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Chapter Text

Jana clasped her hands together under the table, pressing her thumbnail to the inside of her wrist. It was a trick she’d taught herself: the more thoughts and words swelled up inside her, threatening to burst out, the harder she would press. The pain would remind her to be silent, and would keep her sane.

She often had so much to say that she pressed until she drew blood, and afterwards she would discreetly hold her thumb to her lips to taste it, coppery and undeniably real. The sting and the salt was proof of her voice.

Today, the men seated around her spoke on politics and war as if she wasn’t there, and Jana had plenty to say about that. What arrangements were being made for the sad stragglers from Skalitz beyond temporary shelters? How long did Radzig intend to live upon Hanush’s charity, on her father’s land? And why had Hanush insisted on her silent presence today, if not to parade her before Radzig like some living proof of Rattay’s wealth herself?

The well-worn mark on Jana’s wrist was already red and raw when the peasant girl burst into the room. 

She was a ragged little thing with mud brown hair, with an excitable and open face, and even before Jana could comprehend the absurdity of the situation, her mind immediately told her: dog.

But Radzig greeted the girl by name, as if he was happy to see her. “Jindriska!”

That Radzig Kobyla was a man who remembered even the women in his charge was notable. Jana carefully tucked that insight away, as Hanush, rather unbothered, poured himself more wine and grunted, “One of yours, I assume?”

“The blacksmith’s girl,” Radzig said, as if that were important. He stood, and crossed the room. “The same blacksmith’s girl who can’t seem to stop disobeying her lord. Is that not so?”

The girl stepped forward to meet him, without so much as a by-your-leave to her own liege, to the gathered men, and certainly not Jana. “My lord, I must speak with you, I’ve – ” 

“God’s mercy, she’s a girl without shame!” Bernard exclaimed, and at least the girl had the grace to duck her head. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, contrite enough. “But my parents…”

Jana caught something in Radzig’s gaze that she couldn’t name. Pity’s cousin, perhaps. “They raised a dutiful daughter,” he told the girl. “Put it behind you, now.”

The girl shook her head, eyes on the floor. “I can’t. I must get your sword back first.”

Bernard and Hanush gave identical snorts. “My sword is at my side, child,” Radzig said, with almost exaggerated patience. 

“But he – it was taken from me. It was my father’s last sword, and I must retrieve it for you.”

“Must,” Radzig repeated, and shook his head. “Don’t presume that anything must be done.”

The girl looked up, and her eyes blazed bright and defiant. “But sir – ”

“Enough.”

The mud-haired girl flinched and ducked her head again. 

Radzig sighed. “You’re a good girl, but as of late you’ve been a foolish one. Enough brave men have been endangered in your keeping already.”

The girl sucked in a small, hurt breath. Jana felt oddly satisfied by it, and fought against a sly, cruel smile. What did this lowborn pup expect, speaking like that in a room of her betters? Jana herself had been punished for less.

But Radzig only sighed again. “You have a lion’s heart, Jindriska, and I won’t deny it. But these are times of war and the trials of men, and it would do you well to remember that. You’ve no sword and no skill to wield one. That’s the way of things.”

“I could learn,” the girl said, so quietly that it could have been a creak from the door hinges.

There was a pause, and then, Hanush burst out laughing. “Do you hear, Radzig? She could learn. Grim times indeed when even a girl-child shows more courage than the lords of the realm!”

A round of knowing huffs spread through the room, and even the guard by the door coughed lightly. The girl’s ears turned red, sticking out from her tangled hair. Jana hid her expression by taking a hasty drink of wine, lest she laugh, too.

But Radzig, though he was smiling, didn’t laugh. “She does have courage,” he said. He didn’t sound angry at all. “And there’s little harm in that, these days.”

Who was this girl, that Radzig should indulge her so? Not his lover, surely. He didn’t seem like the sort to take a peasant to his bed. And obviously the girl had no skill or charm in her favor. Maybe Radzig was the sort of man who was ruled by his whims, or was unusually permissive to all his servants, and this Jindriska was simply lucky. 

That such a girl would have luck, while Jana had none, was enough to turn Jana’s stomach. 

Radzig turned to Hanush, and said, in a voice that seemed almost deliberately light, “Perhaps we can find a place for Jindriska? I’d say she’s endured quite enough.”

Hanush chuckled and eyed Radzig over his goblet, as well he might. Imagine, rewarding the girl, after such a display. But then to Jana’s horror, Hanush said, as easy as you please, “She can attend Jana.”

Jana swung to Hanush with a small gasp of outrage, but Hanush didn’t even bother to dignify her with a glance. “She made the last girl cry and I haven't been able to find a new one,” he told Radzig with amusement. “This is no boon for your lass, I promise you that.”

Jana closed her mouth so fast that her teeth clacked together, and she glared down at the table. This could only be an attempt by Hanush to belittle her. A peasant! Not even a burgher’s daughter! A piglet pulled from the streets, smelling of horses and sweat, raised high to serve her! If Jana had had friends to gossip with, she would never have survived the humiliation.

She couldn’t hide her displeasure, and Radzig must have seen, because he laughed softly. “She’ll serve, my lady, never fear. I’ve known her all her life, and she’ll clean up well.”

Jana took a breath, tried to swallow the indignity, and plastered a gracious smile on her face. But when she lifted her head, to give some worthless platitude, she found that the girl was curled in on herself, eyes downcast, looking even more like a kicked dog than she had when she’d arrived.

Jana’s smile fell away, and she scowled like an old, bitter hag. This peasant had been defiant, loud, had spoken to her own liege lord with open disrespect, was ill-suited to her station and too stupid to hide it, all while Jana, her better in every way, would never be able to act thusly herself; and now the pup, rewarded for this behavior, wasn’t even trying to look grateful. 

Hidden beneath the table, Jana’s wrist started bleeding. 

Hanush laughed again, this time at Jana. She could always tell. “God willing, they’ll teach each other some humility,” he said, as if he doubted it. “Now, to business! I’ve had enough talk of women.”

Jindra was so, so tired. It wasn’t just that she was tired in her body – though she was that, sore from her half-healed wounds and weak from her fever. But her soul was spent. Her spirit was spent. She’d been spurred on for so long by…what, exactly? When she’d survived Skalitz, what had she reached for? 

She had failed in every possible way. She couldn’t be gracious in the face of Sir Radzig’s kindness, or carry out Pa’s last wishes. She couldn’t properly repay Theresa for what she had done. She had failed to bury her parents, and would fail to avenge them. She wasn’t even able to try. 

What happened to fire and hate, when they had nowhere to go?

That night, Jindra accepted food and a bath, scrubbing herself down as quickly as she could, her eyes cast anywhere but her own body. Two older women, pulled from the kitchen, brought her fresh clothes and explained Jindra’s new duties: attend to your mistress, dress and wash her, entertain her. Then they hurried and bustled Jindra to the Lower Castle, speaking amongst themselves and ignoring Jindra entirely when it became clear that she wasn’t eager for conversation. 

“What a lucky girl,” one said. “Though Lady Capon is no easy mistress, I grant you.” 

“Pretty but light, always speaking to the wrong people,” said the other. “Everyone knows she has a lover.”

“More than one. Young Marika left her service last month, and she swears there were two men.”

The old Jindra would have latched onto that rumor. But as it was, she merely listened in a daze, and let herself be led, eyes unseeing. Perhaps someone else was steering her steps, and this body belonged to another girl. 

Lady Capon was sitting in her room, in a low chair by the hearth, embroidering vines onto a panel of blue wool. The room was illuminated by firelight and candles, casting strange shadows on the painted walls, more foreboding than inviting. Jindra took a breath and stepped inside, though all she wanted to do was sleep. 

She curtsied clumsily. “My lady.”

Lady Capon looked up. She was pretty and delicately featured, with golden hair bound in a long plait down her back. But her eyes were cold, and unkind. 

“Jindriska, is it?” She returned to her vines, and stabbed her needle into the wool with angry little jabs. “I suppose we’ll have to get used to each other, in our shared cage, won’t we?”

Jindra hadn’t expected anything quite so blunt. Lady Capon wasn't wrong, though. Jindra wondered if the girl she had been in Skalitz would have laughed. 

“Do you embroider?” Lady Capon asked.

“I can sew a seam straight enough, my lady.” That was somewhat true, although Ma had always gently chided Jindra for her impatience while mending. But the reminder of Ma was a pain so sudden and sharp that it was nearly a physical blow. Jindra turned her mind away, and shut the door.

If Lady Capon noticed Jindra’s despair, she didn’t show it, or simply didn’t care. “I suppose that will have to do,” she sighed, as if it was some crushing hardship. Lady Capon glanced at the servants lingering at the door, and gave an arrogant wave of her hand, smoothly dismissive. “Leave us.”

The women bowed their heads and left, and Lady Capon did not so much as smile at them. Even within her fog of pain, Jindra didn’t care for that at all. Still, she crossed the room, and lacking a second chair, sat at Lady Capon’s feet. She was past the point of pride.

At first, Lady Capon seemed pleased; she huffed out a little breath, as if in amusement or approval. But then she set her needle down, and gave Jindra a very pointed look from head to toe, as if examining a horse for sale. “You’re very lucky that Sir Radzig is a patient man. He ought to have struck you for that disrespect, at the very least.”

Jindra blinked up at her, and frowned. The fog cleared a bit more. “He’s not that sort of lord,” she said, feeling somehow defensive. 

“Obviously. If you’re to stay in my service, you’d best learn better command of your passions. I won’t hesitate to strike you, if need be.”

Jindra’s frown deepened. She had little experience with ladies, but she was sure that they were supposed to be gentle and kind. The good Lady Stephanie had been gracious indeed. But this lady – this girl – was nothing but sharp edges. Sitting this close, Jindra could see nothing but cruelness in Lady Capon, along with the air of someone used to being obeyed without the desire to earn it. It reminded Jindra of a baby. 

“As you say, my lady,” Jindra said, as she might to a small child.

“Well, you just mind that. I’m in need of someone who can attend to my needs properly.” Lady Capon picked up her needle again, nodding to herself, as if she’d made a fine point. 

What she needed was a good slap on the mouth. Jindra held her tongue, though.

Lady Capon reached into an overflowing basket beside her, and fished out a neglected piece of fabric. She tossed it carelessly into Jindra’s lap. “Here. Your first task. Sew the shoulder seam there, and if you can finish the whole basket without pricking your fingers and bleeding all over, I may even clap.”

Jindra spent the next hour listening to Lady Capon talk, and talk, and talk. She complained about everything from the weather to the food to the state of Jindra’s hair; at one point, she protested the treatment of the Skalitz survivors, which would have been endearing if not for the whine she’d spoken with. “And on top of it all, living in my moat,” Lady Capon had added, which did the job of ending any goodwill.

By the time the fire had burned down to embers, Jindra wouldn’t have been surprised to find blood pouring from her ears. At long merciful last, Lady Capon gave a loud yawn, and set her panel of wool and vines aside. 

“You’re not one of those pious sorts, are you?” she asked. “No reading psalms before we sleep, I hope.”

Jindra set her sewing down and rubbed her eyes. “I wouldn’t know how, my lady.”

“No Latin?”

Jindra shook her head. “No anything.”

Jana furrowed her brow, and then exclaimed, aghast, “You can't even read?” 

No time for it with all my shit-shoveling, the girl in Skalitz might have joked. Jindra just shrugged.

“God save me. If Hanush wants to insult me by sending me a brainless girl with a head full of wool, well, he has quite another thing coming. We’ll set it right later. I’m too tired to think of it now.”

She’s the tired one? Jindra thought bitterly. And then, a moment later, she thought, bemused, Set it right?

She couldn’t dwell any further, because Lady Capon stepped away from the fire, turned her back, and stood with her arms held out from her sides, like an arrogant little rag doll. “Go on!”

Jindra hadn't known that clothes could be so complicated. She carefully unlaced the back of Lady Capon's yellow kirtle, heavy silk and embroidered with birds and flowers, and clumsily did battle with an unending line of tiny buttons on each sleeve. All the while Lady Capon somehow kept talking, even as Jindra yanked the whole thick mass of fabric over her head.

“You’re a punishment, you know. You've gained a fine position while I suffer.”

Jindra bunched the silk in her rough hands, wrinkling it. What did this soft girl know of suffering?

“Hanush thinks he can shame me, but he won’t. I’ve done nothing to deserve any of my hardships and I can only be as God made me. Three weeks ago he dismissed my last tutor and when I asked him why, you wouldn’t believe – ”

Undressing Lady Capon was like unwrapping a parcel. Beneath the first kirtle was a second gown, worn close to the body; it was a softer wool than Jindra had ever touched, and dyed a beautiful green, though no one would even see it. Her shift was of fine, soft linen, and was pure white, as clean as new snow. Even her hose was well made, dyed bright red, and secured with silk tape. They were fine, comfortable things for a fine, comfortable, well-fed, cruel , thoughtless child.

And when Jindra was done wrestling her out of her clothes, Lady Capon even expected Jindra to unbraid her long golden hair and brush it out, as if she wasn’t capable herself.

“You’re pulling!” Lady Capon exclaimed, in a shrill little wail. “Mind yourself, girl!”

Unbidden and unwanted memories soured in Jindra’s mind. It was all a terrible reminder of Bianca, or even Theresa, in her lost girlhood: braiding a girl’s hair, chattering into the night, helping each other in and out of their dresses. A year ago, in another life, she and Bianca had bathed naked in the river and had almost been caught, screaming with laughter and fleeing so fast that they’d thrown on the wrong shifts by accident. Bianca’s had been thin and rough, smelling of sweat and flowers, and Jindra had teased her terribly by refusing to give it back for three days. 

Bianca had never owned anything as fine as what Lady Capon wore. Jindra bent to pick up every piece of discarded clothing, as Lady Capon prattled on and on about nothing; she folded it in her hands, grateful for something, anything to do. Her head throbbed dully. The red of the hose was bright, fresh blood, flashing behind Jindra’s eyes at every moment.

She was too heartsore to muster up any hatred for Lady Capon, or even true anger. What she did feel was intense dislike, as rotten as fresh bile in the back of her throat. This stupid girl was alive and dressed in fine things, and Bianca was dead. Jindra had to wait on this stupid girl, and Bianca was dead. It was an injustice that Jindra couldn’t accept. She wouldn’t. 

“I’m exhausted,” Lady Capon said, settling onto her bed, as if a day of embroidering and sitting around being annoying could ever be exhausting. She waved another dismissive hand. “You can put your clothes in the spare trunk by the wall. Then douse the candles.”

Jindra obeyed, although she had enough spirit back to roll her eyes silently as she did so. By the time she was stripped to her own shift and had snuffed out the last light, Lady Capon was openly impatient. “My God, get over here so we can sleep.”

Jindra blinked, and then glanced at the floor, where she had been braced to bed down. “I thought – ”

“You can’t very well guard my virtue from the floor, you stupid girl.” Lady Capon jabbed a thin finger at her. “But if you give me fleas I’m cutting all of your hair off. Not that it would be a great loss, mind you.”

Jindra stepped to the bed and paused, a lifetime habit of evening prayer echoing in her head. But she found that she felt nothing, and let the moment pass. She no longer had anything to say to God.

She slipped beneath the sheets slowly, recoiling at the thought of touching anyone as she slept, let alone Lady Capon, but there was more than enough room for two. The blankets were soft and heavy, and the mattress, stuffed with down, sagged beneath her weight. She’d never dreamed of sleeping in such a bed. The girl in Skalitz would have enjoyed it.

The embers in the hearth were almost gone, and night pressed down like a silent weight. But even in the dark, it seemed Lady Capon couldn't be silent. 

“Jindriska. Jindriska. Are you awake?”

“Aye.”

“Good. I want to talk more.”

“I thought you wanted to sleep.”

“You have some cheek. I want to know more about the piglet I’ve taken into my stable.”

Jindra was grateful for the darkness, hiding the face she made. “Ask, then.”

There was a pause. “What’s it like, being a blacksmith’s daughter? Was he…a good blacksmith?”

Lady Capon’s tone was surprising. It was curious, and almost thoughtful. Jindra swallowed. “He was good,” she said. “The finest in the kingdom. And he was honorable, and…and kind.”

Another pause. “And your mother?”

Jindra turned over.

“Jindriska. I wasn’t done talking!”

Jindra squeezed her eyes shut. She expected Lady Capon to berate her with more questions, to insist in her grating voice, but it seemed God had the smallest bit of mercy left. Lady Capon said nothing more, and Jindra let out a long, slow breath. Maybe tonight, for once, sleep would come easily.

It did not.

In her dream there is a great host of monstrous half men with horse bodies and sharp teeth, armored angels descending and fiery demons from hell, burning the fields and burning the people, with a fire that falls from the clear sky like God's own wrath. 

And Jindra watches it all and shouts until her throat is raw, but her voice won’t carry, and no one else can see, no one else knows, until the demons trample them beneath their hooves, and there is one above all, an armored monster, hairless and snarling with blood and worms pouring from the open hole where his mouth should be and the empty sockets where his eyes should be, and Jindra runs from him because she has to, Pa made her promise  – 

The monster becomes her Matthew, sweet and stupid and so brave, holding her hands and kissing her mouth even as the arrow in his throat makes his eyes bulge and he gurgles and sputters, spraying her face with blood and she pushes at him, howling, the body he’d thrown over her pinning her to the ground, she can’t get out, she can’t – 

And Matthew becomes a man with sour breath and a massive club and a terrible laugh, and Jindra is trapped beneath him and he uses her father’s own sword to – 

Bianca, Bianca, Bianca, descended upon by ten men, thirty men, ripping her to pieces between them, each taking a slice of her flesh for themselves and tearing it in their teeth, her legs held open, their swords and their cocks and their swords and their cocks stabbing into her over and over and over and over Jindra help me Jindra help me Jindra help me Jindra why won’t you help me why won’t you love me – 

JINDRA WHY DID YOU RUN says Pa’s voice, Pa’s eyes, Pa’s face, as he falls, cut down by the man with no eyes, and Ma is there, and the soldiers have her, and it takes an army to kill her, slicing their swords up and through her body until the blades push through her throat, through her mouth, as she chokes out Jindra’s name, even through the foam of her blood  –

And Jindra is alone, and it’s nothing but fire, and she holds a blade in her hands and that blade is coated in the blood of every soldier, every woman and babe, and her own blood, womb blood, death blood, and nothing will satisfy her, and everything is so dark and so red, and no one can hear her – 

Ma! Jindra screams. Mother!  Mother!

Jindra awoke with a ragged, sobbing gasp.

She flailed wildly, kicking her legs in a panic, before she remembered where she was. She was in Rattay, in Lady Capon’s too-soft bed. 

She pressed the palms of her hands against her closed eyes so hard that she saw spots. She wasn’t back there. She wasn’t there. Her breath went in, out, deep and shaking, until her chest no longer hurt so badly.

At least she hadn't woken up screaming this time. Lady Capon’s sneer would have been… 

Jindra’s thoughts ground to a halt, and she let her hands fall away, frowning at the ceiling. The bed was larger than any she’d ever slept in, but it wasn’t that large. She ought to have smacked against Lady Capon in her flailing, but she hadn’t. She was alone.

Jindra sat bolt upright, so fast that her head spun, squinting in the dark. And there Lady Capon was: out of bed, not asleep, frozen with one leg already out her bedroom window, as wide eyed as a trapped mouse.

For a moment, Jindra and Lady Capon just stared at each other, gaping like fish. Lady Capon was dressed again, in a simple, worn kirtle, brown-grey and nondescript, with her hair bound in two neat plaits pinned tight against her head. In a bleary, half-dreaming state, that was all Jindra could focus on. She’d been able to dress herself the whole time?

“Oh,” Lady Capon said. “Damn you.”

She looked annoyed, and guilty, and anxious all at once, and Jindra, who had done her fair share of sneaking in her life, could only reach one conclusion.

“You do have a lover!” Jindra blurted.

“What?” Lady Capon sputtered, as if genuinely offended. She started at the sound of her own voice and glanced around, as if expecting a guard to jump out from every shadow. “I – who – I most certainly do not! And keep your voice down!”  

“Oh, so you’re just running off to pray in the chapel?” Jindra hissed. “What are you doing?”

“The other girls slept more deeply than you,” Lady Capon snapped, ignoring Jindra’s question entirely. “Why couldn’t you just snore through everything like all the rest?”

“Then what are you – ”

“What a thing to assume!” Lady Capon continued, in a whisper-squeal that was far too loud for someone who didn’t want to be caught. “I ought to have you punished for that kind of talk. Are all you girls in the country so light and loose?”

“My lady, tell me your secret or I’ll scream.”

Lady Capon’s mouth snapped shut, just as Jindra hoped. Then she pressed her lips into a thin line, and narrowed her eyes into suspicious, sharp slits. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would.” Even if Jinda hadn’t been so curious that she was practically ablaze, vexing Lady Capon was a joy of its own. “I’ll scream and every guard will come running and then you’ll have to weave a pretty story for them, or you can tell me now.”

Lady Capon’s mouth pinched and twisted. She slowly swung her leg over the sill and stepped back from the window, and as she did so, Jindra realized that Lady Capon was holding something in her hand, as tightly as a treasure. 

It was a hunting bow.

Jindra looked between it and Lady Capon a few times, just in case she was seeing things. She would never have guessed this with a hundred tries. “Hunting? You?”

“Oh yes, please say it louder.”

Jindra gasped. “You tricked me!” She pointed accusingly. “You weren’t even tired!”

“I’m tired of you,” Lady Capon snapped, though her eyes were a little panicked. “Now be quiet. ”

Jindra looked at Lady Capon’s bow again, and felt the world narrow to it. Her heart began to beat faster, and before she could even make sense of what she was feeling, she said, “Take me with you.”

“What? No!”

“Yes. Take me.” The thought of something so forbidden and dangerous was a jolt of lightning, banishing the shadows of Jindra’s nightmare and the last of her fog. This was action. This was doing something, anything. This was a promise of violence, and that was something both the girl in Skalitz, clutching her wooden sword, and the hurt girl in Lady Capon’s bed needed like air.

Lady Capon looked appalled. “You’ll be in my way. Unless you’re guilty of poaching on top of all your other faults.”

“Then teach me.” Jindra wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything. “Teach me to hunt. Teach me to fight. Teach me everything.” If Jindra could fight with a bow, she could fight with a blade. And if she grew strong enough, skilled enough, maybe she could – then – 

“To fight?” Lady Capon looked both bewildered and cornered. “What sort of lady do you take me for?”

“The sort who sneaks out of windows.” Jindra crossed her arms. “Will you take me, or not?”

Lady Capon noticeably hesitated. Jindra held her gaze, and inhaled loudly.

“Stop! Don’t scream!” Lady Capon tugged at her own hair in frustration, as frazzled as a stable cat. “You – you evil little – churlish girl! You’ll spoil everything.”

Jindra took that as a yes. She leapt out of bed, excitement buzzing in her like a beehive, and stumbled to the spare trunk to dress again, her steps loud and lumbering in her haste.

Lady Capon moaned and covered her face with her hands. “You are my punishment.” 

Her voice was filled with such complete, utter misery that Jindra almost laughed. It was the first time she’d wanted to laugh since Skalitz had burned.

Jana had been sneaking out of Pirkstein for years, and knew the way by heart. Out the window; down the walls; through the back passage, rusty and rarely used, built for a quick escape in a siege; and under the stone arch and down the rough hewn steps to the river. She could walk it blindfolded, and could certainly manage in the dark.

If Jindriska had given Jana away, she would have pushed her into the dried moat and prayed for her neck to break, but at least this peasant was a stealthy one. Jindriska only stumbled a few times, and always caught herself, and cursed under her breath and not out loud. Jana ought to be grateful for small blessings, but she wasn't about to compliment Jindriska on anything. 

“A lover,” Jana whispered, still reeling, as they descended the hill. “Really. Where did you even get such an idea?”

“The servants were talking.” Jindriska’s tone was light, and no longer as humble as it had been; ruining Jana’s night and being an aggravating little cur had transformed her mood. “Apparently everyone knows.”

Jana felt a twinge in her chest and behind her eyes. “Oh? More the fools, they.”

“Maybe you should have been kinder to the girl before me, my lady,” Jindriska whispered back, as if it was all a funny joke. “She’s been saying there were two lovers.”

Jana felt her nose grow hot, a sure sign that she was about to cry. “I see,” she said. 

What a shame. She’d liked Marika, even if she’d been as boring as a farmyard hen. Jana bit the inside of her cheek and kept her eyes straight ahead, stubbornly ignoring her disappointment. She was not going to sniffle in front of the blacksmith’s girl.

Thankfully they reached her grove by then, and they could stop talking about silly things. It was a circle of trees, not quite in the woods but just off the river, where no one ever cared to go. Even with Jindriska here, Jana couldn’t help sighing with relief at the familiar smells and sounds; she always felt better, outside of stone walls.

Jindriska looked around. “We haven’t gone out very far.”

Jana rolled her eyes, and began circling the grove, getting acquainted with it again. “I’m not taking you out yet. What if you fell and broke your neck? What if you spooked the game?” Jana stopped walking and  bent, pulling two of her prized treasures from their hiding place, lodged between two stones: her quiver and her arrows, right where she had left them. “No, you’ll learn here first.”

“But why here?”

“This is where I come to practice.” Jana examined her arrows; she’d have to steal more soon, with these as rough and worn as they were. “It serves well enough.”

Jindriska frowned at the trees, and then frowned at Jana. “You're only here at night? In the dark?”

“Yes.”

“You learned archery in the dark?”

Jana scoffed. “Certainly not. Bernard indulged me when I was very young. He thought it was funny, I suppose.” Jana still remembered how Bernard’s hands had felt, warm and guiding, as he taught her how to stand and how to shoot properly, with a practice bow meant for a child’s grip, and how his smile of indulgent approval had lit up the whole world. She also remembered how different that smile had looked, tender and dismissive, on the day he refused to teach her more. She had been ten years old, and she’d cried for days. Hanush still laughed about it.

Jindriska shook her head. “But you practice in the dark?”

“My God, are you simple? I'd wondered.”

Jindriska looked at her as if Jana were the simple one. “How good can you be if you only shoot arrows at night?”

The gall of her! Jana narrowed her eyes. “Tell me where.”

“What?”

“Tell me where to shoot, and I shall hit it.”

Jindriska shook her head, as if exasperated. But she also looked intrigued, and she took a moment to examine the glen, pondering. “The knot on that tree,” she said, pointing. “The tiny one there, left of the center. Hit that.”

“Hitting a tree trunk will damage the arrow, stupid girl.”

Jindriska hummed a little and shrugged, as if she'd expected Jana to refuse. Jana’s stomach churned. “Well, if my lady can't do it…”

That couldn't stand. If this carried on for much longer, this girl would get ideas above her station permanently. Jana sneered, and backed up to the far end of the clearing, pulling an arrow from her quiver; the most worn and damaged, likely to break on impact, but a small price to pay for humbling Jindriska. 

Jana strung her bow, and aimed at the tiny target, obscured in darkness and no bigger than her closed fist. A trained marksman would have blanched. She took one long, deep breath in, and as always, a simple, pure stillness ran through her, as she and her own taut bowstring became the same living creature, with a single heartbeat. 

She suddenly realized that she had never had an audience before; she’d never been able to show anyone how much she had learned, and how far she had come. No one but the animals she killed had ever seen her for what she truly was. 

Watch me, she thought. Watch me.

She let her breath out, and released. And in that moment, there was no sound in the grove but the soft twang of the arrow and the crunch of living wood, as she struck the knot dead on.

Jana felt Jindriska’s eyes on her, and a shiver of pride and excitement ran from her heart to her fingers; she wanted that feeling to go on as long as possible. The arrow was already spoiled, anyway. Jana strung another, stepped to the left, adjusted her aim, and fired again. Her second arrow hit the first, sideways against the shaft, splintering it and knocking it loose from the tree.

She turned back to Jindriska, and preened. “Ha.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jindriska gasped, as bawdy as a tavern drunk. Jana squawked out a scandalized laugh, and Jindriska, belatedly horrified, clapped a hand over her mouth.

They stayed out almost all night, until a sliver of palest blue began to crest on the horizon. Jindriska had mainly watched Jana practice, and had barely had time to learn the basics of holding the bow and the proper stance to take, but her enthusiasm was undaunted. 

“Next time you can try shooting,” Jana told her, as they gathered Jana’s arrows. “There was no use trying tonight when you would have just shot my arrows into the river.”

Jindriska’s whole face brightened, excited and over-eager. “So there will be a next time?”

Jana had to snort, unladylike. “You’re too free with your feelings, you know.”

“That doesn't please you, my lady?”

“Very little about you pleases me.”

Jindriska’s mouth twisted, as if she had nearly laughed; openly amused at her own mistress! What had happened to the sad, kicked dog?

They tucked Jana’s quiver back in its hiding place, and began the climb back to the castle walls. “You're very good,” Jindriska said, walking a few steps behind. “I've never seen anything like how you shoot.”

“I know,” Jana said, smug. She would not admit how delightful that was to hear. She would also not admit, under either torture or confession, that she’d actually enjoyed herself tonight. “It's maddening to watch the archery contests in the tourneys.”

“You've seen a tourney?” Jindriska’s voice was wonderstruck. “A real one?”

“No, in a vision from the Virgin. Of course a real one. You really do come from nowhere.”

“With real knights?”

“Hardly. It's usually country boys playing at being soldiers, knocking each other into the mud.” Jana gave a little giggle. “Not that I mind that part of it. And not a word from you on that count, by the way. I told you, there's been no lovers. I’m allowed to watch.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t, my lady,” Jindriska said, in that calm tone of hers that actually hid a taunt. Jana was learning all her underhanded little tricks.

Jana sighed, and put the image of sweaty, muddy boys out of her mind, with difficulty. “Anyway, it’s usually quite the let down. At least you've seen a battle.”

Jindriska’s steps faltered slightly, as if she’d tripped. “What?”

“Skalitz, of course.” Jana clutched her bow a little tighter. “Tell me about it! None of the men will.” She couldn’t help a giddy smile. “Imagine seeing a real battle up close. I'm so jealous I could die.”

Jindriska stopped walking. “Jealous?”

Her voice was so quiet that Jana turned around. 

Jindriska stared at Jana as if she’d never seen such a creature as her before. “They killed my mother and father.” Her throat bobbed. “Jealous?”

Jana grew pale. “I…I didn’t mean – ”

Jindriska made a choking sound and pushed past her, hard enough to make Jana stumble, and began stomping ahead, all the way up through the stone archway. Jana hurried after her, not even offended by Jindriska’s rudeness. She hadn’t meant…she tried to think of what to say, to fix it. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Jana called out anxiously. “I didn’t want to know that badly, I promise!” 

Jindriska spun around to face Jana, her face contorted in rage.

“Does it offend you?” she snarled, too loud. “Would it upset you to hear? Skalitz was butchered, my lady. They put their swords to my friends, to everyone, and I watched. They begged and cried, and some were old and sick, and it didn’t matter! I saw their blood, I watched them die and heard them die, and I saw my Pa – I saw my mother – ”

Jindriska closed her eyes and turned away, her breath ragged. A dreadful, helpless anger spread through Jana in black tendrils, and it made her want to cry. It made her want to scream.

“My mother,” Jindriska repeated, in a voice like ashes. “Do you understand me?”

“I'm…I'm sorry,” Jana said. 

They were useless, utterly empty words. Jindriska knew it, and scoffed. “Why would you care? You’ve never lost anyone.”

Jana thought of her father, cold and dead at the bottom of a river, his eyes wide open, damning her in her dreams. I’m waiting for you in hell.

“You’re right,” Jana said, very quiet indeed. “I haven’t.”

Then Jindriska surprised her. The rage went out of her eyes, and her whole body sagged, under some great weight. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was heavy too, and flat. “I shouldn’t have spoken that way to you.”

That was even worse! What was Jana to do with that? “Stop it!” she ordered, alarmed. “Don’t say that. You ought to – go on, shout at me again, right now.”

Jindriska looked puzzled, cracking through her sadness. “You want me to be angry with you?”

“I want you to – to be,” Jana said, as if that made any sense at all. “Angry or not!”

Jindriska opened her mouth – to say what, Jana had no idea – but was cut off by a loud, male voice, cutting through the night. “Who’s there?”

The girls froze. Torchlight appeared around the curve of the castle’s stone walls, approaching fast, and Jana’s mind went blank with panic. But in that moment, Jindriska was a wonder. There was no hesitation; as if she was a mummer trained in a dance, she stepped around Jana, guiding her body back against the stone wall, and blocked her from view with her own body. Jana had the presence of mind to hide her bow behind her, behind her skirts and in shadow.

A guard holding a torch high rounded the curve of the wall, and he was alarmingly unfamiliar to Jana; but Jindriska stepped forward, bold as anything, and stopped him dead in his tracks. 

“God be with you, Jaroslav.”

The guard faltered, and Jana finally recognized him. He was one of the Skalitz men, brought in service of Radzig. “Jindra? 

Jindriska called over her shoulder, in Jana’s direction. “It’s alright, Marika, I know him.” Then she lowered her voice, turning to the guard again. “She’s vain but shy.”

Oh, clever you. Jana turned her face away, as if concerned with her modesty. Out of the ring of torchlight, with her bow hidden and as disheveled as she was, she hoped she could pass for a lesser girl. 

The guard was clearly bewildered. “What are you doing out here?”

“It’s my fault. I couldn’t sleep and one of the serving girls offered to walk with me, to clear my head. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of her kindness, but…” Jana could imagine how Jindriska looked, demure and sad, eyes downcast, with her long lashes dark against her soft, freckled face. “You can guess what I've been dreaming of.”

The guard sighed, as if he pitied her. “I can.”

“Please forget you saw me. If Lady Capon catches wind of this! She'd dismiss me from her service and…I can't disappoint Sir Radzig again.”

The plea sounded very real. It certainly did its job; the guard lowered his touch just slightly. In a sympathetic voice, he said, “I’ll just go back the way I came, then. When I come back around you need to be gone.”

“God bless you,” Jindriska said, in nearly breathless gratitude. Jana thought it was a bit much. But the guard was convinced, which was all she cared about. He began to retreat, before turning back, and saying, “Be more careful. You shouldn’t anger your new mistress if you can help it.”

“She's not so bad. Just childish. Has a pinched face. Bad tempered. A little silly.” Jindriska paused. “I’m sure I’ll think of something else.”

The guard chuckled. “Take care not to let her hear you.”

Jana kept her head down until the torchlight had faded away, and she and Jindriska were alone in darkness. She stared at the back of Jindriska’s head, and felt suddenly at a loss. Should she apologize more? Should she stay silent and never trouble Jindriska again?

And then Jindriska turned and caught her eye, and smiled. It was slight, and still a little sad, but Jana recognized the chief feeling, as if a mirror of her own heart: mischievousness.

“He’s always been stupid,” Jindriska whispered.

It was such a glorious olive branch that Jana smiled back, hesitant and almost shy. Then she remembered that she ought to be offended.

“A pinched face?” she hissed.

Jindriska glanced down at Jana’s bow with open longing. The ghost of her little smile lingered in the softness of her mouth; maybe, once, she'd been a girl who smiled often. “My lady is teaching me archery,” she said. “She can look as sour as she likes.”

I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.

- On Monsieur’s Departure

Lady Jana art by andiee-bedroom on tumblr!

Chapter Text

The days passed, and Jindra and Lady Jana were together at almost every moment. They slept in the same bed, and rose at the same time; Jindra helped Lady Jana dress and undress, and picked up after her when she left her clothes and her books strewn about her room; Jindra ate at the same time as Lady Jana, sat with her at night, and knelt with her at prayer. 

At first, it was torture. Lady Jana was spoiled, and flighty, and often cruel, responding to any kindness or weakness with jabs and strikes. Jindra was prepared to endure all of it, because her prize awaited her at night: when Lady Jana, complaining all the while, would let Jindra follow her to the secret grove, where Jindra would hold a bow in her hands. 

But as it turned out, Jindra had been unprepared for what life with Lady Jana would be. When they slept in the same bed, they drove each other mad in the bargain, because Jindra fell asleep too early, and Lady Jana slept too late. Jindra would drift off with Lady Jana still chattering in the darkness, and then wake up to the impossible task of shaking Lady Jana awake, only to be cursed and threatened and begged off long after the sun rose in the sky and they were late for mass.

When Jindra helped Lady Jana dress, in her fine clothes with too many buttons, she learned that Lady Jana favored warm colors, yellows and golds and oranges, and turned up her nose at green and blue. One day Lady Jana said, with almost distracted generosity, “I’ll have them take the hems up,” and suddenly Jindra had more clothes of her own than she knew what to do with. It was all just a bit too long, too loose at the bust, and too tight at the hips, but it was expensive wool, soft linen, and heavy silk.

When Jindra ate with Lady Jana, they ate the same food, and Jindra slowly began to gain back the weight she’d lost during her weeks of fever; she’d always been a sturdy girl, and strong, and her body began to reshape itself into a form she recognized. Occasionally they would eat formally, in the hall in the Upper Castle, and Lady Jana would shoot her secret, exasperated looks while the men spoke, but more often, they ate in Lady Jana’s room, sharing the choicest bites from Lady Jana’s own plate and speaking long into the night. 

Jindra even helped Lady Jana bathe, which she would have thought would be humiliating. The lower servants boiled the water in the kitchen, and dragged the wooden tub up the stairs, but the task of arranging her soaps and her oils and brushing out her long hair fell to Jindra. But Lady Jana seemed more interested in having company than anything else, and Jindra would sit on the floor beside her as Lady Jana chattered on and on, splashing water everywhere. 

In the end, to Jindra’s surprise, the longer she spent in Lady Jana’s company, the less angry she became. Beneath her cruelty, Lady Jana was anxious, and very clever, jumping between scathing wit and worried fluttering, greedy for Jindra’s time and conversation even as she scorned it. She was pale and soft as milk, but beneath her clothes she was lithe as any archer, and even had a few scars: there was one on her upper arm, from toppling out of her window, she claimed, and a small crescent moon on her left wrist that had no story. She was endlessly curious, and constantly asking Jindra questions; but she hadn’t asked about Skalitz again, though she obviously wanted to.

She dragged Jindra with her to watch Rattay’s men-at-arms train for hours, and she cooed at them as boldly as a girl in a bathhouse. Jindra usually wasn’t one for mooning over men, but she saw how Lady Jana’s sharp eyes followed each soldier not only with girlish interest, but with intense study; so Jindra followed her lead, taking in every method and every exercise, committing all of it to memory.

Most of all, Lady Jana was lonely. Jindra realized within a few days that Lady Jana, for all she loved to talk, didn't have anyone to speak with. The servants who stoked her fire and brought her her meals kept their heads down, or tried not to be seen. The men-at-arms she giggled over and waved at might bow to her respectfully, or even smile, but they never called back. Her old tutors had been dismissed, and even her own guardian Sir Hanush seemed content to leave her be, when he wasn’t calling her to the Upper Castle for a private lecture. 

Jindra was many things, and was not as sweet as she had once been, but she and the girl from Skalitz still had at least one thing in common: it was not in their nature to hold a grudge against such a sad person. 

It occurred to her that she had never actually said as much. “My lady,” she said, a week into this strange new friendship, as she helped Lady Jana sort through her embroidery thread. “You know that I’m not angry at you anymore, don’t you?”

Lady Jana’s head shot up, her eyes growing big and blue and luminous, and for a brief moment her face lit up from within with wild hope – and Jindra realized that she hadn’t known at all. And then Lady Jana smiled, beamed , with unmistakable relief.

“Oh, good,” she sighed. “Thank goodness.”

What a creature Lady Jana was. What a strange, fragile little bird, with the bite of an adder. 

Jindra saw very little of Sir Radzig, though he slept in the same castle as she, but she ducked her head respectfully whenever she passed him in the halls. She’d come to appreciate the kindness that he’d done her. 

“Jindriska,” he said every time, with warmth in his voice. “Are you happy?”

He always asked as if the answer mattered very much to him, and Jindra would tell him the truth. “I’m growing happier.”

At night, when the castle grew quiet, they would slip away, as silent as ghosts. Soon Jindra knew the way by heart: out the window, down the walls, through the back passage, under the stone arch, and down to the river. The grove seemed like another world, where Jindra felt less afraid and more like the girl from Skalitz, and Lady Jana became another girl entirely. Jindra would watch Lady Jana shoot arrow after arrow, captivated not only by her skill, but by how much she transformed, her bitterness falling away and her smile more careless. Once Lady Jana stepped outside and was among the trees, it was like moving a wilting flower from the shadows to the sunlight. “Teach me,” Jindra begged every night, even if Lady Jana had already agreed. “Teach me, please.”

Not that it was easy. Lady Jana wasn’t a natural teacher, and couldn’t imagine why Jindra needed to be shown how to hold a bow more than once. It took more strength to pull back a bowstring than Jindra had ever expected, and for the first few nights her shots went wide, missing the targets by a mile. But letting the arrow loose, and feeling the rush of power held in the taut string, made something in Jindra’s heart roar. Even if her arrows missed, it was easy to imagine those arrows lodging themselves into a man, or a thousand men. When Lady Jana told her excitedly about the animals they would hunt, Jindra never imagined shooting deer, or hare, or boar, but people: soldiers with metal faces, or men without eyes.

“If it isn’t a clean shot, you’ll have to slit the throat for a kill,” Lady Jana said, and Jindra imagined a deer who was not a deer struggling beneath her knife, a deer who was a man holding her father’s sword, and felt a surge of something frighteningly close to lust.

Her nightmares were growing worse. Even in the waking day, or in the warmth of Lady Jana’s room, or in the safe darkness of the grove, she saw blood behind her eyes, and in her dreams it was inescapable. She didn’t always remember details, but it was always black and red, deep and hopeless, panicked and painful. And there was always the same final feeling: not the pain, not the sound of her mother’s screams, not the bruising hands pinning her wrists, but the savage need in her heart to strike, and kill, and keep killing.

When Jindra woke, with memories or not, her eyes were always dry. Even with her heart cleaved in two, even with her coward’s soul stripped bare, even when she stuffed her fist into her mouth and muffled her moaning, there were never any tears. It was as if something inside of her had split apart when she turned her back on Skalitz and fled. Maybe those destined for Hell couldn’t cry at all.

It was good that Jindra slept with Lady Jana beside her. It forced Jindra to be quiet. If she'd woken from her dreams alone she might have screamed, and kept on screaming, until she went mad.

“Adjust your stance!” Jana snapped, from her seat on a stump. “If your elbow keeps drifting up like that, you’ll never learn.”

“I’m trying,” Jindriska shifted, somehow holding the bow even worse than before. “Stop distracting me.”

“Cheeky,” Jana called, warningly. She couldn’t see if Jindriska rolled her eyes, but she was willing to wager her mother’s jewels on it. 

“Stop distracting me, my lady.”

“Better! But now your bum is sticking out too much.”

Jindriska set her jaw stubbornly, and fired. The arrow hit the target, but far off-center; she cursed colorfully under her breath, to Jana’s delight. 

“Oh!” Jana perked up. “Those were some new ones!” Jindriska colored and made a face, before retrieving her scattered arrows.

Jana watched her thoughtfully. Jindriska was a strange girl, with strange moods. She had outbursts of energy and impudence, but also clearly slept poorly, and had fits of stubborn gloom; in the beginning, there had been long stretches where she seemed unable to look anywhere but the floor. It had taken Jana four days to realize that Jindriska’s eyes were as blue as her own.

But day by day, week by week, color was returning to her cheeks. She smiled just a little more; she stayed up just a little later at night without wilting with exhaustion; she certainly ate more, and had revealed an appetite to rival a horse. It was gratifying, in its own way.

Sometimes she still reminded Jana of a kicked dog, but more often she was simply a poorly trained dog: wont to wander off from her mistress, and not likely to listen. Earlier that very night, before leaving through Jana’s window, Jindirska had paused to reach into her little trunk, and retrieved, of all things, a wooden practice sword. 

“Where did you find that?” Jana had hissed, bewildered.

Even in the dark, Jindriska had looked proud of herself. “In the practice yard yesterday.” she whispered. “I stole it when you were flirting with the men-at-arms and stashed it for later.”

“Aren’t you bold! Why take that stupid thing?”

“Because I wanted it. Shall we go?”

Jindriska had always been informal and impertinent, but now it was seemingly less by instinct, and more by design, as if she was trying to rattle Jana on purpose. It was…novel. Not that Jana wanted to be provoked, or enjoyed yet another person showing her disrespect. It was just different.

The men ignored her, and looked over her head. The servants looked at the ground. The stronger Jindriska grew, the more often she looked Jana in the eye. Once Jana got a taste of that, she found she wasn’t eager to let it go. Even now, she could help thinking of it, and willing it. Look at me, look at me, look at me.

As if hearing her thoughts, Jindriska turned, looked Jana dead on, and said, “Maybe you're a poor teacher.”

Jana gasped and jumped to her feet. “You dreadful little thing! You try teaching someone!” She stomped over and snatched her bow out of Jindriska’s hands. “Just for that, you can play with your stupid sword all night instead!”

Jindriska smiled her infuriating little I’ll do as you say, my lady, but I’ll somehow make it seem like I’m mocking you smile, and threw up her hands in playful defeat. Jana returned to her stump, determined to sulk until morning, and watched Jindriska pick up the sword and examine it. She looked as if she was trying to recall a memory.

Then, she began to swing. It was no unpracticed, random movement, either. It was cuts, and jabs, and feints, done with purpose. Jana had spent many afternoons gazing longing at men training at swordplay, and recognized their practice exercises. She was so surprised that she forgot to sulk, and simply watched Jindriska in silence. It was almost mesmerizing, like watching a dance, even though Jana knew that Jindriska must have been getting the movements wrong, and must have been clumsy, and must have looked ridiculous. But Jindriska’s face alone was transporting: she looked sure, and full of utter purpose.

Who are you? Jana thought. Where has this girl been?

When Jindriska finally paused to catch her breath, her face was red and her hair was a tangle, wild and unruly, making her look like some feral mare escaped from a stable. “Where did you learn that?” Jana demanded.

“I watched,” Jindriska said, as if that explained everything. 

“I’ve watched all my life, and I never learned!” Jana jumped up again, her pique forgotten. “You must teach me, and I promise to have you hitting the center target by sunrise!”

Jindriska looked taken aback. “I thought you were done teaching me tonight.”

“Never mind that!” Jana waved a hand impatiently. “You were marvelous. Show me how you did that, and I’ll even stop badgering you about how terrible your stance is.”

“Are you capable?” Jindriska asked, and didn’t even bother to look ashamed.

Jana gave an angry squeal and slapped Jindriska’s shoulder, but had to accept what she had been trying to deny for days: tragically, she liked Jindriska, defiance and all. 

They couldn’t go out to their secret grove every night. Sometimes there was too much activity outside the castle and it was too risky to try, and sometimes it rained, and sometimes they were too tired from the night before. On one of these nights, with hours to fill their time, Lady Jana had declared that she intended to teach Jindra to read.

“I can bear a peasant as a friend,” she’d said, ignoring Jindra’s look of astonishment. “I can even bear a peasant simpleton as a friend. But I cannot bear a peasant simpleton who can’t read.”

Lady Jana had a beautiful prayer book that she’d caught Jindra staring at longingly, and she’d decided that was as good a place as any to start. It was heavy, bound in leather, with pages of soft vellum. There were beautiful pictures inside, vibrant and gilded, depicting the life of Christ and stories of saints, and psalms and prayers written in Latin for every hour of the day. Lady Jana pointed to each one. “This is for Matins,” she explained. “This is for Lauds, and this for Prime...” Each page, whether filled with prayers or paintings, was bordered with flowers, and images of birds and beasts, and Jindra ran her fingers lightly over all of it in wonder.

For the first time in weeks, she wished she could hear God again. The girl in Skalitz would have seen the miracle of Heaven reflected in this book and felt it fill her heart to bursting. 

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.

“It was my mother’s. It's all I have of her.” She caught Jindra’s look of sympathy, and looked embarrassed. “Oh, it’s – don’t fuss, it’s been years. She left after my father died.”

“She left you?”

“Oh, yes. Remarried, too, and died shoving out her new husband’s fat whelp.” Lady Jana smiled wryly. “A boy, I was told, so at least she did right by that husband.”

Jindra shook her head, feeling a fresh wave of sadness. Each day, she discovered some new face of Lady Jana’s loneliness. “And your father died, too?”

Lady Jana’s smile, however wry, vanished, and her eyes went cold. “Yes.” She turned away, staring into the flames of the hearth, and Jindra knew instinctively not to press further. “I was very young. I hardly remember.”

All the words in the book were in Latin, but Lady Jana had tucked scraps of parchment between the pages, filled with her own writing in Czech. “They’re translations, mostly,” she said. “I was taught my Latin and my Czech at the same time, and I daresay if I could manage as a child, you can manage now.”

Jindra nodded, squinting between the different letters. They swam before her eyes, but at least she could tell that they were different languages. “Mostly translations? What about the rest?”

At this, Lady Jana smiled again, this time mischievously. “Hanush can’t read. When he makes me very cross, I can curse him in writing all I want. His scribe isn’t likely to snoop through my horae, so he’ll never know.”

Jindra couldn’t quite see the point of that. “Why write it down in the first place? And why keep it?”

Lady Jana shrugged, and rubbed at her left wrist.

It was very slow going, but more satisfying than Jindra could have imagined. Lady Jana was a better tutor of letters than of archery, and over the course of several nights, Jindra saw her own name begin to take shape before her, in both Latin, and in Czech. It was much longer than she’d thought it would be. 

She ran her fingers over her own clumsy script, slightly smearing the fresh ink. “That’s my name?”

Lady Jana sounded smug, as if it were her victory. “It is.”

Jindra shook her head. “If my Ma and Pa could see, they wouldn’t believe…”

Her voice trailed off, and Lady Jana, in her anxious way, fluttered a hand. “You don’t have to tell me anything! We’ll speak of other things. Pick anything you want.”

Part of Jindra wanted to keep the door shut tight, bolted and barred. But another part of her, quiet and guilty, didn't. She had failed and abandoned her parents, had abandoned and failed Skalitz, and couldn’t even cry. Their memory didn’t deserve to die in the darkness of her black heart. 

After a long pause, in a small voice, she said, “And if I wanted to tell you?”

If Lady Jana’s voice could ever be gentle, it was now. “I wouldn’t mind hearing.”

So Jindra told Lady Jana about Skalitz. She didn’t speak about the terrible day of its end, or the terrible days after, but she told her all about the beautiful before, when Skalitz was still a living place with a beating heart. She told Lady Jana about the little group of dirty lads she’d grown up chasing, after they’d long since left her in the dust, claiming that she couldn’t play their boy’s games any longer; she told Lady Jana about days watching Pa at work in his forge, begging him to let her help, even to just pump the bellows; she started to tell Lady Jana about Matthew, and how they used to roll together in the hay and in the meadows, before remembering that she shouldn’t be so bawdy with a noblewoman, even one like Lady Jana. 

She hadn’t talked so much in weeks. She talked until her throat hurt, and until the candles began to burn down to stubs. She talked and she talked, and for once, Lady Jana simply listened. 

Finally, Jindra found herself telling Lady Jana about Theresa and Bianca, and their long girlhood days together, singing and laughing. It felt like another life, a fairy tale, but Jindra told her anyway. 

“We were a merry bunch,” she said. “We all ran a little wild, but I was really the unruly one. Tess was the cleverest.”

“The mill girl?” Lady Jana asked, to Jindra’s surprise. She hadn’t expected Lady Jana to remember. “The one who brought you to Rattay?”

“Aye. She’s a treasure. The best of us, really. When we were girls, if I ever tumbled us head over heels into trouble, Tess would pull us out.” Jindra smiled. “Or she would pull Bianca out, at least. If it was my fault, she’d leave me to my fate like the little sinner I was.”

“And what was the other girl like? Bianca?”

Jindra’s heart caught in a terrible vice, and for a moment, all she saw was red, and all she felt was pain. It passed quickly, but when she came back to her body, the world had grown darker. She swallowed. “She was beautiful. The most beautiful. And she was kind, and good.” Jindra clutched the parchment bearing her name in her hands, crumpling it. “She was the dearest friend I’ve ever had.”

There was so much more to say. Bianca had known how to brew any draught or any potion you could ask for. She’d had eyes that crinkled when she’d laughed, and that laugh could have made an angel weep. She’d never suffered a drunk and she’d never let a single unworthy boy turn her head. But the words lodged in Jindra’s throat, and silence stretched in the room.

“She died,” Lady Jana said, with quiet, somber understanding. 

Jindra had never said so out loud to anyone. Theresa had already known, and no one else had cared to ask. After she and Tess were gone, would anyone remember that a beautiful, wonderful girl named Bianca had once lived in Skalitz at all?

“Yes.” Jindra’s voice was hollow. “She died.”

For a moment, Lady Jana was quiet, as she’d been for hours. Then, in another surprise, she said, “I’ll send a messenger down to the mill tomorrow to let them know that you’re well. I’d send a letter, but I don’t suppose your mill girl can read.”

Jindra huffed out a small breath; almost a laugh, but too sad to get there. “No,” she confirmed. “But I would like that very much.”

Jindra looked down at the parchment. She’d crumpled it into a ball, and her name was smeared completely, becoming little more than a black smudge. She smoothed the parchment out as best she could, hesitated, and then asked, “How do you spell Bianca? In Czech, not in Latin.”

Lady Jana took her quill, and wrote out a word slowly, below the black mark of Jindra’s name. Jindra stared at it, sounding out the letters, and thought back to what Lady Jana had said, about writing down her angry thoughts and tucking them away. Looking at Bianca’s name, given weight, made real, when Bianca herself was no longer real, made her understand. 

She looked back at Lady Jana, and for the first time felt nothing but pure, easy affection. “Thank you. Not just for this but…for all of it. For my letters.”

“Well, it's about time,” Lady Jana said, impatient and presumptive. But Jindra was starting to see through her, and could tell when she was trying, clumsily, to be kind. “I was fluent in Latin and Czech and German by the time I was six, let alone…” Lady Jana paused, and furrowed her brow. “Pray, what is your age?”

“I turned one and twenty this past spring, my lady.”

Lady Jana dropped her quill. “What?” she screeched, like a chicken in a coop, so loudly that Jindra jumped. “I shall be twenty at Christmastide! You can’t be two years older!”

“Well, a year and a half – ”

“With that round face! Those doe’s eyes and those long lashes!” Lady Jana crossed her arms, looking scandalized. “Ha! The beauty of a deceiver, as sure as Delilah.” 

Jindra huffed out another small laugh, less sad than the last.

That night, Jindra awoke with Bianca’s screams ringing in her ears and the memory of sour breath on her face. She scrambled to the side of the bed, the whole room spinning and swirling, as she clamped both hands over her mouth, nausea overwhelming her. You’re not there, she told herself. She’d run away, and was in Rattay, in the dark, shivering like the coward she was. You’re not there.

She managed not to vomit, but she almost wished that she had. Maybe if she did, everything could come out of her, in a tide of blood and pus and pain, until she was finally empty of filth. 

As the nausea lingered, a long buried, hidden fear froze Jindra’s heart. She hardly remembered her fever, but she had bled  – Theresa had told her so. It had been one of the first things Theresa had told her, wise and kind as she was. So Jindra couldn’t be…but what if – maybe Theresa was wrong, or had lied, or –

Stop it, she thought. Jindra’s stomach churned, and something deep inside her shied away, went blank, crumbled like dry soil. Don’t think it. Don’t.

In that moment, she missed Ma so badly that she would have gladly died to see her again. She would have given anything in the world to be ten years old, or five years old, or a babe in arms, and to feel Ma stroking her hair. Jindra curled in on herself, and strained, trying to recall Ma’s voice, and how kind it had been, how even and patient, and willed it and willed it until she could almost hear her, the lilting valley and gentle river of her words. 

When did you last bleed, my girl? 

“When I was sick,” Jindra whispered, without sound or air, mouthing the words and shaking. “But I don't remember. What if – ”

And even if, how early does the sickness start? 

“Not this soon,” Jindra whispered, without sound or air, obedient. “But what if – ”

And even if, what have I taught you? 

“Tansy,” Jindra whispered without sound or air, calming. “Pennyroyal. Brewed together.”

Then you’ve nothing to fear.

“I want you back,” Jindra whispered without sound or air. “Come back.”

But she heard nothing more, if she’d even heard anything at all in the first place. Maybe she was mad.

Jindra realized that she was murmuring the words of a song under her breath, thready and broken. It was a song that her mother had taught her, full of flowers and sunshine, that the girl in Skalitz had loved. It was nearly silent, and fractured, hardly a melody at all, but it brought Jindra back to herself. Her eyes were dry, as always, and beside her, Lady Jana slept on, dead to the world. 

Horses had always been one of Jana’s chief pleasures. It was one of the few activities out of doors that Hanush had declared acceptable for her, and even then he had so many rules. Jana was only allowed to ride so far, and never too fast, and always with a guard or two to accompany her. Naturally, she broke those rules as much as she could. It was always worth the scolding to leave her escorts far behind and gallop as fast as possible, and pretend for just a moment that she wasn’t herself.

Jindriska liked horses, too. She’d taken well to riding, better than her letters and much better than her archery, and even on the days when Jindriska woke looking particularly glum, the promise of a ride seemed to cheer her as much as it did Jana.

Now, the two of them stood in the stables, picking out their mounts. “Isn’t he magnificent?” Jana declared, stroking her favorite bay gelding, sixteen hands high with a wild streak. “But I promise you, he’s not a mount for just anyone. He’d throw you off his back if you even dared to try.”

“He’s a fine lad,” Jindriska agreed, in her simple country way. A shadow had hung over her all morning, almost as bad as her first days in Rattay, but she was already looking more lively. In fact, she looked so much better that Jana felt the overwhelming need to tease her, just to be sure.

“If you’re to keep riding out with me, you need a horse of your very own,” Jana said, with mock gravity. She cast her eyes over every stall, pretending to think hard, before grinning wickedly. “That one!” she declared, pointing. “That's the one for you!”

The mare was the ugliest in the stable, her coat a dull, dusty grey. She was slow and plodding, and badly bred, hardly worth the coin she must have cost; Jana was half convinced that Hanush had won her in a game of cards. Jana turned back to Jindriska with a sly giggle, eager to see what reward she’d get for her cruel joke. If she was lucky, she might learn a new colorful curse, or at least enjoy the delight of Jindriska’s peasant boldness. 

Instead, she found Jindriska gazing at the grey mare as if in a trance. “For me?” she asked, in an awed whisper. “That’s my horse?”

Jana stared, dumbfounded, as Jindriska stepped closer, holding out her hand cautiously. The mare immediately pushed her ugly snout right into Jindriska’s open palm, and Jindriska sighed like a besotted milkmaid in May. 

“Oh, she’s beautiful.” She wrapped her arms around the mare’s neck and pressed her cheek to its dull grey head, closing her eyes as if she couldn’t believe her luck. “Did you ever see such a beautiful horse? What’s her name?” 

Jana shook her head. “She doesn’t have one. Stop being silly. We can find you a much better – ”

“I get to name her, too?” Jindriska gasped, like it was a miracle. This was ridiculous.

“But you don’t want that horse!” Jana exclaimed, aghast. She hadn’t expected Jindriska to take her so seriously. “Take any horse you want in the stable. You have your pick. There’s a lovely roan beauty over here with a steady gait, or – Jindriska, really. That one’s hardly fit for the plow. Name any horse and it’s yours.”

“You said this one was mine,” Jindriska said, unflinchingly loyal to a horse that she hadn't known five minutes. “I want her.”

And so, Jana found herself trotting along on this fine summer’s day atop her beautiful gelding, while Jindriska plodded behind on the ugliest horse in the world. It was humiliating. Jana consoled herself with the thought that Jindriska was still learning to ride, and needed a steady, slow animal to match. 

“Aren’t you pretty?” Jindriska cooed, as if to a baby. Jana found herself oddly jealous of the attention paid to a horse. “Aren’t you the prettiest, gentlest horse in the whole world?”

“I see that old nag is better company than me,” Jana called out, prickly. 

“Not so, my lady,” Jindriska called back. “But Pebbles is a good listener.”

Jana had to take a moment. “You did not name that horse Pebbles.”

“I surely did. She’s the same color as a pebble!”

“Yes, I can see that she’s the same color as a pebble. Jesus Christ.”

The two guards who accompanied them rode along on their fat war horses, one on either side of the road. They were the two stupid ones from Skalitz that Jindriska knew, and when she wasn’t crooning at her horse, Jindriska spoke to them instead of to Jana, calm and polite, as if it was nothing to her. 

Fine. Jana refused to let Jindriska and her awful horse spoil her mood. The road stretched on ahead, empty and inviting, and Jana took a long, deep breath. It was always wonderful to be outside in the sunlight; she loved her dark grove, but it wasn’t the same, to be out only at night and in secret. If she had her way, Jana would spend all her days in the sunshine, racing and hunting and rolling through God's green earth.

She felt a surge of mischievousness, and swung her horse around. “Let’s race!”

Jindriska's head shot up. “What?”

Jana didn't even offer a reply. She swung her horse back and urged him on, ignoring the shouts of alarm from the escorts, and took off down the road like a bolt from a crossbow.

Immediately, the world grew brighter, and the colors grew sharper. Every part of Jana’s body came alive, and every breath was deeper, wilder, and counted more. This was freedom. This was flying. It was so easy to forget the walls of Rattay in moments like this, when she could forget the girl she was, and be the eagle she wished to be.

She thought of Jindriska, no doubt trailing foolishly behind her, mouth agape. Look at me, she thought. Look at me! She rose up on the stirrups, reckless, and glanced over her shoulder, expecting to find everyone growing ever distant. 

But no! There was Jindriska, on her ugly grey nag, behind Jana but keeping pace. Jana laughed, wildly, in an unexpected burst out of her chest. It seemed that Jindriska would never stop surprising her.

They rode and rode until the guards were pinpricks in the distance. Jana finally slowed her horse to a canter, a trot, and a walk, drawing him up at an open meadow. She couldn't stop laughing, and she was sure that her hair was wild, escaping its plaits. Jindriska, her face bright and windswept, drew up alongside, and patted her horse. “Well done, Pebs!”

“Pebs,” Jana repeated disdainfully; but her charmed smile gave her away. “Who knew that old thing had a race in her?” 

It was a beautiful meadow, open and verdant, with wildflowers growing free and careless throughout. Jana decided to extend some mercy to the two guards, and declared that they should pause to enjoy themselves. She and Jindriska dismounted, and picked their way through the tall grass in an easy, warm silence, leading their horses by the reins. Before long, Jindriska started humming a peasant song that Jana didn’t know, with a simple melody that dipped and jumped in a little trill. It was a perfect match for the setting and, Jana found, for Jindriska herself.

They stopped at a circle of marigolds and sat down right in the center of it, heedless of the dirt that might stain their clothing. Jindriska took in the general splendor around them, before turning to Jana with what could only be described as a look of spirited competition.

“Pick any flower,” she said, “and I can name it.”

This side of Jindriska was a recent discovery. Jana scoffed. “No one knows every flower.”

“I do,” Jindriska said, stubborn and proud as any noble. She began to point out little spots of color, bright against the green meadow. “That’s eyebright. And that’s poppy over there. And I spotted some camomile a way’s back, and some St. John’s Wart at the edge of the trees.” Jindriska gestured around them. “And these are marigolds!”

Jana had already known the marigolds, but she was feeling very gracious, and declined to say so. “How do you know so many?”

“Ma used to sing me a song when I was a girl, to help me remember all the names. We would sit together and sing back and forth until I knew all the words by heart.”

It was easy to imagine. Jindriska looked completely at home in a field of flowers. “Sing it for me!”

Jindriska blushed, and it made her prettier than usual. “I couldn’t…”

“Of course you could!” Jana insisted. “Or are your country songs too good for your lady?”

Jindriska gave in, as Jana had known she would. She cleared her throat, blushed even more, and looked down at the flowers rather than at Jana. She began to pick the marigold blossoms, one by one, and sang:

Mine own love said, “What here does grow,
in the meadow where we sow?”
Said I, “It is the marigold,
Its smiling face yellow.

The gentle petals, when I brew,
Will your aching limbs renew.”
My true love walks where blossoms be,
In the meadow, beside me.

Jindriska’s voice warbled shyly, but it had a sweet and honest air, and the song’s little melody dipped and ebbed like a creek. It was utterly charming, and when Jana clapped, it was without a hint of mockery. “Your mother taught you that?”

Jindriska nodded, her shyness passing when she wasn’t forced to perform. What an awful mummer she’d make. “There’s a verse for each flower. I’ve heard it sung with other words, but Ma’s words were the best, because they taught you how to use the flowers, too.”

“Your mother sounds lovely.”

“She was.” Jindriska had never spoken of her mother so freely before. “She could tell you a use for any plant. Pa would joke that she must have been the last gardener banished from Eden, because the flowers in the woods and the meadows would grow for her as if she’d tended them herself.”

“A rather clever joke for a blacksmith to make,” Jana said. Too late, she realized that she must have sounded sour, or jabbing, at a man very recently dead, even though she hadn’t meant anything by it. 

But Jindriska smiled and nodded, agreeing. “He was a clever man.”

Jana relaxed, letting out her held breath. But even if Jindriska was smiling, it was wistful, and wandering in a memory. These were the sad smiles Jana was most familiar with, and the more she came to know Jindriska, the more she hated to see them. They seemed to her like an echo of something much grander, now lost.

“What was your mother’s name?” Jana asked, suddenly ashamed that she hadn’t thought to ask before.

Jindriska's whole face grew softer. “Elena,” she said. “But Pa never called her that. He called her Lenka.” Jindriska handed Jana one of her marigolds, her skin sun-warm where their fingers brushed. “And your mother’s?”

“Hedvika.” Jana twirled the flower between her fingers like a pinwheel, the petals a golden blur. “That’s about all I could tell you of her, I’m afraid. I could tell you about her illustrious family tree or what jewels she favored, but she gave me no songs.”

“Maybe if you’d had more time together?” Jindriska asked, sounding sad, for some reason.

Jana snorted. It was unladylike, and she was starting to do it more often. Peasant influence, no doubt. “Not likely. She left me in the Lords of Leipa’s keeping, and I’m given to understand that she didn’t fight for me.” She shrugged. “I can hardly blame her. She had better prospects, and I was less than half an heir.”

“But you’re the Lady of Rattay, aren’t you?”

“I have a large fortune of my own. But I’ve no right to Rattay itself. My father’s lands might pass to my son, if I had one, but Hanush has made himself comfortable here. My father’s counselors aren’t going to challenge him on my account, even if I had a husband and issue, which I don’t.” Jana traced a finger lightly across the petals of the marigold. “And I very much doubt the king would care to hear a woman’s claim.”

“I’m sorry,” Jindriska said.

Jana looked up, surprised. No one had ever told her that before. But Jindriska’s face was open and sincere, as usual, and Jana saw genuine anxiety in her expression. It was as if Jindriska wished she could help.

Maybe that was why Jana found herself talking, the words spilling out of her. “I won’t even be able to stay here. Pirkstein comes with my dowry, but I’d have to leave it to live in my new lord’s household, unless – unless he was some lowly petty lord, or a worthless second son without land. And I don’t want a worthless second son without land. But I don’t want to leave Rattay, either. But then sometimes I can’t stand Rattay, because I’ve hardly left it, and…”

Jana had a sudden flash of her future self: confined, in a box, shut away like jewelry, bloated like a breeding ewe. Her father was watching her, in the river, distorted by water and his eyes filled with hate. 

The marigold was crushed in her hand, and spoiled. Jana tossed it into the grass. “I don’t want to talk about it any more.”

“I’m sorry.” Jindriska said again. And then, softer, in her simple country way, “Is there anything I can do?”

“Of course not. You don’t understand anything.” That was – that was unworthy of her, and unworthy of Jindriska, who was just trying to help. There were times when Jana couldn’t keep herself from lashing out, as if her pain insisted upon itself. 

But Jindriska didn’t flinch, though she had every right to. She just nodded. “That’s true. I've never owned anything of my own to lose in the first place.”

Jana laughed, half in thanks that Jindriska wasn’t angrier, and half because Jindriska was right. “That's our women's lot, I suppose.”

They fell quiet. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but it wasn’t as warm as before. Jana, who hated silence even at the best of times, remembered how pretty Jindriska had looked when she blushed, and decided that she ought to get embarrassed more often.

Very casually, Jana said, as if unthinkingly and offhand, “Hanush offered me to Radzig years ago.”

It worked. Jindriska’s head shot up, and her eyes were as big as saucers. “To Sir Radzig?”

“Yes!” Jana cackled with glee. “I could have been your lady!”

Jindriska didn’t blush, but she did look astonished and scandalized, which was just as good. “But he’s – he’s old enough to be your father!”

“You can’t imagine how put out Hanush was when he refused me. At the time Radzig made some excuse or another. He was too often at court to have time for a wife, or he'd have to wait too long for me to be old enough.” Jana scooted closer, and lowered her voice, as if discussing court intrigue. “I always wondered. Is there a secret lover? A secret dead lover, tragically guarding his heart with her jealous ghost?”

Jindriska didn't often laugh loudly, but she did now, in a surprised burst. That was a victory. “No, of course not!”

“But how do you know?” Jana insisted. “Did the townsfolk ever see him at night, wanding the keep, moaning in agony, for her?”

“For who?”

“The secret dead lover tragically guarding his heart! Pay attention!”

As Jindriska laughed again, red faced and kissed by the sun, Jana felt a powerful sense of accomplishment. She had done that. Jana kept Jindriska fed, and listened to her talk, and made her smile. Jana had taken this sad girl to a meadow and made her laugh, and made her sing. And this was within the bounds of Rattay, with guards to watch them! What more might Jindriska do, when free of stone walls, and free from prying eyes?

