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“No. The favors were demanded while he was recovering. And I did not want to worry him. At first I ignored Beck, but he knew when I did not. Finally, I did the first thing he asked. It seemed harmless enough. I was to put an emetic in a bottle of wine and give it to Montfaucon and Roverge. They spent the night vomiting, but assumed it was because they were drunk. It certainly wasn’t the first night either of them had spent being sick.”
“And did Beck know?” She laid the next talisman.
“He knew. And he sent another demand. That I kill Asti. My horse. But that—I could not do that.” There was a defensive note in his voice, as if he thought she would judge him for foolish softheartedness. But in fact, it was the most she’d ever liked him. “I realized it would never end. He would continue to request things—some foolish, some brutal, some humiliating. I knew I had to pay it allback, at once. End the whole business. I went to the Sarthian Ambassador. We agreed in secret: I would marry the Princess of Sarthe in exchange for a dowry in gold, to be paid in advance.”
Lin was a little stunned. She had not expected something so immense in its consequentiality. A secret union between Castellane and Sarthe? There would be many in the city who would hate the idea, many who loathed Sarthe with a passion. “The Princess—” she began.
“Aimada. I have met her before; she is agreeable enough, and sensible. She will not expect much from me, I think.”
He sounded exhausted. Pain was exhausting, Lin knew; it wore out the soul as well as the body. But there was something else in his voice. A weariness that spoke to a death of expectation. If he had wanted more than a marriage brought about by blackmail, he would not now have it.
“Ten thousand crowns,” he said, almost drowsily. “The cost of a Prince, it turns out. I realize I have been a fool; you need not tell me. I ought to have gone to Bensimon. Asked his advice. Told him the truth.”
Lin placed the last talisman on his back. “I will not tell you that you have made good decisions,” she said, drawing back her hands. “Clearly, that is not the case.”
“Gray hell,” he muttered into his clenched fists.
“But had you gone to Mayesh, he would only have told your father. And you would likely be in the same situation, or one very similar.”
Between the black of his lashes and the darker black of the kohl, his eyes were very bright silver. He said, “But I would not now be getting married. Which I do not want to do.”
“But you were always going to have to marry for statecraft, were you not? People like you do not marry for love.”
“You have been listening to too many Story-Spinner tales,” he muttered.
“Am I wrong?”
He narrowed his eyes. “No.”
Aimada. I have met her before,he had said.Aimada.A pretty name. Lin could not picture her, could picture only a sort of drawing in a storybook of a princess in a ribboned crown.
Lin stood up, went to the silver bowl. Touched the surface of the water with her bloody hands, red threads spinning out from her fingers like thread from a loom.
“Wait,” the Prince said.
She turned to see him, chin on his folded arms. The talismans gleamed in long lines across his back, like the scales of a dragon.
“I will take the morphea,” he said, “but you will have to give it to me. I cannot move.”
She did not ask what had changed his mind. She retrieved an ampoule of morphea from her satchel and came to the head of the bed. She had to make a space among the velvet pillows, batting them aside as if they were overly curious kittens, so she could kneel down by his head.
She took several grains from the ampoule and hesitated. Usually she would place the grains upon the patient’s tongue. She had done it with Kel, unthinkingly. But she wavered now; there was something about touching the Prince so familiarly, so intimately—
He looked up at her through black lashes thick as fringe. She could see the flecks of blood across his cheekbones, a bruise rising on his jaw. He was waiting for her. Waiting for the surcease from pain she could offer. She steeled herself and reached out, cupping his chin in her hand, brushing the grains of morphea across the indentation in the center of his full lower lip.
“You have to swallow them,” she whispered.
He licked across his lower lip with a flick of his tongue. Swallowed. Looked up at her, a somber light in his eyes. “You should not feel sorry for me, you know. Feel sorry for the one who has to marry me.”
It would take a few moments for the morphea to work, she knew. Best to distract him. She said, “Why should I feel sorry for you? I doubt I will marry for love, either. Or marry ever.” She tucked the ampoule into the pocket of her dress. “I am a woman and a physician. No respectable Ashkari man would marry me. I am too peculiar.”
“Peculiar?” The corner of his mouth turned up. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who describes herself as peculiar before.”
“Well, I am,” she said. “I am an orphan; that is odd enough. I demanded to be allowed to train as a physician; also peculiar. I have only one friend. I do not participate in most dances, most festivals. Oh, and when I was a little girl, I was a terror. I pushed Oren Kandel out of a tree once. He broke his ankle.” She knew these names, these words, would mean nothing to the Prince, but it did not matter. She was talking for the sake of talking, to quiet and to soothe. His eyes were already growing unfocused, his breathing more steady. As his eyes closed, she told him of her meeting with the Maharam, her hope to seek Qasmuna’s book in the Shulamat, how he had refused and how she had kicked Oren’s carefully collected pile of sweepings on her way out.
“That does sound like you,” he said, drowsily. “You seem to have a problem containing your temper.”
“Is it wise to annoy me when I have a satchel full of needles and knives?” she said, in her sweetest tone. She wondered immediately if he would be angry—it was so difficult to know how much familiarity was allowed, how much humor. King Thevan, the current King’s grandfather, had once had an actor executed for performing a satirical play about him.
