“Hesaysshe’s a tutor for his daughter,” Lady Anonymous was saying, in a tone that indicated she didn’t believe it for a second.
“Posh,” said another voice. “A tutor, dining at the high table? And riding with him for half the day? She’s his mistress.”
I’m hiswhat?!
“I don’t know,” Lady Anonymous said doubtfully. “She’s very odd.”
“Kings have had odd mistresses before.”
The desert is chilly at night, but the breeze was not sufficient to cool the sudden rush of blood in my cheeks.Oh, sweet Saints, is everyone thinking that?
“I’d think he could do better,” said a third voice archly. “She looks like a lump of dough in vestments.”
I went cold, then hot, then cold again.
“Kings have had plain mistresses before, too,” said the second voice. “Remember Lady Sorrel?”
“Yes, but King Bastian wasmad,dear.”
I’d heard enough. I bolted for my pavilion, assassins or no assassins, my stomach roiling as if the food really had been poisoned.
I woke up still humiliated. Also sore. Riding for half an hour or so, a few times a week, is not the same as riding all day. When Javier informed me that the king requested my presence at the head of the column again, I asked if I could say no.
He went a bit tight around the lips and glanced toward the distant figure of the king. “Ah…”
“In theory yes, in practice, I wouldn’t,” said Aaron bluntly.
“Right,” I said.It’s not that bad,I told myself.It’s not nearly as awkward as when you were thirteen and you begged Scand for months to attend a real autopsy and, when you did, you had to be sick halfway through.
My brain made a valid point. The shame I’d felt when I walked back into the operating theater, knowing that everyone had heard me being violently ill behind the curtain… no, this could never be as bad as that. I gritted my teeth and followed Javier.
Calm. I was calm. I stared between Ironwood’s ears and focused on how calm I was, how easy my breathing was, how relaxed my hands were on the reins.
“Good morning,” said the king.
“People think I’m yourmistress!” I hurled at him calmly.
He looked taken aback for a moment, started to smile, then hurriedly wiped it away. “I see,” he said gravely. “I’m sorry, Healer Anja. I hadn’t thought of the threat to your reputation.”
I exhaled. In the light of day, talking to the king, it seemed foolish that I was worried over what some silly courtiers thought. It wasn’t as if they could do anything to me that mattered—at least, not compared to what the king could do if I failed to save his daughter. Also, I had just yelled at the absolute ruler of the country.
“I’m sorry, too, Your Majesty,” I said. “I shouldn’t have…” I waved one hand helplessly. “I wasn’t expecting it,” I finished weakly.
He smiled. “It’s all right. Court gossip can be excruciating if you aren’t used to it.”
I grunted and went back to staring between Ironwood’s ears. They say that you can see ghosts if you stare between the ears of a dog or a cat or a horse. There didn’t appear to be any on the road ahead of us. Ghosts are a murky area, theologically speaking. No one is quite sure what Saint they belong to. Each Saint has their chosen people, so some people say that a ghost belongs to whatever Saint claimed them in life, but other people point out that Saint Bird is supposed to carry souls to the afterlife. Does that include ghosts? The jury is still out.
The silence became awkward, then went on so long that it just became the way things were. I certainly was not going to force the king to speak to me. If he wanted to say something, he would. I still had no idea why he kept summoning me up here to ride with him, unless it was to keep people in the train from finding me and offering me money to let his daughter die. (Come to think of it, that would have been far more awkward than this. What do you even say, other thanNo, of course not. What’s wrong with you?)
I amused myself by identifying the plants as we rode throughthe desert, picking out the poisonous ones.Let’s see… Creosote bush is toxic to herbivores, but they mostly avoid it anyway… Whiteleaf manzanita, that’s fine… Saint’s locust is pretty, but the seeds will kill you deader than a dead thing, and the bark’s no great shakes either…
We plodded onward. There is a great deal of plant life in the desert, if you know where to look, but there’s a limit to how much is visible from horseback. Mile after mile of gray-green shrubs stretched out around us, the creosote bushes spaced as precisely as if they had been planted, the others tangling around the base of cactus or standing proudly alone. White dust billowed like smoke behind us. Somewhere on the other side of the horizon, there were hills and mountains and other countries and even a sea, but it was hard to believe in such things when you were riding through sand and stone and scrub.
Prickly pear, edible if you cook it right… Oh hey, a jumping cholla. That doesn’t have to be toxic, it’s nothing but spines and hatred.If you imagine a porcupine crossed with a small tree and marinated in the bowels of hell, that’s jumping cholla. Fortunately there were none within six feet of the road, or I’d expect at least one person to run afoul of them. The needle-covered pads latch on to cloth or flesh—they aren’t picky—and getting the needles out takes a lot of time with the tweezers, during which you’re almost guaranteed to get stabbed yourself.
Nothing else presented itself for several miles, until we passed a tiny shaded seep between two jutting rocks. It wasn’t large enough to water our horses from, but even the small amount of water from the natural spring meant a sudden riot of plants grew around it. Most of them were harmless enough, but the pale trumpets of white thorn apple hovered over the scene like wicked angels.
Saints, but I hate that stuff. The common thorn apple that grows in the desert is bad enough. It can kill a human or an unwise herbivore quite easily, and it isn’t a good death. Racing heart, high temperature, and then you stop urinating, which will kill you a lot quicker than most people realize. (Also the delirium and the screaming and so forth.)
