Page 35

Lay your cheek upon your bed

And by sweet dreams be beguiled—

“That’s a fine tune for such a stinking bag of bones,” said a voice.

CHAPTER 35

I whirled around to see two women standing at the threshold of the room. Their hair was the color of straw, and their eyes were so pale blue they were almost colorless. They would have been indistinguishable from each other if it weren’t for their expressions. One of them looked at me with curiosity, and the other with contempt.

“Please excuse Agnes,” said the curious one. “Mutton doesn’t agree with her.”

“My stomach has nothing to do with it,” Agnes said, looking darkly at me. As she closed the door behind her, I heard a bolt slide into place from the outside.

I pressed myself against the wall as they came into the room. “What do you want?”

The friendlier servant gave a quick curtsy. “I’m Margery,” she said. Her glance flicked up and down my wrecked and filthy dress. “Did they drag you behind a horse?”

“She’s the one that was supposed to hang,” muttered Agnes. “And should’ve, if you ask me.”

Margery shrugged. “Far be it for us to judge, sister,” she said. “Our job is to serve.”

Sister.The word pierced my heart like a knife, and a vision ofMary flared in my mind. I saw her sweet lovely face, contorted in pain. I saw her hands clutching mine in a dark cell. I saw her lifeblood pooling on the stones.

“Are you all right?” Margery’s voice pulled me back.

No, I am not all right. I am not all right at all.

“She’s alive, isn’t she?” Agnes said. “If she’s not on the end of a rope, she’s got no reason to be complaining.”

Margery shot her sister a look but said nothing as she pushed aside a midnight-blue curtain and disappeared through a doorway I hadn’t noticed before. Agnes remained in the room with me, glaring. I stared back at her. If she thought her scorn could wound me, she was wrong.

“Ready,” Margery called from the other room.

“Go on, then,” said Agnes.

When I didn’t move from my place, she strode over and grabbed me roughly by the arm, yanking me through the curtain into a small room warmly lit by dozens of candles. In the center of the room stood a round, wooden tub of water.

I looked up at Margery in alarm. “No,” I said. “Please!”

But Margery only laughed. “I know you’ve never had a proper bath before,” she said, “but I promise, it won’t kill you.”

CHAPTER 36

“Get this disgusting thing off yourself,” Agnes said, her rough fingers wrenching my dress down to my waist. I tried to cover my breasts as she nearly pushed me out of the skirt. Then I watched in alarm as she hurried into the other room and threw it into the fire.

“That’s my only dress! My mother made it for me!”

“Itwasyour only dress,” Agnes said grimly. “Now it’s cinders.”

“We’ll find you a new one,” Margery said. “Get in, if you please.”

I balked—what if this was the torture the baron talked about?—so Agnes picked me up and dumped me into the water.

I shrieked. It waswarm.

Margery laughed again at my shock. “Nice, isn’t it?”

Mutely I nodded. I’d never felt anything like it—I’d bathed in the river since I was old enough not to drown.