The Maiden and the Mercenary

by Nicole Locke

  ‘Sit,’ he ordered.

  Where had the chair come from? ‘You sit,’ she told the jawline.

  ‘Female.’

  Ooh, this was different. Very different. His voice wasn’t booming, but the authority was there. Yes, it was, more so, and it caused her eyes to wander a bit higher and then a bit higher yet.

  Glorious...everything. Black eyelashes, brows, aquiline nose, a tiny scar under his left eye that begged for a kiss.

  Then there was blue. A blue so blue, the sky would be envious. And...so many eyes. Why did he have so many eyes when the rest of them only had two? Unfair!

  ‘You’re too far gone for the chair, aren’t you?’ He’d swung his gaze away from her. ‘Who is responsible for this female?’

  ‘Now that you are hired, that would be you.’ The Steward’s reedy voice slithered into the kitchens.

  Steward, who controlled everything, including her employment. A position which was important because she needed it to save her sister.

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she whispered.

  * * *

  Louve had his arms full to brimming around trouble. There was no other word for the woman who’d completely dismantled a kitchen, his authority and who, though her skin was a shade closer to grey than the vibrant rose hue from before, was, none the less, absolutely, breathtakingly riveting.

  Anything less and his body would have immediately reacted differently. Caught her. Released her. Not clutched her closer like a boy feeling a woman’s breast for the first time. Not gallantly catered to her inebriated state, ordering her a throne to sit upon, like some knight of lore. Not still been holding her close when his superior, who’d hired him on a probationary period, was standing in front of them, his brow arched over a pointed gaze.

  A gaze he’d have perfected as his position demanded, but which Louve could belittle and demean with a swift...

  He wasn’t a warrior. Louve immediately hunched. The woman in his arms slipped and he had one choice. One. To keep supporting her and reveal his true strength that came about after years of sword training, or...

  Louve dropped her.

  Chapter Three

  Biedeluue was going to punch the stranger. Just as soon as her head stopped spinning and her rear stopped stinging. She would get off this floor, grab a goblet and knock it solidly on that jawline.

  Shouting. Different voices. One over the other. Steward’s, certainly, and Tess’s, who was foolishly defending her. Her feet weren’t working. Why were her feet going in opposite directions? The stranger’s legs were annoyingly steady.

  They were also ominously quiet. He was silent. That sneaky bastard. Getting her and her friend in trouble. She heard him ordering people about, but now the Steward was in the kitchen he’d gone mute while the rest of them looked contrite. When she finally stood, she would knock him down faster than a drunken Galen.

  What she needed was something... A chair! Biedeluue crawled to it.

  ‘Stay down,’ the stranger hissed.

  Like hell she would.

  ‘Now, see here, Usher.’ Steward’s voice. ‘I won’t... Ah!’

  A thud of a falling body, the squeaking protest of table legs and the ominous rattle of goblets. Loads and loads of goblets.

  The stranger cursed, shoved a hand on her back and hunched over her. Goblets crashed around them. Biedeluue clenched her eyes against the horrific sound they made, the stranger’s hand gripping her back with every goblet that hit him.

  A shrieking steward and the trampling of legs. Then another kind of silence. The one which didn’t bode well for anyone.

  The stranger straightened and, before she could sit properly, Steward was right there and she was staring at different kneecaps. If she narrowed her eyes, there were only four kneecaps as a thudding began in her heart and her legs stayed unsteady beneath her.

  She couldn’t crawl away either; she’d been cut off from the chair. If she moved, she truly would be sick. Especially at the words being said over her.

  ‘Yes, I know I must keep—’ Steward began saying, then stopped.

  ‘Must what?’ the stranger said. His voice lost that booming quality from before—now it sounded meek. His legs didn’t look meek. Was this a game to make her look inferior? Extra-sneaky bastard.

  ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘He’s—’

  ‘Never mind,’ Steward interrupted, overly loud. ‘I will... Oh, yes, that is perfect. I will remedy this situation.’

