The king paused in the doorway. He sighed heavily and glanced at his wife over his shoulder. “I’m sorry, but we’ve earned nothing by being careful and secretive. It’s time to be bold.” His eyes found my face. “Are you with me?”
I swallowed hard. I knew I should be honest with Torvald and tell him about the terrible hold Halvar had over me. If it came down to a fight between us and the general, I would have to flee for the safety of my friends. But the desperation in my king’s eyes was unbearable. I couldn’t deny him.
“I’m with you, sire.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I knocked on Bryn’s door. “It’s Asta. Can I come in?”
After receiving a grunt in reply, I entered. Three books were propped open with wooden stands on Bryn’s desk. Pages of parchment covered with his messy scrawl were scattered along the top of his bed. The floor was a tapestry of glass bottles and connecting tubes with bright blue liquid sloshing to and fro. Small burners were placed under certain bottles; sweet-smelling steam stifled the air despite the open window. Bryn paced before the contraption of glass bottles, hair askew. He wore nothing but a nightshirt that barely covered his lower extremities.
I stared fixedly up at the ceiling. “Bryn, what in Dotharr’s name are you doing? Why aren’t you wearing pants?”
“It was just what I needed: a good mystery to distract me from the exams coming up at the end of the week and the enormous amount of food for the anniversary celebration, which I’ve only begun to check for toxins,” Bryn muttered. “Or so I thought. It turns out this little mystery is no less stressful than the other two impossible tasks I must take on.”
“What are you talking about?”
Bryn grabbed something that crinkled and held it out to me. “I thought I’d take a break from testing the food to do a little studying and maybe take a nap, and there it was. Someone must have slipped it under my door after I left my room this morning.”
I reached out blindly and managed to find the page. Then I turned my back on my inappropriately-dressed friend to read the note. “‘I have admired you from afar for too long. We must meet. Please, write down a time and place, and leave it by the spring tonight at midnight. I anxiously await your answer. R.’ It’s a love note.”
“Exactly!” Bryn exclaimed. “A love note from a secret admirer. Notice the lingering sweet smell over the parchment?”
I brought the page up to my nose. There was a residual sweetness wafting up from the parchment.
“I’ve been trying to bring out the remnants of the perfume so that I can identify the make, track down the seller, hopefully commandeer his list of customers,” Bryn said, pacing somewhere behind me. “Then I can cross-reference every young lady whose first name begins with R on his list with Master Philo’s list of the ladies who live on the royal grounds.”
“Or you could follow your admirer’s instructions, hide someplace nearby, and see who comes to collect the note,” I said, holding the parchment out for him to take.
There was a long pause before he snatched the note from me. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company this afternoon?”
“Put some pants on and I’ll tell you.” I heard him rummage through his chest of drawers, muttering that he did his best thinking while pant-less. I rolled my eyes. “Are you done yet?”
“I’m decent.”
I turned to see him gathering the pages on his bed. “I like you better in trousers.”
Bryn frowned at me. “I’m exhausted and overworked, otherwise I would’ve figured out the secret admirer situation on my own.”
I nodded. “Yes, I’m sure you would have. You were wise to seek a nap.”
My friend placed the pile of parchment on top of his desk before flopping down on his bed. He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. “Now, what is it you came to talk to me about? Have you changed your mind about Viggo already?”
“What?” I sputtered. “No! Of course not.”
Bryn grinned at me, lowering his hand. “Good, because I’ve been his friend much longer than I’ve been yours. If you did come to your senses and realize you could do better, I would, unfortunately, have to side with him.”
“There is no one better than Viggo,” I said, frowning.
“And don’t you forget it.”
I pulled out his desk chair and sat. “What happened between you and Fia?”
“Not this again,” he groaned.
“You hate keeping secrets from the people you care about. How can you bear keeping this from me?”
“All right!” Bryn sat up and glowered at me. “I was thirteen. I was sick with a fever and head cold so my mother let me stay home from school. She went to her herb shop but promised to return during her lunch break to check on me. My father decided to be helpful that morning. He washed all the laundry while I was taking a hot bath, you know, to relieve my sinuses. Then he set everything out to dry on the clothesline, shouted a goodbye to me down the hall, and promptly left for work. When I was finished with my bath, I couldn’t find anything to dry myself with inside the house.”
I snickered. “Oh, no.”
Bryn plowed on as if afraid he would lose his nerve. “Fia was my next-door neighbor. She was sixteen and beautiful, and I thought I was in love with her. Little did I know that her younger brother was sick with a fever as well, and she had been allowed to stay home from school to take care of him. I snuck out the back door and checked to make sure no one else was around. Fia had taken a break from tending to her brother and was lying in the grass, reading a book. I didn’t see her. I thought I was in the clear. I dashed over to the clothesline and yanked on a drying towel. Fia heard the noise and rose to investigate. Thanks to the unreasonably short fences surrounding our backyards, she saw me in all my glory and laughed.”
I placed a hand over my mouth to hide my smile. “She didn’t.”
“She continued laughing even after I had scurried back into the house.” Bryn dramatically fell back into his bed. “She giggled whenever our paths crossed in the days that followed. She called me Pale Bum behind my back for months. I was completely humiliated. There! Are you satisfied?”
I fought to remain serious and lowered my hand. “I feel this experience has made us closer friends, Behnam. Thank you for confiding in me.”
“You’re welcome,” Bryn said with a derisive snort. “Is that the only reason you came to visit me?”
All giddiness left me. I sunk back into the chair. “No. There was something else I needed to ask you.”
He propped his head up with an arm. “Ask away.”
I watched the blue liquid slopping around the glass tubes for a moment, summoning my courage. “Is there a way to undo what the general has done? Make me immune to his words?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea, Asta,” he said, blinking in surprise. “Why ask me?”
“You study mental health.” I gestured to the books piled on his desk. “There has to be some teaching about the strengthening of one’s mind in one of these. Have you come across anything that might help me?”
Bryn sat up slowly. “What’s happened?”
I told him about the king’s decree and my fear that it would lead to a fight I couldn’t be a part of. I blinked away tears. “I think this was the general’s intent all along; to get me hired as a Defender so that I could dispose of the king if Torvald ever got in Halvar’s way. I would leave now if I could, but I can’t abandon my friends. I can’t abandon my quest for revenge.” I leaned forward. “But if there was some way to reverse whatever the general did and make me the only master of my body—”
“You would be free to fight alongside us,” Bryn said with a nod. “I understand.”