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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

F rom what he’d heard, the feast had been interesting, to say the least.

The morning after what was supposed to be Curtis’ triumph, all anyone could speak of was how he had berated one of his allies when the man’s wife spread vicious gossip about Curtis’ new Welsh wife. Something about her being a whore and having illegitimate children, or stealing an old man’s wealth when he died. There seemed to be a few versions. The rumors were flying fast and furious, even though Curtis had set his friends and family straight the night before. He’d been in a rage for the rest of the night, becoming blindingly drunk and then trying to fist-fight men who attempted to calm him down. Rumor had it that he actually hit his brother, Myles, right in the face, and the man was sporting a lovely black eye this morning as a result. Whatever the truths were, it sounded like quite an eventful party.

And one that had not accomplished what Curtis had hoped.

Even now, as Amaro hung around the kitchens, carrying wood and pretending to repair broken kitchen implements, he could hear the servants whispering about the terribilis vesperum —the terrible evening. Most of the lesser warlords had already left by the time the sun rose, including the Munstone party. The rumor was that Lady Munstone was Curtis’ former lover, and she was the one who had started the trouble. True or not, the party left very quickly as the sun appeared over the horizon, escorted out by several de Lohr soldiers.

Amaro had a grin on his face. He simply couldn’t help it at the thought of Curtis’ failure. He was becoming more and more entrenched in the kitchens and stables of Brython, mostly because they didn’t seem too particular about their help, and also because he was in far less danger of being noticed because he’d stopped shaving and his beard was growing in, red and bushy. He’d smeared a layer of dirt on himself to further conceal his identity, so he wasn’t particularly worried about being recognized any longer.

But he was still lying low, as much as he could.

Since his arrival yesterday, he’d seen Lady Leominster once as she came out of the keep with Dustin de Lohr at her side. She didn’t look at all like the lady he remembered—the skinny, dirty woman who hissed like an angry cat. Two months of being married to Curtis had seen her cleaned up and fattened up and dressed in finery, so she really was quite beautiful when properly adorned and washed. But that was the only time Amaro had seen her, though he’d been told she tended to spend time in the kitchen and yard, helping her cousin. Amaro had seen Miasma, the only name he remembered her by, but he didn’t care much about her.

He only cared about Lady Leominster.

That little bitch was his target.

After an evening like the one last night, he wasn’t entirely sure he was going to see her at all today. Surely she would be off licking her wounds. Therefore, he simply went about the chores he’d been asked to do by a kitchen maid who had too much to handle herself. He’d tossed out the rubbish in the kitchen, throwing it to the pigs in their sheltered pen in the yard, and hauled water for the kitchen servants. He’d swept the entry and pieced together another broom that someone had broken, all the while wondering how long he could remain unnoticed by Miasma if she spent as much time in the kitchens as he’d seen last night. She was the one he’d seen the most of. At some point, she could very well notice him even through the hair and dirt. If that happened, she was a dead woman. He needed to keep his presence secret until he did what he’d come to do.

But he truly had no idea when that would be.

The morning began to head toward the nooning hour, and he had finished repairing two brooms. There was an area next to the well where women did laundry, and he’d hauled water up from the well to pour it into a small pool where they did their scrubbing. Ash was added to the water to give it some substance to clean away the stains. An older maid had come out to do some washing, leaving newly clean linens out to dry, but she was called into service by the cook, a woman Amaro recognized from Lioncross.

Yet another woman to hide his identity from.

Closer to the nooning meal, all of the focus seemed to be on the kitchens as they began to prepare for the evening meal, the largest meal of the day, which meant the kitchen yard was vacant for the most part—except for Amaro. He grabbed a shovel he had repaired earlier and sat on a stool, pretending to mend the shovel when he was really looking around for anyone he recognized. He could see the stable yard from where he was, and he could see the west side of the great hall.

At one point, he saw Myles and Hugo, which sent him into a panic because he was certain Hugo would recognize him, but he was too far away and Hugo was focused on Myles. When those two passed out of his range, he breathed a sigh of relief. He was coming to think that he needed to wander the bailey a bit to see if he could spy Curtis or his wife, or both, because he was too out of the way, hidden back in the kitchen yard, to see much at all. With the shovel still in hand, he stood up with the intention of walking out into the bailey and looking as if he was busy with a task. He hadn’t taken two steps when, coming through the kitchen door, the very object of his search appeared.

Lady Leominster was directly in front of him.

And she was alone.