  ‘Am I...relieved of my duties, Steward?’ The stranger’s voice was pacifying. A fraud! Feet like his weren’t conciliatory. Legs like that weren’t apologetic. They marched across battlefields and stormed towers. She needed to alert someone.

  ‘He’s not—’ she said.

  ‘On the contrary,’ Steward said. ‘You... Yes, you will have more domain to roam as freely as you want. I will have to leave to obtain new goblets.’

  There was a decided pause. Bied waited as well. Did Steward say he was leaving?

  ‘You do not have potters?’ the stranger murmured.

  ‘One,’ Steward answered. ‘Only one and he cannot make these goblets the lord prefers. No, he can’t. These goblets must be procured only after I travel far, which will take a great amount of time.’

  The stranger stayed mute.

  So did she. Steward was leaving while the lord was in residence and there was a mess on the floor. Steward didn’t like it if a grain was left on a table after a feast.

  ‘So perfect timing for your arrival,’ Steward said, almost gleefully. Her head was full of knives and tablecloths. The kneecaps surrounding her were making no sense. Steward sounded pleased the goblets had toppled!

  ‘I am to complete my employment?’

  Hadn’t the stranger already asked that question? She’d drunk copious amounts of ale and even she could understand the words floating above her. Although, maybe she couldn’t understand the meaning of the words floating above her. There seemed to be too many pauses for her to keep any train of thought.

  ‘Most certainly,’ Steward said. ‘Especially since I am to depart.’

  ‘Sir, don’t you wish to instruct me in procedures, introduce me to staff? Perhaps lend me keys to gain access to certain rooms as befitting my station?’

  ‘Oh, no, no, no, Usher. You told me your credentials. You will be most adequate. Immediately, I must leave this situation. I shouldn’t be here at all now you are here. And I’ve been wondering how I would do that once you—’ Steward stopped, cleared his throat. ‘I meant I shouldn’t be here at all with these most important goblets ruined. I’ll need to remedy this situation as soon as possible. In the meantime, yes, serve the lord from the remaining goblets, none other, and do something with that!’

  A bony finger smacked Biedeluue.

  ‘Ow!’ Bied rubbed her nose.

  Steward’s uneven steps disbanded all the sound and movement in the room. The pause afterwards lasted so long, Bied was certain she’d fallen asleep until she heard the stranger exhale, then whisper, ‘This is wrong.’

  It was. Steward never walked funny and he was never pleased if something was broken. Even one measly serving bowl which was completely empty and had cracked in two neat pieces and hurt no one whatsoever... He hadn’t been pleased about that either. He’d never let her forget about her clumsiness for days afterwards.

  Who heard of special goblets? Why didn’t anyone tell her they were costly and couldn’t be made anywhere else and...? Maybe... Had Henry said... Oh, her head hurt! Everything was so terribly wrong. None of it would have happened if Steward hadn’t fallen. If the stranger hadn’t entered the room!

  ‘You need to get up immediately,’ the stranger said. ‘Now. I refuse to be responsible for whatever you are any longer.’

  He refused! Biedeluue’s head throbbed from the drink, a sign she was sobering up too quickly,
and her rear still stung from the fall, which made it a certainty that she’d exact some heinous revenge on this man who had come in and ruined everything. Everything.

  Finding purchase on the chair with her feet, she rose and dusted her skirts to stand and face whatever fate was about to be thrown her way. Not only would she face it, but she’d destroy it. Her sister’s life hung in the balance.

  And why not? She’d been in worse predicaments over the years, most she’d caused herself. This was hardly the worst. Even that wouldn’t have been terrible if this man had appeared. A few more goblets and another shot of ale, and Galen would have conceded. If not, they would have run out of goblets. A good sweep and a day to sober up while she interrogated very drunken people. She still needed to know when the lord slept, when he visited his mistress, when he usually left the residence.

  Questions she hadn’t dared ask when she’d first arrived. No, she waited until they were properly inebriated. Until they trusted her with facts.

