To Kiss in the Shadows (6 page)

“You don't frighten me,” Maud said, puffing herself up.

But it would seem that he frightened the rest of her rabbits, for the other three were near to collapse in the passageway.

“Perhaps I don't,” Jason conceded. “But you don't know the extent of what I can do. Especially my talent for carrying tales to the king to ruin the lives of foolish, spiteful wenches possessing sharp tongues and few wits. Do you care for a performance of that one?”

Maud considered, then turned and, one by one, slapped three whimpering women smartly across their faces.

“On your feet, Linet. Come, Adela. Stand up, Janet, you fool! Let us be away. We'll sleep in the solar.”

Jason waited, faintly satisfied, until they had stomped away before he turned and went back inside the chamber. The serving girl was covering Lianna with blankets.

But Lianna wasn't moving.

Jason hastened to the side of the bed. The servant looked up as he approached.

“I did as ye bid me, milord,” she said. “But she's powerful ill.”

“Aye,” Jason said absently. “I daresay 'twas poison.”

“Mayhap 'tis mostly gone from her.”

“Let us pray that 'tis so,” he said. “Fetch my brother, will you? I've an errand for him. I'll need several things from the healer, if the man can provide them.”

“Aye, milord, as ye will.”

Jason sent the woman on her way, then looked about him for something to sit on. Finding a small stool, he pulled it near the bed, sat, and searched back through his own lessons at a healer's knee for what he should do at present. His lessons had been thorough, and most unusual, given from whom he'd had them. He smiled to himself at the thought. Perhaps the lady of Harrow had not spoken amiss after all. He could brew a love potion, cure warts and other afflictions, and slather on quite a salve of beauty, should circumstances require.

As well as spew out a variety of quite potent curses, which was enormously tempting at the moment.

But the saints pity him should he not be able to remember the simple herbs to aid the woman before him in ridding her body of what foul brew she'd ingested.

He contemplated that list of herbs for what seemed to him an inordinately long amount of time. He was on the verge of going to seek out Kendrick himself when the door opened and a torch entered the chamber, carried by none other than his yawning brother.

“Lianna, where are you? I know that to have called me to you as I was about to retire can only mean that you've one desire of me—”

Kendrick's yawn ceased abruptly when he saw who was laid out on the bed.

“What happened to her?” he said, coming to stand next to Jason.

“To Lianna?” Jason asked, looking up at his brother sourly. “To the woman you couldn't see fit to introduce to me?”

Kendrick looked at him blankly. “I was tormenting you. 'Tis my sworn duty as your elder brother to do so. Now, what happened to her? She was seemingly happy enough with the ladies. When I was summoned here, I thought perhaps she had a tryst in mind.”

“With you? Poor girl, I should hope not,” Jason said.

“Why not? Many women—”

“Aye, exactly. Perhaps this one has more sense than the others.”

Kendrick flicked him smartly on the ear, then peered over his shoulder. “Why are you here then? And see you how she sleeps. What have you done, Jason? Bored her so deeply that she must sleep to escape you?”

“Kendrick, you fool, she was poisoned!”

Kendrick gasped. “Nay! By whom?”

“By those who would have you, likely.”

“Stupid wenches. Surely no man is worth this—not even I.”

At least in that his brother was showing some sense. Jason reached for Lianna's hand and held it between his own. Her flesh felt as if it were on fire. Jason looked up at his brother.

“Go fetch me herbs,” he said.

Kendrick blinked. “Are you brewing love potions for her now?”

“Healing ones, dolt.”

“One never knows, what with your teachers.”

“Berengaria is a fine healer.”

“Oh, aye,” Kendrick agreed, “she is that. I daresay her two accomplices might have a different tale to tell about her varied talents and whether or not she is of the witchly ilk. Though I must admit Phillip was no worse for the wear for his time spent in their company.”

Phillip, their older brother, had followed his bride on a merry chase, accompanied by none other than Berengaria of Artane, lately of Blackmour, and her two apprentices, one of whom had willingly gone north in search for—of course—the thumb-bone of a wizard.

Whether she had found it or not was something of a family secret.

Jason smiled faintly. “They were all that aided him in taming his bride, so I daresay he has no complaints. And now that you've convinced yourself my skills aren't dark ones, go fetch me what I need.”

“I'm not at all sure your skills aren't dark ones,” Kendrick said with half a laugh, “but I will fetch you what you require, then I will return and make certain that our lady's honor isn't compromised by having you loitering about her chamber alone with your own sour self.”

Jason spat out his list at his brother, then rose and gave him a healthy shove toward the door.

“Shall I bring you anything else?” Kendrick asked from the doorway. “Something for your sneezes? Or can you spell yourself into good health?”

“Horehound,” Jason said shortly. “It will serve me as well as the lady here. But be swift, for I would waste no more time in seeing to the rest of this poison.”

“As you will,” Kendrick said, turning to leave.

“And a lute,” Jason added.

“Lute?” Kendrick echoed. “And where am I to find—”

“There are musicians aplenty. Filch one of theirs.”

Kendrick sighed and left without further comment.

Jason stared after him and spared a fleeting thought for how he really should be following his brother out that door, down the stairs, and out the castle gates. He had a crusade to make, kings to woo, and a noble cause to righteously pursue.

None of which had anything to do with where he was at present or what poor service he felt compelled to render here.

Jason sat, bowed his head over Lianna's hand, and offered up the most humble prayer his black soul could muster. His other life would have to wait while he fought for this life here. He could only hope he had enough skill to save that life.

With the way she was breathing so unevenly, he wasn't sure he would manage it.

