Chapter 3

Rhea’s POV

I opened my eyes slowly and lay still, listening. Embers shifted in the hearth. Wind moved through the trees outside, a horse stamped in the yard below the window, and cloth rustled close on my left.

Tessa stood at the window with her arms crossed and gray light coming through the shutters.

Maisie was asleep sitting up against the foot of the bed with her cheek on her knees.

An old woman I had never seen stood at the head of the bed with a copper basin in both hands.

Dark stains marked the backs of her hands and the creases around her nails.

The shutters were closed but not barred, and through the gap between the panels I could see a tree moving and, past it, the pale line of a wall with a walk along the top.

I measured the distance to the door, then to the window. There were about fourteen feet between them. Crushed herbs smelled sharp beneath the dressing on my forearm.

My hand rose before I thought to move it. I slipped two fingers beneath my jaw and touched the collar.

It was still there.

I had worn it for eight years, since the trader who bought me at twelve buckled the leather around my neck and had a smith fit the silver band. I had long ago stopped noticing its weight.

The lining had gone hard, and the silver had worn through it on the left, leaving a sore that never scabbed over. When I swallowed, I felt the wound pull against the metal.

"Hold still," the old woman said. "Keep your chin there. If you pull away, the silver will catch in the wound again."

I found the door with my eyes, then the window, then the distance from the bed to each of them, and only after that looked at the hooked tool lying on her cloth.

"Who gave the order to take it off?" My voice came out hoarse.

"Their captain," Tessa said quickly, before the old woman could answer. "The one leading them."

The old woman took my jaw and turned my head to the side without asking. I let her. Beside the hooked tool lay a key. She used it to open the collar's lock.

She worked the hook under the leather and eased the band away a little at a time. As the silver pulled free of the sore, pain flared through my neck and my sight went white at the edges.

I gripped a fold of the blanket, pressed my heels into the mattress, and counted.

One, two, three, four.

Past five, I began to make out shapes again. By seven, she had the band clear. It dropped into the copper basin with a ring that made me flinch.

Maisie woke with a start and said my name. Tessa put a hand behind her head and drew her face into her coat before she could see my neck.

I looked at the thing in the basin. There was a dark rim inside it, and the water was pink.

I thought of my mother saying it was nothing, that I should go back to sleep, and of her hand coming up to touch my hair and stopping halfway and going down onto the blanket.

I turned my face to the wall.

"Move it farther away," I said. "Get it out of my sight."

Tessa carried the basin over by the door herself.

The old woman cleaned the wound, applied a dressing, and secured it around my neck and shoulder. She told me it would be slow to close and would leave a thick scar.

She packed her bag and left, pulling the door closed behind her.

I lay there until her feet had gone off down the corridor, then swung my legs over the edge and stood with one hand flat on the wall.

Clean-swept boards, a rag rug, a jug of water, a chair with a cushion tied to it.

Whenever I had been given a good room, someone had wanted something from me afterward. I had never had much say in what it was.

I tried the latch. The door opened.

Tessa said my name behind me in a warning voice, and I went out anyway.

Two men in the corridor came off the wall when they saw me, and the younger one stepped a half pace forward and lifted one hand.

He was about twenty, with a bad shave and a rope burn across his palm.

"My lady," he said, "you should be resting."

"Where's the man who gives the orders here?"

"Adrian will question you himself."

"Adrian?"

"The captain, Adrian Blackwood."

He looked at the older man and back at me. "Go back in and rest. Please."

I shut the door and stood behind it with my forehead near the wood.

There had been a window at the far end of the corridor, with sun on the sill. I remembered its position. Once the younger guard had stepped forward, neither man had moved aside.

I went back and sat on the bed and asked Tessa what had happened after the light went out on me.

She told it out of order.

The captain had put his own cloak around Maisie and made his men fall back to the trees, and had said nobody would be separated that night.

He had carried me from beside the cart, all the way up the bank, and would not let his men take over.

Maisie, who had been listening after all, said from the end of the bed that the cloak had been very thick.

The day dragged on. I listened to footsteps in the corridor, a bucket knocking against someone's leg, a woman laughing somewhere below, and water splashing into the yard. At regular intervals, boots stopped outside our door and another pair walked away.

The first three times a step came near the door, I was on my feet before I knew I had moved.

The fourth time, I made myself sit with my back to the door. I picked at a loose thread in my cuff, tugging it out and trying to tuck it back into the seam. I knew it was pointless, but kept doing it.

At dusk, a girl brought supper on a tray. She set it down without looking at any of us.

Bread, barley with a little fat melted through it, and cheese the size of two fingers.

I looked at the tray, then at the girl's hands. When she was gone, I took half the bread, pressed it flat under the heel of my hand, folded it, and tucked it inside my clothes at my waist.

Bread would keep longer than cooked barley. I could still eat it in three days, four if it stayed dry. I had eaten worse and been glad of it.

I had hidden it before I thought about what I was doing. When I looked up, Tessa was watching. My face grew hot.

"What are you looking at?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said, and broke her own bread in half and held it out to me across the gap.

I did not take it.

She kept holding it out. I wanted her to stop looking at me, but she did not lower her hand.

I took it and ate slowly, watching the window go black.

The lamp was trimmed low when Maisie lay down. She was nearly asleep when she asked into the pillow whether we would still have to walk the mountain road tomorrow.

Nobody answered her.

Tessa looked at the wall, and I looked at the tray. After a while, Maisie's breathing evened out. Neither of us spoke.

The bread lay hard and flat against my side, and I lay in that clean, quiet room with my hand over it, counting footsteps in the corridor until I lost the count and had to start again.