His head hit the floor with a satisfying crack. He moaned, rolled over, and rubbed his ankle. It too had fared ill in the fall.
The girl put her hands to her mouth in alarm. “You’re unwell, Sir. You should rest.” She backed away from him. “I’ll fetch your physician.”
Before he could respond, she sped from the room.
Finally.
I wanted to kick Lord Bettencourt on my way out, but that would be pushing my luck and it had already stretched as tight as his embroidered tunic.
While the man pulled himself from the ground, still cursing, I slipped out the balcony door.
CHAPTER 2
Irode from Barviel Castle toward The Painted Stallion, the inn where Alaric was staying. He’d rented a small cottage behind the inn’s gardens and would be up waiting for me. He was the only one who knew where I’d gone tonight.
Alaric had been a stable hand for Lord Haddock at Carendale, the castle Mage Wolfson sold me to three and a half years ago. One day a few weeks after I arrived, I wasn’t as careful as I should’ve been in my thieving. Alaric’s older brother Barnaby, who worked in the kitchen as a pantler, caught me with an apple and a piece of cheese I’d stolen from the larder. Instead of turning me over to the master cook for a whipping, he took me behind the stables to bargain with Alaric.
“I don’t know how she keeps getting to them,” Barnaby said, presenting me to his brother like I was an exotic animal he’d stumbled upon. “I wouldn’t have known she was the thief at all if I hadn’t caught her eating the goods myself.”
In my defense, undercook Fletcher had given me nothing to eat for days except small portions of gritty porridge and bread so old that even soaked, it tasted like wood. She was starving me, then asking me to carry heavy buckets and trays so she could yellat me for my sloth when I faltered. She either enjoyed torturing new servants or was looking for a reason to dismiss me to the ranks of the scullery maids.
Alaric had seemed quite intimidating at the time. He was twenty-one but looked older because of his height and broad shoulders. He had hair as dark and wild as mine along with serious brown eyes. Handsome yes, but his draw didn’t come from that. Plenty of strong, handsome men worked in Lord Haddock’s castle. Alaric had a bearing of intelligence and responsibility. Everyone in the stables deferred to him.
He looked me over, but not with disapproval. He was pleased or at least curious about the news of my theft. “How did you do it?” he asked.
I gulped and didn’t answer. They wouldn’t suspect I had magic. Only men were ever wizards.
“What else can you steal?” Alaric asked.
A dangerous question. “Nothing,” I stammered. “I’ve repented of such wickedness. I only nipped the food because Cook Fletcher has withheld decent meals from me. One can’t perform a day’s work when one spins from hunger.”
Alaric cocked his head. “You don’t speak like a kitchen girl. Are you highborn?”
My gaze dropped to the ground. Servants often didn’t like other servants who’d been educated beyond their station. I’d not only learned to read and write from Ronan during my time at Docendum Castle, I picked up his vocabulary and the cadence of his speech as well. If I’d had any sense of self-preservation, I would’ve reverted to speaking in a lowborn manner, and yet I refused to. I’d already lost so much. I couldn’t lose my words too. I’d hoped they might one day help save me from my fate in the kitchen.
My gaze stayed on the ground. “I’m lowborn, sir.”
“You do a fair imitation of your betters then. One is left to puzzle why.”
My eyes flew to Alaric because he’d delivered the sentence like a highborn gentleman.
He laughed at my surprise. “I’m a groomsman. I have to know how to greet Lord Haddock’s guests properly. When I was in training, the head groom whacked my knuckles if I got so much as a syllable wrong. What’s the story behind your speech?”
My story was that I’d been a pawn in a game of Mage Wolfson’s creation. I didn’t want to recount it. I kicked at some bits of straw on the ground and held my tongue.
Alaric’s voice went low and sympathetic. “You don’t need to fear me. I know as well as you how horrible masters can be.”
For a moment, impossibly, I thought he spoke of Mage Wolfson, that somehow Alaric knew the wizard had sold me to Lord Haddock in order to be spiteful.
“Fletcher can be a shrew,” Alaric continued, “especially to young and pretty girls. It’s as if beauty offends her.”
Of course, he didn’t know about Mage Wolfson. Alaric only meant the undercook.
“Do you want to be well-fed from now on?” Alaric asked.
Such offers came with prices. I’d no friends at Carendale Castle, no one to help or speak up for me. Most of the woman folk seemed to resent me on sight, or if not on sight, then when I spoke in my highborn manner. They thought I supposed myself better than them.
I lifted my chin the way I had at other men at Carendale who’d made leering suggestions. “I have a beau, a wizard’s apprentice at Docendum Castle. That’s why I was sold here. But Ronan will come for me when he finishes his training.” So far, the story had kept the leerers at bay. During brief moments of delusion, I even believed those words. It was the reason I didn’t become invisible and leave Carendale.