Though Margaret was supposed to be her lady’s maid, she often seemed to Esme more like a jailer who was good with hairpins and small buttons.
With a sigh, Esme nodded. There was no use trying to pretend she hadn’t been attacked. In a few hours, the marks on her neck would darken into ugly purple bruises that would be impossible to hide. “You’re going to tell my father, aren’t you?”
“I don’t see how I can avoid it. Have you seen your neck?”
Esme walked over to the polished brass mirror. She’d expected to see red marks. Maybe the violet beginnings of a bruise. But the finger marks striped across her neck were black as tar.
Esme tried to hide her grimace. “You’ll be in as much trouble as I will if you tell him. You were supposed to stay with me, remember?” She didn’t want to put Margaret in a bad spot, but the last time she’d been shadowed, her father had ordered her to be removed to one of the interior rooms of the tower. A room with no windows at all. It had taken her half a year’s begging to convince him to let her back into her room. She couldn’t bear that again.
As it was, she hadn’t been out of the tower since her shadow had attacked her last. Not that she’d been out more than a scant handful of times before that—and always in the dark of the moon—but after that last incident, the tower felt less like a protection and more like a prison.
Margaret bit her lip. “Perhaps a wimple, instead of the gold net. If we wrapped it around your neck and pinned it . . . ?”
“We could leave my hair down,” Esme suggested.
Margaret sighed. “We’ll do both, I expect. I’ll go see Old Anne. She may have something to lessen the marking.”
The idea of Margaret walking through the feasting and revelry, walking so close to the knight—her knight—was more than Esme could bear. She tugged at Margaret’s sleeves.
“Please,” she begged, not caring that it was unbecoming, “wait until after dark. Let me go with you. Surely no one will notice one more body in the crowd on a night like tonight. I’ll take my dinner in my room, say I have a headache. No one will know. It will be better if Anne can see the bruises for herself, anyway.” The last was a lie. She neither knew nor cared whether Anne could serve her better after seeing the bruises.
She just wanted one taste of the revelry below. One sip.
It wasn’t an outrageous request. Of the few times she’d been out of the tower, most of those had been to see Old Anne about her shadowy curse.
“That is an outrageous request!” Margaret announced, her hand flying to her chest. “Anyone could recognize you. You could stumble into firelight or lamplight. Your father would have my head.”
“Surely I could be well disguised,” Esme argued. “And I’m not careless enough to wander close to a fire.”
“The only thing we’ll be disguising are those bruises on your neck. I will go see Old Anne. You will stay in your room until I get back. Now let me go get that wimple. You’re lucky I don’t tell your father what happened. Risking your life, just to watch a silly tournament.” She clucked, putting down the sheets. Margaret walked through the archway into the adjoining dressing room and bent to rummage through the cupboard.
Esme turned back to the window, watching as the standards snapped and sagged beneath the howling storm.
“How much is this sort of life worth, anyway?”
The wind snatched her whispered words and swept them out the window. Behind her, oblivious, Margaret began to hum as she readied Esme’s head covering.
After a lonely dinner, Esme lay across her bed, watching through the far window as the lingering clouds turned a crimson-tinged pink with the setting sun. The sounds of feasting—raucous laughter and ragged bits of music—rolled across the field.
The tightly pinned wimple chafed the fresh bruises on Esme’s skin. But for those marks—but for the curse of her shadow—she could have at least been downstairs with her family. It would have been a more restrained gathering, of course. The thought of it didn’t make her blood bubble the way the thought of skirting around the bonfires in the field did, but anything would be better than lying alone in her room, as far as she could get from the lamplight, embroidering flowers in the dark.
Margaret had disappeared shortly after dinner, looking at Esme severely as she went, making her promise to be good. If anyone could help, it would be Anne. With all her salves and poultices, her uncanny ability to see a person’s problems in the dregs of their tea—she was better than any of the doctors. It was the only reason no one outright said the word witch around her. They’d all needed her in one way or another.
Esme tugged at her wimple. If Margaret hurried, if Anne was in a quick and giving mood, she might even be rid of the bruises by tomorrow. There would be a second feast. A second celebratory dinner. It wouldn’t be as much, but at least she wouldn’t miss everything.
She was so tired of missing everything.
The stars began winking in the purple sky, like eyes struggling to open after a long night’s sleep. When no more light stained the floor beneath her window, Esme went to watch the celebration. The king had planned the tournament for a moonless night, which meant she could watch the revelers, at least. Even if her father would never allow her outside to join them.
Just because it was night, that didn’t mean she was safe. There were a thousand ways to cast a shadow in the dark. Her father looked sad when he reminded her of the dangers, but not sad enough to relent.
From her tower vantage point, she could see the whole field. Fire dotted the grass. She watched the little gems of torches and lamps bobble in between the bonfires. Closing her eyes, she breathed as deeply as her bodice would allow.
Mostly, the cool, storm-washed air was all that she could smell. But faintly, just underneath it, was the scent of wood smoke and the mouthwatering tang of meat being roasted on a spit somewhere. Her stomach rumbled, complaining about the thin soup and airy bread that she’d eaten. It was a delicate dinner that had been sent up for her delicate constitution, but what she really wanted was a flagon of the small beer that filled the barrels, and a plate of the fire-blackened boar meat.
She sighed and tapped her foot in time to the music, watching as the dancers turned and bowed and spun, smiling in the firelight. While her feet beat out a jig on the floor, she pushed her head as far out the narrow window as she could, relishing every finger’s width closer she could get to the beating heart of the celebration.
Something below her caught her eye—a sudden stillness in the seething motion of the party.
Esme’s feet ceased their tapping and her hands curled around the stone of the sill. The bonfire behind the knight turned his auburn hair into a flame all its own. Even without his armor, she recognized him. Even in the dark, she knew the twin lights of his sword and his smile.
The knight bowed to her, then put a hand on his chest. Esme hung from the windowsill, her toes barely touching the floor beneath her, suspended like a fly in amber. She wasn’t allowed to go down there. She was unable to go down there. But she couldn’t bring herself to turn away from him, either.
Margaret appeared next to her.
With a squeak, Esme let go of the windowsill and dropped to the floor.
“Hanging from the windowsill?” Margaret started. “Of all the—”
“Never mind that,” Esme interrupted. “What about Anne?”
Margaret held up her empty hands. “She said you must come to her. That she’d read the tea leaves and they said, this time, she cannot treat your injuries without seeing them for herself. She said she would not cross the wisdom of the leaves.” Her voice was quiet, but frustration poisoned her speech.