The Waterborne Blade by Susan Murray

Author:Susan Murray [Murray, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: azw
ISBN: 9780857664372
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2015-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 57

Alwenna pushed her tapestry frame aside and stood up, pacing over to the window. She had no appetite for the work. Rain drizzled down the glass, distorting her view of the outside world. Mist obscured the treetops on the ridge across the gorge. It had been raining for ever. The outer wall of her chamber was slick with condensation, beads of moisture oozing down the stone to darken the floorboards where they met the wall. They would rot away if these conditions continued. She poked at the end of one of the floorboards and it yielded beneath her fingernail. How long before she too rotted, trapped here in this room? She wasn’t suffering in any physical way, but waiting to learn what Vasic’s next move would be and hearing nothing, day after day, was wearing beyond belief.

Maybe he’d tired of his obsession with her at long last – perhaps even found someone more willing and more suited to be his queen. Long ago there’d been talk of the daughter of a well-to-do family in the Outer Isles…

A knock at the door heralded the arrival of the maidservant, bearing a tray with Alwenna’s main meal for the day.

“My lady.” The girl curtseyed. “Shall I set this on the table as usual?”

“Yes. Thank you, Erin.” Alwenna wouldn’t risk eating until the maid had gone. The sickness could still catch her unawares when she first tasted food after a few hours’ fast. If Weaver had recognised her condition there was every likelihood a country girl would, too. Eventually the child would begin to show, but she would hide the truth as long as she was able.

The girl bobbed a sombre curtsey and moved over to the fire, stirring the embers into life and adding more logs. The girl attended to her duties in a methodical way, yet without any sense she was present in the moment at all. Alwenna turned her back to the window. She was hardly the liveliest of company herself, these days.

“Your accent isn’t Highkell. Did you have to travel far to find work here?”

“No, ma’am. My da used to farm down south of the bridge.”

That was the longest speech Alwenna had heard from her. For some reason she felt determined to persist today. Anything would be better than brooding over things she couldn’t change. “Used to farm? Did Vasic’s army destroy your crops?” She recalled the devastated farmstead she and Weaver had passed and realised how insensitive the question was.

“No, ma’am. My da was a tenant of Lord Stanton. When he died his uncle reclaimed the land for himself.”

So much for trying to get to know the girl better. Her family had been evicted on account of the man Weaver had killed the night they’d fled the citadel. That was one secret she’d better not confide in the girl, for sure. “That’s terrible. Could he do that legally?”

“My da said not, and he brought us all here to petition the king. But the king says until peace has been established he can’t hear our case in a proper court.

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