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Nicolo shrugged and seemed very unconcerned. “Laurel has never been subtle.”
“Subtlety is a gift with which none of my sisters were blessed,” agreed Balduin with a hearty chuckle. “They would all like to seduce you, then kill me, then return to your bed. The easiest route to the throne.”
Nicolo shook his head. “Not as easy as they might think.” Then he faced me as I took a few steps forward and pretended to be searching for any errant plates or silverware. “I believe the table is clear now.” His tone was harsh, irritated. I nodded and ducked away hurriedly.
“Yes, Master. Apologies, Master.”
“Mmm,” Balduin said as he took another feasting look at me.
“You’re excused, girl,” Nicolo barked at me and Balduin’s face fell.
“Always botching my good fun, Nicolo.”
“We have more important topics to discuss than the color of the maid’s nipples,” he answered in that haughty, privileged way of his.
“Pity,” Balduin answered on a sigh.
I gave them both a curtsey and took it as a win as Nicolo watched me go.
Alongside the tallies, the walls of the maids’ dormitory also boasted a large number of crude drawings—stick figures engaged in questionable (borderline impossible) sexual behaviors, dirty jokes, and insults about each other. One would not have believed it, but when a group of young girls are assembled, they’re just as bad as boys.
Chief amongst this graffiti was a very simple graphic consisting of a pair of vertical parallel lines, one with the name ‘Balduin’ below it, the other ‘Nicolo’. Balduin’s line was just over the length of a man’s handspan (from thumb to pinkie at full stretch), while Nicolo’s was longer by a finger-length.
In my naivety, I had no idea what this graphic meant.
But I certainly planned to find out.
***
“There’s a fight! There’s a fight!” Elsie screamed, nearly choking on her own tongue in her hurry to get the words out.
“Is it the stable hands brawling again? I like that blonde one,” one of the girls responded. It could have been Surval. Gurval?
“It’s the Terrible!” Katy yelled.
The third time I saw Master Nicolo was in the courtyard of the King’s Tower.
I’d just joined the scurrying gaggle of maids, all jostling for a place and banging into one another with little care, hanging out the windows to get a good view of the fight going on in the yard beneath us.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” someone answered.
There were soldiers about the periphery of the courtyard but they all kept back as Master Nicolo held up a hand. He stood in the center of the yard, facing a man in red, who was hemmed in on all sides.
Nicolo spoke. “Someone give him a bloody sword!”
A sword was tossed out to the man in red, who caught it, drew it and ran an eye up and down its length.
“Will it do?” asked Nicolo with narrowed gaze. He wasn’t unlike a hawk eyeing its nemesis.
The man nodded.
Nicolo drew his own weapon, and the fight began.
When I’d seen Nicolo in the corridor that first time, I’d noted the confidence of his movement, but that was nothing to seeing him like this. Master Nicolo had struck me as a creature of court, someone who spent his days lounging about while others buzzed around, providing for his every whim. He’d certainly never served as a foot soldier in any army. But you would never have known it, watching him now. He moved with a muscular, animal grace.
The man in red charged, swinging his blade, but Nicolo parried, ducked and came up fighting, and then landed a harsh kick right to the man’s back.
