”

“Nothing was done to her. And her secret is safe with me.”

“Did I hear my name mentioned?” The new voice, coming from the other side of the horses, was so unexpected they both whirled in shock.

Saker stepped out from behind Ryce’s horse, the two hounds indicating their enthusiasm at his arrival by leaping up, tails wagging. He winced as their paws landed on his naked skin.

“Well,” he said, pushing the dogs off, “this
is
an interesting meeting. The last two people I expected to see standing around having a chat in the middle of a moor. Mind if I join you? Of course, I’m hardly dressed for company…”

Ryce, thunderstruck, jaw sagging, drew his sword.

“Mind? Of course not,” Sorrel said, struggling to contain her relief.
He’s alive! Va be thanked …
“Every conversation needs a naked man to add a touch of spice. You look cold.” His chest rose and fell as if he had been running, but his lips were pinched and blue.

Thank you, Va, thank you, guardian of the oak, thank you for saving him.
The relief she felt was so heartfelt, it destroyed all her carefully built barriers, all her carefully constructed self-delusions. Her heartbeat hammered at her ribs.

She cared about him. Damn him.

And there was nothing she could do about it.
Idiot.

Saker twitched the Prince’s cloak from where he’d left it on his saddle. Ryce said nothing, but there was no mistaking his look of consternation. He had no idea what to do.

He expected Saker to be dead,
she thought.
Or close to it.

Saker wrapped the cloak tight around himself. Sorrel stared at him, wondering at the rage she read in his expression, rage directed not at the Prince, but at her. She struggled to comprehend the lack of a wound on his face. His cheek should have been disfigured, horribly. Instead, it was smooth and untouched. She felt her own witchery recognise the existence of a witchery within him, where once there had been none. His burn had been healed and then concealed, but not by glamour magic. Whatever his witchery was, it was nothing like hers.