The Decoy Princess (17 page)

Immediately I wiped it off and took the stick out from between my teeth. My face warmed, and I pounded at the willow bark, thinking I’d like to do the same to his smirk.

Making a scoffing noise deep in his throat, he pulled a wad of fluff from his pack. Using a striker rock and flint, he set a spark to a triangle of charred linen. The burned fabric held a faint glow of ember until the healthy wad of waste flax caught. “What are you making for dinner?” he asked as he tried to get the sudden burst of flame to catch the grass and twigs.

“I’m not making you dinner,” I said flatly. “I don’t even like you.”

His fingers were among his infant flame. “Camp tradition,” he said as if not having heard the last part.

“One person makes and tends the fire, the other makes dinner.”

“I got the wood,” I said quickly. A wisp of unease floated through me. I’d never made anything to eat in my entire life.

He eyed me from under the brim of his hat. “What wood?”

I took a breath to explain, then let it out. Saying nothing, I lurched to my feet. The bottom half of my dress darkened with dew as I stomped across the open field to pick up my dropped sticks. I struggled to get it all back in one trip. Duncan just sat and watched, the lazy cheat. “Here,” I said as I dropped it beside him in a clattering pile. I had bits of lichen all over me, and now my dress was wet.
Angel’s Spit,
will I ever be clean again
?

“What did you find for us to eat?” he asked lightly, and I stared at him. “Whoever gets the wood has their eyes on the ground,” he said slowly as if explaining something to a child. “Did you find anything to eat?”

I unclenched my teeth. “No.” I was sure he was making it all up. But seeing as he had eased himself back against the rock face with his hands behind his head, I knelt and hesitantly pulled out my small stewpot. “I’ve got a few things from the stores. What do you have?”

“Travel cake, cheese, dried fish. The usual. Help yourself.” He tossed his patched bag at me. It landed at my knees, and I reached for it. His claims of the division of work were chu in a pit, but I was starving, and he wasn’t showing any signs of doing anything.

At least he didn’t expect me to furnish all the food
, I thought as I opened his bag to find it contained what he said and more. Convinced if I protested he would have me brushing his horse and mending his shoes because I sat on the west side of the fire, I silently warmed things up, burning my fingers twice.

I would be the first to admit my quiet compliance was partially due to my thoughts being full and worried. Finding the horses gone had struck me with a mind-numbing blow. I’d never been so vulnerable: out in the woods with a man I knew to be a cheat and a vagrant. Always I’d had guards and Kavenlow.

I checked my hair, vowing to keep my darts close.

Duncan industriously cleaned my saddle as I prepared my torch flowers and put them to dry beside the fire. With luck, they would be crisp enough to powder by morning. The decoction from the willow bark would do tonight.

It was fully dark when I irresolutely decided there was nothing more I could do to dinner and pronounced it done. Duncan eagerly filled his bowl from the pot over the fire, then after tasting it, emptied it reluctant spoonful by reluctant spoonful. Clearly it wasn’t what he had expected. I would’ve been angry, but even I admitted it was tasteless. Without a single word of thanks, he put his back against the rock face and pulled out his leather box of cards.

I could feel him watching me, and I tucked myself closer to the fire. It only left me too hot in front and too cold behind. The branches moved incessantly, the rustling continually drawing my gaze to the edge of the firelight. My eyes widened at the screech of a bird or animal. Duncan didn’t seem bothered, but I wished the horses were closer.

The cheat silently manipulated his cards in and out of hiding, blatantly watching as I emptied my pack to rearrange it into some semblance of order. We hadn’t said but a few words to each other while on the trail, but now that we were face-to-face, his quiet irritated me. It had been a difficult day. I wasn’t used to silence and wanted someone to talk to. Finished with my repacking, I cleared my throat. “I’m… sorry for kicking you,” I said.

Duncan wiggled a stick into the fire until sparks flew up. “Forget it.” He rubbed his nasty stubble and glanced at me. “Like you said, you don’t know me from a hole in the ground.”

It was the first halfway intelligent thing I had heard him say, but I didn’t know what to come back with. We had nothing in common.

“Play a hand with me?” he asked, his thin fingers sliding a card into his sleeve as slow and unhurried as a musician playing scales.

Or so I thought
. I met his eyes briefly. He made an odd picture of slovenly attentiveness as he sat in his travel-stained clothes, poised and alert as he practiced his craft. “No, you cheat.”

