"The lieutenant was affected as well?" Jorani asked.
nodded. "They were both half insane when Mihael charged me."
"And Peto?"
"He has no idea what happened except that Mihael was making wild accusations. He'll think Mihael was raving."
"Mihael told me you killed Greta deliberately."
"Deliberately!" I whirled and faced him and saw a hardness in his expression that had never been there before. I knew if I told him the truth about Greta, he would betray me or have me killed. Hiding the anger I felt, I lied.
"At Argentine, I considered different ways to poison the baron. I knew I had to choose something slow so that no suspicion would fall on me. I intended to try different mixtures of the web poison on the prisoners in the dungeons until I found just the right concentration to sicken a man and kill him slowly. I never had a chance to experiment. Greta found the kerchief while she was cleaning. It was mixed in a soft molasses cookie. She probably licked her fingers and died."
"You didn't pick a very good hiding place," he said.
I told him how after her death I'd found a dead rat in my cupboard. "I think it had been gnawing on the poison. Greta must have heard it in there."
One of Jorani's books on statesmanship said that a lie is best believed when it is in close proximity to the truth. This was certainly as close as I dared to go, and he believed it. "Greta raised me. I'll always feel guilt over what happened because of my carelessness," I said. "I didn't plan her death. Don't accuse me of it."
"I would not." Jorani spoke almost offhandedly. His mind was not on the present conversation, and I knew with a second sight that he thought of me standing in the dark shadows of the dungeons, doling out poisons, watching prisoners sicken and die.
"Were you the one responsible for the plague that cut down the prisoners?" he asked, sounding both certain of it and unapproving.
"How did you learn, Jorani?" I asked.
"The same way. I would go down to the dungeons with your grandfather at my side. The killings sick-ened me at first, until I hardened my heart to them."
"Enemies must be destroyed," I said.
"You are your father's daughter." He accompanied that comment with a sad shake of his head. "If you could wish for the perfect future, what would it be?"
I walked to him, placed my hands on his shoulders and tilted up my head to look at him. "That I rule Kislova with you at my right hand as you were for my father." I hesitated for a moment then added, "No, not precisely that way."
Standing on tiptoe, I kissed him. I moved quickly, kissing with what I thought must be passion. As I expected, the move caught him off guard. He'd never suspected that I might share the attraction he'd struggled with for so long. He gently pushed me back and looked down at my face-my youth, my beauty.
"No," he said, exactly as I'd expected him to. As I'd guessed, he loved me too much to play the doddering old man with the child bride.
"That future will come," I said, then laid the side of my face against his chest. "When Peto returns to Sundell, we will rule Kislova together."
"You'll let him go?" he asked. I heard the relief in his voice.
"Every time I have tried to move against him, I've brought tragedy to myself as well as those I love. In truth, the fates want him to live. As for me, I judged him by his deeds, and when I swore my allegiance, I meant it. It's time that I listen to you and forget the past. We have our lands to consider, and our own future together."
Our. We. I used the words quite deliberately. As I did, I saw him wince ever so slightly. "You could do more than that," he said.
"Wed him?" I laughed. I couldn't help it. This was exactly what I'd wanted him to suggest.
He misinterpreted my reaction, hastily going on.
"Your father desired Sundell. Your son will rule that land as well as Kislova." saw something clearly then-the most perfect vengeance. "He already desires me," I said. "I wish I could feel the same, but though I may marry him, there is no one I will ever love as much as I do you, Jorani."
I kissed him again. This time, I felt him respond.
I wish that Peto were a greater fool, someone Jorani could not respect. If so, Jorani and I would be allies. I could end my duplicity, take him completely into my confidence and reveal to him the exquisite beauty of my plan. Instead, the first kisses of my life were lies and the only man I could ever love became nothing more than a pawn for me to play.
Three days after Mihael's funeral, a trading party coming west from Sundell was attacked. Nearly all the guards and merchants were slaughtered by outlaws. The ones who escaped fled west to Nimbus Castle.
They were bathed and rested, with their wounds dressed before they met with Peto. But the royal treatment they received did nothing to dispel their anger, which seemed to be fueled more by the loss of gold and goods than that of their porters' lives.
"You must do something to end these attacks, or the alliance between our lands is meaningless." Ilsabet had quietly listened to the merchants describe the attack. Now she leaned forward, getting Peto's attention before saying, "The rebels were strong in that area. They may be leading the thugs."
"She's right," Jorani said. "If they are challenging our alliance, we need to make a strong showing."
"A united one," Ilsabet added.
Peto agreed and ordered Jorani and Shaul, the two highest-ranking officers of the Obour and Casse families, to ride out together at the head of a group of united troops.
In the days the troops were gone, Peto saw much of Ilsabet. She dined with him, sitting at a distance that managed to be both polite and cautious. He saw how she eyed his food taster, now one of the cook's children, a stout boy of twelve with a crippled arm and a placid disposition. Peto suspected he had volunteered for this position not to be useful but because the food would be better.
Peto found the thought so amusing that he requested that portions served him from the kitchen be increased by one half. From then on, he simply placed half on the second plate for the child and sent him to the far end of the table to go about his work.
His only demand was that the boy learn to eat faster. Since it seemed unwise for Peto to begin before the boy had finished, he'd begun to long for a warm slice of meat or a steaming potato.
"Do you suppose he'll need more as he gets older?" Ilsabet whispered to Peto one evening after the boy had moved out of earshot.
"Probably, but nonetheless it's good to see someone so well-matched to his chosen profession," he replied, thinking how good it was to laugh again.
At least the news from the east was good. In the four days since the soldiers had set up camp in the border forest, they had killed half a dozen outlaws and took twice as many prisoner. Of the forty soldiers sent out, two were killed and three wounded. The wounded men were recovering well, tended by the healer and Ilsabet, who eagerly used what she had learned to make them rest easier.
She'd shown particular patience in working with the most painfully wounded of the men, sitting by his bed, feeding him poppy extract and holding his hand while the surgeons removed his gangrenous leg. Later, when Peto came down to the makeshift hospital to see how the man was doing, he found Ilsabet still sitting at the bedside, holding the man's hand though her own had been bruised by the force of the man's grip. He thought she had never looked so beautiful as she did then.
There was much to admire in her, so much that he sent a letter home to his mother explaining his feelings and asking her permission, as his surviving parent, to wed Ilsabet.