that archery notch on the wall? When the moon touches the top of it, it’ll be well past midnight. Come downstairs into the banquet hall. It’ll be empty. There’s a serving-room entrance hidden behind the Battle of Tarpolita tapestry; can you find that?”
“Yeah.”
“Go into the hallway behind it and find the grate in the floor. Lift that and climb down. It’s a drainage tunnel that runs under the castle so the cliff doesn’t erode out from under us. It’s mostly dry this time of year. I’ll meet you at the end of it with a horse.”
“And then what?”
He unrolled a small parchment on the bed. “This is a map of the route, although I doubt you’ll need it. The road from here to Blithe Ward is a major thoroughfare, and it’s practically a straight line right across the island. There are a few crossroads towns, but they shouldn’t confuse you. And here are the courier stations where you can switch horses. You can’t miss them, either.”
“There’s one thing nobody’s faced up to,” I said. “What if Spears says no?”
“He won’t,” Kay said with certainty.
“But if he does?”
Kay sighed, the weariness of a man carrying more than a single lifetime’s disappointment. “Then I hope you like heat, because this island will burn.”
THIRTEEN
After Kay left, I locked the door again and walked to the window. It was dark now, and the shadows in the courtyard below told me the moon was just rising. It would probably not reach the hilltop for a few hours. Not only would that be past midnight, it would be awfully close to morning and wouldn’t leave me a lot of darkness to use. I figured I might as well try to get some sleep, and the drinks I’d guzzled during my interviews made that actually feasible.
I stretched out on the bed, fully dressed down to my boots; I wasn’t quite ready to relax all the way yet. But with some forced deep breathing, I got calm enough that my mind drifted, and I assume I did sleep a little.
Until another knock, softer than Kay’s, snapped me wide-awake.
I slid from the bed, drew my knife with my left hand (I was getting better at that), and pressed myself flat against the wall beside the door. Mock-sleepily I said, “Yeah?”
“It’s me,” a female voice said, too quietly to be recognized.
“ Me is half of what a cat says.”
“It’s Iris.”
I put the knife away and opened the door. She wore a dark cloak with a hood. I could see only her lips, chin, and the hollow of her throat. But I recognized her just the same. The sweep of her shoulders and the little smile lines at either end of her mouth were unmistakable; I’d know her at a hundred yards in the fog.
“‘ Me is half of what a cat says’?” she repeated drily.
“ Ow is the other half.”
“Oh, I got it,” she assured me.
“Late for a house call, isn’t it?”
“I go where the injuries are.” She pushed back the hood to reveal a serious, though no less lovely, face. “Bob Kay asked me to check your hand before you left. He said you might run into trouble and wanted to be sure you were as sturdy as we could make you.”
“Really?” I did my best not to grin. I was only partially successful.
“Aren’t you a little old to keep acting like a horny teenager?” she said, but with a smile. “This could just be a trick to get close enough to do you in.”
I closed the door behind her. “A man’s got to die from something.”
She slipped the cloak from her shoulders and tossed it over the back of a chair. “Truer words were never spoken.”
My grin faded. She held a long, shining straight razor.
She scowled when she saw my expression. “Oh, for God’s sake. I’m not going to slit your throat. I just thought that if you lost your beard, you’d be harder to recognize.”
“Oh.”
“You’re paranoid.”
“It’s served me well.”
“Yeah, well, not tonight it hasn’t.” She quickly arranged a pitcher and bowl on the table, turned a chair toward the lamp, and motioned for me to sit.
“ You’re going to shave me?” I said dubiously.
She put one hand on her hip. It accented her curves, as did the long, low-cut dress, complete with black lace at the wrists. I suddenly realized that she’d dressed up for me. “The first surgeons were also barbers,” she said wryly. “Trust me.”
The skeptical old soldier in me listed all the ways this could be a trap. “Uhm… maybe you should just keep me company while I do it.”
“That should be fun to watch, unless you’re left-handed.”
She had me there. Still, it would be a brilliant way to get me off guard and finish me with little fuss.
“You either trust me or you don’t, Eddie. But I have to tell you, if you won’t let me close enough to shave you, you’ll never get me into bed.”
At last I said, “Well, since you put it that way…”
I took off my shirt, a little self-conscious of my less than youthful belly, but I figured a doctor wouldn’t mind. When I turned to face her, though, her eyes were wide with something very much like awe. “My God, ” she whispered.
For just the tiniest fraction of a second I thought my physique had rendered her speechless, then I realized what she meant. “Yeah,” I said. “It was a long time ago.”
She bent close to examine the three-inch puckered scar near the center of my chest. Then she scurried around to look at my back. “It went all the way through?” she gasped.
I nodded.
“And you didn’t drown in your own blood? Or die from gangrene?”
I shook my head. “I was off my feet for a while, though.”
“I’ll bet.” Now she regarded me with a mix of pity, admiration, and tenderness. “What happened?”
“It was a long time ago,” I repeated, and stared at the wall. I couldn’t meet Iris’s eyes because I might see Janet’s instead. And then I’d hear her screams.
After a moment Iris said, “Okay. It just surprised me on a professional level. Most injuries like that don’t get the chance to develop into scars.”
I shrugged. “We all get surprised sometimes.”
I took the offered seat. She wrapped a towel around my neck, then lathered me up with something she produced from her bag. It smelled pungently fresh, and I was alert for any change in awareness the fumes might bring about. When nothing happened, I finally relaxed. It was a tremendously luxurious feeling.
She ran the blade up the side of my neck and just over my jawline. It went shckt as it sliced through my whiskers. I said, “So how come you haven’t bagged one of these handsome, wealthy knights?”
“Who says I haven’t?” She rinsed the blade in the water basin.
“No ring.”
“Most doctors don’t wear jewelry. Tends to snag on the edges of wounds.”
“That’s nice to know. But you didn’t answer my question.”
The razor skitched up my cheek. A big blob of soapy beard dropped onto the towel over my chest. She said, “I don’t care for soldiers much. I know lots of women swoon over a man in uniform, but I’ve seen them at their worst. Once a man is taught to be violent, it becomes his first instinct. And when there’s no war to fight, way too many of them turn it toward their women.”
