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fire poker,” she called ahead of her. It seemed almost fitting that she should now burn Philipe, when he’d scarred her in a way even the fire hadn’t managed.
    She would endeavor not to enjoy it.

 
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
    The morning dawned cold and bright, and Philipe blinked against the sunlight that streamed through the uncovered window. The freezing air invaded the feeble warmth of the tower room, and he pulled the blankets to his chin. Sometimes upon waking a strange bed, it took him a moment to remember where he’d rested his head the night before, and who might be sleeping beside him. Not this morning. The pain in his shoulder reminded him before he’d opened his eyes. He was reminded, too, that the black, shrouded figure pouring a piss pot out the window was not a mere servant.
    When last he’d seen the Lady Johanna, she had cried and clung to him, asking for promises of love to appease her girlish fascination. He’d been eager enough to give them, unaware then that the feelings of others were not the same as his own. Had Johanna spurned him all those years ago, he would not have been as affected as she had been by his careless casting aside. He would have raged, and used it as an excuse to drink too much wine. He would have had every serving girl in the castle up against a wall, and in a week’s time, when the game of wounded lover grew tiresome, he would have abandoned it.
    It appeared that in that same game, Johanna was an expert player.
    She turned from the window and halted. Behind the sheer black veil, her eyes glittered. They were still the same deep violet, as beautiful as they had been all those years ago. Now, they were amethyst jewels in poor setting.
    “You woke.”
    The bluntness of the unspoken, that she had perhaps not expected him to, was not lost on him. “Fortune is good to me. I’ve survived much worse.”
    “As have I.” She left with the pot in hand and returned with a shallow basin full of steaming water. She set it at his bedside. “I must examine your wound.”
    Her mouth, untouched by the fire, was grim and tight as she plunged her pink hands into the water. Wiping them on a towel, she flipped back the top of the coverlet and peeled the bandage from the hole the arrow had left him. Philipe grimaced. The night before, she’d taken a hot iron to it to stanch the bleeding. Viewing the blistered, raw skin in the light of morning, he wondered if he didn’t prefer the arrow wound.
    “It looks all right.” She tossed the linen bandage, sodden with pink fluid, aside, and retrieved another from the chest of medicines on the table. “You should be able to leave in a few days. Wilhelm will hire a messenger in the next village to send word back to the palace.”
    “Ah. Yes, well,” Philipe began, but he did not know how he intended to finish. It was clear that Johanna had no love left for him—not that he had expected her to. But he had no notion how deep her commitment to northern hospitality ran. Certainly, it was too much to expect that it should run toward concealing a traitor, especially when the traitor was himself. “I need to speak to Wilhelm before he does anything so…unnecessary.”
    “It is not unnecessary. Our stores are meager and our winters hard. We would prefer it if someone were to come claim you. Sooner, rather than later.” She returned to the bedside. Her posture, her movements, her very breath conveyed her irritation as she bound his wound once more with surprising gentleness. The quicker she heals you, the quicker she’ll be rid of you .
    It would have been funny, if he were not in such a treacherous position. “I fear my father might not wish to retrieve me as quickly as you are to be rid of me.”
    “I cannot see why anyone would be happy to be rid of you.” Her feigned confusion was as sharp as the arrow that had torn his flesh. “Nevertheless, you must be away.”
    “As soon as I can sit a horse,” he vowed tersely. “But I do not see