Balduin rocked his head from side to side. “I suppose. It happens to every man from time to time.”
“Then…”
Balduin’s eyes narrowed. “Let me handle it.”
“Of course, Highness,” I answered, starting to feel relief but not sure if I should.
“Then you do still plan to complete your commission?”
I nodded. “Of course, Your Highness.”
At that moment, I didn’t know what I was going to do. My head was so filled with conflicting thoughts and feelings; my attraction to Nicolo doing battle against the disgust in which I sometimes held the things he did and the company he kept. But, right then, I would have said anything to get out of that bedroom.
“You want to know, don’t you?”
I paused. I thought I could guess what he was talking about and, damn it, I did want to know.
Balduin grinned as I turned back. “You want to know how I can kill Nicolo without dying myself.”
He beckoned. Heart in my mouth, I followed him to the wall where he turned a candle sconce with a grating sound. A secret door swung open in the wall and he passed through it, into the candle-lit space beyond.
The room was small, warm and stank of waste, excrement.
“It doesn’t get cleaned often,” Balduin recognized the look on my face, “because I have to kill the maid afterwards and doing so becomes suspicious after a while. The secret must be kept, but I’ve beendyingto share it with someone.”
From the ceiling, a large cage swung. Crouched within it was a boy. He might have been nine or ten but it was hard to be sure because he was so malnourished. He looked up as I entered and a tremor went up my spine.
His eyes were the same as Nicolo’s; bright violet.