“They won’t talk,” one of the queen’s men said.

Medor laughed briefly. “The big one wouldn’t have. Some of these will. They may not know anything, but they’ll talk. Almost everyone talks.”

“He was going to give me a bedroom and a…a bed,” Thierry managed, glancing up again. “To sleep. Upstairs. For…for sleeping in.” He looked like death, sounded like it.

Silvy saw that Marina was weeping now, looking at him. Then she realized that she was too. She was still clutching his hand. She let it go.

“Thierry, it is over,” Marina said again. She wiped at her eyes. “You can sleep as long as you need to, then insult anyone you wish!”

“Can’t…think of anything,” Thierry said. “I’m not…I am…”

Medor caught him as he fell. Cradled him in his arms. A large man holding a smaller, broken one.

—

Thierry woke in darkness. Had no idea where he was. A hard seizure of panic, that he was in the dungeon still, and…

But no. He was in a bed, a soft bed. Someone had taken off his clothes and put him here, under blankets. He had no memory of it happening. He was—

He was not alone. A scent he knew. He turned on his side, coughing. Climbing towards awareness.

“Ah. There you are,” said Marina di Seressa, quietly. “Lie easy. We’ve had a doctor in to salve and bandage you again while you slept. He left something for that cough, too. I have no idea what.”

“Why…why are you here?” He sounded like a marsh frog.

“It is displeasing?” A hint of amusement.

“My lady…”

“I wanted to be. I didn’t think you should be alone tonight.”

He closed his eyes. Her scent, of course, remained. And now an awareness that she, too, was unclothed.

“I am not…”

“Of any use to me? Messire, such a thought!”

He lay there in the darkness. Medor had said he was like a child. He remembered that. He felt like one. He coughed again. He didn’t feel equal to this conversation. Said, “Where are we?”

“The inn in the village. The Jacquard’s. Our guards killed four other men here. Cleaning it out, they said. Medor also sent for more men, from one of the châteaux nearby. They came at sundown.”

“While I slept?”

“While you slept, yes. What would you have done?”

What would he have done? Nothing.

A jagged memory of the man at the table by the wall earlier, the feral expression with which he’d eyed Thierry. The bed was soft. Rogier had said it would be. Rogier was dead, killed by Medor Colle, while threatening Thierry’s life. He’d had an arrow in his thigh. He was a murderous outlaw.

The bed was really very soft. And the darkness was…different from what it had been for so long.