Could it be, as Eva suggested, a matter of signed contracts, unwanted witnesses to some unwanted thing? Or was it something other? Something more?
For now, he would keep her bound. Keep her talking. Keep her lying, and follow her straight to the truth.
“I do not know,” he finally said.
She gave a faint sigh of exasperation. “That is all you have to say, after such a long wait? I thought you were deciding my fate, or perhaps what to eat, or something equally momentous.”
“I shall endeavor towards more complicated replies,” he said drily.
She waved her hand. “That will not suit either.”
A smile tugged at his lips. “Eva, you are like yuletide: I never know what I shall find.” He reached forward and picked up a stick, poked its tip into the flames. “Why should you want an alliance with me?”
“We have the same intent, we must needs travel the same path. Of a certainty, we will fight at the end like cats and dogs, but that is for later. What say you?”
He glanced up. “Who gets to be the dog?”
“But of course, you. Big and growly.”
He grinned. “Am I not evil and quite impossible?”
“This is, sadly, true. But such men are good to be aligned with.”
“That is also, sadly, true.”
She sat up a little straighter, pushing her slim shoulders above the transparent waves of heat undulating up from the coals in the fire pit. “I think you can help me.”
He laughed. “I surely can. In what manner were you thinking?”
“In not tying me to a tree and leaving me for dead in the morning.”
He tilted his face and looked up at the tree limbs blowing in the darkness above them. “The notion does have a certain allure, does it not?” he mused.
“Normally, I would agree with this evil in your heart. It would make much sense to leave me and Gog behind.”
Thus far, she was on the mark. But then, it would have made more sense to leave her behind at the inn. He’d brought her because, well, he had no notion why. Because she was lying, he supposed. Lying people were hiding things, and until you knew what they were lying about, everything was a potential trapdoor.
“But I would find it very helpful to not be tied to a tree and left for dead,” she finished. “In this way, you would be of great assistance.”
“Aye, that would be helpful. For you. What makes you think I tie women to trees?”
She pretended to ponder this, her finger at her chin. “Your general readiness to do bad things? That you serve a vile lord? I would think tying people to trees to be a discomfort, a pebble in your bed, not a true obstacle.”
“I do not tie women to trees.”
“Not even ones who lie to you?”
“No. I prefer to leave them behind with”—he paused as if musing—“big, angry Scotsmen.”
She looked at him warily. “But this is no hardship. I am quite fond of Scotsmen.”
He arched a brow. “One-eyed ones?”
She arched both hers back, and he was certain she looked better than he. “Indeed. I prefer them to some Englishmen with both their eyes.”
Silence fell.
“Well, then, it seems we have ascertained how I can help you, Eva. But I am still unclear on how you can help me.”
“Any number of ways. I can tell stories at night or fetch water for your hardworking horses.”
“I find neither of those needs pressing at the moment, Eva.”
“I can tell you things.”
“Yes, but you lie.”
“I will not.”
He slid his gaze down her body, over her blue skirts, to the tips of her hard boots and back up. “I will know.”
A flush rushed out on her cheekbones, a faint pink tide. Something to note: the woman prickled with blades was an innocent with an innuendo. “And so, you see? You are your own formidable protection against my terrible, pathetic lies.”
He spun the tip of his stick in the fire. “And what would you have to tell me, Eva? There is a great deal I already know.”
“You know a great deal in the service of a lying, deceitful king.” Her words were sharp, falling out faster. “Beware of what lies you might have been told, Jamie, by others much more skilled than I.”
Only when they spoke of John did she lose her equanimity. Another thing of note. There was so very much to note about her, one could spend a lifetime with Eva as the object of study, like trigonometry or rhetoric.
“What makes you suppose I get all my information from my lying, deceitful king?” he asked, and she looked away. “And for that matter, in what manner are you different?” he added coolly. “The lies or the deceit?”
Her gray gaze came back around. “In that I have never promised anything other than what I deliver. I have vowed neither faithfulness nor honesty, and so I do not dispense it.”
“I see. You hand it out in the manner of . . . fruit.”
“But of course. Oranges, I think. They are very uncommon, like the truth.”
“You mean you do not get much practice eating it.”
She tipped her head to the side, regarding him in silence. Strands of her hair picked up reddish glints from the fire. She must have some red amid all that ebony. “Yes. Perhaps this is why I am not so good with it.”
He nodded agreeably. “Oddly, you are also quite bad at lying, yet you do that with regularity.”
She waved her hand, dismissing the insight. “This is so, I am torn between worlds. I shall learn from you, Jamie, no? How to lie?”
“That would be a long apprenticeship.” He turned the tip of his stick in the fire some more, watching it start to darken, then erupt into small flames.
“From the beginning of this tale, we have been adversaries, Jamie. I have had no reason to be truthful.”
“And now you shall?”
She leaned forward, tipping her torso toward the fire. He imagined the waves of heat pushing against her chest. “If you provide me a reason, Jamie Knight, indeed, I shall.”
He tossed the stick into the fire and sat back. “Prove yourself.”