“I’ll let you win,” he offered, a new smile on him, the first that wasn’t at my expense.

My shoulders eased. “Then I especially don’t want to play.”

Duncan shuffled the deck, keeping the same five cards on top. “Then I’ll let you lose.”

I ducked my head to hide my smile. “No, thank you.” The spring night was cold, and I set some water to warm for tea. Dinner had been awful, but how hard could it be to make tea? “Do you have any honey?” I questioned. He looked at me in bewilderment, and I added, “For tea.” He shook his head with a cautious slowness, and disappointed, I dug out my tea and dropped a handful into the cold water.

Duncan was staring at me. “Do you want some?” I asked, trying to be nice.

“Um, yes,” he said hesitantly, and I added another handful. His brow furrowed. He leaned forward as if to say something, then sat back. “Do you want to head inland after Saltwood?” he said, his words clearly not what he originally intended. “It’ll be warmer.”

I pushed my fingers into my forehead as if in pain. “Duncan,” I said wearily. “I’m not a cheat. You should take my saddle and just… go away.”

His eyebrows arched slyly. “You won’t find anyone better,” he persisted.

“I’ve seen street performers who can move cards like you,” I scoffed.

Duncan went cocky. “Can they do this?” he asked, bringing one of my needles out.

My jaw dropped. “W-where…” I stammered. My hand flew to my topknot, my fingers counting to find a dart missing. “When did you take that?” I demanded, going frightened.

“Earlier.” He was smug, almost frightening in his confidence.

“When?” I said, unable to think of a time when he had been close enough.

Duncan put a finger to his nose and grinned. “I’m not saying, Lady Tess.”

I watched the dart, thinking Lady Tess was marginally better than Lady Black Sheep. “Fine,” I said cautiously. “You’re clever and quick. Give it here.”

He heard the threat in my voice and pulled away. “Is it valuable?” He looked at it with a new interest, grinning to show his teeth. “Did you lift it where you got that knife?”

“Duncan…” I warned. “Give it to me.”

He shook his head, thinking it was a grand game. I lunged around the fire to take it, and he pulled away. Jumping, his fingers jerked apart. “Damn,” he said, eying the needle by his knee. “That’s wickedly sharp. I can’t believe you keep it in your hair.”

I went cold. “Duncan, listen,” I said, knowing the venom’s effects would be slowed if his heartbeat stayed slow. “You’re going to be all right. I promise I’ll see you out of it.”

Duncan looked at me as if I was insane. Then his humor left his face, replaced by a sudden pain.

“Wha—” he started, then bent double. “Chu pits,” he moaned. “What is it?” Then he fell over, curled up about himself.

Lips pursed, I leaned across the camp and snatched my needle up and tucked it where it belonged. I was more irritated than worried. Shifting around the fire, I checked his pulse at his neck. It was fast but steady. “Idiot!” I berated him. “I told you to give it back.” He moaned, and I sighed in resignation.

“You’ll be all right,” I said, scraping up my empathy and awkwardly patting his shoulder. “I promise I won’t let you stop breathing.”

Apparently it wasn’t the right thing to say, as a violent spasm shook him, and his jaw clenched until his neck muscles turned to cords. Remembering the cold, I pulled his blanket over him. He had curled into a ball, his eyes closed and his face tight with an agony he didn’t understand. His breath came in quick, harsh pants.

I bit my lip in concern and poked the fire for more light. He looked awful, a tinge of purple edging his lips. The venom seemed to be acting harsher than usual. His gasping breath hesitated, then resumed. My mild concern shifted to alarm. That wasn’t good.

“Duncan?” I said, knowing he could hear me. I watched his pulse at his neck. The wild pounding had frightening hesitations.

“Duncan, you’re all right,” I lied. He was having a bad reaction, made worse by his fear. “Listen to me,” I said firmly, trying to keep what little presence of mind he had left, focused. “I have to look at your finger.” I reached for his right hand, clutched to his middle. “Let me see it,” I coaxed. “You need your hands for your trade.”

