They Hanged My Parents as Traitors, Now the Prince Needs My Heart novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: What I Signed

Bronwen climbs the tower stair in daylight with Sioned and a rolling pin, tells the prince what ten years cost, and sets her first term; Lady Olwen is at the gate to claim him.

I walked out of the great hall with my cut hand held up in front of me, and nobody stopped me.

The prince didn't call after me either.

I had thought I would be angry, and I was.

But my legs were shaking so hard that I took the kitchen stairs one at a time.

Sioned Pugh was waiting at the bottom with her sleeves rolled and a basin of hot water.

She ran the kitchens, and she had run me since I was fourteen.

"Sit," she said.

I sat on the flour barrel.

She turned my hand over, found the deepest cut, and said a word that I had only ever heard from the butcher.

"You tipped glass onto the Regent's nephew's plate," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"In front of the Regent."

"Yes."

"I have never been so proud or so frightened in my life." She pulled a splinter of glass out of my palm with her tweezers, and I hissed. "Don't you dare cry in my kitchen. The bread's rising."

"I'm not crying."

"Good. Hold still."

She stitched the thumb with her fishing thread, and I told her all of it, from the goblet to the seal.

When I said the prince's name, her needle stopped for a moment and then went on.

"He signed it himself," I said.

"I know, love."

"You knew?"

"Everyone knew his seal was on it. Nobody knew why he stayed up in that tower afterward and let the Regent do his talking." She bit off the thread. "Eat something."

I ate half a loaf standing up.

Then I slept for three hours in my loft above the ovens, with the heat of the bread coming up through the boards.

Dafydd Lloyd woke me.

He was the captain of the prince's guard, a big man with a red beard and a crooked nose.

He had been my father's youngest guardsman.

He had also taught me to throw a knife when I was nine.

He stood at the foot of my ladder with his cap in both hands, which I had never seen him do.

"The prince sent this," he said.

It was a single sheet of heavy paper, folded once.

Come in daylight. The door will stay open. Bring whomever you like. I will not touch you unless you ask me to.

There was no signature.

"He wrote that himself," Dafydd said. "Took him four tries. I fetched the paper."

"I'm not going," I said.

"All right."

"You're not going to tell me to go?" I said.

"Your father would have told you to eat first," Dafydd said.

I went at noon, with Sioned behind me carrying her longest rolling pin.

The north tower stair had a hundred and nine steps.

At the top, a door stood wide open on a round room full of books and low gray light.

The prince was sitting on the window seat as far from the door as the room allowed.

He stood when he saw us.

He had put on a clean shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow.

The black veins ran up his left forearm to the crook of the arm, no higher.

"Miss Madoc," he said. "Mistress Pugh. Thank you for coming."

"I'm only here for the answers," I said.

"Then ask."

"Why didn't you read it?" I said.

He didn't look away.

"Ten years ago I was ill," he said. "The Hollow had its hands on me, and I was out of my head for weeks. When the fever broke, Aneurin put that warrant in front of me with my seal on it. He told me Hywel Madoc had confessed."

He took a breath.

"I had known your father for thirty years," he said. "He stood at my shoulder at every door I ever went through. And I nodded and gave the paper back without asking him a single question."

"You nodded," I said.

"I nodded," he said.

"He was hanged on a Tuesday," I said. "It rained. They made me stand in front."

"I know."

"I was fourteen, and I slept in a loft above the ovens. Every man at that feast last night has thrown a plate at me once. Sioned is the only person who ever fed me without wanting something."

Behind me, Sioned grunted.

"That's all of it," I said. "That's what the nod cost."

The prince didn't say sorry.

He stood there and took it, and I noticed that his hands were not quite steady.

"I'll say it once," he said. "I can't fix it with a word, and I won't insult you by trying."

"Good."

"What do you want from me?"

I had not planned this part.

"Every page of my parents' case," I said. "The warrant, the witness lists, the Council minutes, all of it. Not a summary. Open to me, in this keep, whenever I ask."

"Done," he said.

"Without the Regent's clerks reading over my shoulder."

"Done. Dafydd will arrange it."

"That's my first term," I said. "I'll tell you when I have more."

For the first time something moved at the corner of his mouth.

"I'd like to try one thing," he said. "I won't touch you. Hold your hand an inch from mine. Nothing else."

I looked at Sioned.

"If he tries anything," she said, "I'm taller than I look."

I held my stitched left hand out in front of me.

He raised his veined one, palm down, and stopped it a finger's width over mine.

The black lines on his skin leaned toward me.

I saw it plainly.

They slid back along his wrist, one inch, then two, until the dark ended at the middle of his forearm.

Heat ran up my arm to the elbow, and I could not have said whether it was mine.

"Well," Sioned said. "That's disgusting. I'd like a biscuit."

The prince laughed.

It was short and rusty and surprised, and it shot straight through the middle of my chest.

Boots pounded on the stair, and Dafydd came through the open door without knocking, out of breath.

"Sir," he said. "Lady Olwen is at the main gate with forty wolves."

The prince's hand dropped, and the black crept back up to his elbow.

"She says she's come home to be your mate again," Dafydd said.

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