  Everything was in place and well under control until this stranger entered the kitchens. She wouldn’t have it. ‘Sir, I demand an explanation.’

  Maybe other servants would accept punishment, but she was too old and wise for such behaviour. She’d learnt over the years that the way to approach any of these events was to be on the offensive. It was the way she got anywhere in life.

  This man would simply...be beautiful. Raven-black hair, summer-sky-blue eyes, lashes that were completely, utterly, unfairly long. And lips...

  ‘You want an explanation?’ he said.

  The lower lip was full, a dimple just to the side of it... Bied blinked. Another dimple perhaps on the other side, if he didn’t clench his jaw so. She would have to—

  ‘Madame!’

  Blinking, Bied stared into eyes that were losing their blue. Was he still glowering? She glowered back. ‘You enter here with no announcement, no forewarning. Do you know the chaos you caused?’

  ‘I caused?’ One raven brow arched, a glare to the blue that made him almost intimidating, which might have worked if he wasn’t repeating everything she said. Glorious he might be, but this man was simple.

  ‘Chaos,’ she repeated slowly, giving him a chance to understand her. ‘You entered the kitchens and shouted, which startled everyone. That’s why the goblets tumbled.’

  ‘My shouting caused the goblets to fall?’ he said, his voice rising. ‘My. Shouting?’

  Repeating again. She held out her hands in appeasement. Simple he might be, but he was larger than her, although...maybe he wasn’t larger, he was all...hunched. His shoulders rounded. That did nothing for him. Why, he’d be almost handsome if he... That was unquestionably a dimple on the other side. Two dimples, how could any woman resist?

  ‘Answer me,’ he said.

  ‘Answer—’ she said.

  ‘Madame, I asked if you are the cook?’ he said.

  He didn’t ask her any such thing. He was worse than simple. A liar? Storyteller? She needed to defuse this situation. What if he was violent? He came in ordering and shouting; violence was certain to come next.

  ‘She isn’t the cook. Cook is that heap in the corner,’ a high-pitched voice squeaked behind her.

  That would be the...red-headed boy. She hadn’t learnt everyone’s name yet. But that wasn’t what concerned her. What worried her was there were children present despite the danger. Couldn’t people see this man was dangerous? She needed to soothe the stranger and quickly. She wouldn’t have violence around them.

  ‘Take whatever you want and go back to wherever you came from,’ she said in a rush.

  ‘Go back to where I came from?’ The stranger didn’t turn his gaze towards the corner where Cook wheezed. ‘The children, madame, are making more sense than you.’

  She hated when people didn’t respect children. Hated when they bullied and hurt simply because they were bigger. Simple man he might be, but he needed to learn this and go. ‘Of course they’re making sense,’ she retorted. ‘They’re called words. In sentences. That do not repeat.’

  ‘Bied!’ a harsh whisper broke through. Oh, Tess was here, too, trying to protect her again. Bied’s heart warmed at having such a friend in so short of a time. When had that ever happened in her life? Never. She felt almost remorseful that she was deceiving her.

  ‘What is Cook doing in the corner?’ The stranger’s demeanour changed again. Something darker and far more menacing. His hunched shoulders along with that muscle ticking in his jaw was making every hair on the back of her neck stand up.

  ‘He’s always in the corner,’ the boy piped up as cheerful as could be. ‘For weeks and weeks.’

  The stranger’s glower darkened. His fingers stretched and clenched at his side. Bied knew what that meant. Spreading her arms wide, she straightened to her full height and shouted, ‘Tess, get the children out now! I’ll hold him off.’

  * * *

  What had he got himself into? Louve stared at the madwoman. It didn’t take long to determine the kitchen’s disarray and the cause of it, but this woman elevated everything to something he could not comprehend and he’d seen a lot of bedlam in his life. Drunken she might be, but this...

  ‘Madame, what are you doing?’ he said.

  She was waving her arms, her feet shuffling from one side to the other. Everything about her a distraction. Everything.