Jana nodded to herself. “I think it's time.”

Jindriska looked confused. “Time for what?”

“You little fool. For a hunt, of course!”

That night, when they snuck out of the window and out the back passage and down to the river, they didn’t stop at the grove. Jana led Jindriska farther, beyond the river and into the deeper woods that surrounded Rattay’s borders. Jana could never venture as far into the trees as she would like, not if she hoped to return before she was missed, but she had learned with time that there were kills to be found if she was patient.

It was nearly midsummer, when the days stretched long and the nights stayed warm. This meant that the deer would be active even in darkness, and would be easier to find. Jana was determined to have no less than a doe tonight. It had been too long, and nothing less would satisfy.

Jana moved through the woods as if she’d been born to it, but Jindriska had learned very well. Her footfalls didn’t make a sound as she followed, a few steps back, always close enough to hear Jana’s whispered word or respond to her quiet gestures. Jana’s treasured escape was no longer solitary, and it was easier than she could have ever imagined. Jindriska was another set of eyes, another set of ears, a second opinion and a second smile. 

To think she had not wanted this! What a joy it was, to have a shadow behind her at every moment that was of her own choice! 

The huntress Diana had her escort of nymphs, Jana thought gleefully. But I only need one.

The moon was full, bathing the world in dreamy, silver light. As the two of them crept through a clearing in the trees, Jindriska sucked in her breath sharply, and stopped walking. Jana froze in alarm. “What?” she hissed, clutching her bow and spinning around. “Were we followed?”

But she found Jindriska, not tense at some unseen danger, but kneeling on the ground. “Look!” She held out her hands, brushing at a dark, leafy plant. “Belladonna!”

Jana was too charmed to be annoyed. “My woods-witch!” she teased, grinning. She squinted, but in the darkness, one plant looked like any other to her. “How can you tell? It’s pitch dark!”

“I told you. My Ma taught me.” Jindriska pulled out her knife and cut the plant away close to the ground. “There’s so much here. Give me a moment and I can gather it.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve a man you’ve been waiting to poison. Shall I be your excuse and your shield when the bailiff comes for you?”

Jindriska’s mouth twisted, as if both amused and not. “That’s not how I’d kill a man.” She stood, and brushed the dirt from her skirts. “And belladonna isn’t just poison. It has all sorts of uses. Tess and Bianca and I used to spend hours gathering it for brewing schnapps. A drop or two of tonic in your eyes will make them as pretty as a cat’s, and just as keen.”

Jana, who had always fancied herself something of a cat, liked the idea. “I could see in the dark and become even more beautiful?”

Jindriska brightened a bit. “I could grow some for you in your garden, my lady.” She had on that over-eager expression of hers, anxious to please. “It wouldn’t take up much room, and I’d keep it neat.”

The castle garden was technically Jana’s purview, in one the few little realms of rule she was allotted. It was also the one she usually cared the least about. “You may have a plot there, if you wish,” Jana said, easily indulgent. Why shouldn’t Jindriska have what was within Jana’s power to give? “But I can’t fathom using so much belladonna that we'd need to grow it .”

“Every woman in the world wants to be beautiful, or wants someone dead. That’s what my Ma used to say.”

This too! After so long, Jindriska had now spoken twice in one day of her mother, without an overbearing shadow of grief. Jana was starting to realize just how much the kicked dog she had first met had been a ghost of the real girl. 

“Then take all of it,” Jana said. It was suddenly very important that Jindriska knew she could have whatever she wanted. “I’ve never cared. Take every row and grow as much poison as you like!”

“It won't just be poison, my lady,” Jindriska said, eager now at the thought of a garden. “I'll grow plants for healing and I'll teach you all the names.” Jindriska’s look became sly, changing her from dog to cat herself. “But if my lady insists, I could brew up a witch’s potion for you.”

“Oh, vile!” Jana giggled. “Stop making me laugh. You’ll scare all the game away.”

Jindriska tucked her prized poison into her pouch, and paused, looking thoughtful. “My lady, what will we do with the deer?”

Jana blinked. “Do with it?”

Jindriska frowned, and her eyes widened in understanding. “You mean you just leave it?”

“Well, I can't very well drag it home to the butcher.”

Jindriska stared at her as if she’d grown two heads. “But what a waste,” she said, with her country sensibilities. 

“My God,” Jana groaned. “I must get you a kill soon, or you'll become insufferable. Now, hush.”

It didn't take long after that. The two of them crept through the trees until, and in a beautiful glade, they found their quarry: a circle of deer, half a dozen or so, grazing drowsily. It was perfect. Jana would never have found such easy marks if the night wasn't so bright and warm, were summer not upon them, and, she dared to hope, without Jindriska with her for luck.

She knew immediately which deer was hers: a young buck, perhaps two years old. She gestured for Jindriska to be silent, but didn't need to; Jindriska's eyes were locked on the very same deer with unbroken focus.

A thrill went through Jana that had almost nothing to do with the hunt. She picked her arrow and notched it slowly; it was the only thing in the world she cared enough about to be patient for. As she drew back, her heartbeat was almost deafening, and her blood was singing. Jindriska was watching. No one had ever watched her hunt. No one had ever seen that she could kill.

Look at me, look at me!

She released. The buck, alerted by the sound of the bowstring, leapt at the last moment, and the arrow caught him in the shoulder. The other deer scattered, as the buck tripped and tumbled to the ground, thrashing and unable to rise.

Jana and Jindriska hurried to it. The buck panted in a frenzy, writhing on the ground and kicking its legs; the moonlight caught the whites of its eyes, sightless with pain and terror, and a thick mix of blood and white froth spilled from its mouth.

It wasn't Jana’s cleanest kill. She would have been embarrassed, or even ashamed, had she not turned to look at Jindriska’s face.

Jindriska was staring at the dying deer with wide eyes, as wide as the panicked animal's, though there was no fear in her; her trembling lips parted, and she stood transfixed, like a woman transported in a vision. Her hand was wrapped so tightly around the handle of the knife on her belt that her knuckles were white. It was the same knife she had used to cut her belladonna, and it already knew death.

Jana felt a rush of tenderness and affection. “It’s yours,” she said, breathless. 

Jindriska didn't hesitate. She knelt down and held the deer still, even as its struggling body grew weaker; she took her knife, and in a swift, unflinching movement, slit its throat.

It was wonderful. Blood erupted from the wound, gushing like a spring, as the last death throes erupted violently. The deer made a sound of dying that only hunters and God might ever know, in relief and release, as its panicked, frightened eyes grew blank and quiet; the blood poured and poured, black in the moonlight and staining Jindriska’s hands.

Jindriska held the deer down until its lingering, pitiful twitching ended. Jana was holding her breath. She was loath to make any sound, any movement, that might break this sudden spell held upon them.

Then Jindriska drew her knife away. She was breathing hard, and her face was shining with sweat, even in the low light; she ran the back of her hand across her brow, unthinking, and smeared it with a shock of the deer's blood. 

Jana had never been any good at keeping quiet. “Well done!” she gasped, shattering the peace.

Jindriska looked at her, and blinked slowly, as if she had forgotten that Jana was there. And then, she smiled.

Jana was enraptured. There had never been such a smile. It was savage, and primal, the joy so pure and fierce that it caved Jana’s heart in. It was a smile meant for declaring war, for conquering a people, and it didn't belong on a girl's face. It belonged in the stars, or in songs, or at the hand of God. All of the smiles before it had been shadows. 

If someone – if anyone – if Jindriska looked at her like that, every day, Jana would give her a thousand kills, and a thousand gardens.

Jindra would never know how the two of them made it back to Lady Jana’s room without being caught. Gone was all their stealth, and their careful, hushed footsteps. For the entire journey back through the trees, to the grove, up the hill, through the stone arch, and through the back passage, they couldn’t keep quiet, giggling and hushing each other like naughty children. 

“Did you see – ” one of them said. “Quiet!” the other gasped, muffling her laughter. Jindra couldn’t be sure who said what. Over and over and back and forth it went, in a dance.

Jindra felt wide awake and alert, her body thrumming and her heart thundering as if she was afraid. But she wasn’t. For the first time in many, many days, she felt completely unafraid, even from memories. The blood she saw behind her eyes wasn’t from Skalitz. Right now, it was the blood of the deer: Lady Jana’s deer, Jindra’s deer, spilling honest and clean over the forest floor.

Eventually, somehow, by the grace of the God who Jindra no longer heard, the two of them tumbled through Jana’s window, landing on the floor in a tangled heap. The room was just as they’d left it, but they froze even so, like startled deer themselves. At the end of safety, they had to pause. It had all gone too well. What if Sir Hanush was waiting in the shadows, ready to clap them in irons?

But after one moment without any sound of an alarm, and then two, Jindra and Lady Jana burst into giggles again, triumphant. Jindra finally got her feet under her, and helped Lady Jana to stand.

“We did it!” Jindra couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “Thank you for…”

But her voice died at the look on her lady’s face. Lady Jana was flushed, as if from the cold, even though the night had been warm; her eyes were sparkling and ablaze, almost as if she had a fever, and her face was glowing. Jindra thought of how Lady Jana had looked for days, weeks , when she’d been so quick to share a secret; it was as if that giddy, cautious trust had tumbled out of the night and into the light of day, multiplied a thousandfold. Lady Jana, who had once looked so pinch-faced and cruel, and no doubt would again, shone like a star in the dark room, and was, for a moment, stunningly beautiful.

“Jindra!” Lady Capon – Lady Jana – Jana exclaimed, merry as a songbird. “Jindra, Jindra!”

It was her familiar name. It was Pa’s hugs and the scratch of his beard, Ma’s smiles and her lessons, teaching the name of every plant and flower. It was Theresa’s smile, Matthew’s laugh as Jindra shoved him into the mud, and it was Bianca, Bianca, Bianca. It was warmth, and it was kindness. 

“My lady…”

“No, no, you must call me – ”

“Jana." Jindra finished for her, because she knew. “My friend.”

Jana beamed, like all the sunrises Jindra had ever seen.

They washed and changed hastily, cleaning the blood from their hands and struggling out of their dirty clothes. For once, Jana helped Jindra out of her kirtle just as Jindra helped her, though she didn’t need to. It seemed that that she was unwilling to part from Jindra for a single moment, even for something as small as Jindra looking away from her to untie her own laces.

Only when they were in clean shifts, and their clothing hidden, and the smell of blood washed away, did they dare to light the candles. Jana’s face was even more flushed in the soft yellow light, and it made her freckles stand out. She took Jindra’s hands in hers, and squeezed.

“I’ve never had such a dear friend before,” she said, nearly hushed with awe.

“Nor I.” It was true. Jindra ought to feel guilty, betraying Theresa and her dear Bianca for a girl she'd hardly known a month. But she didn’t.

And she couldn’t regret the look of open joy and relief on Jana’s face. “I knew you’d understand!” she gasped. “I knew you’d feel it, too!” She sat on her bed and drew Jindra down to sit beside her. “What should we do first, in our newfound pact of friendship?" Without waiting for an answer, Jana clapped her hands, and declared, “We’ll start by sharing the deepest, most wicked secrets of our hearts!”

“We will?”

“Jindra, my dear, don’t you know anything? A friendship as deep and enduring as ours must be a wretched, wasting thing. The eternal foundations of God’s earth must be ravaged by it.” Jana tapped Jindra’s nose playfully. “Any two girls can pick flowers together and embroider the hems of their husbands’ shirts. But us? We must do better!”

Better? Jindra mainly felt warm at this moment, basking in Jana’s company; warm, safe, and bright as a poppy, like the girl in Skalitz. She wasn’t sure how something wretched and wasting could be better.

But Jana looked so excited, and it was easy to be swept along with her whims. “As you say,” Jindra said fondly. 

“Then do as I say!” Jana giggled like a little girl. “Tell me a secret! We must tell each other a secret that we’ve never told another living soul.” 

Before Jindra could even reply, Jana was up again, bounding off of her bed like an excited filly. “Wait! Let's have wine first.” She dashed for the jug of wine that she kept in her room, gathering it along with two goblets, chattering on and on in her manner. Jindra watched, as entertained as if she'd been a juggler at a fair. “One should always drink wine when having these important conversations. I've thought very long and hard about it.”

Jindra snorted, charmed. “About what? Having a friend?”

Jana grew still, and turned to glare. “Don't you mock me.” 

Beneath that glare, she looked embarrassed, with actual hurt shining in her eyes. Jindra's heart burst into a thousand pieces, and she felt like the worst, most black hearted villain in Christendom.

“I'm sorry.” Jindra patted the bed beside her. “Come back here. You can give me a smack if you want.”

Jana sat down on the edge of the bed, prim, making a show of displeasure. But when Jindra tilted her head to the side, offering her cheek, Jana couldn't stop herself from laughing. She gave Jindra the lightest slap, but Jindra reeled back anyway, as if it had been a great blow.

“Oh, I forgive you,” Jana giggled, like music. “I think I'd forgive you anything tonight.”

Jindra sat back up, laughing too. It was such a wonderful feeling, to make Jana smile. 

Jana handed Jindra one of the goblets, and poured the wine for her. “Just for that, you have to go first.”

“I'm not sure where to start, my lady.”

Jana waited until Jindra took a sip, like the devil she was. “Have you fucked a boy?”

Jindra choked on the wine, sputtering and coughing. “Where did you learn that word?”

“I’m not a child. I know plenty of words.” Jana glanced left and right, and whispered, overloud and mocking, “Shit.”

“Jana!”

“I hear both from you often enough.”

“Hush, or your uncle will have me in the pillory.”

“Answer my question!”

Jindra blushed, red as a beet from the wine and the coughing. But there was no stopping Jana when she wanted something, and no use talking her out of it. “Aye,” Jindra mumbled, defeated. “I have.”

Jana shrieked with glee, and she scooted even closer. “What's it like?”

Jindra was sure there was some sort of rule or law about corrupting a young noblewoman with bawdy talk. But Jana looked so curious, and Jindra couldn’t help herself. “Do you even know what the parts go?” she teased. 

Jana scowled, and tried to pour her wine over Jindra’s head. Jindra caught her hand, laughing again; when had she last laughed this much? 

“Do I know where the parts go,” Jana grumbled, face scrunched up. “I hate you.”

Jindra took a drink of wine, pretending to think very hard. Somehow, she didn't think Matthew would have minded this. He might have actually liked knowing that he got to shock a noble girl, even from the grave. “It was…sweaty.”

 Jana’s temper vanished, and she moved closer still. “But did it hurt?”

“Not really. Not after the first, and even then it was mostly just strange. We had a merry time after that.”

Jana covered her mouth in shocked delight. “Jindra! You’re supposed to tell me that it’s painful and to be avoided by all good girls.”

“Not the country girls,” Jindra said, grinning. She'd been so fond of Matthew, and it had been great fun, while it lasted. But even the sweet memory grew sad, when she realized how far away it was, and how Matthew was dead, like everyone else, with an arrow in his throat meant for her.

“I didn’t love him,” she admitted. “Not as I ought to’ve, anyway. He might have loved me, though.” 

“Of course he did,” Jana said. “Who wouldn't love you?”

Jindra felt a lump rising in her throat, and she hastily took another sip of wine. Jana seemed to think for a moment, and sat up straighter. “My turn,” she said. She looked down at her own goblet, as if gathering her nerve. Then, very quietly, she said, “Sometimes, I wish Hanush was dead.”

The room was as quiet as a tomb. Jindra, though shocked, knew to say nothing, and waited.

“I know he means well. And I know it would make my life harder, if he were gone. He protects me, and he's the closest thing I have to a true father.” Jana's eyes went somewhere far away. “But I wish it all the same. I see it in my dreams, and it’s never a quiet death. I'll push him down the stairs, and his brains will splatter. Or I'll hunt him through the woods, and I'll gut him until his blood is on my hands and I lick it off, like some beast.”

Jindra set her wine aside and reached out, took Jana’s goblet away, and grasped Jana’s hands in hers. It jerked Jana out of whatever place she had gone to, and she looked back at Jindra, searching her face.

“Maybe that’s why I love hunting,” Jana said. “If I kill something…it’s as if I mattered. I mattered to the hare, or the dead deer. I was the most important creature in its life, in someone’s life, just once.” 

And then she smiled, with a sad edge Jindra had never seen before. For a moment, Jana didn’t look nineteen and silly. She looked like an old woman, sapped of life.

“Ah,” she sighed. “I suppose you have two of my secrets now.”

Jindra felt her stomach twist. Oh, my sweet lady. Sweet girl. How had she ever thought Jana cruel, or thoughtless? Jindra was the cruel one. She’d offered Jana something that hardly mattered to her, while Jana had just bared her soul without question, and without fear. She deserved all of Jindra’s soul, in return. She deserved everything.

Jindra swallowed, hard, and gathered her courage. “I see my parents die every night.” She hated how weak her voice sounded; a coward, even now. “When I dream it’s nothing but blood and fire. Everyone dies. And I see myself wielding the blade that killed all of them, and then I kill their murderers, and I...when I wake up…” 

She took a breath in, and it shook. “I can't cry. I never have. Not for Bianca, or for my own parents. I don’t even pray for them. All I want to do is kill.” Jindra looked down, where she still held Jana’s hands. “I think that’s why I wanted to hunt with you so much. I wanted to kill something, just like you said, and I don't think it's ever going to stop. I want to kill a man next.”

Saying it out loud, to put words at last to her madness, was a terror. But Jana didn’t look afraid. She just nodded, as if it made perfect sense. “Of course,” she whispered. “As you should.”

In her dream the fields are on fire, and the flames are not yellow or white or blue or even red, but black, black flames from the deepest pit of hell, and there are people screaming far away in a hundred languages that Jindra can’t understand. But Jindra lies in a bed of ashes and her limbs are so heavy and every time she tries to sit up, someone pushes her down –

Bianca leans over her, a corpse with her flesh hanging from her bones, and she opens her mouth to scream and blood and dark bile bubbles past her lips and onto Jindra’s, until Jindra chokes on it, drowns, her own bile rising up – 

Pa lies dying beneath a linden tree and knows that his daughter is a coward, and Ma knows nothing, Ma lies on top of Pa’s body and rots, Ma gives Jindra handfuls of marigolds and tansy and pennyroyal and they’re all blighted and dead –

Mother! Jindra screams. Help me!

Jindra stands over herself and speaks with a man’s voice and says something so awful that the words stop sounding like words, and she bruises and spoils and bursts open like an overripe fruit, as she doubles over and viscera pours out of her body, out of her mouth and her cunt, bloated and rotted, entrails and shards of bone, and the sword in her hands is coated in it, and it’s her father’s sword and it’s hers, it belongs to her – 

The deer is a man is a deer is a man, a shifting mass of death and blank eyes, sour breath and maggots, and Jindra can’t stop cutting throats –

Bianca squeezes her hand, it’s all right Jindra you’re all right, even as she lies silent in the cold earth  –

The sword tumbles into the darkness and Jindra isn’t whole until she has it back, she wants it back she wants it back she wants it back!

-

Jindra woke up whimpering like a wounded animal. The sound echoed in the chamber, more damning than any cry or scream would have ever been. She didn’t thrash, but lay still, shaking uncontrollably, her heartbeat panicked, like prey that froze when cornered and couldn’t fight. She couldn’t decide if that was better, or worse, than being an animal who ran away. 

And then, as Jindra came back into her body, she realized something. Her breath caught, and she sat up, scrambling and clumsy. She dipped a hand beneath her shift, between her legs, and then held her trembling fingers up to the moonlight. 

They were sticky, and dark with blood. 

Jindra gasped wildly and pressed her other hand over her mouth, so weak with relief that her mind fell away to water. For the first time – for the very first time – her eyes grew hot, burning with the threat of tears. 

That seemed the worst, more sinful thing of all, so much worse than the swirling darkness of her thoughts, or the glorious release of murder in her dreams. She’d found tears for herself, and not for those she’d loved and failed. Could there be anything more wicked?

When Jindra’s breathing finally grew calmer, she glanced down at the bed. She was relieved to find Jana was still asleep, deep and untroubled, just as she always was. But she was lying on her side, facing Jindra, with an arm outstretched across the blankets. Her hand was open, and her long fingers, calloused from her bowstrings, curled softly around the empty space between them, where Jindra’s hand had been.

Here the forest goddess, when exhausted
from her hunting, would bathe her virgin limbs
in the clear waters. Once [Diana] reached the place,
she would give one of her armed nymphs her spear,
quiver, and unstrung bow. Another nymph
held in her arms the robe she’d taken off,
while two undid the sandals on her feet.
Then a Theban girl, Crocale, who was
more skillful than the rest, tied up the hair
tangled across her neck, into a knot,
though she herself kept her hair hanging down.

- From Book III of The Metamorphoses by Ovid, translated by Ian Johnston

Chapter Text

“Why Jindra, anyway?” Jana asked. “It sounds so masculine.”

She and Jindra were returning after another ride, trotting side by side on their horses with their usual two escorts a length behind. Their path took them on a loop by the river before heading back into town; it was a longer ride than Hanush preferred Jana take, and a much shorter one than she would have liked. They often reached compromises like these, where neither one of them was happy, but nothing could spoil Jana’s mood today. It was her favorite time of year, before June bled into July, when the light reflected off the river like diamonds and the sky was so blue that it demanded attention. 

In truth, Jindra’s company was the best part of all. They had fallen into such a natural pattern, such a warming balm of friendship, that even short rides and days without hunting were bearable. More than bearable, with Jindra beside her, every day and every night, teasing her like no one else would dare, and smiling in a way that no one but Jana could coax out. 

Surely it couldn't have only been a month or so since Jindra had come to her. Jana knew it must have been some trick of God, holding them in an endless summer.

Jindra shrugged, unbothered by Jana’s tone. That was wonderful too – that Jana could be herself without receiving a scolding, and that Jindra would always understand. “It's just what I've always been called, my lady.”

“God rest your poor mother's blessed soul,” Jana declared, “but I would have chosen something more delicate for my daughter's familiar name. How much attention could you really expect with something so boyish?”

Jindra's smile was in her voice. “More attention than you, my lady.”

Jana giggled and turned in her saddle. “And that's another thing. You never tell me details.”

“I tell you plenty.”

“The core of the act, but not the feeling,” Jana retorted. “You've told me that it brings pleasure, but not how. I'd know all of it.”

“You’re not a girl in a bathhouse,” Jindra laughed. She was blushing, looking like a vision of summer time. “You're going to shock Janek and Jaroslav.”

“Bah!” Jana tossed a hand. “They’re not listening. Your reputation is perfectly unsullied.”

Jindra snorted. “Is it?”

“Just tell me,” Jana whined. “Stop being such an old woman. Aldentes fortuna unvat!”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“God help me!” Jana exclaimed. She was delighted: by the lovely day, and by Jindra at her side, even when she was being obstinate for no reason. “My handmaid is a nun, who can’t speak Latin.”

“I'm learning to read it. Perhaps my lady’s teaching hasn’t – ”

“Enough out of you, or I will make you sit for the dressmaker today instead of going to our grove.” Jana watched Jindra’s pout, and giggled again, unable to keep up any act. “Oh, Jindra, you’re so easy!”

“I don’t need a gown.” Jindra said, blushing more. Jana thought of the bolts of green silks she had ordered and that lay about unused, and how lovely Jindra would look in green, and disagreed.

“If you insist,” she sighed. “Then I’ll send Marika one of the bolts for a new kirtle. She’ll like that.”

Jindra gave Jana one of her inquisitive puppy looks. “The same Marika you made cry?”

“Well, yes. She still served me well.” Jana clicked her tongue, and tossed her braid over her shoulder; loosely plaited today, because Jindra never liked to pull her hair. “I don't forget my people, you know! It would be unbecoming of a woman of my station.”

Jindra shook her head and gave Pebbles a pat on the neck; her own braid, in the same style as Jana’s, slipped down her back. They were little mirrors of one another, gold and burnished bronze. “You’re a confusing girl, my lady.”

“I shall take that in the complimentary spirit with which it was given.”

“It wasn’t.”

Just a few weeks ago, Jana would have gasped in outrage, but today Jindra’s impudence just made her smile. 

Their path took them past Rattay’s mill. As they approached, Jindra slowed Pebbles and turned in her saddle, with a hopeful look. “Could we stop for a moment? I’d like to see Theresa, if I could.”

Jana’s heart leapt, because Jindra so very rarely asked for things. “I don’t see why not,” she said, as if it mattered very little, even when Jindra’s smile blossomed. She had to keep her dignity, after all. 

Jana had passed by the mill a hundred times, but had never visited it as such. She might have liked to; when she’d been young and fanciful, she’d imagined it as a quaint place from children’s stories, where little workers lived and bustled. But Hanush had never liked the idea of Jana mingling freely with Rattay’s people. 

As the horses picked their way down the path, Jana smiled to herself at the thought. Surely Hanush couldn’t object when Jana was simply doing Jindra a kind favor. 

Besides, Jana had never set eyes on the mill girl herself, and was curious. Jindra spoke of her almost as often as she spoke of the girl who had died. What manner of saint must she be, to fill Jindra’s memory, second only to the mythical Bianca, who had clearly been some sort of angel?

But what a disappointment! The mill girl rounded the corner of the miller’s house, in her roughspun clothes, carrying a basket, and looked perfectly ordinary. Even when she lifted her head, caught sight of Jindra, and her mouth fell open in surprise, she was exactly as small and simple as Jana had expected. Jana reminded herself to be kind to her lessers, and glanced at Jindra, deferring to her introduction.

But Jindra’s face was entranced. She and the mill girl stared at one another for a silent moment, as if there was no one else in the world, and for the first time since Jindra had sat at Jana’s feet on that first night, Jana felt invisible. 

Then, in a scramble, Jindra threw herself off of Pebbles, stumbling like a puppy and tangled in her own reins. “Tess!”

The mill girl dropped her basket. She hurried to meet Jindra halfway, smiling and looking as if she might speak; but Jindra fell forward against her and embraced her before she could, and almost lifted her off the ground in her excitement. 

Jana watched silently, her stomach dropping away into a pit. This was a pure, unmistakable moment of happiness; even the blind and the deaf would see and hear it. Even Jana recognized it, though she now realized she had never once had it for herself.

The last weeks tumbled through Jana’s memory with a new clarity. To think of Jindra's enduring sadness, and how proud Jana had been of the smiles coaxed out with time and prodding! How she had delighted in any gift she could give! How befitting it had felt for a highborn lady, caring for her charge!

For all the animals she'd killed, it was the first thing Jana had ever done that truly mattered. She had turned that little kicked hound back into a person. She had turned Jindriska into Jindra, blooming like a flower under Jana’s care.

And now, here Jindra was, laughing freely and merry in the arms of another girl. Jana hadn’t done a thing. She had never felt so foolish.

“My lady!” Jindra turned, and Jana, heaven help her, still perked up at being called – until Jindra pulled the mill girl closer by the hand. “This is Theresa. I've told you about her.”

Jana looked the mill girl up and down. “At length,” she agreed, eyes narrowed.

The mill girl at least remembered her manners, dipping appropriately low. “Good day, my lady.” 

She was mousy, with dull brown hair and a common face, too round and too flat to be pretty. Even from her seat high on her horse, Jana could see the slight sunburn on the girl’s cheeks, and the rough redness of her working hands. 

Still, Jana ought to be gracious. “Good day to you,” she said, dignified, in a voice she thought her mother might have used. “I hate to keep you from your work.”

“It’s no trouble, my lady.”

What a picture the pair of them must have looked: Jana seated in her red gown and hood, with her shining golden hair and her clear skin, and the mill girl, this Theresa, standing plain and little. And Jindra stood beside her, still holding her hand, halfway between with her own open, honest, silly peasant’s face, and dressed in Jana’s silks.

As if to complete the ridiculous scene, a dirty, skinny dog burst out of nowhere, running straight to Jindra in a flurry of whines and stumbling paws. Jindra looked away from Jana entirely and gasped, kneeling. 

“Mutt!” Jindra opened her arms, and the mangey thing flew into them. “Oh, Mutt. I’ve missed you!”

Jana glanced at the two guards, hoping to share a glance of detached amusement, however forced; but they were watching Jindra and her mill girl and the dog with indulgent smiles, as if they were very pleased.

What did Jana expect, with all of them from Skalitz?

“I'm going back now,” Jana called out coolly, over the stupid barking.

Jindra stood, brushing her hands on her skirts, dirtying them, even as the dog leapt all over her, and made them dirtier still. “I'd like to stay and talk with Theresa a while.” She smiled at Jana, but distractedly, already reaching for the mill girl’s hand again. No by your leave, no if it pleases you, my lady, no I promise to be home in time for our grove, Jana. 

“Take the whole day if you wish,” Jana said, icy. She nodded to her guards in quiet command and began to back her gelding away, towards the road, and waited ever so patiently for Jindra to comment on her tone, and cringe, and promise to make it up to her, as she ought to, and as she always did. 

But Jindra was already looking away again, at the mill girl. She was so clearly enchanted that it was as if she didn't notice. Jana might as well have been the birdsong in the trees, in a pleasant background titter. Something deeper and uglier than simple irritation landed in Jana’s stomach like a rock. If even Jindra wouldn’t look at her…

Jana felt her nose turning red, and her cool expression fell into a bitter scowl. Without another word, she whirled her horse around, and left Jindra behind. 

Jindra felt more like the girl from Skalitz than she had in weeks. The beautiful sunny day was nothing to Theresa’s familiar, beautiful face, and as Mutt darted happily between their legs, barking with excitement, Jindra found that she was as giddy as a new lamb. 

“How have you been?” she gasped, as she hastily tied Pebbles by the reins to the fencepost. “Are you well? Do you need anything? Can I help you at all? Is your uncle – ”

“Slow down,” Theresa said, as playfully chiding as she’d been at six, at eight, at twelve years old. She stepped up to the fence and set her basket down, both curious and cautious, and her smile steady. “Do I get to meet your friend?”

Jindra stroked Pebbles on her dear grey snout. “Well, Pebs?” she cooed. “Will you be a good girl for my dear friend Theresa? She’s the sweetest person in the world, and she has apples for you.”

“Stop promising my apples to a horse I’ve never met,” Theresa teased, even as she held out her hand. Pebbles, ever an angel, bumped into Theresa’s touch with a good natured huff. 

Jindra’s giddiness was making her feel dreamy. Theresa’s teasing, with her good natured smile and her gentle voice, was as familiar a comfort as the sounds of a forge or the smell of wildflowers. But Theresa was whole, and hale, and smiling at Jindra’s horse; she was alive in this new life, and not just in Jindra’s memories. It was enough to push the dark wolves snapping at Jindra’s mind away, shut them behind a cellar door, and pretend they weren’t there at all.

“Her name is Pebbles,” Jindra offered proudly. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

Theresa nodded. “Sweet as a kitten, too.” She gave Jindra a sidelong glance, and sighed, as if Jindra had asked her for a terrible favor. Then she bent, snatched an apple from her basket, and held it up to Pebbles. “I bet Jindra spoils you rotten,” she said, as Pebbles munched happily. “She could never say no to pretty girls.”

Jindra found that she couldn’t stop staring, unable to get her fill of Theresa’s face; she was the warm stones of Skalitz, and the sweetness of fresh bread. 

Jindra said, very quietly, “I’ve missed you, Tess.”

Theresa’s hand fell aways from Pebbles, and her eyes met Jindra’s. They swam with understanding, and sadness. “I’ve missed you, too.”

The spring air held between them, the birdsong both melody and memory. 

Jindra cleared her throat. “You look well.”

“Well enough.” Theresa gave Pebbles a final pat, and turned to Jindra, hands on her hips. It was her most intimidating look. “And you? You had one foot in the grave last I saw you.”

“I’m much better. All better.” Jindra might have answered too quickly, because Theresa seemed unconvinced. Jindra ducked her head down, sheepish and disarming. “Don’t I look it?”

Jindra was a far cry from the desperate scrap she had been, but there was more to it than that, and both of them knew it. Theresa had brought her to Rattay, after all, when she'd been moaning and delirious in the back of a cart, and had cared for her when the world had been nothing but fever and pain. There were things about Jindra that only Theresa knew, and there had been wounds that only Theresa had seen.

Those wolves in the cellar snapped their jaws a bit louder. Jindra kicked the door. 

Theresa eyed Jindra a moment longer, unbearably kind and unbearably knowing, and then took pity, at least for the moment. Her voice grew teasing again. “I should say so.” She bent to pick up her basket, and gave Jindra an exaggerated look of awe. “All those fine clothes, too. You’ll be putting on airs next.”

Jindra tried not to look too relieved. “I want to hear everything you've been up to,” she said, which was true. “Could you spare your afternoon for me?”

Theresa brightened, as if she hadn't expected the offer. It reminded Jindra of when they were girls, and how Bianca would tell Jindra, with a gentle giggle, that they ought to include Tess in their games, too. Jindra had sometimes resisted, wanting Bianca all to herself, only to melt at the sight of Theresa’s happiness.

“And your lady won’t mind?” Theresa nodded up the road, her eyes crinkling with amusement. “She didn’t look too pleased with you.”

“Oh, she always looks like that.” Jindra waved a hand – she realized, belatedly, in an imitation of Jana herself. “She’ll hardly notice I’m gone.” 

Theresa squinted at the road a moment longer, and then shrugged. Jana probably had a confusing effect on almost everyone. “I have to finish my chores first,” Theresa warned.

Jindra stepped forward eagerly, hands already outstretched. “Can I help?”

Theresa balanced her basket on her hip and smiled. “I swear, were those your first words the day you were born?”

Jindra’s ears turned red, but she gave a bashful little grin, and held out her arms expectantly. Theresa rolled her eyes, but shoved the apples at Jindra’s chest.

It didn’t take too long, all things considered. Jindra and Theresa, with Mutt prancing happily after them, made quick work of storing the apples, hanging the washing, and feeding the chickens. The girl in Skalitz had hated these chores, dragging her feet and groaning as only indulged girls can, but to Jindra, it was wonderful work. Every chore was soothing, just like Theresa herself. 

“I don’t see your uncle about,” Jindra said, as the two of them made for the gate. Mutt bounded ahead of them, leading the way down the path to the river. “Is he leering from the shadows?”

Theresa hummed. “If he hasn’t spotted us yet, we ought to sneak away before he does. He’s still none too pleased with you.”

“I am very grateful. And I will repay my debt to him.”

Theresa gave her a quizzical look. “You didn’t know? Your great lady paid it for you.”

Jindra was so surprised that she almost stumbled over the uneven ground. “What? When?”

“She sent a messenger a fortnight ago and a bag of coin came with him. I was afraid she was trying to buy you, but uncle was pleased.” Theresa frowned. “She didn’t tell you?”

Jindra reeled. She’d mentioned the debt to Jana maybe once or twice, and hadn't realized that Jana had remembered. But Jana was so free with her gifts and affection – with everything – and it wouldn’t have occurred to her to say anything. It was strange enough to accept when it was only dresses, or even Pebbles, dearer to Jindra than any treasure. Jindra was unsure how to feel about this, and her chest grew tight, anxiously, but not altogether unpleasantly. 

Jindra’s conflicting thoughts must have shown on her face, because Theresa, out of nowhere, said the one thing sure to pull Jindra out of any gloom. “We should race.”

Jindra’s head snapped up. “We should?”

Theresa looked sly and just a little wicked. “Unless you’ve gotten too slow in your fine new position.”

Competition burned to life in Jindra’s heart. “Do I look – ”

Theresa took off before she could finish, like a cheat. Jindra was on her tail in an instant, but Theresa had always been faster, and raced ahead. Jindra sprinted after her, the greenery rushing past them in a blur, and Mutt racing alongside them. Jindra realized she was smiling, chasing after Theresa’s wake, just like she had when they were girls without cares. 

Finally, she and Theresa flopped down on the banks of the river, gasping for air. Theresa was flushed and her eyes sparkled with mischief. “I win,” she panted, smug and triumphant.

“You always win,” Jindra teased, winded. “One day I’ll beat you.”

“I’m sure.” 

Jindra fell onto her back, cushioned by the soft, damp ground. Mutt was instantly upon her, licking at her face, and Jindra sputtered and giggled, pushing at him. “Did I beat you?” she laughed. “Are you a sore loser?”

Theresa sat up, and drew her knees up to her chest, watching. “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you laugh again.”

Jindra sobered. “I know. I’ve been…” She thought of Jana, and the grove that had become theirs. “I’ve started feeling better.”

They said nothing for several moments, catching their breath, surrounded by the steady sound of river water, and warmed by the sun. It felt almost like the old days, in the green years of childhood. Jindra floated there, in the shape of a memory, and found that it held a sharp, sweet pain, without Bianca.

“Bianca could never outrun you,” Jindra said. It felt natural to talk of her, like rubbing a bruise. “But she always beat me.”

Theresa shook her head, sly again. “You let her win.”

“She’d cry if I didn’t.” Jindra sat up, and let Mutt rest his heavy head against her leg. She scratched behind his ears, and she swallowed heavily past the sudden lump in her throat. “I miss her so much.”

“Me, too.”

“Could we speak of her, a little?” Jindra asked, gingerly. “I talk about her with Lady Jana, but it’s different if..”

“We knew her,” Theresa finished.

And they did. It was awful and it was gentle. They spoke of Bianca’s sweetness, and her mischievousness, and how she’d been the prettiest of them all. They spoke of how she could get either of them to do her any favor, by poking and prodding enough, and of the long hours they would spend with her, gathering herbs in the woods, singing Ma’s song as they did; how she was even better at brews and tonics than Jindra, almost as good as Jindra’s Ma. They spoke of her brown hair and her dark eyes, and how she preferred to sit and watch the dancers instead of dancing herself, even if she pretended otherwise. 

They spoke of their ring, that Theresa had found in a nest, that she’d given to Bianca, and that Jindra now held, tucked safely away in her trunk in Lady Jana’s room: the three of them, together, as safe as Jindra could make them. 

“She was a good soul,” Theresa said. Mutt was now asleep in Jindra’s lap, and they both stroked his fur. “I don’t think she ever hated another person.”

Jindra grinned. “Wrong. She hated Matthew.”

Theresa giggled. “Oh, she did, didn’t she?”

“Sweet, stupid Matthew,” Jindra cooed. “She never could understand why I picked him.”

Truthfully, Jindra had tumbled into the hay with Matthew simply because she’d liked him. He was tall and handsome enough, and always ready for a laugh or a prank. At the time, Jindra, as lusty as any country maid in springtime, had felt that if she were to have anyone, she might as well have him. Pa hadn’t known just how much mischief she’d gotten up to, but he had still hated Matthew for a layabout, which was probably fair. 

Bianca had hated him even more, until Jindra had held her hands and promised her that no boy, any boy, no matter how sweet, could ever equal their friendship. They’d promised to hate each other’s future husbands, and Bianca had laughed at Matthew for the rest of the day. Matthew, not knowing why and not caring, had thought it was funny. 

Jindra felt guilty about that now. She looked down, plucking at the grass. It was goosegrass; she could blend it into a paste, to relieve a burn. “He came to find me,” she said quietly. “And I was – I didn't want to leave without my parents. He took an arrow that was supposed to hit me.”

“You can’t know it was meant for you.”

“It doesn’t matter. He could have run.” Jindra twisted the grass in her hands. “My cunt can’t be worth that much.” 

Theresa grew very still. “Jindra,” she warned.

Jindra snorted bitterly. “It’s certainly not worth that much now.” 

“Jindra!” Theresa grabbed Jindra’s chin, and forced her to look up. “Stop that. Right now.”

The sudden fire in Theresa’s expression was unbearable, and Jindra glanced away. For a sharp second, Jindra was in Skalitz, on her back, staring at rain clouds, bruises on her wrists, listening to the laughter of men.

“I feel cleaved in two, sometimes,” Jindra admitted. “Like I’ve lost the girl I was.”

Hesitantly, in a voice heavy with meaning, Theresa asked, “Does anyone know? Sir Radzig?” 

Jindra cringed. “I don’t think so. No one acts as if they know. Sir Radzig obviously doesn’t, or he wouldn’t have spoken for me.”

The thought of Sir Radzig knowing her shame was a particular horror, and Jindra had to shake it out of her head physically. “I don't know who would have told him,” she said. It was such a strange thing to discuss like this; almost unreal, like it was another girl's misfortune. “Unless…did Robard know?” 

Theresa looked out at the river thoughtfully. “He seemed to think that he had stopped it.” She smiled a small, knowing smile. “Heroically, as men do. So no, I don’t think so.”

Jindra nodded. She’d thought as much, but her memory was so hazy after a point; after Theresa’s screaming had started, and after… 

Jindra forced herself not to think about it.  “That’s good,” she said. “I don't think they'd have given Lady Jana a soiled – ”

“Jindra, one more word and you're in the river.”

Jindra gave her a fragile, but grateful smile. If Tess were a flower, she'd be comfrey. To mend all broken things I know, in Ma’s song. A poultice made with gentle grace helps fractured bone find place.

They were quiet for a moment longer, watching Mutt as he snuffled in his sleep. “Is she kind to you?” Theresa asked. “Your lady? The rumor is that she's…difficult.”

“She’s a brat,” Jindra said. She thought of Jana’s sour, spoiled face, and her smile grew the widest it had since they'd come to the river, and the darkness from Skalitz had grown too much. “And she's demanding, and loud, and I have to pick up after her and brush her hair.” She grew warm with affection. “But she's very dear to me.”

Theresa looked at Jindra steadily. And then, strangely, she added, “And has Sir Radzig spoken to you much?”

Jindra blinked. Theresa had now brought up Sir Radzig twice. “No. Not really.”

Theresa's brow puckered. “It just seems…he put in so much effort for you, and got you this position besides.”

“It was kind of him.”

“Maybe.” Theresa shook her head, her mouth twisting uneasily. “You should be careful.”

Jindra realized what she meant, with an unpleasant jolt, and hurriedly shook her head. “I don't think I'm in danger of that. He hardly ever sees me. We've never had a real conversation.” She shook her head again, and shuddered. “And he’s not…and I’m hardly...God’s Blood, Tess, not me.”

“Just be careful,” Theresa insisted. “Between Sir Radzig and your lady…they don't have any reason to care about the likes of us. Even if your lady is your friend.” 

“She is,” Jindra said, more forcefully than she meant to.

“After what's happened, I don't want you to…” Theresa sighed, frustrated. “You don’t have to live your whole life in service. You don’t have to be useful all the time.”

Jindra shifted uncomfortably. “I know that.”

Theresa’s expression became spectacularly unimpressed. But it softened again, quickly; Jindra spotted sympathy there, and cringed. “I’m sorry for lecturing you,” Theresa said. 

“Don’t be!” Jindra tried to smile again, to bring back the good humor, but it felt strained. “You wouldn’t be the girl I know if you didn’t.”

Theresa smiled back, but it was just as strained as Jindra’s, and just as melancholy. “Maybe I’ve lost the girl I was, just like you.”

The world went black for a moment, as Jindra remembered Theresa’s screams, and the armored men who tore at her clothing with their cruel hands, amidst all that killing. “I thought I stopped them,” Jindra gasped. Her breath started coming too fast. “I thought I saved you. I – Tess, I thought – I thought I saved you, please, tell me – ”

“You did.” Theresa placed a soothing hand on her arm. “You did, Jindra. But it…it still almost happened. I still see them sometimes, at night. And my father, and my brothers…it lingers.”

Jindra blew out all her breath in a rush, relieved. But the girl from Skalitz had slipped away again, and Jindra felt just as sick as ever, in this wheel of panic and sadness. “I can’t stand it,” she said, closing her eyes. “I need it to stop. I want them all to suffer as we did. It isn’t fair.”

Theresa said nothing, and Jindra opened her eyes. Theresa was looking away from her, staring at the river again, thoughtful.

Jindra frowned. “You don’t want that?”

Theresa took a moment before answering. The river was unbothered, so clear and clean. “Do you know how Sammy died? His wounds took him in the night, as I held him. I woke up with a corpse in my arms. My own baby brother.” Theresa shook her head. “I was so tired, Jindra. I still am. How can you think of more death?”

“How can you not?” Jindra gasped. Mutt whined in her lap, waking, as if sensing her distress. “After what they did to Bianca?” she choked. “After what she suffered?”

Theresa looked back. “You can’t know what happened to Bianca.” 

Anger, unfair and directionless, swelled in Jindra’s chest. “I can't?” she snapped. “Would you like me to describe her body to you again? The state of her? Was I not clear enough?” 

Theresa turned away, and Jindra felt such shame that it overpowered even her anger, and even her memory, terrible and black and red, of Bianca, her Bianca, throat slit, legs spread, unseeing and in pieces.

But sometimes it was herself she saw, lying spread and splintered in the mud. Sometimes it blended together in a filthy mess, like blood smeared through a pail of milk. She couldn’t be sure what she remembered or knew.

“I’m sorry.” Jindra was a monster, a broken shard of steel. “I shouldn’t have…I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Jindra. Wanting something we can't have won't bring her back,” Theresa told her, more gently than she deserved. “Not Bianca, or your parents, or my brothers, or my father.”

“But that’s just it.” Jindra took one of Theresa’s hands in hers, and leaned closer. “What if we could have justice? We should. For our families, and Bianca, and you.” Jindra refused to hear anything else, even in her own mind. The wolves would break free of that cellar if she let them.

And somewhere in the world, there was another monster in black armor, with his handprints on Jindra’s wrists, and her father’s sword on his belt. Jindra had sworn that she'd never run away again. She said, passionate, “Shouldn’t I try?”

Theresa placed her hand over Jindra’s and squeezed, but she didn’t smile, or agree. For the very first time, she looked at Jindra as if she didn’t know her at all.

“Something’s happened to you,” Theresa said, almost wonderingly. Her eyes searched Jindra’s. “I can’t explain what it is.”

Jindra remembered Jana’s deer, dying under her hands, and the beautiful dark blood that had spilled into the moonlight. She thought of Jana's eager, sharp eyes, the twin blades of them. Jana hadn't questioned the darkness inside Jindra’s heart. Should she have?

Theresa would be so grieved to hear about Jindra’s dreams, and their bloodstained battlefields, where she killed, and was killed, without end. She wouldn’t be afraid, because Theresa wasn't afraid of anything; but she would hold Jindra’s hand, look at her sorrowfully, and offer quiet pity. If Jindra told Theresa about them, she would promise Jindra that the dreams would pass. She would promise Jindra that they should pass.

Jindra thought better of it. She drew her hand back, and rubbed the hem of her skirt, where the fresh stitches were hasty and uneven. It was one of Jana’s cast-offs, and had been let up by a good inch or so. “I need to do something,” she said.

Jana's lessons, and the beautiful deer, had dulled that need. But now – “I'll go mad, Tess,” Jindra whispered. “I need it.”

“Need what?” Theresa asked, as if she truly had no idea.

Jindra thought of a hundred answers, and of the deer that was a man. “I don’t know,” she lied.

Jindra didn’t return for hours. 

Jana spent her time growing steadily more lonely, and crushingly bored. In frustration, she’d picked up her panels of blue wool, and begun embroidering them again. She’d finished the vines long ago, in shining threads of golden silk, and had moved on to the leaves, nestled within the design’s twisting spirals. She jabbed her needle into the wool, jaw clenched, and purposefully filled in the delicate lines with clumsy stitches, bulky and crooked, too loose or too tight, as if the silk thread could take on her spite. 

She kept pricking her fingers, and tiny pin drops of blood were staining the wool, drying down to purple dots on the blue fabric. That was something. At least there would be proof that Jana had once held the fabric, and had existed at all.

No saint’s relic, this! Jana thought to herself, bitter. A witch’s curse. 

The summer heat lingered long into the afternoon, but Jana ordered a fire built up anyway; partially for the light, and partially because she missed…she was bored and wanted someone to talk to. But the meek little scullery who came to light the fire had kept her head down and hadn’t responded to Jana’s prodding, and now Jana was irritated and far too warm, with her back aching from crouching over the embroidery, and her fingertips dully throbbing.

Jindra might not have been there, but Jana heard her voice clear enough. The more she embroidered, and the more her fingertips bled and ached, the clearer Jindra’s voice became.

Theresa used to say…

Jab.

Theresa and Bianca were…

Jab, jab. 

Bianca and I…

Jab, prick, bleed. 

It was all taking shape. Jindra was no kindred spirit, not someone who saw the dark swirling need within Jana, who saw her kill, who watched her as she hunted, and saw her for who she was and smiled in spite of it, and even because of it. No indeed! Jindra was someone who had been loved well and often all her life, and laughed in the arms of other girls. Jana was counted third in her heart at least. Maybe Jindra’s looks of understanding had been pity.

And why not? The clear voice became her father’s, in his watery grave, in hell. She never needed you. Who would?

Jana jumped as the door swung open, without even a knock. She twisted in her seat and found Jindra, stomping inside with her loud steps, smiling without a care, as if the room was her own as well as Jana’s.

“I’m back,” Jindra said, very obviously back. Stupid. 

She looked a rosy cheeked mess, and her hair was escaping her loose braid, dark and wispy. It reminded Jana of their hunt, when Jindra had been a vision streaked with blood, unbound and wild. Jana had been so sure that no two people in all the world had ever felt, looked, or been as the two of them had that night. 

It was supposed to be for them. It was supposed to be for her.

Jana turned away, back to her vines and leaves. “I can smell you from here.”

Jindra chuckled under her breath, as if Jana was being funny; as if it was all a joke . “That would be Mutt. He was so sweet, to remember me like that.”

God in Heaven, Jindra actually sounded soft, as if the base affections of a dog were moving her to tears. Jana was made more the fool every minute. Jana sneered and jabbed the wool, catching her thumb painfully. “It’s a dog. I’m sure it smelled its own kind.”

Jindra chuckled again. What a fine mood she was in, without Jana’s company. How little Jana was needed! “He’s such a sweet pup,” Jindra said, oblivious. “Do you think he might like it here, if I brought him? I think you’d like him, and he could warm our feet when it gets cold again.”

Jana’s thumb welled with blood, and she pressed it into the wool, until the throbbing dulled, and the fabric darkened. “You're mad if you think I want a mangy cur in my bed.” 

Jana wasn’t even looking at Jindra, but somehow, she could tell that she faltered. Jana knew, just knew, that Jindra’s expression stuttered, that she blinked with confused hurt, and that Jindra recognized the change in Jana’s tone at last and stumbled in the face of it. Jana could see it as clear as day, and her heart skipped guiltily, then hardened over again.

After a moment of awkward silence, foreign in Jana’s chamber these days, Jindra spoke again, in a quieter voice. “I wanted to thank you. Theresa told me that you paid my debt to Miller Peshek.”

“Ah,” Jana scoffed. “Noticed, did you?”

There was another pause, and this time, Jindra spoke more slowly, and with an exaggerated patience. “You never told me.”

“I’m aware!” Jana snapped, her cheeks burning. She’d actually forgotten all about it. It hadn’t mattered. Should it have mattered? Jana’s heart ached as much as her bleeding fingertips. “I don’t want to go to the grove tonight,” she added, sneering down at the golden leaves, crooked and bloodstained, as they deserved. “So stop hoping for that.”

“My lady, are you all right?” Jindra asked, as if she cared.

Jana slammed her embroidery down like a child, her face flushed. “I’m not!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and spinning around. “Of course I’m not!”

Her voice was shrill even to her own ears, and Jindra’s brows flew up. Jana blushed even darker, and part of her wanted to pull back, and knew that she ought to. But the grove was her secret place, her secret heart, and she'd brought Jindra there when Jindra did not even treasure her friendship, when Jana had treasured Jindra only.

“I’m surprised you came back at all,” Jana continued. “Did bedding down in the miller’s house in a pile of straw lose its charms?”

Jindra still looked confused, and taken aback, more than guilty or sad. “What?” 

“What indeed,” Jana sneered. “And what about your Theresa?”

“What about her?”

“Has she lost her charms, too? I doubt it. You were with her all day.” Jana waved her arms, agitated. “And you talk of her constantly. Theresa, Theresa, Theresa! I thought that I was your dearest friend!”

Jindra’s expression changed. Something in Jana warned her of danger, and another part of her urged her to soothe, but a larger part was hurting so much that she wanted to hurt Jindra back.

“And then there's the other one! Perfect Bianca, dead, darling Bianca!” Jana threw a hand to her chest, and wailed, “What of me? You love a dead girl more than me!”

Jindra’s face, unreadable before, cracked; first hurt and bewildered, and then a deeper, uglier thing entirely. In a shaking voice, she said, “That’s enough.”

Jana pressed, unable to stop, and unwilling. “Am I wrong? She was an angel in life I’m sure, but as a corpse? Only a peasant would be so bound to the dirt!”

“I said enough.”

 “It’s not enough!” Jana exclaimed. “You left me alone all day! You’re the cruelest creature I’ve ever met!”

“ Me?” Jindra shouted. She hadn’t raised her voice to Jana since that first night, when they’d first fought – when Jana had been so thoughtless, so awful – “I’m cruel?”

“You leave me alone every day, when your mind slips away to your dead girl! A dead girl who was probably as plain and little as your mill girl!” Jana couldn’t seem to stop, the words spilling out before she could even think of them. “You’re as careless with your affections as the mill dog, and less loyal by far! Light, and thoughtless! As shallow and grasping as all the others!” And with all the malice inside her, Jana finished, “No wonder you fell on your back and let men fuck you.”

Jindra flinched with her whole body. She stared at Jana, stunned, as if seeing her anew. She whispered, “You’re so hateful.”

This made Jana skid to a halt, like a horse pulling up too fast at an adder in the road. She’d been called many things in her life, but never hateful.

Jana started filling with a vague horror. But a noblewoman should have her dignity. If that was hateful, then so be it. Jana raised her chin, and tried to look self-assured. “Is it so terrible to wish for loyalty from one’s friends?”

Jindra advanced a step, and her eyes filled with fire. “How would you know?” Jindra hissed. “You’ve never had a friend your uncle didn’t buy.”

Jana's mind went blank with shocked pain, and she could think of nothing else to say. 

And then Jindra’s gaze lost its fire, as it had on that first night, when the anger had drained from her. “I haven’t had another friend like you,” she said. Her eyes were shining, with unshed tears. Jana had never seen – “I thought that…”

What Jindra thought, Jana never knew, because Jindra’s voice died away, and her face closed off like a wall of stone. Without another word, Jindra turned away and walked out the door from whence she’d come, her steps heavy, as if she was exhausted.

This wasn’t right! Jindra ought to shout at Jana and keep shouting – or cry, or curse her, or – she should be looking, she shouldn’t…!

“Jindra!” Jana shrieked. “Come back! I didn’t give you leave to go!”

But Jindra was gone. 

And you, Fair Maids and Ladies, all
In whom honour’s born, be you
Not so cruel, but heed my call,
Each, and every one, of you;
Nor let yourselves resemble her
Whom you shall hear me name, for she
Is one many a true lover
Might call ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci.’

- Final stanza of La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1424) by Alain Chartier, translated by A. S. Kline.

Chapter Text

Pirkstein’s garden was not large. It was enclosed on all sides by a low hedge, and the raised beds were divided into neat squares, with stone paths between. It was mainly used for kitchen herbs, and the evening air was filled with the gentle scent of rosemary and thyme. There was sage, too, and the bright green of sorrel, all planted in rows. And along the very edge of the garden, carefully kept away from the rest, were Jindra’s wildflowers; and beside them, kneeling and covered in dirt up to her elbows, with her eyes burning, was Jindra herself.

She’d planted them all in neat little lines right up against the hedge. There were her marigolds, and camomile, and poppies, comfrey and eyebright, her dandelions and her dark belladonna, and even henbane found in the depths of the forest. Jindra had carved each and every one from the ground carefully, root and all, and carried them home like precious little parcels. Even Jana had deigned to dirty her hands and carry some, though she’d complained about the labor of actually digging and left that task to Jindra alone.

Jindra’s eyes burned more at the memory. Jana. How could Jana have smiled so much at Jindra, shown her such kindness and offered her friendship, and then said all of those things? Was her unthinking, distracted generosity just proof of how little she cared? What else had Jindra imagined in her loneliness?

Jana had been so cruel the day they’d met; Jindra must have been a fool, slow and clumsy in heart and mind and hand, to have forgotten it.

“Stupid girl,” Jindra whispered fiercely, to Jana and to herself. 

At least the flowers needed care, and could distract her. Some had done better with transplanting than others; the poppies drooped sadly, and the henbane was dead. Maybe they were doing poorly outside of wild places, confined in stone and neat little rows, when they were used to freedom. Maybe this castle was a terrible place without light and without love.

Jindra sniffed – from the dust. She still hadn’t cried, and if she was going to, it would not be over a noblewoman who hardly cared.

She reached for Ma’s song. “Said I, it is belladonna,” Jindra sang, in a whispered warble, “buds of beauty and of woe.” 

The belladonna was doing well, and Jana touched the leaves gently. “The smallest drop may ease the head, or bring death upon your bed.”

But then she remembered finding belladonna on the night of the deer, which made her think of Jana’s eyes and the beautiful blood reflected in them. 

As you should, Jana had said.

Jindra shook herself awake, and hastily moved down the row. The poor poppies and their shriveled leaves needed water or better soil. They were so far from home, where they’d thrived. 

“Said I, it is the red poppy, to dry and then to stow.” Jindra dug around the nearest cluster to peak at the roots. “From tiny seeds, a sleep can bind, to ease pain in the mind.”

What was she to Jana? A prize? A pet, to order about? Jindra had thought so many foolish things. She'd been so sure that Jana understood her, and had seen her heart; she'd shared that nameless force inside Jindra that Theresa wouldn't name, and couldn't understand.

And all along Jana had loved her like a girl loves a pretty necklace, and hadn't seen Jindra's heart at all.

Jindra sniffed again. If only Ma were here, to help Jindra make sense of everything. Just when she thought it had stopped hurting, the missing and the yearning came again, worse than before. Ma had not come to her defense and dried her eyes when she’d fought with Jana. Ma had not held her, and wept with her, when her blood came. Ma would never give her more advice, or teach her a new plant. Ma would never do anything, ever again. 

Jindra sat back on her heels, and closed her eyes. “My true love walks where blossoms be, in the meadow…”

“A Skalitz song if I ever heard one.”

Jindra jumped, her eyes flying open, and tumbled back onto her arse. On the other side of the hedge, illuminated from behind by the sunset, stood Sir Radzig, watching her with a quiet smile. 

Jindra tried to stand up, wipe her dirty hands on her skirt, and curtsy all at once. She failed at all three. “My lord, I…!”

Sir Radzig held up a hand. “No, don’t get up on my account.” He crossed to a gap in the hedge, and walked to where Jindra sat, weaving through the gravel path. “Someone should keep the old songs going.”

Jindra blinked up at him, surprised. All the country songs had been sung often enough by the women in the fields, but Sir Radzig had never been seen wandering among them, to her memory.  “You’ve heard it before?”

Sir Radzig’s smile widened, and he sat down, right next to Jindra, as if he did so every day. “I was young once,” he said. “There was a time when I knew all the songs.” His eyes went sad, and the lines around his mouth grew deeper, even as his smile softened. “This one was always my favorite.”

Jindra’s heart swelled with compassion. Of course Sir Radzig would be grieved. He’d lost his home, too. “It’s the best of them,” she agreed. “My ma taught it to me.”

“Yes.” Sir Radzig’s voice changed; for a moment, it sounded like a man’s, and not a lord’s. “Yes, I know.”

All at once, it struck again: Ma’s absence, Pa’s death, Bianca’s ghost and Theresa’s sadness, and Jindra in the middle, a stone in a river. Jindra took a breath, trying to steady herself in front of her own lord; even if he was as homeless and adrift as she was, and even if he was sitting among the dying wildflowers, not acting much like a lord at all. “I’m sorry, my lord. I never thanked you for securing me a place here.”

Sir Radzig chuckled, and gave Jindra a knowing look. “Not that it’s always easy, I take it?”

Jindra looked away hastily, thinking of her open face. “Is it that obvious, my lord?”

“Well,” Sir Radzig said, in his mild way that sounded halfway to a smile, “One can guess.”

Jinda's face grew hot, but she let out a huff that was almost a laugh.

Sir Radzig had always been so kind to her, even when Jindra had been a child, when he had no cause to be. He had treated Pa with respect, and Jindra had once seen him bow to her mother in deference. God entrusted the welfare of all people to their lords; if she couldn’t turn to Sir Radzig for help, who could she turn to?

Jindra swallowed, and gave it one last try.

“I wondered…” she began, her voice small and timid. Ma had given her a stronger voice than that. She cleared her throat. “The bandits who looted Skalitz and took my father’s – your sword. Has there been any word of them?”

Sir Radzig sighed. Jindra’s heart sank, even before he spoke. “You mustn't think of it, Jindriska.”

Jindra looked down at her hands, stained with dirt. “I feel useless,” she admitted, and tried so hard to not sound like she was begging.

Sir Radzig’s reply was soft with pity. “Some things we are meant to endure.”

His words landed like a stone in Jindra’s chest. Sir Radzig himself, so high above her, was the closest thing to comfort that Jindra had, and even he wouldn’t help. This was to be her fate: to endure, and not to act; to sit, and wait, to continue on, like a season or a garden, until she died. No death, no fight, no distraction, no victory, and no healing and wholeness at the end. 

Finally, it was too much. Jindra’s eyes burned, and burned, and her throat grew hot, and for her parents, for Bianca, for Theresa’s distance, for Jana’s betrayal, and for the girl she had been and what was left of her, Jindra began to cry. 

It started as a trickle and then grew into a torrent. It was like her dreams, when bile and blood spilled out of her, but instead of the filth it was tears, hot and horrible, and overwhelming, as every nightmare since Skalitz, every memory burst forth; she was utterly alone in her grief, even if Jana had fooled her, and made her forget.

Dimly, without true thought, she realized that Sir Radzig had guided her closer, and was now holding her in his arms. Jindra collapsed against him, sobbing, and turned her face into the brocade of his chest and wet it through with her tears. He was warm, smelling of leather, and his strong arms made Jindra feel so small. 

“Go on, my girl.” Sir Radzig’s voice had changed again. It almost sounded like Pa’s might have. “My poor girl. Cry as hard as you like.”

Jindra cried so hard that it was almost a scream. She missed Ma and Pa. She missed her stupid silly lads, she missed Matthew, and she missed the smell of flowers that weren’t dead. She missed Theresa, even if she was alive, and safe, and had smiled at her; because Theresa was no longer Tess, and Jindra could no longer be Jindra, and Theresa was so far away from her and would only get farther. 

And Jindra missed Bianca, dearest of friends, with her beautiful eyes, her smile and her laugh; the only person Jindra had ever loved so much that she would have stopped gazing at the horizon, and stopped dreaming of anything else, if she’d only asked. A dead girl, Jana had called her. 

They were all dead, and they were never coming back, and Jindra couldn't do anything. No matter what she tried, she was still held down in the mud, pinned in a snare, staring up at the rain and unable to free herself. She would always be trapped in Skalitz, raped so close to the bodies of her parents that she could smell their decay.

“I want my ma!” Jindra sobbed. She took in huge, heaving breaths, racking and violent, and it wasn’t any use. She just hurt, and she clung to Sir Radzig like she'd fly away without him . “I want my ma!”

Jindra cried until the sun started slipping away. Eventually, her sobs quieted to small, wet sniffles, and wheezing breaths. The horse she’d ridden to Talmberg had sounded similar when Jindra had finally tumbled from its back. It had collapsed from exhaustion, and they’d killed it in the courtyard.

Jindra couldn’t stop thinking of that dead horse, her head swimming and achy. Somewhere above her, Sir Radzig was speaking softly, and was stroking her hair. “Forgive me,” he kept whispering, as if half to Jindra, and half not. “My girl, forgive me…”

Jindra rubbed her cheek a little against his chest, where he was holding her securely. It was so wonderful, to finally be held, even if…

Even if she was in the growing darkness, alone with him. Even if he was a lord, high above her, and touching her like this. Even if the last time a man, any man, had been so close to her, had pressed himself against her, had…had…

Theresa’s warning echoed in her mind as loud as a thunderclap. Be careful.

Jindra choked and pushed at Sir Radzig’s chest, scrambling blindly backward in a panic. Every inch of her went too hot and too cold, flooding with fear and confusion, and disgusted horror. The darkness in her roared to life again, burning in her breast, and tonight, Jindra found a name for it: fury.

“I'm not your girl!” she gasped. She jumped to her feet, and held her arms out, as if to push him away. “I'm Lenka's girl! I'm Martin's girl!”

Sir Radzig said nothing, and Jinda couldn’t understand the look on his face, and didn’t try to. She shook her head, over and over. Is this what she was, to everyone, noble or not? A thing to be claimed? To be kept? 

“And now I'm no one's!” she exclaimed passionately. “I'll never belong to anybody!”

There was no sound in the garden except for Jindra’s breathing. Sir Radzig hadn’t moved to stand. The strange look on his face fell away, as if he closed himself behind a wall of stone, and Jindra, looking down from her full height to a lord, whom she had just shouted at, and struck in anger, was filled with fresh horror at what she had done.

“I…” she stammered. “I'm sorry, my lord. I…I…” 

Would he punish her? How could he not? Each possibility was worse than the last, and Jindra’s poor pounding head swam with confused terror, lingering anger, and loneliness. 

For the second time in her life, Jindra turned and ran.

She dashed from the garden and to the castle stair, flying like she had in her race with Theresa. But even as she climbed desperately to the safety of the keep, rounding the corner in a sprint, she dared to glance over her shoulder, to catch a last glimpse in case Sir Radzig was following, enraged.

Sir Radzig was on his feet, but had made no move to follow. The shadows of dusk were closing in, and they obscured any expression that he might have worn. The last impression Jindra had before she fled was of a hunched figure, without strength, like a tree bowed by too much weight and time; and had Jindra’s chest not been tight with fear, she would have been moved to pity.

Jana's earliest memory of her father was also her earliest memory of death.

Her mother had labored for a day and a night, filling the castle in Polná with her screams, and delivered a son, ill-formed and stillborn. Jana, all of five, had known little of babies, but even she knew that there had been other brothers before, all born too small, and all born too soon. In her memory she clutched her nurse's hand and watched her father as he leaned heavily upon a carved wooden table, listening to a physician speaking urgently into his ear.

“She will not survive another attempt, my lord,” the physician had said. He was dressed in all black, as if he was bad news itself.

Jana's father had been an old man even then. In Jana's child-mind he would always look as he did that day: tall, grey-haired, with a careworn face, and filling the whole world with his force of feeling. If he was amused, the whole world laughed; if he was angry, the whole world trembled. And in this first memory, when he lifted his head and looked at Jana, his eyes were tired, and disappointed, and so the whole world shied away, ashamed.

“Must the hopes of my house rest upon you?” he'd said. “One small girl-child?”

Jana’s other memories were mingled with both awe and affection, and took place mostly outdoors. Jana’s father had been a fine rider of horses, and kept a good stable, and Jana had escaped a succession of exhausted and defeated nurses to sneak to the horses and coo at them, pet them, and learn every inch of their saddles and bridles and stalls, until her father finally gave her a pony of her own. 

He'd found a rapt and loyal audience in her, and had told Jana everything of their family. He’d shown her the green hills of their lands, and taken her out riding so far that her small pony grew slick with foamy sweat. He’d taken out large maps and guided her chubby hand over all of their holdings, until she could name every castle from memory. Jana spent her dreams visiting each of them, sitting upon golden thrones and dealing out wise counsel and fair rule, and galloping across rich fields, full of wheat-that-was-gold, and flowers-that-were-jewels.

She would later learn that her father’s favor had nothing to do with any faith in her, or any thought of her as a true heir. She would have no land and no name, and her father didn’t care. He was the sun and the sky and the land to her, and she was nothing to him; she was loved like a hunting hound, easy to indulge, and easy to discard. 

One day, Jana had woken up and realized this, and the awe and love she’d had for her father festered into hatred. She’d been eight years old, and for the first time in her life, she wanted a man dead. And then she  – 

Then her father had died.

Jana's lady mother remarried, in the way of widows without sons. And Jana was given to a succession of ever lesser fathers, who did not love her very much, and therefore could not betray her.

And now Jana stood in the Upper Castle, bearing the brunt of one of Hanush’s lectures, as she had done a thousand times before. And Hanush, as he had done a thousand times before, looked at Jana as if he couldn't understand her, try as he might.

“So you made Radzig’s girl cry.” Hanush rubbed at his temples and sighed. “How long has it been? A month?”

One month and six days, Jana thought, bitter. Not that she cared, of course. Jindra clearly hadn’t cared either. She hadn’t even come back to Jana’s room last night, and Jana hadn’t slept at all, sick with worry and angry. Jana had snatched the scullery who came to rake out the fireplace ashes and nearly strangled her in her haste, and learned that Jindra had spent the night curled in the kitchen like a common pup, and had been angry all over again.

Hanush shook his head, scowling under his beard. He had always reminded Jana of a great bear, plucked from the woods and inelegantly seated at the lord’s table. “What am I to do with you, child?”

Jindra clasped her hands together. “I don't see why the running of my household is of interest to you.”

“It isn’t.” Hanush crossed to the window and stared out over the view of Rattay below, as lordly as he might. “There are a thousand other things that need my attention, all of them more important than you.”

“Then you had best get to them,” Jana grumbled.

Hanush snapped his head back to her, and Jana lowered her eyes at once. “That cheek does you no favors, Jana.”

Jana pressed her thumbnail to the side of her wrist. The sting was immediate, but it couldn’t stop her from adding, surly, “I learned it from you, Uncle.”

Hanush huffed out what might be an amused breath, but was clearly mostly impatient. “The fact is that everything you do comes back to me. I don’t like it, and neither do you, and I’ve been generous. But clearly I’ve indulged you too much.”

