Chapter 16: The Infirmary Book

Linnet's POV

Marwood Hold looked smaller than I remembered.

It was the same grey wall, the same low gate, the same smoke from the kitchen chimney.

I had left it a month ago with a king's mark across my back.

I came back on a borrowed horse, with Perrin and six of the king's guards.

"The Alphas will be at the keep in four days," Perrin said as we rode in. "He can't leave, or he'd be here."

"I know."

"He asked me to say that he'd have come."

"I know that too."

The steward met us in the yard with his hands behind his back.

He had been my stepmother's man, and Odessa's after that.

He looked at the guards, and then at me.

"Mistress Linnet," he said. "The Alpha is away at the keep."

"I know where my father is."

"There is no one here to receive you."

"Then I'll receive myself." I got down. "I want the infirmary book."

His face did not change, but one of his hands twitched behind his back.

"There is no book."

"The cot where the king lay is in the east room."

"The book is on the shelf above it, with the dried yarrow. I wrote in it every night."

"Burned for kindling, months ago."

"Then it won't take long to look," said Perrin, and the guards spread out.

I ran.

I do not know why.

Some part of me had smelled it before I turned the corner.

It was the sharp smell of leather and old paper catching.

The infirmary door stood ajar.

A maid I had known since I was nine was crouching at the hearth with an armful of papers.

When she saw me she dropped them all.

"Mistress," she said. "He told me to."

"Who?"

"The steward. Last night, a letter from the Alpha. Burn the east room's shelf."

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