 

 

 

 

And by the sound of things, she was certain, though somewhat surprised, that she had actually been admitted straight to Heaven without having to spend any time doing penance in Purgatory.

Music surrounded her, music that sounded remarkably like that made by a lute. That was puzzling, to be sure, as she'd always been led to believe that choirs of angels would attend the entrance of any soul through those Eternal Gates. But perhaps she was lowly enough—and had barely sufficed as a entrant—to merit naught but a single instrument to welcome her home.

And then the chord went astray.

“Damn.”

Lianna struggled to open her eyes. Perhaps she'd sinned more than she thought to merit naught but a lute and a lutenist who dared curse in such a place. Perhaps she was still on the outskirts of the Eternal City, trapped with those who were still seeking to make themselves presentable.

“You should have practiced more,” said a deep voice.

Lianna did manage to open her eyes then, though the sight that greeted her was no less baffling than what she'd imagined.

“I did practice. I practiced a great deal. Father vowed the sweet sounds of a lute were the way to win a lady's heart. I practiced until my bloody fingers were bloody!”

“In between consorting with witches, warlocks, and other sorcerers of dubious origins, of course.”

“Aye, well, that too.”

Lianna blinked. She would have rubbed her eyes as well, but her hands were too heavy to lift. She looked blearily at the two great birds sitting not far from her, one with fair feathers and one with dark. The dark bird was tall and graceful, with a proud tilt to his head and shining dark eyes. He was also holding the lute and cursing now and again. The fair bird next to him opened his beak and snorted.

Did winged creatures snort? She puzzled that out for several moments, but could come to no useful decision on it.

“It isn't as if
you
practiced any,” the lute-playing one grumbled.

“And as you might imagine, my bed has not suffered from my lack of it. You must have more than pitiful skills on a lute to keep and hold the attention of a woman, brother.”

“I have more skills than that.”

“As one sees from the flocks of women who fight each other to have you.”

Flocks of women? He obviously meant flocks of female birds. Lianna struggled to make sense of what they said, but it was difficult. She listened to them toss insults at each other, with increasingly unpleasant curses attached, for quite some time before it occurred to her that fowl such as these were certainly not members of any angelic choir, nor were they likely to be accompanying that choir anytime soon. A slow, steady feeling of terror swept over her.

“Nay,” she breathed, when she could manage to find the word.

The dark bird immediately fastened a piercing gaze upon her hapless self, as if he intended to make a meal of her.

She tried to focus on him, but he seemed to weave about greatly, as if either he could not remain still or she could not. After trying to divine the truth of it for several minutes, she gave herself over to the only truth she knew.

She hadn't gone to Heaven. Heaven could not produce lute-playing birds with such foul speech. There was only one place for such as she, and she had apparently traveled there without delay. She felt tears begin to slip down her cheeks.

“I've gone to Hell,” she wept.

“What?” the dark one asked.

“Foul notes, foul words,” she managed.

And at that, the fair-feathered bird tossed back his head, opened his beak, and roared out a laugh.

She watched as the dark bird reached out toward her. No doubt he intended to clutch her with that hand he had suddenly fashioned himself and carry her down with him to his fiery dungeon. The saints pity her, she was doomed.

Blackness engulfed her, and she knew no more.

 

 

She woke, only realizing then that she had been asleep.
She stirred, and her poor form set up such a clamor that she immediately ceased all movement save drawing in hesitant breaths. By the saints, what had befallen her? Had someone beaten her nigh onto death?

She lay still for several minutes, searching back through her memories for one of any sense. There were dreams aplenty, ones with large birds and rather pleasant strumming of a lute, but those were surely naught but madness, Had she been ill? She had very vivid memories of the pox and how her fever had raged. This was akin to that but somehow worse, as if every part of her had been assaulted by some foul thing.

She could make out the bedhangings above her. Heavy layers of blankets and furs covered her. She was abed, which was something in itself given that she'd passed the majority of her nights as a member of the king's entourage sleeping on a straw pallet on the floor. The chamber was light, but that was from daylight, not candlelight. She turned her head to the right, wondering if she might be able to see out the window. But what she found was enough to still her forever.

Jason of Artane sat on a stool not a handful of paces away.

He was leaning back against the wall, his head tipped to one side, sound asleep. Lianna could scarce believe her eyes. How had he found his way into her chamber? And what, by all the blessed saints of Heaven, was he doing sleeping here? She looked to his right to find a serving maid curled up on the floor, sound asleep as well. Interesting though that might have been, it surely did not merit any further notice. So she turned her attentions back to the man who slept sitting up on a stool, with his hands limp in his lap and his mouth open to admit the passage of a soft snore or two.

He was almost close enough for her to touch him.

Deadly nightshade that he was.

But he didn't look deadly at present. He looked innocent and harmless and at peace. He looked like a man who would draw a child onto his lap and tell it stories for the whole of the afternoon if asked. He looked like a man who would pull his lady wife into his arms, rest his chin atop her head, and tell her he was happy to face life with her beside him. He looked like the sort of man her father would have found no fault with.

He looked like a man on the verge of drooling.

That sort of catastrophe was seemingly enough to rouse him from slumber, for he straightened with a snort, smacked his lips a time or two, then opened his eyes. And a smile of such dazzling brightness crossed his features, she was near blinded by it.

And at that moment, she was firmly and irretrievably lost.

He dropped to his knees at her bedside. “The saints be praised,” he said, looking at her with visible relief. “Can you speak?”

She swallowed. “Aye,” she whispered.

He put his hand to her forehead, and she received another pleased smile as a result.

“Your fever is but a slight one, though I daresay you're still recovering from the fierce one you've already had.” Then he looked at her and frowned. “Do you know who I am?”