If this is indulgence, God help me, Jana thought, pressing her wrist until it throbbed. 

“The lands are falling into chaos, and our borders could be encroached any day. I’m told that there have been signs of brazen poaching and God knows what else.”

Jana bit back a smile. Then she remembered Jindra’s smile, and how Jana herself had wiped it away, and felt it die on her lips.

“There are mouths to feed and souls to protect. The tantrums of one girl cannot and should not fill my days.” Hanush narrowed his eyes. “And yet.”

Tantrums, he called them. Jana could have spit venom. What did Hanush think of her? A girl who spoke too often, or at the wrong moment? A girl who stuck her tongue out at the old men who came to court her, or was rude on purpose, or refused to bathe, until they left in insulted disgust and she could sleep in her own bed without terror? She had been little more than a child then. What did Hanush expect?

He didn’t know what she had done. He didn’t know how much blood she had seen and how it never frightened her. He didn’t know how he died in her dreams, and that she sometimes wept for him, and often didn’t. He didn’t know what she had said to Jindra, when her tongue had come loose, and how she feared with all her soul that she had meant every word, and might still. And he didn’t know that she was bound for hell for her sins. 

Jana said none of this, and her wrist stung more.

“I don't have time to find you anyone else, Jana. Or would you be content with a solitary life, with your last tutors gone?”

“You dismissed my last tutor over a month ago,” Jana pointed out, as mildly as she could. 

Hanush shrugged away that detail. “It was past time. What good would a singing tutor do you?”

Jana had liked singing, once, long ago. But it was hard to see the point, and she'd grown out of it. “Dancing,” she corrected, trying not to sound too snappish. “It was my dancing tutor.” 

The tutor had been French, and his accent had made Jana laugh. Latin, theology, Italian, embroidery, music, dancing, drawing – the steady rotation of tutors, strange adults shrouded in knowledge, had fallen away one by one, until only Jana remained. They weren’t friends as such, and some barely looked at her, and many were quite cruel, but they’d been a guaranteed conversation at least once a day. They’d been a glimpse of something else, beyond the bounds of Rattay, and with each departure Jana’s world had grown smaller.

“Tutors,” Hanush scoffed, as if it was ridiculous. “It was always nonsense to educate a girl.”

“Then why did you?” Jana asked, bitter, before she could stop herself. “You can’t even read.” She could have bitten off her tongue. Jindra’s company had made Jana too bold by far. 

Hanush frowned. Then, he gave a chuckle, just like Jindra had the night before; as if Jana were funny. “I thought it would make a better bride of you. Pirkstein alone is no great prize – ”

I know, Jana thought, and did not say.

“ – and your best and only appeal is an alliance to our family itself. What charms you do have are overwhelmed by that spite of yours – ”

I know, Jana thought, and did not say.

“ – and I thought to make you pleasing in another way. Soft men like to have educated wives, and you might have tricked a stupid boy long enough for the altar. But no amount of tutors could make you less sour.”

I know! Jana thought, so loudly it echoed in her head like a silent scream, and did not say.

Hanush gave Jana a look up and down, and if there was disappointment in his eyes, there was pity there, too. Jana could have curdled milk in her stomach. “Now you’ll have to take whoever will have you, and I may not be able to find a soft one for your molding.”

“Why not put me in a nunnery and be done with it?” Jana snapped, refusing to let her voice shake, even as a jolt of fear went through her at the thought of true, bleak confinement. 

Hanush surprised her by snorting. “My father considered it,” he said. “You have me to thank for talking him out of it. Even then, it was clear that no nunnery would hold your spit and fire for long.”

He sounded as if it were a fond memory. Jana did her best not to latch onto the tenderness like a springtime burr. Then Hanush waved a dismissive hand – Jana had always hated when he’d done that – and banished any lingering affection at once. “You’ll be married soon, bad prospect or no.”

Jana felt the blood drain from her face. “Is there anyone in mind?”

Hanush stared at her evenly. “No.”

Jana’s whole body sagged, so obviously that she ought to be ashamed. “Don't look so relieved,” Hanush said impatiently. “Your mother was already wedded and bedded by your age, with a child in the cradle. My own wife was twice over. You’ll do your duty as they did theirs.”

They had done their duty to their graves, and one day Jana would follow. She’d always known that would be her fate; all she wanted in the world was to not be reminded. Her wrist was now bleeding. 

“You won’t have your youth forever,” Hanush reminded her bluntly. “When that goes, you’ll have to take the dregs. I doubt that’s what you want.”

What Jana wanted was to leave this room. She wanted to mount her gelding, the fastest in the stable, and ride and ride all day under the open sky until she could forget who and what she was. She wanted to leave everyone behind, save one, and Jana spitefully refused to name her even in her own mind.

Jana glanced at the largest chair at the hall’s long table, where Hanush sat during meetings and meals. Her father must have sat there once, although she had only ever known him in Polná. Jana blinked, and for a moment, her father was there: wet from the river and blue with cold, frozen in time, full of hatred, and dead. 

She blinked again, and he was gone. A drop of blood, damning, slid from her wrist down the side of her hand. 

The chamber was growing too small, and the ceiling was pressing too low.

“May I go?” Jana asked, even and quiet.

Hanush made a bear-like grumbling sound. “No riding today,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “If you act like a child you’ll be punished like one.” 

The ceiling pressed lower and lower, and the walls were narrowing. Jana’s breath tightened in her chest.

“Go find Jindriska,” Hanush added, “and apologize to her.”

Jana’s mouth fell open. “Why should I apologize to a lowly – ”

“You’ll do it because I told you to do it,” Hanush snapped. “I won’t have Radzig insulted by my ward’s actions.”

The wretched unfairness hit Jana like a blow. When had Hanush ever asked Jana’s forgiveness? He would defend a peasant girl whom he hardly knew, some obsession of his lordly friend’s, before he defended Jana herself; his own ward, his own blood.

And Jindra! Favored above Jana even now, and indulged by just one lord, but two! What a cruel trick of God it was, to put Jindra of all people in Jana’s way, to show her all that she lacked.

It was all the worse, because now Jana knew Jindra’s quality. And a part of Jana wanted to, yearned to, ached to beg Jindra’s forgiveness and curse her own sour, bitter voice, and curse how little she could control her thoughts. How weak she was, and how easily led by the ghost of love when she was loved by no one. 

But she wouldn’t beg for affection. She couldn’t. 

The walls – the ceiling –

“Yes, Uncle,” Jana said, because she was desperate to get out of the room. Her voice was surly, but at least it didn’t shake. “As you say.”

Hanush looked satisfied, and even had the nerve to snort, amused once more. He waved his hand again, as Jana hated. “Go on, then.”

Jana dipped appropriately low, and did her best not to hike up her skirts and dash from the room like a beggar’s child. She barely managed it. As she rounded the corner, she held her wrist up to her mouth, but for once the taste of her blood gave no comfort.

Jindra sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, curled in a corner in Rattay’s forge, where she’d been for hours.

The blacksmith's apprentice, when he’d discovered her hiding meekly, hadn't asked her to leave. He'd just given her a look of sympathy and said, “Lady Jana’s new girl, ain’t you?” Then he’d gone about his work, and Jindra, with nowhere else to go, drifted in and out of memory, lulled by the sounds of hammer and anvil, and the smell of smoke.

It all reminded her of Pa. She missed Ma with the sharpness of a blade, ever present, and undeniable, but the loss of Pa was a dull ache, deep in the bone. It made her tired, held taut and anxious at all hours. In truth, she hadn't felt safe since her Pa had died.

What would he have said, about Jana? About Sir Radzig? Surely, if Pa was still alive, he wouldn't have…?

Jindra pored over her own childhood in her mind, and remembered how kindly Sir Radzig had always treated her, and how courteous he had been to her mother, and the attention he paid to her father. She even remembered that, when she had been very young, there had been small gifts for her. Jindra, an only daughter used to indulgence, hadn’t questioned it at the time.

Pa would tell her she was overthinking everything, after spending too much time in noble company. He would smile warmly and tell her to settle herself down, and let her pump the bellows until she grew calm.

“I’m scared,” Jindra whispered, voice lost in the clatter of the forge and the strikes of the hammer. “Pa, what should I do?”

The worst part was that on top of missing every person she had ever known, Jindra also missed Jana. She missed her. Jana had been vicious and thoughtless, selfish and grasping, and had insulted those that Jindra loved, and Jindra’s wicked heart couldn’t even hate her properly. But Jana’s brightness could cut through Jindra's sadness, and her needy chatter drowned out her tangled dark thoughts. 

Who else could Jindra talk to, to make sense of this? Jana knew how nobles thought, and would know what it all meant. Jana would…would protect her, wouldn't she?

It was late afternoon when Jindra saw Jana again. She was leaving the Upper Castle, her hair loose and her face stormy, with a guard trailing behind her. Jindra hid in the shadows of the forge and watched, weighing the strength of her own pride. 

Theresa would have reminded Jindra that no noble would protect her. Pa would have reminded her that she must protect herself.

“I'm so tired,” Jindra whispered, to no one. 

She pushed herself off of the wall and stepped into the light, and walked quickly to meet Jana in the road. The guard tensed at her approach, before recognizing her, and let her pass him. Jana herself stumbled to a halt, startled, and her eyes grew wide with surprise; for a moment, she looked as if she were about to cry. Then her face twisted up, and she pursed her lips, pointedly looking away.

Jindra took a breath, and tried to humble herself. “My lady, I wanted to – ”

“Want,” Jana snapped. “Of course. I’m sure you did want something.”

Jindra stopped short, staring incredulously. 

“Well, if you’ve crawled back, come along,” Jana said, as if it was a burden, and started walking again. 

Jindra’s fear and sadness fell away, and all she felt was anger. What had she been thinking? How could she expect kindness from Jana, after what she had said about Bianca? How could Jindra think of betraying Bianca by latching onto this stupid, cruel girl? If Jindra followed Jana now, and fell in step behind her, meek and small, she really would be her fucking dog.

Tess was right. These nobles would never care.

“I won’t,” Jindra said.

Jana froze in her tracks, and hissed, “What?”

“I’ve done nothing wrong, so stop acting like it. You’ve done me a wrong.”

“Oh, yes!” Jana spun around. “You think I'm the cruelest of ladies, don't you? If serving me displeases you, perhaps you’ve become too comfortable around your noble betters.”

“No,” Jindra said, standing her ground. “I don’t think you’re a cruel lady.” Her lip curled. “You’re a common brat.”

Jana’s eyes widened. “You..!” she gasped, outraged, her voice shooting high. “You – you little – ”

Jindra wasn’t sure if Jana would scream at her, or strike her, as she’d once threatened, and was braced for either. She was fully prepared to shove Jana into the dirt like a girl of ten, if it came to that. But instead, to her surprise, Jana gathered up her skirts, and took off running.

Jindra stared after her, open mouthed. After all that, all of that, Jana wouldn’t even face her?

“Get back here!” she shouted, and gave chase, leaving Jana’s bewildered, slow guard far behind. “Jana!”

Despite her heavy clothing, Jana was fast. She was as fast as Theresa and had a head start, and for the second time in two days, Jindra raced after another girl and couldn’t catch her. 

She reached the stables just in time to hear a shout – and then, she scrambled out of the way, as Jana tore out atop her bay gelding, astride like a man and bareback, at a full gallop, her hair streaming behind her.

Jindra had always been better at acting than thinking. She ran to Pebbles’ stall in a haze of frenzied anger, and found her looking just as unperturbed as ever. There was no time for a saddle, but if bareback was good enough for Jana, it would be good enough for Jindra, too.

Jana was not going to run away from her. 

There were exclamations of alarm and raised voices all around, but Jindra ignored them, and urged Pebbles through the gate and after Jana, who was already growing small in the distance.

Jindra had never ridden bareback before, and she clutched Pebbles’ mane with white knuckles and held on with her thighs, the world whipping past as Pebbles picked up speed. If she weren’t so angry, Jindra would find it frightening and exhilarating, her heartbeats thundering madly, with nothing to keep her safe but her own body, her own strength, and luck. But all she could see was Jana in the distance, always just out of reach, too fast, too cruel, and couldn’t even enjoy it. 

Pebbles was the best horse in the world, but she wasn't as fast as Jana’s horse; more importantly, she was cautious, and took good care of Jindra, cantering over the ground with care. Jana, meanwhile, was riding ahead with no regard for her own safety, or that of her mount. She was such a stupid, selfish girl. She was such a brat.

Jindra rode on and on and on, until there was nothing but open county and the woods ahead, and Rattay far behind. Jindra had always been hotheaded, and her anger did not cool, but the longer she rode without catching Jana, the more she was able to take a moment to think. The further away from Rattay they rode, the more dangerous it might be. She didn’t know the land well, and knew better than most how suddenly danger could appear on the horizon.

Sheltered, childish, infuriating Jana would never think of that.

Jindra had had enough. The road curved ahead in a wide arc, and Jindra, impatient, steered Pebbles in a straight line, cutting through the field, until she exploded onto the road; she pulled Pebbles around with an agility that she hadn’t known the mare possessed, blocking Jana’s way.

“Stop it!” Jindra shouted. “Stop running away!”

Jana’s gelding shied and almost reared, as if he was as bewildered as his rider at open defiance. “How dare you!” Jana gasped, red nosed and wild eyed. “Get out of my – ”

“No! We’re going to have it out, whether you like it or not!” Jana demanded. “And then I’m taking you home.”

“Have it out,” Jana repeated, in her most insulting sneer. “What could I ever have to say to a peasant like you?”

“Christ, shut the fuck up!”

Jana recoiled with so much shock that her horse nearly reared again, and Jindra pressed, “You've treated me shamefully. You've been childish and ungrateful, and you won’t even own up to it. You’re a coward as much as you’re hateful! ”

Jana’s shocked face twisted into fury, until she'd never looked less like a lady. “There's hatred in you, Jindriska,” she snarled. “There's a great black pit of it. So don’t you lecture me.”

Jindra felt her own face contort. “We’re going back right now,” she said, leaving no room for complaint. “I’m not dying out in the middle of nowhere for a spoiled little girl. I'll tie you up if I have to!”

Jana’s eyes flashed like knives. “You and everyone else,” she hissed viciously. Then she spun her horse off the path, towards the forest, and took off at a gallop straight into the dark crush of the trees. 

Jindra gave a frustrated scream and urged Pebbles after her.

Pebbles did as she was bid, but clearly wasn’t happy about it. She was even slower in the woods than she’d been on the road, and soon Jana had completely disappeared, the sound of her gelding crashing through the undergrowth fading into nothing. Jindra was glad for it. The last thing she wanted was for poor Pebbles to go lame because of Jana’s childish tantrum, and it would serve Jana right if Jindra couldn’t catch her, and if she became lost in these woods. Maybe a night of darkness and hunger would humble her. 

Jindra smiled bitterly. Jana stranded in the darkness, miserable and crying, knowing discomfort for the first time in her pampered life, wouldn't be justice for all the sins of the world, but it was a start.

Jindra and Pebbles kept at it, moving through the trees, surrounded by no living soul but the birds and the hidden eyes of the other animals. Very slowly, Jindra’s anger began to drain away, and a growing dread replaced it. She had a fair idea of how to get out of the woods, but she had no idea where they should be going. 

The trees stretched on and on, and Jana hadn’t left much of a path to follow. The only sounds were the sounds of the forest, and even they had a strange muffled quality to them, as if the world was holding its breath. 

What if Jana truly did get lost, and the trees closed in around her forever? What if her horse threw a shoe, or threw Jana? It suddenly wasn’t a thought Jindra enjoyed, and her heart started to beat faster.

Pebbles gave a little snort, noticeably nervous. Jindra gave her neck a pet, and tried to calm her own nerves in the process. “Just a little farther, girl,” she promised. “We’re both being silly.” 

Then, far ahead, out of sight, Jindra heard a single, piercing scream.

Jindra’s blood shot through with panic. Pebbles sensed it, and they were instantly riding fast again, the forest blurring and flying. But Jindra didn’t know where to go, didn’t know where the scream had come from – she only knew that she had to get to it, had to find it, before – 

There was another scream: louder, more frenzied, violent, and inhuman. Jindra was thrown back into the panicked carnage of Skalitz, surrounded by flames and killing, and recognized the sound that a horse made when it died.

Pebbles was frightened, trying to guide Jindra in another direction, but Jindra urged her forward; knowing, just as Pebbles did, that the worst lay ahead, but she had to keep going, she had to –

Pebbles stopped dead in her tracks, and Jindra almost toppled off with the force of it. She bit back a strangled sound on instinct, because just ahead, in a circle of trees, where Pebbles had sensed and where Jindra now saw, there was a clearing, and a small camp. Through the gap in the trees, Jindra could see three figures.

Terror struck her with physical pain. Two men stood dressed in strange armor that Jindra would know anywhere, and would know until the end of her days, worn by the horde that killed her in her dreams every night. They’d each removed their awful helms, and they were laughing; the familiar, searing laughter of men who held a terrible prize.

And with them, held by the arms, struggling, was – was –

“Let me go!” Jana screamed, so brave, so stupidly brave, lashing out and struggling like a wildcat. “I am Lady Jana of Rattay and you will unhand me!”

Even from a distance, Jindra could see the panic in Jana’s eyes as she writhed, and saw the naked fear on her face, and the men continued to laugh at her – all they did was laugh. One had Jana by the arms, twisted behind her back, and the other took her face in his armored hand and squeezed cruelly and –

It was Tess and it was Bianca. It was Jindra herself, held down by –

But most of all it was Jana, her Jana –

Pebbles exploded into the clearing with Jindra on her back, and the panicked scream might have been horse or girl, or both together. The men and Jana swung in shock, and Pebbles, who always before and after would be a more cautious beast, ran right to them, and reared. 

One man released Jana, who dove away, and Pebbles kicked him hard in the chest, sending him sprawling; the other man lost his balance and fell, and Jindra, without a saddle or reins to cling to, tumbled from Pebbles and landed hard on the ground.

Pebbles let out a terrified whinny and fled, but Jindra was already clamoring for the man closest to her, wide eyed and almost unthinking, scrambling, reaching for the blade he’d dropped.

She seized it, and her panicked blood sang with horror.

There was no time to think, no time to feel, no time! 

Jindra thrust forward in a clumsy lunge, desperate and uncontrolled. The training exercises she had watched the men-at-arms drill every day for a month abandoned her; all of her practicing fell away into nothing. There was only action and fear and lurching, blind panic, seizing her like a vice. 

If he'd been wearing his helmet, if he’d been prepared, Jindra would have died. But the man was dazed from Pebbles and bewildered by a monstrous girl in the forest and Jindra was terrified and hateful and had a sword in her hand at last, and she connected with the joint of his neck. Blood erupted in a shocked spray, and Jindra heard a wet, choking sound, and the man crumpled, his eyes wide with shock.

Jindra was not so lucky the second time. By the time the man fell his companion was on his feet, and he kneed Jindra in the stomach so hard that all the air left her, and she tasted copper. The forest spun and she was on the ground and the man was on top of – no not again not again –

In the background, Jana was scrambling in a blur of red and gold towards the dead man, even as Jindra struggled, kicking, biting, and screaming, as the man bellowed something in an unfamiliar language. He grasped Jindra by the neck – stop him – and she clawed at his eyes with one hand and pawed at the ground with the other, feeling for the fallen sword, for anything – no – not on her back – no not again not her back –  

An arrow flew past the man’s head, catching his ear and grazing his cheek, spraying his blood onto Jindra’s face. As he yelled and swung around, Jindra’s clawing fingers finally closed around a rock.

She slammed it as hard as she could into the side of the man’s head. He fell off of her onto his back, and Jindra, suddenly clear eyed, direct, knowing, intent, threw her leg over his body, straddled him like a lover, and brought the rock down on his face.

The crack echoed more than his scream did. Something deep inside Jindra broke open, and she brought down the rock again, and again, listening to bone snap and teeth shatter.

CRACK!

The skin fell away and it was a laughing man’s face beneath –

CRACK!

The eyeballs burst and it was the hairless and eyeless monster covered in her parent’s blood – 

CRACK!

Somewhere the girl in Skalitz was screaming and couldn’t stop –

CRACK!

The darkness inside Jindra built and built to a roar, to a horse's gallop, and her world went black and red and black again, colorless. It was her nightmare, but this time, Jindra was alive. She beat the man until the flesh gave way, and then the bone, until his screams became garbled and wet, until his face stopped being a face and became a mess of shards and brain and red, writhing pulp.

Then, silence.

Color returned slowly to the world. Sound came next: there was birdsong, and rustling leaves, and heaving, ragged, sobbing breathing. Jindra realized it was her own. 

Her arms were aching, trembling, and somehow oddly numb, covered in gore up to the elbows. Jindra’s face was hot and wet, as sweat, tears, and blood mingled together, sliding down her cheeks and nose.

In a daze, Jindra turned, still straddling a corpse, and found Jana. 

Jana was sprawled on the ground, her skirts tangled over her knees, staring with wide, shocked eyes. The dead man’s bow, a second arrow already notched, slipped from her limp fingers, clattering to the ground. 

Jindra couldn’t stop looking at her. There was a spray of blood across Jana’s nose, blending with her freckles, and the dappled light from the trees set her face in bursts of light and shadow, leaving one eye in darkness and the other ablaze, a blue flame with green and gold swirling inside. 

Jindra had never seen Jana in her woods in the light of day. 

She belongs here, Jindra thought, her body shaking without cold. Why couldn't she stop shaking? She's so beautiful. 

They washed themselves hastily in the river, scrubbing off the blood as best they could. Jindra was grateful to be wearing Jana’s spare clothes, if only because there was an outer gown to shed; the gore had grown sticky and cloying, and would never come out. 

Jana even tried to help Jindra out of her gown, in a strange dream of the night after their hunt, but her hands were shaking too hard to manage it. She gave up, and slumped her shoulders in and down, growing smaller, and pressed her face against Jindra's neck. As Jindra leaned carefully against her, Jana gave a single, soft whimper.

But she pulled away at once, and so did Jindra; without words, they understood each other completely. If they crumbled now, they would never be able to face the men, and keep sane.

They threw the ruined gown into the river, leaving Jindra presentable in her kirtle of forest green wool, clean of blood but for the very ends of the sleeves, which she rolled up. Pebbles had emerged from the trees, safe and sure and wonderful, and now she carried them home. Jana’s gelding was left where he’d fallen, his blood already drying sickly and stinking in the dirt. That, too, was like their hunt: the horse was a deer, and the deer was a man, and it was all so much worse.

Jindra throbbed and ached from head to toe, with a bruise blooming on her cheek and a tenderness to her left side, where the man had kneed her. Her wool clothing was sodden from the river, clinging heavy and cold. But the pain and discomfort were distant, as if Jindra was stuck in a dream. Her hands hardly felt like her own, even as they twisted in Pebbles’ familiar mane, and even as she felt Jana’s grounding warmth pressed against her back. 

Jindra had killed. Jindra was alive. In a daze, she couldn't stop thinking of it that way: she was alive because she killed, and she killed because she was alive. The crunch of bone and the crack of stone echoed in her head with every heartbeat.

Jana was alive, too. Jindra found herself curling around that fact like a cat around her kitten, or wolf around its prey. Jindra had stopped it from happening again, and Jana was safe. The crunch, the crack, the lingering sick-sweet blood, and Jindra’s bruised body were nothing to that victory. 

It was growing dark by the time Rattay came into view. Jana tightened her arms around Jindra, and she spoke for the first time since the killing. “Hanush mustn't know.” 

It wasn't so much an order as a plea. Jindra considered what this attack might mean for a lady like Jana, if word got out, even if nothing had happened to her – even if Jindra would never let it happen. The facts wouldn’t matter to anyone. 

Jindra gave Jana’s wrist a squeeze. “He won’t,” she promised. 

The instant Pebbles trotted into the courtyard of the Upper Castle, there were shouts. Jana flinched so violently that Pebbles nickered. Jindra couldn't be sure how she swung off of Pebbles or who took Pebbles to the stable, or how exactly she and Jana climbed the stairs; the dreamlike haze was like that first night in Rattay, when another girl had guided her steps.

The halls of the Upper Castle were dark, as Jindra fell in step behind Jana; just as she'd refused to do earlier that same day, a lifetime ago. They could hear men’s voices, raised in agitation. Jana, without looking, reached wordlessly behind her, her hand trembling. Jindra grabbed it, squeezed, and held on.

Sir Hanush and Sir Radzig were seated at the long table, bent close together. But when Jana entered the room, with Jindra a step behind, they looked up, and fell silent. 

Jana’s voice was quiet. “Uncle.”

Sir Hanush was on his feet instantly, and across the room in a moment. Jindra had always thought of him as boisterous and irreverent, and dismissive in his lordly way; but now, his face changed completely, overwhelmed by a mix of alarm and relief and some desperate, unnamed thing. It was a look that Pa might have worn, when Jindra had come home too late after becoming lost, or when she’d been sick for weeks as a child and finally woken up hungry. 

Jindra carefully avoided looking at Sir Radzig. God knows what she would see in his face.

Sir Hanush reached out, as if he might touch Jana’s cheek. Then he checked and pulled away, and his face lost its baffled tenderness. He grew pale with anger.

“I sent men after you, girl,” he bit out.

Jana ducked her head, and Jindra squeezed her hand tighter. 

“With the lands crawling with vermin, I send out men I could not spare, after you. What on God’s earth were you thinking?” Sir Hanush towered over Jana, and didn’t wait for a reply. “Do you have any idea what you might bring upon our house with your wild ways? The whispers? Your father would weep for shame to see his daughter roaming the country like a common vagrant!"

Jana pulled her hand free of Jindra’s grip, and clasped her hands together. “My horse became lost – ”

“Lost?”

“And it bolted. Jindra came after me, and it’s a slow ride home with two. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Sir Hanush bellowed, his voice echoing off the walls. “You are a child, who rode out alone, unescorted, defying me!” His face was now growing red. “What if you had been hurt? Seized by bandits? Raped on the road and left with your throat slit?”

Jana flinched. Jindra did, too.

“Yes, it may well shock you,” Sir Hanush growled. “You have no thoughts beyond your ignorant, spiteful nature. Nothing but a handmaid’s horse and your own damned luck has brought you home in one piece. You are shameless, Jana!”

Jana scratched at her wrist, where the sleeve looked bloodstained. “I was only – ”

“No more riding,” Sir Hanush commanded roughly. “Never again.”

Jana’s head shot up. “No!” she gasped. “You can’t – ”

“You’re ruled by your whims and your appetites, and it stops now.” Sir Hanush’s face was thunderous. “You will do your duty, you will cease this wildness, and you will grow up, even if I have to slaughter every animal in the stable!”

“You can’t!” Jana repeated, voice cracking. “You can’t take the horses from me!”

Jindra felt as powerless as she ever had, and she glanced quickly at Sir Radzig. No matter what strange unsafe shape he’d become in her life, he was still familiar, and the instinct to look to him for guidance was bred in. Sir Radzig caught Jindra’s eye, and he shook his head slightly, answering her unspoken question. Jindra’s stomach twisted into knots.

Whatever argument would follow was cut off when, summoned by either God or the devil, Captain Bernard appeared in the doorway. His eyes swept over Jana, widening just slightly, before he turned to Sir Hanush.

“She is safe, then?”

“Despite her efforts,” Sir Hanush bit out, scowling, before looking away from Jana pointedly. “What is it?”

“Urgent tidings, my lord. A stable boy came from Neuhof. He says brigands raided the stud farm.” Captain Bernard’s face was grave. “There’s many dead or maimed.”

Sir Hanush let out a wordless shout of rage. Sir Radzig stood, his mouth set grimly, and said, “Tell us exactly what happened.”

“I’m not sure. The boy was so shook up he could barely speak. He said the bandits murdered for the joy of it.” Captain Bernard ducked his head at Sir Hanush, and added, “I’m sorry, sir. Your vassal Smil is dead.”

Jindra heard Jana suck in a quiet breath. “Who did this?” Sir Hanush demanded, his anger bleeding into every corner of the room.  “Who were they?”

“We don’t know, sir,” Bernard said. “The stableboy kept blabbing about some huge fellow in black armor who led the attack.”

Jindra went cold as ice.

“Take as many men as you need,” Sir Hanush was saying, sounding as though Jindra were underwater. “And don’t stop until you’ve found those bastards! And bring me their heads!”

Captain Bernard bowed quickly. “Yes, Sir!”

Jindra couldn’t hold her tongue. “Sir!” she rasped. “Let me ride with them!”

Every man in the room looked at her, in some mix of bewilderment, annoyance, or shocked anger. Jindra realized that they had forgotten she was even there.

She knew better than to try, but she felt in her bones, with the certainty of animal instinct, who this man was. She saw him even now, behind her eyes, as his face mingled with the face of the man she had killed; man, deer, laughing, bludgeoned, with blood in his teeth and his eyes bulging.  

Please, she thought.

“Their leader, in black armor – ” Jindra could make them understand. She had to. “He must be the one who – ”

“Be silent, Jindriska,” Sir Radzig said, quiet and firm. The order was unmistakable.

“But he was in Skalitz!” Jindra cried. She was so close. She couldn’t lose him now. “There can’t be two men in the whole kingdom who look like that! My lord, he took your sword. I know it’s him!”

“As shameless as ever,” Sir Hanush said, his ire turning to Jindra the longer she spoke. “Know your place, girl.”

Jindra wouldn’t flinch. She refused. Jindra opened her mouth, to say God knows what – but before she could speak, Jana stepped in front of her, blocking her from sight. 

“It's not her fault!” Jana gasped out. “She’s – she’s tired. Can’t you see how Skalitz still weighs on her? Like so many?”

“Will I be lectured by my own ward on this?” Sir Hanush demanded, anger back upon Jana.

“And – And who could blame her?” Jana continued, eyes wide, as if shocked at her own daring. “We don’t have the men to patrol the whole fiefdom and – and what justice can there be? What safety?”

“That’s enough,” Sir Hanush ordered, red faced again. “You won’t – ”

“The people look to us for guidance and you can’t even protect them!”

“Christ, Jana, be silent!”

“You are a coward in my father’s chair!” Jana cried wildly. “He would weep to see – ”

Sir Hanush slapped her. 

Jindra’s world exploded into blinding, impotent shock, flashing black and red again. Jana reeled back, staggering, a hand held to her face. The room was so quiet that the sound lingered longer than it should have, like a rock thrown into a tomb, or a rock hitting bone.

Captain Bernard and Sir Radzig looked away, as if granting Sir Hanush some measure of privacy for his defiant charge. Sir Hanush himself had another strange, new expression on his face, but Jindra, frozen to the spot with stunned, growing rage, didn’t care. 

“Take your girl,” Sir Hanush said, voice low. “Go to Pirkstein, and stay there.”

Jana, hand pressed to her reddening cheek, looked at the floor. There was a defiant glint in her eye, but it was tired, run thin with the sting of an old injustice.

This isn’t the first time, Jindra realized. He’s done it before.

And then that defiance, however tired, vanished entirely. “I’m sorry, Uncle,” Jana murmured, as if she meant it.

Sir Hanush’s only answer was to walk around Jana without another word, crossing to Captain Bernard. It was a dismissal so complete that it landed like a punch. Jindra was no stranger to hatred, and she felt it now, crawling in sick spiderwebs up her neck and down to her fingers. 

Jana, unnaturally cowed, curtsied low, even when Sir Hanush couldn’t see. It was so perfectly practiced, and such a picture of obedience, that Jindra could have choked. 

Then Jana left the room, voiceless. 

Jindra shot one last glance at Sir Hanush, who was now fully engaged with Captain Bernard, discussing how many men to send, what information they knew, and how to proceed. She thought about protesting further. She thought about begging for any scrap of news. She thought of telling him this borders were already crossed, and that he had already failed. But she looked at Sir Hanush and knew that her expression was murderous, and knew that she would bite off her own tongue before begging him for anything. 

She thought of Sir Radzig, and his useless pity, and the strange dark shape of his kindness. She thought of Captain Bernard’s disdain, and the laughter of all men.

Jindra turned away, and made to follow Jana.

Before she made it two steps, Sir Radzig appeared at her side, halting her. “Jindriska.” He took her chin in hand, frowning at her bruise. 

Jindra was too tired to flinch from his touch. “Pebbles threw me as well, my lord,” she said. It wasn’t really a lie, after all. 

“Did she,” Sir Radzig murmured, not quite a question. He turned Jindra's head slightly, examining her. “I always thought her a gentle mount.”

“I rode her too hard. I’ll be fine.” Sir Radzig’s frown deepened, and Jindra looked down. “My lady needs me now.”

Sir Radzig seemed to remember himself, and he quickly dropped her chin. “Of course.”

Jindra dipped low, and couldn’t leave the room fast enough.

Jana must have run all the way to Pirkstein, because she was already in her room by the time Jindra arrived. She was seated in one of the low chairs by the hearth, and was staring into space, at nothing. 

Jindra knelt at her feet without hesitation, even as it made her hurt side throb, and reached for her hands. Jana was chilled to the touch, still damp from the river. “You're cold, my lady. Let me call a bath for you.”

Jana shook her head, and her hands were limp. 

“Let me brush your hair, at least.”

Jana's eyes were unseeing, and the vibrant, swirling blue flame of long before was gone. They were flat, like the paint on her walls, reflecting the firelight dully. Her cheek was still red.

“Let me help.” Jindra had never meant it so much. But for the first time, she finally saw the words for what they were. It wasn’t an offer of aid; she was begging Jana for a purpose, for some path to follow and shape herself around. She was adding yet another burden for her poor lady. Her sweet girl. 

“Command me,” Jindra begged. “I’ll do anything. Let me help you.”

Jana huffed out a laugh, without a smile, bitter and mirthless.

No, Jindra thought. Oh, please, no. If she loses her smile, my heart will die, and the world really will go black. 

Then Jana’s eyes focused on Jindra, and filled with a bleak, teary shame. “You should hate me.” Jana’s voice was cobweb-thin. “All I do is hurt you.”

Jindra was already shaking her head. Any lingering anger Jindra felt towards Jana had burned away to embers. Maybe she was a dog after all, unable to hate her master. “Don’t think of it, my lady. “

Stop it,” Jana hissed, wrenching her hands out of Jindra’s grip, and leaving them cold. “I couldn’t even protect you.”

That stopped Jindra short, her hands outstretched uselessly.

“I couldn’t kill him.” Jana began quivering, like a tree in a storm. “I missed.”

Jindra swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. “You were scared.”

“I missed!” Jana buried her face in her hands. “I was useless! What good is any of it, if I can't even keep you safe in my care?”

Jindra’s head began to spin. Jana, silly, spoiled, and frightened, had wanted to protect her. Someone wanted to –

“Oh, God!” Jana lifted her head, and her cheeks were wet with tears. “Oh God, Jindra, if only I were a man! I’d be brave then! I could kill for you!”

Jindra’s heart could have broken. She remembered the feeling of violence and rage, when she’d cracked the dead man’s skull. What staggered her even now, more than the shock, or the darkness that had overtaken her completely, was the satisfaction: vivid, tearing, and savage. She finally understood what Theresa had sensed and feared, and why it had no name.  

The girl in Skalitz was truly dead, at last. It felt like relieving a burden, rather than a loss.

“I don’t want that for you,” Jindra whispered. When Jana looked at her without understanding, Jindra grasped her hands again. “What we said before, about…needing to kill. I think I’m changed by it. I know I am.” She swallowed a second time, her voice hoarse. “It’s so dark. It’s so much. But if I could take that on for you…” She squeezed Jana’s hands. “If I can protect you from that by taking it onto myself, then I will take it.”

Jana began shaking her head. “So you would be my shield,” she whispered, aghast, “while I've given you nothing. At the first test of friendship, I failed you.”

“I've already forgiven you for that, you must know – “

“At the first test of valor, I almost killed you. I gave you more pain.” Jana closed her eyes, and tried to pull away again. “And now you regret it!”

“I don’t regret it!” Jindra gasped, urgent. She held tight to Jana’s hands and wretched her back, and Jana let out a small, hiccuping gasp. “I couldn’t! When I saw – when they put their hands on you – I couldn’t bear it if it happened to you, too.”

She realized what she’d said an instant too late. There was a pause, and then Jana’s eyes flew open, locked on Jindra, and narrowed. In a dangerous voice, she said, “What do you mean?”

Jindra’s mouth went dry. A thousand memories spilled through her, and every shadow in the room grew too dark, and too long. Whatever Jana saw on her face must have alarmed her, because she sat up straight, and her blue eyes came alive again, consuming and demanding; and Jindra realized that she couldn’t lie. 

“Theresa,” Jindra blurted out, a betrayal and a sacrifice, in her panic. “When Skalitz was burning, they grabbed her, and I…”

Jana saw through her. “Jindra.”

“Bianca,” Jindra stuttered instead, a Judas. “When I saw what they did to her…the state of her body, how they –”

“No.” Jana's voice was almost a snarl. “Tell me what you mean.”

Jindra was exhausted, and nightmares pressed in around her, and she was so, so alone in her pain, and she was kneeling at Jana’s feet and in that moment would have done anything she asked.

In a helpless voice, Jindra began. “I went back to Skalitz to bury my parents. They’d been left to rot in the street with everyone else and I couldn’t…I needed to bury them.”

Jindra could smell the rain, how clean it had been, and how the smell of the bodies had mocked it. She smelled her own bile, too. She pushed past it. “But there were looters there. Bandits. Their leader – ”

In her memory, he was impossibly tall, and dressed in black armor. He was always wielding a club. His breath was sour, and his beady eyes were cruel, and greedy. In her memory, every night, he was always laughing.

“The man Bernard spoke of,” Jana said, her voice faint with dawning horror. 

Jindra hardly heard her, but nodded. She was already there; back in Skalitz, in the rain, and doomed. But she couldn’t stop now. The way was through. “He wanted my father’s sword. It was Pa's last.”

Jindra couldn't see Jana. She couldn't see anything but the sky, dark with rainclouds.

“He laughed at me. He wouldn't stop laughing. I tried to fight – but he hit me over and over and – ”

The maiden bloodletting!

Jindra’s voice broke, and she gasped wetly. She had never said it out loud, not fully, not even to Theresa, who already knew. She'd never – 

“He raped me.” It landed with a dull thud, like a dead thing. “While his boys watched.” And though she’d never put words to it before, never let herself remember, never let herself understand – she said, “I think they all would have had a turn, once he finished.”

It was done, and out. Her shame and her ruin, and the crime that she had become, lanced like a boil and spilling from her mouth like pus. “But Theresa stopped them. Then Captain Robard came, from Talmberg, and drove them off. I don’t remember any more.” Jindra felt suddenly hollow and spent, and she stared at her hands; clasped with Jana’s, and pale with cold. “No one else knows, except Tess.”

The only sound was the crack of the embers in the hearth. Then –

“I want him dead,” Jana hissed, voice dripping with fury. “I want him dead.”

Jindra’s head snapped back up. 

She had never seen anyone’s face look as Jana’s did now. Jana had ceased to be a girl, and had become nothing but consuming, murderous passion.

“I want his heart,” Jana said, baring her teeth like a beast. “I want his severed cock and I want his blood.”

Jana clutched Jindra’s hands so tightly that it was painful. Her face was fierce, burning in the firelight, as if she were fire herself. “I swear to you,” she said. “I will give you his death. I swear it by my own blood and the blood of my house. He will die. We will have him.”

We. 

Jana wasn’t offering to stand out of Jindra’s way, and allow her to move forward. She wasn’t even offered to help Jindra where she could. Jana was declaring for her. She made it theirs , together: a shared hunt. 

Jindra began to tremble.

Everyone who loved her was dead. Everyone left behind had denied her. Jindra was closed off in grief, and closed off in fear, and closed off in the biting, tearing, blasphemous hatred that called her at every second; and she was closed off in her own body, in a sealed jar filled with rot and pain. 

But Jana didn't tell her to endure. Jana didn't tell her to heal. Jana understood. She was so far above Jindra, but the darkness was inside of her too: this terrible need to kill, to change and be changed, to make some screaming mark upon the world and take revenge.

And Jindra, already soiled and unclean, had killed when Jana could not. She had been made the vessel for it. 

At last, it made sense. This wasn’t the devotion of a dog at all. 

Overwhelmed, at the end of her endurance, and flayed raw, Jindra dipped her head, and kissed Jana’s hands. 

“My lady,” she breathed, her voice thick with tears. 

Jana’s hands shook, and so did her voice; frail where it had been fierce, and thick with tears, too. “Jindra.”

Until Jindra avenged Skalitz; until she retrieved her father’s sword; until the howling beast in her chest was finally satisfied, and her soul finally bound for Hell; until then, she could be the hand of Jana’s violence. She could take on the filth. 

Jindra thought of kneeling at mass, and being told the oldest of all true stories; she thought of the Virgin and the annunciation, and of the Virgin weeping at the cross. Our Lady the Protector, receiver of Jindra’s prayers, her intercessor, her conduit to God; a Lady worthy of devotion, above all others.

“Jana,” she prayed. “Janka. Janinka.”

Above her, Jana bent closer, and her tears fell onto Jindra’s hair.

Sub tuum præsidium confugimus,
Sancta Dei Genetrix.
Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus,
sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper,
Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.

- Sub tuum præsidium (“under your protection”) , one of the oldest known Marian prayers.

Chapter Text

Jana’s own fear disgusted her. 

She’d never thought of herself as a coward, and had sneered at the weakness of other, sillier women. She’d been so sure and proud, with her hunter’s heart, had she not? But after that day in the woods, when Jindra had been covered in blood because of Jana’s weakness, Jana realized that she had never, even once, been brave.

Afterwards, she couldn’t sleep, fluttering in and out of half-dreaming panics, and startling at every sound. Gone was the hunter, and left behind was the girl, as useless as all of the rest, frozen in the moment of her failures.

But Jindra was there, too. They’d spent the first night holding each other, handclasped and weeping quietly in the dark. And from then on, after the candles burned out and the shadows began looking like men, Jindra would slip beneath the blankets and pull Jana into her arms. 

Jana would cling to Jindra’s neck, and Jindra would wrap her up and tuck Jana’s head under her chin, and they would press closer and closer until everything was warm and soft; until the embrace was secure instead of confining, and the darkness was kind instead of monstrous. With Jana’s face held against Jindra’s skin and her ear held against Jindra’s beating heart, the world could be simple again. 

Jana had not been held like this since…why, perhaps ever. Who would have done so? Not a nurse, and certainly not Jana’s lady mother. 

Usually, they wouldn't speak at all. They didn’t have to. But sometimes, Jindra’s voice was soft and gentle, a blanket in the dark.

“You’re shaking again.” Jindra’s arms tightened. “I'll warm you.”

“I'm not cold,” Jana whispered, even as she burrowed closer.

“Even so. And I'll keep you safe.”

Jana closed her eyes. “I am safe.”

“And you’ll stay that way.” Jindra sounded almost proud. “Sleep now.”

Jana wished that she were brave. She wished that she could yearn for her grove again, and feel the anxious urge to shoot her bow beneath her skin. She wished she had the strength to want to leave her room, the ever shrinking walls of her world, even if she could never hope to escape it. But all that she yearned for was safety, like a child; and all that she felt was unforgivable curiosity, like a snake.

On the third night, she reached for Jindra’s hand. It was little more than a vague shape, in this room without light. “Can I ask you…?”

“You can ask me anything.”

Jana hesitated, and rubbed a thumb lightly over Jindra’s wrist. She imagined dark bruises blooming along the skin, and felt sick, her breath shadow and painful. She wasn’t so ignorant. She knew the ways of beasts, and had seen horses and dogs in their ruts. She could guess the ways a man raped. 

But Jana’s mind shied away from the terrible fullness of it. Maybe to imagine it happening to Jindra was more than Jana could bear. Maybe Jana was nothing but a scared little girl.

“Are you in pain?” Jana whispered, choked. “Are you still hurt?”

Jindra shook her head. “Not anymore.” Her expression was hard to read in the dark. “But I was. I didn't want anyone to touch me.”

Jana immediately pushed herself up and away, clumsy in her haste. But Jindra made a soft, smiling sound, caught Jana with a hand on the back of her neck, and pushed her firmly back down.

“You're different,” Jindra assured her. Jana felt the warm rumble of her voice in her chest, against where Jana’s cheek was pressed. “I don’t mind if you touch me. You’re not like anyone else.”

Jana thought of Jindra’s Theresa, and how wildly they had embraced. But she said nothing, and buried her face in Jindra's neck. If she could be half the woman the little mill girl was, held with even half as much trust, that was enough. It would be enough . She would not be the cause of more pain for Jindra, only comfort.

No one else will ever hurt her, Jana thought, with both greed and desperation. Never again. I forbid it.

When Jana finally managed to fall asleep, listening to the sound of Jindra’s heartbeat, she rarely dreamed. If she did, she found herself chasing some great, unseen quarry through the woods; but she was blinded by the trees, and her quiver was empty, and she couldn’t tell if she was being hunted herself. 

By day, they plotted their revenge. Or, at least, they tried to. 

“I could go into town,” Jindra suggested. She and Jana were sitting by Jana’s window and staring out at the world, with books and ribbons scattered carelessly about the floor. “There’re bound to be rumors swirling. I could pretend I’m on some errand for you, and see what people know of Neuhof.”

“While I sit useless,” Jana grumbled. “Like a bird in a cage.”

Never had Jana’s ignorance been so staggering. For all her lessons and tutors, for all her languages and books, she had very little to show for it when it mattered. She had no eyes and ears throughout the countryside, no messengers to send to discover plots, and no knights to fight for her. 

And Jana hadn’t seen Hanush in days. She hadn’t been sent for, and she certainly hadn't gone looking for him. She knew, without being told, that she was being confined. 

“A bird of prey, at least,” Jindra said, smiling. “One that bites. A falcon, or a hawk.” 

It was so like her; when Jindra was filled with sorrow and an unsatisfied revenge, and when she’d borne blood for Jana, and when Jana was failing at her oath to her, she would still try and tease back Jana’s good humor.

“Nothing less than the finest breeds,” Jana agreed, because it was worth it to see a smile on Jindra's face. While Jana had only grown more afraid, the last of the skittish fear in Jindra – in her eyes from the beginning, recognized now for what it was – had eased, or perhaps dampened, in the last days. 

“I’m surprised you don’t own one,” Jindra said, with that tease in her voice that Jana had missed. “You’d make a good pair.”

Jana laughed, her first all morning. “Hanush doesn’t like hawking. It's not exciting enough for him. Too feminine, maybe.”

Jindra’s face darkened immediately, as it did at every mention of Hanush. “He’s probably just too stupid for it.”

Jindra's newfound hatred of Hanush was more welcome than it perhaps ought to have been. But Jana’s anger had sat so long in silence that she sometimes doubted it, while Jindra's anger was new, and honest. 

Sometimes, it was overwhelming. Jana had once tried to calm Jindra, and said, scoffing, “Surely your father struck you on occasion.” 

But Jindra’s eyes had gone wide with shocked anger, and she’d hissed, “Pa would have never,” as if it was a sin to even suggest it. But Jana hadn’t flinched, because Jindra’s anger was for her, and not at her; it was a distinction she hadn’t considered before.

“Do you think he meant it?” Jindra asked now, glowering. “He really won't let you ride again?”

“Maybe. And even if he changes his mind, it won’t be the same.” Jana leaned against the window and sighed, chin in hand. “No more fine tall geldings. He’d get me a plump little palfrey to clop along, and a sidesaddle on top of it all.”

“Side saddle? What’s a sidesaddle?”

Jana shrugged. “It’s the new style. It’s a chair you sit on and your legs hang over one side of the horse. You can barely hold the reins, and you have to be led everywhere like a dog on a tether.” 

Jana watched some of the activity below her window: a maid rushing along here or there, and two guards laughing. How free they seemed. “Princess Anna had one, when she rode in procession across the whole of the continent to marry the king of England.” 

“That sounds awful,” Jindra said, because she always understood. 

Jana thought of being led through her life from birth to grave, and tore her eyes away from the folk below. “But even Princess Anna saw the world before she died. What shall I ever see?” 

“You’ll see whatever you wish, my lady,” Jindra said, in her firm, eager way. “And if you ever have a hawk, you can set it loose, and it can see the world too.”

“What a romantic girl you are!” Jana laughed again, truer and brighter. Jindra made it impossible to sit in her own gloom. “You know, I went hawking with Stephanie of Talmberg once. Insufferable! She was the loneliest creature you ever saw, and she fussed over me so much you’d think I was her own daughter.”

Jana had never liked Stephanie, and hadn’t liked the hawking, either. It had been such a tease. She had wanted to go out and run wild and do the hunting herself, and instead, a bird got the honor. Then it returned with a tiny kill, and had a mask put on again for its trouble.

Jana thought of a bird shivering in a cage, and shivered herself. “If Hanush ever gave me a hawk,” she said, before she could think better of it, “I’d kill it, and put it out of its misery.”

It was an ugly thing to say, like so many of Jana’s thoughts. But when Jana glanced at Jindra, she was smiling softly, which didn't seem right at all.

Jana sat up. “You don’t think I have the stomach for it?”

“You're a huntress,” Jindra said, as if it were her pride. “Not a murderer.”

Jana wished that were true. Bravery was probably the distinction, and she had none of that. She rubbed her crescent scar, and thought of cold water. “Hardly. I don’t think I’ll ever hold a bow again.”

“You will.” Jindra reached between them, and clasped Jana’s hands. “And until then, you have me.”

The warm afternoon instantly vanished, and Jana was sitting in darkness, wet and cold, blood lingering in the air, with Jindra kneeling in front of her, teary eyed and glowing, like a jewel. Jana closed her eyes with a shuddering breath, sinking into the memory. 

But Jindra misunderstood, and drew her hands away. “I’m sorry,” she said. Before Jana could reassure her, some unseen shadow fell across Jindra’s face, and she whispered, as if she were terrified of the answer, “Are you afraid of me?”

Jana’s mind went completely blank. “What?”

“After what I…did.” Jindra looked down at her hands. “I never asked.”

Of the two of them, Jindra had the nerve to look ashamed? “You’re ridiculous,” Jana blurted out, blunt and bewildered. “Imagine being afraid of you!”

Jindra looked back up, the relief on her face staggering. Stupid girl. Didn’t Jana sleep in her arms every night? What else in the world could soothe Jana, and ease her fears, like Jindra’s touch?

What else, indeed, could make the shame of Jana’s failure all the worse? At every moment she longed to kill a man she’d never seen – even the victims at Neuhof, who were her people as much as they were Hanush’s, paled before Jindra’s suffering, Jindra’s pain. But Jana saw no way forward to accomplish it; like a bowstring pulled without strength.

Jana swallowed her unease, and reached out to take Jindra’s hands back. After all, how often had Jindra reached for her? “You saved my life,” Jana said. “And I have looked into your eyes and seen truth reflected there, Jindriska of Skalitz. So I won’t have you wondering otherwise. I’d have fought with you, if I…”

If! If she had been better, or braver, or more than the little thing that she was. 

Jindra blew out a breath of air, and nodded, so easily comforted by useless words. “But you didn't have to,” she insisted. “You're a lady, kept safe by your knights.”

“I’m not Guinevere,” Jana snapped, sarcastic, and too harshly. But when Jindra looked crestfallen, Jana forced a smile, and amended, “Guinevere had no friends, for one thing.” She rubbed her thumb over Jindra’s wrists, where a scar of her own might be, if Jindra ever learned to mind her tongue. “Except Lancelot, I suppose.”

Jindra hummed. “Is that the same thing?”

“No. There are no stories in those tales about friendships like ours.” Jana’s smile became less forced. “We must be the only two girls in all the world who have ever felt as we do.”

Jana thought of the mill girl, and of a girl lying dead in the cold earth. She reminded herself that to be held third in Jindra’s estimation was a blessing of its own, and higher than she had earned.

“Aye, maybe,” Jindra sighed, as if it made her happy to hear. 

Jana felt a twinge of guilt – that she should halt Jindra’s vengeance at every turn, with inaction, and with sour moods, and with such a heavy heart that Jindra felt compelled, as now, to cheer her. But she was cheered. A week ago, Jana would have thought that she would never smile again. A month ago, Jindra hadn’t smiled at all. No one would ever know, in this moment, that they were two girls who had seen violence, and wanted more of it. 

But Jana thought of a hawk, hunting for her and bringing back her prey, while she sat on her horse and waited. She thought of Lancelot kneeling at Guinevere’s feet, when she sat useless and alone on her throne of ice, or waited for a traitor’s pyre. 

Oh, Jindra, she thought, even as her smile held. Why can't I fight for you?

Jindra couldn’t kill a man she couldn’t find.  

Each day, she wandered down from Pirkstein to Rattay, under some pretense of an errand for Jana, and spent hours trying to discover some hint or clue. But the more she tried, the farther away her prey seemed. 

There were whispers in town, overheard over ale or gossiped between washerwomen, but none of it was helpful. All Jindra ever heard was that there were heathen hoards in the land that raped women, and that there were strange folk about, and that the roads weren't safe. The world was upside down, and was filled with devils. Jindra already knew all of that, and had seen more devilry than most.

She hadn’t had a nightmare since the woods. But in the light of day, she still saw the bludgeoned man’s face behind her eyes, bloodied and broken. She still saw him morph and twist, still saw him laughing at her, and still burned and ached for a death out of her reach. 

But if she thought of Jana’s face, frightened and dappled with woodland light, and glowing with passion and rage, the frenzy eased. It became fuel, and not fear or fury; a focus, like a whetstone for a sword’s edge. 

The problem was that the fuel had no fire to feed, and no direction to take. Jindra would have boiled over like a stewpot if not for something to do, and at least there was no shortage of tasks in a town like Rattay. 

She started with what remained of Skalitz, of course. She hardly had time to feel ashamed for not visiting sooner before she was ushered into the makeshift camp, and fawned over like a returning princess. She blushed under the attention, and her skin crawled at the touches and pets from the women, well meaning though they were. She tried, and failed, to ignore those who enviously stared at her fine clothes and perfumed hair.

Alex, who had taken to speaking for the survivors, seemed particularly happy to see her. “We all worried for you,” he said, very warm. “It’ll raise their spirits to see that Elena and Martin’s girl is well. It was good of Sir Radzig to take you to the castle with him.”

Jindra tried not to flinch. She hadn’t spoken to Sir Radzig since the return from the woods, and was careful to avoid his eye in Pirkstein. She had even taken to hiding when she spotted him. But she hadn’t confided in Jana; she wouldn't add another undue burden on her.

“But are you all well?” Jindra asked, very anxious, and already knowing the answer. There were too many pale faces and gaunt cheeks by far.

“There are many mouths to feed,” Alex admitted. “A few burghers want to make a deal, and offered us supplies in return for wild game, if we can catch it.”

Jindra gaped at him. “Poaching? That’s mad! I can speak to Lady Jana, and she might be able to – ”

“Ah, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Don’t worry yourself.” Alex spoke kindly, as he might to a young girl. “We’re just happy to see you taken care of. That’s all your lady needs to do for us.”

Jindra thought of the deer left rotting in the woods, and bit her tongue.

Everywhere she looked, there was more suffering, and more problems that needed solving. Antonia, who had always had a kind word for Jindra, had an ill husband and no way to earn coin. “What I’d give for one of your mother’s remedies, Jindriska,” she said, as Jindra sat beside her and examined her poor husband’s weak limbs and rattling breath. 

So Jindra marched herself down to the apothecary. He remembered Jindra as the “half-dead girl,” but refused to give her the time of day, until Jindra began loudly naming each tonic in his shop by name and ingredient, and then he’d finally accepted her coin and let her into the back of his shop. She felt Ma sitting beside her and brewed a tonic of comfrey and valerian that was so strong that it could have raised Lazarus himself, all while the apothecary stared bewildered; and when Antonia’s husband drank it and his eyes flew open, something flew open in Jindra’s heart, too. 

“Oh, dear girl,” Antonia whispered, breathless, as she touched her husband’s face. “You’re your mother’s daughter.”

The churning pit of inaction in Jindra’s gut eased, and for a short moment, the mocking laughter of the man who was a deer grew quiet.

Afterwards, when Jindra went to town like a hound on a faint scent, she did her best to help at least one person along her way. She poked and prodded at the bailiff and refused to leave him alone until he managed to find work for some of Skalitz people, though they were lowly jobs for the lowest folk, and the bailiff declared that he never wanted to see her wretched face again; she held the hands of a weeping widow, and urged her to turn towards the warmth of a good man who loved her, and away from the ghost of a man who had not.  

There were always people to help, even if they wouldn’t remember her tomorrow. Even if Jindra was failing and useless to her parents, she could be useful to others, just as she was useful to Jana. It kept her going. It kept her sane.

On the fourth day, Jindra discovered no news of Neuhof, as usual. She distracted herself by speaking to a woman in the church who would rather pray instead of eat, refusing to take a new job until the priest she served called her back. Jindra was thinking up ways to change her mind – if she lied and told the woman that the priest was dead, even if he was likely dead, was that a sin? – when an aged voice rang out in excitement.

“I can see it! I can see it all!”

Jindra spun around. A woman, old yet spry, was holding her hands out, gazing at Jindra with a toothy smile. Her dark hair fell loose and untamed down her back, streaked with grey.

“My dear!” she called, in her wizened voice. “Surely you’d like to know what God has planned for you? Is there a handsome soldier in your future, or a rich man? I can reveal all, for a little silver.”

Jindra had seen the soothsayer before, selling strange and silly futures to whoever would stop to listen. Ma would have told her that all tricks of fortune were a waste of her coin, but Jindra smiled, thinking of how amused Jana would be to hear of this. 

“Why not?” Jindra offered her hand. “What fate awaits me?”

The soothsayer examined Jindra’s palm with an overwrought expression. “Things will get worse, and then they’ll get better,” the old woman said, charmingly vague. “You’ll always be going here and there, back and forth. God has His own plans for you, just as He does for everyone. But yours are different!”

Jindra bit back her amusement, but held out a groschen anyway. “Thank you,” she said, trying not to laugh.

“Thank you, my dear.” But as Jindra placed her coin in the old woman’s wrinkled palm, the soothsayer grasped Jindra’s hand, clutching with urgent strength. Jindra looked at her in surprise, and found the soothsayer’s eyes wide and distant, staring over Jindra’s left shoulder.

“It was sweat and blood,” the soothsayer rasped, with a frightening, harsh resonance. “And tears as well. There will be more blood and more tears, made of ash, and a heart torn two ways.” Her nails dug into Jindra's skin. “Use his love, when your hair is shorn.”

Jindra tore her hand away, alarmed, and the soothsayer stumbled. She blinked several times, and looked at Jindra as if she’d forgotten she was there. “Oh!” Her voice was an old woman’s once more. “Have I done it again?”

“What nonsense!” Jana said. She was in her bath, with her soaps and oils beside her, and was getting water absolutely everywhere. “She’s an old crone and you mustn’t pay her any mind.”

Jindra sat on the ground and leaned against the wooden tub, dressed only in her shift, her fingers drifting idly through the warm water. “Her eyes were so strange,” she insisted, shuddering even now with the memory. “It was like she could see through me all the way to Prague, or to the end of the world.”

Jana watched Jindra for a moment, and then splashed her lightly, right in the face. “Come back here,” she ordered, as Jindra sputtered. “You’re getting fanciful again. You’ll fly off to Prague if you’re not careful.”

Jindra wiped the bathwater out of her eyes. “But – ”

“My darling friend, everyone knows that silly creature spouts whatever foolish thing she can for coin.” Jana lifted one bare, pale shoulder in a shrug. “You know, she once told me with such gravity that I would – ” Jana put on a cruel, nasally voice – “see the sun rise to shine over the east.”  

Jindra hide a smile behind her hand, and Jana nodded triumphantly, rolling her eyes. “You see? The sun always rises in the east! It’s all nonsense.”

“That was a cruel voice, though,” Jindra scolded, without heat or bite. “You shouldn’t mock her.”

“My apologies, my too-kind gallant girl. I forgot you love everyone and everything.”

Jindra smiled at Jana fondly, knowing better now what she hoped to hear. “None more than you.”

Jana beamed, just as Jindra knew she would. 

Jana’s smiles had returned slowly, but were sun bursts each time, all the brighter for their absence. If the woods, and Jindra’s own violence, and Sir Hanush had stolen Jana’s smiles away, Jindra wouldn’t have been able to stand it. 

Jindra might be frustrated at every turn, held like a wolf in a cage, but caring for Jana eased all of that. She couldn’t believe there had been a time when being kind to Jana had been difficult. 

Jindra shifted over, and sat up on her knees. “Let me wash your hair.”

“You don’t have to,” Jana said, even as she tilted her head back, and even if it was Jindra’s duty. It was a choice without a choice, really, and Jindra found she liked it that way.

“Aye. But I want to. Now close your eyes.”

Jana liked to keep her hair bright by washing it with wood ash lye, mixed with water and rosemary. Jindra hummed a little as she worked the lye through Jana’s long, golden hair, before rinsing with rosewater. This, too, eased her heart. She could pretend to be a simple girl with a simple task, and it was another small way she could keep Jana clean. 

Jana sighed as Jindra poured the rosewater, before cracking an eye open. “Did you leave the lye on for long enough?”

Jindra snorted. “Your hair couldn’t be any brighter or any more golden, my lady. And it’ll always be prettier than mine.”

Jana frowned and opened both eyes, squinting. “There will be none of that, thank you.”

“You told me yourself that I looked like a dog and that my hair was a tangle.” Jindra, feeling bold, gave Jana’s wet hair a playful tug. “And there was something about fleas?”

Jana batted her hand away. “You would remember that, you pup.”

“And would you have really slapped me? You told me that, too.”

“Jindra, enough!” Jana wrinkled her nose, clearly fighting another smile. “You must learn to never mind the things I say.”

Jindra thought of the girl who held her tongue in front of Sir Hanush and was slapped when she didn’t. That fire swelled up; not rage, but something fueled by it. 

“I’ll always mind you,” she promised. Her voice was no longer playful. “I’ll always listen.”

Jana’s smile faded, and her face turned red. “That’s…very kind of you,” she said, oddly formal and stiff. “Thank you.”

Jindra combed through Jana’s hair with her fingers, and watched Jana shiver. “You believe me, don’t you?” she asked, more urgently than she meant.

“Of course.” Jana cleared her throat. “But tell me more of your time in town. I’m going mad sitting here all day.”

Jindra wasn’t quite satisfied, but she let the moment pass. “I wish I could help my people more. The Skalitz people, I mean.” She hesitated, and then added, “The burghers are trying to bribe them into poaching.”

“What?” Jana swung her head around so fast that her wet hair splashed Jindra’s face. “Poaching? In my forest?”

Jindra blinked. “Don’t you poach, my lady?”

“I’m noble! It’s entirely different.” Jana turned back around with a huff. “A new task for you, Jindra! Discover the names of these faithless men and I’ll have them out in the street and their coin freely given out.”

“That might not make for happy folk, my lady.” Jindra smiled again, and returned to combing through Jana’s hair. “But I’d like to see it.”

Jana’s voice was at its most petulant. “So would I.”

Jindra thought of Alex’s tired face, and the hunger of the people she had known all her life. “Maybe we could hunt for them,” she suggested timidly. “Nothing large. Just some small game. They wouldn’t know it came from us.”

Jana grew still under Jindra’s hands. “Oh! Well.” She cleared her throat. “I…I find that I’m better at hunting deer than hare. And – and Hanush is bound to be watching me more closely – ”

“Jana,” Jindra interrupted, her heart swelling with compassion. “It’s all right if you're scared.”

Jana sunk deeper into the water, as if in both relief and shame. Jindra ached for her, and felt cruel for even suggesting it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn't have asked.”

“No, I – ” Jana’s voice was shrill. “I want to hunt with you, Jindra. I do. It’s only – I’m not – ”

Jindra put a soothing hand on Jana’s bare shoulder, and was humbled to see how quickly she calmed, like a colt shown kindness. “You’re not ready. I understand.”

“You shouldn’t,” Jana murmured. She leaned away from Jindra’s touch, and gathered her hair on top of her head. “I should be with you, and helping you. I swore to give you a death.”

Jindra was momentarily distracted by the drops of water running down Jana’s pale neck. She wasn’t sure how to explain the truth of it: that Jana, friend and confidant, sharing Jindra’s rage and seeing the true depth of her need, and offering her understanding, was more help than she knew. How could Jindra explain that the blood and hatred was so much easier to carry, when she could rest in Jana’s bed, and know Jana was safe herself? 

“We’ll have it,” Jindra promised instead. 

“But we have to think of something else!” Jana exclaimed, impatient. “How much can you really learn from goodwives and beggars and apothecaries?”

“Only the fighting men would know what happened at Neuhof,” Jindra agreed. “And they’re not going to tell me.”

Jana made a sound of pure frustration, mirroring Jindra’s own heart. “You see! And I can’t even command them.”

Jindra, already missing Jana’s smiles, flicked a little bathwater at her. “Your name seemed to help.”

“Mine?” Jana was clearly surprised, and her frustrated look vanished. “No one cares about me.”

Jindra leaned against the tub again, arms resting on the sides. Her eyes strayed to the water, where the shape of Jana’s body beneath was wavy and distorted. “When I told the Bailiff that my lady would hear if he wasn't treating the refugees well, he found jobs for them.”

“He's just an old fool. He probably still thinks of me as a wailing child to be placated.” Jana’s expression gave a little twist, and she hurriedly began rubbing oils onto her arms. “The people hardly see me.”

“But they remember you,” Jindra insisted. “They'd grow fond of you, if they ever got to know you.” She reached out, and touched the damp line of Jana’s jaw; too bold by far, she was sure. But they were friends, and ought Jindra make sure that Jana knew that? “As I did.”

Jana shivered again. “The water’s getting cold,” she said accusingly, and with a scowl that was only halfway serious. “Jindra, my dear, darling Jindra, you’ve talked too long and it’s your fault.”

“D’you want me to fetch you a hot pitcher like a bathhouse girl?” Jindra teased.  “Are you calling me a wench?”

Jana laughed; and how good it was, to see another smile on her. Jindra would fetch hot water, and spend her night running up and down the stairs, to keep it there. 

But then, Jana grew still, and her brow furrowed. “I think,” she said slowly, “I may have an idea.”

The Rattay baths were outside of the southern gate, tucked neatly away from the town proper. At this hour, with the sun already setting, there were sounds of merriment of all kinds within. Jindra, dressed in her plain Skalitz clothes and wrapped in her homespun cloak, kept her head down as she slipped through the gate. 

She was no untouched maid, and she knew mischief with men wasn’t all that happened in bathhouses. All the same, she blushed to imagine what Ma would say, if she saw her daughter in such a place.

As Jindra approached, a woman stepped outside and stretched her arms over her head with a small groan. She looked young; a few years older than Jindra, perhaps, but not as old as the proprietress must be. Jindra took a breath and stepped forward, and tried to look less out of place than she felt.

The woman turned, saw her, and let out a small, surprised laugh. “God save, Jindriska,” she said, voice alight with amusement. “Does your lady know you’re here?”

That stopped Jindra dead in her tracks. “You know who I am?”

The woman looked her up and down. “I should hope I know everyone,” she said, as if that was obvious. “Especially when half of Rattay watched you and your mistress chase each other like hens through the street a week past.”

Jindra’s blush went from slight to scarlet, until she felt it in her ears. She cleared her throat, and the woman's smile grew wider. “I’m looking for Klara. Is she…here?”

A muffled splashing sound and a high, bright giggle echoed from somewhere nearby. Jindra cringed, and the woman looked even more amused than before. 

“Aye, that’s me,” she said. She gave Jindra a soft look, with her eyes drooping and seductive, mocking and over exaggerated. “Don’t tell me you’re looking for a bath.”

Jindra longed to dunk her head in the nearest, ice cold trough of water. But she lifted her chin, determined to stop feeling and looking so silly and young. “My lady sent me herself.”

Klara, understandably, looked baffled, though her smile stayed put. “What could Pirkstein's beauty want with me?”

Jindra paused, weighing the weight of the truth. “My lady knows that there are bandits at the borders and soldiers in the woods,” she said, very solemnly, as if speaking with the Lady of Rattay’s voice. “She knows that armies are roaming the lands. But she isn’t told anything else, and she can’t care for and speak for her people if she doesn’t know more. She wants your help.”

“My help?”

“Men talk. When they’re…at ease.”

Klara’s smile grew with understanding. “When they’re in their cups, you mean? And with a comely maid astride them?” Klara gave a pretty little giggle. It was impossible to tell if it was genuine, or practiced. “I’ll have you know that I only bathe the men. Just ask my silly sweetheart.”

“I don’t think you’d need much to get a lad talking,” Jindra replied, the words pulled from nowhere. “If you make a drunk man feel big, he’ll say anything you want.”

That got another merry laugh out of Klara. Jindra dared to think it sounded more real than the last. “True enough!” Klara glanced at the open door behind her, where light poured from within, and stepped closer to Jindra, lowering her voice slightly. “With only three of us,” she said, deliberately coy, “what could we hope to know?”

“The men-at-arms come through, don’t they?” Jindra pointed out. She tried not to sound too excited. “And the guards, and even the men who serve them. Anyone who passes through Rattay might stop here, and I know there are travelling girls who come and go, who…work, before moving on. My lady would trust the secrets you can find beyond anything Sir Hanush would tell her.”

Klara looked Jindra over, head to toe, as if taking her in anew; Jindra did her best not to squirm, and tried to look self assured, as the trusted companion of the Lady of Rattay ought to. And then, blessedly, Klara nodded. “And what secrets does your lady want?”

