“I would never consider it,” I force through clenched teeth, though of course that was precisely what I intended.
“Then we are decided!” she exclaims. “Thorko will fetch you when we are ready to incorporate your knowledge. For now, you are dismissed.”
Her gaze slides easily away from me. I can hear him murmuring to her, a trill of her laughter as I turn my back on them and leave, roiling with revulsion.
The two of them barely surface from her chambers, wallowing in their den of iniquity. They might as well be lovers for all the heed they pay to the outside world, save for plundering it for the victims Janos readily provides, and pestering me for different combinations of herbs every few days.
When I am not grinding herbs for them, I spend my time storming around the keep, lost in thought. The castle is already so empty, with so many fallen to Elizabeth’s whip and knife, that the corridors fairly echo. Only the cornerstones of Elizabeth’s household, Master Aurel and Mistress Magda and their handpicked favorites, seem safe from her depredations. The rest of the lower-ranked servants would have long since run, were there anywhere to go. But the castle perches upon its jutting peak, the drop-offs on either side sheer enough to preclude escape by anything but the main road, and that remains guarded day and night by Elizabeth’s sentries. Whether or not they are loyal to her, they are certainly faithful to her coin; I know as much from the unfortunate laundress who attempted to flee a fortnight ago. Once she was dragged back, Elizabeth had her beheaded to discourage the rest from growing so bold.
But though I still cannot think of how to run without imperiling my kin, perhaps I can be of some little good while I languish here.
The next time the wine peddler makes his visit to the kitchens, I approach him when he’s done bartering with Mistress Magda.
“May I speak with you?” I ask softly, laying my hand on his linen sleeve. “Just for a moment? There is coin in it for you.”
“Certainly, mistress,” he replies, casting me a wary look. I still wear one of the finer gowns Elizabeth commissioned for me, after gleefully disposing of my simple smocks. Though I’m sure he has noticed the eerie silence of the keep, I look like someone of consequence. Someone he cannot easily brush off. “What can I do for you?”
I take him by the elbow and guide him to an alcove off the kitchens. “Do you know Peter Erdelyi of Sarvar?” I ask, my insides clenched tight with hope and impatience. “Son of Adorjan Erdelyi, the vintner?”
“Why, of course I do!” he says, his amiable face splitting into a grin. “Salt of the earth, is Adorjan, and could tease wine from water like the good lord’s son himself, beg pardon for the blasphemy. His son’s a fine, steady lad, too. Who are they to you?”
“Peter and I are fast friends, reared together. And if you hold him and his father in esteem, I would ask that you do something for me. A paid favor.” My voice quavers when I speak, trembling with held tears. “Please—it’s very important. I—I can give you good coin to see the task through.”
The man’s kind, brown gaze shifts between my eyes, heavy with such sympathy and warmth that my knees nearly buckle to see it. It feels an ashen eternity since I have seen a friendly face.
“Whatever it is, mistress, I am happy to do it for your own sake,” he says, taking me by the shoulders. “But tell me, and I mean no insult—are you well? You look peaked, and I’ll tell you, this place is damnably strange. I’m like to jump out of my skin since I arrived. If there’s aught I can do to help . . .”
I bite the inside of my cheek, fighting back a tide of tears. I’m terrified, unspeakably afraid, but I cannot let this chance pass me by. “Then here is what I would have you do.”
Come dusk, when the wine peddler’s covered cart rattles down the steep road leading away from the keep, the three remaining sculls go with it. I yearned to go with them myself, so badly I could nearly taste the freedom of the mountain wind scouring that open road. But while Elizabeth will likely not chase these poor girls down once she discovers they are gone—even her influence only extends so far—I know she would hunt me to the ends of the earth.
For the rest of the day, I sit at a window and nervously watch the empty road winding down the hill, my jaw clenched so hard it nearly cracks under the strain. I even pray under my breath, though it is not my wont, wishing them fleet-footed steeds and many miles of distance. It is only when the moon tears a hole in night’s black fabric, letting in the light, that I relax a little and allow myself to breathe. Perhaps I have done it, achieved some small measure of good. Even then I keep my vigil long, as though my presence in the window has become a good-luck token ushering the escapees to safety.
Midnight finds me dozing against the sill, jarred roughly into wakefulness by a sudden racket below. Bleary with sleep, I stumble to my feet and trip down the corridor, following the sounds of commotion to the keep’s great hall.
The sight that meets me robs me of my breath.
The escaped sculls stand with hands bound behind their backs, one restrained by Janos and the other two by Elizabeth’s guards. Elizabeth looms before them in her plum-and-gold dressing gown, her neck and face still rosy from where she must have hastily scrubbed herself clean.
“Your doing, I suppose?” she snaps off, barely curling the end into a question. Under Thorko’s tutelage she hasn’t left her room in weeks, and her eyes look fearfully huge against her sun-starved face. Like pits that might yawn open and swallow me at any moment. I see nothing left of her but dark Elizabeth, the rest scorched away and fallen like a husk. “The wine merchant swore up and down that he did not know of his clandestine cargo, but these meek simps hardly burrowed amongst his barrels of their own accord. This one . . .”
She strides over to the oldest of the bunch, a spirited brunette who was one of Ilona’s better friends. She takes the girl casually by the hair and rattles her head about. “Terezia here was more than ready to give you up in exchange for her life. Weren’t you, you shrew?”
Terezia is so petrified she can barely summon the courage to swallow. “Yes, mistress,” she chokes out desperately, her eyes flitting to me. “We didn’t want to, but she—she made us go! Said she would ensorcell us if we went against her wishes!”
Those implacable dark eyes slide back to me, and I can nearly see the flames licking in their depths. “Well, is it true? Did you turn on me, Anna, like some treacherous trull? Bite the hand that loved and fed you?”
“I did,” I say readily, inclining my head. If she truly believes that this was all my design, she might let them live. “I—I have been sorely irked by the loss of your favor, Elizabeth, and—”
She cocks her head sharply, like a hawk. “Did you truly just say ‘Elizabeth,’ you traitorous bitch? Even now you presume to refer to your own mistress, the lady you so baldly tossed over, by her given name?”
“Forgive me, my lady,” I eke out. “I will not forget myself again.”
“And do you truly expect me to believe that you freed these chits, my property, solely to gall me? Come now, Anna. Do you think me such a fool?” Her face turns saccharine, lower lip jutting in a pout. “You did it to save their worthless little lives, didn’t you? Out of the tenderness of your pathetic heart. Go on, admit it—tell me you did, and I may even let them live.”