She sat back, indecision and suspicion sweeping across her face. “In what manner?”
“Tell me something true, Eva. To a wellspring truth, through and through true.”
She looked uncomprehending, as might be expected. Then she smiled in a way he’d call mischievous, or impish, if he called smiles such things, and—well, this was becoming commonplace—his heart slowed down. Everything collapsed into his male awareness of her small, crooked, seductive smile.
“Beware the hedge,” she whispered conspiratorially. “’Tis filled with brambles. They bite.”
He felt another grin surface. “Is that your truth, Eva? The one by which you prove yourself?”
She nodded smugly and tried to cross her arms, but as her wrists were bound, this was impossible. “Bone truth,” she said proudly.
“I shall heed your warning,” he replied drily.
“As do I.”
He gave a snort of disbelief. “You? Heed warnings?”
“Bite. I bite.”
“Ah. That is good to know.”
“I also snore, complain on an oceanic scale, and find myself covered in terrible rashes when I touch certain plants.”
He smiled faintly. “You are a veritable sea of problems.”
“Sadly, this is so.”
“Have you any talents?” he inquired. Why, he had no notion. To keep her talking? He rarely pursued that particular goal with women.
She spread her hands apart, as if presenting a feast table. “Indeed. I can sing a merry tune.”
“Is that so?” he drawled, particularly and unaccountably pleased, whether by the news or her revelation of it, he did not know.
She nodded. “When I am so inspired.”
“And what manner of things inspire you?”
“Being free of ropes and knots, this of a certainty has an inspiring effect.”
“You will sing for me if I release you from your bindings?” he asked, halfway to incredulous. He had no intention of releasing her, so it was mere curiosity. About her reply. Not her singing.
She shifted on the ground. One knee came up, dragging the hem of her skirt up behind, so one long, white leg was momentarily exposed. She crossed her legs, the skirt fell back into place, and she looked up, the corner of her mouth curved up into one of those minute, somehow stunning smiles. “I will sing for you, Jamie, if you release me.”
Madness, the way his body sped up, churned inside. He passed her a cool look. “I shall have to forgo the pleasure.”
She deflated. “Oh, ’twould not have been a pleasure, Jamie. I sing terribly.”
He felt yet another grin tug at his lips. “You said ’twas a talent of yours.”
“I said I can sing a merry tune. Not a good one.”
“I would like to know what else you do well, Eva.”
She arched one of her little ink-swipe eyebrows. He liked when she did that across the fire. It shifted the way the light and shadows fell across her face. “Oh, yes, I am certain this is so. Men are always curious about what women do so well.”
It was ridiculous, how her throaty innuendo, chiding the overweening carnal desires of men, activated overweening carnal desire in him.
She sighed resignedly. “I patch clothes, carry wash, grow garlic, and poke a knife in someone, these things I do well.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You do not mention that you charm ship captains and play ninepins with your body.” And make my body ignite when you do but look at me.
She laughed, one of those pretty, secret laughs that she’d given him in the alley. “Alas, Jamie, you have discovered all my secrets. But come, why do we speak so much of me?”
“We are ascertaining if you can be truthful.” But he was not doing that, of course. Not anymore.
“Pah.” She reached up to rub her head with her bound hands. It pushed her dark hair forward, over her shoulder. “My innards are as riveting as dirt. We shall speak of you, knight, while we sit by this fire, and see if you are worth telling the truth to.”
“Shall we?” He leaned against the log behind him. “Well, I have a fairly good memory.”
She nodded encouragingly.
“And I recall, quite clearly, you did not bite when I kissed you before.”
Pale, bent at the knuckles, her fingers froze in combing through her hair. Her nails, painted with those erotic swirling lines, pushed through the tresses like barrettes, curling up out of the richness of her hair as she stared into his eyes.
“Now, Eva, listen close. For all your chatter, you have not yet given me anything of value.”
She sat up straight. “I gave you Mouldin.”
He smiled. “No. Roger did. And I would have figured that out soon enough, the moment I came upon him.”
She looked taken aback. “Surely it helps to know what sort of evil man you are hunting?”
“I hardly expected a kind one.”
She made an impatient gesture with her hand. “You hardly expected me either, yet here I am.”
“Aye, there you are,” he agreed, his words a slow drawl. This occasioned another blush slipping across her cheekbones.
They looked at each other for a long moment, then he slid his gaze down her body, over the long trails of hair flowing over her shoulders, down her belly to her bent knees before making the lazy trip back up again.
“In any event, I am seeking something significantly better than names, Eva.”
Something happened to her then, a small quiver that shivered her hair and made her release a slow breath. He could not resist looking down at her lips as they formed her next, softly spoken words.
“I know where Father Peter’s documents are.”
His gaze made the slow climb back to her eyes. “You what?”
“These documents and sketches that every man with a sword in England wants? I know where they are. I can get them for you.”
From across the firelight, her eyes were all reflected firelight in dark, shadowy pools. “That would indeed be a good trade, Eva,” he agreed slowly. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I care naught for the politics of England.”
