The Werewolf King's Regret: Punishing the Wrong Daughter novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Terms

Perrin admits he counted the cups; Linnet sets her terms and returns to the keep; Ewan's first words are a question about the pretty lady's gloves.

"No," I said.

Perrin Dace stood in the doorway of the hut with his hat in his hands, and he did not argue.

"If I go back past that line, he kills me. He said so in front of three hundred people."

"He did."

"And you want me to walk into his keep and nurse his nephew."

"I want you to say no to my face, so I know you mean it," Perrin said. "Then I'll ride home and tell the boy."

That was a low trick, and I hated that it worked.

The old woman hovered by the stove, pretending to stir a pot.

"Sit down," I told him.

He sat on the stool where the boy had sat, folding his long legs.

"Why did you ride out here yourself?" I said. "A king's Beta sends a rider."

"Because I count things." He turned his hat once in his fingers. "It's a habit. Cups, doors, who stood where. The king calls it a nervous tic."

"Go on."

"The cook says four people touched that milk. The cook, the kitchen girl who warmed it, your sister, and you. The kitchen girl never left the cook's sight."

He looked at his hat.

"That leaves two sisters. And the cook says yours called for a basin of water right after she poured the milk, and washed her gloves in it twice."

"She wears gloves everywhere," I said. "She calls it a skin complaint."

"Does she have one?"

"Not that I ever saw."

I shrugged, and the cuts down my back pulled so hard I saw sparks.

"Then tell him," I said.

"I did."

"What did he say?"

"He said the child almost died and the person who held the cup is already punished." Perrin's beard moved as he swallowed. "He has not slept more than an hour at a time since the yard. I think he can't hear it. If I push him, he will break something."

"So he stands there bleeding from his hand and he cannot hear it."

"Yes."

"He laid the first lash himself," I said. "He did not ask me anything."

"I know. I stood at his shoulder."

"Did you say anything?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I counted wrong, too, that night. I counted you guilty, like everyone else, until I saw how you held that boy's head." He looked up. "I'm sorry for it."

Nobody at Marwood had ever said sorry to me.

The old woman had stopped stirring.

I looked at my hands, the pale scarred palms, and then at the boy by the door, who was flexing the fingers that had been a blister yesterday.

Ewan had once come into the kitchen at Marwood with the royal party, a quiet child, and I had given him a heel of honey bread.

He had held my apron strings for the rest of the visit.

"I'll come," I said. "On terms."

Perrin's shoulders came down.

"One. I stay in the nursery tower, and the door stays open. Anyone can see in, and I answer to no one but the boy."

"Yes."

"Two. The king does not touch me. Not my arm, not my shoulder, not a hand to steady me. If he comes near, he keeps an arm's length."

His mouth twitched.

"I'll tell him."

"Three. He never says sorry to me in words. Not once. A man who ordered the chain can't buy it back with a sentence, and I'd hear it for what it is, cheap. If he's sorry, he can show me."

"That's the strangest term I've ever been given."

"Take it or ride home."

"I'll take it." He stood and put his hat back on. "And the Silver Line?"

"Your king said if I'm seen inside it, I die."

"Then the king will have to open the gate for you himself."

Perrin lifted me onto his horse, which was nearly true by now.

The old woman pushed a jar into my hand, and a roll of the iron cloth.

"Change it morning and night," she said. "And don't be a hero."

"I'm already a fool. She said that."

"Come back and tell me how it ends."

The ride took the rest of the day, and I slept against Perrin's back with my face turned to the side.

He woke me at the keep's postern gate, at dusk, and the guard on duty looked right through me.

Perrin took me up the back stair of the nursery tower, three flights of stone, past candles guttering in iron sconces.

He opened the door at the top.

The nursery was a round room with a high bed, and a fire had burned down to coals.

A nurse sat by the bed, asleep with her chin on her chest.

The boy lay in the middle of the blankets, thinner than I remembered, with his wooden horse in one fist.

His eyes were open.

I limped to the bed and went to my knees beside it, because I could not stand any longer.

"Ewan," I said.

He looked at me for a long time.

His lips moved.

The voice that came out was a scrap of a voice, dry from a week of disuse.

"Linnet," he whispered. "Did the pretty lady wash her hands?"

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