“Is any of that useful?” asked Shane. “Or mere gossip?”
“That sort of information is always useful,” said Marguerite. “Not necessarily relevant to our task at hand, but the sort of thing that may connect to something else down the line.” She tapped her finger against her lower lip. “Keep gathering it, anyway. You never know what will turn up.”
AN HOUR BEFORE SUNRISE, something did indeed turn up, although in this case it was the maid-of-all-work. She was a middle-aged woman named Ammy, with an expression that indicated she had been born unimpressed and had not seen fit to revise that opinion.
When Shane heard the door open and erupted from his room, clad only in linen braies and the short sword, she looked him up and down, glanced at the blade, and said only, “Eh. I’ve seen bigger.”
“My profound apologies, madam,” said Shane, lowering the sword and feeling rather foolish.
“Son, you’re not even the tenth strangest thing I’ve seen since I started serving at the Court.” She pushed past him and set to work laying the fire in the hearth.
Shane pulled on a little more clothing and went to warn Wren that there was a stranger in the common room. The lump of blankets containing his sister-in-arms muttered something about not stabbing anyone just yet, then rolled over and began to snore.
Ammy finished the fire, tidied the room, then stomped into Wren’s room to repeat the process.
Shane wondered if he should warn Marguerite, dithered briefly, then decided that he probably should.
He tapped on the door, heard nothing, then slipped inside. “Lady Marguerite?”
Her head emerged from the blankets, hair tousled by sleep. “Mmm…？ Oh, s’you.” She smiled sleepily and stretched her arms above her head. Her arms were bare. So were her shoulders. She sat up, pulling the blanket with her, but not before he had a glimpse of her ribs and the side of her breast.
On someone like Marguerite, even the side was a great deal of flesh. Shane blinked several times, then fixed his eyes firmly on the ceiling.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. “Do you need something?”
An extremely base and vulgar part of Shane’s soul definitely needed something, and furthermore had suggestions on what that might be and how Marguerite might best provide it. He stomped that part down as furiously as if it had been a demon and continued studying the ceiling. Carved wooden beams? My goodness. How ornate. And are those ceramic tiles? How interesting. I seem to recall the writer Chandler spending quite a lot of time describing ceramic tiles in one of his works. “A thousand shades of sunset wrapp’d/In fired clay, this chamber to adorn…”
“Shane? Are you all right?”
“The maid is here,” he blurted. “Now. She is cleaning the rooms.”
“That’s what she does, yes.” He could hear the smile in Marguerite’s voice.
“Yes. I. Uh. Thought you should be warned. In case you needed to…er…” He glanced helplessly around the room, avoiding the bed at all costs. His eye fell on the small desk, which had letters stacked neatly on it, and he seized the inspiration. “Paperwork. You know.”
“Ah. Not to worry.” She drew her knees up and even though everything was decently covered, he was suddenly rather desperately aware that her blanket was simply draped across her and could fall down at the slightest movement. Not that he wanted that, of course. Certainly not. That would be deeply unchivalrous.
Marguerite tapped her temple, apparently oblivious to his internal struggle. Please, gods and
saints, let her be oblivious. “All the important things, I keep up here. My notes are mostly perfume orders. Have no fears on that account.”
“Good. Excellent. Right, then.” Shane groped behind him for the doorknob and fled with almost indecent haste.
PALADINS. Really. Marguerite rolled her eyes. The man had taken one look at her and turned scarlet.
You’d think the sight of my bare shoulders had led men straight to hell. She grinned at herself.
Well…maybe a couple of men. But they mostly deserved it, and they definitely enjoyed it.
Maybe I should just haul off and seduce the man. He is very pretty after all, and even if he wasn’t, that voice … She was a bit hot under the collar just thinking about it. Were paladins allowed to talk dirty in the voice?
No, dammit. You’re his commander. More or less. And he still doesn’t know if he trusts you.
Hard as Shane was to read, she had no illusions on that score. He’d undoubtedly think she had ulterior motives.
Besides, he’s apparently genuinely pure of heart. His idea of talking dirty might be “I respect you enormously as a person. Let us pray.”
She bit back a laugh at that, shoved the covers back, and went to dress for another day of talking in circles.
SIXTEEN
SHANE WAITED to be certain that Wren was awake and on guard, then took himself, his sword, and his impure thoughts off to the training rooms. He had scouted them out on the first day but had not been able to put in an hour of sword work yet.
He had to go down several flights, into the underbelly of the fortress. The palace’s past as a fortress was on full display down here. There were no windows, no ornamental tiles, only narrow slots carved through the rock to provide ventilation. The rooms were oddly shaped, with bites taken out wherever the space was needed for other purposes. Warm wet air, and the smell of soap reached his nostrils as he passed the laundry. He suspected that room never closed.
The training rooms were long and narrow, with high ceilings. The armory had been repurposed to hold padded staves and wooden training weapons, but that appeared to have been the only change since the old days. Shane took a suitably heavy stave and went to an unused set of pells.
After a few minutes, a pair of fighters sauntered in his direction. One was a tall woman with a hard, raptorial face, and the other was a grizzled man, a head shorter than his companion.
“You’re not a duelist,” said the man, nodding to Shane’s sword, which leaned against the wall nearby.
“No,” said Shane, a bit puzzled. He extended a hand. Both of them shook it in turn.
“Ossien.”
“Sylla.”
“Shane. Are you two duelists?”
“For our sins,” said Ossien. “From the Hundred Houses.”
Shane had a vague memory of the Hundred Houses, a series of tightly interlocked communities to the northwest of Archenhold. “Is there much call for duelists there?”
“Sometimes,” said Sylla. She rested one hand on her sword, which had a long, narrow blade.
“Mostly old men deciding that their honor can only be satisfied with blood. So they hire us to spill it.”
Ossien grinned. “It’s how I can tell you’re not a duelist,” he said, jerking his chin at Shane’s demon-killing sword. “Try to fight to first blood with that thing, and you’re liable to take their head
off. Then everyone gets grumpy.” He had a pair of short, wide blades on his hips, more like long knives than swords. Shane had seen fighters use blades like that, and suspected that Ossien was a good deal more nimble than he let on.
“No,” Shane admitted. “I’m here as a guard. If I have to draw my sword, things have already gone badly.”