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S ixteen

O DD THAT SHE could have forgotten how intimidating Tordenet Castle really was.

Not intimidating, Brie quickly corrected herself, as if denying the thought might untie the knot in her stomach. Impressive was the word she’d wanted. That was it. An impressive castle.

And not odd at all that she would have forgotten the place.

She’d been barely able to walk when her father had followed Malcolm MacDowylt from here, his wife and children trailing behind with the other camp followers.

Brie hadn’t been back since. She wouldn’t be here now, if the monster living behind those gates hadn’t murdered her father.

Mathew, Hugo’s younger brother, whistled between his teeth. “This far away, and already you can see the gleam of her walls. Bollocks, but she’s one damned intimidating structure, is she no?”

Brie shot him a look, wishing his mouth were sewn shut. Little good it did her to correct her own thinking if those around her were determined to erode what little confidence she had left.

“With the sun setting on her that way, she looks like a tower of gold to me.” Hugo laughed, rubbing his hands together.

“Like you’ve ever seen gold,” Eleyne sniped from her perch on the wagon, her swollen foot propped on a bed of woolens in front of her, watching as everyone else prepared their campsite for the night.

“I’ve seen it, fair cousin, never you doubt. And I intend to have some of it for my very own after our visit to yon distant lovely towers.”

“But only if the wildling can do her part, aye?” Mathew looked from his brother to Brie and back again. “The men behind those gates willna part with silver, let alone with gold, for our music only. It’s the beauty of the dance what greases their palms.”

“The dance and the drink,” Hugo agreed.

“She’s no ready,” Eleyne grumbled. “And I can be of no use, no with my foot so swollen and my face all scratched to here and back again. Thanks to her.”

The knot in Brie’s stomach grew. “It’s no much of a challenge to wiggle one’s hips to the beat of a drum. I’m ready enough.”

She had to be. The minstrels held her responsible for scaring Eleyne the night she’d been discovered.

Scaring her so badly when the idiot woman had seen Brie moving beneath the pile of woolens that she’d thrown herself from the back of the wagon to escape the ghostly fiend she imagined hiding there, injuring herself in the process.

Since Brie was responsible for their loss, to their way of thinking, they expected her to take Eleyne’s place. It had taken her only a few moments of consideration to agree to their demand.

Not that she cared whether the minstrels made a single copper coin from their upcoming performance. Once she carried out her careful plan, the minstrels would be lucky to escape with their heads still attached to their shoulders.

Replacing the annoying Eleyne would get her through the gates of Tordenet and inside the great hall. It was the perfect opportunity to seek her revenge. The perfect opportunity to get close enough to Torquil MacDowylt to slice him open and bleed him dry.