Jindra tried not to sigh with relief. “There’s a group of bandits, led by a tall man in black armor.” The flash of black-red flame was brief, and Jindra managed not to snarl outright. “The killings at Neuhof were their work.”

“So she wants the leader,” Klara said, latching upon what Jindra hadn’t said. She was sharper than she appeared. 

“My lady finds them all a danger,” Jindra answered quickly, even as hatred strained her voice. “But she wants his head.”

If she sounded too obvious – too bloodthirsty – Klara made no mention of it. Jindra held out a small pouch that tinkled softly with coin, and watched Klara’s eyes flash. “She’ll pay for what you can find. But you’re not to tell your mistress.”

Klara took the pouch, but paused to give Jindra a look of pure, unabashed curiosity. “And why ask for me?”

“My lady told me your name,” Jindra replied. “She said that you’ve often been kind to her.”

Klara looked surprised again; genuine, and without any hint of false merriment or mockery. “She was a very sad child,” she said simply, as if that’s all there was to the tale. That was answer enough for Jindra, and she immediately liked Klara more than she had the moment before. 

“There’s something else,” Jindra added. She reached into her satchel, and held out a ring. It was gold, with a red stone in the center, and made for Jana’s slim fingers; even Jindra, who was ignorant of jewels, knew that she had never held anything so precious.

 “A gift from my lady,” she said. “For your silence.”

Klara snatched the ring and examined it, shrewd as any woman at the market. Jindra waited, as Klara turned the ring over in her hand, and clearly turned the idea over in her mind.

Then Klara smiled again, slow and amused. “What a funny pair you are,” she said. She slipped the ring into her pocket, and her soft, slant eyed look returned. Many a man must have fallen to his knees for it, whether she humored them or not. “Very well, Jindriska of Skalitz. You both have a friend in me.”

Unto a compeer of his owene sort,
That lovede dys, and revel, and disport,
And hadde a wyf that heeld for contenance
A shoppe, and swyved for hir sustenance.

- From The Cook’s Tale, The Canterbury Tales

Chapter Text

They found him in the woman’s way: powerless, but altogether more knowing.

Information came in bits and pieces, in a slow trickle. Jindra still spent her days in town, helping where she could, outrunning the beast that howled in her heart; but when night fell she would slip away to the baths, leaving through Jana’s window to avoid the guards. She used the well-worn path through their grove, and she would stare with a longing pang at the old hiding places, filled with arrows and secrets that only two people knew.

Klara, ever merry, would meet Jindra at the bathhouse gate with a smile and a secret. Not all of her whispers were useful: one of the girls working in Ledetchko had a lover who turned up with a broken neck; there was a madwoman giving sermons in Sasau. But all of it gave Jindra a clearer sense of the world beyond Rattay’s walls, and when she returned to Pirkstein, she and Jana would pour over every detail, until a map made of rumor began to take shape.

One night, Klara told Jindra that one of the bathmaids, beautiful and bold Zdena, had bathed a young, nervous man who had been with Captain Bernard at Neuhof. He’d been eager to spill his heart out to her, and had claimed that the animals had not been stolen, but slaughtered, or so gravely injured that death was a kindness. 

“Pale as milk, he was,” Klara told Jindra. “If all that lot wanted to do was frighten folk, it worked.”

When Jana had heard, she’d hissed, her eyes flashing with hatred. “Evil for the sake of it,” she spat. “There’s no honor to such beasts. You’d better plan on slitting his throat in the night.”

Jindra might have been hungry for blood, but there was no chivalry in that. At least her soul was already as unclean as her body. “So he’ll take the last of my honor.” 

“Of course not,” Jana said, in the voice she used when she thought Jindra was being silly. “But when weighed against your life, I find that honor means very little to me.” Then Jana had returned to brushing her hair as if it had been a small thing to say, while Jindra stared blankly at the back of her golden head.

On another night, Klara had spoken to a girl who passed through Rattay looking for work, filled with gossip from the road, before the proprietress turned her away sternly. 

“My mistress doesn’t take just any girl off the street,” Klara said. She’d met Jindra at the gate with a handful of dried apples to share, and she widened her eyes dramatically as she nibbled on a slice. “But this lass said that there’s a rough group roaming up north with a rough touch, with the meanest dog of all leading them. Big as an ox, and doesn't like to pay the girls, if you catch my meaning.”

Jindra’s stomach churned. "I’m sure I do,” she said, low and dark. 

Klara smiled wryly. “No one cares when it’s girls like us. But sounds like your man, aye?” She snorted, and popped the rest of the apple into her mouth. “She said they call him Runt. A man’s joke if you ask me.”

Jindra slipped her portion of the apples into her pocket, and said nothing. If she tried to eat them, they would turn to ashes in her mouth.

When she’d returned to Pirkstein, Jana had pulled a crumpled map out of a dusty trunk, and spread it out over the floor of her room, crouching with Jindra beside it. The margins were covered with notes written in a child’s clumsy hand, and a stronger, steadier hand that Jindra didn't recognize. “North!” Jana cried, pointing excitedly. “That shall narrow our hunting grounds, I daresay!”

The map was in German, but Jindra’s eyes locked on the little spot that she knew was Skalitz. On the vellum, it was unburned, and still alive; much like Bianca, her name safe and whole on a scrap of parchment in Jindra’s trunk. 

The greatest secret of all didn’t come from merry Klara, or bold Zdena, but Madga, the third bathmaid. She was so quiet and unassuming that even Jindra might have overlooked her, but she was, apparently, very good at listening. 

“Our mistress had a visit from a friend,” Klara said. She’d actually dashed to Jindra at the gate, excited and out of breath, which she had never done before. “She runs the baths in Sasau. Madga heard her say that someone is bringing girls in and out of the woods.”

That gave Jindra pause. “The woods?”

“North of Talmberg! It’s what Magda said,” Klara insisted. “She said it sounded like girls are being hired by someone, but Skalitz is haunted, so they're all taking the longest way, through Uzhitz.”

Jindra’s hungry heart sang Uzhitz, Uzhitz, Uzhitz so loudly that the reminder of Skalitz hardly stung. “You’re sure?”

“This Sasau woman almost sent some of her own girls, but she heard from old Anezka that it’s been such rough work that some of the girls want to leave. But they can’t.” Klara leaned over the gate, her eyes gleaming. “I’d wager my fine new ring that that’s where your man is.”

There was no way to be sure. Jindra knew that, but her blood was up anyway, like a hound on a scent that was no longer faint. She was in a dark grove, under moonlight, stalking a buck again. “So would I,” she said, trying to sound calm. “My lady will – ”

“Anezka lives in Uzhitz,” Klara interrupted. Her voice rang loudly in the darkness, but her expression had lost its excited look. Now she looked uninterested, or even bored – very carefully so. “She ran a bathhouse herself once. Now she's being kept by the priest, but she looks out for her old girls when she can.” 

When Jindra stared at her in surprised silence, Klara added, “If someone wanted to know more, and went to see her, I think she would help. That’s all.”

Jindra stumbled headfirst into tongue-tied alarm. “I – maybe,” she stuttered, like a fool. Klara couldn’t… know. Could she? “I should – my lady expects me back.”

Klara hummed, as if she hardly cared. 

Jindra hurried to go. But her curiosity would always beat out her caution, so she paused, and asked incredulously, “She’s…kept? By the priest?”

Klara gave another of her merry laughs, as if Jindra had spoken like a child. “The world is wider than you know, Jindriska.”

Jindra felt her lips curling back in a snarl. Even priests were corrupted by the animal lusts of men. She quickly turned her too-open face away, before it showed too much violence. 

Jana ran her hands over the map. “The woods north of Talmberg? Are you sure?”

Jindra sat beside Jana on the floor, chewing on a sweet roll that she’d swiped from the kitchen. “I’m sure.” She pointed to the dark shape of trees, and avoided looking at the corpse of Skalitz. “Magda overheard it when – "

Jana's eyes flashed with naked jealousy. “Who?”

Jindra snorted, charmed. “The third bathmaid. The quiet one.”

“Oh.” Jana relaxed, and shrugged. “I always called her Karolina in my mind.”

“Why?”

“She looks like a Karolina, wouldn't you say? Mousy.”

Jindra tore off a bit of her sweet roll, and offered it to Jana. “Couldn’t you have asked her?”

“I could never be seen talking to a bathhouse wench!” Jana gasped. “The very idea! Hanush would have had my head.” She took the offered roll, but with the very tips of her fingers, prim and overly dignified. “I only ever watched.”

Jindra raised a brow, and smirked. “Watched?”

Jana gasped, and yanked Jindra’s braid. “You beast! Wash your mouth out! Not like that.” When Jindra kept smirking, more charmed than before, Jana hurriedly added, “I never – I watched from the road , when I took my horse past. It was a novelty to me.”

“Oh?”

Jana flushed. Jindra was delighted to be the cause of it. “Women who…take coin for such a thing. Bathing men or otherwise. I admit I was – curious.”

Jana’s expression flickered with something more than embarrassment or indignation. Jindra, a dog on a new scent, had to pursue it. She clicked her tongue. “The virtuous Lady Jana of Rattay? What would people say?”

“Enough!” Jana clapped her hands impatiently. “Our business is with you!” 

Jindra held up her hands in defeat, and bit back a half dozen more teases. 

Jana sniffed, and pointed back at the map pompously. “As I was saying. There’s nothing there but Pribyslavitz, and it’s a ruin. A clutch of vipers could make a nest there, I expect.”

“But how many vipers?” Jindra squinted at the map, as if it could reveal every answer if she looked hard enough. “If they’re bringing in… girls – ”

“Whores,” Jana specified, unhelpfully. 

“ – then there must be more men there than I thought.”

“Indeed.” Jana shot Jindra a tight smile, and her eyes flashed again; this time with savage hunger. “But you only need to kill one.” 

The naked wrath in Jana’s expression was pulled from Jindra’s own heart, and it banished her doubts. “He’s close, Jana. He’s close. I know he’s there, and I know I can kill him. But what if I can’t find him?”

“It's a hunt like any other, my dearest. I daresay this one will be easier to track than any deer.”

Jindra blew out a shaking breath, and nodded firmly. She was so grateful for her friend that she could have wept.

Jana nodded back, and stood. “So you go to Uzhitz, hunt him down, and kill him. Perhaps this Anezka will know where to start.” Jana began to pace, as she liked to do while she was deep in thought; she was at her best in motion, like a leaf caught on a breeze. “We could make it to Uzhitz in half a day, but even if he walked from the woods and bared his neck for you in the hour of our arrival, I doubt we could be back before nightfall.”

Jindra frowned. “We? You're not coming.”

Jana paused in her pacing, sneered at Jindra, and began again, muttering to herself.

“You're not coming.” Jindra stood, too. “Jana.”

Jana kept moving, and didn’t spare Jindra a glance.

Jindra shook her head, exasperated. “It's too dangerous. And you're still – ”

“Still what?” Jana stopped, and rounded on Jindra. The passion, and the hurt, in her expression was startling. “Still scared? Still useless? May I remind you that I taught you to hunt!”

Jindra held her hands out, again in defeat, and this time genuinely. “I didn't mean it like that. But it is dangerous. And even if Sir Hanush has locked you away, you’re still the lady of Pirkstein. They would know if you were gone.”

Jana bit her lip, her passion bleeding to dejection. “I just want to be of help to you,” she insisted. “I feel as if this crime was done to me as surely as to you, and I should see our honor satisfied.”

Jana was biting her lip so hard that it was about to bleed. Without thinking, Jindra stuck her thumb in Jana’s mouth and pulled her lip free. “You do help me.”

Jana blinked, and swallowed. “Maybe I could – I don't know. I could insist on paying silly Stephanie a visit in Talmberg. And then in the dead of night we’d slip away – ”

“Jana. No.”

Jana drooped like a dying flower. It would have been comical, or even pitiful, if the truth of her pain wasn’t so clearly written on her face. Jindra’s heart broke just as it had on the night of their hunt, when she’d laughed at Jana’s tender hope like a wicked sinner.

“Very well.” Jana closed her eyes briefly, and Jinda could see how she swallowed her complaints like other girls would swallow tears. “But what shall your excuse be? I must tell them something. Someone is bound to take notice if you’re gone for a day or more.”

Jindra hadn’t thought of that. “They would?”

“Radzig is good enough to ask after you nearly every day,” Jana said. Jindra’s heart beat unsteadily, and her face must have twisted; but thankfully Jana began to pace again, and didn’t notice. “We could say that you're taking some pilgrimage to Skalitz? For your parents and your – Bianca.”

Jindra cleared her throat, and hoped she didn’t sound strangled. “Would Sir Radzig allow it?”

Jana scoffed. “Well, you don't serve Radzig. You serve me, and I would allow it. If I draw his or Hanush’s ire for the way I run my own household, so be it.”

Jindra’s heart beat even louder. “I can’t let you do that.”

“Do what? Take on a punishment from Hanush? I’ve become quite well apprenticed in it, I assure you.” Jindra scowled at the reminder, and Jana took Jindra’s hand. “I can’t go into battle with you, so let me do battle in the only way I can.”

Jindra opened her mouth, but Jana wouldn’t let her get a word in. “And you shouldn't travel alone,” Jana continued. “I won’t allow it. What about Theresa?”

This left Jindra momentarily speechless. Ask Tess? Good, brave, strong Tess, who had survived Skalitz and only wanted a life without death? “I could never ask her to help me. I wouldn’t ask her even if it were a pilgrimage to Skalitz, or just a visit to Uzhitz.”

“Shall I send you into the lion’s den alone?” Jana took both of Jindra’s hands, and squeezed them hard, until her nails cut into Jindra’s palms. “Swear to me you will ask her.”

Jindra shook her head, even as her heart and soul knew that she was about to give in. “I – ”

“Swear it as a solemn oath,” Jana ordered. “When your Theresa says no, your conscience will be clear, and so will mine.”

As with so many things lately, when Jana asked for something, Jindra did her best to give it to her. “I swear it,” she said reluctantly. Jana looked so relieved that Jindra almost didn’t regret it; until she thought of Theresa’s face, and the reproach she was sure she would soon find there.

In sleep, Jindra’s face was smooth. She looked younger than her years without the furrow in her brow, or the tight sadness of her mouth. Jana watched silently, warm in the circle of Jindra’s arms, and traced a finger lightly down the gentle slope of Jindra’s nose. 

Jana had awoken from her dream of the woods and her unseen quarry, where she was both hunted and hunter, and she hadn’t slept since. She wasn’t used to her dreams lingering as this one did; she woke flushed and damp with sweat, as if in a fever, trembling and coiled tight, as if she had run too far and too fast. It was like being trapped in the instant before a horse reared, when excitement started tumbling into fear. 

Jana touched her own mouth. Is this what Jindra’s fear was like?

As night bled into early morning, Jana slowly extracted herself from Jindra’s arms. She did her best not to jostle the bed, but Jindra, run ragged by strangers, slept like a stone. Jana was reminded of the old days, when she would tiptoe out of bed and dress for her hunts in darkness, while lesser, unworthy girls slept in her bed none the wiser. 

But now, when Jana pulled her hunting clothes out of their hiding place, she hesitated. She hadn’t worn them since the night of the hunt, when the world had been awash in moonlight and Jana had thought herself brave. She imagined that she could still smell blood on the wool, heady and cloying; and not the deer’s clean blood, but the blood of men, coating Jindra’s hands as the deer’s had, while Jana lay splayed on the ground, caught in a snare of her terror, as trapped as a hare and less worthy of a clean death.

Ridiculous.

Jana shut the clothing away, and the smell of blood faded. She bit her lip, considering, and then crossed to Jindra’s little trunk, tucked in the corner of the room, which Jana herself had never opened. 

She knelt, and quietly pulled out Jindra’s clothes instead. The plain kirtle and cotte were faded green and brown, and they made Jindra look nondescript and small when she crept out at night to the bath house. Surely Jindra would understand, and wouldn't mind. 

Jana dressed, and the anxious fluttering of her heart eased. Jindra’s clothes were too tight in the bust, too wide in the hips, and too short by an inch or so, but they were Jindra’s. To wear them was to be wrapped in a circle of safety. They smelled of horses and dirt, and other lingering country scents that Jindra had shed in Rattay; now that Jindra wore Jana’s gowns, she smelled of rosemary and lavender. 

Jana breathed deeply and thought of melting into Jindra, like snow atop spring soil. When they dressed in each other’s clothes, wrapped in rosemary and sweat, who could tell where one ended, and the other began?

It gave Jana courage. It was courage borrowed from Jindra, a blessing from a saint’s shroud. 

Jana stole a glance at Jindra’s sleeping face, and slipped out of her window. 

Out the window; down the walls; through the back passage, rusty and rarely used; and under the stone arch and down the rough hewn steps to the river. Jana had walked this path a thousand times, and knew the way by heart. But it may as well have been the first time. She stumbled in places that she never had, and jumped at every noise. 

Worst of all, when she passed through her grove, she found it a cold place, like a hearth when the embers burnt out. She had once thought herself dangerous there, a killer herself, and now it offered no safety. 

Jana stared at the trees, and forced herself to stand her ground against the shadows, even as she trembled. She had always despised small spaces, and lived in horror of confinement. Was confinement now to be her refuge?

“No more,” Jana hissed, teeth clenched. “You are Lady Jana of Rattay, daughter of Lord Capon himself, and you will stop.”

This was Rattay. This was her home. She wouldn’t be afraid. But when she continued to the river, her hands shaking, she spied her father’s body in the water. He was cold and hateful, and unimpressed.

By the time Jana reached the mill, a line of pale blue danced along the horizon. She wouldn’t have much time. As she crept closer with her light, hunter’s step, she frowned. Where exactly would a mill girl sleep?

She didn’t wonder for long. A loud bark made her jump clean out of her skin, and out of nowhere, that stupid, filthy dog ran out at her, snarling.

“Shut up!” Jana hissed. The dog didn’t care, growling and snapping, as if Jana were a dangerous interloper to be fought. Her! On her father’s own land! “Be silent, you stupid mutt!” 

“Jindra?”

Both Jana and the dog turned around. Theresa, the mill girl, stood in the worn wooden doorway, squinting in the darkness.

Jana cleared her throat, and lifted her chin high, as dignified as one could be in the circumstances. “Should I be flattered, or insulted?” she scoffed, even as a part of her thrilled to be mistaken for Jindra. “Look again, girl.”

Theresa leaned forward, and then stiffened, hastily curtsying. “My lady.”

“Good. Your eyes are sharp enough.” The dog growled again, and Jana waved a shaky hand at it. “And – and call off your beast, if you please.”

Theresa straightened, and snapped her fingers. “Mutt,” she called, quiet and firm. The dog calmed and stopped snarling, but its beady little eyes stayed on Jana for a moment more before it bounded to Theresa’s side, its little tail held high. 

Jana cleared her throat again, and smoothed back her hair. “Better. Now come here.” 

Theresa stepped out of the doorway and joined Jana outside, caution and confusion written on her face. “If…if you wish to speak to my uncle –”

“Fool,” Jana snapped. “Keep your voice down.” She took a moment to look the mill girl over, from plain head to dusty foot. She'd always had a good eye for appraising horses. How different could this be?

“You're shorter than I thought you were,” Jana declared. “ Sturdy, though.”

Theresa allowed the scrutiny without complaint, but she didn’t duck her head in deference, either. Even in the poor light, her dark eyes were chips of rock; careful, and clever, if not precisely beautiful. 

“Why are you here?” Theresa asked.

Jana drew herself up to her full height. Let no one doubt her conviction. “I'm here for Jindra.”

Theresa’s plain pleasant face was as open as Jindra’s, and Jana had clearly surprised her. Was it so shocking that Jana would treasure Jindra’s friendship and come as her emissary?

“You know what she has endured,” Jana said. “You know even better than I what she has suffered, and you know of the beast that haunts her.” She bared her teeth. “We've found him, and Jindra is going to avenge her honor.”

Jana could see the whites of Theresa’s eyes, blown open in shocked realization. In a quiet, horrified voice, she said, “She's going to try to kill him.”

“She will succeed.” Pride overtook Jindra’s annoyance in a torrent. “And you're going to help her.”

Theresa shook her head. “How?”

“She’s going to travel to Uzhitz, and she’ll find a woman there who can show her where the filth makes his nest. And then she will hunt him, and kill him.” Jana stepped closer, and lowered her voice; the gravity couldn’t be understated, and this stupid girl needed to understand. “But she can’t make the journey by herself. And even if she could, it would be noticed if she left my service. You will be her excuse and her reason.” Jana paused, and added, “She does not want to ask this of you, but I’ve commanded her. And when she comes tomorrow, I’m commanding you to agree."

“It’s mad,” Theresa gasped. “You’re both mad.”

Jana’s lip curled, but she held her temper. “I am taking a gamble that you love her,” she said, filling her voice with ice. “If you did, you would help her without question. Perhaps I misjudged you.”

Theresa’s voice cracked with pain. “You’re sending Jindra to die.”

“You’ll have to lie to that uncle of yours, I imagine,” Jana said, ignoring Theresa’s distress. If this peasant was too weak to be brave, she could always be bullied. “I don't particularly care what you say to him. But you'll do it.”

“You’re both mad,” Theresa gasped again. “Why would you tell her do this? Why?”

Jana’s composure snapped. “Do you think I want to send you?” she snarled, as vicious as the damned dog. “I would be with her in a moment, if I could. I would spill blood with her. I would spill blood for her. I would gladly share the danger, but I can’t! You can help her. You’re freer than I am.”

Theresa’s bewildered stare grew hard. “With respect, my lady, I am not.”

Why wouldn’t she surrender? There was defiance in Theresa just as there was in Jindra. Maybe that was the case with all those from Skalitz; fierce little flowers, with torn leaves, clinging to life and uncowed. Jana wanted to hate her.

But Theresa had saved Jindra. She had kept Jindra’s secret, and cared for her more completely than Jana ever had. Jana owed her a staggering debt.

An ugly thought wrenched itself out of Jana, against her will and without her permission. Jindra had been raped in the clothes Jana now wore. When Jana was wrapped up in them, that pain became Jana's pain; Jindra’s honor was Jana's honor. For the first time in Jana's confined life she was left truly breathless by the danger of men’s lusts, and a violent, repulsive need came with it. She yearned for Jindra’s kill like a starving she-wolf, with meat between her teeth.

Jana bit her lip so hard that it bled at last, and the taste was a poor substitution. “I need to give this to her,” she said, reduced to begging. “He must die for what he’s done.”

Jana thought of Jindra’s thumb in her mouth. If Jana could not be commanding, if she could not be convincing, if she could not be brave, could she be humble? 

“There’s a part of her that I’ll never have.” The admission came out acrid, and landed heavily. Jana forced herself on. “Her smiles are yours, forever, and you must want those smiles unburdened. We can both help to avenge her. Don’t you understand?”

Theresa was silent for so long that the dog whimpered beside her. The blue stripe in the sky was growing brighter, and more foreboding, as Jana rapidly ran out of time. It seemed that light could be a horror of its own.

Then Theresa said, “I'll help.” Those dark chips of rock grew even more defiant. “I’ll help even if it's madness. And not because you told me to, my lady. I would have helped Jindra the moment she asked me.”

Jana was overcome by relief, with sadness on its heels. Here again was the proof of Jana’s failures. Theresa the mill girl, raw and rough and little and plain, was as steadfast as any sworn knight, and braver than Jana by far. 

“Very well,” Jana said, struggling to maintain her composure. She summoned her mother’s ghost, and nodded in dismissal. “You – you may go.”

Theresa held her gaze longer than she should have, before turning without a curtsy. The dog bounded after her, now that Jana was reduced to nothing; she was no longer even a threat.

Theresa paused at the threshold of the mill, and looked back. “They say that you're a fool, my lady,” she said. “And they're right.”

Jana refused to flinch, even as a jolt of hurt shot through her. 

“Jindra never would have smiled again, if not for you.” Theresa’s knuckles on the doorframe turned white, but her expression was quiet. “I brought her to Rattay, but I wasn’t the one who brought her back to life.”

Theresa agreed. Jindra was so surprised that she didn't even argue that it was dangerous, and foolish, and that she could find another way. She didn’t explain her plan. None of that mattered to Theresa, who stopped Jindra’s stumbling and stuttering with one of her fond, firm glares.

“Give me a week,” Theresa said, as simple as that. “I'll make my excuses to my uncle, and we can go.”

If Jindra hadn’t been given that week, she would have raced off on Pebbles, reckless and hungry, too eager for blood to actually spill it. She hated having to sit and wait while her prey still breathed, but it forced her to prepare, and to think of all the ways that a man could die.

They could be killed openly, as men killed each other. That would have been Jindra’s choice. In her fantasies, lustful and consuming, she imagined meeting her man in battle. She would take her father’s sword and stab him, and cut his body into a thousand pieces for the carrion birds. It wouldn’t be like the Cumans, caught by surprise and killed with luck and an animal’s frenzy. It would be righteous and rageful, and witnessed by God and all the saints.

But even her anger didn't make her that foolish. She was no soldier. She would have to kill another way.

A man could die by a blade to the throat, like Jana had said. Jindra had learned how to step lightly in darkness. If she were a knife in the night, a sharp shadow, she could still spill his blood, and gut him after. There was no honor in it, but he deserved no honor in death; and thanks to him, Jindra had no honor left.

But a man did not have to die by blades at all. When Jindra and Bianca had been little, they'd sat attentive and wide-eyed at Ma's knee, learning every tonic of healing that she knew: for pain, for cough, for sleep. And sometimes, when Pa hadn't been listening, Ma spoke of tonics of a different kind. There were brews that could bless or bane, ridding a woman of an unwanted babe, or of an unwanted husband. Ma had held their hands and told them, stern and serious, that these must be used with care, or never used at all. 

Jindra thought of Ma as she gathered belladonna from the garden. Of all the wild plants she had brought to Pirkstein, it had thrived the most, even as the poppies withered and the marigolds died. And to keep the scent of death far from Pirkstein and from Jana, Jindra found herself sneaking back to the apothecary. Where she had once paid honestly with coin, she picked a lock; where she had once brewed a tonic to save a man’s life, she now brewed a poison to kill one. 

Ma might have been grieved by that.

During her week of waiting, Jindra ended every day exhausted. She slept in deep, restful darkness, and still hadn’t had a single dream, nightmare or not. But at the moment of waking, just before she came back into her body, she would sometimes smell ; a phantom scent of musk and sour breath. And then it would be gone, and Jindra would smell nothing but the rosemary in Jana’s hair, and feel nothing but the weight of her body.

She poured over memories in her mind, adding fuel upon the blaze. Bianca’s face, her body torn and ravaged; Bianca’s screams and Ma's screams rising together; Pa's last promise, and his last sword.

Her hunt was for Bianca and every other girl. It was for Ma and Pa. It was Jindra’s first steps on the path to justice.

Wasn't it?

The day before Theresa had agreed to leave, Jindra met Sir Radzig in the courtyard of Pirkstein. 

If Jindra had seen him returning from the Upper Castle, she would have hidden in the kitchen or the garden, or stayed safe in the sanctuary of Jana’s room. But she’d been hurrying to town on another errand, and was distracted by thoughts of death, and had put herself in his way like bait on a hook.

“Jindriska.” Sir Radzig looked, as he usually did, both surprised and pleased to see her. “I hoped to find you today.”

Jindra’s skin crawled. But she supposed this was a good thing. Sir Radzig would have to be told of her departure one way or another. Better to let him discover her on his own.

She pushed down her dread. “God save you, my lord,” she murmured. It was broad daylight, with people bustling around them. Surely she was safe here.

“Have you been well?” Sir Radzig asked, as if he did so every day. At one time, he had asked every day, when Jindra had foolishly thought that a lord would be kind to a peasant girl for kindness's sake. 

“I’m well enough,” Jindra said. She remembered the part she must play, and let some of her genuine exhaustion bleed into her voice. “Lady Jana has been…”

Sir Radzig smiled. “Still a trial?

The warmth in his voice was brittle. Jindra wasn't so naive as to hope that he wished, as she did, to return to a time before that evening in the garden, but she hoped that he at least felt ashamed. 

And on top of it all, he chose an insult to Jana as his olive branch. “Perhaps a little.” Jindra tried to smile back, and feared it was more of a grimace. “But my lady is gracious, and has granted me permission to leave her service for a few days.”

Sir Radzig’s brow furrowed. “Leave?”

“I’ll be visiting with Theresa, at the mill.” Jindra clasped her hands in front of her, as demurely as she knew how. “She and I were close in Skalitz, you see.”

Sir Radzig’s expression cleared. “Of course. I remember.” 

The warmth in his voice was now less brittle, and filled with fondness. Jindra was caught in a whirlwind of childhood memory, lorded over by a new dark cloud. Sir Radzig had watched her all her life, so closely that he remembered. 

Did he remember Bianca, too? Was she also held prisoner, somewhere, inside of his memory? In this world where lust could corrupt priests, were girls doomed even after death?

“In that case, I’m lucky to catch you,” Sir Radzig said. “You’ll be glad to know that we are very close to finding the men responsible for the attack at Neuhof. And when we do, we will cut out the rot. This I promise you.” Sir Radzig’s voice held both patience and presumptive kindness, as a lord to his charge. “I hope that will ease your heart.”

Despite herself, Jindra felt a sense of unease. She wondered what it would mean to weigh what she and Jana had learned against what Sir Radzig and Sir Hanush had. Would it give form to a formless beast? 

But they would never believe her, or allow her to speak in the first place. They would certainly never allow her to go with them to fight. And worse, to reveal what she had done might lead to further confinement for Jana. Jindra would not have risked that for all the groschen in the kingdom, no matter how her conscience railed at her. 

Still, if Jindra was going into a nest of vipers, cutting off the head of the serpent would help. And no matter who or what Sir Radzig was, Jindra had made Pa a final promise. The duty to retrieve his sword was hers, and hers alone. It had to be.

“Aye, my lord,” Jindra said. She thought of the bloody man in the woods, and the poison, and all the ways that men might die. “That does ease my heart.”

Sir Radzig smiled, as if it eased his heart, too. Jindra thought of Ma’s song, and the verse of the thistle. Its root can feed when bellies yearn. When leaves prick, a lesson learned.

Jindra curtsied, dipping lower than she usually did, if only to please Sir Radzig, and make sure he went away. But Sir Radzig did not leave, nor did he dismiss her. There was a long, heavy pause, as if the air itself held its breath. 

“Jindriska.” Sir Radzig sounded almost hesitant. “You know that you have done nothing wrong, don’t you?”

Jindra knew they were both remembering the garden. Once again, she missed her father, with a desperate, instinctual need. She bitterly wished that she could miss Pa for the sake of his love alone, and not for the sake of his protection. 

“Aye, sir,” Jindra said quietly, eyes on the ground. “I know that.”

Jana watched uneasily as Jindra pulled her cloak over her shoulders, and resisted the urge to fuss over the clasps herself. They stood in darkness, with all of Pirkstein abed, not daring to light a single candle. Jindra was dressed in her peasant clothes again, ready to slip to the grove unseen, where she had hidden her poisons and a stolen sword. She’d join her mill girl, and be off before first light. 

Jana stood barefoot in her shift, feeling as weak and as naked as a bird without feathers. “I wish I was going with you,” she said, as she had countless times. “Swear to me that you’ll be careful.”

“I will,” Jindra said. Her eyes were already far away, eager as a hawk locked upon a songbird. “I’ll have his blood. He won’t have mine.”

“I want his blood, too,” Jana whispered. She stared at a dark smear of mud on the hem of Jindra’s skirt, knowing she had dirtied it herself, when she’d worn Jindra’s clothes. It seemed fitting that all she could send with Jindra was a stain. “Next time, it won’t be like the forest.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Jindra promised, insufferable and stubborn as an ox. “Have no fear, my lady. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

I know you won’t, Jana thought, with mingled gratitude and frustration. Out loud, she said, “I’m not afraid.”

“I know,” Jindra sighed, smiling for the first time all night. “You’re not afraid of anything.” She almost sounded truthful, as if she hadn't seen Jana cowering. “But I can still keep you safe.”

“Safe!” Jana barked out a bitter laugh. “I’ve been safe my entire life. You want me clean.” 

When Jindra said nothing, Jana scoffed, and crossed the room to her wine. It poured from the pitcher in a dark stream; red wine and red blood both lost their color at night. “Clean and a coward,” she snapped. “You mustn’t trouble yourself, Jindra. I’m damned anyway.”

Her voice was too loud, and too ugly. She gulped the wine down, trying to wash her words away. Why was she so sour and bitter, so determined to claw, when she shouldn’t be? At the hour of Jindra’s greatest triumph and greatest danger! Perhaps the very heart of her was spiteful, just as Hanush always said. 

Jindra placed a hand on Jana’s shoulder, and gently urged her to turn. “You’re not damned, my lady.”

Jana's wrist throbbed, untouched. “How would you know?” She reached for her voice of sneering steel. From the river, her father smiled. A horse screamed as it died. “There’s so much you don’t know about me.”

Jindra didn’t flinch at the bite. “Can I know everything?” she asked, sincere and genuine. “Someday?”

Jana smelled blood again; and for the first time, smelled leather, horses, and frost in the air. I’m waiting for you.

She put her goblet down, elbowed past Jindra, and knelt by her trunk. She fumbled through it, digging past silk and jewels, until she found the knife she usually kept on her belt, used to cut her food. 

“Take this,” she ordered, standing. 

Jindra stared at the knife, her expression in shadow, and Jana fought against a fresh wave of shame. How petty she was, how demanding, to force this upon her friend. The knife, in its gilded sheath, felt small even in her own hand; small, useless, and untested, no matter how sharp she kept the blade. But it was the only weapon allotted to a woman. 

Her shame burned her throat raw. “Even if you can’t use it.” She was begging again, just as she had at the mill, as surely as an urchin asked for alms. “This is the only sword I can swear to you. I can’t even give you my bow. I can’t protect you as I should, and I can’t kill him for us, but I swear all that I have.” Jana grabbed Jindra’s wrist and tugged her forward. “Take it.”

For an awful moment, Jindra did nothing. And then, very slowly, she took the knife from Jana with all the tender awe of a holy relic. She turned it over in her hands, and then hooked it carefully onto her own belt. 

Jindra took Jana’s hands and pressed them to her own breast, over her heart. “You'll be with me.” 

Jana’s heart beat in time with Jindra’s, kept sure and strong beneath her touch. The world narrowed to Jindra’s eyes, the blue gone grey in the dark. They filled Jana up like a goblet of wine, and when Jindra whispered, “I won't fail you,” the wine spilled over, and Jana’s eyes filled with tears. 

But she had her pride, and was not a child.

She shoved Jindra back so hard that Jindra stumbled, and they said nothing more. 

After Jindra slipped away into the night, Jana sat by her window and stared out into the blackness. She tried to imagine the mill, or the meadow of wildflowers, or the stables, but she couldn't seem to conjure them in her mind. Even the memory of the grove seemed lost to her. There was only the specks of torchlight in Rattay, the smell of shit, and the brutal world beyond, with her Jindra cast alone into it.

The walls of Jana’s room pressed in, and in, and in, and in. 

Jana pushed away from the window and knelt on the stone floor. She'd never given much care at mass and seldom prayed with any intent. When she ducked her head, she typically thought of nothing but her next meal, or her next ride; to Jana, her horae was her mother’s ghost before it was a book of prayers.

But this was all that was left to her. Jana had been born for the fate of women, left on their knees when battles were fought. Her father had known that.

Jana prayed for Jindra, and for the Virgin’s intercession, even as she felt bile rising in her throat, staining the words. She wondered if something holy would even recognize her voice. 

She knelt until her knees ached.

“...she placed a dagger beneath the pillow, and sent for her husband and her father. When they came, accompanied by Brutus and Publius Valerius, she wept bitterly and sighed, then related the whole story. Thereupon she added: "Now I will treat my case as becomes me; but do you, if you are men, avenge me, free yourselves, and show the tyrants what manner of men you are and what manner of woman of yours they have outraged." When she had spoken thus, she immediately drew the dagger from its hiding place and killed herself.”

- From Cassius Dio’s Roman History, “The Rape of Lucretia,” translated by Earnest Cary

Art source: Wen on bluesky (THANK YOU!!!)

Chapter Text

Jindra’s sword had been stolen from the armory. It was bent and mangled, with a dull edge from too many strikes and not enough care. But it wouldn't be missed. Jindra pulled it from its hiding place in the grove, tucked tenderly between the rocks with Jana’s quiver, and lashed it to her belt. 

Jana had made her a hunter, and Jindra would keep her promise. She wouldn't fail. But even with a woman’s poison hidden in vials in her satchel, she couldn't give up the dream of a soldier’s violence. A battle was still her choice, before a hunt; a scream, before a muffled whimper.

If Jindra couldn’t have that battle, she could keep the sword. She could pretend for one more day. As she made her way out of the grove to double back to the stables, racing the first rays of dawn, the sword thumped against her hip with every step.

Lighter, hidden, and more cherished was Jana's knife. Jindra ran her fingertips over the length of it, light as a lover, and could close her eyes and still see every gilded detail of the hilt, too precious by far to be practical, even for a woman's knife. 

It was Jana's wild heart and her courage, forged into steel, and no one but Jana knew that Jindra carried it.

When Jindra reached the mill, Theresa was already waiting at the mouth of the road, seated in her uncle's cart. The ancient cart horse, an old brown nag who never shied at anything, watched placidly as Jindra approached, leading Pebbles by the reins. Pebbles gave the other horse a snort of greeting before poking her big grey head into the back of the cart, where Mutt was curled sleepily. He yawned and wagged his tail, giving Pebbles a lick on the snout.

“His heart would break if I left him,” Theresa said. There was an edge to the fondness of her voice, but her gaze and her hands were steady. 

Jindra was overwhelmed with both gratitude and guilt, and busied herself by tying Pebbles to the cart. With the well made saddle and the battered sword hidden under blankets in the back, Jindra and Pebbles were transformed back into small, ordinary creatures. 

Jindra paused with a hand on the cart’s wooden frame. A thousand vultures were struggling to break free of her chest. All she could think of, unwillingly, was the last time she had seen this cart; when she had drifted in heartbreak and agony in the back of it, pulled from the mud of Skalitz like a weed.

But Jana would have found some poetry in it. She would say that Jindra was travelling forward the way she had come through, in a journey past the gates of Hell to find rebirth, or something else grand and fine. There was probably an old myth or an ancient hero’s name pulled from Rome that she would know. Jindra could almost hear Jana’s hushed, excited voice, and could almost see the gleam in Jana’s clever eyes. It settled her, pulling her scattered flock of thoughts down from the sky and back to her body.

Jindra took a breath, and climbed up to sit beside Theresa. “Are you sure about this?”

Theresa clicked her tongue and snapped the reins, and the horse started along. “Yes. And you’re not allowed to ask me over and over all day long.”

It was comforting to be known so well, even now, even changed, and even as the guilt and gratitude settled beside Jindra like a third passenger. 

“But you are sure?” Jindra insisted. “It’s a dangerous thing I’ve asked of you.”

Theresa sighed, and then turned in her seat to reach back into the cart. She pulled up a blanket, tucked between two wooden crates. Hidden beneath was a simple hunting bow, and a hand axe. 

When Jindra gaped at her in surprise, Theresa smiled in her knowing, satisfied way, tucking the blanket back into place. “I kept them from Skalitz,” she said, as if that explained everything. Then she added, “Trust me, Jindra. I know what you’ve asked of me.”

Jindra’s heart jolted. Theresa had looked at Jindra with bewildered horror when she’d glimpsed the blood in her heart, and still, she was here. She was here.

Jindra cleared her throat, and let her curiosity win out. “When did you learn to shoot?”

Theresa shrugged, but gave Jindra a sly glance. “Bianca and I went hunting sometimes.”

Jindra’s smile burst onto her face out of nowhere. Once, it would have crushed her to know that there was a part of Bianca that Jindra didn’t have all to herself. But now, a glimpse of something new delighted her; for a single moment, Bianca could be alive again, smiling a new smile in Jindra’s mind, and not well-worn like old parchment in her hands. “Poachers!” she gasped. “I didn’t know my girls were so daring!”

Theresa hummed, clearly pleased with herself. “Oh, we were just full of mysteries, Jindra.”

Jindra wished that Jana were here. She could easily see the aghast and offended look on her lady’s face, to know that she and Theresa had so much in common. Well! Jana would declare; Jindra heard her voice easily, too. A fine mirror for your reflection, Theresa, and a puddle for me! And then soon enough she would soften, and start to chatter with Theresa about archery before she could stop herself, while Jindra smiled on.

The thought was sweet as summer berries. Jindra’s heart felt lighter than it had. “Next you’ll tell me that you and Johanka danced together under the moonlight,” she teased.

“Barefoot and naked.” Theresa’s smile was teasing, too. It was good to see. 

It was not as easy between them as it had been before, with the girl from Skalitz well and truly dead. But Jindra remembered how to talk like her, and the mask was easy to slip on, like a child playing at a May Day game. 

“Poor Johanka,” Jindra sighed. It was hard not to feel pity for the fourth girl in their childhood circle, dreamy and romantic, and always a step behind. “We weren’t always kind to her.”

“I was always kind,” Theresa scolded, without bite. “You and Bianca just left her out of things. She's doing well in Sasau, the last I heard.”

“That’s good. She deserves a peaceful life.”

“As we all do,” Theresa said, stern again. When Jindra said nothing, Theresa added, “But yes, Johanka especially. She never did run as wild as you or Bianca.”

Jindra laughed. “Or you.”

“I wouldn’t say I was wild. I just couldn’t say no to either of you.” Theresa’s expression changed abruptly, flashing with something sharp, and she turned her face away. It was as if she wore a mask of her own, and it had slipped. “Seems I still can’t.”

The sun broke over the horizon in streaks of orange and gold, in yet another reminder of Jana. Unforgivably, Jindra wished she was here – even when Theresa was here, steadfast and at terrible risk, when she didn’t want to be, even when Jindra hadn't taken time to speak to her as much as she ought, hadn’t been the friend that she ought, and had given her nothing. 

But Jindra yearned for Jana and her simple understanding. Jindra wouldn’t have to explain , and wouldn’t have to ease around the truth of violence like a bruise. 

There were four girls in the cart, now: Jana and Bianca between Theresa and Jindra, with the guilt and the gratitude cradled in their laps.

The day stretched on, brighter and more foreboding. Had Jindra been alone, she would have liked to take smaller, rougher roads, cutting through heavy wood and less traveled byways. Jana probably would have agreed. But with Theresa seated beside Jindra and tied to her fate, they agreed to take the longer way, through the main roads. There weren’t many travelers, and those who they did see looked weary and cautious. There were no bandits jumping from the brush, and no bloodraged armies around each bend, or monsters in the trees.

But if there had been, Jindra knew that she could kill them. The certainty danced beneath the surface of her skin: she could kill. She would. She had a goal that she would do anything to reach, ripping through whomever stood in her way. And there was also Theresa, dear and devoted, sitting beside her. Jindra wouldn’t fail her in this, at least. She had killed in defense of a friend before, and the pulsing heart of her wanted the chance to do it again.

She squeezed the hilt of Jana’s knife.

Jindra and Theresa ate a little; they spoke less. Theresa hadn't asked Jindra for any real detail of her plan, and Jindra, trusting in the hunt alone, wouldn't have had details to give her. So through the trees the little cart traveled, over the fields, under the sky and a burning sun that stretched from morning to noon and after, the shadows shifting, until at last, they arrived in Uzhitz.

Jindra had never been there, and she had built a village of shadows in her mind. But in truth, Uzhitz was quiet and bright. If anything, it reminded Jindra of Skalitz, more than Rattay ever could. She felt an unexpected, sharp pang of homesickness, all for a town she’d never set foot in before.

A woman in a blue kirtle stood outside of the alehouse, sweeping. Jindra ignored a sudden loving ache of Bianca and hopped off the cart, and Theresa followed her, as if she was unwilling to let Jindra out of arm’s reach. 

Jindra cleared her throat. “God save. We’re looking for a woman named Anezka.”

The woman paused in her sweeping, wiped her brow, and looked them up and down. “I don’t remember you,” she said, with a slow, cheeky smile. “After my time, were you?”

When Theresa and Jindra glanced at each other in confusion, the woman laughed. “Easy, chicks.” She resumed her sweeping, chuckling, as if she’d told a wonderful joke. “She’d be at the presbytery, wouldn't she? Just pray Father Godwin hasn’t spun her into a temper yet.”

“The presbytery?” Theresa asked, as they turned back to the cart.

“I think she’s the priest’s….um.” Jindra cringed. “Concubine.”

“What?”

Jindra felt her ears turning red. “She also ran a brothel.”

Theresa grabbed her arm urgently. “Tell me you’re not going to – to get to this place by becoming – ”

“No!” Jindra’s stomach turned over. “Of course not! I just think that she might…tell me where to go and help me sneak in, you know?”

Theresa let go of Jindra’s arm and stared at her as if she’d grown another head. “That can’t be your plan,” she hissed.

“It’s not a bad plan,” Jindra hissed back. “And it’s the only one I have.”

Theresa seemed unconvinced. 

They slowly led the horses by the reins, past the church and to the presbytery, and spied the priest at once. Jindra had expected the priest to be an older man to match the lewd rumors, and she wasn't disappointed. She was surprised to find him swinging a wooden sword, with as practiced a hand and stance as any man-at-arms of Rattay. 

It was almost funny, seeing him duck and jab in his priestly robes. Maybe Uzhitz wasn't a wicked place, but a topsy-turvy one, where hares fought with swords and rode on snails, like the pictures in Jana’s prayer book.

“What sort of priest are you?” Jindra blurted.

Theresa elbowed her in the ribs. 

But the priest didn’t look angry. He didn’t even look startled. He straightened, and raised his brows at them, with a smile that might actually look inviting, if Jindra didn’t already know him for a wicked sinner. 

“The only one our fair town has, my dear.” His smile grew appraising, and maybe even sly. “But your faces aren’t known to me. Could it be you’re here for my Anezka?”

Jindra felt a jolt of fear from nowhere. “What makes you say that?”

“You’re not the first,” he said, as cryptic as the alehouse maid. 

Before Jindra could think of a reply, a woman appeared in the doorway of the presbytery, arms crossed. She was either a young woman who looked older than her years, or an old woman who was spry and merry for hers; though she didn’t look merry at the moment.

“Don’t be so sure,” she said. Her voice had a city accent’s lilt. “Their pretty faces aren't known to me, either.”

Jindra stepped forward, hope swallowing her doubt. “Are you Anezka? We’ve come from Rattay. And Skalitz before that.”

The priest crossed himself. “A bad business.”

“And it makes for desperate girls,” the woman said, not taking her eyes from Jindra. “I am Anezka, aye. But what do two girls from Skalitz and Rattay want with me?”

Her look was intimidating, and made Jindra feel like a child who deserved a scolding. But she plunged forward. “I was told that girls were…being hired. In the woods west of here.”

“If you’re looking to make coin on your cunny,” Anezka said, blunt and bawdy, “I’m not the one to help you.”

The old priest didn’t even flinch, but Jindra and Theresa both blushed. “My reasons are my own,” Jindra said, undeterred.

Anezka rolled her eyes. “Looking for a man? If your fellow has joined up with –

“He’s not mine.” Jindra’s voice betrayed her. It tore out like a butcher’s knife through a side of meat, scraping and sharp. Even if she hadn’t had an open peasant’s face, a blind man would hear her voice, and know the wrath in it.

Anezka narrowed her eyes at Jindra, before her eyebrows flew up. “Oh, good God. I see.”

It shouldn’t have made Jindra nervous, but it did. “See what?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.” Anezka appraised Jindra a moment longer, frowning like a merchant, before turning back into the presbytery. “You’d better come inside.”

Anezka sat Jindra and Theresa down at her table and poured them both ale, and set down slices of warm bread smothered with sweet honey. “Eat,” she ordered. 

Theresa and Jindra exchanged another confused glance. For the first time in her life, Jindra said, “I’m not hungry.”

Anezka gave her a look that could have withered the toughest thistles. “I don’t suffer fools lightly. You need your strength for whatever you have planned.”

“I – ”

“Eat.”

Jindra had never heard a woman’s voice sound like both a mother and a bailiff. She and Theresa reached for the bread like cowed little girls, punished for missing mass, and Anezka looked satisfied. 

Jindra hadn’t realized how hungry she was. The bread was fresh and the honey was sweet, and the ale washed it down well. One slice became two, and then three, until Anezka brought the whole loaf over with a satisfied huff. The priest sat down to join them, and from the way Anezka talked, Jindra gathered that his full name was either Godwin-You-Fool, Godwin-You-Goat, or Godwin-You-Drunkard. 

Jindra would have wagered on the drunkard. In the short time that Jindra and Theresa took to eat their way through all the bread, Father Godwin had gulped down what seemed to be an entire cask full of ale, when Jindra had only had her tankard refilled once. A drunk and a lecher seemed to fit with a priest who lived in sin, but even as Jindra glanced at him nervously out of the corner of her eye, she slowly began to realize that he wasn’t truly dangerous, even with the whisper of a man’s lust ever present. Still, when he tried to speak with her, she turned her face pointedly away, and received only a good-natured chuckle in return.

When the bread was gone, Anezka drank deeply from her own tankard of ale, and gave Jindra an even more scalding look. “So,” she said, in a voice that gave no quarter. “You come like a hungry dog on the prowl and start asking about a group of rough men. Do you think you’re the first lass I’ve seen with murder in her eyes?”

Theresa tensed, but Jindra, caught off guard by the frankness and the glimpse of her hunt, blurted out, “So there is a group of rough men!” 

Anezka kept frowning. “I help my old girls move on in their lives. I find them work where I can. I don’t push them back into trouble.”

Jindra tried not to beg, and wasn’t sure if she succeeded. “But you know something.”

Anezka didn’t soften, but something in Jindra’s voice must have given her pause, because she sighed. “Aye, there’s some men, sure enough. And aye, they're paying for company.”

Father Godwin shook his head. “It’s all rumor.”

Anezka clicked her tongue impatiently, and scowled at him. “‘Tisn’t. You know as well as I that there's violent men about."

"If I did, I couldn't repeat it," Godwin said strangely, and took another long drink.

"And Gertrude told me that more than one girl has come running to her with her tail between her legs.”

Father Godwin choked on his ale. “That old hag?” he sputtered. “She’s a devil worshiping witch, like all herbalists.”

Jindra thought of the poison she’d brewed, tucked neatly in her satchel, and hid her expression with another drink. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Theresa smile.

“Christ, Godwin,” Anezka snapped. “She’s an herb-woman, not a witch.”

Father Godwin sighed gravely. “Is there a difference, in God’s eyes, when the sin is the same?”

Anezka looked unimpressed. “Don’t preach to me in my own home, old goat.” She yanked Father Godwin’s tankard away, and he stumbled after it like a man denied a kiss. “If I want to talk to the devil worshipping, sinning, potion making herbalist and rub her magic oils over my naked skin, you’ll not be the one to stop me. You’ve made fine use of her tonics when your cough comes in during the winter. Nolite iudicare ut non iudicemini!”

Jindra wouldn’t have guessed that Anezka knew Latin. Father Godwin cleared his throat, looking rosier than he had before, even with the warm flush of drunkenness. “Well. As you say, my dear.”

Jindra was starting to grow more eager, and impatience came with it. “How many men are there?” 

Anezka glanced back at her, and her scowl shifted into something stern. “I don’t know. Too many for what you have planned.”

“But I only want one.” Theresa shot her a look of alarm, but Jindra was beyond caring, and bared her teeth like a wolf. “I want one.”

Anezka clicked her tongue again, and began to refill Jindra’s tankard. Even beneath her impatience and her focus, Jindra began to realize just how strange a table this was; where she and a kept woman drank ale and danced around talk of death, while a drunk priest looked on and let them. “And what do you plan to do?”

“That doesn't matter,” Jindra said. “I just need to find him.”

“Christ, girl.” Anezka held the tankard out of reach, as she had with Father Godwin’s. “Your only plan is to walk in, kill your man, and prance out again merry as a grig?”

“No,” Jindra lied.

“God's Balls,” Anezka swore.

“Don't blaspheme, my dear,” Father Godwin slurred, grinning, as if Anezka blasphemed all the time. In return, Anezka pinched his nose so hard that he almost fell from his chair.

Jindra, close to the hunt and still held back from it, couldn’t take much more. “I have more than one weapon, and I know I can use them.” The anger turned her voice into a growl. “Everything else is in the way.”

Her voice was louder than she’d meant it to be. Both Anezka and Father Godwin grew quiet, and looked at Jindra, as if for the first time. Beside her, Theresa reached out, as if to touch Jindra’s arm, before hesitating, and pulling away. 

“Anezka.” Father Godwin gave Anezka a stern look of his own, managed even through the drink – but he did not look shocked. 

“I know,” Anezka said, nodding, as if in agreement to something unspoken that only she and Father Godwin heard. She stared at Jindra intently, and Jindra felt her look pierce beyond the anger, and the bared wolf’s teeth. “But there’s something about her.”

Father Godwin gave Jindra another appraising glance, and then abruptly stood, swaying on the spot. “I’ll be getting some air.”

Anezka tore her eyes from Jindra, and Jindra let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Good! Do your drinking out of my house!” She stood and practically chased Father Godwin to the door. “Out, out, out! Shoo!” As Father Godwin vanished outside into the fading light of evening, Anezka called out, “And if you come back in and vomit on my floor, I’ll kick you until you’re dead!”

Anezka turned back and sighed; both exasperated, and affectionate. “I do love that man.” She sat back at the table, and snorted at whatever look Theresa and Jindra were giving her. “You’re not in the circle of confession, after all. He left so he wouldn’t hear anything he might be asked to repeat. But don’t fret about me. No one ever asks me anything, and I’m a born liar when they do.”

Jindra’s head was beginning to spin, but she was stubborn. “Does this mean you’ll help me?”

“You’ll stay and you’ll rest,” Anezka said, as if that were the beginning and the end of an argument. “And tomorrow, you can kill your man.”

Jindra sucked in her breath sharply. Anezka was the first to speak so frankly, laying out the truth, other than Jana. 

“All the girls who have passed by me have been coy, but I think they’re in Pribyslavitz,” Anezka continued. “But I can’t be sure. Gertrude is our local herbalist, and she’s treated a few girls with tonics and salves. Go to her, and she’ll know how they’re coming and going.”

“If they go to her, why would they go back?” Theresa gasped. It was the first time she had spoken since entering the house.

Anezka smiled wryly. “You’re a lucky girl to ask that question, dearheart.”

Jindra’s head was spinning even more. She was already riding bareback in her mind, racing with a sword in her hand, but with effort, she stayed calm. A thought occurred to her. “You haven’t asked me why.”

Without warning, Anezka’s hand darted out and caught Jindra by the chin. Jindra found herself pinned by Anezka’s eyes, even more searching and more piercing than before. As she felt those eyes bore into her own, Jindra realized that Anezka was younger than she looked, but had seen too much in her time, even if she was now at peace. Would Jindra look like her, one day?

Anezka sighed, and released Jindra’s chin. “I don’t have to,” she said. “I’ve seen my share of the scars left from Skalitz, or otherwise. You’re not the first woman to suffer so, and you won’t be the last.” She shrugged. “But I won’t stand in the way of God’s wrath. I’m no fool.”

God’s wrath. Jindra clenched her hands into fists beneath the table. 

Anezka turned to Theresa. “You, though. You’ve been quiet.”

Theresa looked back without fear or flinch, as always. “I’m here for my friend.”

Anezka smiled again, and this time it was wide and true. It lit up her eyes, and made her beautiful; beautiful enough, maybe, to catch a priest’s heart. “Then she’s very lucky, too.”

The sun set in long, warm streaks of pink and orange, cutting across the sky in gashes. Jindra found Father Godwin sitting outside, humming some sort of song to himself as he swayed. Jindra scowled, but at least she was no longer afraid. It would be hard to fear the lust of a man like this. Maybe he should be pitied instead. 

Jindra found herself drifting to join him. When she sat down with an angry huff of air, Father Godwin shot her an amused glance. “I thought you had a low opinion of me.”

“I do,” Jindra grumbled. “I don’t like you.”

He laughed, loud and loose from the drink. “Not one to suffer hypocrites, are you?”

Jindra ignored the question. She spied the sword he had been swinging earlier, leaning against the presbytery wall. “Where did a priest learn swordplay?”

“I wasn’t always a priest. I’ve lived a noble life and a fighting life, and now I live for God. Long lives lead us to strange places, my girl.”

“I’m not your girl,” Jindra snapped, on instinct. There wasn’t much heat to it; there was nothing to fear from this fool.

Father Godwin didn’t look offended, and only nodded, as if he agreed.

Jindra was still feeling warm from the ale, and it made her brave; or perhaps, it just made her shameless. “Show me what I’m doing wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“With sword exercises. I practice, but no one has ever trained me.”

Father Godwin blinked at her like a large drunken owl, and Jindra felt like a fool for even bothering. But then, Father Godwin shrugged, and reached behind him for the sword. He handed it to her carefully, hilt first, as if it were a real weapon. “Go on.”

Jindra hesitated, but he sounded earnest. She took the sword, and stood. The weight and the feel reminded her of the wooden sword she had stolen from Rattay’s practice yard, hidden in the grove with the rest of her secret life.

She took a moment to relearn the weight, and began the exercises that she’d memorized from watching the men-at-arms at Rattay. Even with her senses softened with ale, each step and jab was fixed in the memory of her body. If anything, she was more loose, more relaxed, and swept from one move to the next more easily.

It was a good thing, too, because Father Godwin, to her surprise, immediately began to bark orders. “Keep your feet parted,” he called. “Stop holding the hilt so tight. Loosen up, be more flexible.”

It was almost the voice of a lord, or at least a man who had lived with one; there was some hint of Captain Bernard’s bark there, with the martial tone of trained men. 

“Again! Keep your shoulders down.”

Father Godwin called out a high cut, and Jindra reacted. He called out a feint to the leg, and then a strike to the left, and Jindra could almost see her opponent, and spun out of the way. She went back and forth, until her sword felt like a part of her own arm, and Father Godwin said, as if he meant it, “Good! That’s quite good.”

Jindra practiced until the sun set. She finally flopped back down beside Father Godwin, her face streaked with dust and sweat, and her mind as bright and clear as the stars above them. 

“Was I really good?” She was eager despite herself; desperate despite herself. No one had ever watched her other than Jana. No one with any skill with a blade had ever had an opinion, except for two dead men in the woods.

Father Godwin took the sword back, and didn’t answer right away. The wooden blade was as notched with time and use as the old, battered steel hidden in Theresa’s cart, hitched to the post beside them.

“Better than most lads,” Father Godwin finally said. His voice wasn’t mocking. “But you wouldn’t match up to a man who kills for his coin.”

Jindra’s stomach dropped. “Why not?”

“You’re not fast enough. You strike without thinking, or after thinking too much.”

He hadn’t said that she couldn’t kill because she wasn’t a man. “There’s other ways that men can die,” Jindra snapped, cursing her own temper. She shouldn’t bare the open rot of her heart.

Father Godwin sighed, as if he’d been expecting her to say so. “I’m aware of that.” He set the sword aside. “You’ve been planning this for a long while, haven’t you?”

Jindra said nothing.

Father Godwin settled back on his hands. “I can tell that a great wrong has been done to you, and I won’t tell you not to feel the weight of it.”

Jindra had never seen a priest so at ease, drunken or not. It made her want to speak. It made it easy to. Maybe Father Godwin wouldn't remember, come morning. “But you think I shouldn’t do this. Even if I’m able. Even if no one else will.”

“Date locum irae scriptum est enim mihi vindictam ego retribuam dicit Dominus,” Father Godwin said. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. God is the final judge, my child, and it’s not for us to seek revenge to our own ruin.”

Jindra pulled her knees up to her chest, and laughed in the same quiet, tired way she used to, before Jana gave her back her smiles. “Forgive me, Father, but I don’t think God cares about me. Maybe God takes vengeance for lords and kings. I have to take mine for myself.”

Father Godwin didn’t scold her for her blasphemy. “Perhaps you do.” When Jindra sat up in surprise, she found his eyes sharpening, but looking beyond her, up into the starry sky, as if some thoughtful answer eluded him. “Perhaps you must be the hand that God reaches out to do His work. There have been many such cases in a violent world. What else, after all, is a saint?”

Jindra thought of Jana, and how Jindra herself might be the hand of her violence; that the two of them sought death today, but only one would be made unclean. 

“I understand,” Jindra said, not thinking of God at all. And then, slowly and more timidly than she’d have liked to admit, she added, “I do think it’s justice. But there’s something in me that wants it so badly…it’s like I’m hungry, all the time.”

Father Godwin’s eyes came back from the stars, and they were not unkind. “Is this a confession?”

Jindra swallowed. She hadn't prayed to God nor saint since Skalitz. “Could it be?”

“The sanctity of the rite can be held in any place, and in any church.” Father Godwin indicated upwards. “Even this one.”

This was another thing Jindra would never have expected any priest to say. She felt the press of Jana’s knife. “Can I confess to a sin that I haven’t committed yet? Or if…if I don’t think that it’s a sin? Or if I don’t care?” 

Father Godwin held her gaze, as Anezka had. Then he looked back at the doorway of the presbytery. Anezka’s voice drifted out into the night as she spoke to Theresa, muffled and distant, and Father Godwin swayed towards the sound. “That, at least,” he said quietly, “is something I understand well.”

Then he shrugged, his intensity fading away. “On the other hand, that might be the ale’s fine work.”

Jindra snorted. It served her right for being caught up in the words of a drunk, priest or no. But she found that she couldn’t condemn him as viciously as she had before. After all, for all his letchery and drunkenness, he was the first man who had not stood in her way.

Then, before Jindra could stand to go, Father Godwin leaned over and pressed his thumb to her forehead, and made the sign of the cross. “Ego te absolvo,” he said. In that moment, his eyes and his voice were clear of drink. “And God be with you.”

The next day, Anezka stuffed Jindra and Theresa full of more bread and honey, and ladled up bowls of a thick pottage of oats and greens. All the while, Father Godwin snored loudly from a heap on the floor, while Anezka stepped over and around him with a mixture of muffled curses and fond grumbles. 

Afterwards, Anezka watched as Theresa stroked the brown nag’s nose, while Jindra saddled Pebbles, Mutt dancing around her legs. The nag and the cart would stay in Uzhitz, unassuming and unnoticed, while Jindra traveled on. Jindra took her poisons from the cart, tucking the vials carefully into the satchel on her belt, before reaching for the battered sword. 

Her hand brushed the hilt beneath the blanket. She couldn’t match a killer’s blade blow for blow. Father Godwin had said so, and Jindra knew he was right. Her soldier’s heart bellowed, even as her hunter’s heart sighed, and Jindra reminded herself of all the ways that men could die. She drew her hand back, and left the sword where it lay hidden.

Theresa looked at her evenly, but said nothing.

“Travel west from here, further into the forest,” Anezka instructed. “You’ll find Gertrude soon enough. She’s a skittish little thing, but tell her Anezka sent you.”

Jindra nodded, fixing the directions in her mind. She remembered Jana’s map, and thought of herself as a little dot upon it, traveling from one point to the next. Jana would say something fine about this, too: that Jindra was traveling to Pribyslavtiz, but she was also walking in a line that would carry her straight to Skalitz if she kept going. 

You are walking your path home, Jindra! Jana would say, as bright and bursting as any tavern storyteller. A cycle in its entirety!

“I suppose if you’re not back by tomorrow, you’ll have died,” Anezka said, rather glum about it. “Just remember that if you pretend to be a whore, they’ll expect you to act like one.”

Jindra would rather die. But she decided not to mention that. “I remember.”

Anezka nodded at her, as if she had passed some final test. “My man would tell you to go in peace,” she said, before turning away. “I’ll tell you to go in war.”

When Anezka was out of sight, Theresa stepped up to Pebbles, and stroked her neck. “Will she let me ride with you?”

“You don’t have to come with me,” Jindra insisted, feeling more pangs of guilt. “I’m sure Anezka would let you stay until I came back.”

“If you come back at all.” Theresa shook her head. “No. I’ll see this through with you.”

The sun was high when they reached Gertrude’s hut. Her small camp was unassuming, much like the herbalist herself, crouched over a steaming pot. But the scent of herbs and flowers, of brews familiar and fair, drifted on the smoke from her fire. When Jindra and Theresa jumped down from Pebbles, Gertrude smiled as if she were not at all surprised to see them. 

“More blood of Skalitz,” she said. 

Jindra and Theresa froze in unison. “How did you know we’re from Skalitz?” Theresa asked, just as Jindra blurted, at the same moment, “More?”

The old woman hummed in reply. A chill went through Jindra, and she did her best to push it aside, and focus on the hunt. “Anezka sent us,” she said. “She said you could help.”

“And what help do you need? Curse, or cure?”

Both, Jindra thought. “I need to know where the women you treat have been coming from.”

Gertrude’s face crumbled, and she immediately curled in on herself. “Not me!” she gasped, with sudden fear. “You’ve heard wrong! I don’t know of any girls or any whispers in the woods.”

It was Theresa who held her hands out, as if to calm a startled horse. “Anezka said you shouldn’t be afraid,” she said, soothing. 

The old woman wrung her hands. “Well,” she said, uncertainly. “If Anezka sent you.”

Jindra nodded, trying to keep her eagerness from tumbling out of control. “No one will know you’ve told us,” she promised. She meant it, and tried to hold that promise in her voice. “Please. I have to find where they’re going.”

Gertrude hesitated a moment longer. “What do you want with such a place?”

Jindra was too close now to waste time on riddles or pretty words. Without her permission, her soothing voice became a snarl. “I’m going to kill the man who hired them.”

Gertrude gaped at her, and her eyes flashed with more fear, and Jindra nearly panicked, thinking she had pushed too far. But then Gertrude swallowed, and nodded.

“That’s good,” she said. She sat down on a low bench, and gestured for Jindra and Theresa to join her. Haltingly, still frightened, she told them, “There’s a camp, where girls have been hired, in Pribyslavitz. They’ve come to me bruised in the night and I’ve helped. I’ve even brewed some of my tansy, when they’ve asked. They say it’s a rough bunch, and no one wants to get a child off of that sort.”

Jindra’s heartbeat was a war drum. “What more have you gathered?”

“They say it’s split in half, between heathens and paying men.” Gertrude bit her lip, and added, “You could go the main way. The old paths to the village aren’t fully overgrown. But there’s men all along that road, the girls say. Sometimes the girls come and go by way of the river. Sometimes the trees are kinder, if they don’t want to be spotted leaving or going.”

Jindra nodded, nearly dazed. The plan was forming in her mind, like a trail on a map drawn in front of her and falling into place. “Thank you.”

“You mean it,” Gertrude gasped. “You really mean to do it.” She stood abruptly, and began to wring her hand again. There was a nervous smile on her face, fluttering and giddy, as if she was unsure if she were allowed. “That’s – that’s good. As I said. Suppose if there’s any comings and goings tonight, I’ll just sleep through them. Suppose I’ll make myself scarce.”

Beneath the growing bloodlust, Jindra felt herself growing fond of this old woman. She had belladonna hanging in drying bundles beside chamomile, to heal and harm together. Ma would have liked her, and would have liked Anezka, too. “Thank you,” Jindra said again, fervent.

Gertrude smiled again, less shakily, and then retreated quickly to her hut, like a spooked hare.

Jindra wasted no time. She walked to Pebbles and removed the packs that hung from her saddle. There were bundles of food and the like, brought by Theresa, but Jindra knew that she would have no use for them. She touched the poison, safe inside her satchel, and Jana’s knife, on her belt, as if they were a saint’s relics that could grant her luck. 

“It won’t bring her back.” 

Jindra turned. Theresa scratched behind Mutt’s ears, looking away from Jindra pointedly. “Whatever you do,” she continued quietly, “it won’t bring Bianca back.”

Theresa had said as much before, when she and Jindra had sat at the riverbank after a race. It was the last time Jindra had felt seen by her friend in full, and the first time she had felt the gulf between them.

“I know that,” Jindra said. 

Theresa still wouldn’t look at her. “Even if it did, she wouldn’t want this. She’s not your – she wouldn’t want to be your reason.”

Jindra felt like her chest was about to cleave in two. “She’s dead, Tess. She won’t want anything ever again.” Bianca had hunted with Theresa and laughed with her in the sunlight. There were so many secrets that Jindra would never know.

Theresa’s voice grew bitter. “So it’s violence for the sake of it?”

A part of Jindra that was still young, and still selfish, railed. What of her sake? What of her?

But Jindra also thought of every woman raped and every child slain, and her father’s sword coated in blood, and how many men died every day; and herself, within in the chaos, making the killings her own. “Of course it’s violence for the sake of it,” she snapped, frustrated. “What else is there?”

Theresa met Jindra’s eyes, and she looked as sad and frustrated as Jindra felt. “I told her she was sending you to your death,” she murmured, as if to herself. “And I’m helping her.”

Jindra didn’t understand her, and didn’t care to try. “Please wait here until I come back. Be safe.”

Theresa’s face twisted with pain for a moment, before she looked back at Mutt, who whimpered at her knee. “I’ll be here. And I’ll pray for you.”

Jindra should have said something more. She should have embraced Theresa, or thanked her, or prayed with her, or begged her; but she couldn’t find any words, or any way through.

Jindra traveled through the trees atop Pebbles, her heart hammering. It was impossible not to think of the day in the woods when she’d made her first kill, when Jana’s scream had cut her to the bone. Pebbles was as nervous as she’d been then, but just as steady, and picked her way through the heavy wood. 

Jindra spotted flowers in the undergrowth as she went. Poppy. Chamomile. Henbane. They waved at her and brushed against Pebbles’s legs, calling a greeting, or calling her back.

