“You are blushing, for one.”
She fiddles with the stem of her goblet. “Mayhap I am embarrassed you would ask such forward questions.”
“Oh, do not be such a stick-in-the-mud. Besides, remember who taught you how to kiss. Duval has much to thank me for.”
Unable to restrain herself, Ismae picks up the wet towel and throws it at me. “It is complicated,” she says.
For some reason, I think of Beast. I swirl the wine in my goblet. “It always is,” I say, then drain the cup.
“He’s asked me to be his wife.”
This surprises me, but it also makes me like the man more. “Are you not still married to the pig farmer?”
“No. It was never consummated, and the reverend mother had it annulled the second year I was at the convent.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I would think about it. For, while I love him, and will do so always, it is very hard to give anyone that kind of power over me again.”
“What did the reverend mother say?”
Ismae wrinkles her nose and refills her goblet. “It is just one of the reasons I have fallen so far out of her favor.”
“You? But next to Annith, you were her favorite.”
“No.” Ismae gives a firm shake of her head. “It was not I who was her favorite, but the blind, adoring acolyte that she loved.”
And that is when I know just how fully Ismae has changed.
Before we can talk further, there is a knock at the door. Ismae answers it, and a whispered, urgent conversation takes place before she closes the door and turns back to me. “The council meeting will not be resumed until tomorrow. The duchess’s sister has taken a turn for the worse, and the duchess wishes me to mix a sleeping draft for her.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You are a poisons mistress, not some healer for hire.”
Ismae gives me a sad smile. “It is a dance with Death, nevertheless.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
SINCE I AM DRESSED IN one of Ismae’s habits, the guard at the palace door salutes respectfully and makes no move to prevent my leaving. I step out into the cold night air and head toward a bridge that is lit by a sparse row of torches whose light is reflected in the dark water below.
It also leads to the convent where Beast is being held. I need to assure myself that I did not bring him all this way only to have him expire while in the sisters of Saint Brigantia’s care.
I reach the main gate at the convent and find it closed. Just to the right of the gate is a large bundle of what looks like rags. It takes me a moment to realize it is a sleeping Yannic, as loyal as the most faithful of hounds and no doubt banned from the convent for being a reasonably healthy man. Only ill or wounded men are allowed through those doors. I consider ringing the summons bell and announcing my presence to the entire convent, then reject the idea. What if they will not let me in? Or worse, what if they ask why I am here? For a moment, uncertainty grips me. Surely Beast has no need of me. Not now, when he is surrounded by the most skilled healers in our land.
I pause. Why am I here?
He is safe. And will soon be in a position to help the duchess. My role in his life is done. I saved him from d’Albret, the way I could not save Alyse. That should be enough.
So why do I feel this need to linger? Why this reluctance to part?
If I were anyone else feeling this, I would name it love, but I—I am far too smart to ever give away my heart again. Especially when to do so is as good as a death sentence for those I care about.
The old, familiar swirl of panic tries to surface. Instead of fighting it, I try to open myself to it, to let it come.
I remember the screaming. And the blood.
And that is as far as I get before the memory dissolves into pain.
Frustrated, I turn and follow the high walls surrounding the nunnery, looking for a low section or a back gate with a lock I can pick.
That is when I spy the lone branch. It is thin, too thin to bear a man’s weight, which is most likely why the nuns have not cut it down. But it is not too thin for me.
I toss my cloak over my shoulder, then look for a sturdy burl I can use as a foothold. It is a long stretch to the next branch, which hovers just out of my reach, so I must shimmy up the trunk, most likely ruining Ismae’s habit.
Since it belongs to the convent, I do not mind overmuch.
My hand closes around the branch, and victory surges through me as I pull myself up. The limb creaks and bows, but does not break. Lying flat to distribute my weight evenly, I begin inching across, hoping the limb will not snap and send me plummeting to the ground, breaking my neck. Mortain cannot have brought me this far for such an ignoble end.
At last the wall is below me. I swing my feet down onto it and let go of the branch, which springs back up. I stop to survey my surroundings. This convent is laid out much like the convent of Saint Mortain. I can make out the long low building that is the nuns’ dormitory, and the larger refectory. And, of course, the chapel itself. But where would they keep the sick and wounded?
A building set aside from the others has a faint light coming from one of the windows. That is as likely a place to begin my search as any. Perhaps a lone candle or oil lamp burns so the nuns can oversee their sleeping patients.
I lower myself from the wall into a garden filled with greenery. My boots crush the plants, releasing the pungent odor of herbs—the ones the sisters of Brigantia use for the famous healing potions and tinctures.
The very same ones we at the convent of Saint Mortain use to mix our equally infamous poisons.
I make my way to the path, trying to crush as few of the plants as possible, then follow the flat, round paving stones to what I hope is the infirmary. Near the door, I stop and press myself up against the building, using the shadows to conceal my presence. I close my eyes and try to feel how many are in the building.
I immediately sense a strong, booming pulse and nearly smile at how easily recognizable Beast is. There are other pulses that are thin and weak—patients’, perhaps. The second slow and steady pulse is most likely that of the sister who tends them.
It is my hope that I can slip in undetected, see how Beast fares, then simply slip out again. My plan is foiled, however, by the old nun who sits near the door quietly mixing something with her mortar and pestle. I am certain I make no noise and equally certain that the thick pool of shadows near the wall conceals my presence. But something alerts her, for she starts and looks up. Since there is no point in pretending, I step away from the wall, prepared to explain why I am here.
Her eyes widen as she takes in the habit I wear, and the hand gripping the pestle turns white. “Who?” she whispers. “Who have you come for?”
I cannot decide which annoys me most, her fear or her assumption that I have been sent to kill one of her patients. “No one, old woman. I merely come to see how the one called Beast fares. I escorted him here from Nantes and would like to see with my own eyes that I did not do so only for him to perish in your care.”
She bristles, her fear forgotten. “Of course he will not perish in our care.” Her face softens. “Are you the one named Alyse? For he calls that name in his sleep.”
“No, that is his beloved sister, dead these past three years.” The depth of my disappointment that it is not my name he calls takes me completely by surprise.
“Ah,” the old nun says sympathetically, as if she somehow knows what I am feeling. “Then perhaps you are Sybella. That is the name he asks for when he is awake.”
A flutter of joy quickens my pulse. I scowl so that she will not see it.
“However, he is asleep now,” she continues. “Indeed, we had to give him a tincture of opium and valerian in order to calm him. He was most insistent that he could walk out of here and be of use to the duchess, even though his body said otherwise and he could barely keep his eyes open, let alone sit up.”