Page 46 of The Discount Damsel

When he had replaced his canteen, powdered his hands dry with dust sand from a pouch on his belt, and resumed his climb, Millie asked, “A limited what?”

“R-O-T: Range of Terror. His territory, if you will. Which leads me to believe he’s quite young and untried. And youthful exuberance is no match for mature experience. I bet my salary that that roar was nothing but an intimidation tactic.”

Inside Bradley’s bedroom, Dirk crossed his arms over his chest with a sour “Harumph.”

Millie made a show of sighing with relief. “I’m pleased you mentioned the topic of salaries because I’ve been trying to find the polite way to broach the subject of your age, Sir Roger. As we do not know each other, and thus your preferences are a mystery to me, am I right to assume you are acting as proxy?”

“Why?” He flashed her a lopsided grin as his eyes twinkled. “You don’t think a middle-aged gent like me would make you a decent match? I’m climbing a two-hundred-foot tower immediately after a desert crossing. I think I’m proving I’m virile enough. You might like a silver fox.”

“Middle-aged, is it?” She bit down on a grin. Sir Roger was a delightful combination of cheek, wit, and decorum. The perfect afternoon tea guest, just as she had pegged him to be. “You mentioned a salary. Am I correct to infer that you are a sellsword, Sir Roger?”

“A hedge knight, actually.”

The only difference between a hedge knight and a sellsword was honor. Hedge knights were poor wanderers whose lord had either died or released them from service (nine out of ten times because they were poor themselves) and took whatever jobs they could find, but they still lived according to the Knightly Code of Conduct. Sellswords, or mercenaries, most certainly did not. Their allegiance was to the money only, not who was providing it.

And, because Millie had been trained by the best governesses and etiquette tutors in the world, she understood the difference well, so her voice was nothing but sincere when she said, “My apologies.”

“None taken,” he grunted, adjusting his grip on the rope. “I know I look like a sellsword, was a bit of a roamer in my early years. There aren’t many of us hedge knights left in the world, and the nuances are often forgotten.”

“May I inquire as to who pays your salary, Sir?”

“Baron Demir Oremaster of Merle, Your Highness.”

It was only the countless hours of Mastering the Art of Poise and Poker Faces that Miss Violeta had subjected her to that saved Millie from recoiling from the window. Baron Demir was a despicable man, second only to Prince Chandler Stonevein of Leighton, and one of the very reasons Millie was set on becoming a pirate.

And hadn’t he threatened her with a dragon-napping? He was a shrewd bastard indeed to hire a dragon to drop her bride price and then send his champion to snatch her up at a good deal. Armed with Damascus steel, which she belatedly remembered was a prized export from the baron’s province, this man was prepared to succeed.

She had to hope Sir Roger had a heart beating in his chest instead of a stone.

By now the knight had reached her window, but he did not presume to force his way inside. He tied a stopper knot to maintain his position on the rope and gripped the sill for good measure as he paused to catch his breath.

Though it was only mid-morning, the Ashburnum sun did not know that. Only moments after the dawn it was at eighty percent of its intensity, which meant Sir Roger was roasting beneath his padded leather and chain mail. Frequent breaks were necessary, and if the dragon was indeed timid and hiding, then all the better. He could rest here a moment then recover fully upon the balcony before engaging in mortal combat.

But the dragon was furthest from his mind now that he was close enough to look the princess full in the face. Her round cheeks were pink from the sun, and her full lips were pressed in an expression he was familiar with—propriety-suppressed ire. Highborn ladies, princesses, and queens weren’t supposed to lose their tempers. That was for the men.

“And may I assume from your sudden silence, Your Highness,” he ventured, “that you are familiar with the baron?”

Millie lifted eyes that had fallen to the cracks in the tower windowsill, unfocused with introspection. She wet her lips against the desert dryness and answered his question with one of her own, “Do you have any daughters, Sir Roger?”

After a heavy silence where nothing sounded but the creaking of his rope and the sigh of sand shifting under the wind, he answered quietly, “Aye. Two, grown and married to good men, thank Caelus’s stars.”

“And if I was your third daughter, would you marry me to Baron Demir?”

The hedge knight was silent again, honor-bound not to speak poorly of his liege and equally bound not to lie. “Nay, Your Highness, I would not wish that fate for you.”

“Then don’t win me for him.”

“I can’t⁠—”

“Why do you fight for him?”

“Because a man has to eat and provide for his family.” Bitterness rose, and the hedge knight hissed, “Desperation will make you swear any number of oaths, and I was a fool to think he was anything like his father, the late Oremaster. This baron wants no counsel, no training, no betterment.”

“Well I do.”

A pause. “What?”

“The kingdoms are strangled by their own system, their own rules—yes, even the wondrous Amberly. We are small, and thus bullied. I will not sit upon the Amberlian throne as a chess piece to be moved about by others who think that because they are bigger or wealthier that they have any say what happens to me and mine. So I need training. I need counsel.” She covered his hand with hers, fingernails indenting against worn, leathery skin. “If you battle the dragon and rescue me, you’re condemning me to a broken system that will never see change.”