Jindra knew when she grew close, because Pebbles stopped walking. Whether she had caught a scent or sound, she halted mid-stride, and refused to go further. 

Jindra stroked her neck. “I know, girl,” she said. “You’re right. This last bit is just for me.”

She slid off of Pebbles, and quickly looped the reins around a tree. She thought briefly of letting Pebbles roam, and not tying her in place in a wood filled with bandits, in case Jindra didn’t –

Jindra refused to think of it, and tied off the reins stubbornly. After one last pat, reassuring herself as well as Pebbles, Jindra traveled further into the woods.

She smelled smoke first, and it was easy to follow.

It was like the first hunt, when Jana had led Jindra through the moonlight to find a glen of game. There was sunlight in these woods, but there were trees to conceal, and Jindra’s footsteps were soft and quick. If she were here now, Jana would speak of swift-footed Diana, in her delighted whisper, and Jindra would have to cover her mouth and tell her to hush. 

Jana’s knife remained a steady weight on her belt. 

The village emerged from the trees like a carcass, picked clean to the bone. Jindra crept as close as she dared, hidden in the undergrowth, and settled down to watch, and to line up the shot of her arrow.

The camp was split in half, just as Gertrude had said, with a ruined church looming above. On one side were strange tents and unfamiliar languages, and on the other were loud, raucous voices and a bandit’s stench. Jindra found that her hatred was split in half, to, and she forced her thoughts away from the looming mass of men on horses who fell upon Skalitz like a flood, and who cut her mother’s body into a hundred pieces. She would go mad if she thought beyond this first night, and this first kill. She would go mad. 

Jindra forced herself to think of the men like she would a herd. There were more of them than she would have thought. She watched for hours, shifting to new hiding places to find different angles, as she did her best to memorize every movement of the guards at the gates, every gap in the trees and the ruined walls that a body might squeeze through, and every person she could see. 

There were women here. They drifted between the two camps, but seemed mostly confined to the bandit side. There were around ten of them, and Jindra wouldn’t have known them for their work just to look at them. From here, they looked like any other women in any other village.

Jindra watched until the sun dipped low, and it was the worse torture she could imagine. She had grown up indulged by her parents, and she had never quite learned patience. She kept herself sane by counting each man’s step to the rhythm of her mother’s song, and matching each woman to a flower. Dandelion. Eyebright. Comfrey.

When it finally began to grow dark, Jindra stood, pulled up one corner of her kirtle’s skirt, and hooked the hem into her belt, hiding Jana’s knife from view. She hoped it might make her look a bit more like she belonged, among women who wanted to be appealing; then she made for an unguarded gap in the Cuman side of the camp, behind the tents and untouched by torchlight. This would be her biggest risk. If she could sneak inside, unseen by any of the men, she might go unnoticed. But she would have to convince the women that she was one of their own.

The first part of her plan went well enough. The camp smelled of hard living, with campfires scattered throughout, but the men themselves seemed to be gathered elsewhere. Jindra concealed herself behind tents and outside of firelight, and drew no one’s eye until she was forced to walk openly through the gap between camps. She barreled into it before she could second guess her fear, and the only response she had was from one guard, speaking to the other from his post.

“A sweet arse on that one.”

Jindra’s cheeks grew hot, with both outrage and anger. But she was also bitterly satisfied to know she had been right; these men wouldn’t look twice at a girl’s face.

The bandit camp was larger, and smelled even worse. There were more men here, and Jindra’s skin prickled with danger, even as she did her best to look as if she belonged there.

A woman’s voice rang out unexpectedly. “Another one, eh?”

Jindra jumped. One of the women, with reddish-brown hair and freckled skin, was watching Jindra from the mouth of the nearest tent with an amused half-smile. Jindra had seen her as she’d spied, and had given her henbane as her flower.

Jindra immediately felt more out of place than she had with Klara. She tried not to show it. “Aye. I’m…new.”

Henbane snorted. “I can tell.” She glanced behind her before ushering Jindra closer, and as Jindra joined her, she thought she spied a sleeping body inside the tent. “I don’t know you from Ledetchko.”

“I’m from Rattay.”

“You’re the first. Lucky you.” Henbane looked Jindra’s age, but had the same sort of eyes as Anezka: old before their time. “Whatever you’ve heard, it’s no easy job here. They’ve coin enough, though.” Henbane looked Jindra up and down, and shrugged. “You’re pretty. You ought to set your eyes on one of the big dumb ones. It’s over fast and then the others won’t bother you.”

Jindra remembered the merry and careless face of Klara, and tried to shape her expression. “Am I pretty enough to snare the lead man?”

Henbane raised her eyebrows. “You mean Runt? He’s not for the likes of you.”

“Try me.”

“Trust me.” Henbane’s lip curled. “I think he prefers the girls he doesn’t pay for. It’s hard to turn his head, and even the men are scared of him. If he’s in a foul mood he’d rather crack your skull open.”

There was some cry of commotion near the ruined church. Henbane nodded her head that way. “As he is now, I reckon.”

Both bandit filth and heathen horde were gathering there, and even a few of the women were watching through a gap in the crumbling rock wall. Jindra stepped carefully to join them, as if she had been there all along, and looked through.

There were raised voices, in Czech and otherwise, as a circle of men gathered around a kneeling figure. As Jindra watched, the tallest man took up his sword, dragged the kneeling man to his feet, and stabbed him through the stomach. Then his voice rang out like a thunderclap: angry, deep, and pulled directly from Jindra’s nightmares and memories.

“No more unnecessary fighting. We are one camp. One army! So fucking remember that!”

The world flashed red and black as Jindra’s legs nearly buckled. Runt, her man, her prey, her monster, stood towering over the others in his black armor, his face twisted in fury. Everyone cringed back – the men at his side, the crowd who watched, the women next to Jindra – except for Jindra herself; she pressed closer, her face cutting painfully into the stone, her breath fast, her eyes blown wide with panic, and rage, and anguished, savage need.

Kill him! Jana would tell her. Kill him now! Kill him!

Runt turned and vanished inside the church. Color returned to the world, and brought Jindra’s sanity with it. She was able to push herself back from the wall, shaking all over, and stumbled back with the rest of the women, who were murmuring nervously to each other. They could have been speaking Greek, for all Jindra knew. 

Henbane appeared again as Jindra staggered back to the circle of tents, and looked amused at Jindra’s expression. She must have thought it was fear alone. “Like I said. Try for another man.”

Jindra took a long breath in and let it settle, just as Jana did before she shot her arrows. “I want him.”

Henbane frowned at her, as if she had not expected that. Then she pointed to the left, towards the largest tent within the circle. “That’s his tent, sure enough. It’ll be your head, I say.”

Men began to trickle back, now that the display at the church was over. Jindra would have to make herself scarce before one of them wanted her attention. But once they were back, how would she reach the tent? And more importantly, how would she escape once the killing was done?

She did not think on how she would kill. That didn't matter. All she knew was that she would. 

Jindra began to make note of where she could hide; it wouldn’t be too hard, at least at first, as long as she stayed away from the main fire, where a large pot of stew sat boiling.

Jindra stared at the pot. Then she turned back to Henbane. “There’s been talk in Rattay,” Jindra said. “Sir Hanush and Sir Radzig of Skalitz are gathering men for a raid. I don’t know how long you have, but you should make yourself scarce before then.”

Henbane blinked at her. “If you say so,” she replied, slowly. “But how – ”

“And,” Jindra added, “you shouldn’t eat the stew.”

Henbane’s brows flew up, but Jindra hurried away before she could say a word.

Jindra didn’t have time to hesitate. There was one chance, and she took it: when the men were returning, catching the attention of the women and men who remained; when even the men sitting and tending the pot jumped up to ask for details; when no one was looking at one plain girl. In that instant, Jindra stepped between the tents, took the vials of poison from her bag, and poured the contents into the pot. 

Ma’s recipe, she thought, almost giggling. It shouldn't have been funny. She felt lightheaded, and as she watched the swirling mess of the stewpot, she felt her placid expression begin to twist into a madwoman’s. 

Jindra was back in the shadows, hidden, before anyone looked back. It helped that no one was looking for her; no one but Henbane had paid her any mind. She crouched, wiped her sweaty palms on her skirts, and waited. The men ladled bowls for themselves as the women gathered around them, touching their arms or brushing their chests. A few of the men tugged women into their laps, and the women laughed, in forced, practiced tones. 

Jindra watched as the men ate, and noted, gratefully, that none of the women seemed to be eating. It seemed that Henbane had heeded her. Jindra wasn’t sure how powerful the tonic would be, when poured into a stew and cut between so many men, but she wouldn't have tried it herself to find out.

She waited, and waited, and waited. 

Then Runt appeared. Jindra almost jumped up on pure instinct, her muscles tensing, her nails cutting deeply into her palms. She breathed through the wave of nausea, and watched as he ladled a bowl for himself and took a bite. Her heart began pounding so hard that she was sure Runt could hear it, and that all the men would turn at any second and look right at her, hidden between canvas and crates. 

Runt took a second bite, seemed to reconsider, and spat it on the ground. Jindra’s heart beat even faster, but he looked more annoyed than suspicious; and then he stood, scowling, and ducked into his tent.

Jindra stared at the closed flap, trembling with tension, her clenching her jaw until it throbbed with pain. She couldn’t get enough air in, and her chest rose and fell so rapidly that it was almost frightening; if she’d forced her jaw open, she would have started panting like a feral dog. 

He was so close. He was baiting her, as if he was the whore and she the man. She wanted to kill him so badly that the world was losing its color again, trapping her inside her memories and her dreams. She was a kept beast, gone feral. She would have barged in, given the game away, and died like a dog, if Jana hadn’t stayed her hand. 

Jana’s dagger saved her. As she crouched, it pressed against her thigh, hard and insistent. It reminded Jindra of how Jana spent her whole life waiting. Even now, her lady was waiting for Jindra to bring their kill home. Jindra could also wait. That thought was enough, and Jindra’s mind changed back to a hunter’s. She had found her prey. She just had to line up her shot, and be patient. 

The more stew the men ate, the more drowsy they became. The tiredness would come before the pain did. Ma had taught Jindra the way to brew a tonic that gave no pain at all, and would feel like drifting peacefully to sleep, but Jindra hadn’t brewed it that way. She’d been too angry. She wanted pain, and wanted to lap it up like spring water.

Eventually, the men’s speech started slurring. It could be blamed on drink at first, and a few of the women slid off their laps with quiet giggles. It wouldn’t be long before their senses left them entirely. By then, they wouldn’t be in any position to stop her.

Jindra stood up, and stepped lightly around the edge of the fire, no more than a shadow to men with hazy minds. If the women noticed her, none of them stopped her. So at last, at last, she crept into the tent, and let the heavy canvas flap fall closed behind her.

The tent was cramped inside, with hardly enough room for two men to stand. The baseness surprised her, even through the growing haze of the hunt; it was dirty with little comfort, and smelled of sour sweat and piss. As her eyes adjusted, Jindra spied a massive club, dented and rough, leaning against a trunk; next to it was a longsword, with a blade that had seen too many battles and a hilt made for a common man’s hands.

It wasn’t her sword.

Jindra stared at the sword that was not hers for a very long time, before she turned to the pile of flesh in the corner, lying upon a bedroll.

Runt slept. It was so arrogant, so stupid of him, to be out in the open. Jana’s knife sang to her, and Jindra drew it from her belt. The little blade gleamed in the light like the silver pulled from the doomed mines of Skalitz, and the edge was sharp. It would be easy to kill him. It could be over in a moment, just like Jana had said: when a shot wasn’t clean, she needed to slit the throat for the kill.

But then he wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t know it was Jindra. He would die abed, at peace, unafraid, without answering for his crime. 

And the sword wasn’t there. It wasn’t there. She couldn’t leave without her honor and without her sword.

Jindra swallowed her bile and her hunger, shoving them back into the black pit of her hatred, and thought of a stag, an arrow, and a knife. She knelt down, swung her leg over Runt’s lap, and straddled him, as she had done to the dead man in the woods.

Runt groaned at the weight, and opened his eyes. They were drowsy from the poison, but one swallow was not enough to dull his senses, and nowhere near enough to kill. He took in the sight of her, and smirked.

“Working hard for your coin, aren’t you?” he said. His smirk became a sneer. “You’d better get out before I knock those pretty teeth from your head."

Jindra’s voice rang hollowly, like a broken church bell. “You didn’t bother to pay me before.” Jana’s knife flashed as Jindra pressed the blade, hard, into the flesh of Runt’s thick neck.

Runt’s face twisted. “What the fuck – ”

“You don’t remember me? I remember you, though.” Jindra pressed her blade even harder, until the edge cut in and blood welled out. “Where’s my fucking sword?”

Runt’s beady eyes darted over her face. Then, he let out a single laugh; worse than her dreams, because the sour breath was hot, and too close. “Wait. I do remember you. You and your slick, bloody cunt.”

Jindra sucked in her breath through her teeth. 

“So you’re a whore now?” Runt’s voice was gleefully cruel, and lazy. “Can’t say I thought you were that good.”

Jindra couldn’t tell if he remembered her, or if it was a lie and a trick; but he wasn't afraid. He hadn’t attempted to struggle, or even make a grab for the knife. He clearly saw her as no threat at all. Frustration and urgent anger was overtaking her instincts, and the blade trembled.

“What did you do with my sword?” Jindra hissed.

She wanted him dead more than ever. She needed him dead. He had to die.

Runt sneered up at her. The blade cut deeper, and a steady river of blood ran in a stream down his neck. “Made a mistake coming here, girl,” he said, nearly purring. “Give that knife to me, now.”

Jindra’s clear-eyed, sharp huntress mind was faltering – it was snapping apart like dry twigs, like kindling, and something was – was happening – her thoughts were piecemeal and her hands were shaking – 

In her dream her father’s sword slips from her hands, covered in her own blood, and she needs – needs –

“I want it back.” Her voice cracked, and Runt laughed again – he thought it was fear, like Henbane had. “I want my fucking sword back, you bastard.”

There were sounds outside; men were moaning, their bodies toppling over. Runt’s eyes widened, and his cruel smile vanished. “You – ”

“I want it back!” Jindra screamed, and stabbed Runt in the base of his throat.

Everything went red. 

A first connected with Jindra’s face, and then her stomach, and someone roared and thrashed, and the tent trembled as Jindra was yanked by her hair, as he tried to throw her off like a ragdoll. “Fucking bitch – !” 

But Jindra clenched with her thighs and held on and rode him and stabbed again, catching his cheek. Blood spilled out into the night, red on red, blood on blood. She stabbed again, in the chest – and he made a new sound, a punched out loss of air – 

“Give it back!”  

She stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. Jana’s knife appeared and reappeared, clutched in her hand, the gleaming blade vanishing into giving flesh, into wetness, into the embrace of his body, yeilding, tearing, forced, the meat screaming with high ravaged shrieks, revealing teeth, bone, and Jindra couldn’t stop – the beast was feasting, and her body was alive, she was alive, but it wasn't like the man in the woods at all –

The maiden bloodletting! He laughs and his sword and his cock and his sword and his cock stabs into her over and over –

And for the first time since he raped the girl in Skalitz, Jindra felt – she felt –

Jana is there and Jindra avenges the crime done to both of them – Jindra is Jana’s, in her service, in her care, and so it is Jana's honor and Jana's body that is offended, and Jindra avenges her – they are one body, one honor – and no one dishonors her lady and lives no one –

Jindra was on fire, her body was throbbing, her thighs were burning, as he writhed and choked, wet, wet, as she galloped bareback again with strong horseflesh beneath her, as his hands flew out, as she forced her way inside of him and thrusted and pierced, as his face and his neck and his chest grew scarlet and bloomed open like poppies, as sweat poured off of her –

Jana look at me look at me – the blood and the puss and the shards of brain and bone and a monster’s child and a womb ripped open and her mother’s flowers are pouring out of her and out of him and they are one body – her and Jana and the monster all three together – 

He gurgled and jolted and pushed up into her blade and her roar of triumph and rage could have been a woman's cry of – of –

Her knife plunged in and out until the blood frothed up and roiled like a man coming inside a woman's cunt, again, and again, and again, and again, and again – !

In her dream her father’s sword tumbles into darkness and she wants it back! She wants it back!

Jindra awoke.

She was braced on the body beneath her, the whole of her weight held on her shaking arms. Her thighs ached. Her head was pounding, and her vision slipped in and out of focus, until the tent and the small hot world inside shifted and warped.

She stared blankly down at the quivering flesh. It wasn’t…it was hard to see. It twisted and shifted, the flowering open cunt of it opening and closing. It was a man’s, once. It was his. And it was her own body, pinned and dead, and it Bianca’s, and it was Jana’s, bloodied, mauled like carrion, stripped raw and ravaged; and Jindra was the rapist and ravager, standing above; then Jindra was herself again and then Jindra was Jana, above a mess of flesh that wasn't a body any longer – 

She’d cut her hand on the blade. As she pushed herself up, her blood dripped down the edge of the knife, dribbling steadily into the open trench of the body, mingling with the gore and mixing like seed, like rain on fertile soil.

“Oh,” Jindra gasped.

She heard Ma’s voice. It came quietly, out of the blackness and redness, out of a world that had been on fire and was now drowning, a world without enough air to breathe.

Stand up, my girl. Jindra felt a tender touch against her cheek, as if she had been kissed. And run.

Jindra stumbled out of the tent, dazed, and took off at a blind sprint. It was stupid, unforgivably stupid, but no one stopped her as she flew past the dying campfires. All of the women had vanished, but there were men moaning, some lying motionless on the ground

Jindra had – she'd done that – had she – ?

Even the guards were gone from their posts, kneeling and moaning in the dark, as she bolted past into the waiting darkness. There might have been a cry of alarm from the Cuman camp, but Jindra hardly heard, the wind and world roaring.

She ran as she hadn’t run since her childhood footraces, when she hadn’t known exhaustion or fear. She felt nothing now but pure energy, pure feeling, urging her on and on, tearing through the trees like a doe herself. She didn’t know where she ran except forward, and she ran until her lungs seized with pain and her legs burned, until she tumbled with every step and her vision started going white.

Finally, Jindra staggered against a tree, doubled over, and retched. Violence, fear, satisfaction, horror, and twisted lust poured out of her as she heaved, emptying her body of filth. The men – moaning and writhing, dying and dead – were worse somehow than the twisted bloodied stump that Runt’s face had become, the bare core of him opened up like the man in the woods –

The others were just like him. They had to be. If they weren’t, Jindra was damned and doomed even more than she already was.

And she still didn’t have the sword. She still –

Jindra shook her head at no one, and heaved again. She would get the sword back. Then this darkness would finally leave her.

And he was dead. He was dead. Jindra’s body and her soul were rotting, but he was dead. He would not come in the night and rape another girl, he wouldn’t come in her room or jump from the shadows, and he wouldn’t touch Jana, because he was dead. Jindra was free of him because he was dead.

Even through her gasping heaves and the swirling storm of doubt, Jindra let out a single, wrenching sob. 

A soft, plush snout nudged Jindra’s cheek, and Jindra raised her hanging head. She’d run right to the tree where she’d left Pebbles, and her beautiful horse looked calmly at her, with her big eyes gleaming like twin moons. 

Jindra hardly had time to let out another sob before a wet tongue lapped at her ankle, her arm, and her face. It was Mutt, tail wagging and his muzzle stained red, somehow finding his way through the dark woods just to find her.

Jindra looked between them. She tried to say: “You’ve both come to fetch me?” But her mouth wouldn’t make the shape, or the sound, and all she could do was stare in silence. Maybe Pebbles and Mutt understood anyway, in the wordless language of beasts.

Jindra untied Pebbles from the tree and climbed onto her back, and Pebbles was off. Jindra clung her mane, the reins forgotten, as if she were riding bareback again, as Pebbles flew through the trees as swift as the wind. There had never been such a horse; even in the darkness she never tripped or stumbled, as if her hooves hardly touched the ground. Mutt ran alongside her, keeping pace, a swift streak in the night. 

Mutt guided them back to Gertrude’s hut. The old herbalist was nowhere to be seen, but Theresa was a dark shape against the light of dying embers. As Jindra slid off of Pebbles, Theresa turned, and jumped up with a muffled sound of horror. Jindra looked down at her body for the first time, and realized that she was covered in gore from chest to ankle, in long stinking streaks, growing sticky and tacky.

“It isn’t mine,” Jindra rasped. Her voice came out wrong, dripping from her mouth like pitch. “The blood. It’s not mine.”

Theresa didn’t flinch away, and didn't hesitate. She helped Jindra strip out of her clothing, and gave her a cloth to clean her face and hands. Theresa handed her fresh clothes that Jindra recognized from the forgotten bundles, that she hadn’t known had been meant for her. When Jindra was dressed, Theresa took out a wineskin and poured the wine over the gash on Jindra’s hand, and the pain felt far away, bound to someone else’s body. 

When Jindra was as clean as she could be, she and Theresa stared at the heap of bloody clothing. “You'll have to burn them,” Theresa said. It was the first time she’d spoken, and she was very quiet. 

Jindra didn't mind that. The clothes were the last echo of the girl from Skalitz, shed like a viper's dry skin. She thought of how she’d discarded Jana’s gown in the river, when it had been stained with Cuman blood. Jana would say something about fire and water, and two different manners of death. 

Jindra knelt, and pulled her discarded shift from the pile. It was bloody too, in unexpected places; there were gashes of red where her thighs had been straddling, and it looked like a virgin’s bleeding. Jindra wrapped Jana’s knife in the stained shift, and held it close, closing her eyes.

Then she stood. “We need to go back.” She spoke slowly, like an animal learning the speech of men. “Not just to Uzhitz. Back to – to Rattay.”

It was a dangerous journey, and a long one, to try and take overnight. But Theresa didn’t argue, and only nodded. There was no terror on her face, no horror, no anguish. She was steady, fearless in the face of blood, and so brave.

But she wasn't happy. Even Jindra, in her fog, could see that. Theresa took no pleasure and no satisfaction in what Jindra had done. 

Jindra should have been more than just satisfied with Theresa’s friendship; she should have been breathless with gratitude. It was more than she could ever hope to deserve. And still, Jinda wanted Jana. She thought of Jana’s eyes: purple in firelight, colorless in the dark, green and gold in daylight, and always blue of a summer sky; full of too many feelings, sometimes derision and sometimes annoyance, sometimes impatience, and sometimes hateful spite, but never the incomprehension of Theresa.

Jana would understand. Jana would know this terrible fury, and feel the need to act, to force change upon the world and leave the same mark upon it that was left upon Jindra’s own rotten, damned soul, oozing from her like puss. Jana would know why the blood would make her clean, if anything could. 

But Jana wasn’t there, so Jindra buried everything. She buried her rage, her triumph, her shivering, desperate joy, her bile and her horror, and even her exhaustion. It would come later. When she was home, when she was safe, she would feel it then. It would be real then. 

For now, she helped Theresa in silence, strapping what bags remained onto Pebbles. “I’m sorry.” Jindra wished she could make her voice softer. “You must regret this.”

“I don’t. I could never regret you.” Theresa paused with her hand on the saddle. “There was a dance in the village the night before…before the end. Do you remember? You danced with Matthew once, and then spent the rest of the night teasing him with Bianca. I watched you.” She swallowed. “I could have been happy my whole life, running after the two of you, and watching you dance.” 

Jindra’s heart cracked, like a fractured bone. 

Theresa took a long breath, and closed her eyes. “You must – never ask me to do this again. Please.”

“I promise,” Jindra swore, without hesitation. And then, without knowing why, she added, hushed and fervent, “I would have been happy dancing for you.”

Theresa’s eyes opened, and shone in the dark like spots of lantern light.

Jindra’s throat grew tight. “But we – ”

“We’re different now,” Theresa agreed. She almost smiled. Jindra could see the beginnings of that smile as only she ever could, on a face mapped by time and affection. Bianca’s eyes would crinkle before she smiled; Jana’s eyebrows turned in. Theresa’s mouth always softened. 

But the smile never came. Bianca stood in the gulf between them, and would always be dead. “Let’s go home,” Theresa said, the longing for Skalitz clear in her voice.

The beast that fed on blood inside Jindra gave another growl of triumph, and her exhaustion was held at bay. “Home,” Jindra agreed, longing for a person.

Jana woke with a gasp from her dream: the dream of the shapeless quarry in the woods, hidden behind mist and trees, hunting her just as she hunted it, as her lips parted and as her breath came faster, as she rounded a clearing, desperate to find it and desperate to be found.

But though the forest had vanished, and Jana was now back in her bed, the hunted feeling remained. Her heart galloped outside of her chest and her eyes stared wide and unseeing, as if the presence of some greater spirit were pressing upon her and sweeping her up. She shook and trembled with a force much stronger than fear. 

Something was in this room with her. Something was in the room.

Jana sat up, her legs tangled in her blankets.

Climbing through the window, whole and alive, was Jindra. Jindra’s eyes met Jana’s, and even from across the room, they looked wild. They were wild like a beast of the forest was wild; untamed and unsteady, locking onto Jana as if she were the only person for miles, in the whole kingdom, on all of God’s earth, and pinning Jana’s heart.

“I had to see you,” Jindra whispered. 

Jana was already up and across the room. Jindra caught her halfway as they collided with enough force to bruise, and they embraced fiercely, clutching, pressing, gasping, as they sank to the floor together, as Jindra kept whispering, “I couldn’t wait, I can't – I had to see you.”

They knelt together, knee to knee, as Jana buried her face in the curve of Jindra’s neck. Jindra smelled like the road and hard travel, and a tang that could only be blood. But beneath the sweat and tang and horses, there was the barest hint of rosemary: Jana’s own scent, clinging to Jindra even now.

Jana pulled back only far enough to see Jindra's face. Kneeling as they were, Jana and Jindra seemed to be the exact same height, held eye to eye. Jindra’s expression slowly lost its wild look, but she was trembling; and as Jindra ran a shaking hand through Jana’s hair, steadying her, Jana realized that she was trembling herself.

Jana pushed herself out of Jindra’s arms. “Show me his blood.”

Jindra lifted a bundle of cloth between them. Jana hadn’t noticed it before, when she’d been lost in the wildwood of Jindra. It was white, and darkly mottled with wine stains. Jana looked closer and realized that it was Jindra’s shift, one of Jana’s that she had gifted without thought, and the wine stains were blood, drying in brown patches.

My own shift will look like that, Jana thought, dizzy. One day, when I am married, when I am –

Jindra unwrapped the bundle, and the smell of blood filled the room. It was the blood of Jindra’s quarry, and it was the blood of Jana’s father, and the blood of every animal Jana had ever slain and left to rot in the forest. It coated the knife, Jana’s knife, held in Jindra’s open hands like an offering.

The blood looked wet, though surely it had been hours, and it should have dried. It was dark and sticky on the blade, clotting and catching on the gleaming steel and the gilded hilt. It was a saint’s miracle, like the blood flowing from the neck of Saint Cecílie, collected on cloth as she preached; kept clean and sweet and new, brought safely home for Jana to touch.

Jana’s world was dancing. Her chest filled to bursting, the wine spilling over again in her heart, too full and too much, as she gazed at the blood. She drank her fill until the she-wolf was no longer starving, gazing upon the kill they had made together, the kill that Jana had given to Jindra; their kill, their own killing.

With a wild gasp, Jana seized the knife, brought the blade to her lips, and kissed it.

Jana heard Jindra's breath catch on a sob. The taste of salt and steel was bitter and sharp, sour-tang and metal-sweet; like chewing on a flower stem expecting honey, like biting into too-ripe figs, like forest strawberries and doe-blood, lapped from the soil of her grove; like communion wine, stolen from the altar. 

The taste of her own blood was ashes to it.

Jana, dazed, pressed the knife to her own breast. The blood stuck to her hands, and stained the front of her white shift. She fell forward with a sigh, and pressed her forehead to Jindra’s, pilgrim and postulant. 

Jindra started to cry. Her heaving breaths came fast and harsh, echoing off of the stone walls like another dying animal. Jindra curled in on herself and pressed her face to Jana’s breast, beside the blade, and opened her mouth to the blood. 

A beautiful calm fell upon Jana, as quiet as a veil. The knife clattered to the ground as she wrapped her arms around Jindra’s shoulders and held fast, as Jindra shook with violent, nearly silent sobs. Her tears were wet against Jana’s breast and soaked through the linen, pouring and pouring as if they had no end, as Jana held Jindra through it all, grasping as tightly as she could, with all her greed. 

After a lifetime, Jindra stopped crying, and sagged with exhaustion. In a floating dream, Jana eased her up, and guided her to their bed. Jana knew she was not a gentle person, or a kind one, but tonight an angel clearly sat in the room with her and made her thus, for Jindra’s sake. She laid Jindra down, urged a cup of cool wine to her lips, and kissed the crown of her head.

“There, my darling.” What a voice this was! It was somehow Jana’s own, transformed by grace. “Rest now.”

“Jana,” Jindra murmured. Her long lashes were dark against her cheeks, wet and tremulous. “Janinka. Please don’t leave.”

“I couldn’t. I’d never. Now lie back and I’ll tend to you, you'll see.”

Jindra nodded softly. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to undress her, and remove the shoes from her feet. Jana combed out Jindra’s long hair, wiped her brow, and cleaned the tears and the sweat from her face. It eased her heart and made it ache all at once, wine upon wine flowing in goblets upon goblets. Finally, when Jindra was clean, and safe, and nearly asleep, Jana crawled into bed with her, and pulled her into her arms.

Jindra was broader than Jana was, with wider shoulders and wider hips. It didn’t matter. She fit against Jana perfectly, as Jana tangled their legs together, and curled around Jindra just as Jindra had once curled around her. As she tucked Jindra’s head beneath her chin, she understood what Jindra always had. She now knew what it meant to shield someone from the world.

Jana drifted back to sleep that way, with Jindra held safe in the warm embrace of their bed, surrounded by the smell of old, drying blood as lovely as roses, with the early rays of morning easing through the window, illuminating the world. Today, at least, light would not be a terror.

Jana dreamed of Eden. When God plucked the rib from Adam, He'd carved two women from it instead of one; in union, yet apart, one bone and one flesh, mirrored and searching forever and ever, until they found each other again, and could fit back together.

And the rage of the quiver-bearing Diana is said not to have been satiated, until his life was ended by many a wound.

- From From Book III of The Metamorphoses by Ovid, translated by Henry Thomas Riley.

Chapter Text

Why wasn’t it enough?

The night Jindra returned to Jana, Jindra’s nightmares returned to her. Though she slept in Jana’s arms as heavy as a stone, in a dark and dreamless sea, in the morning there were smells, as before: blood, bile, sweat, shit. It stung her nose and made her eyes water, and she awoke with a shiver of panic. But Jana’s open, drooling mouth was against her brow, and Jana’s golden hair covered Jindra’s face, and the smell of rosemary filled Jindra’s heart. Without thinking, she’d curled closer and pressed her own mouth against the hollow of Jana’s throat and held herself there, and forgot about everything else.

“We'll get your sword back, too,” Jana promised, the morning after. Sir Radzig had left on his raid early that day, and she and Jana slept through it. Jana said it so simply, as if she was sure. “Rest a while, and then we'll find it.”

But Jindra’s nightmares slowly worsened. She woke each time in horror, her head pounding. Runt may have been gone, but he had tainted more than her body and corrupted more than her honor and soul; maybe he had left some of himself behind, and it roiled inside Jindra, spoiling her from the inside out.

If she’d still prayed, she would have given thanks for Jana. Her savage joy at Jindra’s victory was infectious. “Tell me again,” she pleaded, and each time Jindra retold the story, from beginning to bleeding end, she would see herself reflected in Jana's eyes as someone heroic; as if she was strong girl, a woman free of sin, and someone who had served justice where no one else could, like one of Jana’s Roman goddesses, or a knight of old.

But when Jindra’s nightmares came, she was no knight, and her rage and her terror and the weak, twisted, lustful need grew stronger and more bitter. Worst of all, Jindra slowly realized why: she was a coward, and blind.

Runt was reduced to flesh and sinew beneath Jana’s knife, and Jindra had been selfish to assume that his death would be enough. But Tess was right. He hadn't killed Bianca. There was so much that lay beyond him.

Jindra remembered staring from the walls of Talmberg, her throat closed with grief and rage, watching her father’s killer at the head of an army of killers. She thought of a usurper’s coin and terrible ambition, and men who killed in their thousands, riding over roads made of the bones of ravaged girls.

And her father’s sword was lost in the darkness, in the hands of some lesser man, claimed in battle as surely as Jindra’s honor had been.

Jindra pushed her exhaustion away, into the black pit where she kept the memory of her own screams, and thought, Do I have to kill them all?

A few days after Radzig returned from Pribyslavitz, Hanush finally sent for Jana. It could only mean the end to her terrible and insufferable confinement, and Jana felt her bedchamber, with its slowly encroaching walls, swell in size. It was as if the whole of Pirkstein sighed with relief. 

Jindra was less appeased. “I’ll never forgive him,” she said, in her simple country way with her simple country passion. “And you shouldn’t either.” She sat behind Jana on their bed, braiding her hair. They both liked it when she did so; it calmed Jana, and Jindra’s hands grew steadier. 

“Do you not forgive animals their natures?” Jana asked. “Hanush is like a bear, with a temper to match. He’ll roar all he likes, but most of the time he’s tame enough.”

“You can’t make a bear tame,” Jindra grumbled, like a bear herself. 

Jana giggled and leaned all the way back, squinting at Jindra upside down. “I’ll be fine. I’ll hold my tongue with aplomb."

“You shouldn’t have to.” Jindra frowned, and brushed her fingers over Jana’s brow, as if smoothing back loose hair that Jana couldn't see. “Do you want me to walk you there?"

Her eager protectiveness was wonderfully transparent. “He’ll want to speak to me alone,”Jana warned, feeling both indulgent and indulged. “But yes, of course I do.”

Jana had made the walk from Pirkstein to the Upper Castle countless times, with nurses holding her hands or a guard or two flanking her back. But this time, she walked side by side with Jindra, and the world was bigger and brighter than she had ever remembered. The air was clear and the sky stretched on and on, and even little Rattay, where she had spent so much of her life, felt large and new. 

She threw out her arms and laughed, even if it was silly to do so. “I’ll die if I’m ever locked up like that again,” she declared. “Jindra, my dear, my darling friend, if I ever have to spend more than a week locked up indoors you must promise to kill me.”

“I will not.” Jindra’s voice was very dry, with a smile poorly hidden behind it. “Our gentle hands could never draw blood anyway.”

It was a perverse joke in truth, after what they had done, but Jana laughed again anyway. It was funny. And Jindra had said our hands: the blood was on Jana’s as much as Jindra’s, with the kill shared between them. That was worth its own joy. 

It wasn’t only a bigger, wider world and the relief of freedom that made the walk different. For the first time in Jana’s memory, the town was not filled with little drab people who kept their heads down. Instead, they paused in their day to wave, and to smile, and to call out excitedly.

“Jindriska! My mother sends her blessings to you!”

“God save you, Jindriska! My husband is much better.”

“Jindriska, are you well?”

Countless people, from lowly beggars to merchant’s wives, sang Jindra’s praises from the streets. Jana knew that Jindra often helped where she could, but she hadn’t realized just how many people she had helped. It was as if half of Rattay had sprung from an enchanted sleep, and raced over each other to shower Jindra in blessings, while she blushed modestly under the attention.

And it wasn't only Jindra they called to. “God save, my lady!” an old man said, jolly and pleased. “Good health to you!”

“Blessings on you, Lady Jana!” a woman said, clutching her babe to her breast and smiling. 

Jana was bewildered. But she smiled back at each person, feeling as shy as a child, and too surprised to be a properly gracious lady.

“They’ve never called out to me like that,” she admitted.

Jindra beamed. It was the widest and brightest she had smiled since her return from her glorious mission, and it lit up her face beautifully. “I told you they would love you.”

“They love you,” Jana insisted. Pride swelled in her heart, along with an unexpected bittersweetness. “I am the moon next to the sun!”

Jindra’s blush darkened. She had been having nightmares again, and it was a delight to see her red-faced and young, untroubled save for her good heart. “You’re the sun,” she mumbled, as if it were an accusation.

Jana only began to feel nervous when they reached the Upper Castle and entered its halls. She wasn’t scared of Hanush, exactly, but she also wasn’t sure what to expect. She half-expected an awful side saddle to be waiting for her, ready to ruin horseback riding forever. 

She refused to even consider the possibility of a wedding arrangement, and put it out of her mind so completely that even God wouldn’t have found it.

Men’s voices drifted from the chamber ahead. It was a funny echo of the last time Jana and Jindra had walked this hall together, still smelling of terror and Cuman blood. Jana was struck with sudden inspiration, and she took Jindra’s hand, held a finger to her lips, and pulled Jindra forward, stepping quietly, until they pressed themselves against the doorway, hidden and unobserved, and began to listen.

“ – savage,” Radzig was saying. “I’ve never seen the like.”

Hanush, his voice unmistakable, let out a great huff. “Bad blood between recruits, you think?”

“Maybe. Or it was the devil's work. He didn't have a face left.”

Jana caught Jindra’s eye, and grinned. Jindra’s returning smile was almost sheepish.

“Devil’s work or no, the rest of the filth is scattered now.” That was Bernard’s voice. “Merhojed withstood their attack well.”

“It’s no wonder,” Radzig said. “Half were dead before we got there. Poisoned, it seemed.”

“Poison!” Hanush huffed again, ever practical. “You’re sure? Could have been bad meat in the stewpot.”

Radzig paused, and his voice twisted in on itself for a moment. “I am sure.”

Hanush mumbled something about worthless coins, along with some choice words that made Jindra’s eyebrows fly up. But when it was made clear that they were not about to say anything else interesting, Jana sighed, wrinkled her nose at Jindra, knocked on the heavy door, and entered.

All four men stopped talking, and turned: Hanush, Radzig, Bernard, and even Master Tobias, who Jana hardly knew but always found funny, as nervous as the day he’d stumbled upon Rattay’s doorstep still smelling of Skalitz smoke. 

Jana curtsied, eyes downcast. “Uncle.” It felt less bitter than it had before; maybe because she and Jindra had played such a wonderful trick. “You sent for me.”

Hanush humphed. Jana sensed Jindra dipping into a curtsy of her own behind her, and could imagine the sour expression that Jindra hid so poorly. The thought cheered Jana even more, and she was sure she could endure any lecture. 

Hanush rose from his chair. “If you will excuse me, my lords,” he said, as if he were tired and put out to even say the words.

As the other men murmured and stood, Jana briefly fancied how different this meeting might be if she were a man. Surely Hanush would include her father’s son and heir in everything, urging him to listen and learn the arts of statecraft and war. 

Jana shook herself. She’d trained herself not to think that way long ago, after the day her father had died in that cold river. She ought to remember that it was all probably miserably boring.

As Bernard and Master Tobias took their leave, Hanush glanced at Jindriska, and then at Radzig, and smiled as he did when he was about to make a very bad joke. “Radzig can see Jindriska safely back to Pirkstein, I’d wager.”

Radzig, usually poised and calm, made a face at Hanush like a boy, and Hanush laughed at him. 

Jindra stiffened, and her eyes grew wide, flashing Jana’s way. Jana instinctively stepped closer to her, without knowing why; but in an obedient voice that she never used in Jana’s presence, Jindra said, “If it…pleases you, my lord.”

When Radzig looked at Jindra, his face melted into simple kindness. “It would.”

Jana remembered the first time she had seen them together, and how she had wondered at the time over Radzig’s special care. It made sense now, of course – who wouldn’t care for Jindra?

Even so, there was more to Jindra’s eyes than just embarrassment at the attention, or frustration at having to leave. But she pointedly looked away from Jana as she left the room, with Radzig beside her with his long, measured stride. 

Jana stared after them, feeling a whispered warning of concern, but Hanush and his booming voice called her back before she could follow where the warning led her.

“So!” he said, too loud even in a large room. “Have you learned your lesson?”

Jana turned back, and immediately forgot her decision to hold her tongue. To think he would speak to her like a child! “Am I a horse to be broken?”

Hanush had clearly been in a foul mood, and this ought to have made it worse. But he did not look as angry as Jana expected. His face was cloudy, to be sure, but not necessarily with anger. “We did find that horse of yours, you know. The gelding.”

Jana fought back a nervous shiver. “Oh?”

“Dead. Slain by two Cumans who then slew each other, within our own borders. That’s the danger you’ve courted.”

Jana did her best to arrange her face into something appropriately shocked, as would befit a delicate lady. Stephanie of Talmberg might have shrieked and fainted, but Jana would never be able to make that performance convincing. 

Hanush looked unimpressed. “You’ve always been shameless,” he said. “But I hoped you wouldn’t be a fool. You almost died and would’ve taken Jindriska with you in the bargain. You know that, don’t you?”

Jana remembered that failure every night when she listened to Jindra’s breathing, and would feel its weight until the day that she died. “I do.”

“And so?”

Jana weighed the options of her reply, and touched the scar on her wrist softly. “I will…endeavor to act in accordance with your example, Uncle.”

Hanush had known Jana all her life, and knew sly back talk when he heard it. But he snorted, as if he’d expected nothing less. “That’ll do.”

Jana perked up. “And can I – ”

“You can leave Pirkstein as you like,” Hanush interrupted. “Within reason. But you’ll ride again when I see fit.”

Jana, disappointed, couldn’t help being snide. “You haven’t slaughtered the horses after all?”

Hanush stared up at the ceiling, as if it could grant him patience. “I’ll never know what made you so bold. Your mother was such a meek creature.”

“Perhaps I’m my father’s daughter.”

Hanush waved a hand. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He sat back down and took a long drink of wine, and Jana ignored her father’s ghost, somewhere in the room, glaring at her with hatred that burned like ice. 

Then Hanush said, “I’ve a mind to hold another tourney. It’ll improve the morale of the men, and God knows they need it.” He eyed her over his wine. “If you can behave yourself until then, you can go.”

Jana gasped with delight. A tourney! Hanush had not held one in over a year. “I can, Uncle,” she said, convincingly enough. She could always sneak out of her window if he forbade her.  

“It would be the first time,” Hanush sighed, which wasn’t unfair. But his mouth twitched beneath his beard, and the little girl Jana had once been fought against the urge to make him smile.

All their conversations had a tendency to end this way: abrupt, and unsatisfying. Still, it could have been much worse. Jana curtsied, her mind already racing ahead to Jindra, who had not been forbidden to ride – perhaps Pebbles would let them both on her back – but before she could leave, Hanush added, “Stay out of trouble for at least a few days. I’ll have need of you.”

“Why?” Jana asked, slow and suspicious.

Hanush snorted, and poured himself more wine. “I’m going to take you hunting,” he said – mischievously, the old bear, as if he thought himself clever! “That might keep your attention.”

That very night, Jana returned to her grove for the first time. She was ashamed that it had taken her so long to build up her nerve, because it felt like coming home. The shadows were blankets, the trees were kind, and the wood of her bow was warm in her hand, as if it had been waiting for her. And best of all was Jindra, who was always brave, who would always keep Jana safe, and who had held her hand all the way down the stone steps and to the river.

“You’re going to love tourneys!” Jana declared. She was sitting on her favorite stump, which had also been waiting for her. 

Jindra was examining the old, dented sword that she had swiped from the armory. She hadn’t used it to kill her prey; Jana’s own dagger had done that. “I’ve seen real killing,” she pointed out.

“But this isn’t about killing. It’s about martial talent! It is a display of all things knightly and grand!” Jana leaned forward, gesturing excitedly. “It’s a promise of what chivalry could be and how knights might have been, that we might imagine for the smallest incandescent moment, before it’s snuffed out like a candle and we return to our dull ordinary lives!”

“Don’t strain yourself, my lady.” Jindra, the awful little cur, grinned and ducked out of the way when Jana shrieked and lunged for her. “And didn’t you say that it’s usually country boys who play at being soldiers?”

Jana huffed, and settled back on her stump. “Maybe I did say that, but a tourney can hold a multitude of meanings. I thought even peasants had imaginations.” Jindra laughed, although even that laugh and her smile couldn’t quite reach her eyes. Jana softened. “I know you want to find your father’s sword,” she added. “And we will! It's just…I would see you smile in the meantime.”

“You make me smile plenty,” Jindra said, although her ears were turning red, which was always a delight. She cleared her throat, and nodded at the bow in Jana’s hand. “Haven’t shown off for me yet.”

“I do not show off,” Jana sniffed. “I demonstrate.” She looked at her bow and hesitated, biting her lip. “This hunt of Hanush’s…do you think I’ll be permitted to shoot? Of course it’s acceptable for women to practice archery these days – but he can’t possibly know what I’ve been doing, can he? I suppose I’ll have to miss on purpose. But imagine if there’s a fine young stag! Perhaps I can just hit it in the heart and say I was aiming for the head so it looks like a miss.”

“Slow down,” Jindra soothed. “I can hear those messy thoughts from here, tumbling all over each other.”

“Messy! What fine encouragement from you!” Jana’s heart wasn’t in the scolding, and Jindra could tell. At the inquisitive look it earned her, Jana admitted, “What if it’s been too long?” Her voice was far too small. “It has been too long, what if I can’t – ”

Jindra’s face cleared with understanding. “Then I’ll remind you. Let me teach you, like you taught me.”

It ought to have been humiliating, or an insult. But Jana stood without complaint, and let Jindra adjust her stance as she faced one of her targets, hidden and unused for so long. “Elbow up,” Jindra said, her voice soft by Jana’s ear. Her hand was warm on Jana’s arm, and strong, and gentle. “Like you showed me.”

It was as easy as breathing, to remember. But it might not have been without Jindra beside her. For a moment, they were one body, with Jindra’s weight and heat pressed against Jana’s back, her hand against Jana’s hand, her mouth against her cheek. When they breathed out, they did so together, one breathing creature with one set of lungs.

“Let go,” Jindra whispered. 

The arrow hit the target with a firm twack, as if it were born to be there. Jana didn’t cry out in triumph, or even laugh. But she did smile, and leaned back against Jindra, pressing her face against the curve of her friend’s brow in wordless gratitude. The gift of archery and the freedom that came with it; who knew that such a gift could be exchanged both ways?

Jindra’s sigh caught Jana’s loose hair, fluttering across her face. “Better now?”

“Better now,” Jana agreed, safe and warm in her favorite place in the world, with her favorite person.

Afterward, they stretched out on the cool grass. Jana turned onto her side, and Jindra did the same, as they stared at each other under the dim blue glow of a summer twilight. The grove danced and sang around them in its quiet way, with the leaves whispering hymns and the river in the distance calling back a lover’s ode.

Jana whispered, “Tell me again how he died.”

Jindra leaned closer. “With your knife at his throat.”

Jana closed her eyes. “Yes.”

“And you were there with me.”

Jana pressed her thighs together. She sighed, and opened her eyes, unwilling to look away from Jindra for even a moment. “The two of us.”

Jindra’s lips parted softly as she nodded. Her breath came out of her like a newborn foal’s, and her eyes danced with the leaves and the wind.

“Tell me more,” Jana begged.

“I took the  – “

“You took the knife,” Jana finished, breathless. She had heard it so many times. “And you stabbed him until his blood ran in rivers.”

“Yes. Half a hundred times. And he gasped and bucked –”

“And you held fast.”

“Yes.”

Jana burned. She must have had a fever. “More, Jindra. Tell me more.”

Jindra’s face was flushed, looking as feverish as Jana felt. “When I cut my hand – “

“You didn't even feel it.” Jana’s breath mingled with Jindra’s, until it was the same ardent sound. “You kept going until – ”

“Until nothing was left of him, Jana. Yes.”

Dawn was fast approaching, and they couldn’t linger long. But the grove stopped time, as it was wont to do, and a century could have passed with Jana pinned in place, transported. She remembered the bloody shift, hidden now at the bottom of Jindra’s trunk.

She had a sudden, fierce desire to wear it.

In her dream, Skalitz burns. 

Jindra is miles away, and she can’t reach the flames in time, and Bianca and Jana are screaming for her. A thousand men stand in her way and they all look the same, and Jindra has to kill her way through them, until her hands shift and warp into monstrous shapes, until the men won’t stop coming, until Bianca and Jana’s screams become the death bellow of a stag –

And the men all have her mother’s face or her father’s face or Sir Radzig’s or Runt’s, and then they all have Jindra’s face, staring back at her and smiling –

Her father’s sword is nowhere, she can’t find it, so she tears throats with her teeth as someone somewhere pleads stop, stop, please let me stop!

Jindra speaks in a wolf’s voice and cries a wolf’s tears and says: I cannot stop.

“Jindra, stop.”

Jindra jerked back and thrashed, but slim, warm hands held her face and cradled her neck. The smoke and the blood vanished, and she was suddenly back in Jana’s bed, the blankets tangled around her. 

Jana was speaking to her in a low, urgent whisper. “Come back to me, damn you, wake up.”

Jindra gasped, her eyes darting wildly in the dark. Jana was awake. She had always slept through Jindra’s nightmares before, but now she was anxious and frightened, half-straddling Jindra with their thighs pressed flush together, and Jindra’s face in her hands. 

“There you are,” she gasped, as her expression melted.

Jindra was still reeling from her dream, and so consumed with shame that she could hardly speak. “I – I’m sorry.” Her voice shook uncontrollably. “I shouldn't have – I didn't mean – ”

“You’re such a stupid girl,” Jana huffed. She flopped back down, and didn't give Jindra a moment to recover; she pulled Jinda into an embrace, curling around her without a thought, and sighed, as if it comforted her to do so.

Jindra’s body shook as much as her voice. She usually pressed everything down so far, to stop Jana from waking, to keep herself from madness. “I’m – ” Her voice broke. “I can’t –”

“Then you mustn’t.” Jana pressed her lips against Jindra’s hair. “I have you. I’m right here.”

And for the second time, Jindra wept quietly in Jana’s arms, biting her lips to keep her sobs at bay. She was such a burden. She was so unclean. She was supposed to keep her violence and its awful memory far from Jana, not bring it home to her bed.

Over her shaking, choking breath, and the memory of screams, a song began to wrap itself around Jindra like another blanket, or another pair of kind arms. It was soft, and dipped and tarried like a creek through a meadow.

It was Jana. Jana was singing to her.

It was Ma’s song.

There were no words. It was only a gentle hum. But it was a melody Jindra knew by heart, that she'd heard all her life, and had sung while picking flowers, while bathing and sewing and reading, to comfort herself and keep Ma beside her. She hadn't known that Jana had been listening.

Jana may not have known all the words, but she’d heard.

The tears came quietly, but also more easily. 

When Jindra was calm again, and her tears finally stopped, Jana tugged on Jindra’s ear. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

“I’m stunned, my lady,” Jindra teased, quiet and watery. Jana pulled her hair, and Jindra smiled against her neck.

“Wretched,” Jana chided, so warm in the dark. “Shall I be interrupted at every turn?”

“As long as you’d like to keep me in your service.”

“All my life,” Jana sighed. “What a fate.”

Jindra’s heart sped up for a moment. All my life. Forever. “So what has my wise lady been thinking about?”

Jana shrugged, and it jostled Jindra in her arms. “It’s a memory, really. A minstrel came to Rattay years ago. I was about thirteen, I should think.”

Jindra thought of a little Jana who was skinny and surly, with spots on her face, and grinned. “Hard age.”

“Hush, and let me tell the story! The minstrel was French, and he told marvelous stories of the tales of Camelot. Hanush fell asleep, but I listened all night long, until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.”

“Camelot,” Jindra repeated, smiling. She'd come to adore those stories, especially the way Jana told them. “Arthur and his knights, and Guienevere and Lancelot.”

“And Galehault and Lancelot. Have you heard of them? They were two knights who were as close as brothers, or closer, and spent every moment together.” Jana grew wistful. “Perhaps that is who we are. Not fine ladies, but warriors reborn in harder times, and ill-formed.”

Jindra’s heart clenched in two different vices, equally strong. “You’re not ill-formed, Jana.” 

“Yes, well. You most certainly aren’t. Maybe the world is ill-formed around you.” Jana paused, and then asked, timid, “You don’t think I’m being silly?”

“Of course not. You’re braver than any man I know.”

“You’re the fighter.”

“And I would fight for you, if you wanted me to.”

Jana made a low sound of displeasure. “I would rather fight beside you. But yes, I know what you mean. I’d like that, too.”

They said nothing more, and Jana eventually drifted to sleep again, her fingers tangled in Jindra’s hair. She had banished the nightmare as quickly as it had come on, and Jindra looked at her face awhile in silent gratitude, and all her heart’s affection.

She considered what Jana had said about tourneys: that they were places where the ideas of chivalry were real. 

When Jindra fell asleep herself, it was with a smile on her face, thinking of the armory in the Upper Castle, and the carelessness of guards, and how easy it might be to pick a lock. 

During the next two days, Jindra began going to town again. Jana tried not to feel jealous of nameless peasants. Now that she was no longer confined, she supposed that she could have gone along, had she wanted. But it was an odd thing to want, and felt even odder to ask for. This was Jindra’s arena. Jana would probably hate it, and would certainly be in the way. 

She wouldn’t beg Jindra to stay with her – how humiliating that would be for them both! – but she couldn’t help sighing with relief when Jindra returned safely, even if Rattay itself was hardly a den of cutthroats. 

Jindra was such a funny girl, even now. She must have been frustrated, having looked for some new clue to the mystery of her father’s sword and found nothing; but she also came back very late, nearly after dark, with a smile on her face like a smug kitchen cat, as if she had a secret that Jana could never guess. When Jana accused her of being a sneak, Jindra laughed at her. 

“Let me tell you about my day,” Jindra said on the second night, clearly trying for a distraction. “Don’t you want all the news from town?”

Jana tutted from her chair, opening her prayer book. “Why should I care about peasant gossip?” she said, in such a poorly disguised lie that even Hanush would have caught her. Jindra, who knew her heart, wasn't fooled for a moment, and started right into her tales of trials and triumph from Rattay’s people, while Jana pretended not to be interested. 

But Jana couldn’t keep up the ruse when Jindra said, proud as a little peacock, “And I helped deliver a baby!”

Jana nearly dropped her book. “You did?” She dashed to the bed, where Jindra already sat, smiling smugly. “You must tell me everything!” Jana demanded. “Start to finish!”

“I was so scared,” Jindra admitted, which was something she had never said before. “The midwife wouldn’t come, so I had to help the mother alone. But I remembered what my Ma taught me, and the mother was so brave, and the baby came out fussing and screaming and already hungry. It’s a little girl.”

Jindra’s happiness was catching, but Jana’s brown furrowed. “The midwife wouldn’t come?”

Jindra’s smile faded, and she scowled, her eyes flashing with temper. “The mother is one of the Skalitz women in the camp. The midwife said she wouldn't bother with her.”

Jana barked out a bitter laugh. “That old crone. Who knew she was so sour! Just wait. Hanush won’t care, but I daresay she’ll listen to me.”

Jindra looked pleasantly surprised. “You’d tell her off yourself?”

“It’s my duty, is it not? Besides, she may very well tend to me one day, and I don’t want a cruel louse.” Jana sobered at the thought, and threw herself back onto the bed with a sigh, arms spread wide. “Not that it matters in the end.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m doomed to die in childbirth,” Jana declared, like the fact it was. “That is my battlefield and my end.”

Jana could practically hear Jindra rolling her eyes fondly. “You’re not going to die.”

“My mother did,” Jana said quietly. It was strange to have a memory of a death she had not seen, belonging to a woman that she hardly remembered; in that memory Jana saw herself lying in the bed, lips cracked and eyes blank. “Why not I?”

There was a pause. Then Jana felt Jindra take her hand, and tangle their fingers together. “I wouldn’t let that happen.” Jindra’s voice was as sure as Jana’s had been, as if it were a fact, or the will of God. “I would take care of you. I will.”

Jana turned her head. Even at the awkward angle, Jindra’s fierce expression was a comfort. “You would stay with me?” Jana asked, almost afraid to hope. “Even after I’m married?”

“Of course I would.” Jindra’s brows turned in. “Isn’t that what you said? That you’d keep me with you all your life?”

Jana’s heart sped up. She nodded, and glanced down at their entwined fingers. Jindra’s hands were larger than hers, just slightly, and rougher; Jana felt the calluses. “I would,” she admitted. “But only if it would please you.”

It felt uneasy to discuss things like marriage and children with Jindra. These were trials outside of their friendship, and outside of the circle of their world. Jana carefully avoided looking at them when Jindra was beside her, banishing her resigned terror. 

But now, Jindra made Jana’s fears easier to look at; even those that Jana had never touched, and had never put to words, even to herself. She swallowed, and squeezed Jindra’s hand in return. “Even if the child won’t kill me…” 

Jindra rubbed her thumb along Jana’s wrist, across her scar. "What is it?"

"I could manage a dull husband, I'm sure." Jana looked back up, unable to hide her anxiety. "But I don’t think I could endure a…cruel man."

Jindra's face abruptly grew hard. "I would stop him.”

“How?” Jana’s voice was brittle. She felt brittle, as easy to crush as an eggshell. Where had her courage gone? “What could either of us do? I think of it stretching out before me and that feels like death already.” Jana shook her head, and whispered, like the curse it was, and knowing the answer, “What if only death could free me?”

Jindra did not look shocked or frightened. Her gaze burned, and Jana felt herself burning in return. Jindra repeated, in a voice of iron, “I would stop him.”

That night, Jana dreamt again of her quarry in the forest, hidden behind trees, half a shape and half a shadow, sometimes a stag and sometimes a bear and sometimes a great bird with wide wings, but always hunting her too, with eyes that held her heart and made her body swell with a fear that wasn’t fear, but the promise of it, the kiss of it, a yearning anxious prize just out of reach that she wanted so badly that her breath came fast and her body swelled and swelled like water-soaked skin after rain; she rounded the bend into a clearing and her quarry was there; Jana’s quiver was empty and she wore no clothing but she felt no fear, and felt only that sweet promise, like the moment before a kiss, the moment before a kill, the same, always the same, more than she had ever realized; and the beast, the quarry, whispered to her What is your wish?; and Jana demanded, in the voice of a huntress, I wish for you; and the quarry held her and pressed her to the ground until the cool dew of a midsummer evening coated her lips and her tongue and her naked skin; until her body strained and yearned; and it mounted her.

The scent of bile lingered, burning Jindra’s throat. She groaned as she opened her eyes, the dream vanishing before she could remember it.

She blinked up at the ceiling. It was still dark, with dawn still far off. The nightmare had clearly been a mild one, but she wasn’t sure if she would be able to sleep again. Maybe if she was able to slip out of bed before Jana woke, she had time to steal away to the armory again, and try to –

Beside her, Jana let out a small, soft moan.

Jindra pushed herself up in a panic, so fast that her head spun and she saw spots. Was Jana hurt, or having a nightmare of her own? Was she sick?

Jana slept, laying on her back. Her lips were parted, and she was flushed springtime-pink across her cheeks, down her neck, to the swell of her breasts, and dipping still further beneath her shift. Her chest rose and fell as if she had been running, and she twisted slightly and squirmed, as if trying to press herself against something unseen. Her mouth opened wider, and she gave a quiet, yearning sigh.

Jindra had once been a carefree girl who had sought pleasure for its own sake, and had known it well. It was obvious what Jana was dreaming of. 

Jindra couldn’t look away. Jana’s chest heaved, pressing the curves of her tight against the snow-white linen of her shift, so white in the dark that it could have glowed against Jana’s skin; one pale leg was thrown outside the blanket, and Jindra drank in the lines of her calf, her thigh, where that linen had bunched up and revealed her. She was flushed there, too, dusted with heat and rose petals. 

She was beautiful. And this was right. Jana wasn't meant for a quiet lady’s life. She was meant for galloping on horseback and racing through trees, tumbling through meadows, dancing in the sun. Even her laughter took up her whole body, used all of her breath, and exposed all of her happiness. She was meant to run, to exhaust herself, to feel. She was meant for pleasure, and for desire. She was meant for this.

Something thought long-dead came to life inside Jindra, and stirred.

Jana let out another soft moan, rolling her hips, and Jindra gasped. What was she doing? She blushed and threw herself back down, turned over, and pulled the blankets over her head as quickly as she could, mortified and ashamed. 

Jana moved beside her, shifting on the bed, and made a new sound that Jindra would never forget: louder, more plaintive, and broken at the end. As Jindra squeezed her eyes shut, Jana’s breath changed, grew uneven for a moment, before she gave a little groan, a soft question to no one; and Jindra realized that Jana had woken from the force of her own pleasure.

Jindra was on fire, her ears burning. She kept her eyes closed and forced herself to lay still, as if she had slept through it all. Eventually, Jana grew very quiet, until her snuffling snores told Jindra that she had fallen back to sleep.

Jindra never should have looked. She never should have listened. She owed it to Jana to forget all about it. Jindra fought against the unforgivable urge to turn over and look at Jana again, and tried to pretend the night was a dream; then she could wake in the morning without any unwanted memory. 

It was no use. As Jana slept on, undisturbed and blameless, Jindra stayed awake, haunted by guilt, and unable to forget the shape of Jana’s parted lips.

The next day, Jana was off to hunt with Hanush. Jindra disliked the idea, and secretly hoped that Hanush would take some unfortunate, nasty fall from his mount; but after the night before, Jindra welcomed the opportunity to clear her head. Going to town would distract her, and she and Jana could exchange stories afterwards, and Jindra could forget her faithless behavior and feel like herself again.

She also planned to sneak back to the armory, and hide her prizes in the grove. But that was her secret, for now.

“Tell me everything after today, and I shall tell you everything,” Jana ordered, as Jindra laced up the back of her gown. It was light summer wool, and deep red, and it made Jana look every inch the huntress she was. “I expect you’ll have stories of great woe and reward, so I must bring you stories of a kill, at the very least!”

“Great woe and reward,” Jindra repeated, smiling, even as her fingers brushed a moment too long against Jana’s back. She shook her head, and coughed lightly, stepping back. What was she doing? “Don’t go hunting for anything too dangerous without me.”

“That’s up to Hanush,” Jana grumbled. As Jindra fumbled with the front laces of her own kirtle, Jana clicked her tongue and batted Jindra’s hands out of the way. “Let me, little fool. Anyway, who knows if he’ll even let me get close to…whatever it will be. Maybe boar?” 

Jana’s soft breath was so close to Jindra’s face, and her hands brushed across Jindra’s chest, as last night filled Jindra’s memory. “Don’t you need spears to hunt boar?” she asked, hoping to sound normal.

Jana let out a little wistful sigh, and it was too close. “A spear,” she repeated. “Can you imagine?” She finally stepped back, and Jindra was able to breathe again. “Well, give my blessings to that baby in town. And tell the midwife she will meet my wrath soon enough.”

It was good that Jana was still herself, and it eased Jindra’s anxious confusion. “You should join me sometime,” she suggested. 

“Me? Among the muck and the manure? You’re very funny, Jindra.” Jana grinned anyway. “Hanush wouldn’t hear of it.” 

“Wear a disguise.”

When Jana laughed, she sounded as merry as she always had. It gave Jindra hope that this would all pass soon enough.

Jindra still left first, anxious to find something to do, and somewhere else to be. Pirkstein was quiet at this hour of the morning, and Jindra saw no servants as she made her way through the halls. 

But nothing was ever easy these days.

“Jindriska.”

Sir Radzig’s voice rang from behind her like a bad dream, and in the instant before Jindra stiffened, she almost groaned out loud in annoyance. She took a breath and turned, preparing herself for this dance of theirs. I am well, my lord. Thank you, my lord. No, I must be away, I cannot be alone with you, my lord. 

She’d wanted to believe in his kindness, and his warmth, as she always had when she watched him from afar as she grew, when he was a distant, far off smile during her childhood summers, watching over all; as she’d taken for granted her entire life.

She had killed the last man who had touched her. She could kill again. So fear wasn’t only what she felt. There was also crushing disappointment. 

But Sir Radzig looked different today. His kind smile was gone, and he held none of his usual warmth. He wasn’t cold, exactly, but he did look thoughtful, even perplexed. He hadn’t looked so… ordinary since that night in the garden, when Jindra had caught a glimpse of someone in pain.

“I’d like a word with you,” he said. It was almost a question. 

“Of course, my lord,” Jindra said, trying to keep the ire from her voice. How many times had she said those words, placid and pliant? Was she to be hunted and hounded all her days?

But Sir Radzig hesitated. When he did speak, it was slow, and halting, picking through his words carefully. “You have heard by now that there was a raid in Pribyslavitz, I take it?”

“Aye.” It was harder to keep her temper than usual. Jindra grasped for how Jana might reply, with the armor of a lady’s dignity. “I’m told it was an easy victory. I congratulate you on your success.”

“Thank you,” Sir Radzig responded. “It was an easy victory.” He frowned at some question Jindra couldn’t hear. “Unnervingly so.”

The back of Jindra’s neck prickled. “It was?”

“Many men were already dead when we arrived. They’d been poisoned.” Sir Radzig furrowed his brow, looking beyond Jindra to some memory; instinctively, she knew he looked farther back than only Pribyslavitz. “The air smelled…pungent. Wormwood, I think.”

Jindra was afraid again, but not of Sir Radzig; an unnamed dread rose up instead. “Why are you telling me this?”

Sir Radzig shook his head slowly. His eyes came back, returning from their secret journey, and he looked at Jindra as if he had never seen her before. 

“I know the poison,” he said, nearly dazed, “from my youth. Your – ”

“Jindra!” Jana’s voice rang like a church bell, shrill and beloved, and both Jindra and Sir Radzig jerked back as Jana rounded the corner of the hallway at a run. “I forgot to – ”

She skidded to a stop at the sight of the two of them, lord and peasant girl, standing close and alone. Jindra had no idea what her own too-open face was doing, but nothing in the world could have stopped her from going weak with relief. 

“Oh.” Jana looked between them, and straightened up, nodding her head gracefully. “Good day, sir.”

Sir Radzig nodded back. “Lady Jana.” He glanced at Jindra, and she watched as his expression did one final flicker of confusion, before sealing itself away. “I was just on my way out. I heard that Hanush plans to take you hunting today.”

“He does.” Only Jindra, who knew Jana better than anyone, would have noticed the slight narrowing of her eyes. “Well! I shall soon be late for it, and Jindra is off to run an errand for me today.” She stepped forward boldly and snatched Jindra’s arm, linking their elbows. “If you will excuse us.”

Sir Radzig bowed, but Jana was already hauling Jindra away with hardly a curtsy in return, her head held high; as soon as they were out of sight, Jana spun and pressed Jindra to the wall, wide-eyed.

“What was that about?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did he say something to you?” Jana gave a small gasp. “Do you think he suspects?”

“I don’t know,” Jindra admitted, shaken. “I don’t think so.” She forced herself to forget the look on Sir Radzig’s face when he’d looked beyond her. It wasn’t as if he could read her mind. 

Jana frowned. “Has he spoken to you before?”

This was dangerous ground. “Sometimes.” Jindra sounded evasive even to herself, and quickly added, “I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll be off now.”

“But – “

“And you should get to the Upper Castle.” Jindra hooked a finger under Jana’s chin. “Hanush is waiting for you.”

Jana colored slightly, but nodded. She reached into the sachet on her belt, and pulled out a small pouch, clinking with coin. “I did forget something,” she said, pressing the pouch into Jindra’s hand. “Here.”

Jana didn’t actually have much coin of her own; her wealth was wrapped up in jewels, and her own name. “What’s this for?”

“For the baby.” Jana shrugged, as carelessly generous as always. “Blessings mean nothing without coin, yes?”

Jindra wouldn’t swear to that.

Jana was distracted. 

The strange moment between Sir Radzig and Jindra turned over in her mind like meat on a spit. It was possible that she and Jindra had not been as cautious in their plotting as they ought to be; but if that was a concern, surely Jindra would have told her so?

She felt that whispered warning again. She should have focused on it. But there was too much competing for her attention, and the upcoming hunt with Hanush was making her equal parts nervous and cautiously excited, and driving other worries away. 

And there was also her dream the night before, living behind her eyes and singing in her body. It had been so vivid, so real, so wonderful, and all morning she had been wound as tight as her bowstrings, shivering even at Jindra’s simple touch against her back. 

If she cared at all for her own soul, she would worry for her wantonness. But as a damned woman, she let herself recall the feeling, even as the details faded throughout the day. She wanted to ask Jindra about it, who knew more of these matters. But how humiliating it would be to admit!  

When Jana arrived at the Upper Castle, Hanush was waiting for her. He stood beside his giant mare, eighteen hands high and solid as a plough ox. There was a slight, ancient nag saddled and waiting, which Jana realized with horror must be for her. She was sure that the wretched beast must have been older than she was, and probably couldn’t manage more than a trot without dropping dead. 

Before she could complain, she realized that while Hanush had his hounds with him, the man who attended him was not holding arrows to hunt stag, or spears to hunt boar. He held a wooden frame, and perched upon it, waiting patiently in their hoods, were several hunting birds.

“Hawking?” Jana moaned.

Hanush laughed, out loud and boisterous. Jana’s outrage often amused him. “Don't look so horrified!” He swung up onto his mare, always deceptively graceful when he did so. “Not enough blood for your taste?”

Jana glared at him, but mounted her ancient horse anyway. “I didn’t even know we had birds.”

“They’re new,” Hanush said, in his simple and stupid way that offered no details. He urged the horse into trot. “Come along before I change my mind.”

Jana urged the creaky nag to follow, and glowered at Hanush’s back. It was hardly the sort of hunt that Jana had hoped for, and she couldn’t imagine that Hanush would be good at it. Perhaps they would both have a wretched time and suffer together, and reach some peace. 

