. The sleeves that would have been loose on any other man bulged with the muscles she'd seen in Kun's yard, making them look even bigger. He'd had to unlace it a little down the front to allow space for his broad chest without ripping the fabric, but the tantalising glimpse of flesh at his throat only made her mouth dry at the thought of touching, kissing, stroking…
Bianca mentally shook herself. If Cousin Efe had brought him here, dressed up like the lord she knew he wasn't, then he had a mystery to solve.
She patted the bench beside her, shifting over until her foot nudged the dog's furry body. "Come sit by me, Lord Vasco," she said, surprising herself with the low purr that came out of her throat.
Vasco looked even more startled. "I…I can't," he mumbled, backing away.
Cousin Efe screwed his face up in annoyance. "Why not? The princess gave you an order."
Vasco bowed deeply. "I am no lord, princess. I am just a common soldier, not worthy to share your table. Even the honour of sitting at your feet is more than I deserve."
Bianca couldn't help it. She laughed. "The place at my feet is taken by a dog. I'm afraid you must make do with the bench. We are not in the capital now, and the accommodations here at the Summer Palace are more informal." Her sisters were staring at her, and she felt blood rush to her cheeks. "Please sit here." She lowered her gaze until the other girls turned their attention back to their food. Evidently they hadn’t noticed anything different about Vasco. They must be blind, she decided.
Vasco slid easily into the spot beside Bianca, who found her breath caught in her throat now he sat so close. Why, his thigh brushed her skirt, and if she moved her own leg just the slightest bit, she would be able to feel him through the fabric.
"I'll fetch you some wine," Hazel said, rising.
Bianca saw the reproach in her sister's gaze – after all, she was the newest to arrive, which meant she was the one who was supposed to head down to the cellar for their guest's wine – but Hazel was gone before Bianca could apologise.
Probably for the best, Bianca told herself. After all, what would Hazel say if her only excuse was that she was too busy admiring the man Cousin Efe had thrust among them? Hazel would think her mad. Perhaps she'd be right, too.
She glanced at Vasco. He sat, silent and motionless, not touching a crumb of the food that covered the table, as if he was somehow afraid of it.
"Eat something," Bianca said, offering him the nearest platter.
He bowed his head. "You first, princess."
Of course. She outranked him, something she'd forgotten in sharing a table with her sisters and the mannerless men who had come and gone.
She seized the nearest thing and took a bite, not really tasting it. Only then did Vasco take food for himself.
He ate in silence, his head down as though he wished he were invisible.
Bianca understood the feeling, though not the reason for it. He seemed terribly uncomfortable.
"Where are you from, sir?" she asked.
He swallowed. "Nowhere."
She managed a smile. "No one is from nowhere. Why, we are all born somewhere, even if we no longer live there. Where were you born?"
"I was born in a small village that no longer exists. Razed to the ground by an advancing army. Or a retreating one. I am not sure. Heedless of those who lived there. So the village where I was born is no more, and nowhere."
His voice sounded so dead, like the village itself.
"What happened to those who lived there?" she asked.
"They died."
So final. And yet…
Hazel appeared with a jug of wine in hand, which she poured into Vasco's cup. He seized it and drank down the contents before holding the cup out for more.
"But you survived," Bianca began eagerly. "I imagine that must be a thrilling tale."
The eyes he turned to her were dark and haunted. Bianca's smile died on her lips and Hazel gave a cry of alarm. Somehow the whole jug of wine had slipped from her hand and smashed on the floor. The shards lay in a spreading lake beneath the table.
"I am sorry," Vasco said, rising. He bowed abruptly, then hurried out.
Bianca tried to follow him, but Brenna's dog tangled itself in her skirts in its hurry to reach the spilled wine, and by the time she managed to clamber to her feet, Vasco had vanished.
"Good riddance," Aruna said. "You can do much better, sister. And you will tonight."
Hazel seized her hand. "You must dance with us. I won't let you retire early. Not with that man about. He did not drink enough of the strong wine to sleep the night through. We'll take him another jug on our way to bed."
