Page 16

She watched as the tub was filled, standing still until Jason’s grip loosened before she made an attempt to bolt. Apparently, though, Jason was not as big a fool as she’d hoped, for even though she managed to jerk herself away from him, he had her back well in hand before she’d taken two steps.

“Shy, are you?” Jason asked, turning her to face him. Then he looked down at her face and stopped still. “By the saints—”

Ali made it a point to never be so close to anyone, lest the sight of her beardless face give her away. She pulled away from Jason and tried a bit of bluster.

“I’ve no need of aid,” she said gruffly.

But Jason continued to stare at her as if he had found an entirely new species of some kind of vermin and ’twas his knightly duty to discover everything about it he could. Ali could see the thoughts running amok in his handsome head and wondered desperately how she could make them stop.

“I have scars,” she blurted out suddenly. “They shame me.”

“Scars?” he echoed.

“Powerfully foul ones,” she said, nodding vigorously.

“Do you indeed?” he asked. His look of disbelief was complete. “I daresay scars aren’t what you have at all.”

“Would you cause me such embarrassment as all that?” she demanded, trying to sound manly. “Ruin my pride? Grieve me beyond measure by making me show things that shame me?”

He pursed his lips. “Very well. A screen, then. We all have things to hide, I suppose,” he added in a mutter.

If you only knew, she thought, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes.

Then he looked at her suddenly, pleased, as if he’d just hit upon a foolproof scheme. “Can you get out of your clothes, or will you require ... aid?”

By the blessed saints, would this fool never concede the battle? “I can do it myself,” she said archly.

“You’re very stiff. How can you deny yourself help when you need it?”

“Very easily. Begone.”

He looked at her closely for another moment or two, then turned away thoughtfully and began to ask kitchen lads for the things she would require for her bath.

Ali turned back to the tub and wondered what she was going to do next.

She could scarce lift her arms, and bending and breathing were completely beyond her.

How would she ever manage to get out of her clothes, or her mail?

Besides, she had no intentions of Jason knowing about the coins she carried inside her under-tunic.

Those were her means to freedom and she would tell no one of them, no matter how trustworthy the person might seem.

It was quite some time before Jason returned and by then servants had filled the tub half full of steaming water.

Jason carried clothing in his arms and a servant followed behind with a screen.

The screen was set in the appropriate place and Jason laid the clothes on a small bench. Then he turned to face her.

“You know,” he said carefully, “you won’t be able to get your mail off by yourself.”

“I need no aid,” she said, crossing her arms over herself and gasping at the pain of movement.

He drew his knife. Ali backed away, wondering if he intended to stab her to get her to cooperate.

“I’ll cut your surcoat from you,” he said patiently, “then I will help you with your mail. Then you can see to the rest if you insist, though I could close my eyes, if you like.”

“And why would I need you to do that?” she snapped.

He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “You would know better than I.”

“You think too much.”

“And you are powerfully cheeky for a mere knight.”

“I could be a lord’s son,” she bluffed. “Your equal.”

“I suppose so,” he said slowly. “But,” he added with a wink, “I would still close my eyes to help you undress, did you but ask it of me.”

Ali merely glared at him, then held open her arms and didn’t flinch as he cut away her surcoat. He gently pulled off her mail, then removed the cross garters from her legs.

“Thank you,” she muttered, knowing she sounded ungracious, but unable to put any other tone in her voice.

“My pleasure,” he said, with a low bow. “I will await my young ... lord’s pleasure beyond the screen. Screech if you need aid.”

She could only hope that aid would come in the form of a serving wench, but then again, perhaps that would go ill for her as well.

She would just have to hasten from the bath, dress herself in new clothing and hope that she managed it before anyone saw.

And if they did, she would claim that the cloth around her ribs was to ease their soreness, not bind what little served for her womanly attributes.

She had found, over the course of two years of trying to hide what she was, that people saw what they expected to see.

She’d been lucky enough to have had a garderobe always to hand, so relieving herself hadn’t been a problem.

