Midnight in Everwood(47)
‘Why have you taken it upon yourself to aid me?’ she repeated.
His eyebrows pinched together. ‘As I told you, I could not in all good conscience allow you to stave.’
‘So you said. Yet I cannot help but wonder where your true motivations lie. After all, you will not assist me in leaving this palace. I suppose, as captain of the King’s Army, that’s understandable. This, however—’ she gestured at the half-emptied dish ‘—is not.’
The captain tapped his quill on the papers. Marietta slid her gaze onto them. An elegant penmanship curled over the pages. ‘I have witnessed enough suffering for a lifetime,’ he said, shuffling the papers out of her sight. In his abruptness, a ringlet of crimson ribbon unfurled from his interior jacket pocket.
‘Careful, you’re revealing your heart,’ Marietta said wryly, gesturing at it.
He tucked it out of sight and rose to his feet. ‘It is a mere token of affection and I do not care to discuss my personal life. Nor will you.’ His tone was icy, his face frosted over. Those warm butterscotch eyes she had so admired cooled as he looked down at her.
‘You had better leave now.’
Marietta felt her cheeks warm. ‘Fine.’ She stood, ignoring the tilt of the room.
‘And do keep up the pretence,’ the captain snapped as he strode towards the door.
Marietta clutched her arm, feigning an injury, and glared at him as she made to leave.
The captain reached the door before her and opened it with barely restrained force. ‘Take her away,’ he commanded of the soldier, shutting it without looking at her.
The soldier didn’t search her. The pretext of being escorted to and from a punishment had fooled him into a false sense of security. Once she had been tossed into her suite and the door locked behind her, Pirlipata and Dellara helped her onto a sapphire cushion.
Pirlipata’s brow creased in delicate confusion upon Marietta’s summarisation of events, while Dellara tapped a finger against her lips and gave her an evaluating stare. They secreted the food within the armoires, and that night Marietta felt the first stirrings of her appetite return. Dellara rationed the food out and she was glad of that when she was forbidden from joining them for meals the following day. The king still did not summon her. She was starting to realise the true extent of his cruelties and life in the palace.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Marietta was recuperating well but still stewing at Captain Legat’s strange and sudden dismissal until several days later when she was taken into his study once more. She crossed her legs at the ankles, smoothing down her berry-red dress. A furred cape caressed her shoulders and Dellara had painted her lips in matching red. ‘Are you toying with me, captain?’
He passed her a plate; toasted and thickly buttered garlic and herb rolls with a pot of something sweet and smoky reminiscent of soupe à l’oignon. A cluster of herbs with a single white flower floated on top. She picked it up and examined it. It reminded her of the daisies she’d once plaited into chains.
‘Saltspray flowers,’ the captain said, nodding at it. ‘They hark from Mistpoint. It’s said their petals carry the taste of the ocean. The stew is named for it. And no, I am not, to answer your previous question.’
Marietta rested the sprig on the side of her plate. ‘Why am I here, captain?’
‘I behaved poorly last time we met. Forgive me.’
Marietta paused, spoon in hand. ‘Is that an apology?’
Captain Legat gave her a wry smile. ‘I wouldn’t grow accustomed to it.’
Marietta’s smile surprised herself. She skimmed her spoon along the surface of the stew, soaking in its warmth as she ate. They sat in companionable silence until Marietta grew aware of the opportunity before her and commented, ‘You seem young to have achieved the rank of captain to the King’s Army.’
The captain leant back on his chair, surveying her. After a few moments, he replied, surprising her again. ‘It was happenstance. I saved the king’s life when I was a young soldier. He then took a particular interest in my career and I soon found myself accelerated through the ranks.’
‘You must have made quite the impression,’ Marietta said, slicing a roll in half. ‘How ever did you save his life?’
He tapped his quill on his papers. ‘It was during a routine perimeter check of the staircase when I heard it: a great howl that froze the blood in my veins. The screams followed shortly after. I had never heard anything like those sounds. Pain and fear and horror.’ He closed his eyes for a beat. ‘To this day I have never managed to discover why or how the wards collapsed that day, nor how an intruder made his way into the palace.’ He met Marietta’s eyes. ‘The stories trivialise it, I cannot abide them. My soldiers were not there that day; they cannot understand how such an experience changes a person. Somehow I was the sole person left protecting the king. A boy, facing an armed intruder several times his size. The responsibility of the kingdom in his shaking hands.’
Marietta laid her spoon down. ‘I cannot imagine what a harrowing experience it must have been for you as a young soldier.’
Captain Legat grimaced. ‘I was badly injured. My arm was severely wounded and took considerable time to heal,’ he said drily, rubbing his left shoulder as if the intruder still had its hooks in him. Marietta winced. He gestured at his sword, resting against the wall, its metalwork shimmering under the ice-lanterns. ‘When my father assumed his place in the constellations, his sword, Starhunter, was left to me. It’s forged from steel and ice and an ancient curse. Nothing else could have slain such an opponent.’