Nineteen
The sweet princess with the expressive eyes just wouldn't give up. Again and again, she asked him about his home until he wanted to scream the truth for all of them to hear. The village bathed in blood, the smell of burned bodies and Dokia…Dokia…
Vasco downed his wine and pushed away from the table. He staggered out of the room, clamping his mouth shut to keep the horrors in. Like Gerel, she did not need his nightmares. They were his alone.
Speaking of nightmares, it was time to give in to his once more. He'd worked hard all day before walking up to the palace, and he could scarcely keep his eyes open. But he didn't know where his bed might be – if he even had one.
Vasco headed for the kitchen. Surely someone there would know where he was billeted.
He met Gerel on her way back to the kitchen, carrying a tray of half-eaten food.
"Serving the Lord Steward?" he asked, nodding at the scraps.
She nodded. "He takes his meals in his rooms."
"Too good for the company of princesses?" Vasco said.
Gerel reddened. "Actually, I believe they refuse to eat with him. The Lord Steward is not well liked." She pressed her lips together, as if she wished she could unsay her words.
"What about the princesses? Are they well liked?"
Gerel managed a nervous smile. "They are princesses. The king's beautiful daughters. You can't help but admire them, even if we see them so little. They spend most of their time abed, but when they are awake, they are not unkind."
Not unkind. What a thing to say about someone, let alone her mistresses. Better than not well liked, though. "What of the pale one who is fairer than the others?" he demanded.
"The Princess Bianca? She is our most recent arrival, only a few weeks ago." Gerel's expression brightened. "But I have seen more of her than her sisters combined. They sleep, while she rises early. Sometimes, she even enters the kitchen to ask for things. The way she speaks to you, looking in your eyes like she really sees you, and not just some invisible servant to be ordered about…such a small thing, but it truly sets her apart from the others. She likes to ride or walk down by the lake, and she takes a basket of provisions with her so she can stay out of the house for longer."
Remembering the time he'd seen her at Kun's cottage, Vasco asked, "Where does she ride to?"
Gerel shrugged. "Wherever she pleases, I am sure. She is a princess, and all the land around belongs to her father, the king. Who would dare stop her?"
Who indeed. "Do you know anything about this mystery with the shoes?" he said.
Gerel shook her head. "No more than you. That is why you sleep in the maid's room off their bedchamber, and not one of us."
He had a place to sleep. Vasco grasped at the idea. "Can you show me where?" he asked urgently.
"Of course. I have already placed your things there. You left them in the kitchen." Gerel glanced down. "Let me just take this tray to the kitchen, and I will show you up."
Gerel returned a moment later, beckoning Vasco to follow her.
Tapestries lined the walls here, too, but they were not as grand as the ones outside the Lord Steward's rooms. They looked too old and faded to be the princesses' own work.
The décor didn't improve when they entered the princesses' receiving chamber. If anything, the walls were even more bare here, for the room held only a few be
nches and little else. The girls did not spend much time here.
Gerel gestured toward an open door at the other end of the chamber. This new room was full of beds – a dozen to be precise. All the princesses slept in the same room, which had a row of small windows, but only the one door in or out. Perhaps they danced around their audience chamber and that's why there was no furniture to speak of. Mystery solved.
"Your bed is there." Gerel pointed at an alcove just outside the door to the princesses' bedchamber. It contained a straw pallet and some hooks that now held his meagre belongings. "You have the most beautiful cloak."
Vasco glanced at Kun's gift. In truth, the thick, black wool was better quality than anything he'd ever owned, but much like tonight's fancy clothes, he hadn't been able to refuse it. He didn't have to sleep in silk, though. But Gerel should go before he undressed.
"I wish to retire now," he said.
It took Gerel a moment before she understood. Then she coloured. "Of course. In the morning, when you wish to break your fast, come down to the kitchen. We have orders to serve you in the dining chamber with the princesses, but they rise so late that you might wish for something earlier." She bobbed on the spot, as if she'd almost curtsied to him before remembering she didn't need to, and hurried off.
