The Keep Within by J. L. Worrad

The Keep Within by J. L. Worrad

Author:J. L. Worrad
Language: eng
Format: epub
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Publisher: Titan Books


TWO NIGHTS TILL

YULENIGHT EVE

32

Carmotta

She ordered her handmaids bring her fourth favourite winter coat. A grey lilac, its collar and sleeves were trimmed with sable furs. More importantly, the sleeves could be drawn back. Ideal for a lady who meant to use a bow.

Two guards escorted Carmotta and her handmaids to the butts. She would have felt safer with Dulenci beside her, but he was off across the city with his boys, having been careful to announce as much to all nearby, as was his custom. A crack was opening between her and him. They had not enjoyed one another’s bodies for almost a day and a night. A sadness for her and absolute hell for Dulenci who, when all was said and done, was a walking erection.

She had found she could not touch him. Nor Ean, nor even herself. How was human love possible with her new insight, with those things forever upon every brow? The question of her pregnancy was becoming ever more insoluble. Almost.

‘Greetings, sister wife,’ said a woman’s voice as Carmotta’s entourage turned a corner into a wide stairwell lit by candles inside hollowed deer skulls. It was Third-Queen Emmabelle and her entourage: two more guards and three handmaids as blonde as she. Each person had their own hand of night upon their head.

‘Sister wife,’ Carmotta replied, as both entourages descended the stairwell together, ‘I did not think you would be taking part today, given your God-blessed condition.’

‘Where my family hails from everyone knows how to wield a bow.’ Emmabelle snorted with laughter as if it were a joke. ‘In Duxby, a day at the butts is considered healthy for an expectant mother.’

‘I see.’ Carmotta could see her skills were real. Not only did Emmabelle’s blue coat have the retractable sleeves like Carmotta’s own, Emmabelle was already wearing the leather protection thing – Carmotta knew not its name – on her wrist. ‘We Mancanese have scant familiarity with the longbow.’

‘Crossbows over there, isn’t it?’ Emmabelle said. ‘I suppose that’s easier: crank and pull a lever. Anyone can do that.’

‘For my people,’ Carmotta replied, ‘that’s precisely the beauty of them.’

‘Of course, I won’t be using a longbow,’ Emmabelle said, bored of the conversation’s direction. Her rosemary perfume wafted to Carmotta’s nose. ‘I’m too petite, too much a lady. With your arms you might have been all right, though. Your shoulders, too.’

Little bitch. Carmotta smiled. Barbed insult or idiot stumble, Emmabelle’s comments would not get the better of her. Carmotta was in the process of owning Emmabelle and Emmabelle had not the faintest clue. It was her rosemary perfume upon the letter Carmotta had stolen from the Explainer’s chest. Her handwriting too, though she had been careful not to sign her name at the bottom nor address the letter’s recipient at the top. But the body of the letter? Oh what a gift. I cannot stop thinking of when last you held me, were last inside me. I touch myself as I write this, my love, and I pretend it is you.



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