And her flux had been something else entirely, but looking back on it now, she realized that every time she’d had it, the lady Isabeau had kept her near her, reading or doing some other such activity in the ladies’ solar.

It had come upon her seldom enough, the saints be praised, and she had assumed that was because of either some saint’s doing or because she was most often terrified of being discovered.

Each time it had arrived, though, the lady Isabeau had been there, demanding some undemanding service from her.

But then a truly awful thought occurred to her. Who would look out for her once she departed with Sybil to Colin’s home? Colin himself?

She stripped, set her coins aside, then cast herself into perilous waters before she could give that ridiculous idea any more thought.

The water burned her like hellfire and she had to clamp her teeth together not to cry out from both fear and pain. But she sat just the same, because sound would have brought any number of people running to see how she fared.

She looked around her and found that a glob of soap had been left for her, as well as water for rinsing and a fine linen towel.

She’d never used any cloth so fine in her own house, though she’d seen Marie use the like.

She raised her eyebrows in silent speculation over that.

Was her father given such luxuries, or was he left with rough cloth as well?

She wouldn’t have been surprised to find that was the case.

She realized then that she had lingered long enough.

She washed—faintly alarmed at the skin she seemed to be rubbing off with the soap, for the skin underneath was certainly a far different color than that above—then did the same to her hair and hoped she wouldn’t lose any more of it than she had already.

She’d cut off her hair when she’d fled, leaving behind four feet of it in an unmarked grave in the deep woods near her home.

Now, not a lock of it was more than the length of a finger, though she suspected she should have had someone besides herself sawing at it with a knife.

The saints only knew how unkempt she looked.

She crawled from the tub, dried herself off as quickly as ever a body had, biting her tongue to keep from making any noise, then pulled on new hose that almost fit.

They still required a bit of string around her waist to do the task for her, but at least there was little danger of them falling down.

She hesitated putting back on the bandage around her chest, given how filthy it was, but she knew she had no choice.

She wrapped and wrapped it until she’d done what she could, then tucked the edge under the top as was her wont.

“So, how do ... you ... um ...”

Ali whipped around in surprise, winced at the pain of sudden movement, then found to her displeasure that Jason was standing there with a cup in his hand and a look of utter satisfaction on his face.

She gritted her teeth and yanked the tunic he’d brought her over her head. She snatched up her coins, shoved them under her shirt, and then carefully folded her arms over her chest and glared at him.

“What are you staring at?” she demanded.

He returned her look of challenge. “Something I suspected from the start.”

“’Tis an old war wound,” she snapped.

He laughed.

She drew herself up and gave him the same look she had seen the lady Isabeau give Lord Humbert’s fellows when they’d had far too much ale and had seemed to find her potential sport. “Be off with you,” she said.

Jason leaned against the wall and took a long drink of his brew. “You’d best confess your secret,” he said conversationally, “lest your soul be in peril.”

“Never.” And let my soul be damned. Better that than finding herself receiving Marie’s tender ministrations.

He looked quite unconcerned at her refusal. “Well, now I know what you are; the question becomes who you are. And you should know that I am a master at solving mysteries of all kinds.”

No doubt. The saints only knew what this one had learned at his master’s knee.

Did he charm his victims into submitting, or had Christopher of Blackmour taught him darker, fouler arts to gain his ends?

Ali knew that if she told him her name, he would want to know more, and who knew where it would end?

Would he go to Colin and tell him the tale?

He was smiling at her now. Ali pursed her lips. So, it was to be charm that he wielded like a sharp blade. That she could resist.

“Confess,” he urged. “Unburden your soul. Perhaps I can aid you.”

She took a deep breath. “Never.”

“You should.”

“I will never.”

He smiled, taking up the challenge. “Then I will find you out.”

“Not whilst I live.”

He lifted his cup in salute. “So be it.”

The saints preserve her, the man was in earnest.

And she’d thought the previous two years had been dangerous. She suspected the next half hour might be far more perilous than anything she’d endured in the past.