Her father was everywhere today. As she and Hanush rode through the courtyard, Jana saw her father’s body out of the corner of her vision, frozen and frowning, standing amongst the stable boys. When they rode through the gates of Rattay and into the country, she spied her father standing in an open field. A slash of sunlight gleamed from the river, and when Jana shielded her eyes, she saw a dark shape in the water and thought it might be his body; the glare from the sun might have been his hateful gaze. 

Eventually, Jana rode up beside Hanush, mindful not to push the horse too fast lest it drop dead beneath her. “Where did you find this one?” she whined. “Did you dig it up from a grave?”

“Might as well have,” Hanush answered cheerily. He had that idiotic grin on his face, as he did when he was overly pleased with himself. “No galloping yet.”

“I’ve been riding since I was four,” Jana snapped. “I hardly need to relearn.”

Hanush shrugged. “You killed your last horse.”

That stung. Jana’s mouth twisted, and she looked down at Hanush’s saddle. It was impossible not to think of her father’s death: the strap snapping, his tumble from the broken saddle and into the cold water. They said he’d broken his neck in the fall, and had died before he could drown. Surely if Hanush took such a fall, he'd break his fat neck, too.

The fantasy didn’t fill Jana with glee, or even petty satisfaction. It just made her tired. And her anger was no longer simple; she was no longer eight years old. 

Eventually, they stopped at a clearing in the trees, wide and sunny. As Hanush and Jana pulled on their long leather gauntlets, Hanush gestured to the man with the wooden frame. He handed Hanush one of the birds, brown and spotted with a curved beak, and it perched easily enough on his hand; Jana thought it might be a goshawk. Hanush looked far more awkward than the bird did, balancing a small animal compared to his large frame. It made Jana giggle, before she could help it. Revenge in ridicule was always sweet. 

“Laugh all you like, girl,” Hanush grumbled. But he gestured to the man again, and Jana was handed a very different bird.

Jana and Stephanie had hunted with noble little merlins: small and delicate birds with sharp beaks and talons, suited to a lady’s light grip. But this bird was much larger, silver grey and snow white, fierce and gleaming like a diamond. It weighed heavily on her wrist when it perched, and when it shook out its wings, Jana could sense the power held within it, as if she held a piece of the sky.

Jana had never seen such a creature before, but even she recognized it for what it was: a gyrfalcon, the largest of all falcons, and a bird for princes.

“This one,” Hanush said, “is for you.”

Jana stroked a cautious finger down the gyrfalcon’s breast, feeling the plush feathers. The cost alone must have been extraordinary. 

Jana wasn’t sure if forgiveness was the word for what she felt, but she decided there could indeed be peace between them, at least for the day. She cleared her throat. “I’ve heard that gyrfalcons are well suited to hunt cranes.”

“You’ll hunt partridge,” Hanush grunted. “And hare, if you can find it.” 

Jana shook her head, aghast. “Gyrfalcons must hunt from the air! Flying prey is their specialty!”

Hanush raised a brow. “Ah, she's an expert, is she?”

“I read,” Jana returned, her wit faster than her sense, “unlike some.”

Hanush didn’t get angry; he just laughed. “Why bother? That’s what scribes are for.”

It turned out that both of them were ill-suited to hawking. The hounds flushed birds from the undergrowth, but both Jana and Hanush were impatient, and sent out the birds too early, or too late. To Jana’s dismay, Hanush’s goshawk was the first to catch a partridge, and she pouted like a small child.

On the other hand, it was wonderful to be outside again. Even the grove, with its nighttime embrace, could not give Jana sunshine and the smell of day-warm grass and flowers. With the birds against the clear blue sky, it was enough to let her pretend at freedom.

All day, her curiosity had grown sharper and sharper, and now she had to ask. “How is the tourney coming along?”

Hanush snorted, seeing right through her. “Eager, are you?”

Jana turned her face away to hide her black look, stroking the gyrfalcon again, but Hanush sounded as amused at her plight as ever. “I’ve already decided to let you attend,” he said, as if it was a generous boon. But his voice was oddly warm. “I suspect you’d break the lock off your door if I forbade you.”

Jana hid a small smile – Hanush was not, after all, wrong. But then she reconsidered the ease with which he’d granted her permission to attend the tourney. She’d expected him to be angrier than this.

Hanush was not the sort of man to ease blows with gifts and favors, but if he were …Jana could think of only one reason.

She spun in her saddle, almost jostling the gyrfalcon. “Are you going to announce my marriage there?”

Hanush sighed heavily, and the sound was so terrifying that Jana’s vision flashed white.

“Don’t surprise me in front of all those people,” she begged, her voice cracking with panic. “Let me meet him first, at least. Let me know his name. Let me – please Uncle, let me prepare myself, I’m not ready, I – ”

“There’s no husband,” Hanush cut in. “Don’t choke on your tongue, for Christ’s sake.”

The sound of pure relief that escaped Jana was almost comically loud.

“Jana,” Hanush warned. “You haven’t escaped this.”

“No,” Jana agreed, giddy. “But I’ve postponed it. Like a hare slipping out of a snare!”

Hanush groaned. “You’ll drive him to madness, whoever he is.”  

Jana was always too curious for her own good, and asked, nervous, “But are there prospects?”

Hanush shook his head, and scowled at his own bird, as if it might solve his problem. “The politics are…difficult. It’s beyond your ken.”

As if Hanush understood it all! Jana knew for a fact that he was impatient with all things political and would rather slam through barriers of law and etiquette. “I know that the king is captured,” Jana snapped. “I know that Radzig was dear enough to him to be raised above and before more powerful men. I know that we are caught in the middle, and we must measure our strength carefully in order to protect ourselves.”

Hanush huffed.

Ahead, the dogs flushed a partridge from the underbrush. Jana scowled, and sent the bird out again. “But that's all beyond my ken, of course.” 

This time, the gyrfalcon was the very picture of a hunter. It streaked ahead, and dove from the sky in a great arc, faster than Jana’s eyes could follow. It knocked the partridge from the air, killing it instantly, and circled once before landing gracefully atop the prize. 

“How beautiful!” Jana gasped, forgetting her annoyance and her fears. She urged the old nag forward. “Did you see it? Did you see? That was so much better than those silly merlins. And better than your goshawk!”

Hanush chuckled, watching as Jana jumped from her mount and dashed to her gyrfalcon. The handler gave her a piece of meat to urge the bird from the kill, and it stepped back onto her wrist obediently, allowing the partridge to be taken away. 

 “You’ve too much bloodlust, niece,” Hanush chided her, though he sounded nearly fond.

Jana fed her gyrfalcon its bloodied meat, and smiled. “It’s a fine bird,” she offered. Her gratitude would be her peace treaty, at least for now. “Lordly indeed.”

“I suppose you’ll insist on naming it.”

Jana considered that, but decided against it. She wasn't sure if such a wild thing should be named.

Once the falcon had eaten its fill, it was time to return home. As Jana placed the bird back on the wooden frame and returned to the old horse, Hanush said, uncharacteristically solemn, “I do it all for your own good, you know.”

Jana huffed out a laugh without mirth, bitter again. She knew Hanush believed that; it would be easier to bear if he didn’t. She gave the ugly old horse a pat. She was a kind mount, even if she was half a corpse. Pebbles would be a vision next to her.  

“Think of your own duty to Jindriska,” Hanush offered. “She ought to have her own marriage arranged, but that falls to you. I assume you’ve thought of her care.”

The thought of Jindra marrying was almost funny, but it also turned Jana’s stomach. “I can handle the running of my household,” she insisted, hoping that would be the end of it.

Hanush shrugged. “Think on it. If we fail to care for those in our charge we have failed in God’s service.”

Jana shot him a sharp look. “I will not fail Jindra.”

If Hanush was surprised at the passion in her voice, it was only for a brief moment. “That’s good,” he said. “The happier she is, the less Radzig will fret, and then he can stop talking my ear off about it.” He snapped the reins, and his mare started off. 

Jana stared after him, beside the old horse, and suddenly unable to move. The whispered warning in her mind grew louder, and louder, until the world began to buzz like a great swirling hive. 

Radzig spoke to Hanush about Jindra. Radzig took notice of her, and thought of her often. 

He stopped her in the halls. He cornered her alone. He had taken pains to keep her close to him, in Jana’s service, within the same castle walls.

Clarity exploded like a cruel dawn sunrise.

“Jana!” Hanush called out impatiently, already trotting ahead. “Don’t dawdle.”

Jana sucked in a hard breath, looking at Hanush’s retreating back with horror. Could Hanush know? Had he known all along, and turned a blind eye, or even encouraged this?

No. Jana took in another breath, but longer, deeper, less harsh. No, she didn’t think so. Hanush was many things, and not all of them kind, but she couldn’t believe that he would encourage some sort of forceful seduction, and sneer behind locked doors. 

And though Jana’s own injury was the least of her concern, she knew Hanush was proud, and surely he wouldn’t encourage such an open insult as the pursuit of his niece’s own handmaiden and dearest friend. Would he?

She hoped not. She prayed not. Hanush was so very stupid. More likely he hadn’t noticed, and never would, drinking happily with his friend, sheltered under his own roof at great risk, with no idea Radzig would make a fool of him, dishonoring his ward within his own house.

But Jana dared not tell him. He would never believe her.

Jana mounted the old horse, and followed Hanush back to the road. The lovely day grew ugly and mocking, with Jana made the fool and the failure within it. How many times would Jindra suffer under her care? Jana couldn’t defend her against any threat, after all. What could she possibly do to keep Jindra safe?

When she caught up with Hanush, he eyed her. Her distress must have been obvious. “Consider it good practice,” he offered awkwardly, in his own olive branch. “You’ll arrange many marriages when you run your husband’s house.”

Jana waited until she had command of her voice. “I’ll make inquiries,” she said, as her heart shattered. 

It was after dark by the time Jindra returned to Pirkstein, but Janek and Jaroslav each gave her a wink as she passed them, and she knew she wouldn't have trouble. She had had a full day, but most importantly, she had slipped into the armory of the Upper Castle, and stolen two gauntlets, battered and unwanted. They were now tucked away in the grove, in a hiding spot that Jana didn’t use, along with the other pieces she had cobbled together. The set would be complete soon, with plenty of time to spare.

Jindra’s stomach was growling, as it seemed to do constantly. Though she had missed the evening meal, Jana was likely to have taken her food in her room, and she would have saved Jindra some.

Sure enough, when Jindra entered the bedchamber, she spied a platter balanced on their bed, piled with cheese and bread, half a roast chicken, and a handful of dried apples. Jindra’s mouth watered at the sight of it. 

Jana herself was seated by the hearth, her back to Jindra, embroidering again. She usually hated sitting still, but she was also capable of intense concentration, and there was something wondrous about her talent. She had been working steadily on the same panel of deep blue wool from the night they had met, and Jindra had watched as beautiful vines and leaves slowly took shape in golden thread. It was a pattern that Jana seemed to favor; she had embroidered the same design on her favorite scarlet hood. 

For a moment, Jindra allowed herself the pleasure of watching. Jana was illuminated by the hearth, the firelight catching the curve of her pale cheek and setting her hair to sunshine, as precious as the golden thread. Jindra couldn’t take her eyes from Jana’s hands: slim, with long fingers, twisting the thread and slipping the needle through the wool, piercing and precise. Only Jindra knew how strong they were, calloused and capable, with the grip of an archer. 

They were beautiful. Jindra yearned, with all her heart, to kneel at Jana’s feet, as she had that first night, and to kiss those hands.

Then Jana stabbed her thumb with her needle, and hissed. It broke Jindra from her dream, and she cleared her throat. “I’m back.”

“Ah, Jindra.” Jana turned and smiled. “How many orphans and widows did you save today?”

Something was wrong. Jana’s face was too flushed, even with the heat from the fire, and her eyes were shining strangely. Her nose was red.

Jindra’s heart dropped, and she was across the room in a moment. “Have you been crying?” She took Jana’s face in her hands before she thought better of it. “What’s happened?”

Jana’s lips trembled unmistakably, and Jindra’s heart sank even more. But Jana shook her head, and pulled away from Jindra’s touch. “Don’t be silly.”

Jindra remembered the hunt, and grew hot with rage. “If Hanush made you cry,” she snarled. “I’ll – ”

“No! It wasn’t Hanush. It wasn’t anything.” Jana stood abruptly and crossed the room, facing away, as Jindra stared at the back of her head. “I’ve been doing more thinking.” She gave a shrill giggle, obviously forced. “Oh, how surprising, you’ll say. Very funny. You may indulge in all your stupid jokes now.”

Jindra stepped forward, and resisted the urge to take Jana in her arms and spin her around, and search out her expression. “I’m not going to joke. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Jana fluttered a hand, as she did when she was nervous. “You see, I’ve…I’ve found a good match – old and sick and well off, so he’ll die soon enough.”

Jindra’s head was spinning. “A match? For what?”

Jana giggled again, and it pitched high in the middle, nearly hysterical. “A husband for you, of course.”

Jindra’s legs almost gave out. The shock stole her thought and her breath. A husband? A marriage? “Why?” she gasped. Her own voice came from another room. The world was underwater. “What have I done wrong?”

Jana’s whole body flinched. “I’m not displeased.” Jana’s voice sounded strange too, but Jindra was swaying, drowning, she couldn’t understand – “I just want you to be cared for. When he dies, you’ll be a wealthy merchant’s widow. I figure you could help the old goat along and smother him.” There was another shrill sound, so unlike a laugh that it didn’t deserve the name. “Plenty of women do that.”

“You would give me to a man?” It was a betrayal so complete that Jindra’s world became nothing but pain. Jana finally turned, almost reluctantly, as if pulled by Jindra’s words like a fish on a line, like a boar on a spear; except Jindra was the boar, being cleaved in two. “After him?” Jindra asked, her voice hardly human. “After everything?”

And in the face of her anguish, Jana crumpled. She staggered back, clutched at the wall. “No!” she gasped. Tears were already pouring down her cheeks. “I never want another man to touch you! I want to kill the first one to try!”

Jindra had started crying, too. “Jana, why?”

“You’re in my service. It’s my duty to look after you. I need to care for you, and I can’t even protect you!” Jana said it like a curse, and beat a closed fist against her breast in passionate hatred. “Look at me! I can’t even keep you safe here. Not with him.”

Jindra went cold and hot and then cold again, and made a choking noise.

Jana gave a little cry of grief. “So it’s true? He has been…oh, Jindra, why didn’t you tell me? But why would you? What could you do? What could I do?” She buried her face in her hands. “What if I can only protect you by sending you away?”

“Don’t.” Jindra didn’t care if she begged. All she knew, all she was capable of understanding, was that she wanted to stay in this room, with this girl. “I’m not afraid. Jana, please.”

“But I need to know you’ll be cared for!” Jana lifted her tearstained face. “After I’m gone.”

Jindra took a step forward. Her anguish and her pain was changing into something else; something focused, something that overwhelmed her. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Once I’m married, I’m going to die. I know it. I’ll slowly wilt away. And long before that, everything you love in me will die, too, and I can’t bear it! I can’t bear to make you watch.” Jana began to weep in earnest, her words slurred by horror and tears. “But I’m so weak. I want you by my side. I only want you.” 

That was enough. That was enough. Jindra closed the gap, and pulled a sobbing Jana into her arms. “I’ll never leave,” she promised, as she had never promised anyone anything; praying as she’d never prayed. Tears were streaming down her own cheeks. “If I were a man, I’d pledge myself to your service, and protect you with my sword and my body, but I can’t. All I have is myself, and that’s yours.”

She shook Jana slightly, as Jana sobbed and sobbed. “D’you hear me? I’ll be with you even if you slowly die. If you die, I’ll die with you. We’ll take our last breath together.” Jindra’s voice broke, too; broken on passion. “Please don’t send me away.”

Jana sank to the floor, and Jindra sank with her. “I won’t!” Jana wept. “I never will! My Jindra, I’m so sorry!”

Jindra’s heart sang with hope and despair. She pressed her lips to Jana’s brow, because they belonged there. “My sweet girl,” she choked. 

Jindra knew she would never marry, but Jana? It was a horror to think: a man, any man, claiming Jana, taking her and hurting her, and making her swell with his child. Jindra’s mind recoiled, as a gentler girl would from carrion or gore. 

But if it came to that, if Jana wanted her to stay and bear witness, Jindra would swallow her rage and her blood and her violence, and endure. She would attend Jana as long as she could. She would learn German, improve her Latin, so that she would be a credit to her mistress, and worthy of serving her. 

If she couldn’t, and was sent away, she would accept the lowest of the low. She would take anything. She would scrub the kitchen floors. She would empty the shit and rake out the ashes. She would let a stableboy or a beggar fuck her until she was with child herself, so that when Jana’s babes came, Jindra would have babes of her own and could nurse them all at her own breast; so that some part of her could pass to them; so that she might share Jana’s fate. 

And as for the man? Jindra thought of her promise, made in this very room. If Jana allowed her, if she wished it, if her lady gave her leave – Jindra would kill him. 

In her dream –

There is sunshine and flowers. Jindra is not covered in blood and there is no darkness and there are no screams –

She races, because Jana has run ahead of her, cheating for a head start, and her laughter echoes everywhere like birdsong. Jana runs through the halls of Pirkstein and she runs through Rattay and she runs through Skalitz and it is whole and unburned, and Bianca and Tess and Johanka race too, and even Matthew is there, all six of them together, but Jana is the fastest of all and Jindra chases her until her whole body burns and swells and rejoices and the others are left behind –

Jana runs into Pa’s forge and Jindra grows hotter and hotter and tumbles over herself and is quenched in a great cloud of steam –

Pa’s forge is a meadow, and there is no one else in the world but Jana. Jana. Jana –

Jana lays on her back in a bed of marigolds, and her face is flushed and her eyes are bright and she moans like she did when Jindra watched her, as innocent as Eve at her bedding and she glows like sunshine  –

Jana bares her neck, damp with bathwater and damp with sweat and the air fills with rosemary and flowers and sweetness and Jindra aches and aches and aches, as Jana bares herself like prey for a knife and sighs Have me, Have me, Jindra, Have me –

Jindra presses Jana into the marigolds and they strain at a single point between them that pushes and pulses, as Jindra throbs and thrusts until her body fills up and up and draws tighter and tighter, and the whole of her is held in Jana’s eyes, in her mouth, her perfect mouth, and her heart is squeezed and shattered into fragments of pleasure by Jana’s slim and strong hands –

And –

And –

And then Jindra hears –

Jindra’s body becomes a man’s and Jindra’s hands become a man’s and as Jindra and Jana come together Jana opens her mouth and moans again and her mouth is filled with belladona, and somewhere a cruel voice mocks them both and the air grows sour –

The maiden bloodletting!

Jindra woke up, and pushed herself up so fast that she tumbled off of the bed, landing hard on the floor. She gasped wildly, sprawled and reeling, pushing her hair out of her face frantically; but Jana slept on, curled in bed. She really could sleep through anything. 

Jindra stared up at her, shaking and wide-eyed, transfixed by the curve of Jana’s cheek and the flutter of her eyelashes, and pinned in place by the memory of her dream. It was so sweet, until it hadn't been. It had been – it was –

She wanted Jana. She wanted her. Even now, her whole body throbbed and ached. Jindra pressed a hand to her face; damp with sweat, hot and flushed, as if with a terrible, feverish sickness. She couldn’t deny what she felt. It was glaring and blazing, filling her from the inside out. She desired another woman, as a man did.

The thought stopped her dead. Did that mean that her lust was like a man’s, too? 

With a wave of horror, Jindra realized that this must have been what Runt had left behind, festering inside of her. He’d ruined her, and given her an animal’s lust. A bull’s rut.

She couldn’t remember what Matthew’s lust had been like. Had it really been sweet, when they’d lain together? Or had their coupling been violent and vile, and she’d been too young to know better? How sweet could the touch of men ever be?

How could she want Jana like that? How could this ever be forgiven, even by God?

The room spun. How long had this lain inside of her? A week? A month? From the moment she had met Jana and slept in her bed? When Jana had moaned so sweetly beside her, had she actually been in terrible danger, when Jindra had been unable to look away, like a wolf, or a vulture, or a desperate, starving dog?

As Jindra watched, Jana gave a sleepy, unconscious sigh, and shifted to the empty side of the bed, drawn to Jindra’s space, as if seeking her warmth, and urging her to come home.

Jana trusted her. All Jindra wanted was to protect Jana from the terrible, savage dangers of the world, but they’d left their blackness and puss and seed inside Jindra. And now all of it – lust, blood, pain – threatened Jana herself.  

Jindra would never hurt her. Never. Never.

“I’m sorry,” Jindra breathed, in agony. “Jana, I’m sorry.”

“Beware of talking with women, and especially be careful in hearing their confessions, lest you be caught in the snare of wantonness.”

- From a letter from Jan Hus to his disciple Master Martin (June 16, 1415)

Chapter Text

All her life, Jana had been too loose, too bold, and too eager. She smiled too much, laughed too loudly, watched men too closely, and it was unbecoming of a well-bred lady. She knew there were whispers that followed her; even Jindra had heard tell of secret lovers before they’d met, and Jana had always bristled with hidden hurt.

But what if there was something to it?

At twelve she'd kissed young Nicholas, the lowest stable boy in those days, underfoot and shy. She'd pulled him into an empty stall, and the memory smelled of hay and manure. Nicholas had flushed red as a rose, and Jana had giggled and twirled with giddy excitement, without shame.

And at sixteen, she’d kissed a guard in her uncle’s service whose name she couldn’t recall. She’d smiled at him as she watched the men at their drills, and he’d smiled back more often than the others. She’d felt his eyes upon her at every moment, raking up and down her body and sending shivers of unknown delight to her fingertips.

One day she had cornered him and stood on her tiptoes for a kiss, bold as any tavern maid; and he had caught her up in his arms and kissed her back, pulling her against him so sudden and fierce that she had gasped in both excitement and terror. And he had put her down, stepped back with fear in his own eyes, and apologized profusely. He had never looked at her again and died in some raid or another, and Jana spent many sleepless nights touching her mouth.

So perhaps she was a wanton girl, and all the muttering old women were right. Maybe Hanush sensed it, and that was why he kept her under lock and key. Maybe that was why Jana sometimes stared longingly at the baths and wondered fleetingly, daringly, what a wench's life might be like there. Maybe she'd been born with more than her share of Eve's sin, and hadn't needed to grow into it.

It would explain why wickedness had always come so easily to her. It would explain her dreams.

In the days leading up to the tourney, Jana woke each morning drenched in sweat, burning, breathless, and completely, utterly frustrated. Her dreaming hunts and her bright eyed quarry left her haunted with echoes of searching, yearning desire, and it drove her to distraction. She stumbled through life like a drunk and tripped over her own feet, unable to read or sit still or even shoot straight. All she could think of was the chase, the beast in the forest that matched the beast that roared in her chest, and the dewdrops of her own pleasure when her quarry pressed her into the grass.

Thank God Jindra was never awake. Jana blushed each time she stared at Jindra's quiet, sleeping back; to think of Jindra ever catching her!

But – oh. Jana often pressed her blushing face into her blankets, and thought unfair, selfish things. It would humiliate them both, but it would make everything a bit easier, would it not? To have someone to talk to? Jana worried that she might be going mad, and maybe Jindra had heard of this frenzy, and would know if it would pass.

The secret, of course, was that Jana didn’t want it to pass. She wanted more of it.

So now, Jana watched each of the men-at-arms at their drills, trying to find some answer to her hunger. She and Jindra were sitting out of the way, as Bernard barked orders, and as the air filled with the scent of sweat. Jana looked from face to face, trying to imagine taking one of them to her bed, and how their hands might feel, or the touch of their lips.

Jana's own lady mother would blush with shame to see it. Surely she had never ached and pulsed and gazed ravenously at men who were beneath her.

But it all felt so distant, like faded colors on sun bleached silk. Jana's dreams made even living, breathing men shadows in comparison.

“Look at that,” Jindra said, her eyes following every move. She liked watching men, too, but mainly for study. “The overhead strike, just there. Do you see how carefully he has to time the lunge?”

Jana was drawn from her frustration, and giggled. She knew for a fact that Jindra had memorized each drill a hundred times over, but she was always looking for a new way to hit something. “If you were as diligent a student to my lessons,” Jana cooed affectionately, “you would be fluent in German by now.”

Jindra colored, and shot her a smile. But it was oddly strained, and she looked back at the men quickly. “The men here won’t fight in the tourney?"

Jana shook her head. “I don't believe so.” She was unable to take her eyes off of the hard line of Jindra’s jaw and neck, held tight with tension. Guilt churned uneasily in her stomach.

They hadn't spoken of Jana’s terrible mistake since the night she’d suggested the marriage. They’d fallen asleep handclasped and weeping, and Jindra had smiled at her the next day as if Jana had never done anything to betray her. But Jindra hadn’t held Jana any night since, or let herself be held, as she once had.

It was perhaps for the best, with Jana waking nightly, writhing and rubbing against her bed. But Jana missed Jindra’s touch keenly, and felt not unlike a young sapling hit by a late frost.

Jana touched the side of Jindra’s face. “Are you well?” She was gratified by how readily Jindra turned her head, yielding to her. “You haven’t been yourself.”

Jindra closed her eyes and leaned into the touch helplessly, as if Jana were a balm. Jana’s heart sped up, before Jindra’s eyes flew open and she pushed herself back, leaving Jana’s fingers empty and cold. “I’m fine.”

Jana bit her lip. It was too familiar to how Jindra had acted in the early days, skittish as a kicked dog, and drooped with pain. Jana lowered her voice. “He hasn’t bothered you?”

At this, Jindra smiled again, blessedly less strained than before. “How could he? You haven’t let me out of your sight.”

Jana let out a relieved breath, but the guilt remained. She’d been too distracted to aid Jindra in her quest, or to even protect her properly; surely Jindra knew that as well as she did. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how much you hate sitting still. I suppose that I – I haven't been myself, either.”

Jindra returned to watching the fighting. Her hands were balled into fists, resting on her thighs; if only she would reach out a hand, and touch Jana on the shoulder, or her wrist. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Jana couldn't be sure of that. Maybe she really was falling into a strange, crawling madness, taking hold of her like the devil might take hold of a witch, or how sickness might take the feebleminded.

She could ask. She had held off for days and days, but if Jana could not be bold with her friend, who could she be bold with?

“If I ask you a question, you must swear not to tease me.” Jana turned to watch the men herself. It was easier to gather her courage that way. “What does it feel like to desire a man?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jana could see Jindra swing in her seat to look at her. She couldn’t guess at what expression she might find, and was grateful that she couldn’t see.

After a moment, Jindra asked, oddly quiet, “You haven’t felt desire?”

On the contrary! Jana thought of the terror and the excitement that melded together when she’d been seized in a grown man’s arms, and she thought of the hunted and hunter in her dreams, the shadow hands on the back of her neck and on her body, that did not belong to any man she could imagine. Perhaps they were brothers, cousins, of the same dark need. Perhaps they weren’t.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, unsure if she lied.

Jindra shifted, facing the courtyard again. Jana suspected that neither of them were watching the men very closely.

Jana abruptly felt cruel. Jindra may have once had a lover, but what had she truly known of lust but the horror of its wake?

“I’m sorry,” Jana said, for the second time. “I shouldn’t have asked you. Not after – all of it.” She bunched her hands in her skirt: rust red today, like old blood. “I just…I know too little. One day I’ll be married, and I won’t feel anything at all.”

There was a long silence, in which no one took notice of two girls seated in a courtyard.

Then Jindra said, in an extraordinary voice that Jana couldn't place, “It feels warm.”

When Jana looked back, Jindra wasn’t following the moves of the men, or taking in the bustle around them. She looked lost in a memory.

“It’s so warm that you burn. It’s dizzying, like – like you’re about to fall, or about to race. You can’t eat. You can't sleep. Sometimes you feel hands on you just from looking.” Jindra swallowed. Her ears were red. “Sometimes…sometimes you can’t breathe.”

Jana thought on it. Watching the men used to bring that feeling with it, forbidden and flowering, but now she felt nothing of the sort.

Unbidden, she thought of her knife, coated in blood, wrapped in the stained shift; she thought of stretching out on the grass and listening to Jindra’s voice, slipping over her skin like silk, and setting her alight.

An idea struck Jana that had no name and no shape.

“I want to watch you,” she said.

Jindra looked away from the sounds of sword and shield, a question in her eyes, and Jana hastily added, “Let's go to the grove tonight. I daresay we’ve watched these silly boys long enough. Practice your form in their stead and I’ll tell you everything you're doing wrong.”

Jindra’s eyes gleamed as they always did when she spied a challenge. “I would like to be watched,” she said – teased, easy and irreverent, as she always ought.

The thought without name or shape curled up in Jana's chest, wrapping around her dream.

Every time Jindra looked at Jana, she burned.

She couldn't eat. She couldn't sleep. She should have done something, anything else. She should have made herself useful, helping strangers. She should have visited Theresa and Mutt, and taken Pebbles out for more rides. She should have prayed for the souls of her parents at mass.

But there was no escape. Even in town, helping others, Jana filled her thoughts, and it made her distracted, anxious, and of no use to anyone. She couldn't bring herself to visit Theresa, even if she ought to. What if her awful lust touched Tess, who had suffered so much? What if Bianca, safe in Heaven, had been tainted by it? What if Jindra had always been this way, and her friendship had always been poison?

But what if the poison was drawn to poor Jana alone? Jindra couldn’t decide which was worse.

Any prayers for her parents would be worthless. She hadn't prayed at all in the face of her rage, and her revenge, and the list of men to kill that seemed to grow ever longer; but now even that secure vengeance seemed lost behind clouds, another girl's muffled heart speaking in another room, as Jindra knelt in God's house and felt her dark, twisted ache reform around Jana's neck.

Every bath, Jana let out a little moans of pleasure at the hot bathwater, while Jindra, suffering, gripped the edge of the wooden tub so hard that it creaked. Every night, Jana slipped into bed eager to talk, while Jindra, a thief, imagined at the shape of Jana’s body beneath her shift.

If Jindra were stronger, she would have stayed away, and left Jana's service. But who would protect Jana then? Who else would understand and care for her, and make her smile? And how could Jindra bear the loss of her dearest friend, her brightness?

It was all so confusing that Jindra's head spun, so she was grateful for the tourney, and an excuse to hit something.

In the grove that night, Jindra did her best to focus on the competition ahead. She’d been watching men fight for months, but watching wasn't real training. And she had killed before, but even she knew that the fever and desperation of murder wouldn’t serve.

And she remembered what Father Godwin had told her. She struck without thinking, or after thinking too much. She wasn't fast enough. It was hard to time a strike against a tree, but Jindra did her best to imagine a man instead, lifting a sword above his head, open and tempting; and then she denied herself that opening, and waited, and waited, until the man shifted, or stepped back, or made a mistake. She forced herself not only to lunge, but also to parry, strike, and retreat.

She hoped it was pulling her violence into some shape she could manage, tempered steel instead of molten metal.

But it was hard to focus with Jana there, smelling of rosemary and sweetness, and chattering on and on, both temptation and distraction rolled up in a golden girl.

“You mustn’t get too excited,” Jana said, lying on her stomach and kicking her heels behind her. Her opinion on the tourney seemed to change by the hour. “It’ll be dreadfully predictable. But I’m sure you and I can find some sport in it.”

Jindra stopped hitting the tree, and turned. “Maybe this tourney will surprise you,” she suggested, unable to keep her smile at bay.

Jana snorted. “Doubtful. I expect Black Peter will be there, as usual.”

“Who?”

“You’ll see him soon enough. He always wins.” Jana wrinkled her nose. “I’ll point his sour face out once he slinks in from Heaven knows where.”

“Why do they call him Black Peter?”

“Because he wears no colors, of course! Like a knight without loyalty to lord or lady. Though he's not as dashing as Lancelot, I fear. He’s mostly just drab and unpleasant.” Jana rolled onto her back, and sighed with wistful abandon. “I've seen him lose once, but that boy hasn't competed since. It would be a wonder to see some new champion take the field openly against him!”

Jindra did her best not to let her eyes wander to her hiding place, where her mismatched armor, now a full set, lay unseen. She couldn’t stop her smile from growing. “Maybe the men like that he wins,” she suggested, as if she hardly cared. “Maybe they like knowing that the world is…set a certain way.”

Jana barked out a laugh. “Indeed! And that they’re set in their places. I suppose even common men need their masques.” She rolled back over, and rested her chin on her hand, as pleased as a cat. “I do adore how clever you are, Jindra. You can see through men’s hearts, I think.”

Jindra had never felt less clever, selfishly basking in friendship while her boarish lust churned. But the comfort of Jana and the warmth of her compliment made Jindra’s tongue loose and stupid. “Can I see through yours?”

Jana faltered for a moment, and Jindra’s mind went blank with shocked terror – she couldn't know, she couldn’t – before Jana’s eyes glinted with mischief. She gave Jindra a considering look, glancing up and down.

“A lady’s heart isn’t so easily known," she crooned. "Though I suppose another lady might know.”

Jindra swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “I’m no lady.”

“Oh, certainly not, unless you’ve hidden some secret lineage from me." Jana flashed a devastating smile. "I shall have to test you. What am I thinking right at this moment?”

Jindra's mind felt slow and sticky, like melted wax. “You’re thinking…about the tourney.”

Jana hummed. “You can do better than that.”

“You’re thinking about how you would win.”

“You do know me!" Jana clapped her hands together. "And I know you, my Jindra. I know you’d think to fight with skill and honor, just to prove you could, and overwhelm lesser men."

Jindra swallowed again, her heart beating unsteadily. “And you?”

Jana didn't answer at once. She rose to her feet, deceptively graceful, before she darted out like a snake, and snatched Jindra’s sword from her limp fingers. “I would cheat.”

“Jana!” Jindra lunged, but it was too late; Jana jumped back, laughing, holding the sword high over her head and dancing out of Jindra’s grasp.

"There!" Jana cried, her smile the brightest yet. "You've looked at this sword for too long! Look at me now!"

As Jana twisted away playfully, Jindra forgot her terrible secret lust and even the tourney, and simply gave chase, like a childhood game. She ducked and dove, her laughter rising with Jana's through the grove, until she finally pushed Jana against the tree.

She immediately crowded Jana against it. Jana was the taller, but Jindra pinned them together front to front, snaking an arm up Jana's arm to her wrist to take the sword back. By the time she realized what was happening, it was too late; and her head shot up, her face a breath away from Jana's.

Jana's smile had changed. It was sly.

“Do you know my heart?” Jana asked, as if she expected an answer.

Jindra was a length away in a moment. She was thankful for the night, hiding her blush. She forced another laugh. “You’re a villain.”

Jana laughed in return, and it was light, airy, and beautiful, not forced at all. “I am a hunter!” she declared. “Is that not the same?” She flopped down against the tree, inelegant and sprawled. A glimpse of skin peeked over her knees, where the skirts bunched up, pulled over her hose and garter.

Jindra was reminded of the day of the Cumans in the woods, when Jana had been sprawled just the same, while Jindra stared with a dead man between her thighs.

The girl in Skalitz had been lusty and pleasure-seeking. Surely of all things, this should have been lost to Jindra forever. Why then? If she must be broken, and a ruin of a woman, why must Jana suffer?

Jindra bit her tongue until it bled, unseen. "I'm going to practice more."

"Very well!" Jana stood, and brushed out her skirts; hiding her legs, thank Christ. "I'll practice a bit, too. I think we ought go hunting for hare soon, and I intend to catch double your share."

Once Jana's attention turned to her arrows and her targets, Jindra was finally able to breathe again. She went back to her tree, as pockmarked and rough as the sword she used to bash it, and threw herself back into her attacks. She let the tree become a opponent and the grove become an open arena, and fought bout after bout, long into the night, willing herself to grow stronger, as sharp and as dangerous as any man.

She imagined the whole of Rattay in attendance, watching. She imagined Jana watching.

Jindra paused and wiped the sweat from her brow, breathing hard. Each notch in the dead wood was proof of her improvement, but a tree was not a man. She knew that better than most.

“Well done!”

Jindra turned. Jana was looking on, a shape in the night, her bow lying forgotten beside her. Her smile was sunshine itself, but their grove, however safe, however beloved, hid them away, and cast Jana's face in shadow. A need rose in Jindra's chest that had nothing to do with lust, or with darkness.

I want her to see me, Jindra thought. The sword hung heavy in her hand. I want her to see me in the light.

The night before the tourney, Jana couldn't sleep. She curled on her side, watching Jindra for signs of a nightmare. Thankfully, Jindra slept peacefully, her chest rising and falling steadily and her long, dark lashes fluttering against her cheeks.

Jana would have woken her in a moment if there had been any sign of distress, but the greedy heart of her wished she could shake Jindra awake anyway. Jindra would blink blearily and Jana could pretend, say that Jindra had whimpered in her sleep, or any other childish lie.

All Jana wanted was for Jindra to look at her.

Jindra had such extraordinary eyes. They were a sharp, piercing blue, like a clear lake, or a rainstorm. Jana curled closer, not touching, and imagined those eyes flying open, landing on her, and softening with affection.

The beast in her dreams also had blue eyes. Jana hadn't noticed at first, but when it chased her, and caressed her, and mounted her, its bright gaze cut through to her bones and stripped her bare. The quarry, her hunter and her prey, circling her in the dark trees, shying away from her even as it pursued her; would she ever escape it? Would she ever find it?

Safe in her room, with no one watching her, Jana didn't think of men. She thought of knives, blood, deer in the forest, and death in her hands. She thought of dark groves and stained shifts, of oaths sworn and piercing eyes.

It was too much to give a name to by herself.

Jana burned.

“Do you know my heart?” she whispered. Jindra slept on, and gave no answer.

The morning brought nothing but disappointment.

“Ill! What do you mean you’re ill?”

Jindra groaned, hidden beneath the blankets. “Not so loud.”

Jindra had been complaining of a headache since they’d woken, and had swayed on the spot while she’d braided Jana’s hair. By the time Jana called for one of the younger maids to lace up the back of her heavy gown, Jindra was back in bed, a shuddering little pile of misery.

Jana batted the maid out of the way impatiently, and sat down on the bed. “Have your courses come early?” Jana’s own courses sometimes had her laid up for days, but Jindra had never suffered such pains. "I could have them brew you some ginger tea."

The lump of Jindra shifted in what might have been a shake of the head. "It's a headache." Jindra did sound wretched. "The light hurts."

"You cannot miss the tourney for a headache!" Jana's voice grew shrill. "What nonsense!"

Jindra moaned weakly. "You're making it worse."

The letdown was crushing, but Jana raised her chin. “Then I'll stay with you,” she declared. A lady must make noble sacrifices. “If you need tending – ”

“No.” Jindra drew back her blanket, and her bright eyes gleamed up shining and blue – hopefully not shining with fever. “One of us needs to watch the tourney. I want to hear all about it from you after.” When Jana hesitated, Jindra’s voice grew very soft. “Please, Jana? For me?”

Jana melted, even as her heart stuttered anxiously. How seldom her dear Jindra asked for things that Jana was able to give her! “Very well. But only because you asked me, and I will scold you afterwards.”

"Watch closely," Jindra insisted, with an odd urgency, even as she pulled the blanket back over her head. "I want to know everything."

So Jana ended up crossing the long walk to the Upper Castle without Jindra beside her, and she grew more put out with every step. What a shame it was, to see Rattay at its busiest and brightest, and know that Jindra would spend the day alone in the dark.

There was a bustle in the air, and the blood of every man was up, from the lowest lad to the oldest grandfather. Flags waved in the wind, and banners displaying the heraldry of the Lords of Leipa hung from the walls of both Pirkstein and the Upper Castle. As Jana approached the arena, she spied her own personal crest of crossed branches on a yellow field, scattered amongst Hanush’s larger coat of arms in the sea of black and yellow. She smiled to see it, proud despite it all.

Her crest had been her father’s, and she’d keep it even when she married. It was a reminder of him in the living world that was not, for once, a corpse. Jana wanted very much to point it out to Jindra, to explain its meaning in a whisper, repeating her father’s own words: there was strength in a family name, in a family line, when it sprouted from fertile ground.

But Jindra wasn’t here. Jana’s smile faded away into sourness, and she lifted her skirts and stomped into the courtyard with a step more befitting a farmer's wife than a lady.

She hadn’t been lying to Jindra; the tourney usually was only a few silly country boys thrown into the dirt, and it made her wish for something larger and more grand, rather than chivalry’s shadow. But today could have been different! Jindra made the world new through her excited eyes and desire to learn, and Jana would have made the day perfect for her.

Jana would make every day perfect for Jindra, and give her anything at all, if she could. The truth of it was so powerful that Jana's step grew unsteady, and she had to put it aside, lest it overwhelm her.

The arena took up almost the entirety of the courtyard. There were men gathering already, armored and huffing like proud bulls, while spectators chatted eagerly to each other. Jana heard the breathless giggles of women, the shrieks of children, and the clink of coin as bets were exchanged.

Hanush was sitting on a long bench atop a raised landing, overseeing the arena. Radzig sat to his left, and the two of them were bent close together, drinking their wine and smiling easy smiles. Jana took a long, deep breath in, and gave herself over to the private fantasy of tearing open Radzig's throat with her teeth. It was a short fantasy, but sweet indeed, and it eased the sharp edge of her anger.

Perhaps it was for the best that Jindra was safe abed in Pirkstein. Jana wanted her as far away from Radzig as she could manage.

When she was sated, Jana arranged her face proudly, and stepped boldly up the stairs. She dipped her head — lower than Radzig deserved — before settling onto her seat beside Hanush, on the small cushion provided for her: on his right, where she belonged.

Hanush turned, and raised a brow. “Where’s your Jindriska?”

Jana pouted. “She’s ill.”

Hanush laughed, voice already rich with wine. “Is that all?” He gave Jana’s nose a small tug, as he had when she was very small. “You looked like she killed your falcon."

As Jana rubbed at her nose, Radzig peered around Hanush’s large frame, his face pinched in concern. “Jindriska is ill?”

Jana shot him a glare before she could help herself. In truth, her instincts were muddled where he was concerned. She never would have thought him dangerous; perhaps overbearing and aggravating, with his placid goodwill.

But Jindra’s fears became Jana’s fears, and also her responsibility.

Jana adopted her mother’s dignified voice. “I take good care of my charge, my lord, I assure you.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “It’s a…woman’s matter.”

“Good God, girl,” Hanush grumbled, as Radzig cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Forgive my candor,” Jana demured, ducking her head. She indulged in an expression of poison, knowing that for an instant, Radzig couldn't see.

As the competitors began lining up, Jana amused herself by imagining a larger tournament, in Kuttenburg or Prague. There would be grandstands filled with lords and ladies and other nobility, built in rows that climbed to the heavens, and true knights clad in helms of silver would strike sword against shield like bolts of lightening.

Finally, as the last of the spectators pressed into the courtyard, the herald's booming voice carried. "Welcome to our warriors! God's blessings upon Sir Hanush of Leipa, to whom we give thanks for this tourney."

Hanush raised a hand, ever good natured and pleased among their people. The herald continued. "Each duel shall last until a man yields. Two victories shall end the bout, and the victor moves forward. If needed, a third match will break the tie, with weapons chosen by good Sir Hanush."

Jana sighed. Without Jindra's fresh eyes, it was all a bore, as expected. She watched dully as a straggler dashed into the courtyard, obviously young, wearing mismatched armor a size too big and a helm that covered his face.

"The first combatant is the winner of many previous tourneys, and a combatant today — Peter, called Black Peter!"

Black Peter looked the same as always, in his dark garb and smug smile. His first unlucky opponent, a large ox of a man, stepped up to meet him, and the crowd murmured with excitement.

"The fighters have entered the arena!" the herald called. "What is your first choice of weapon?"

"Shortswords!" Black Peter bellowed, and the duel began.

Black Peter fought with the skill of a confident man, and won the first round. His strikes were solid, and vicious, and always aimed to cut, knocking his opponent back until he yielded. Jana had promised to watched every detail closely, but she felt she could predict each lunge and move before it happened. Black Peter's hits were always harder than they looked, and lingered badly; in the second duel his opponent staggered like a drunk, and Black Peter won easily, without even the chance of a third match to break a tie.

Jana rolled her eyes, even as she clapped politely. She had once seen Jindra kill two men, and had held her in her arms after she'd killed a camp of them. Maybe all the pageantry had lost its luster.

"Not brutal enough for you?" Hanush teased, over the cheers of the crowd.

Jana managed not to give an unladylike snort in public. "Nor for you, Uncle."

The next two men stepped forward and saluted the spectators. One was a rough and tumble mercenary, whom Jana recognized from tourneys past. The other was the straggler.

He looked even younger in the arena, and clearly lowborn, wearing armor that wasn't his own and standing a head shorter than his adversary. Jana fancied that he might be an overeager stable boy, anxious to prove himself a man, but it was impossible to tell with his face hidden beneath his heavy helm.

"Next in the arena is Jira of Beneshov, called Kipper. And his adversary will be…" The herald cleared his throat, and the mirth in his voice was clear. "A knight without a name!"

The crowed buzzed with both murmurs and laughter, and Jana finally found a smile. This was more intriguing by far!

“A true black knight!” she exclaimed. She squinted, as if she could see through steel and uncover the boy's face. "Our own Lancelot!"

"I'd say the lad is trying to hide from his mother," Hanush chuckled, his eyes sparkling with amusement. He leaned over the railing, and called out to the mercenary. "Don't knock the boy's head off! I should like to see his face when you're through with him."

"Aye, my lord!" The mercenary chuckled. "I'll even let him choose weapons first. What do you say, lad?"

At his cue, the herald called out, "What is your first choice of weapon?"

"Longswords!" the mysterious boy shouted. His voice cracked and dipped, like a lad on the edge of manhood.

The fighters took their places, facing each other in the ring. The boy raised his sword above his head, in a defensive battle stance – and Jana’s heart stopped.

His long legs were shapely, with toned thighs and long muscled lines. His arms were the same, firm and beautiful, with a strength borne from a country life. His grip on the sword was true and strong, and was practiced, as if it had been studied night after night, adjusted over and over, tested against imaginary foes and striking blows against trees.

How many times had Jana watched that body strike and dance under moonlight? How many nights had she slept beside it, and been held in those arms?

She would know Jindra anywhere.

"Begin!" the herald yelled, and the fighters lunged.

At first, all Jana felt was blinding, shocked fury. How dare Jindra lie to her, run off, and fight in man's place, while Jana sat and watched, imprisoned by her skirts and a lady's courtesy. How dare she, when Jana could not, and could never!

But the anger faded almost at once. Jindra fought with both strength and patience, and her mismatched armor and battered sword became a knight's fine arms. She was unpolished, but she dodged without fear and struck without hesitation. It was beautiful, perfect – it was where Jindra belonged.

Jindra caught her opponent in the shoulder, pushing him backward, and his shout of pain set Jana on fire. She clutched the railing until her knuckles turned white.

Jindra was fighting for her. Jindra fought openly when Jana could not, throwing the laws of nature and of man back in the faces of their lords, in her greatest trick yet, defying everyone, defying God!

The shapeless, formless, glorious fear that was not fear exploded into every part of Jana's body, until she trembled and swelled and bloomed, and the nameless feeling was given names: pride, and exhilaration, and joy, and hunger, and awe, and desire, desire, desire.

Desire for Jindra. Her sword, her shield, her knife in the night, her arrow in the darkness.

Her quarry in the wood!

Jindra's sword caught the sunlight, and as she knocked her opponent flat onto his back in the dust, Jana's heart sang.

Win for us, my darling girl! she thought, ablaze. Win for us both!

Watch me, Jindra thought. Watch me!

The dark swirling need for violence, for dead men, for Jana, had become her blade. The longer Jindra fought, the duller her shame became, and the farther her fear fled.

She beat her first opponent twice in a row, and moved onto the next almost without thought. It was true that she had fought for her life, and known death and danger, in ways these men had not. It was true that she was faster than many of them, nimble, with her weight held lower, and fought in ways they did not expect. It was true that they underestimated the boy they took her to be, and exhausted themselves too soon, which she waited them out.

But more than anything, she wanted it more. She fought as if it were a matter of life and death. She hit with all of her strength, dodged with all of her ability, held herself back until the perfect moment to strike with all of her stubborn will.

Jana was watching, and that was everything. Jindra would rather die than fail her.

Jindra knocked men into the dirt all day, until she was soaked in sweat and filthy, until her arms ached from blow after blow, and until at last, only one man was left.

Black Peter was more practiced than the others had been. He was also more confident. Between her own fights Jindra had watched him knock through men, rising through the tourney like her own dark mirror.

They were handed Black Peter's choice of shortswords, and began to circle each other like cautious cats. Black Peter watched Jindra with beady eyes, and made his first lunge without warning, sharp and fast. As Jindra prepared to block, his sword flashed towards her, and for a moment, the air filled with the faint scent of rotting meat.

Jindra was dressed in armor, the world muffled with sweat and blood and steel, her visor blocking her sight, with exhilaration pumping through her veins and the lives of many men staining her soul already; but beneath it all, she was still the daughter of Elena of Skalitz. She knew the smell of Herb Paris.

Jindra spun out of the way with an agility she didn’t know she had, born from primal instinct, and Black Peter’s lunge overtook him as he stumbled forward.

Herb Paris had dozens of uses, but on a blade? All she could think of was poison. It would be less potent than Ma’s, but one strong enough to cause any cuts to fester. It would be a bad way to die, and a hard recovery if she didn’t.

Jindra felt more indignant than anything. No wonder he always won.

He would aim to cut, and exhaust, so she would have to avoid him. Jindra danced back, her sword raised high and her head spinning.

Jab! Parry! Thrust! Father Godwin told her. But this was a duel for patience. She would have to wait for just the right moment. It was so hard to be patient with a living man.

But Jindra was stubborn. She dodged, and she waited. She blocked, and she waited. Jana was watching and she would not fail. She waited for so long that Black Peter grew frustrated, and his lunges were more careless, until at last, he drew back with an angry shout, and opened up for Jindra like a flower.

She struck.

Black Peter's poison sword went flying, and landed in the dust. He swung his head to follow it, as if he could hardly believe it, and Jindra took the opening to hit him, hard, on the side of his head with the butt of her hilt. The crack rang out so loudly that the crowd audibly winced, and Black Peter went down sprawling, eyes wide and mouth agape.

Jindra was upon him in an instant, the point of the sword against his chest.

“Yield.”

The first round was hers. Black Peter's face was dark with rage, but he stood, retrieving his shortsword only to toss it outside the arena in disgust.

The next choice of weapon was Jindra's. She'd chosen the longsword in all her other fights. But as she stared at Black Peter, standing between her and victory, he became every man who had ever hurt her, or hurt Jana; Sir Hanush humbled, Sir Radzig bewildered; Runt defeated, a usurper and his army in the dirt.

Behind her helm and hidden from all, Jindra grinned savagely, with blood in her teeth.

"War hammers!" she snarled.

The fight began, and Jindra entered a dreaming place. Gone was her caution, her patience, and her exhaustion. Jindra lurched forward and swung with a wild animal's strength, unchecked and reckless. It was such a frenzy that Black Peter stumbled back, and someone in the crowd gasped out loud.

She wanted it more.

It happened so fast that she would dismiss the memory later: but with every blow she struck, the world flashed red, and black, and red.

Then it was over, and Black Peter was flat on his arse, spitting blood into the dirt, and yielding.

Jindra had won.

"All glory to the victor!"

Jindra's ears rang as she stumbled forward, leaving Black Peter in her wake. The crowd was applauding for her, with excited yells and whistles. Sir Radzig and Sir Hanush were on their feet, clapping with the rest. Sir Hanush was even laughing.

And beside them, her expression a blaze of fire, was Jana.

The world narrowed only to her, as it had in Jindra’s dream, when Jana had become the only person alive, the only person who mattered. She was dressed in gold and black, and smiling like the sun. There had never been a more beautiful girl. There had never been such a woman.

Sir Hanush was speaking, as if Jindra gave a shit. "Well done, lad! Remove your helmet, and let us look upon our victor. And then choose your boon!"

Under the blessing of Jana's happiness, Jindra's shame fell away, and she spoke the truth.

“I fought for the honor of my good lady here,” she called out, in her boy's voice, fearless in front of all. “For my boon I claim only a smile.”

Jindra heard the murmurs of the crowd as if they were miles away. She didn’t care for Sir Hanush or Sir Radzig’s expressions at all, and didn’t look. They were nothing. All she cared about, all she could see, was Jana, smiling wider still.

Jana planted both hands on the rail and leaned further over, as if she could stretch to fill the space between them, as if she might jump over and throw herself into Jindra’s arms.

Jana called back, bold, beloved, with joy in her voice for all to hear. “Not a kiss, Sir Knight?”

Jana’s eyes put the sky to shame. Beneath the triumph within them, there was pleasure, and wonder, and pure, open longing.

God and the Virgin and every saint in Heaven took Jindra by the hand and led her to the answer she already knew.

This roiling hunger, this need, this agony — Jana felt it, too. Jana wasn’t afraid.

Jindra pressed her hand over her heart, and bowed. “You honor me,” she swore, in a voice so ragged with desire that no one could mistake it otherwise.

But she wasn't a complete idiot. With her heart declared to all of Rattay, Jindra turned, vaulted over the low wall of the arena, and ran.

Jana had never seen Hanush so riled.

"Find that whelp!" he bellowed, red faced. "Drag him back by his hair if you have to!"

The entire courtyard below scrambled with excited townsfolk and frazzled guards. Black Peter was no help, declaring loudly to anyone who would listen that the strange boy was clearly an enemy, a dangerous villain, and a cheat.

It would be funny, and even flattering, if Jindra were not caught in the middle.

"Uncle!" Jana exclaimed, trying not to sound panicked. "He was only having a bit of fun."

Hanush rounded on her, scowling. "Do you know him?"

"What?"

"Don't play me for a fool, Jana. Do you know him?"

"Are you asking if I have a lover? A peasant lover?" Jana let out a laugh that was entirely too shrill. "Uncle, be serious!"

Radzig had a hand pressed over his mouth, hiding a smile at Hanush's flailing. "I'm sure he meant no harm," he offered, sounding very much like he was trying not to laugh himself.

"I'm not sure," Hanush barked. "In fact, I doubt that very much."

Jana scorned the thought of Radzig as an ally, but she was growing desperately anxious. Her Jindra was clever as a vixen, and had slipped in and out of more dangerous traps than this, but still!

"Back to Pirkstein with me, then," she offered, quickly ducking under Hanush's arm. "If it'll ease your mind, I'll stay there until you find him." Jana made for the stairs, even as Hanush sputtered behind her. "Excuse me."

"You'll take a guard with you," Hanush ordered, calling to her retreating back. "Do you hear? Jana!"

In all the fuss that was supposedly for her benefit, Jana was easily able to slip away. Her feet did not carry her to Pirkstein. She doubled back, slipping along the wall and the shadows, unnoticed in the confusion.

Some deep instinct, the beat of her heart, told her where to go. Jana would never know how – but she felt it, as she ran for the stables, abandoned for the tourney by the boys and grooms.

The horses snorted at her placidly, unbothered. The world outside, filled with the shouts of men, grew muffled, as Jana rounded the corner at a run.

Without thought, drawn without words, she dashed for an unused stall at the far end. It was the very stall where Pebbles had once been kept, before Jindra had raised her above all horses, and Jana had her moved next to her poor bay gelding, now dead.

Jindra was there, waiting.

She spun around, still clad in armor, the helmet dropping from her hand and clattering to the ground. Her tightly plaited hair was escaping the braid, plastered to her face with sweat, and her eyes were wide, wild, shining like a stallion’s at a gallop, like a gyrfalcon's in flight.

For a heartbeat they stood, gasping for air, as if they had both fought a hundred men, and both spilled blood.

“It was for you.” Jindra’s voice was ravaged, breathless. “It was all for you.”

Jana threw herself forward, as Jindra stepped to meet her, as Jindra gasped out loud as if she’d been punched, as Jindra cried out, “It's yours – ”

Jana kissed her, and the world came to life.

Jindra caught Jana around the waist and opened her mouth and made a sound like a dying woman, and kissed her back. Jindra was everywhere and everything; her smell, her touch, her taste, the hard lines of the armor she wore, pressing painfully against Jana’s body, a pain that she chased desperately, sought, for proof that she was awake; Jindra’s hands, bound in glove and gauntlet, framing Jana’s face, clutching at her, grasping behind her neck.

The only part of Jindra that was soft, that yielded, was her mouth, open and gasping into Jana’s, taking and giving to her, melding and pressing, until the world spun and spun into an eruption of color and breathless delight, and Jana moaned, pulled from so deep in her chest that it was the core of her heart made into song.

No kiss in all the stories had ever been like this. No woman had ever been kissed as Jana was being kissed now. She was sure of it. She knew.

Jindra smelled of hard effort and victory, and sweat. Sweat, and horses, just like Jana’s first kiss, just as Jindra had smelled when Jana had first met her. How could she have ever found it disgusting, or boarish? Now she was mad, overwhelmed, shuddering.

Jana moaned again, louder than before, and pulled at Jindra’s braid, as if she could loosen the plaits herself, drag out Jindra’s beautiful dark hair, and press her face to it.

Jindra gasped and pushed herself back. Her lips were bruised and red from Jana’s kisses; as claimed as any quarry, the most beautiful creature on God’s own earth. “We can’t – ”

“Why?” Jana demanded, in a desperate whine, already reaching out. This kiss was her boon, and she needed more. “Don’t you want me?”

“Want you?” Jindra was back in Jana’s arms in a moment, grasping her face. “Christ, Jana.”

Jana opened her mouth, and they were upon each other again.

Jindra pressed her back against the wall, crowding her and bringing their bodies flush together, as she had done against a tree in the grove, as she did when they held one another in the darkness. But Jana hadn't known then – and now armor separated them, hard and harsh, while Jana was wrapped in silk and wool.

She wanted to strip Jindra naked and feel every inch of her skin, and crawl inside of it. She wanted Jindra's mouth on her neck, her legs, her breasts and her thighs, anywhere she wanted. She wanted Jindra's sword to cut their clothes to pieces and be done with it, at last, please, please – 

“Touch me," she gasped. It was all she could manage, the only words she could find. "Show me."

Jindra shook her head and moaned as if in pain, even as she kept kissing. “I’m unwashed. I’m – I’m unclean, I – Jana, I’m unfit to touch you. My hands are filthy, bloody – ”

Jana cried out and clawed at Jindra's armor as if it could be flayed away. “I don’t care! Dirty me, soil me! Ruin me for everyone else!"

Jindra groaned and staggered forward, somehow closer still, pressing them brow to brow. "I'd never hurt you," she rasped, even as her hands and body shook, like something caged.

“Save me, then," Jana begged. "Don't you see? You're my freedom, my answer!" Her voice cracked in desperation. "Jindra, please!”

Jindra fell to her knees.

Jana gasped as Jindra seized her by the waist and pressed her face to Jana’s stomach, kissing through the wool of her gown. She kissed over and over, reverent, before kissing down to Jana's thighs, her legs, sending shocks of fire even through the prison of fabric, as Jana's knees turned to water.

Jindra grasped the hem of Jana’s heavy skirts, and began to push them up: the summer wool of her gown, the silk of her kirtle, the linen of her shift, each layer bunched like summer leaves, pulled up and up in a slow, torturous reveal. The metal of a gauntlet brushed at the garter of her hose, and then at the bare skin above Jana’s knee.

Jana was panting, her legs trembling, her whole self held on the blade of Jindra's kisses. Jindra, her eyes dancing and dazed, guided one of Jana’s legs over her shoulder. She tugged at Jana's hose, ducked down, and pressed her hot, flushed face to the bare skin of Jana's knee.

"Jindra," Jana choked.

“Janinka," Jindra whispered. She rubbed her lips across Jana’s leg, drifting higher, towards the core of her, open and throbbing and slick and wet and weeping – 

Out of sight, at the stable entrance, Hanush's shout erupted like thunder. “Jana! Where are you?”

Jindra pushed herself back, tumbling into the hay, and Jana caught herself against the wall, her legs buckling. Jana lurched to the side and ran from the stall, blind and frantic.

“Here!" she gasped, exploding out of the stables and into the sunlight. "I’m here, Uncle!"

Hanush stood waiting for her, glowering and flanked by two of his personal guard, who he usually never bothered to bring with him. Jana was instantly aware of how she must look: flushed, hair mussed, her skirts rumpled.

“Did you find him yet?" she asked, clearing her throat. "The insolent boy?”

Hanush narrowed his eyes. “More than insolent," he said, his voice oddly quiet.

Jana tried to scoff. “Uncle, you can’t think he was dangerous. I – "

"You said you were going back to Pirkstein," Hanush cut in, in a lord's voice. "Why were you in there?"

"The stables? I thought I'd stop in on Pebbles on the way, for Jindra. You know how I can be with horses."

"Let me be clearer," Hanush said. "Who is in there?"

Jana flooded with panic, and she desperately hoped she was able to hide it fast enough. She forced a laugh. “No one. Don’t be silly!"

Hanush frowned at her for a moment more, and then jerked his head at the guards. "Search it."

“Oh yes, why not!” Jana snapped, borderline hysterical, as the men entered the stables. She prayed that she had given Jindra enough time to escape. “I see my word means nothing, and my honor is in question! Really, Uncle! I am many things, but a romp with an unnamed, bold stranger in the hay? Am I so loose? Is that what they say of me? Is that what you think?”

“I think he charmed you." Hanush's frown grew heavy in a way Jana did not expect. "And I think anyone could understand why."

Before Jana could make sense of that, the guards returned, empty handed and shaking their heads. "No one here, my lord."

Jana nearly sagged with relief, but she turned to Hanush with only a grumble. “There. My word, but you’re being overbearing."

Hanush looked torn between suspicion and relief himself. "Can you blame me?"

Jana pressed her thumbnail against her wrist fast and hard, before clapping her hands together. “Let us forget all about it. But poor Jindra! She missed all the excitement! I must go to her and tell her.”

“You’ll go – ”

“Yes, straight there, and you can keep up your search for this great new enemy. Have your own guard escort me if that would satisfy."

Hanush took one last look over Jana's too-pleased face, and Jana was struck with the realization that Hanush might know her better than either one of them would care to admit.

"It would," was all he said.

Jindra barely had time to climb through the window and throw the blankets back over her before she heard voices outside the door.

“I suppose I must promise that I shan’t be leaving this room.” Jana’s voice, pompous and piercing, arrogant and presumptuous; if Jindra were not already mad with desire, the sound would drive her to it. “You’ll have me swear an oath, I expect? Barricade the door?”

When the door opened, Jindra pulled the blankets to her chin, squinting as if she’d been asleep. “My lady?”

“You’ve woken her!” Jana spun around to scold whoever had followed, and Jindra yearned to see her face like starving men must yearn for food. “Post a guard, if you’re so worried.”

Whatever man was outside the door – Sir Hanush, a guard, the pope, the king himself set free – mumbled some unheard reply. It didn’t matter who he was. He wouldn’t enter this room. Jana’s prison had turned sanctuary, a secret place for the two of them just like their grove, where Jindra could gaze at her lady openly.

Jana shut the door, and bolted it.

The sound of the lock echoed like a whip crack, and Jana, as cruel as she was beautiful, took a moment before she turned, making Jindra wait, making her suffer. But in the next instant she had spun, and was dashing across the room, a blur of light and sky.

Jindra threw back the blankets, still dressed in a man’s gambeson and hose, but Jana was already upon her. Jana knocked her back, tumbling them onto the bed in a tangle, half-straddling Jindra’s legs as she pressed messy, fast kisses over Jindra’s face, giggling breathlessly into Jindra’s gasping mouth.

Without the armor between them, Jana’s warm, giving, wanting body pressed to Jindra’s, plush and melding even through the layers of wool and silk and linen. Jindra tried to touch her everywhere at once, waist and face and neck, clawing up her back, her blood singing.

Jana kissed as Jindra always knew she would, had been too afraid to imagine but had always known: demanding, swooning, claiming, everything and all, her spoiled covetous need and her anxious sweetness, opening and blooming and pulling Jindra in.

They both moaned; not girlish sighs, not the tender gasps of ladies, but open, wanting groans, the claiming sound of equals – and far too loud.

Jindra tried to pull back, to keep her head, and failed. “Jana – oh.” Jana’s lips found her jaw, and then her neck, and the world tilted and swam. “Jana, hush.”

“Kiss me,” Jana ordered, as if she hadn’t heard. “Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me – ”

There was nothing for it but to kiss Jana again, and swallow every sound. Jindra was a starving hound unleashed at a banquet, delirious, her blood still hot with victory, her body afire and pulsing and alive.

“Can I – ” Jindra needed more, needed to see more, to feel more, needed, needed. “Jana, please, let me – ”

Jana’s trembling fingers were already scrambling at the straps of Jindra’s gambeson. “You’d have me squire for you?” Jana whispered. She was teasing, still perfectly herself, even now, even as her smile shook and her eyes glowed, even flushed with lust and nervous excitement. “You’d command me, my knight?”

“Yours,” Jindra breathed, almost mindless. It was like repeating her own name. Her hands plucked uselessly at the ties on the back of Jana’s gown; she was half blind as it was, and couldn’t bear to turn Jana in her arms, to stop kissing her; so she pressed her lips to Jana cheek, and took hold of her hair.

Jindra herself had braided Jana’s long plaits that morning, twisting ribbons through the gold and summer wheat and arranging them into tightly pinned coils. Now Jindra pulled the pins out, one by one, eyes closed and mouth open against Jana’s jaw; she could do it without looking, after all this time.

It slowed them both. Jana let her head fall back, easy and trusting; and as the ribbons fell away, her hair tumbling in shining waves down her back, Jindra dipped forward in a dream to press her lips to Jana’s long throat, bared for her, and smiled against her skin, wide and true.

Jana gasped and shuddered, and the gasp turned into a laugh that was breathless, and nearly shy. It was the most beautiful, most humbling sound in the world: Jana, shy.

“I didn’t know we would laugh,” Jana whispered.

Jindra’s heart escaped her chest and tumbled into Jana’s hands. She flipped them both and pressed Jana to the bed, and as Jana’s eyes went wide and excited, Jindra yanked at the straps of the gambeson that Jana had clumsily, helpfully loosened for her. She would have tried to snap the straps in her haste if they’d stood in her way. It fell to the ground heavily, and Jindra ripped off the linen shirt beneath and the cloth she'd used to blind her breasts, impatient, feeling like she had in combat, overhot and overeager.

But the sound Jana made was so soft and so quiet that it staggered Jindra like a blow from a mace, and she froze, braced above Jana’s body, straddling her hips. Jana’s mouth was open, in that soft parted look of surprise from her dreams, that Jindra had watched and hoarded. Jana ran a slim, strong hand up Jindra’s waist, and Jindra shivered at the gentleness, and the path of fire it left.

“What do we do?” Jana asked, hushed, eyes wide with excitement.

Jindra hardly knew herself. But she was bare from the waist up, while Jana was laying beneath her like a parcel wrapped in silk, hidden away, bound too tight, and she couldn’t stand that a moment longer.

“Let me see you.” Jindra couldn’t be sure if she said the words out loud. She felt them leave her in a rumble, roiling like thunder, or like a rising sob.

Jana nodded frantically, kicking her legs and rolling onto her stomach.

Jindra had unlaced Jana’s gowns a hundred times; she knew the path of the laces, and the tumbling curves of Jana’s waist and thighs beneath the heavy fabric, like she knew her own body. But now her hands had never been so clumsy and useless – not her mother’s hands, twisting herbs into posies, or her father’s, twisting metal into beautiful shapes. Just her own, just Jindra’s, trembling with urgent need.

When the heavy wool overgown finally fell away, Jindra almost snapped the silk ties of the kirtle beneath in her haste. She was half-mad, and would have torn the cloth in her teeth if she could. Jana might have let her.

When Jana finally squirmed out of her kirtle and fell back against the pillows, she was left in her shift of snow white linen, heaving and gasping, her hair a mess and her arms outstretched. The shape of her body beneath was obvious, a shadow and a promise: tall, lithe, perfect.

Jindra fell forward, buried her face in the swell of Jana’s breasts, and moaned.

It was muffled against Jana's skin, but it was still too loud, again. But Jana’s stuttering gasp was worth any price.

Jindra was too impatient, too desperate. “Can I?” she asked again, in the ravaged voice that was mostly air. “Please.” She kissed and kissed, down Jana’s chest, to her stomach, and further, rucking up the linen in her hands, pulling it up and over Jana’s knees, her thighs. “Please.”

Jana’s breath skipped in the middle, as uneven as a river, as a summer gale. “Anything,” she whispered; tremulous, but without fear. “Show me.”

Jana was fearless. Jana was brave. Jana wasn’t afraid of her, and wasn’t afraid of this frenzy between them. Jindra could be brave, too.

It was the most natural thing in the world to push Jana’s shift up to her stomach, and spread Jana’s legs. Jana went easily, with a little whimper of excitement.

Jindra pressed her cheek to Jana’s thigh, and kissed the side of it, as she had when she knelt in the stable. But her eyes had been closed then, lost in the dream. She pressed another kiss to Jana’s flushed skin – dusted pink and red, because Jana blushed everywhere – and gazed at where Jana was trembling, and open, where she smelled of musk and need.

Jindra had never seen a cunt so close before, not even her own. Matthew had called it a flower, and Jindra had laughed, called him stupid for it, but looking at Jana’s now…it was a flower, opening for Jindra alone, swollen and pink and perfect.

She was so wet that the golden curls were dark and damp, and the very center of her was shining with slickness. She hadn’t even been touched. It was all from Jindra’s kisses, and Jindra’s wanting.

Jindra had to do this right. She had to be worthy of it.