Vasco peeled off the black silk fripperies the Lord Steward had made him wear, and donned one of his own worn tunics. Much more comfortable, he stretched out on his bed and almost instantly fell asleep.
Twenty
While Bianca's sisters headed for their bedchamber, she dutifully made her way down to the cellar for another jug of wine. On her way back up, she returned to the dining hall to grab Vasco's cup from the table. She peered under the table, wondering what to do about the puddle of wine. She decided to leave it for one of the servants to deal with. After all, someone would come to clear the table of the remains of their meal.
Most of the wine was gone, sunk between the flagstones or, more likely, lapped up by the little dog that now slept under the table in the puddle that remained. Bianca smiled. Brenna's dog would probably sleep there all night.
Wine jug in one hand, cup in the other, she made her way to her bedchamber. Efe waited outside, looking irritable. "Hurry up. I must lock the door," he said, waving her in.
Lock the door? Bianca had never seen him do such a thing before. She stepped into the audience chamber, then turned to ask Efe what he meant by it. He slammed the door shut in her face and she heard the sounds of a bolt being drawn across it, effectively locking them all in. Including Vasco, she realised, who now slept soundly on the pallet beside their bedchamber door.
No wine necessary.
Nevertheless, she set the cup and jug down beside his bed. Staring at the snoring soldier, she suddenly felt very tired herself. Probably because she'd slept so little the previous night. Maybe she should climb into bed and sleep the night away. Her sisters' shoe mystery could wait for another night.
"Hurry up and dress, or we shall be late!" Nera hissed, tugging on Bianca's arm.
She allowed herself to be pulled into the bedchamber. Brenna closed the door behind her. All the other girls were in various stages of dressing not for bed but for what appeared to be a royal ball. Well, if they were going to dance, she thought wryly, why not? They might be exiled from the palace and the capital, but they could still dress like they were attending court.
Now, more than ever, she felt too tired to join them.
"Hurry!" Nera repeated as Hazel helped her lace up her gown.
Bianca shook her head. "I am too tired. Tomorrow night, maybe. I can scarcely keep my eyes open."
Nera made an exasperated noise. "Sleep, then. We'll choose the handsomest and you'll have to make do with what is left. Unless you prefer the fool outside?" She tittered, and the other girls joined in.
And what if she did? Bianca wanted to say, but she held her tongue. They were locked in their own bedchamber, with no men, handsome or otherwise. She stripped down to her shift and climbed beneath the covers of her bed. Almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, she drifted off into dreams.
What seemed like only a moment later, she was roused by the sound of hammering on her bedchamber door.
Twenty-One
Vasco woke with a start. It took him a moment to realise that the soft weight on top of him was merely the bed coverings, and not Dokia's dead body. He wasn't sure which nightmares were worse – the ones in the heat of battle, or the ones from the night his village burned. He hoped he hadn't woken the princesses by crying out.
He rose and padded to the door to their bedchamber, pressing his ear to the closed door. Silence greeted him – they were surely asleep. Sighing in relief, he crossed to the narrow window and took a deep breath of the cool night air, hoping it would clear his head. But the view from the window made his breath catch in his throat.
A flotilla of small boats, like a flock of swans, drifted across the lake toward the misty island in the middle. Moonlight glistened on silk and he realised what he was seeing – in each boat sat a princess, wearing a shimmering silk gown and, he didn't doubt, a pair of matching slippers that would be danced to pieces by morning. He shouted, but no one seemed to hear him.
He had to follow them. Vasco dashed for the door to the passage, only to find it barred from the outside. He was locked in.
But if he was locked in…surely they had been, too. There must be another way out – through their bedchamber, perhaps.
He tried that door, but it was locked, too. He hammered on it, then threw his weight against the timber, over and over again. He had to follow them. His very life depended on it.
He heard the scrape of a bolt and the door cracked open. "What is it?" a sleepy female voice asked.
