They Gave the Doomed Duke the Wrong Bride novel · Chapter 5 of 32

Chapter 5: The Water Skin

"Which guard?" I said.

"I don't know yet."

"You came all the way across a freezing stream to tell me half a thing?"

"I came to tell you to watch his water and his food." Rook's voice was flat. "Poison's quieter than a knife. A boy gets a fever on the road, nobody asks questions."

"Who paid?"

"I heard it in a tavern in the city. Two men talking. No names."

He was lying about something. I could hear it.

I couldn't tell what.

"Why would anyone want to kill an eleven-year-old?"

"Because he's the Duke's heir," Rook said. "As long as he lives, there's a Draycott."

He picked up his knife and walked back into the stream.

"Take the deer," he said over his shoulder. "Tell them a hunter left it. It isn't even a lie."

I dragged the deer up to the camp by its hind legs.

The cook took one look and rolled up her sleeves.

We ate venison that night, all thirty-five of us.

The guards smelled it and said nothing, because their sergeant was still sulking in his tent.

I didn't eat much.

I watched the guards.

Twelve men. Most of them bored, cold, young. Farm boys in palace red.

There was one I'd stopped noticing because he was so easy not to notice.

Thin. Narrow shoulders. A pale brown mustache. He'd been kind to Ned on the first day. Had given him a strip of dried apple.

He was the one who filled the water skins every morning at the stream.

Everyone's skins hung from a pole at the back of the guards' cart. He filled them all and handed them out.

Ned's was easy to spot. It had a red tassel. Isobel had tied it on so he'd stop drinking out of other people's.

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