  From her hair that couldn’t decide if it was blond or brown. From her eyes that flashed between blue and something else that made no sense in any eye colour. Not brown, not green, not anything except some gem colour, but when added to the blue something happened to that colour... Something indeterminable.

  Everything about her was in between. Except her body. That wasn’t in between. It was as if God made a woman and then He kept making her. Kept adding to her until any other woman wouldn’t ever compare.

  Not to those ripe lips or the expanse of her pale throat and neck. Never to the long tapering in her fingers, or the plump lines around each wrist. When she pushed unsteadily to stand, her hands flat on the chair, her legs skittering under her, the rest of her undulated in the most mesmerising of ways. Louve looked away before he lost his footing.

  And now in front of him she waved that very body about, her feet taking her one way, her hips another, swaying to some dance his eyes powerlessly tracked. Swinging as if...she was blocking him!

  ‘I won’t harm the children,’ he spat, appalled at the words leaving his lips.

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ she retorted. ‘They always say that.’

  ‘Who says that?’ Louve couldn’t think. The Steward had left; no steward would do that. He needed to think and he couldn’t with this woman and her words, and her everything else.

  ‘As if you don’t know,’ she said. ‘Always with soft false words first before the fists strike. Hence here I am if you want to hit someone so badly. If violence is all you—’

  A black rage overtook him and he grabbed a waving wrist, quickly trapping the other. Clenched them both against his heart which thundered at the accusations she flung out. She was unadulterated, ale-addled mayhem. Right this moment, not one breath more, she needed to understand.

  She stiffened, but he didn’t let go. Just stared into her eyes which continually blinked as if finding it difficult to focus. He pushed his every thought forward, willing her to understand him very, very clearly. ‘I do not harm children.’

  She tried to wrench her wrists away, a sound escaping her lips. Her eyes wide in understanding, in defiance, in...fear.

  Disturbed, horrified, by what he’d done, he released her hands, took a step back. Searched the rest of the kitchen for some orderliness. It was empty, but many curious eyes peeked around corners from the other rooms and stations. Only the heap that was Cook remained in the corner.

  After this drunken woman had shouted her warning, the servants scattered from him as
though he was some brute. As though he’d come charging in here on his warhorse with sword drawn. Not like a humble broken man who came begging for employment so he could slink around unnoticed into areas where he shouldn’t be. This situation was a debacle.

  He sunk into himself, lowered his eyes. ‘There’s been a misunderstanding,’ he said.

  The woman swayed, swallowed hard, but didn’t back down.

  ‘You heard Steward,’ he continued, keeping his voice as meek as he could ever make it. ‘He hired me to assist with the household. Perhaps he hired me to help you? You seem to have the ear of the kitchens.’

  ‘Steward hired you?’ she said slowly, her pallor waning a bit. ‘To help me?’

  He wondered what’d happened to the Valkyrie. She seemed shocked that he was hired. ‘You heard him. He will depart to obtain goblets. I was told to liaise between stations. To be an usher so that—’

  ‘An usher, for the kitchens,’ she said.

  She was repeating him. Repeating what she’d already heard from Steward! He held to his patience. This woman was unhinged. Steward had fled in the most irregular fashion. Louve knew with certainty he was out of his depth. His safety, and that of Balthus and the men, was completely compromised. And this was before he faced Ian of Warstone. Before he even began his search for papers that could fell countries.

  ‘As well as other parts of the fortress,’ he continued.

  ‘You have access to the private chambers?’ Her expression was hopeful and decidedly unwell.

  He usually wouldn’t have access to private chambers, but Steward had left and announced his free rein in front of this woman, who wrecked property with no repercussions, who commanded servants. Perhaps this was the way she could help him in the mission. If she believed he had access to private chambers, he would not correct her.

  ‘Access to all rooms,’ he said, in his most agreeable voice. ‘Like you do.’

  ‘Access to the private chambers. To the chambers, like I...do,’ she said, gulping. ‘I’m going to be... I’m going to be—’