Had he imagined the boats? If the princesses were still in their bedchamber, he couldn't have seen them on the lake. Vasco pushed the door wide and strode into the room. A candle burned beside one of the empty beds, but there was not a girl to be seen.
He swore.
"What does that mean?" a female voice asked.
Vasco blinked. Beside the door stood Bianca, wearing nothing but a thin shift, as if she'd been roused from her bed. Shame welled up as he realised he'd been the one to wake her in his panic.
"Forgive me, princess," he said awkwardly. "I had a bad dream, and then I thought I saw something on the lake."
"On the lake?" Princess Bianca crossed to the window beside his bed and peered out. "I don't see anything."
Vasco looked over her shoulder. The boats had reached the mist, which hid them from view. Yet he knew what he'd seen.
"Maybe I dreamed that, too," he admitted.
"When I had troubling dreams as a child, my mother would have one of the maids bring me milk to drink. Ice-cold from the cellars." Bianca smiled at the memory. "I can send for some, if you like?"
Vasco shook his head. "The door is bolted. We are locked in. Though how your sisters managed to get out…I don't know." He wanted to ask her what she knew, but he already felt embarrassed enough. Interrogating a princess was hardly the way to behave after he had woken her so rudely.
"Wine, then?" she asked, offering the jug.
Kun had warned him not to drink the wine. "NO!" he said, then added, "It might dull my wits. I will need all the wits I have to solve this mystery. Is there anything you can tell me about it, princess?"
Sadly, Bianca shook her head. "I don't know where they go. Until tonight, I didn't believe they went anywhere at all, yet they have gone. And tomorrow there will be a pile of shoes on the threshold of our room for me to trip over."
Vasco managed a smile. "A graceful princess like yourself would never do something so clumsy."
Bianca laughed so hard she had to sit down. "I am many things, but graceful isn't one of them. As you will soon find out, if you spend much time with me."
"I have only three days," he replied. Three days left to live, unless he found a way to follow the princesses across the lake. But he didn't tel
l Bianca that, for he would sound like a whining coward, when he was neither. If he would die for his failure, so be it.
She sighed. "So you do." She glanced up. "Perhaps tomorrow night you should hide in our bedchamber, so you can see where they go. Wearing your new cloak, you will be invisible in the shadows." She reached out to touch the wool cloak Kun had given him. In fact, her words echoed Kun's almost exactly.
Yet she looked the polar opposite of the old witch. Where Kun wore so many layers of clothing she appeared shapeless, Bianca wore a thin shift that clung to her curves even as it concealed them, but barely. She truly was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and in the moonlight shining through the window, she seemed infused with a kind of magic that turned her from a woman into a goddess. The kind armies would die for.
Yet she was still a woman, as much as he was a man. Increasingly aware of how little clothing they wore and how much his body desired her, he forced himself to shut down all such thoughts. She was a princess, which made her untouchable by one such as him. That she spoke to him at all was an honour he did not deserve.
"Perhaps I will. It's too late for that tonight, though. It appears our birds have flown," he said. He bowed. "I am sorry I woke you, princess. It will not happen again."
She rose, unwittingly giving him a glimpse down the front of her shift before she straightened. Vasco had to close his eyes, but it was too late. Those creamy breasts would haunt his dreams until the day he died.
In three days.
"Pleasant dreams, Vasco," she said.
He didn't reply.
Twenty-Two
Day dawned and Bianca rose with the sun, as usual. Her sisters had returned and they were sound asleep, having left the usual pile of shoes before the door, which she stepped over carefully. She didn't want to trip and wake Vasco.
When she reached the receiving room, she found his bed empty and the outer door ajar. She needn't have bothered being quiet. For a moment, she worried that he might have left, but his belongings still hung from the hooks over his bed. Perhaps he was simply breaking his fast, she decided. Something she should do, too.
Revel: Twelve Dancing Princesses Retold (Romance a Medieval Fairytale Book 4) Page 6