Jindra reached out and parted Jana with her fingers, lightheaded from the wet heat, and the scent filling her senses like dark wine. She tried feeling for the small hidden nub of sweetness that she had felt in herself, and Jana made a sound of surprise, quickly muffled, as if she’d thrown a hand over her mouth.

Possessiveness swelled like a sudden storm in Jindra’s heart. The bed smelled like Jana’s cunt and Jindra’s sweat, the dust of the arena staining and lingering. Jindra finally wasn't ashamed. She didn’t flinch from it. This was hers. Her blood roared from the tourney, from her victory, and the greatest boon of all: her prize, her Jana.

She leaned in, without even thinking, and kissed.

Jana gasped above her. “Jindra, what…?”

Jindra pressed kisses to the lips, the weeping mouth, over the tight bud in the center. Jana was soft, and giving, and her taste was salt and richness and tang, the taste of a fight, of a race. Jindra kissed Jana's cunt the way she had ached and yearned to kiss Jana’s mouth, and then more; licking up and in, pressing her tongue against her, along the entrance of her, and finally inside of her, until Jana filled her senses, so strong and so lush that Jindra drowned, lost in the midsummer woodland of Jana’s body.

Jana's thighs were twitching. When Jindra opened her eyes and glanced up, hazy, bleary as a drunk, Jana had one hand clasped tight over her mouth, and her blue, blue eyes were so wide, wavering with surprise and delight.

The only thing that kept Jindra from moaning out loud in anguish, and giving them away, was the clear-eyed part of her that beat like a drum, stronger than even her own heartbeat. She had to protect Jana. Jindra had to keep her safe.

It was the rock upon which Jindra was rebuilding a shattered self, even lost in the taste and heat of pulsing, perfect cunt – she would not risk Jana – not for Jindra’s own pleasure – not for anything – 

Jindra was a knight kneeling to his lady, Lancelot on his knees. She belonged here. She was born to be here.

Jindra’s eyes slipped closed. She moved her head from side to side, barely breathing, uncaring, trying to think of what Jana would like, what the girl in Skalitz had liked; Jana’s hips bucked up, her cunt quivering and opening as if Jana’s heartbeat was held beneath Jindra’s mouth, cradled, a gift freely given.

Jana was making a soft, muffled sound, whining faintly behind her hand, chanted like prayer with a familiar shape.

It was Jindra’s name.

This is mine. The thought was clear, loud, and desperate. No man will ever have this. This is for me.

Jindra was so wet that she was sticking to her braies, the linen soaked through. If she’d had a cock, she would have come, just from this. She was sure of it.

“Jindra!” Jana tapped at her shoulder urgently, her voice a thready, broken whisper. “Jindra, something is – Jindra, wait – !”

Yes, Jindra thought, savage, a lioness guarding her kill. She pressed the flat of her tongue against the nub at the height of where Jana opened, and sucked in, drowning, drowning, dying –

Jana arched off the bed, and as Jindra tasted a new, deeper wetness, Jana ground her cunt against her mouth, with all her spoiled, noble, insatiable greed. She quaked and shuddered, eyes squeezed shut, coming so hard that her cunt pulsed under Jindra’s tongue; and she was completely silent, with both hands clasped over her mouth.

That was the one thing marring the joy. Jana should sing as loudly as she wanted. Jindra’s beautiful songbird, her bird of prey, with her talons in Jindra’s heart.

Jindra was lost. She hadn’t – the girl in Skalitz had touched herself sometimes, and had been touched, and known pleasure, but not since –

Jindra shoved a hand down the front of her braies, and found herself so slick that she was almost dripping, and as hot as a brazier; she slid her fingers against the swollen core of her body so easy, so fast, so unthinking, that she didn't have time to flinch at any memory of pain. There was nothing but Jana’s taste and her smell, coating her face, clinging to her, and the memory of her pulsing, living body, brought to joy at last by Jindra, pleased by Jindra, loved by –

Jindra rutted and came, her blood turning to honey wine, thrusting, bucking, her eyes closed and her mouth open and wet against Jana’s stomach, smearing her own spit and Jana’s slickness against the linen. It was a miracle she stayed quiet. Everything she had ever known had been cobwebs, whispers, the echoes of true pleasure.

The two of them shook and shook, trembled as if they were locked in fevers, for a very long time. Jindra’s mind danced back and forth from thought to thought: the sun was growing low, and the shadows were getting longer. Her shoulder still ached, from the blow in the arena. She’d won a tourney. She'd pleased someone. She’d pleased the only person who mattered.

Jindra’s voice, when she found it, was thick and sticky, filled with honey wine like the rest of her. “Am I heavy?”

“Don’t move.” Jana’s voice was so quiet, and floating. “Don’t move ever again.”

Jindra smiled. Jana was spoiled even now. And while Jindra tried to follow a command for once in her life, she wanted to see Jana’s face too badly. She pressed her lips to Jana’s stomach one last time, and lifted herself up, braced on her trembling arms, and looked down.

Jana’s legs were spread, hose rumpled and thighs shining and wet. Her shift was shoved up to her stomach and half-pulled off her chest, baring one breast, and her face was blotchy, her cheeks tearstained.

She didn’t look debauched, or ruined. She was an angel, a spill of chamomile in a meadow, made more beautiful by lust and not ravaged by it.

Jindra’s heart broke. Or maybe it forged back together, like a ruined blade under a blacksmith’s skilled hands. It was hard to tell the difference.

“Oh,” Jana whispered. She was weeping silently, but Jindra knew Jana, and knew every single one of her tears. These were happy ones.“Jindra. Who taught you to do that?”

Jindra shook her head. She barely understood the question. The bodies she’d known before Jana’s had ceased to matter, and ceased to exist. “No one. I just…knew I wanted to.”

“Oh,” Jana whispered again. Jindra bent down and kissed her, and when she pulled away, Jana’s mouth was shining with her own slickness. Jindra wiped at it with her thumb, and brought it to her mouth to taste.

Jana's eyes swam with more than just tears. "I dreamed of you," she said.

It hit Jindra harder than any blow that day. Her arms gave out, and she collapsed back onto Jana's stomach. The dreams had been for her. They'd been hers, all along.

Jana's hands came to rest on Jindra's hair, disheveled and escaping the braid. “Did you dream of me, too?” Jana pressed; insistent and ever greedy, with her heartbreaking fragility beneath.

“Aye.” Jindra didn't know how to explain that she dreamed of Jana even when she was awake, and might be dreaming now. Her words were never as fine as Jana's, and her truth was always simple. "You're the only good dream I ever have."

Jana's returning sigh was a sob.

Evening was approaching, and they would have to get dressed eventually. The maids would come to stoke the fires. Life in Pirkstein would march on around them. But for now, Jindra sighed into Jana's body, and let herself drift, without pain.

Eventually, Jana sniffed loudly, and cleared her throat. "Is it…acceptable to attempt this more than once in a day? I would very much like to do this more than once a day."

Jindra couldn't help it – she snorted, grinned, and hid her face against Jana's stomach. Jana shook with silent giggles in reply, unoffended. It wasn't only that it was funny. It was simple happiness, with nowhere else to go, and Jindra let the wonder wash over her.

It was just as Jana had said. Jindra hadn't known that they would laugh.

and on a soft bed
delicate
you would let loose your longing

- Sappho

Chapter Text

When the pain came later, Jindra would cling to this: a month of happiness.

The morning after the tourney, Jindra woke wrapped up in Jana, limbs entwined and sharing the same heartbeat, and with every bone in her body sore. She was covered in bruises, from her shoulders to her legs to her arms, mottled black and blue and purple from sword strikes and ill-fitting armor. Her knuckles were split and scabbed in places, and she couldn't move without groaning, her muscles stiff with protest.

Jana was delighted. "You shall have to stay in bed all day!" she declared, as if it were a nameday gift for her personally. "That will serve us well, as you're supposed to be ill."

Jindra winced as she tried to sit up. "But – "

Jana pressed her lips to Jindra's ruined knuckles, and Jindra's words died with a wheezing noise. "Shut up," Jana cooed, with her beautiful giggle. "Naturally I shall have to oversee your care." She pushed Jindra back down, and crawled over her, giggling even more. "You will kiss me again, won't you? And hold me again? Say it, Jindra, say so!"

If it weren't for the aches, Jindra would think it were a dream. But all her dreams were nightmares, or fevered, delirious memories, where the sweetness always spoiled. Jana, squirming in her arms and demanding, demanding, demanding, was the realest thing she had ever touched.

"Peace," Jindra murmured, her own grin growing wide. She hadn't split a lip or bruised her mouth. A small miracle, keeping her free and willing for Jana's kisses. She rubbed Jana's bottom lip with her thumb, and gently tugged her hair, bringing her closer. "I'll stop that mouth."

With the fevered rush of the day before gone, and with sleep fading, Jindra found herself oddly shy. But Jana gave her no room for it, bounding and bursting, like a dam split apart. She had been waiting her whole life to kiss and be kissed, just as Jindra had known.

They spent all morning in bed.

That was how the joy began. Jindra and Jana spent every night wrapped in each other, and every morning, and every second in between that they could. All Jindra wanted to do, all she needed to do, was kiss Jana, and touch Jana, and watch her, and have her, every single day, and she never tired of it.

Their only chain was silence. They muffled their moans and their cries with hands and mouths, and watching Jana stifle her own voice was heartbreaking. But Jana's isolation and loneliness, and the careful confirmed life that Jindra shared with her, became their shield, and their gift. Who would bother them? Who would suspect what had happened, behind Jana's bolted door? Who would care?

Jindra was a fast learner when she put her mind to it, and she devoted herself to learning the taste of Jana's mouth, and skin, and cunt. She thought she knew Jana's body, and thought she knew the look of her naked; but it was different now, to look and touch and know what it was what they both wanted, and to learn how it felt to press another girl's bare body to hers in the dark.

Jana herself was quickly learning to be bossy, and after the first three days of mad, reeling, wonderful passion, she was already giving Jindra orders.

"To the left!" she whined in the darkness, nudging Jindra with her knee until Jindra laughed with her mouth full. "Not like that, silly girl! You – oh –"

A small part of Jindra had wondered if Jana would be shy. But she was ravenous and eager at all hours, and shameless when asking for what she wanted. Jindra felt drunk with it, tumbling into too much ale for one girl to hold inside of her.

Best of all – best of all by far – was watching Jana's surprise melt into knowing glances, as she learned command of her own pleasure. It was a joy to lay her down and to whisper, "Show me," as Jana put her hand between her own legs and sighed and writhed, as Jindra stroked her hip and neck, letting out little building cries that Jindra swallowed with her kisses.

After Jana came, her expression dreamy and dancing, she would reach for Jindra. It was the only time that she still ever looked truly shy. But Jindra would ease away, taking Jana's hand and kissing the salt-sweet slick of her off of her fingers until Jana shivered. Jindra touched herself after, losing herself in Jana's hazy, satisfied eyes, wrapped inside the dark animal lust that seemed to make up the bulk of her heart; and she'd rut and grind mindlessly, so much wetter than she'd realized she could ever get, and come harder than she ever had in her life. The dark animal lust became less dangerous and more like something real; a core made bare, or a heart flayed raw.

There was a wolf in that dark lust, another set of snapping jaws, that told Jindra why she carefully, gently eased away from Jana's hands each time; but she locked it away, and did not think about it.

It was easy to ignore. Because beyond the frenzy, beyond the wet heat and the sighs, Jindra discovered that little changed between them. They still spent their days together; Jana still taught Jindra her letters; they still shared their meals, and knelt together at mass, and Jindra still laced up the back of Jana's gowns.

But now, when Jindra squinted at Latin and Czech and spelled a word correctly, Jana would kiss her for her reward. When they knelt at mass, their thighs pressed together, Jindra felt her soul fill up for the first time since Skalitz, though not with God; and when Jindra helped Jana dress, she pressed kisses to her neck and shoulders, and all over again when she undressed her at the end of the day.

Jana was still Jana, spoiled and contradictory and adored, and Jindra's dearest friend.

"What do you call pleasure without sin?" Jana asked one day, lying sprawled atop Jindra and playing with her hair. "And lust without danger? This friendship on fire? What should we call this trick we've played on God?"

Jindra wondered the same. She didn't think this was sodomy. She'd never heard of something like this nameless need between women. Jana had once asked if they were the only two girls in all the world who felt as they did, and now Jindra was sure of it.

She thought of the warmth of Theresa's hands; Matthew's face covered in mud, his smiling mouth on her neck. The look on Pa's face when he gave Ma a kiss, when her eyes were still closed and she couldn't see him. The smiling days of summer when flowers bloomed brightest. Bianca laughing in a river, laughing in a meadow, laughing in Heaven. If all of them them together had a name, Jindra thought that might be the trick played on God.

One day, Jindra visited to the garden again. She'd ignored it for weeks, and expected to find all her wildflowers dead. But a few of the marigolds held on, blooming late, and the poppies, though drying out, had grown taller when she hadn't looked.

Jindra drew her knife to harvest what she could for drying, and smiled.

Jana had a lover.

It was nothing like how she'd imagined. There was no man who took Jana to his bed in violence, no underhanded seduction, no fear. Jana couldn't be even sure if this could be called a coupling, without a cock to breach and the pain that followed. It must be something like how animals found their pleasure, in frolic and in freedom.

Jana became very well acquainted with Jindra's lips, and her neck, her hair, and her legs, and her arms, her breasts and her stomach. Jana had wasted so many nights sleeping beside Jindra, dressing with her, bathing with her, with no idea what she might have lost. Now she was ravenous, a wreck of wanting, and spent every moment aching for her hearts desire.

And what an ache, that never eased, and only built, forever!

Jana was insatiable at all hours. “Please,” she begged every day, her mouth hot and open and wet against Jindra’s neck. “Please, oh, please.”

Jindra eventually breached inside of her, first with her tongue, and then with her strong, blunt, beautiful fingers. And that, too, was never as Jana had imagined; it was only full, and sweet, and good. She never knew a virgin's pain.

And there was more. Her small room became their new sanctuary, the oppressive walls expanding into a palace of pleasure where longing exploded into stars. Jindra brought back flowers from the castle garden, and hung them to dry by Jana's window, illuminated by sunlight and singing her mother's song of the meadow. Jana found more flowers pressed between the pages of her horae, or hidden beneath her pillow. Jindra did outrageous things to make Jana smile, and would kiss her after. They never stopped laughing.

It was a friendship made more, made whole, made holy.

Jana still thought of her promise to Jindra, to find her father's sword. But it was easy to put out of her mind, when Jindra's smile came so easy and warm, and the world they built between them drowned out everything else. They didn't speak of the future. How wonderful, to tumble headlong into the River Lethe of Jindra's lips, and to be safe forever.

She didn't even want to go to the grove. She thought sometimes, wickedly, of bringing Jindra down the stone path, and stripping them both naked, and running bare through the trees. But every time night came, Jindra's body and mouth were all she craved, and she would always forget.

Caught up in a newfound generosity, she began to return silly Stephanie's letters from Talmberg, such as they were. It was easier to be charitable to the sad and lonely, when Jana herself had forgotten the taste of loneliness entirely.

"I do feel sorry for her," she said, tapping her quill against her mouth. "What should one say to a pitiful creature without revealing how pitiful one finds her?"

Jindra sat reclining against Jana's legs, and chuckled. "Be nice."

"I am nice. I'd never say so to her face. But imagine, shackled to the bed of some old lord, your youth gone, without a friend in the world. Wretched."

Jindra gave a thoughtful hum. "She was very sad."

"You've spoken with her?"

Jindra nodded. "She was very kind to me. I stayed in Talmberg before I – " Jindra's voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. "Before I want back to Skalitz."

Jana's heart clenched. She ran a hand tenderly across the crown of Jindra's head, and watched the tension bleed away.

Jindra took a breath. "Anyway, she is lonely. She told me that she'd lost babes, too."

"Better than dying for them." Jana kept stoking Jindra's hair. "A sad reflection of who I might have been, without you."

Jindra reached up, caught Jana's hand, and pressed a kiss over the scar on her wrist. Jana shivered, willing Jindra to stop and to stay all at once. "But you'll always have me," Jindra vowed. "Don't forget that."

She sounded so unshakable. "Do you think I'm meant for it?" Jana blurted out, before she could help it, her tongue set loose. "All this happiness?"

Jindra's response was more kisses, pressed to her wrist, and then higher, tugging Jana further down to accomplish it. "As long as I live," she murmured.

But as Jana giggled, pulling back lightly without any true strength, feeling perfectly content, and all her fears banished…for an instant, gone as quick as it came, she thought, unbidden, of her father.

The only obstacle to utter bliss would be him.

She should have expected it. He'd be none too pleased to see her smiling. She thought of him often now; his cold, hateful stare was in every man and behind every corner, she could not look at the river without seeing corpses, and could not cut her food without hearing leather straps snap.

And even so, Jana found that her father's ghost had no power. He could wait for her in Hell, with his frozen hands outstretched. Jana was free of him, when the bright spiral of Jindra drowned out his shade.

Jindra pulled her wicked mouth away, and furrowed her brow adorably, as she always did when thinking hard. "Was I your first kiss?" she asked, as if it had only just occurred to her.

Jana laughed, perhaps a little cruelly. "Don't flatter yourself, my dear."

Jindra made a face somewhere between a puppy and a gargoyle. "Oh," she said, genuinely disappointed.

"Jindra!" Jana laughed, enchanted. "It's a fine thing for you to be jealous. I'm the saint, the martyr, for having no ill will towards your poor dead lover."

Truthfully, she hardly thought of him at all. Jindra's response – a snort, and a roll of the eyes – told Jana that she knew it. How could the lust of a man compare to this? Jindra was her friend; her dearest, her only. And she was also her pleasure, and her tormentor, her heart and her spirit. It was different. It had to be.

But was Jana everything and all to Jindra? She thought again, as she often did, of the angel Bianca, tucked safely away in a corner of Jindra's heart that Jana was not privy to, along with hundreds of summer days that she would never know. Jindra certainly acted as if she had never known such a friendship with another girl, as wide-eyed with shocked delight as Jana felt – but who could resist kissing Jindra in a golden meadow, given the chance?

"Has it ever been like this for you?" she asked. She'd meant to be coy, but it came out anxious. "Or is it only for me?"

Jindra smiled, and kissed her fingers, her palm, and then her wrist again, over her scar that would never fade. "Only you."

That was a comfort. But when they slept that night, Jana wrapped herself around Jindra as if she might fly away at any moment, or vanish like an old folk spirit out of her window, carrying Jana's heart in her claws.

She thought of the friendship of Lancelot and Galehaut, and how Galehaut had died of heartbreak for a man who loved a woman, chasing him about like the tide. She thought of the dead peasant maid, who she feared would never be excised from her friend's memory.

Jana allowed herself her greed, and banished the ghost from her bed. You have her past, girl, she thought, smiling into Jindra's hair. This belongs to me.

In the end, Sir Hanush did not keep Jana truly confined, as he'd done before. By the time it occurred to Jindra and Jana that there was a world outside of their bed, the excitement from the tourney had died down, and Sir Hanush no longer seemed like a hound in a hunting frenzy.

"I'm almost offended for you," Jana whispered, as Jindra saddled Pebbles in the stables. "My black knight was the most interesting thing to happen to Rattay in ages!"

They were preparing for a ride today; a short one, which Sir Hanush no doubt thought generous. Jindra knew that in the past, Jana would have bristled at such a short leash, but neither of them cared today.

Jindra grinned. "Maybe Sir Hanush thinks the boy ran scared."

"Oh, and he'd be a wise boy to do it," Jana agreed gravely. She stepped closer, and tangled her fingers in the hair at the base of Jindra's neck, escaping the plait. She lowered her voice. "To think he's been in my bed all along."

Jindra pressed her legs together beneath her skirts, and cleared her throat. She wasn't as good at these games as Jana; her head spun away into too much heat. "Sir Hanush would kill him if he knew."

Jana pressed daringly closer. "My uncle is lucky the knave didn't claim me for his own and steal me away, to live in some far off land of sin."

Tell me where, Jindra though fiercely, before she pulled herself together. Even the suggestion of Jana's lips on her neck drove her mad. "You'll shock Pebbles."

Jana sighed temptingly, but stepped back. "A shock might do that old girl some good. Shall we go?"

She hadn't chosen a horse of her own yet, though Jindra knew that no beast in the stable was the equal of Jana's gelding. Instead, Jana swung herself up onto Pebbles without asking.

"I shall be riding pillion today," she said, holding out her hand to Jindra presumptuously. "As a lady to her knight."

Jindra shot a quick glance around, and then took Jana's hand, and kissed it. Pebbles snorted at their antics, like a disapproving chaperone.

The day was warm, bright, and lazy, the way late summers had felt in Jindra's childhood. She hadn't taken Pebbles out for a ride for its own sake in too long, and she'd forgotten the simple joy; especially with Jana seated with her, pressed close with her arms around Jindra's waist, chattering happily in Jindra's ear.

Even the shadow of Jana's guards couldn't dampen the mood. "My apologies, gentlemen!" Jana called to them. "We kept you guarding your dreary posts for far too long without a respite."

Janek and Jaroslav both laughed. Something about it made Jindra feel especially warm, as if her life in Skalitz had never truly ended, and Jana was finally taking her rightful place in it.

"We're happy to see you both well, my lady," Janek said.

"I'm surprised Sir Hanush didn't send an army with us." Jindra turned in her saddle. "What are they saying about that boy? The one who dishonored my lady?"

"Gone," Jaroslav said. "Miles away by now, or hidden in a cellar, if he knows what's good for him. Sir Hanush's anger has cooled, but Black Peter is still out for blood, they say."

Jindra tried not to smile, even as she felt Jana dig her nails lightly into her stomach. "A sore loser."

When they reached the meadow, Jana lead Jindra by the hand through the tall grass. It reminded her of an afternoon months ago, when they were hardly friends, and Jindra hadn't know what she'd held. Some of the grasses were going to seed, and the late wildflowers were starting to fall away: a world turning from green to gold, rich and ripening.

They stretched onto their backs, picking idly at the remaining flowers, without care or goal, and let the day carry on and on. The world had never felt so far away. Jindra must have fallen asleep in Skalitz and awoken in Jana's embrace, and all the rest in the middle had happened to someone else.

Jana began braiding some of the flowers into Jindra's hair. "Remind me again," she insisted. "Eyebright is…"

"A wash of leaves," Jindra murmured, half asleep in the sun.

"Yes!" Jana cleared her throat, and repeated, like a child at a lesson, "A wash of leaves, a gentle pour, may clear the sight and more.”

Jindra and Bianca had once done the same, under Ma's eye. Jindra smiled, eyes still closed, the memory as comforting as Jana's voice. "That's right."

"My true love walks where blossoms be," Jana sang, soft and under her breath, as if not meant for even Jindra's ears, "In the meadow, beside me..."

Eventually, it was time to go. They climbed back onto Pebbles, who was as good natured as always, plodding steadily beneath the added weight. Jana yawned loudly, like a pleased, overfed, bored cat.

"Should we gallop instead?" Jindra teased.

Jana pressed her mouth to Jindra's ear. "One day we'll race again," she promised. Her breath made Jindra shiver. "We'll gallop side by side, flying like two eagles, as we ought to. I think we were born to race each other, don't you?"

Jindra smiled to herself. "I think I was born to chase after you."

"Beside me, my friend." Jana's arms tightened, and her voice drew it on itself a bit. "My dear friend. No more nonsense."

The Upper Castle was quiet when they returned. In the stables, Jindra was surprised to see that Sir Hanush's mare, giant and unmistakable, was gone, as was the mount that Sir Radzig favored.

"Thank God for it," Jana said, watching as Jindra brushed down Pebbles in her stall; it was technically a groom's job, but one she preferred to do herself, if she could. "Maybe they've gone off hunting and I'll be spared a dull dinner for a few days."

"Maybe one fell and broke his arse," Jindra offered hopefully. "Next time we could loosen a saddle to be sure."

Jana's eyes went wide and shocked for a moment, before she laughed; loud, unchecked, and almost hysterical, nearly doubling over. Jindra didn't think her joke had been that funny, but a smiling, joyful Jana was irresistible; so she grabbed Jana by the waist and kissed her.

It was a reckless thing to do, but when Jana smiled into her mouth, Jindra feared nothing. "The stables again!" Jana cooed, hushed. "Soon I won't be able to smell horses without thinking of you!"

Jindra took a belated look behind her, confirmed they were alone, and ducked down to draw Jana's lip between her teeth. "Good."

They might have gone farther, if a clatter of commotion hadn't sounded outside the stables, filled with running feet and excited voices. "Sir Hanush has returned!"

Jana groaned quietly, her face twisting up. She made even annoyance look pretty.

Two grooms entered the stables, leading two horses behind them. Jindra wasn't ready to step out of Jana's arms, so she grinned, and pulled Jana down with her, hiding them below the wall of Pebbles' stall, out of sight. Jana's eyes went wide, sparkling with mischief, and they pressed their hands over each other's mouths to smother their giggling.

Sir Hanush must have been standing just on the other side of the stable wall, because his voice was very clear through the wood. "You would think so."

"How long have we known each other?" That was Sir Radzig, sounding very fond. "Do you trust me or not?"

"Stop making me feel old."

"You are old."

"Fuck off."

Jana stifled another giggle behind her hand. Jindra was so used to hearing Sir Hanush angry, or lordly, that it was a little shocking to hear him so…unguarded. Sir Radzig, too. They were almost boyish.

"It won't be the last of her admirers," Sir Radzig said. "Are you going to play the tyrant every time?"

They were talking about Jana. Jindra immediately bristled in instinctive anger; Jana's smile faded, and she glanced at the floor.

"So I let the next bastard run roughshod over both of us?" Sir Hanush grumbled. "Sometimes I wish you'd taken her."

Jindra's stomach swooped out. But Sir Radzig snorted. "No, you don't."

"It would have at least been over and done with!"

"She was fourteen at the time, as I recall."

Sir Hanush sputtered. "I assume you would have waited, for Christ's sake! Even a precontract would have been something."

"I know you, Hanush. If I'd ever seriously considered it, you'd have ripped my balls off."

Sir Hanush sputtered a moment longer. "Well," he muttered darkly, "You'd have deserved it."

Sir Radzig laughed at him, with an unfamiliar edge of indulgence. Jana was looking at the wall, towards the voices, her brow furrowed.

Hanush's voice grew gruff. "You would have been kind to her. That's all I – at least I would have known that."

A pause, and then Sir Radzig's voice, less light than before. "You worry for her."

"You know I do." A heavy sigh. "She might actually get taken in by the next cuntstruck urchin."

"I doubt she's that foolish."

"She's my blood. Passion will always be her vice and her burden."

Sir Radzig sounded fond again. "That I grant you."

Another long pause, before Sir Hanush cleared his throat. "I wanted her secure before it got the best of her. Fuck. God knows she could have ruled an easy man."

Sir Radzig chuckled. It was warm and quiet, and reminded Jindra of the lord she'd known as a child. "You see her with a father's eyes."

"And you'd be the expert on a father's eyes, would you?"

A groan from Sir Radzig, and a muffled oof from Sir Hanush, as if he'd been pushed. "Stop it."

Jindra and Jana raised their brows at each other. But Jana, it seemed, had had enough. She stood quickly, and pushed her way out of the stall, and Jindra almost stumbled in her haste to keep up with her.

Maybe she wanted to stop the conversation. Jindra couldn't blame her.

Both men turned when Jana emerged from the stables, with Jindra on her heels. Jana gave an exaggerated little "Oh!" and curtsied, as Jindra dipped lower still. "My lords."

Sir Hanush squinted at her. "Where have you been lurking?"

Jana nodded back towards the stables. "We went riding today. Jindra likes to care for Pebbles herself."

Sir Hanush's booming laugh, as good natured as it was mocking, filled the courtyard without warning. "Is that what she named the old gray nag?"

Jindra bristled again, but Sir Radzig offered, mildly, "She's the right color for it."

Jindra looked at him with surprise, but Sir Hanush laughed again, as if at a secret joke.

"Speaking of nags," Jana cut in, stepping closer to her uncle. "Have you considered – "

"No new horse."

"Uncle! Haven't I been obedient? Haven't I proven myself calm and steady?"

"You've proven yourself bolder than usual."

As their back and forth carried on, Sir Radzig took the opportunity to step to Jindra's side. Without a word, he glanced down at her hands, and frowned.

Jindra followed his gaze. Her knuckles were healing, but they were still mottled with yellowing bruises, and one or two healing cuts were still pink, and would leave scars.

Jindra tucked her hands behind her back, too quickly.

There was an awkward silence between them. "Are you well?" Sir Radzig asked, as he had not asked in weeks.

Maybe it was the beauty of the afternoon, and the memory and promise of Jana's kiss; maybe so much desire made her stupid. But Jindra felt no fear or threat from Sir Radzig today. "I am." Jindra smiled in Jana's direction. "I'm very happy."

Sir Radzig nodded, though he did not look as easily soothed as he once had. He watched her a moment too long, before clearing his throat. "I'm told that Lady Jana has been teaching you your letters."

Jindra blinked at the change of subject. "Aye, my lord. Czech and Latin."

"That's good." Sir Radzig nodded, more to himself than at Jindra. "That should – Lady Jana will find you a good match yet."

Jindra frowned up at him. "Most men won't want a wife who can read, sir."

"The girl has sense," Sir Hanush cut in loudly. Jindra and Sir Radzig both jumped. "She might charm a man to the altar before you, niece."

"I think not," Jana said coolly. "It's my duty. Jindra will have no marriage until I say."

The look she shared with Jindra was sly, and secret. Jindra would have given anything to pinch her thigh.

"Charm a man!" Jana repeated later, mocking and mirthful. "Imagine you, charming a man!"

She and Jindra lay side by side in their shifts, twin ghosts in pale linen, and filled the bedroom with carefree laughter. It spilled out of them freely, as loudly as they wanted, unlike the moans and sighs they stifled.

Jindra rolled them both over until Jana lay beneath her. "I charmed you, didn't I?"

Her long, dark hair spilled over her shoulders and covered them like a curtain. Jana was enchanted by it anew every day; bronze in sunlight and dark shadows at night, curling more than her own.

Jana took a handful of it, and brought it to her lips. "Radzig hasn't bothered you, though?" she asked, just to be sure. "Not lately?"

"No." Jindra smiled down at her. "But I'm not afraid of him."

Jana brightened. "Maybe he's given up."

But Jindra just smiled wider, and shook her head. "I don't care about him. He's nothing." She dipped down, and started kissing and biting at Jana's neck. "I'm not afraid of anything, now that I have you!"

Jana squealed and squirmed, more laugher bubbling out of her in a bright burst. "You pup! You slobbering dog! Stop that!"

Jindra looked up, as unrepentant as ever. "Is this what it feels like?" she gasped, like some mighty discovery. "To be fearless?"

Jana scoffed. "I'm not fearless."

"Aye, you are. You were never scared of this." Jindra ran a hand over the curve of Jana's hip, until Jana giggled and shivered. "You were never scared of me."

"Of you," Jana repeated, mockingly. "I've said it before, my little fool. Imagine being afraid of you!"

Jindra grinned and ducked her head, beautiful and bashful. "You always call me that. Do you think I'm a fool?"

Jana hummed, and pushed herself up to kiss at Jindra's throat. "You give me little cause to doubt it," she crooned, as Jindra sighed and shuddered above her. How easy she was, and how under Jana's power she seemed!

Then Jana reconsidered, and cleared her throat, sobering. "Unless…well. Do you mind it?"

Jindra lifted her head, flushed and hazy eyed, and smiled indulgently. "My cruel lady," she teased, making the words sound like prayers. "Call me anything you want, as long as you call me yours in the end."

Jana seized Jindra by her hair and yanked her back down for another kiss, swallowing Jindra's gasp and groan with urgent greed. "You're impossible," she scolded hoarsely, as her head swam and her heart thundered. "You plan these things to say on purpose, to ruin me."

"Did it work?" Jindra mumbled, cheeky, into Jana's mouth. Jana bit her lightly, and grinned at the small moan it earned her.

How had Jana ever lived without kissing? Each time was like the first, wet and warm and filling her whole body and muffling her thoughts. She wondered if her reaction was natural – when she grew hot and languid, melting like wax, wet and throbbing between her legs, just from Jindra's mouth on hers – and found that she hardly cared.

"Can I please you tonight?" Jindra asked, as if it were ever in question, as if Jana would ever, could ever stop craving her.

Jana nodded eagerly, and Jindra leaned down and started pressing more kisses down her jaw and throat. Jana sighed and ran her hands through Jindra's hair, catching on the waves, and tried to press kisses back. She only caught Jindra's temple, and the crown of her head.

A thought struck Jana; a hidden and persistent frustration, tucked among the pleasure like a bundle of Jindra's wildflowers.

"I want…" Her voice came out cracked and reedy, overwhelmed already, like some silly maid. She licked her lips, and tried to focus past the eclipse of Jindra's mouth and hands. "I want to..."

Jindra paused, and looked up again. She brushed her hair out of her face, a tangled mess from Jana's fingers. "What is it?" she asked; in such a voice that suggested if Jana told her she wanted the sun itself, Jindra would find a way to pull it from the sky.

Jana shook her head; she feared she did it helplessly. “I want to please you."

Jindra's eyes and smile become impossibly soft. It made something in Jana's heart tumble over itself, like a horse throwing a shoe. "You think I'm not pleased?"

Jana shook her head. "But I want – " She thought of Jindra's mouth, and how she tasted after she brought Jana her pleasure, when they kissed without restraint and the wet salt of Jana's body coated their lips like wine. Jana blushed at the thought, but not with shame. "I want to know what you taste like."

Jindra gazed at her a moment, her blue eyes as bright as a hunter's in the dark. Jana felt pinned by them, unexpectedly so. There was a new quarry to be caught in Jindra's gaze, some shadow of a vast hunger she hadn't shown. Jana was a hunter herself, and latched onto it.

Then, without looking away, Jindra reached down, and dipped a hand beneath the hem of her shift, between her legs.

Jana and Jindra sucked in their breath at the same time. Jana was fixated on the shift of fabric, unable to look away from the shadow of Jindra's hand beneath, her breath and heart drawn tight and pulsing by what she could imagine, and couldn't see.

Jindra lifted her hand up between them. Her fingers were shining in the darkness; she was wet already, ready and dripping, just from Jana's nearness, as desperate and hungry as Jana was herself.

Jindra held out her fingers. “Taste, then.”

Jana should have been coy, or demure, or at lease slow. But she grasped Jindra's wrist and lunged forward, greedy, the starving she-wolf, and sucked Jindra's fingers into her mouth.

The taste was salt and warm tang, both like and unlike blood. Jana moaned, unable to savor it, too impatient, too filled with need, too driven to take and be taken. She wanted more. She wanted all of it.

"Oh fuck," Jindra gasped, perfectly crude. Her eyes were blown wide, her cheeks bright red, as if this hadn't been her idea. "Jana, fuck."

Jana drew Jindra's fingers from her mouth and pressed a kiss to the pads. "More?" she whispered, hopeful.

Jindra surged forward and kissed her again, deeper and desperate. It wasn't quite what Jana had meant, but she lost her head all over again, especially when she felt Jindra lick into her mouth with a wild gasp, chasing her own taste.

Jindra's fingers, wet from Jana's mouth, slid up Jana's thigh, and higher, searching, stroking, until they found the liquid tremor of pleasure between Jana's legs. Jana moaned softly, caught on a laugh, and spread her legs more, wanton and easy.

"Look at you," Jindra whispered, always extraordinary surprised. “You were meant for this.”

Jana moved her hips in shameless little circles. "Oh?" She tried to keep her voice haughty. It was hard, under Jindra's clever touch, sparking high and sweet. "You mean that I'm a loose girl?"

Jindra's laugh was husky and low. "Meant for pleasure, I mean. Meant for passion."

Jindra skirted around the entrance of her, shivers of sensation as she circled the tight wetness, before dipping away, teasing at the beautiful spot of sharp light and bright pleasure at the apex. The worse and best day of Jana's life had been when Jindra had learned to tease.

"Do you want me inside?" Jindra asked softly. "Anything you want."

Jana nodded, a whimper tumbling out before she could snatch it back. A lady ought not to beg with her body and voice, even if not in words; but Jana couldn't help it, and didn't want to help it –

Jindra's fingers dipped inside her, two at once, in a slow, sure press. Jana shuddered with delight; her body already welcomed Jindra with the ease of a bathhouse girl. "Will you – " Jana's voice cracked again, and she didn't care. It was hard enough to stay quiet. "Will you – will you call it – again?"

Jindra was biting her lip so hard that it was white, her eyes locked on where her fingers sank into Jana. But now she looked up, a gleam in her eye and a fresh flush to her face. "Call it what?" she breathed. It was almost a tease, and almost a plea. Both. "Your cunt?"

Jana arched up, and Jindra threw her free hand over her mouth just in time to muffle her soft cry. Her whole body flooded with heat, locked between Jindra's eyes and Jindra's fingers, and Jindra's wicked, wonderful mouth.

"Shocking," Jana chided, or tried to. It came out so choked that it was barely a word. "I ought to – oh, God – "

Jindra ducked down, fast as a hawk, and pressed a firm, hard kiss to Jana's – oh – to the hard nub of pleasure, even with her fingers still inside, curling and pressing. And she had the nerve to slink back up again, not even pausing in her careful, agonizing touch, smiling.

"Awful girl," Jana gasped, without sound.

"Pretty girl," Jindra countered, twisting her fingers. Jana bit back a wail.

It went on and on and on. Jana could die from it; she would die if Jindra ever stopped.

Jindra brushed back Jana's sweaty hair – when had it become so tangled? “You should be outside and pleased before God," she whispered, almost in awe. "One day I'll kiss your cunt under your blue sky. Would you like that?”

Jana was losing her mind, and losing control of her body. She swallowed, licked her lips, tried to keep her voice a woman's, and not a pleading beast's. “How would we manage?"

Jindra moved her fingers faster; still gently, but pressing in the right places, circling her thumb outside, coaxing heat and release and hunger, closer and closer. “We'd ride out so far and fast that they couldn't catch us," she breathed. "And I'd have you in a field of flowers, spread out with all the other marigolds."

"Have me," Jana gasped. "Yes, Jindra, yes –"

Jindra pressed down, outside, inside, Jana could hardly tell, and the world burst into white hot heat and dulcet, dancing lights. Jana writhed, bucking into Jindra's fingers, and somewhere close by Jindra's voice drifted on air, sounding anguished. "Beautiful, my beautiful – "

Jana came clenching and shuddering, unable to see or hear or think, squeezing her eyes shut and biting back her shout, her cry, her scream, forced down into a breath of air, a muffled grunt.

Jindra peppered her face in kisses, and kept her fingers inside, humming softly every time she felt a new, soft pulse. Jana pressed her face into Jindra's neck and took in gulping breaths, slipping into a steady, safe, drowsy cloud of comfort, until Jindra gently, slowly, reluctantly pulled her fingers free. She paused to stroke lightly through the wet curls between Jana's legs, slick and clinging with the evidence of her lovely hands.

Jana sighed and fell back. Jindra flopped down beside her, looking unbearably pleased with herself.

Jana reached out a hand, still trembling slightly, and traced Jindra's mouth. "Only me?" she asked, still caught in the floating stars of sated desire, and unashamed.

Jindra understood. "Only you," she promised, voice thick and satisfied.

Jana let her hand slide from Jindra's mouth to her neck, rubbing against the point of her pulse. She felt Jindra's heartbeat skip beneath her fingertips; gratifying, thrilling, humbling. "I wish you'd let me touch you," she whispered.

Something in Jindra's face shifted, and she glanced away. "I – you don't have to."

Jana's heart jolted uncomfortably. Each time she reached out, Jindra pulled away and gently refused. But didn't Jindra know that Jana would never harm her? Didn't she know that she would be as safe in Jana's care as Jana was in hers?

Didn't she know that even if – even if Jana was born for greed and shaped for cruelty, with Jindra, for Jindra, she could learn? That she could shape herself into a girl who was worthy of Jindra's trust, and the gift of her body?

A deep instinct told Jana not to ask these questions. She swallowed all of them, the same way she swallowed her moans and her cries.

"Never mind." Jana hid her disappointment. "Can I watch you?"

"Watch me?" Jindra repeated, her eyes huge.

"You like to watch me," Jana pointed out. Jindra's breath sped up a bit, and it made Jana braver. She rubbed a thumb against Jindra's pulse again. "I want to see you come."

How bold it was. But Jindra didn't seem to mind. She bit her lip again, and scrambled with the hem of her shift, yanking the linen up, as if she'd been given an order to obey as quickly as possible.

"Slowly," Jana chided.

Jindra paused, and snorted; but she did slow down, and began to touch herself. She usually did this when Jana was still floating and flying from her body, but now Jana could watch openly, like a glutton. Jindra never touched inside; she circled outside, rubbing small circles against the top of her – Jana smiled gleefully to think it – her cunt, wet and shining, hidden by the angle and by Jindra's dark curls; and Jana thought, hungrily, of what it might be like to slink down herself, and lick Jindra's fingers clean, and drink from her.

Jana was struck with a sudden urge; to shift her hand, to hold Jindra's throat gently, and cradle her. To hold her steady, and know that Jindra was safe in her care.

She shook that thought away with an uneasy gasp. That wasn't right. She would never hurt Jindra, and certainly wouldn't latch onto her with violence, like a man would treat his wife. This fire between them wasn't like that at all.

Instead, Jana tried to cradle Jindra with her voice. "I have you," she whispered. She had never used such a voice before. It was the angel again, sitting with her, molding her spirit and her hands into something more than her base self.

Jindra's eyes were lakes, deep and endless, rippling. Her breath was even and deep, even as her body moved faster, rutting and rolling into her own hand. There was no pain in her gaze, no fear, just trust and desire, easy and warm.

It was like the archery lesson, when Jindra had given Jana something back that she'd thought stolen.

"I have you," Jana repeated, meaning it.

Jindra was close. She quickened and quivered, her mouth open and wet, gleaming in the dark. "Jana," she whimpered, "Please."

"Come now," Jana whispered. She blushed to say the words, but pushed past it. "Please Jindra, show me."

Jindra arched up, and for once, Jana had to throw a hand over Jindra's mouth, to stifle her moan. Jindra came longer than Jana had ever seen, eyes rolling back in near silence, before falling back with a sigh.

One day I'll do it, Jana thought. One day this will be mine, too.

Then Jindra held her fingers, hot and slick from her own body, to Jana's lips. Jana melted all over again, opened her mouth, and let Jindra press the salt-sweet taste to her tongue. She let the thought slip away.

Eventually, Jindra discovered that joy cannot last forever.

Early on a bright morning, she tore herself from Jana's bed, even as Jana grumbled like an old woman. Jindra bent down and pressed a kiss to Jana's cheek before she slipped away, and it was such a wonderful thing to do, without thought and without price, that she pressed another kiss to Jana's neck; because she could, and because it was welcome. Jana smiled in her half-awake way, shifting back to meet the press of Jindra's mouth.

Jindra was struck with a sudden memory. When she'd been a little girl, she had woken in the night, and seen Pa awake, too. He was sitting up in bed, looking down at Ma's sleeping face with an expression Jindra had no name for. Jindra had pretended to be asleep and watched, as Pa traced Ma's cheekbones gently with his fingertips.

Jindra brushed a lock of Jana's hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. "I'll be back soon," she whispered.

Jana mumbled something that might have been an unladylike curse.

Jindra walked with a light step, untroubled, making her way through Pirkstein's quiet halls, and then through sleepy Rattay, sharing the mood of its languid lady. Usually, nothing could tempt Jindra away, but she had promised to visit Elishka, the executioner's wife.

As always, Elishka was delighted to see her, and waved at her eagerly from her gate. She and her husband lived outside of town, and folk liked it that way, keeping death and ill luck at arms reach. The other wives wouldn't bother with Elishka, even the most downtrodden of the Skalitz women, so it had become routine for Jindra to pay her calls when she could, and give her all the gossip she could remember.

Jindra often worried that Elishka must be lonely. But every time Jindra visited, Elishka's eyes were brighter, her cheeks were rosier, and her smile came more easily, as if her marriage was food and wine to her, and reviving her by the day.

"It's so good of you to visit, Jindra," Elishka said, sharing a plate of sweet cakes. She wasn't that much older, and had used Jindra's familiar name almost from the beginning. "Hermann is in Merhojed today, setting a bone. No surprise, after all that rough business."

Jindra nodded. Once she would have jumped at news like one of Sir Hanush's hounds, or felt the memory of bile in the back of her throat. But today, under a sky as blue as Jana's eyes, she felt only a twinge of unease, an urge behind her stomach, and she pushed it away.

"I only wish you had more company," Jindra said.

Elishka shrugged. "My first husband was no saint. They turned their noses up at me before, and it's no loss." She gave Jindra a kind smile. "But I hate to think of anyone looking sideways at you for talking to me."

"I have my lady's ear," Jindra pointed out, as if she cared for anyone's opinion but Jana's anyway. "It makes folk too shy to throw rotten apples my way."

Elishka laughed. There was a time when she'd been so sad and downtrodden that Jindra wouldn't have thought she'd known how to laugh. When they had first met, all Elishka did was cry.

"But you are happy?" Jindra asked, anxious despite herself. "Being married again?"

Elishka's smile softened into something different: knowing, as if Jindra had asked with a maiden's shyness. She glanced out over the humble courtyard, where the chickens pecked and hopped unbothered. It was a small world, and as Jindra had come to know, very warm indeed.

"Before we were wed," Elishka said, "Hermann slept on the floor every night. In my eyes we were as good as married already, but he wanted to do right by me. I never knew I was allowed to want that, or even allowed to ask."

An unspoken discomfort relaxed in Jindra's heart, and fell away.

Elishka took Jindra's hands in hers, and squeezed. "I only wish that you are blessed with such a husband!" She glowed with all the happiness of a dozen women, and with fresh awe in her eyes. "I never knew marriage could be so good, and so sweet. I wish it for you with all my heart."

Marriage could never be sweet for Jindra. But she thought again of Pa's face in the dark. She thought again of Jana's sigh in the mornings. Jana had called their friendship a trick played on God. Had Elishka played a trick on God, too?

Then Jindra blushed. It was a stupid thought. She really was a fool, like Jana said.

She squeezed Elishka's hands in return. "Thank you."

After eating four more sweet cakes, Jindra hurried home. She spent less time lingering than she used to, though familiar faces greeted her as she past. There were always more people that needed help, but Jindra’s head was filled with thoughts of Jana's mouth and hands, and she didn't think beyond it. The driving force to act, to change, was dampened and dark, embers beneath soft moss in a green growing forest.

But when Jindra approached Pirkstein, she saw a woman dressed in homespun wool hovering by the gate, glancing to and fro anxiously, as if waiting for someone.

Jindra almost stumbled in surprise. She could count the amount of times she had seen Klara in town on one hand. The people of Rattay seemed to prefer to keep the bathmaids out of sight and mind, even untouched maids like Klara.

One of the guards at the gate was giving Klara a look between suspicion and open interest, and Jindra hurried forward to put herself between them. "Klara?"

Klara spun, and smiled. But it wasn't the merry smile Jindra was used to, or even the sly smile that Klara sometimes used to tease. She looked, more than anything, relieved.

"There you are," she said. "I've been hanging by like a lovesick doxy."

"For what?"

"For you. I couldn't go inside and take wine with your lady while I waited." Klara stepped closer, and lowered her voice. "There's someone looking for you."

Jindra's blood ran cold. Black Peter, following her trail to its end? Runt's ghost, or another dog on a leash?

"A man?" she choked out.

Klara shook her head. "No. A bathhouse girl from Ledetchko. She asked for you by name."

Jindra had never even been to Ledetchko. Her dread gave way to confusion, even as her heart sped up with an unknown, unseen warning. "Are you sure?

Klara snorted, as if it were a stupid question. "Very." She jerked her head. "We'd better go now, if you want to protect your lady and yourself from gossip."

The bathhouse was never busy in the mornings, and Jindra heard no splashes or giggling. She'd learned by now that most men preferred to do their business when light was dim or dying. Even so, Jindra was stiff with tension as she followed Klara warily through the gate, through the little courtyard, and inside the bathhouse itself.

Jindra had never been here before, always clinging to the borders of the gate and hidden by night's blanket. It was small and humble, dark and stuffy compared to the bright day, and Jindra had to blink a few times as her eyes adjusted.

A young woman was standing by the hearth, and she looked up as Klara and Jindra entered. Her clothes were dusty from the road, and she had reddish-brown hair, freckles, and a nasty bruise beneath her left eye.

Jindra had last seen her a lifetime ago, in a bandit camp in Pribyslavitz.

It was Henbane.

Jindra froze on the spot like a hare in the underbrush. Henbane's mouth fell open, before she threw her head back and laughed.

“It's you!” Henbane said. “A lady's servant! The devil has a sense of humor, true enough."

Jindra head began to spin. If Henbane was here, and knew her name, then some clue must have been left behind. But who could know? Who had told? She couldn't believe Anezka or even drunk Father Godwin would betray her – she hadn't been careful, she'd been too reckless, and now Jana would be punished – Jana would be in danger –

A hand fell heavily on Jindra's shoulder, and she flinched with a wild gasp. "Take a breath, girl," Klara chided. Her easy, teasing voice had an edge to it; Jindra realized, vaguely through the spinning, that it was protective, and must have been for her benefit. To Henbane, Klara asked, "You don't know her?"

"I was told to find Jindriska of Skalitz. I didn't know it would be her." Henbane looked Jindra up and down with an appraising cruelty. "A noblewoman's companion, a whore, and a murderer. What else are you hiding behind those big cow's eyes?"

The spinning ground to a halt, and Jindra pulled herself together into a wall of stone. "Who asks?" she ground out. "What do they want?"

Henbane huffed a silent laugh, unimpressed. Jindra thought of Ma's song, and the verse of henbane: madness lies within its hold…

If Klara was shocked by what Henbane had said, she didn't show it. "Adela," she scolded. "She's a skittish one. Stop it."

Henbane lost her cruel humor. "No, she isn't," she said, almost a spat, and almost envious.

Silence hung in the room, save for Jindra's thundering heartbeat, and the grind of her teeth. But when Jindra didn't scream, or cry, or shout, or laugh cruelly back, the air went out of Henbane without warning. She let out a long breath, and she looked again like she looked in Pribyslavitz: with eyes too old for her young face.

"No one's asking about that," she said. "So stop looking at me like I've bought a noose along."

Her body was bent with either exhaustion or sadness, and the bruise on her cheek seemed to grow more stark, matching the dark circles beneath her eyes. At the sight, Jindra's fear and anger bled away, and all she could feel was pity. "Then what – "

"It's her." Henbane – Adela – said. Her face was grave. "The witch in Sasau is asking for you.”

All the birds have begun their nests
Except for me and you
What are we waiting for now?

- "Hebban olla vogala", from an 11th-century text fragment, roughly translated

Chapter Text

Jana yawned, dressed in only her shift, and combed through her hair in long, lazy strokes. It was late in the morning; light bled through her window, dancing through Jindra's hanging flowers and catching on the painted walls. Jana hummed a little, the scraps of Jindra's meadow song slipping in and out of her mind.

It was very late for a lady to still be undressed, and with her hair unbound, but Jana smiled wickedly. She fully intended for Jindra to strip her bare anyway, once she returned. She'd added ground clove to her hair powder, and she hoped the spice would quicken Jindra's blood a little.

You smell like a sweet bun, Jindra would tease, but her big eyes would darken and she'd catch her lip between her teeth, and Jana would see through her and know better.

Jana giggled to herself. Maybe today would finally be the day, when Jana could lay Jindra down and please her with her hands and mouth. Jindra, sweet and spread open and sighing – Jana wanted it more than she'd ever wanted anything.

But she didn't have time to dwell in the fantasy.

The door slammed open so hard that it almost hit the opposite wall. Jana spun in her seat with a yelp, as Jindra stumbled in to the room at a run, gasping, wearing an expression of terror.

She had never looked so stricken; not at the tourney, not yearning for her father's sword, not while killing a man, and not returning bloodstained in the dark; not even when she'd knelt at Jana's feet and laid bare her pain in firelight. She was frightened, and helpless. It was Jindra trapped in her nightmares again, when she woke with her face held in Jana's hands, scrambling and adrift, her eyes looking beyond the waking world and her heart locked in memory.

Jana was on her feet at once. "What's happened?" Her voice was steel, and sharp. "Tell me."

If Radzig had touched Jindra, Jana would kill him. If someone had been cruel to her, Jana would have their tongue cut out. If anyone –

"I have to go to Sasau!" Jindra gasped.

Jana faltered. "What?" She crossed the room, and took Jindra's hands, finding them clammy and shaking. "What are you talking about?"

"I need to get there!" Jindra insisted. Her blue eyes were so wide; a rabbit trapped in her warren. "They're going to kill her!"

"Who?"

Jindra shook her head frantically. "Johanka!

Jana had never heard that name. But Jindra had already pulled away, running her hands through her hair and and her eyes darting anxiously. Her movements were jerky, aborted, and she crossed to her trunk, changed her mind, paced, like an indecisive animal, or a caged one.

"Jindra!" Jana exclaimed, trying not to panic. "Tell me what's happening!"

Her voice cracked. Jindra's eyes snapped back to her at the sound.

"Johanka – she's from Skalitz." Jindra's voice cracked, too, in shocked disbelief. "They've put her on trial for heresy."

Jana tumbled through too many thoughts at once. Foremost were Jindra's memories, and the pretty girls found within: there was beautiful dead Bianca, of course, and plain, angelic Theresa, but Jindra had never mentioned a third girl. Jana would have remembered another bright light in Jindra's girlhood, in the corner of her heart where Jana would never be permitted to enter.

But Jindra was genuinely terrified. This Johanka must be dear to Jindra, indeed.

Jana narrowed her eyes. "Is she guilty?"

Jindra's mouth fell open, and she stared at Jana with open shock and hurt.

Jana cringed, and held out her hands. "I – I didn't mean it like that. Has she been judged already? And how do you know this?"

Jindra's breath left her in a scatter. "They've found her guilty, aye. But she sent a friend to Rattay for me, and she found me at the bathhouse."

"At the – a bathhouse wench is summoning you to Sasau?" This fairytale was becoming more absurd by the minute. "What if she's lying to you?"

It seemed like a reasonable question to Jana, but Jindra made a sound of pure, frantic frustration. "She isn't. I know she isn't. Johanka is asking for me. I have to help her!"

Jana caught Jindra's face in both hands, cradling it, and tried to will her back to reason. "Hush." Jindra did stop moving, at least, as Jana did her best to school her face and voice into something soothing. "Be sensible. If she's guilty, what can you possibly do?"

Jindra's panic quieted slightly, but only to reveal stubborn grit beneath. "I can help." She grasped Jana's wrists. "I have to go. "

This was madness. But when Jindra asked for something, so openly and without shame, Jana could not refuse. "You can't run off alone," Jana insisted, even as she felt herself breaking.

"I won't be alone. Adela is coming, too."

"You have no idea what you're doing!" Jana snapped, pushed into her temper by the thought of another unknown girl who she couldn't trust. "Think! Riding off with some whore to Sasau?"

"There's no time! If we leave now, I can make it there before – and I can – " Jindra took another shaky breath, and she looked at Jana with a new expression: plaintive, and pleading. "You have to let me go!"

Jana sucked in her breath. Let her go? Jana was no jailer. She would not – did not – hold the key to Jindra's cage. The thought turned her stomach.

But this was no carefully planned journey to Uzhitz, with weeks of murderous intent. How could Jana let Jindra race off unprepared, without a thought or a plan, at only the word of a bathhouse whore?

And all this risk for a girl who Jindra had never spoken of; a girl who must either be worth so little that Jindra had never thought her important enough to mention, and therefore hardly worthy of Jindra's life – or who was so cherished, so beloved, that Jindra had hidden her away from even Jana, and would risk everything for her now.

Jindra's fear and desperation filled the room and shrank the walls, drawing them in around Jana, pressing too close, too dark, too small.

Don't go, Jana thought. Wait a moment. Make a plan. Have a care. Take me with you!

Jana pressed her thumbnail to her wrist.

"Swear to me you'll be back by morning," she said. "I'll make your excuses, but you must swear to me. If there's nothing to be done you will come straight back home."

Jindra gave a small moan of relief and kissed Jana, hard and fast. "I will. I swear. I promise."

Jana sank into the too-brief kiss and chased Jindra's lips, nearly stumbling, and for the first time felt embarrassed by her shameless need. Jindra pulled away, about to run for the door, before pausing, and taking Jana's hand.

"Please, tell Tess," she said. "She needs to know. Please."

Jana nodded. Jindra let out another relieved sound, and kissed Jana's hand, as gallant as any knight; but then she dashed from the room, vanishing almost as quickly as she had arrived. Jana, slowly realizing the gravity of what she had just allowed, could only stand and stare after her, as her hand hovered in the air a moment longer, lingering and lonely.

At a full gallop, Jindra could have made it to Sasau in half the time. But she would never force that pace on Pebbles, especially not with two riders in the saddle. So Jindra could only urge her horse as fast as she dared, grinding her teeth, as Adela sat in silence behind her, clinging to her waist.

Not so long ago, on a day filled with sunshine, Jindra had ridden with Jana to a meadow of flowers, and Jana's closeness made Jindra shiver with delight; now, there were clouds building on the horizon, and Adela's unfamiliar touch made Jindra as tense as Jana's drawn bow.

And she was still so confused. "What happened?" She'd asked twice already. "I don't understand."

Adela clicked her tongue. "I told you. She's been preaching for over a month. She says that the Virgin Mary visits her in her dreams, and the inquisitor decided that was heresy. What else is there?"

She said it so simply, as if it should answer every question, instead of raising a dozen more. Jindra had tumbled into a land of misrule, where nothing made sense. "But Johanka never had any holy visions." She felt she had to insist. "She was – she's just a girl."

The Johanka of Jindra's memory was gentle and kind, brown haired and easy to overlook, with pretty eyes and an earnest heart. She was a good Christian, and faithful enough, but no nun. She was another simple lass with romantic dreams, just like Bianca, and Theresa, and Jindra herself had been once, in a village that was now ashes.

Adela huffed out a laugh. She did it often: little tired bursts of breath with no warmth. "Just a girl," she repeated, like a joke she no longer found funny. "She's a stupid girl. She had a way out, if she'd just stopped her bloody preaching when the inquisitor told her." Adela snorted. It was cold, and almost forced. "But she wouldn't, and now she's going to die."

Jindra bit the inside of her cheek, and tasted iron. "But if the Virgin really did visit her…how can the church say that she's wrong?"

Jindra felt Adela shrug. "She preached against the nobility and called them greedy masters, and she said that the church was full of sinners. And then she said that the Virgin told her to say it." Adela's voice became sneering. "The inquisitor didn't like that. So believe what you want. They're going to burn her either way."

This was wrong. Jindra's skin crawled, and her throat hurt, and her head pounded. Adela fell silent, and for a time, the only sound was good, solid Pebbles, snorting and breathing hard, and the clatter of hooves on dirt. The world seemed to be holding its breath, covering the long road to Sasau in a blanket without birdsong.

Jindra had never been to Sasau, but Adela knew the way, and she'd jumped onto Pebbles without any hesitation. The mud on her hem made clear that she had traveled to Rattay on foot; Jindra suspected that she had made the journey at nearly a run. And while Adela's bitterness was hard to bear, Jindra couldn't find the will to be angry at her. It wasn't only that she she was tired, or even sad; it reminded Jindra of Jana, when she'd been a snake so ready to bite that she didn't know how to draw her fangs back.

Jindra was stuck on that, even beneath her fear, bubbling and bruising her ribs with nowhere to go.

"What do you believe?" she asked.

"Me?" Adela jostled behind Jindra, as if she'd shaken her head. "Like I said. She's a stupid girl."

"But you're helping her now," Jindra pressed. "You came all the way to Rattay alone, to find me, because she asked. You didn't have to do that."

Adela was quiet for another long, weighty pause. When she spoke again, the sneer was gone, as was the bitterness. "People came from all over to ask for her blessing. But she never blessed anyone, or kept any of the gifts they brought. And she never locked her self away like some nun. She just wanted to help." Adela took a shaky breath. "She made me believe I could…leave this life behind, y'know? Start over."

She paused again, and gave Jindra a nudge. "Maybe watching all those lads drop dead from their stew scared me into it."

Jindra stiffened, as her stomach turned over. She didn't actually – she didn't want to think of it that way. Adela noticed, and laughed quietly. But it wasn't another cold laugh, or an unkind one.

"So I went to Sasau," Adela said. Brittle warmth trickled into her voice. "I helped her at the monastery infirmity. It was – good. It's so easy to believe in her. And when I was with her, I thought…"

Adela's voice trailed off into nothing. She was quiet for so long that Jindra almost spoke again, with one of her dozen questions. But Adela tightened her arms around Jindra's middle. "I had a silly dream of my own. I should have known better." She laughed again, exhausted. "But I can't stay away. I'm stupid girl, too."

Jindra swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. "We'll think of something. You'll see."

"It's no use," Adela sighed. "No one defended her. And even if the whole town spoke up, she wouldn't repent. Her Lady's words are more real to her than her own life, and more important."

"Why didn't you speak?" Jindra asked, more helplessly than she meant to.

"The word of a whore," Adela spat the word, "wouldn't help a heretic."

Jindra felt very naive suddenly, and very young, and unforgivably stupid. A little fool. "I didn't know." It sounded like an excuse even to her own ears, and an insulting one. "I would've gone to her if I had."

Jindra sensed, without looking, that Adela was staring at the back of her head. She felt judged, as if on trial herself. "Well." Adela's cool voice was damning. "What could you have done?"

Jindra knew that she and Adela were both thinking of Pribyslavitz. Jindra had killed before. She had planned and plotted in the shadows, stabbed a man to death and poisoned more, and lied and schemed and courted death to get there. She could have helped. She knew it.

But it couldn't be too late to help Johanka now. Jindra could still be of use.

That old darkness, forgotten for a month, gnawed in her chest. Barking hounds, snapping jaws, and a cellar door with a failing lock, all lying in wait for her.

Jindra swallowed again. It hurt to do it, as if the lump in her throat was a stone, and choking her. "We'll think of something," she repeated.

Sasau was a blur.

The clouds had grown dark, the color of bruises, and were swollen with unspent rain. The town's buildings huddled together, the low-slung roofs cowering under the weight of the coming storm. Every villager seemed distracted, speaking in hushed voices, and almost no one spared Jindra and Adela a glance as Pebbles trotted into town.

On the horizon, above all, the monastery loomed. Jindra, overcome with dread, was reminded of Pribyslavitz, emerging from the trees like a dead body, an open ribcage spread to the sky.

Adela put her mouth against Jindra's ear, a shadow of Jana's intimacy. "She's locked up in the Rathaus," she whispered. When Jindra glanced back, Adela nodded towards one of the buildings. "Over there. There are two guards watching her."

Jindra's hands tightened on the reins. "Is there a way to get around them?"

"Leave that to me," Adela said, light and airy. "I'll draw them out, and you can get inside."

Jindra found an inconspicuous post to hitch Pebbles, and helped Adela down from the saddle. She had a slim waist, and was skinnier than she looked beneath her clothes. For the first time, Jindra felt the need to steady her, and held out her hands. "Are you – "

Adela brushed her hands away. "I'll give you ask long as I can." She gave Jindra a sharp, quick glare. "Make it count."

Jindra waited by Pebbles, stroking her neck, and watched as Adela slipped along the side of the building, disappearing from sight. Jindra gave her a few long moments, and, after making sure that no one was paying her any mind, ducked her head down and followed.

A door on the side of the building was hanging open. Around the corner, hidden from sight, Jindra heard a high, bright giggle, muffled as if behind a hand. It was the same laugh she'd heard drifting on the air at the Rattay baths, and she'd learned to see through the mask of it, and read the lie. In that moment, she heard Klara, Zdena, Magda, even the nameless tavern wench in Uzhitz, and the women in Pribyslavitz who she'd named after flowers.

Jindra closed her eyes briefly against a crush of sadness. Then she crept forward, and slipped through the open door.

The dank hallway smelled of mold, sweat, and rot. There was a large wooden door to Jindra's left, heavy and bolted, with a small, barred window near the top. Jindra took a breath, and stepped up to peer through the bars.

There was a figure huddled in the corner of the filthy cell, dressed in worn, torn clothing, head bent and hands clasped together, murmuring a low, constant litany of prayer. Jindra had sudden wish, like a child, that Adela had been wrong. Surely she wouldn't know this poor wretch at all.

"Johanka?" she whispered.

The figure looked up, and sprang to the door so fast that Jindra's heart skipped a beat. "Jindra!" she rasped. "You came!"

Jindra stepped back in shock. In her memory, Johanka was frozen in time in Skalitz: delicately pretty, with downcast eyes. The young woman in the cell was almost unrecognizable. Her face was streaked with dirt, and was gaunt with either hunger or fatigue, cutting sharp knives into the hollows of her cheeks. Her lips were cracked and bleeding. Her eyes alarmed Jindra most of all: filled with unnatural vigor, so fervent that they seemed to glow, uncanny and radiant, from her drawn, bleak face.

"You came," Johanka repeated. Her voice, too, was unfamiliar, feverishly tearing through her own throat. "I knew you would. But how did you get here?"

Jindra pulled herself together, ignoring the panicked beating of her heart. "Adela came and fetched me. She lured the guards away, so I could slip in."

"Lured them?" Johanka looked away, mouth turning down in sorrow. "Oh, Adela. I wish she hadn't. I wish she could be free of it."

Jindra's stomach began to churn. "It's not her fault."

"I know. It's mine." Johanka looked back up, and her unfamiliar eyes bored into Jindra's again, unblinking and insistent. "You've heard, haven't you? Our Lady has chosen me."

Jindra nodded uneasily. "Adela told me," she said, wary. Something told her – Jana's hunting lessons, once again – to speak softly. Johanka was held on the edge of a blade, and Jindra didn't know its shape. "I'm here now, like you asked. We'll get you free."

"Free?" Johanka smiled, distant and swooning, so unlike her smiles in Skalitz that Jindra sucked in her breath. "I am Our Lady's instrument. Everything that is happening is her own sacred will. If she wills that I die, I'm going to die."

"What are you saying?" Jindra gasped. This wasn't right. Panic was rising in her heart again, making her breath come faster and the room grow foggy. Johanka should be afraid, or angry. There should never be acceptance, and a smile to go with it. "Adela says that you've helped so many people. And you have followers who listened to you preach. I could – I could go and find them, ask them to speak for you – "

Johanka held up a hand, so sure and calm that Jindra's mouth snapped shut with childhood instinct. "You've always wanted to help, Jindra," she sighed. Her smile, still warped and strange, grew into a shape of kindness. "Ever since we were young."

"I can help!" Jindra's voice cracked, as it had in Jana's bedroom. "I'll go speak to the inquisitor, I'll make him – "

"He would have me repent." Johanka's smile vanished, and her face twisted, a fierce, almost violent recoil. "When Our Lady showed me my visions, I saw with the eyes of my soul. I will not lie before God and betray my own conscience to deny her!"

Johanka's hands darted out and grabbed the bars of the cage, shaking and white. "The Church claims that only they can safeguard our souls, and God's word may only pass through them, and not through the eyes of common people." Her expression lost its violence, and became a vision of awe. "But Our Lady chose me! Don't you see? Don't you see?"

Jindra, horrified, began to shake her head, but Johanka gasped, "The very men who should be shepherds of Christ's flock have turned their backs on Christ’s example, hoarding wealth for their own comfort while the poor starve. The nobles who should protect those in their care have cast off law and justice, and use the people for their own ends."

Johanka was pressed so hard against the bars that the iron cut into her face. "There is a great silence cast over the world, pressed upon us by men clad in gold wielding swords of earthly power. They have kept us blind to their sins and deaf to God's word." Her entire body shook, and tears ran down her cheeks. "If I am to die for it, so that others may finally begin to open their eyes and to rise up against wicked men as Our Lady wants, I can think of no better death!"

Jindra was flying outside of herself, and kept shaking her head, reeling and confused. But – But – she thought of Theresa, warning her that no noble would protect them. Sir Hanush laughing and dismissive, slapping the heart and spirit from Jana, Sir Radzig in a garden – Skalitz, her parents, her Bianca, dead, dying, for no reason at all – and Johanka, close enough to touch, close enough to save, telling her not to.

"Oh, Jindra, please don't be afraid." Johanka wiped her eyes, smearing her filthy cheeks with more grime, and smiled again. "I wanted to see you because the Virgin has visited my dreams again. My last visions are for you."

It couldn't be – that wasn't – she hadn't prayed since – "Me?" Jindra whispered.

Johanka moved back from the door. Her eyes looked out and beyond, vibrant with a strength that was ill-bound to her tired body, and her face became bright and blank; a vessel for her own voice, for her own eyes, her own words. Jindra almost took another step back.

"I saw in a dream the Nativity of our Lord," Johanka said. Her voice was soft, yet it filled every corner of the cell, and every corner of the world. "The Virgin Mary knelt in a field of blood-red poppies and golden marigolds, and she held the Christ Child to nurse milk and blood and oil at her breast. Joseph watched over her with all the humility and strength of a righteous man, as an angel with wings of light stood sentinel. Then I saw that you were there, a part of their holy company, your face lifted toward the sun."

Johanka began to cry again, silent tears staining trails down her face. "You were singing, a song of such joy that it made my soul weep. And I knew in my heart that one thing from our lost Skalitz would not be swallowed by the darkness. I knew then that we were not struck down for our own sins, but were caught up in terrible sins of greater men."