Frightened for him, I yanked his hand from his shivering huddle to find it swollen grotesquely. His middle finger was purpling. A stark white upraised circle showed where the dart had penetrated. It would be easy to slow the venom’s spread with a tight bandage from his elbow to his finger. But doing so might cause irreparable damage to his hand.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling nauseous. “I have to bandage your hand. It’s going to hurt like the devil’s dogs are chewing it, but it will slow the poison down.” I hesitated, having to be honest with him.

“You might lose your finger, but if I don’t, you might lose your life.”

He jerked. “N-n-n-no,” he moaned, yanking his hand out of my grip and curling around it. Sweat beaded up on his forehead, glistening in the firelight.

“Duncan!” I tried to sound authoritative but was scared to death. What if he died out here? “It’s either that or you might die. I told you to give it back. Let me see your hand!”

He clenched into himself, trembling and sweating. He managed another guttural moan, and I touched his shoulder, turning alarmed at how his muscles had locked up. His shoulders were like rocks. “Let me have it!” I demanded, tugging at his arm. He gritted his teeth, and his eyes were clenched shut. Even under the throes of the venom, he was stronger than I was.

Frustrated, I sat back on my heels, watching. If he fell unconscious, his hand was mine.

Anxiety prompted me to pick up Duncan’s cards, dusting each one carefully before I put it back in his box. Listening to his painful rasps of breath, I wished he’d pass out, then prayed he wouldn’t as he might never come out of it. I sat at his shoulder, worrying as I built up the fire.

“You’re doing fine, Duncan,” I said as the first hints of rhythm returned to his breathing. His blanket was soaked in sweat, and I draped my second blanket over him. “That’s it. You’re going to be all right,”

I whispered, falling into a soothing pattern of voice. “I’m right here. I’ll see you through it. I promise.”

The words sounded eerie coming from me. They were nearly verbatim to Kavenlow’s whispers when I had struggled to throw off the venom. I wondered if he had been as worried as I was now, when he watched with only his voice to ease the pain. The memory of Kavenlow prompted me to run a hand over Duncan’s head. Kavenlow’s touch had always made the pain easier to bear, as if he knew and understood. Duncan was an idiot, but his pain was my fault.

His shortly cropped hair was softer than I had expected, a pleasant whisper on my fingertips. My tension loosened as the warmth of the fire finally soaked into me, making my hands tingle in relief. I let one rest atop his shoulder to feel his muscles slowly ease. “You’re going to be all right,” I whispered as the hurt finally left his face.

He took a shuddering heave of breath. It was his first grasp at conscious control, and my shoulders slumped. They ached, as if I had been the one struggling to breathe, not Duncan. His gamble to save his hand had worked. Tucking a wisp of hair from my eyes, I moved away, stiff and sore from the day’s ride.

I reached for the forgotten tea, black and boiling over the fire. My hands were shaky as I pulled it from the fire and poured two cups. I set Duncan’s within his reach and moved to my bedroll. Experience told me he would want something to shake the cold that gripped him. And I needed something to steady myself as well. Watching his misery had brought it all back. Until I had built my resistance high enough to suit Kavenlow, he had repeatedly subjected me to that same pain, that same fear. The reminder left me heartsick. What had it all been for?

“Who… are you?” Duncan rasped.

My attention jerked to him, finding him huddled under the two blankets. His eyes looked black as he stared at me over the low fire, his long face haggard under a day’s growth of stubble and his struggle. I wondered if he hated me the way I hated Kavenlow the first time I had gone through that hell. I looked at the fire, trying to find an answer. “No one,” I said, believing it. My eyes closed so they wouldn’t fill, and I felt the fire’s heat on my cheeks.

“That’s a pit full of chu,” he said harshly, and I opened my eyes. Taking two attempts, he propped himself up on one elbow. He hunched as he coughed violently, then wiped the spittle from himself. “I saw you repacking. Everything you need for extended travel, but you’ve never slept in the open before. You ride like a man but have the manners of a lady.” He held his breath as he shook with a repressed cough.

“And though you know what to do with torch flowers, you can’t cook worth a tinker’s damn. Who are you?”

“I’m no one,” I said, recalling Garrett’s face twisted in disgust as he learned of my true birth. My eyes flicked to his and away. “I’m a beggar’s child,” I whispered, afraid.

Duncan clutched the blankets tight about his shoulders. He shivered, eying me over the flames. “A beggar’s child wouldn’t walk away from a bowl of uneaten soup. They don’t have poison on their hairpins, either. Neither do thieves.”