almost as though they were marks of her guilt. “I used to wonder if the man I would marry was in the crowd of nobles who would come with us to the moots.” She became ashen as she tucked her hair behind her shoulders. “As it turned out, he was-though not the man I would have picked for myself.”
“You’re talking about him again,” Cyrus said, sitting upright. Now the stone underneath his buttocks simply felt cold, uncomfortable to his touch. Cattrine remained on her knees, leaning back to rest her haunches on his thighs.
“I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I meant to say that I hoped back then that I would meet a man like you-strong, brave, noble and true, one that would treat me decently, more decently than many of the ladies I knew in court were treated by their husbands.”
“So were you looking for a man to take care of you?” He eyed her warily.
“I was taught to take care of a man and he’ll take care of you-something of a lie, I realize now, but at the time it seemed reasonable enough.”
He felt bile rise in his throat, heat on his face, and he recoiled from her, pulling himself free of her grasp. The sweat and the smell made him feel only dirty now, as though any clothing he touched would be soiled, ruined, unusable at any time in the future. The stickiness of his skin as it pulled away from the stones that he had sat upon felt as though his flesh had to be peeled from it the way the skin of an apple is removed, and the grittiness remained as he rose to his knees and clutched at the robes that lay only a few feet away.
“Did I not please you, m’lord?” Cattrine’s eyes were upon him, but the slight mocking undertone in her voice made him ill, made him feel dirtier still. “Is your tireless drive such that I need convince you of my affections once more?” She pressed close to him again, laying her head upon his shoulder from behind as he leaned over.
She still felt good against his skin as she pressed herself to his back, and he felt a momentary urge to turn, to hold her, but he pulled away instead, the fight won at last by that nagging sense of disgust that had welled up within him. It overcame the last of his desire, spent finally from all her efforts, and he felt the monster within’s clutches let loose of him, and a fearful anger took hold. “Get off me,” he said, and let his robe cover him and his shame.
Her face was a mask. There was no kindness upon it as there had been in the past, but some fear or anger crept out in slow measure, revealing itself subtly through the tilt of her eyes, the thinness of her lips as she regarded him. “Did I do something to make you angry?” she asked with the subtlest hint of insincerity. “Do you wish to hurt me now? Because if so, I do request you keep it below the collar and above the sleeves.” Her fingers traced lines over the flawless skin just above her neckline down to the jagged scars that ran across her breasts and along her arms, and down to her left thigh where a particularly heinous wound had left a half-inch indentation in her inner thigh where the skin was simply missing, as though someone had gouged a small cube of it out.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, almost spitting the words at her. “You’re still the same woman who came before the man who she thought killed her husband and immediately offered herself to him.” The deep disgust welled within him. “Have you been manipulating me all along? Taking advantage of my … desperation, my heartbreak, my naivete?”
He saw the flicker of hurt in her eyes at his words, and her skin reddened around her neck, turning the same fiery red as it always had post-coitus, little blotches, like fall leaves on the palest parts of her flesh. “I wouldn’t call you naive. You’re a man grown, and you’ve known the touch and seduction of a woman before. I came to you in your hour of need in Vernadam, willingly, as you aided me in mine by taking me away from Green Hill. I see nothing to be ashamed of in that. You offered your help to my escape, but gave me no guarantee that such aid would continue forever. I took what you gave, and drew closer to you-but do not ascribe my motives to selfishness, Cyrus. That would be unkind. I did nothing with you that I did not want to, that I did not wish to do wholeheartedly.”
“Funny,” Cyrus said, slipping his feet back into his footcovers. “You just used my body-my appetites-to try and sway me back to you,” he said, the rage filling him. “Is this nothing but a game to you? Like your brother plays with Luukessia? Am I just a piece to move around the board to your best advantage?”
He saw her face tighten, harden, as though the mask had solidified in stone and there was nothing left but it. “My best advantage would be to rule Actaluere, but alas, even as the eldest child, I am a daughter, and thus ineligible to be in the line of succession. The best I can do is to get out of this forsaken land, where being born a girl gives you less chance than a mutt of finding a man who won’t beat you or lord his power over you. You offered that. Don’t fault me for accepting it.”
“And everything else?” Cyrus asked, staring at her pinched expression. “That was all … what? Sugar on top? A gift to me for making good my promise and freeing you?”
“It was …” her voice cut out, but the coolness of her gaze remained, “… whatever you wish to think it was.”
“I think it was manipulation,” Cyrus said. “I think behind your eyes is a fearsome calculator, someone as subtle and wicked as Milos Tiernan ever has been. I think you saw a chance to solidify your power, and you saw me as a chance to do it, so you took it. I think you saw a man at the head of an army who had the ability to give you what you wanted and you went for it, clumsily at first, then recovered and came about it a different way, and in my moment of weakness you found your opportunity.”
“See it however you like,” she said. “But remember, it was you who invited me into your bed, not vice versa.”
“Oh, I see it now,” Cyrus said, quelling the anger within. “I see it all, now, all you’ve hidden.” He reached down and took hold of her riding breeches from the ground and the shirt next to them and tossed them to her. She caught them, flinching as her hands curled around the cloth and pulled the shirt over her head. He watched the scars disappear beneath it, along with all else. “I think your scars are your excuse; that there are other things that mar you far worse than anything so surface-level as those. I think you are cunning, far more cunning than I would have given you credit for.”
“My goodness,” she said, “all this thinking will come to a bitter end for you.” She remained fixed, unexpressive, save for the coldness that radiated off her in waves, reminding Cyrus of the Northlands of Arkaria, the frozen tundra that even in summer remained frosted. “You’ll spin about for quite a bit longer I suspect, weaving more and more suspicions.” She tugged on her pants, sliding into them and lacing them tight. He watched as the drawstring dug against her flesh, biting into her skin, leaving a red line where it hugged her waist before disappearing under her shirt. “Draw whatever conclusion you’d like, Lord Davidon,” she said coldly. “But tell me this-what do you mean to do with me now? Would you still defend me to the death? Would you march your armies into the land of Actaluere to save me from having to go back to my husband? Or do you hold me in such low regard that you would throw me back to him, as a plains cat would toss aside the remains of a meal it is finished with?”
“As tempting as that would be, discarding you back to the tender hands of the Grand Duke Hoygraf,” he said spitefully, watching her stiffen as he said it, “I am not so cruel as you and would not use that bastard merely to hurt you as you have hurt me.” He shook his head. “Even after all else, I’ll honor my pledge.” He looked away from her. “I suppose it’s the least I can do, as payment for what you’ve done to-and for-me.”
Her eyes flared. “You think me a doxy, now?” He watched, waiting to see if she would strike at him. “You consider me a whore because I gave myself to you? More the fool you are, Cyrus Davidon.” She tied the neck of her shirt together, but he could still see the redness at her collarbones. “Have it your own way, then. I’ll take your safe passage from this land as payment. And I’ll thank you, once it’s all over, for teaching me once again a lesson I should have learned before.”
“Oh?” Cyrus asked, as she turned from him, grabbing her boots and starting up the stairs. “What’s that?”
“That no man can be trusted,” she said, looking back at him, eyes flashing in the light of the torch next to her. “Not even the one who appears as a hero-a knight, shining-who says he will save you. All men are the same, with their own barbs, and swords, and their own ways of inflicting scars.” Her flush carried all the way to her face this time, and she left, her bare feet slapping on the stone up the steps, and when she reached the flat ground at the top he heard her stride turn to a run until she was gone.
Chapter 30