He smiled faintly. “That is not good enough.”
“It is all I have. You have your sword, I have this little truth.”
Silence.
“So, Jamie Knight, have we a deal?”
He smiled at her in the sudden brightness as the entire stick was engulfed in flames. “It appears so. I refrain from tying you to a tree, and you spill your innards.”
Twenty
He shifted so his boots were planted on the ground, his knees bent, and slung his forearms over them, loosely linking his fingers. “Tell me a story, Eva. About Roger and you and Father Peter.”
She stared into the fire for long minutes, and when she spoke again, she surprised him entirely. “I once saw a wolf at night.”
He picked up another stick.
“The moon was out, I was climbing a hill. There was no color in the night, just wind and the white moon and sad brown grasses. That is when I saw him. He was gray, his fur rippled by the wind, like a sea. He looked like moon water. I knew I should be scared, but I was not.” She glanced at him. “Nor was I foolish. I put Gog up on my shoulders.”
“Pardon?”
She gave a ghost of a smile. “He was but six.”
“And you were?”
She shrugged, as if it did not signify. “This wolf, he was so . . .” She shook her head impatiently. “His fur was so thick and lush, clearly he had eaten many fat little sheep and must have had many enemies among the villagers. But there was something about him. His eyes were”—she glanced at Jamie—“blue. Pale. Like little coins. He was significant, like a field of battle unto himself. He saw me. I assume he considered ripping out my throat.” She glanced at him again. “You must know this urge.”
He smiled faintly. “It passes.”
She pressed her elbows onto her knees and stared into the low flames. “He put his muzzle into the air and loosed this great, howling cry. And out there, somewhere, another picked it up. There was another wolf out there, crying with him.”
She shivered. “Then he looked at me again, as if to say, ‘Oh, yes, I see you, little girl, and I will eat a sheep instead, this time.’ Then he turned and trotted down the hill, and I knew with certainty this one would be hunted to death. They are all dead now, here in England, the wolves?”
“Nigh on.”
A breeze puffed over their low fire. The coals burned in waves of hot orange and red.
“Gog and I, we have no need to howl to each other across hills.”
He nodded. She held out her hand. He mimicked the move, eyebrows up.
She pointed to her palm. “Gog.” She flipped her hand over and touched the back. “Eva.”
He could see the long, fragile bones running from her fingers to her wrist, where they disappeared under the dark blue of her tunic sleeve. Her fingernails were painted with those swirling, vaguely erotic lines.
She closed her hand into a fist.
He looked up. “You keep Roger safe.” He paused. “This is why you left England.” She nodded. “You know you will not be able to keep him safe like that”—he nodded toward her white-knuckled fist—“for much longer.”
The fire spat, sending a spray of tiny orange embers into the cold air.
“This I know very well, Jamie Knight. It is why we must leave England. King John is a very ambitious fisherman, and with a very big net, no? He sweeps up everyone in it, all the people he is frightened by for no very big reasons.”
“Or for very big reasons indeed.”
She nodded. “This is true. He is not overly discriminating.”
“No, he is not.” A vast, chasm-filled understatement.
“And he is easy to anger.”
“Did your parents anger him?”
She s
tared into the air above his shoulder with a small, inscrutable smile. “My mother did.”
My mother, not our mother, he noted silently.
The fire was burning down to a hot, orange bed of glowing coals. Drafts of wind pressed against them and blew them hotter, the bright red-orange glow undulating from one side of the fire pit to the other like a burning sea. Like her wolf pelt.
“And?” he asked, softer now, but still intent on his mission, because that was how you fished for truths with faeries.
“And so we left England,” she finally said. “Roger and I.”
They looked at each other. “Truly?” he asked softly. He was starting to feel bad, all this crushing of her pitiable lies.
But then, she said she did not care if it was obvious that she lied. What mattered was that no one ever knew the truth.
“’Twas Gog and I,” she insisted.
It had the ring of truth. It likely was the truth. It was simply not the whole truth. “And?” he pressed. They’d been children. Who had escorted them?
She held his gaze in silence, her chin pressed into little dimpled impressions, and by this, she revealed more than all her words thus far. For in it, Jamie could hear, like a murmuring brook, a thousand words rumbling to pour forth into the quarry his And? had dug. She was answering him, inside her head, and her silence fairly shouted of awful things and nevermores.
He had a silence like this inside him as well. But his chin did not dimple. His eyes did not widen, his heart never broke. He revealed nothing. He was a pit.
Eva was equally broken—like knows like—but not as practiced as he. She had the feel of something grown fierce by dint of need, not nature. But then, such things could be fierce indeed.
“There is no and for this,” she finally said. “For almost a year, ’twas just Gog and I, alone in these woods. You can see how this would have been a cold endeavor, as I cannot so much as make a fire.” She lowered her eyes.
“But I do not understand—”
Abruptly, Eva turned and reached into her little satchel, awkwardly due to her bound hands, and pulled something out. “Regardez, Jamie Knight. These are beautiful, no? They are from the curé to me.”
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