Johanka took in another ragged breath, her eyes widening. "But then the vision faded. I watched you leave that blessed meadow, and Our Lady bade me follow. She led me to a hill above Sasau where a ruined fort stood, where the ground and stones were sodden with the stench of blood. Within its walls were hounds, a legion of them, baying so loudly that I had to cover my ears. They were one great, terrible litter, and in the center of them was a whelp, the runt. It was dead."

Jindra's blood ran cold.

"Above them all stood another monstrous hound." Johanka's voice shook with horror. "It was the largest, clad in armor like a knight. It had a chain around its neck, and it knelt at the feet of a wolf who walked as a man. The wolf had its own iron collar, and its chain stretched on and on into the black abyss, linking to other collars, forging a hellish rosary of chains upon chains upon chains."

Jindra stepped forward, pressing her body against the cell door without thought, without feeling, her heart screaming a warning.

Johanka gave a cry of fear. "And as I watched, a vengeful she-wolf clad in silver plate tossed aside her sword and tore out the wolf's throat. The great armored hound howled in grief and torment, until blood flowed from its eyes and mouth."

The words hung in the air, echoing in the canyon held between the two of them. Jindra's entire body was trembling from head to foot, and she was clutching the bars of the cell door so hard that the bones of her fingers might have snapped.

Then Johanka's eyes returned to her body, and she was herself again: spent, filthy, shining with fervor and the radiance of belief, but a mortal woman.

"The she-wolf was you," she breathed. She brought her own hands up to the bars, and covered Jindra's lightly, a touch as soft as a mother's, or a bride's. Jindra, frozen to the spot, couldn't even flinch.

"The Virgin showed it to me to warn you," Johanka continued, "to tell you that there is an endless cycle of death before you. You cannot follow every chain to its end, because there will always be more."

Jindra began shaking her head again.

She had to make this right. She had to make something right. She had to do something. If she couldn't –

"You can run away," Jindra tried, one last time. "I'd silence the guard and we could slip away –

"How many have you killed, Jindra?" Johanka didn't raise her voice, but it cut through Jindra like a knife. "How many men's lives weigh heavy upon you?"

Jindra could only stare at her, chest tight. "How did you – "

"Did you hear that Matthias died?" Johanka breathed. "There was a plague in Merhojed, and it took him. Sometimes I think everyone from Skalitz must be dying one by one."

Jindra was starting to sway on the spot, nausea rising like her panic had. Too much death, too much. "Johanka – "

"This is where the Virgin led me." Johanka lifted her chin, the image of a painted saint on a church wall. "I won't flee like a criminal. I won't act the part of the heretic they accuse me of. If my end is a martyr's, so be it. I'll accept whatever fate Our Lady grants me with humility."

"I don't want you to accept it!" Jindra exploded. "They're wrong." The ground shifted beneath Jindra's feet, made her slip and stagger on the world's new, awful, inescapable shape.

Johanka didn't looked shocked. She didn't even look surprised. She smiled again, softer than before, and for a single, blessed moment, she looked ordinary, like the girl Jindra remembered. "Adela said the same, when they took me away." She looked at one of the cold, dark walls of her cell. If her eyes could cut through stone, she might have been looking at the monastery. "You would have made a terrible nun."

Though it was not yet evening, the sky had grown darker, and beneath the dank, damp, rotting smell of the cells, layered with rust and sorrow, Jindra could smell the approach of rain.

"They'll come for me soon." Johanka turned back. "Will you send Adela? She's been a good friend to me. I want to see her again."

The conversation was over. This was all there would ever be. Jindra wanted to scream, or even find the words to pray again, but she could only nod, unable to find her voice. Johanka reached out, as much as her cage would allow, and ran a finger down the side of Jindra's temple. It felt less like a blessing, and more like a sinner's absolution: undeserved.

"You must repent all your bad deeds," she said. It would be the last thing she ever said to Jindra. "And remember the vision. May God forgive you."

Outside, Adela was waiting, spitting into the dirt. Jindra's open peasant face, simple and stupid, must have told her everything; she grew very still, and closed her eyes, bracing one hand against the side of the building. Her nails dug into the stone.

Jindra's guilt consumed her. "She wants to see you," she whispered.

Adela slipped past without a word. Jindra glanced after her, and caught the moment Adela's face crumpled, revealing something shattered and desperate beneath. She clutched at the bars of the cell door, tangling her fingers with Johanka's as much as she could.

Jindra turned away. Their farewells were not for her to hear.

Johanka didn't burn, in the end.

She bled to death, blood pouring from her mouth where sermons had once flowed, and running in rivers down her back from the lash.

"Led astray by the Father of lies!" the inquisitor bellowed, with every strike. He was dressed in his full bishop's regalia, looming golden and terrible, and his eyes did not blaze as Johanka's had – they radiated anger, and not belief. "Sowing thorns against the true authority of the Church!"

Rain poured from the sky, broken free at last, and drenched all of them, saints and sinners alike, mingling with the blood on the slick wooden platform. Johanka was defiant until the end, even when her righteous voice slid into moans and screams. Multiple people in the crowd wept. Many turned their heads away.

Jindra did neither. She forced herself to watch, through every whip crack and wail.

Johanka's blood was Ma's blood, slaughtered by an army. It was Bianca's blood, spread open and broken to pieces. It was the blood of Skalitz, a town that had died in Jindra's wake, when she'd turned her back to it and fled. And she thought it might be the blood of the Virgin Mary, immaculate, and suffering.

When they took Johanka's tongue, and as she gurgled and choked and drowned in her own blood, Jindra closed her eyes and saw a deer, and a man in the woods, and Runt, all of them blooming beneath her hands like red, red poppies. The poppies, in the castle garden, hanging in Jana's window and catching the sun. Dead things, dried up.

Then it was over.

The world moved around Jindra slowly after that. Each onlooker peeled away, one by one, returning to their unseen lives. The rain didn't let up, drenching the world in a gray veil, as Johanka's body was bundled up and carried away, as carelessly as a carcass stripped of meat.

Jindra found Adela lingering by Pebbles, staring up at her patient face. Jindra wasn't sure how much Adela had watched, and was too cowardly to ask.

"I think Brother Nicodemus will see her put to rest, once the bishop leaves," Adela said. Her voice was eerily calm. "He's a gutless weasel, but he'll want to sneak her onto consecrated ground. She deserves that."

Jindra couldn't decide if Adela's voice was hollow, with all feeling spent, or if she had shut herself away. "What will you do?"

Adela shrugged, as if it didn't matter.

"Can I help?" The words had long since become useless. But Jindra didn't know how to stop asking. She didn't know how to be herself if she couldn't.

Adela almost looked amused. "She said you'd ask that," she breathed, almost to herself.

Jindra's heart broke in half, with a jagged whip-crack gash.

"I'll get along." Adela seemed to hesitate, more unsure than Jindra had ever seen her. "There's been more whispers, I think. Seems there's always a place for girls like me to go."

More whispers. "Don't go there. Wherever it is. Don't."

Adela frowned. "Why? Going to poison this lot, too?"

Jindra stood her ground. "It's a dangerous life. You could be hurt."

"I was beaten in Ledetchko. I'd be beaten in the Sasau baths, if I went there. What's the difference?"

"Johanka wouldn't want you hurt. She wanted to help you start over. Can't you try?"

Adela didn't answer right away. She looked at the wooden platform, still stained with Johanka's blood, with those eyes of an old woman. The rain was washing the blood away, draining in faint streams and lost in the mud.

"I'll try for Johanka," she said at last, very quietly. "Not for you."

After that, there was nothing left to do but return to Rattay. Jindra could have stayed and waited out the rain, for the sake of Pebbles if not herself. But she couldn't stand Sasau a moment longer. It was Skalitz without the violence, without the death, without the horde. Only Jindra was the same, standing within it, her hands empty, and the only one left alive.

She led Pebbles from town, guiding her by the reins, her shoes sinking and slipping in the mud. She only vaguely knew were she was going, and hardly cared. Instead of the road before her, all Jindra could see was Johanka's face, in the cell, expecting to die and almost happy for it. Baring her neck for a blade without even resignation; like the deer in the wood, when Jindra's knife had struck true, and ended the agony of struggle.

If only Jindra had known sooner. She would have come to Sasau and made Johanka see reason, or made the inquisitor let her go, or screamed and shouted at anyone who would listen, beaten her fists on the door of the monastery itself.

If it had been Jana in that cell, Jindra would have torn the kingdom apart. She would have killed the guard with her bare hands and torn the stone from the walls. She would have –

Jindra stumbled, and nearly fell on the slick, uneven ground.

It was a stupid dream. No one would have listened to her. No one would have cared. And what good was Jindra's strength, her practice with a sword, the men beaten and humbled in the dust? She'd killed Runt, and a dozen more men to reach him, but to what end?

She'd done it for her honor – her own fear, her own pain – herself.

And then she'd been lost in the dream of Jana's bed and her comfort, the bright beauty of her spirit and her soul. Jindra could have curled up at her feet forever, safe, surrounded, her bruises kissed away and her body tended, until the pain of her heart drained into dew and rain. She'd forgotten Skalitz. She'd forgotten Bianca, ravaged, unavenged; she'd forgotten her Ma, her own mother.

In Ma's song, all the flowers had uses. They weren't just pretty for their own sake.

Jindra stumbled forward in a daze, aching in body and heart, until she reached a fork in the road. There was a small shrine by the roadside, old and slightly overgrown, littered with the evidence of past pilgrims.

Jindra stared at it.

When she'd been very small, and had first been taught how to pray, they'd had to explain that she must stop asking for God Himself to hear her. She must pray for intercession, because it was not her place to seek God's voice herself.

But why? she'd always asked, confused by Ma and Pa's gentle amusement.

The reins slipped from her hand. Jindra stepped forward, and knelt in front of the small shrine, battered and humble. The wet ground bled through her skits to her knees, staining the green wool.

She didn't know how to begin. She could pray for the souls of her parents, and for all those who had died in Skalitz. She could pray for Theresa's protection, and that she might find peace. She could pray for Jana's health, and her happiness, for her good heart. She could pray for Bianca's forgiveness. 

But her prayers were poison. They had to be. The girl in Skalitz was dead, but there had been something else left to save; and she had been idle, and stupid, and blind, and selfish, and had let it die.

"God forgive me," Jindra choked, head bowed. She heard nothing but the patter of the rain, and felt nothing but the crushing weight of God's silence.

Jana stalled before going to find Jindra's mill girl. She'd taken her time dressing, eaten slowly when she broke her fast, and even scribbled a reply to poor Lady Stephanie's latest letter, filled as it was with eager, mindless gossip and transparently desperate invitations to visit; the silly woman couldn't seem to stop writing now that she'd been giving a scrap of encouragement.

And by the time she was finished, Jana couldn't very well run off to the mill alone in the middle of the day. Best to wait until nightfall and steal away unseen. And by then, perhaps Jindra would already come home, and there would be nothing to tell the mill girl anyway.

It was childish. Jana did it anyway, taking what satisfaction she could in petty, unseen spite. It had kept her fed in worse famines.

Besides, she was hardly enjoying herself. She spent the day in misery, pacing her room and picking painfully at her nail beds, sick with worry for Jindra, off in the wilderness without a plan with a stranger. Jana prayed to every saint who might listen that Jindra wouldn't do something rash. It was a hopeless prayer, all things considered.

As she waited for the light to die, and in want of any distraction, Jana sat in front of the hearth, and finally finished the embroidery on her blue wool. Vines and leaves spun in shining golden spirals, even and gleaming but for the drops of her own dried blood, and the leaves she'd left deliberately clumsy and ill-made in her fits of malice. She regretted that now. She ruined lovely things, when her heart's poison grew too hot.

Jana thought of her father, and stabbed her thumb, leaving behind a final red smear.

But it was done. All that remained was to cut the cloth. It was strong wool, and wouldn't fray, warm in rain and snow and handsome and fine in the sunlight. When the first frosts of autumn came, she hoped it would serve.

But now night had fallen, and Jindra was still not home. Jana folded the wool and tucked it carefully away, and forced herself not to think of every unseen danger, every possible mistake, from bandits on the road to a riot in Sasau to – most of all – a fall from a horse. Then she dressed in her hunting clothes, and slipped through her window. To think that she had once made this trip nearly nightly, in darkness, dressing swiftly, and all alone; to think Jindra's hands had once felt strange, and not welcome.

The path to the grove took an odd shape, molding itself around Jana's worries, and she stared wistfully at the grove as she slipped through it. How she wished she could linger; she hadn't had the chance to visit since before the tourney. She hadn't wanted to, with Jindra's body to tempt her away.

It would be here, Jana decided. When she could finally have Jindra for her own and touch her, spread her with fingers and tongue, she'd have her here beneath the trees. And Jindra's hair would spill over the ground like the spill of blood from their deer's throat, dappled with starlight, and Jana would give and give to her and take whatever Jindra gave back, until they were finally sated, and only the woods would ever know –

Jana stopped mid-step.

At the farthest edge of the grove, closest to the river, several of the lowest branches on the trees had been bent back. It was a small thing, minor enough for an animal's doing – a deer, most likely. Jana hadn't ventured here for weeks, and it would be no wonder if a wandering doe had found her way in, without the danger of a hunter's scent to warn her.

Jana frowned at the trees a moment long, before putting it out of her mind.

Jana crept all the way to the mill, as she had once done on another summer's night. It was as unassuming and dull as ever, and this time Jana kept her guard up, casting her eyes about in the darkness.

"Where are you, you mongrel?" she hissed.

And on cue, something wet and cold pressed to the back on Jana's wrist. Jana spun with a wild gasp, and found the stupid, dirty little dog, panting up at her with giant wet eyes and a silly wet nose and an even wetter, hanging tongue. He was also, notably, not growling at her, or howling for her blood.

"Changed your tune, have you?" Jana held out her hand slowly, and the little mutt sniffed at her fingers delicately, before giving a single wag of its mangy tail.

Jana hoped dearly that it was because Jindra's scent lingered on her. She'd hoped the same before, but on her last visit, she'd only worn Jindra's clothes. Now they had pressed so close together that they must have become one person, with one shared skin and one shared heart. An animal could tell that, surely, even if people could not.

"You're lucky my uncle sleeps hard, my lady."

Jana jumped up and spun around again. Theresa, small and plain, was standing in her doorway, the very image of Jana's memory. She did, however, sound more amused than the last time, which was grating.

"You're lucky that I'm so patient," Jana snapped. It was significantly more humiliating to be caught off guard by a peasant than a dog. "And wipe that smirk off of your face. Jindra sent me."

Theresa glanced behind her, and slipped out of her doorway. The closer she came, the more her features cleared in the low light. Dark haired and mousy, like the third bath girl whose name Jana already couldn't recall; like a hundred faces Jana had seen in her life, glanced over, and dismissed. It was the face of a lesser girl who Jana should not and would not be afraid of.

Jana said, without fanfare, "Johanka has been tried as a heretic in Sasau. Jindra went to try and save her."

It gave her satisfaction to say it so plain. She watched the words crack over Theresa's face, a fracture of shock and confusion. "What?"

"Jindra found out this morning and ran off at once. But she believed it was dire. I know no more than that, I'm afraid."

Theresa opened and closed her mouth, as if biting back questions without answers. She staggered to the side and sank onto a low bench in the courtyard, her eyes as wide and helplessly frightened as Jindra's had looked that morning in Jana's bedroom.

The satisfaction soured. Jana remembered that the mill girl had saved Jindra's life, and shepherded her to the hunt when Jana could not. She had kept Jindra's secrets, and Jana's too; and she had known this doomed Johanka.

So Jana sighed, her cruelty draining to leave an empty shell behind. She sat heavily down on the bench beside the little mill girl. "I am sorry," she said, finding the truth in it. "You'd rather hear from Jindra than from me."

Theresa stared down at her own hands, clenched together in her lap. "And she…went to help."

Her voice was a graveyard. Jana swallowed. "If she can," she offered.

Theresa shook her head. "She can't." At least she and Jana agreed on something. She grew very quiet and still, even as a her cheeks grew wet in the darkness. It was so unlike Jindra's horrified railing against the news this morning. For the first time, Jana found herself wondering what the mill girl had lost.

Jana's heart clenched uncomfortably, and she cleared her throat. "Tell me about Johanka."

Theresa clearly hadn't expected that. She sniffed, and wiped her eyes. "If you wish it, my lady."

"You don't have to sound so dour. Isn't this what ought to be done? To hold vigil for those we love and lose?" And besides, if Jana shared Jindra's heart with yet another girl – even if she was soon to be another dead one – she would know more than just her name, and her bleak fate.

Theresa took a moment before answering. Her voice was quiet, but without a tremor. "She's our age. Jindra's and mine. We all grew up together in Skalitz."

"Jindra never mentioned her. It was always Bianca in her stories." Jana made sure to pause before adding, "And you, I suppose."

Theresa looked at her with some surprise. Then she continued, in a stronger voice. "Well, she never wanted to run after Jindra and Bianca when they'd roll in the mud. Sometimes I'd sit with her when they ran too wild for me." She looked back at her hands, and even in the dark, Jana saw her smile, very slight, and very sad. "She was always sweet. When I heard that she'd survived, it felt…right, that someone like her could live, when it seemed like the world had lost its sweetness."

A lock of dark hair fell across Theresa's cheek. For a moment, she looked almost pretty. Jana felt like the angel of death, delivering grim messages, and ruining more lovely things.

It was the crooked stitches on the blue wool, and the drops of Jana's blood.

Her father, his neck broken in the river.

Then Theresa wiped her eyes again, brushing the lock of hair away, and became a mill girl again. She asked, in an entirely different tone, "Jindra talks about Skalitz?"

If only she knew how much! "Yes. Often."

Theresa nodded, and said, thoughtfully, "I'm glad that you…let her."

Jana frowned. "Jindra may do as she wishes."

Theresa nodded again, and said nothing more. But the implication was quite clear, and Jana felt her lip curl, as all pity for the mill girl curdled.

"Despite what you seem to believe," she sneered, "Jindra is very dear to me. And I to her."

Theresa turned away and scratched at the little dog's ears, who had curled up around her feet. That dark hair fell to obscure her face, but it did not obscure her voice; quiet, and accusing. "But you've sent her into danger again."

Jana's mouth fell open in outrage, and for a moment she could only gape."I didn't send her!" she gasped."I couldn't stop her if I tried! If I had my way I wouldn't let her out of my sight. But am I to chain her down? Confine her like a – "

Theresa's head shot up, and her eyes, still wet with tears, bore into Jana's, bold, unafraid, and angry. "You should keep her safe."

Jana's heart squeezed and twisted, locked inside her own clenched fist. "Watch your tongue, girl," she snarled. But that was the dearest wish: to have Jindra, so haunted and so hunted, finally safe – in Jana's bed, in her care – how could a peasant girl tear open Jana's heart with the first strike? "She is safe with me, whatever you believe. She means more to me than you could ever dream!"

Theresa's gaze was even and, in its own way, cruel. "Are you sure?

At some point, Jana's hands had started shaking. She clenched them together, as hard as she could, and willed back her shield of cruelty. It had abandoned her too soon. "I would do anything for her," she said. In this, at least, she was certain. But it sounded too much like a plea – or worse, an excuse. "Anything she asked."

The frailty of her voice shamed her. But whatever Theresa heard within visibly drained her own anger away. She wasn't a hunter, like Jana was, and would never have put an animal out of its misery, so perhaps she would not have the stomach for a bared, bleeding throat. She sighed. "Jindra isn't the sort to ask for what she needs."

That was true. Jana almost laughed, but she was too heartsore for it. Her fear returned; it was too dark, and Jindra had been gone too long. It made her swallow her pride, or maybe forget it. "You've had a lifetime with her," she admitted, "and would know better than I."

The moment stretched into hollow silence. Jana tried to think of something unkind and biting to say, and had settled on an insult to Theresa's sunburned nose, notable even in the dark. But before she could, the most extraordinary thing happened: the dog yawned, stretched at Theresa's feet, and then trotted to Jana's side, plopping its odd little head by her knee on the bench.

Both Jana and Theresa stared, equally stunned. Then Theresa laughed; watery and small, but a laugh nonetheless. "Mutt seems to like you now."

"I smell like Jindra, I expect," Jana said, willing it to be so. She let the little dog sniff at her fingers again, and rubbed gingerly at one of its floppy ears, as soft as velvet. "And he's quite fond of her."

"He is." Theresa paused, and asked, as a deranged peace offering, "Do you think Jindra would want him?"

Jana laughed, too – barked, really, rivaling a dog, too loud and too crude. She could be excused under such circumstances. And it did make her feel better. "And bring a filthy dog into my bed? You're as silly as Jindra is."

"My uncle keeps threatening to skin him alive. And I had a dog in Skalitz, but he…died." Theresa's voice thickened. How odd, to be so privy to her pain. "I don't think I can love Mutt like he needs to be. Jindra has enough room in her heart to love a hundred dogs."

Jana smiled sadly. "Dogs, perhaps."

Theresa started to say something more, but cut herself off with a sudden choked gasp. Jana looked up in time to see Theresa jump to her feet, and she turned, squinting into the darkness, her heartbeat spiking with alarm.

At first, all she saw was a dark shape, growing larger as it approached from the road. And then it became a figure on horseback, and Jana's fear gave it the shape of a guard, or Hanush, or her father.

But it was a woman, bent over the saddle.

Jana's heart flew to her throat, as Theresa gasped out, "Jindra!"

Jindra almost fell off of Pebbles, limp with exhaustion, and both Jana and Theresa dashed forward to catch her. She was cold to the touch, and shivering, her clothing damp and heavy. The dog bounded around them with an anxious whine, as Pebbles snorted and stomped.

Jana cradled Jindra's lulling head in her hands, voice cracking shrilly. "Jindra! Are you hurt? Look at me right this moment!"

Jindra's eyes flew open. In an instant, Jana was back in her bed, holding Jindra's face in her hands as she pulled her from from a nightmare, her cage of unimaginable memory – but there was no end to it, no growing calm at seeing Jana's face. The helpless, wretched pain spilled from Jindra's eyes as surely as the tears.

"She's dead," Jindra sobbed. "She's dead, and I couldn't do anything!"

Jana and Theresa wrapped awkwardly around Jindra in a tangle, but it was no use. Jindra wept harder than Jana had ever seen, shaking and convulsing.

"I'm sorry – " Jindra looked past Jana, and held out her hands, as if begging for forgiveness. "Tess, I'm sorry. Skalitz – we keep dying, and all I could do was watch."

Jana was hit with the sudden realization, like a blow, that Jindra had come home to tumble into Theresa's arms, and not Jana's. Theresa pulled Jindra in, and Jindra collapsed, her sobs wracked and wailing, the most terrible sound in the world, hopeless and without release or relief. Jana pressed a hand over her mouth, her vision blurring.

"I was useless," Jindra heaved. "Useless!"

Theresa's heartbroken eyes met Jana's over Jindra's body. Jana reached out, hesitated, her arms held empty in the air, as Jindra and Theresa cried for another dead girl from a dead village. The night grew impossibly darker, as clouds moved in, blotting out the stars one by one.

The little dog whimpered, and Jana smelled rain.

Charity is obedient to no created thing, but only to Love. Charity has nothing of her own, and even if she had anything, she does not say that it is hers at all. Charity abandons her own task and goes off and does that of others. Charity asks no return of any creature, whatever good or happiness she may give. Charity knows no shame or fear or anxiety: she is so upright and true that she cannot bend, whatever happens to her.

- From the writings of convicted heretic Marguerite Porete, burnt at the stake in 1310

Chapter Text

In her dream –

Jindra! Ma weeps. There's work to be done –

Jindra! Bianca screams. Why won't you help me, why won't you love me –

JINDRISKA! Pa bellows. WHY DID YOU RUN –

Jindra woke under a warm, comforting weight. It eased her from the darkness instead of ripping her loose, and for once she didn't jolt, or gasp, or stifle a scream. But she was locked in place by Pa's echo and the memory of his last touch, the brush of his gloved hands pressing a sword into hers; leather and steel, and not skin.

He told her to run. He did. He told her –

"There she is."

Jana's voice dragged Jindra to the surface of a lake. Jindra sucked in her breath and blinked her eyes open, returning to the room; their room, in Pirkstein. Jana was sitting beside her on the bed, dressed in one of her plain front lacing kirtles, and running a gentle hand along her temple. When Jindra's eyes met hers, she smiled.

"Lazybones," Jana chided softly, with an edge of relief. "You nearly slept clean through the morning."

Jana wasn't the warm weight. Jindra shifted and glanced down, and found Mutt lying on her chest, draped like a blanket and wagging his tail. "I suppose you both did," Jana continued, in that same soft voice.

Jindra's throat grew too tight to speak. She lifted a trembling hand and brushed at Mutt's heavy head, and was rewarded with a sleepy snuffle.

Jana hummed at the question not asked. "Your Theresa sent him back with us. I had a devil of a time getting him through the window." Unexpectedly, she reached out and rubbed one of Mutt's drooping ears. "He's very attached to you. It almost makes up for the stench."

Jindra didn't remember bringing Mutt through Jana's window. She didn't remember coming through the window. She hardly remembered coming back at all. After she'd returned to the mill and fallen into Theresa's arms, her memory rippled like water. She'd been crying too much, filled up with bone deep fatigue and sorrow, after Sasau, and – Johanka –

"You must be starving," Jana said – kindly, as if Jindra deserved – "I saved you some sausages, and some honeyed nuts. You may give one sausage to the beast."

Jindra pitched over the side of the bed, so fast that Mutt yelped and scrambled, and retched.

Jana gave a shout of alarm, but Jindra barely heard. She twisted and tumbled, heaving and retching again, bringing up nothing from her empty stomach but pain. In a rush, a broken dam in a filthy river, it had all returned: smells, sounds, fear, horror, rage and rage and rage boiling and festering, and Runt's face, deer and man and flower and cunt, bleeding and laughing, with so many men behind him.

Prey that never died and a hunt that never ended.

Her Pa's voice – her Pa, her father, pressing his sword into her hand – she smelled smoke –

Her mother – !

Jana grasped her by the shoulders, and yanked her back against her chest. "Damn it," Jana murmured shakily. "Easy. No sausages, then."

Jindra went limp. She sank into Jana's warmth and voice, her soft hands with their secret archer's callouses, her ready smile and her wit, her passion and her open heart, the sweet safety of her arms….

Jana smelled of sweat and flowers, like Bianca's shift, stolen by a river.

She couldn't stand it. For the first time in their friendship, Jindra pushed herself away, in a violent, sharp, jerking flinch. Jana inhaled softly, and Jindra could see her expression without looking, confused hurt pinching her mouth and her brows.

Jindra tried to cover for it, hastily wiping her mouth. "Pebbles – " she croaked. "I need to…"

"She's fine, Jindra. I wouldn't put her away cold and wet." If Jana's voice faltered, she covered in quickly, in her most indignant tone. "A task below me I admit, but I'm quite capable, thank you."

Jindra closed her eyes, the world spinning again. The ripples of her memory took Jana's shape; helping Jindra through the window and waiting for her to fall into bed before vanishing again. Jana must have been going back and forth for ages, bringing a dog through a window, sneaking a horse to the stables, avoiding torchlight. If she'd been caught, she would have paid the price with her freedom.

All while Jindra slept, as helpless as a babe with the needs of one.

Jana cleared her throat, and her voice had a badly covered warble. "If you don't believe me – "

"I do," Jindra rasped. She couldn't let Jana think otherwise. She reached blindly behind her, and felt Jana catch hold of her hand.

"Oh." The soft relief returned to Jindra's voice. "Well, good. Now lie back, and you can – oh, Christ. "

Jindra had already thrown back the blankets and stumbled to her feet. As she staggered to her trunk, Jana grumbling behind her, her head kept spinning. Johanka. Pa. Bianca. Ma. Matthew's body. Smoke.

"You have to eat something," Jana insisted, following behind. "I could send for some – "

"I'm not hungry." Jindra started dressing herself hastily, her fingers trembling on the laces. "I can't– I can't lie down anymore. I can't."

Jana caught her by the chin, and Jindra lifted her head reluctantly.

"Damn it," Jana snapped. "Let me help you."

Jindra had said the same to Johanka, and watched her die anyway. This was worse than guilt: it was weakness.

Jindra swallowed. "I couldn't help her."

Jana's eyes filled with unbearable pity, and she ran the back of her knuckles gently along Jindra's jaw. "There was nothing you could have done."

Jindra stepped back, away from Jana's touch, and moaned. "I know!" It was true. It was so terribly true. "She didn't even want me to help. She knew it was useless." Just like Bianca had known, like Pa had known, like Ma. "She wanted to help me."

Jana's eyes quickly lost the pity, and flashed over Jindra's face with quiet alarm. Jindra must have looked a wreck. "What did she say to you?"

The dream of the meadow and the sunlight was a grim memory, when it had come from Johanka's bleeding lips. It brought a fresh wave of nausea, and Jindra wouldn't repeat it. But the second vision, the one that made Johanka shake with fear, crept and crawled beneath Jindra's skin, demanding to be heard.

So Jindra told Jana everything: the ruined fort above Sasau, the pack of howling dogs surrounding the dead runt, the hound in armor and the wolf on two legs, and the she-wolf that killed him.

"She said that the vision was for me." Jindra put a hand to her throat, her fingers curling in and her nails scratching like claws. "The she-wolf was me."

Jana was clearly uneasy. "Yes, but…" She pulled Jindra's hand back from her throat. "The poor creature is dead and gone now. These must have been mad ravings." She tangled their fingers together firmly, as she did when they slept. "You mustn't think of it, Jindra."

You mustn't think of it. Had Sir Radzig not said the same thing, while sitting in a garden?

Jindra pulled her hands away. "She wasn't a creature. She was a girl."

Jana gave a small jolt of surprise. "Well yes, of course. I–I didn't mean it otherwise."

A wave of exhaustion crushed Jindra, nearly sending her to the floor. She couldn't explain. How could she? Jana wasn't consumed by guilt. Jana wasn't trapped by a coward's heart and a father's disappointment, in a memory of too many dead girls and dead mothers. Jana didn't live her life uselessly, taking without reward.

Jindra had sworn never to run away ever again. But she'd been doing just that, hadn't she? She'd abandoned Bianca to die afraid, and left her lying in the cold earth unavenged. Her Pa had given her a final task, a duty, and she had failed him. Had she ever been of any use at all, to anyone?

Jindra stepped around Jana, ducking her head. "I need – I'm going into town."

Jana caught her arm. "Don't be ridiculous. You've just returned. You should rest."

Jindra met Jana's eye reluctantly. For the first time, Jindra realized how tired she looked, with bags under her beautiful eyes and her brow furrowed in concern. Her brows always turned in, before she laughed or cried.

Jindra longed to lean up and press a kiss there, smoothing the crease away. She longed to curl up at the foot of Jana's bed, seeking comfort like a bird that had soared too long; to stay safe and warm like a pampered mutt, or like the dried flowers tucked between the pages of Jana's prayer book, with their color bleeding into the psalms.

Kept, and giving back nothing.

Jindra turned away. "I – I can't stay in this room."

And she ran away, again.

She went to Pebbles first. It wasn't that Jindra hadn't believed Jana, but she couldn't stay away after treating her mare so thoughtlessly. And if Pebbles were suffering, she could make it right, and fix something.

But Pebbles was fine. She was better than fine, munching calmly on oats in her stall. Her coat was shining from a good brush down, and her eyes were alert and well rested. No one would ever guess that she'd been ridden to and from Sasau the day before, with an extra girl on her back in the morning and through a storm in the night.

Jindra felt like crying anyway. "I'm sorry, Pebbles." She stroked her mare's soft nose, and her strong gray neck. Her own horse, her gift from Jana, neglected while Jindra wept and slumbered.

Of course Jana took good care of Pebbles, even in darkness, in secret, alert for any sound. She must have been grumbling and muttering the whole time, her pretty face pinched with annoyance at this lowly servant's duty. But she had still done it, and done it well. Jana had cared for horses and known stables inside and out since the age of four. She'd done better than Jindra ever could.

Jindra had never felt so fucking useless.

She ought to have visited Theresa next. She knew that her friend must be mourning as she was. They could sit by the river and weave memories together, holding Johanka in their memory like they had with Bianca.

But how could she? She always ran to Theresa for help, for comfort, for friendship freely given, and abandoned her after. Coward, false, selfish, useless. How could she face Theresa again, when they both knew that?

Rattay offered no comfort. While she had been idle, nothing had changed. There were still whispers in the taverns. Bandits still roamed the lands, and a growing dread had built and built with each day with each lost traveler on the road, each widow and orphan; there was still a ravaged countryside, a ruined world, a wound ripped open and festering.

Jindra had once found the space, the room, and the opportunity for action, finding tasks to drown out her guilt and her shame and the murderous need with nowhere to go. But now it was clear that Jindra hadn't done much good at all.

The rain may have stopped overnight, but the roads were muddy, staining Jindra's hem and shoes. It suited her.

Jindra visited the Skalitz survivors last, when she could find no excuse to avoid it, like the meek sinner she was. Word of Johanka had already reached them, and Jindra did not have the heart to tell them that she had been there, and watched a good Skalitz girl die a hard death. Despite the exhaustion that weighed upon every one of them, they still smiled for her. The women still pet at her, and the men smiled warmly, and the children clung to their mother's skirts; the baby she'd seen born cooed up at her, not yet old enough to laugh.

"Elena's girl," they called her, as if Ma could ever be proud again.

And they were all still hungry. Jindra had thought, once, to hunt for them, and never had, lost in her own revenge, her lust for Runt's death, and then lost in Jana's body later. She was still as careless, as selfish, as the day she'd slept too long in her childhood bed, made her mother late into the village, and doomed her parents.

She wandered for a while, up and down the road, aimless. She couldn't stop thinking of Ma's song, more scolding now than comforting. A sleep can bind, for the poppy. 'Tis bitterness to take, for wormwood.

When Jindra returned to Pirkstein, her hunger was a dull ache. The clouds were stubborn, and wouldn't part for the sun. Jindra could imagine Jana saying something poetic, that it was fitting to see God's own earth reflect the mood of the people.

It only made Jindra tired. She paused, running a hand over her face, and looked up.

High above her on Pirkstein's walls, his back to the village and his eyes on the stretch of open country, stood Sir Radzig, looking melancholy himself. A wild, unexpected surge of feeling erupted in Jindra's chest, swelling in desperation. She was shocked to find that it wasn't fear.

Her mother had once told her that she could trust Sir Radzig. Her Pa had told her to seek him out, for care and protection. But in a garden, Jindra had learned a hard lesson. Ma was dead. Pa was dead. And Johanka had been given visions of a world where nobles used those below them cruelly, and the commoners suffered for a king's sin. By a riverbank, so long ago, Theresa had reminded Jindra that the nobles would never care for her. So maybe it was all nonsense. Maybe none of it mattered.

But Jindra yearned to be ignorant. She wanted a child's understanding back. She wanted the days when Sir Radzig was a comforting shape in her life, a lord instead of a man, held apart and away and smiling. She wanted that simple truth; dead in Skalitz, like all simple things.

For the first time in months, Jindra approached Sir Radzig first.

His eyes flickered as Jindra neared, but she ducked her head quickly as she curtsied, and kept her eyes down. She could pretend for longer if she couldn't see his face. "God save you, sir."

The silence that followed was awkward, but not threatening. That was something. "Are you well, Jindriska?" Sir Radzig asked.

Jindra hardly knew what she wanted to say, or what she wanted to hear. More than anything else, she wanted to be proven wrong. "I'm heartsore, my lord," she admitted. "More folk from Skalitz are dying."

The sigh that left Sir Radzig was heavy, weighing upon the walls like a fog. It could have come from Jindra herself. "I am grieved to hear that."

In this, at least, Jindra believed him. She dared to lift her head, and found Sir Radzig looking at her with sad, steady kindness. It made her forget the danger, and encouraged her to speak.

"Matthias died of a plague," she said, and heard her own voice break. "Johanka was tried as a heretic in Sasau. It's – we can't even have kindness in death."

"Many things in life prove to be unkind," Sir Radzig said, with a long life's certainty. "I'm only sorry that you were made to learn that."

Jindra shook her head weakly. "But why does God let it all happen? All this – this slaughter and revenge, over and and over…I don't understand."

Sir Radzig turned fully from the wall, and looked at Jindra with open surprise, as if her pain was a new mystery to be solved. "It weighs upon you." It wasn't a question. "You struggle with it."

"Aye." Jindra clenched her hands, hidden by her skirts, into fists, squeezing until they ached. "I haven't heard God since Skalitz."

She had not admitted it out loud to anyone, not even to Jana.

Sir Radzig didn't answer right away. He looked out across the fields and the road and the trees beyond, as if crafting his answer. When he turned back to Jindra, his expression was neither as dismissive, nor as pitying, as she had come to expect. "Are you a saint or a prophet, to expect to hear God's voice?"

Jindra hadn't expected him to reply so thoughtfully. "No," she said, perhaps a little sulkily. "But I don't feel His eyes, either. Or His love. What can I – what can we do in a world without grace?"

Sir Radzig was quiet for another moment. He squinted up at the gray sky, where the pale outline of the sun was just visible behind the clouds.

"I've wondered the same thing." He nodded to himself. "I have come to believe that it's all a trial. Life is one long series of problems to solve. As tribulations spawn in life, over and over again, one must stand one's ground and face them."

His brow furrowed, and he turned back to Jindra, with the same surprise as before. "But I imagine it must be harder for you to bear. To endure the trial rather than face it head on."

Jindra almost laughed, and almost wept. She held back both. Watching, and waiting, and enduring? As Johanka had, and accepted; as Jana did still, raging, straining, and just as trapped.

Jindra looked out past the walls, across a still-green land turning to gold with the harvest. How long until it, too, turned black and red? She thought of facing a trial head on, standing her ground, rising to meet it. And in the starving pit of her heart, where she kept the pain and the rage and the blood, and the lust, her true lust, that only killing could ease…a lock clicked open.

Perhaps in Sasau, she had heard God's voice after all.

"I've endured plenty," she breathed.

Then Jindra became the girl Sir Radzig believed her to be, and lowered her eyes again. "I'm sure I can endure more." She curtsied again. "Thank you, sir. It was very kind of you to spare advice for the likes of me. I must return to my lady's service now."

But as Jindra turned to go, Sir Radzig spoke again. "You must endure it, Jindriska." His voice was unexpectedly urgent. "You must learn how."

Jindra nodded, and hid her sharp teeth. "I'll remember what you said, sir."

A trial to face? Jindra could manage that. Jindra could solve problems, and hit things hard until they broke. She was at her best as a blunt instrument with a blunt use. And her Pa had pressed a sword into her hands, and given her a duty.

The pit inside her cracked apart, and howled.

The damn dog followed Jana round and round her room, from her window to the hearth and back, with its silly slobbering tongue hanging out. Jana was wound too tight to be truly annoyed by it, unable to stop thinking of Jindra, worrying for Jindra, driven to madness by Jindra.

For her to vanish without a word! Pushing past Jana like a beggar on the street! Jana couldn't even be properly angry, with Jindra's despair written on her face. All she could do was wait, just as she had waited when Jindra ran to Sasau, and to Pribyslavitz. It was all she ever did.

She had half a mind to send out a search party, as she would for a wayward child. But Jindra would hate that, and surely she would be back soon…unless she'd returned to the arms of her mill girl for comfort instead?

It was an ugly, unfair thought. But – but Jindra had never flinched from Jana before. She'd told Jana that her touch was different; that she'd always been different. The thought festered even when Jana told it to go and leave her be. Jindra was in pain. It wasn't the time.

But if someone peeled Jana's skin away, like butchered game, it would reveal something more rotten beneath. This jealousy was her true self, stuffed it back inside her body and sewn up badly, with spiteful stitching.

Jana scratched at the scar on her wrist. This damned room! She couldn't sneak from her window in midday to kill hare and deer and boar and watch their blood spilling. She couldn't very well wander through town looking for Jindra, to seek her out and make sure she was staying out of trouble. What had been so long a sanctuary was pressing her in again, keeping her away, held back, leashed and caged. Confined, confined, confined.

Jana's breath came faster. This was – she was thinking too much. It was all starting to tumble too quickly. The walls –

Did Jindra truly need her? How could she? Who could need a caged animal, a falcon in a hood? How could Jindra see her as anything but? It was all she could be, like Stephanie, locked in a prison of cold touches and lonely days; dead already, like her mother.

It must be natural to flinch from her care. Jana thought of her own father's love, given like a kennel master to a hound or a handler to a hawk, with an eye for the highest yield. Jana's affection had proved a poor harvest.

"Stop," Jana whispered, to herself, to the walls, and to her memories.

But it was no use. Jana was eight again. Her father's smiles turned to sneers, and she imagined the scream of his dying horse and the smell of leather, and his saddle broken in the river beside his body. She could see it as clearly as her mother dying in a bed of blood, with Jana's own eyes staring back. These were deaths she hadn't witnessed, but knew intimately. Her sin and her punishment, her past and her fate.

I'm waiting for you in hell.

"Enough," she hissed in the empty room, like a madwoman. She wouldn't become locked in waking nightmares like her poor Jindra. Behind her, the dog whimpered pitifully, as if it cared.

Jana's nerves, such as they were, were in ruins by the time her door opened without a knock. The dog let out an excited bark, and it could only be Jindra. Jana spun on her heel with a gasp, ready to scold or to scream.

But before she could say a word, Jindra crossed the room, cradled the back of Jana's head, and kissed her.

It was deep, and warm, and filled with unwavering, insistent passion. Jana clung to Jindra's waist and drew her in closer, and for a glorious moment, she forgot everything. Her mind finally went quiet and still, and the walls drew back, and her father's ghost vanished. Oh, it was right. She'd been wrong to worry so. When their bodies spoke to each other, words never mattered, and the world was held at bay.

Then Jindra broke the kiss, leaving a smile on Jana's lips. She brushed a thumb across Jana's cheekbone, and gave a single, decisive nod. "I need to see your map."

Jana blinked, still in a daze, her smile fading. "My map?"

The map had sat unused since Pribyslavitz. As Jindra knelt hurriedly and spread it across the stone floor, Jana's eyes were drawn to her father's writing in the margins, mingled with her own childhood scribbles. He'd guided her hand along the lands she would never inherit; her father, alive in letters if not in body, a map bloodstained with her own guilt.

I'm waiting for –

"Johanka saw a ruined fort above Sasau." Jindra pointed at a spot on the vellum. "Here. It must be here."

Jana knelt beside her and squinted at the map. "I think there's an old hill fort there, or some such. It must be long abandoned."

Jindra hummed. "D'you reckon a pack of wild dogs would like it?"

Jindra had her mouth set in a hard, grim line, unwavering and determined, as she glared at the map with joyless satisfaction. Jana's heart skipped. "You think there's more men there," she gasped, understanding. "You think it's another bandit camp."

Jindra didn't deny it. She tore her eyes from the map, met Jana's gaze, and smiled like a wolf.

Jana did not smile back. "You can't actually intend to run off and look!" she exploded, alarmed. "All this from a dead heretic's ramblings?"

Jindra's awful smile vanished. "They were messages from the Virgin, Jana."

"Or from the devil."

Jindra took a breath, as if trying to be patient, as if Jana were unreasonable. "I have to see for myself." She touched the spot on the map gently. "Maybe it's abandoned and empty. And if it's not…"

"Then what?" Jana grasped Jindra by the chin, as she had that morning. "If there's another camp full of men armed to the teeth, what will you do? Will you pretend to be whore again?"

Jindra's eyes hardened. "If I have to."

"Why?" Jana was bewildered. "God's Blood, Jindra, if there's some banditry to be found, and I'm quite sure there isn't, it will come to light soon enough and then –"

Jindra jerked away unexpectedly. "I can't!" She clamored to her feet. "I can't wait! Skalitz keeps dying and I need it to stop." She took a steading breath, which clearly failed. "If there's more men, I could bring word back, and Sir Radzig can plan another raid, or –"

Jana stood, and felt a touch of desperation. She was starting to imagine the camp of wild dogs herself, and it made her voice cruel. "And I'm to believe you, of all people, would watch silently without doing something foolish? You'll forgive my doubts."

Jindra scowled, almost petulantly. "I'm going. You can cover for me again. Nobody will care if I'm fast enough. I'll find out what I can and I'll be back by – "

"I won't."

Jindra stopped short. "What?"

The cruelty had fallen from Jana's voice and left something small behind, quietly pleading. She despised the sound. "Don't go." She swallowed, throat sticking. "Please."

Jindra stared at her, uncomprehending, and it made the desperation worse, tinged with helpless weakness. "Don't I make you happy?" Jana feared the answer more than death. "Don't I keep you safe? Why can't you forget about everything else?"

Jindra shook her head. "How can I?" she asked, as if it were obvious. "Runt hurt me. Just me. I haven't done a thing for anyone else. I haven't – I need to do something."

She said it so plainly. Jana, frightened now, gasped, "You can't avenge a whole village, you little fool!"

"Stop calling me that!" Jindra shouted. It seemed to echo off the stones, and hurt more than it should have. "I have to try! If Skalitz had never burned, Johanka would still be alive. Bianca would still be alive. My Ma and Pa would be alive. I would be – "

Jindra cut herself off. The world grew darker with something half-understood, and an awful silence followed.

And then Jindra's fire died away, and her eyes became both a woman's and a doe's, passionate, suffering, and trapped. "I look at you and I can't breathe," she whispered, a confession. "After all this time, I still can't breathe. I've never – I will never feel for anyone as I do for you." Her voice splintered, and bled. "But God forgive me, it's not enough. Jana, it's not enough."

Jana's heart cracked in two.

Not enough.

Not enough!

The stitches in Jana's skin ripped apart. "Nothing will ever be enough for you!" she snarled, heartbroken, angry, terrified. "Do you think you are the only one who – who carries the weight of their pain? Who has a bloodstained heart? You're not special."

"I have to –"

"You don't have to do anything! You can't run off into every fray without thinking! Not without dying in the attempt! You're not capable."

Jindra took a step back, shaking her head. She'd always had an open face, and betrayal and heartbreak danced and battled across it. Oh God, Jana was the reason. "You don't understand." she breathed, in disbelief. "I thought you understood – but you don't."

"Of course I do!" Jana lost control of her voice, cracking into anger and grief. "I want you to kill every enemy you've ever had. I want to kill them! I want blood for you."

Jindra hardened again. "You'll forgive my doubts," she snapped, in a snide imitation of Jana. "I'm not your gyrfalcon. You don't get to – to keep me all for yourself."

"That's not what this is about!" Jana had never been so frustrated. "I don't want to see you die. I want you –"

"Safe?" Jindra cut in. "Safe like you, locked up in a cage? I see you're enjoying it now."

Jana reeled back, and her mouth fell open. "How dare you."

"You can't stop me." Jindra put a hand to her chest. "I'm meant to do this! It was a message sent by God!"

Jana was clenching her teeth, breathing too hard. "You're so bloody arrogant!"

"And you're selfish! My parents died in vain and I keep failing them! You don't know what that feels like. You hardly even knew yours, so don't tell me to – "

A horse screamed. "You think I don't?" Jana gasped. She was tumbling again, cornered, brittle. The leather snapped. "You think I – "

"It never stops!" Jindra cried. The walls closed in. A cold river – "They're dead! All of them! It hurts so much and you can't know – "

Jana's blood roared, and her father's eyes burned. "I do know!"

"How could you?"

"Because it was my fault!" Jana shouted.

The new silence was worse than the last. Everything in the world seemed to cease breathing but Jana herself, her chest heaving, her mind gone blank. Jindra stared and stared, and the longer she did, the more her anger melted away, as if she had spied something small and pitiful and hurt, bleeding in the road.

Jindra stepped forward, and Jana stepped back, in a skittish dance. "What do you mean?"

"Never mind," Jana said, angry and snarling. Here was the skin and fur, pulled back from the flesh at last.

"Jana."

"Shut up."

"No," Jindra said; gently, so gently, but firm. It was the voice one would use to soothe, or tame, a horse. "Tell me what you mean."

Outside, the clouds were parting. The midday sun, at its highest and brightest, streaked through the window and caught upon Jindra's face, leaving one eye in darkness and the other ablaze; as blue as the ocean Jana would never see, a flame of focus and passion.

Light became a terror once again, illuminating Jana's sin, finally laid bare.

How inevitable it felt.

"My father is dead," Jana rasped, "because of me."

Jindra didn't move. She didn't speak. She stood perfectly still, her patience worse than any condemnation or comfort. She was waiting for more, and giving Jana leave to grant it.

Jana hadn't expected that. She rubbed a thumb along her scar, and unclenched her jaw. Spite spilled out instead of words. "Shall I tell you the story? Shall I shock you properly?" She looked at the wall, rather than see Jindra's expression. "I woke one morning with more hate in my heart than you can imagine. I thought – I'd meant only to shame him, to – to punish him with humiliation, as he'd done to me."

That was too like an excuse, and one Jana didn't believe herself. She blinked hard at the wall, and forced a sneer onto her face. "I would go out every morning before his daily ride to pet the horses in the stables. No one paid me any mind. I was – so angry."

Jindra said nothing, still waiting, and still patient. Jana was going to be sick.

"I loosened the strap of his saddle." Jana laughed, the sharp shrill of her gyrfalcon, and found herself choking through it. "Imagine that! Eight years old, with so much spite that I meddled with the strap like a common cutthroat, hoping he would fall."

Oddly, Jana had no memory of being told, though she must have been. It was simply something she knew one day, and built the rock of her life upon.

She turned back to Jindra, braced for her disgust, and yearning for it. But Jindra looked…sad. No judgment, or fear, or even shock. It was simple, pure sadness, like a saint's own statue.

Jana discovered she was shaking. "I was a killer before you were." She needed to insist. Jindra needed to understand. "I've been bound for hell for over half my life."

Jindra took a step closer, and then another, until Jana could see the unshed tears in her swimming sea eyes. "You were so little." Jindra's voice was a balm, with unexpected warmth. "You couldn't know what you were doing."

"Couldn't I?" Jana spat. "I ill-wished him. I willed a fall and I succeeded. That’s a sin beyond anything that you’ve ever done." Her vision blurred. "How dare you tell me that I'm too clean to understand your revenge, or that I don't know what it's like to carry a death. If there's a yawning, starving sin in you, then there's the same in me."

Jindra lifted her hand and gently squeezed Jana's chin, just as Jana had done for her. "I'm sorry," she breathed, as if truly grieved. "I'm so sorry you've had to carry that."

Jana dared to hope. "Ignore this vision," she begged. "I don't care if it's from the Virgin. Stay with me. Stay here."

Jindra's eyes softened further. "There's truth between us. More than anything, we have that."

Jana nodded. "I know."

Jindra nodded back, and set her jaw. It was nothing less than stubborn steel, and Jana's hope vanished. "So if that – if I've ever meant anything to you at all – "

"Don't say that to me," Jana hissed.

"– you'll help." Jindra brushed at Jana's cheek, wiping at a tear Jana hadn't noticed. "Give me one day."

Jana drew back. "No!"

"One night, then! I'm only going to see." Jindra bit her lip. "And I'll come home. I'll come back, and I'll make a plan. But I can't solve a problem when I can't see the shape."

That was it. Jana was raw and red with her greatest sin and secret, and Jindra was still leaving her. Jindra was still running into what could be darkness, danger, and death, and Jana's own pain and horror was nothing to that. Jana was nothing to yet another dead girl.

"Fine. Go. Get killed, for all I care." It wrenched Jana wide open to say it. "I'll keep my peace, and won't let them know until you return or until you die. I'm not as unworthy as you think."

Jindra stepped back, and her hand fell away from Jana's chin. She ducked her head, suddenly embarrassed, as she did before asking Jana's leave to please her. "May I have your knife?"

Jana would have screamed in outrage, if she'd had the voice for it. But as with all things, she would give Jindra what gifts she could, and she found herself kneeling by her trunk in a daze, retrieving the small knife, and handing it over without ceremony.

The blade was clean now. It had stayed hidden and protected in the bottom of her trunk, as guarded as a holy relic, just like the bloody shift was in Jindra's. How awful it was to part them. How cruel, to make the knife base again.

Jindra's fingers brushed Jana's as she took it, and her skin was cold to the touch. Between them, the dog whined, head bowed and tail drooping. Jana nearly felt sorry for it, in the small corner of her heart not taken up by so much fear for Jindra that she had to twist it into rage.

"I'll never forgive you," she swore. Jindra looked at the knife, and wouldn't look at her. "If anything – if you – Jindra, I won't."

When Jindra finally did look, Jana saw no fear in her eyes. There wasn't even shame. There was only determination again, for a decision that had been made long before she'd come to Jana's room. There had never been any chance at all.

"I hate you," Jana choked.

Jindra leaned up and pressed a kiss between Jana's brows, where they creased. Then she was across the room, leaving without any final word.

But when she reached the door, she paused. Jana wondered if she would come back for a kiss, as she had before leaving for Sasau; she wondered if she might change her mind, and stay after all. Something wavered in Jindra's eyes.

The little dog shook itself from head to tail, and crossed the room in a trot to join Jindra. It pulled Jindra out of whatever hesitation remained, and she pointed firmly at the ground.

"Stay."

It may as well have been an order to both Jana and the dog.

Then Jindra was gone for a the second time in as many days, on a fool's errand, or in more danger than ever. How many times would this pattern repeat, before Jindra was dead? How many more times would Jana allow it?

As the dog whined and pawed at the door, Jana crossed the room to her jug of wine. She picked it up and threw against at the wall, shattering it.

The air smelled of campfires.

Jindra shielded her eyes against the late afternoon sun, squinting at the ridge above her. The hill stretched in a steep slope down to the riverbank where Jindra now stood, hidden and with her feet wet. The hill stood out in the landscape, exactly where Jana's map had shown it, as if ready and waiting to be found.

There wasn't much to see from this distance, but she could make out one of the hill fort's pointed roofs, and what could have been a long, fortified wall. She could also tell that the approach was very open, without the cover of woodland. If she was to enter this place, she'd have to walk through boldly, or not at all.

And most of all, most frightening and most important, she could see smoke rising in swirling spirals in the air. It was impossible to tell how many fires there were, but there were more than there had been at Pribyslavitz.

Johanka's visions were true. Jindra had found her pack of dogs.

Against her will, Jindra thought of Jana, left behind in Pirkstein, stripped open and bare with fear. All she'd wanted in that moment was to stay and offer comfort, to curl around her friend, her sweet girl, and let her know that nothing could damn her in Jindra's eyes. She was no sinner, and didn't deserve to go to hell.

A voice in Jindra's head, which often spoke in Ma's voice, and sometimes in Jana's, but seldom in her own, asked, Then why do you?

Jindra shook the thought away. Later. She would talk with Jana later. Jindra would make it right. But she had to make this right first.

She retreated back to the safety of the trees across the river, where Pebbles stood waiting. When Jindra reached for her reins, Pebbles snorted and stomped, kicking up a cloud of dust. If a horse could give a scolding, Jindra supposed it would look like this.

"You've done so much for me, Pebs," Jindra said, stroking the mare's nose. "I know you're tired of it. So am I."

Pebbles snorted again.

"Don't look at me like that. Give me an hour or two, and we'll back in Rattay by suppertime."

Jindra made to tie Pebbles to a tree, as she had before Pribyslavitz. But she hesitated. Suppose she was gone for longer than she expected, taking more time to slip in and out than she wanted? What if she was caught, and Pebbles was forgotten here? What if –

Jindra felt a surge of fear, hidden beneath her guilt and her shame. She ignored it.

"Don't fall asleep on me," she told Pebbles, with forced cheer. She finished tying the reins and slipped away before she lost her nerve, back to the river, and the base of the hill.

Jindra looked up at the trees hiding her quarry, and took a deep breath. The smoke could have been the smoke of her nightmares, mingling with the sour breath and the screams.

She forced herself to believe it would be simple. She would find what was to be found, and slip away. She would help. She could bring important information back to Rattay. She could find a new bandit leader and, if she had to, kill another man with a rock. It didn't matter what she did or how she did it.

Skalitz kept dying, and Jindra kept living. There had to be a reason.

"Go on, girl," Jindra murmured, steeling herself. "There's work to be done."

She began to climb the hill, and Skalitz climbed with her.

You have been so long at my house
My friend, and now you have left me
And I am heavy and unsatisfied
Because you swore to me and declared
That all the days of your life
You would have no other woman but me.
If you take another
You will leave me dead and betrayed,
Who has her hopes in you
Who loves me without a doubt.

- From Mout avetz fach lonc estatge by Na Castelloza (early 13th century), noblewoman and trobairitz.

Chapter Text

There was one man guarding the gate, and he looked like a rat.

"You lost, girl?" he sneered, looking Jindra up and down. He reminded her of men who lingered and shouted outside of taverns, sure that their own strength spoke for itself.

Sweat dripped down the back of Jindra's neck. But there was no other way inside. The wooden walls looked strong, and so closely built that Jindra couldn't see between the logs. Pribyslavitz had been a skeleton in comparison, a starving beast with space between the ribs.

But if Pribyslavitz had need of women, this place would, wouldn't it?

Jindra remembered Anezka's words. If you pretend to be a whore, they’ll expect you to act like one.

She took a gamble. "Do I look like a lost girl to you?" She smiled Klara's smile, and laughed Zdena's throaty laugh. She nodded over the man's shoulder, at the wall of wood and the unknown danger beyond, as if it she did so every day. "My mistress and the others know I'm coming."

The man snorted, and looked at her with more interest, until Jindra's skin crawled. But then he said, "You're the lass she's been making a racket about? Took your bloody time."

Jindra didn't know what that meant, but she did know a key to a lock when she saw one, and jumped without thought. "Wouldn't you miss me?" she asked, smiling through her bile.

"Cheeky one, ain't you?" And to Jindra's shock, that was all it took; the man who looked like a rat stood aside, and jerked his head. "Go on, then."

It was almost too easy. Just like before, it seemed no man would question a woman once he decided what she was. But Jindra didn't have time to relish it. Instead, once she passed through the gate, she stopped walking, and stood still, staring.

There was a sea of tents. The old hill fort had been built up, with the tall, solid wooden wall surrounding all sides, and tents and structures built on every level of the hillside, climbing in rings like a fortified town. She couldn't even see the top of the hill from where she stood, and there were men everywhere, disappearing around corners and walking with purpose between the gaps of canvas.

Jindra's stomach dropped. But her luck held out, and none of the mulling men noticed her as she took her time gaping like a fish. That was frightening on its own: each man had someplace to go. There were so many of them, and they were busy.

Jindra's head swam, before she pulled herself together. She had a job to do. She would memorize every detail of this terrible place, bring it back to Rattay, and keep her promises to Jana and to God. She would not be useless.

But she didn't want to risk walking openly through tents and men until she had to. Jindra walked quickly to a collection of stones and small trees, hugging the barrier wall. There was a path of sorts built into the blockade, elevated and made of flat boards, made for guard patrols. She might be able to circle the whole fortress this way, out of the eyeline of most.

Jindra clamored up, and ignored the way her head swam again. Her hunger was a dull, throbbing ache, keeping her tired and blurring her vision, but she pushed it aside impatiently. She made her way carefully along the length of the wall, eyes locked on the tents as she went.

But what she found was unsettling. There were no foreign tents of Cuman make that she could see, but these bandits were no paupers. The tents stood tall and finely made, some of colorful canvas and all of them sturdy. Worst of all, Jindra kept loosing count of all the men. Four score? Five score?

"There certainly are enough of you," she muttered.

This was no unorganized bandit camp, scavenging inside a village's corpse. It was a fortress, filled with well-prepared killers. It was almost an army.

There were campfires, gathering areas, separate tents for arming the men, for eating and for drinking. There were stables, crudely build but solid. There was even an area dedicated to swordplay and training, as men lined up behind an instructor as he barked orders. Jindra squinted at him, a trickle of unease in her belly.

He looked –

Jindra staggered against the wall, throwing out a hand to steady herself.

She was back in Skalitz – she was –

Vanyek – and it was him – a wandering swordsman who Pa had ordered Jindra to stay away from – he'd offered to teach the boys, but wouldn't teach Jindra. He'd laughed when she'd asked. But Jindra had run to Matthew instead, and begged him to try, to learn in her place and then to teach her after, and promised him a hundred kisses if he did.

Jindra pressed a hand to her mouth –

Matthew was a layabout; Matthew was lazy; Matthew never bothered to do a damn thing besides make mischief and kiss in the hay. But he'd still laughed against her mouth and done as she asked.

In the smoke after Skalitz, when the girl she had been had died, Jindra had forgotten all about it. But Matthew…he'd learned, he'd shown her, he'd promised – and Jindra had hardly thanked him, kissed him ten times instead of a hundred, ran off with her wooden sword to show Bianca and left Matthew behind – and then he'd run back to her anyway, back for her, when he could have fled to the mines –

Guilt tore through her, ripping flesh and gore in its wake.

Jindra took a shaking breath, and tried to count the men again. But she kept imagining Matthew, catching sight of the side of his jaw or the sun in his hair, before he vanished again. Matthew, or Fritz, always beside him, sneering and simple and jealous; Matthias, blushing and sweet, who never hurt anyone…

Even – she flinched – Zbyshek, so real that for a moment she could have sworn to it, slinking behind a fire, cold and cowardly, offering her up as a sacrifice on a day of rain and ashes.

She was finally going mad. Finally, finally. Her head pounded like a drum. Colors were dancing. She saw every young man she had ever known, dead and haunting their own murderers. And she was caught in the middle, a ghost on the edges, daring to be alive, and the only one left who could do any good.

Jindra closed her eyes and imagined the yawning, starving sin that Jana spoke of, the dark pit filled with so much hate. She had no right to feel hunger, or weakness or hesitation. She had no right to feel anything but anger. She would not go mad now. She wouldn't.

So she swallowed, and kept moving.

She ran a hand along the wall as she went, keeping her balance, and looked in vain for any opening. There was hardly a hole or crack to be found, and any force that tried to storm it would smash uselessly against the side. Jindra tried to remember how may men Sir Radzig had taken on his raid of Pribyslavitz, but those first days after Runt blurred together. Even so, she was sure he'd need more than Rattay alone could muster.

Jindra finally spotted a gap in the wall, about halfway up the hill. There were two guards standing watch, stretching and yawning, and Jindra took another gamble. If this was more of an army than a camp, it must have rules. The guards on duty wouldn't abandon their posts to ravage one girl. Would they?

She remembered Adela's empty, sly giggle, and tried to become it and believe it in her heart. She raised her chin, buried her madness, and made her smile a mask. Boldly, before they could spot her and doubt her, she called out, "Why haven't you lads paid me a visit yet?"

The two men looked up in unison, and smiled in return. "We're stuck up here with our thumbs up our arses, m'lovely," said one.

"We don't get our turns until later," said the other, waggling his eyebrows. "Stay up late for me tonight."

It was another haunting, as if good, kind Jaroslav and Janek had dirty, foul twins. Jindra's smile stayed put, even as she threatened to crumble.

She stepped off the wall and down the small ramp, and heard one man mutter something crude to the other. Jindra clamped down anger and disgust and made herself stop hearing the words, and took the opportunity to eye the gap: the drop to the ground wasn't too high, but the small opening was nothing close to a back door. There wasn't an easy way in or out of this terrible place as far as she could tell. But she couldn't linger long, and she let the men leer after her as she continued up the hill.

Jindra was in the open now, and she shook with anxiety to the tips of her fingers. As she passed the tents and the campfires, she felt insistent eyes boring into her back, heavy and heated; a few men let out a crass shout or two. Each time, she forced her mind to twist and jerk away from the jaws and bruises of her memories, snapping at her heels more loudly than usual.

But none of the men did anything else. No man pawed at her or even moved to stand. She was grateful for it, but…she remembered the rough way the men had pulled wenches into their laps at Pribyslavitz. Something was different here. This strange safety made her feel even more hunted than before, the deer before it smelled the hunter.

Jana's knife was hidden beneath her skirt, and it whispered to her in a soothing voice.

At least this made eavesdropping easier.

"Jesus fuck, I'm ready to blood my ax."

The bandit, looking worse for wear, kicked a rock into the dying embers of the fire as Jindra walked past. His companion curled his lip, like the other man was an idiot.

"It'll be peasants, not an army," he snapped. "You'll get your ax wedged in one, and I'm not helping you once you've got a pitchfork in your arse. Chopping folk ain't as easy as chopping wood."

"It's not that different."

"Trust me. I used to be a butcher. You're better off with a flail or a mace than an ax."

Jindra bit her tongue and slipped behind them to the next fire. Two more men were pressed close together, muttering angrily, and didn't even bother to glance up.

One shoved the other, cringing. "Come off it, Kozliek."

"I've been scouting that monastery like a fucking watchdog, and you're calling me a liar?" The bandit spit in the dirt. "Some important cunt got killed."

"D'you think Pious finally cracked and made a run for it?"

"'Course I do. But the dumb fucker won't last long. After that big sortie tomorrow, I'm hunting him down myself."

Tomorrow. There were at least eighty men, all well trained, and they would be off to kill peasants tomorrow. Jindra could bring that home, and Sir Hanush and Sir Radzig would have to listen. It might make a difference.

But Jindra kept climbing, weaving between campfires. She was shaking, buzzing, her head and body pounding with vague, lingering desperation. She could do more. She could always do more. It wasn't enough yet.

When Jindra finally reached the top of the hill, her heart sank. There was an inner wall, built just as strong and solid as the outer blockade, with its own gate and its own guard. There more tents protected inside, along with old, ruined buildings, perhaps remnants of a house or a barn.

Jindra ought to have known. It made sense that the kind of man who gathered rough bandits together and made them into an army would sleep away well away from them, hidden behind his own shield.

And a few steps away, Jindra finally saw women.

There were four of them, walking between several large, starched tents, bright white and gleaming against the dust and the blue sky. As one of the women lifted the flap of a tent, Jindra caught a glimpse of a wooden tub inside.

These were baths. These bandits had their own tiny bathhouse, tucked snugly to the side, organized and neat and clean and kept away, just like in any town. The tents weren't built directly up against the inner wall, but they were close enough, as if held in protection; or maybe close enough to keep an eye on.

It surprised her. It made that uneasy feeling in her belly grow sharper, more insistent. It also reminded her, in an unsettling way, of Pa's forge, tucked tight against the keep at Skalitz and held safe apart from the village, shielded from harm. Jindra's still-bleeding heart bled a little more.

Three of the women were young, and eyed Jindra curiously as she approached. She didn't recognize any of them as the flower-girls from Pribyslavitz. But the fourth woman, older, veiled, and looking very stern, stepped right into Jindra's path, blocked her way, and glared. "Just where did you come from?"

"Ledetchko," Jindra lied, too fast, as Adela burst into her mind before she could help it.

The woman's eyes narrowed. She was perhaps forty years old, and had probably heard more lies in her life than Jindra could ever tell. "Ledetchko," she repeated, as doubting as Jindra's own, knowing mother. "Thought most of you turned up your nose at our work. Unless you're the one who was getting slapped around?"

Fooling men was one thing. This woman looked sharp and biting, and for the first time all day, Jindra felt someone look directly at her, see her, and search for truth or lies inside her too-open expression. It wasn't comforting.

"May I am and maybe I'm not." Jindra shrugged, as if she was so jaded that it was nothing to her either way. "Why do you care?"

The woman didn't look suspicious, exactly. But she was clearly displeased. "Don't get fresh," she snapped. "This ain't the place to be free of danger, girlie."

Jindra hid a smile. Who would know better than her? "You look like you need all the help you can get."

The woman sighed, and glanced at the tents. Jindra thought on it again: only three girls…four, counting the proprietress herself. For eighty men? "I ought to be grateful. I brought the girls from Sasau a while ago, but I didn't think any more would take the job."

From Sasau? Jindra felt her own eyes go wide and her expression grow slack. She immediately forgot Anezka's advice to act like a worldly bathhouse girl, and tumbled headlong into her own thick head again. "You're Anezka's friend!" she gasped.

The woman's suspicious expression melted into clear surprise. "Aye."

"She warned you off last time!" Jindra hissed, like the village scold. "You knew better when they were paying for girls near Uzhitz. Why in Christ's name would you bring your girls here after what happened there? You can't be that desperate."

The woman was taken aback; maybe even guilty. "You're here, aren't you?"

Jindra told her the truth. "I didn't have a choice."

The woman looked at Jindra a moment more, considering. The other three women, lingering by the tents, did a bad job of pretending not to listen.

Finally, the woman sighed, long, deep, and tired. "Suppose I didn't, either." Her voice transformed into something desperately bleak. "They took one of my girls. My Esther. The bastards snatched her from the bathhouse, and by the time I heard her screams it was too late."

Jindra's stomach turned over. "They stole her? Like laundry off a line? Why?"

The laugh she received in return was very bitter. "Her man is a coward and a liar, and my girl paid the price. She was – she is like a daughter to me." The woman looked down. "I know that they're hiding her somewhere, but she's not here. I thought – it doesn't matter." She closed her eyes, as if in physical pain. "I know she's still alive. But God knows what she's been through."

With the veil to Skalitz pulled so thin, Jindra couldn't help imagining Bianca lying in the mud; she saw the body in a single flash, so fast she almost missed it, but for the agony it brought. Her own physical pain, a jagged rip, a flesh-tear failure…Jindra saw all of it in this woman's expression, as vivid as she felt in her own heart. "I'm so sorry," Jindra whispered.

The woman looked surprised again. Her eyes were just like Adela's, and Anezka's: beautiful and far too old for her face. "I keep thinking…" The woman's voice was quieter now. "Maybe they'll bring her here. Where else, when they're gathering together like this? But I was too hasty, and I asked too much, and pushed too hard."

Jindra's chest ached. She held out her hands, and asked, "Can I help?"

The woman didn't smile, but she softened. "You're kinder than you let on, aren't you?" She almost sounded like a village scold herself. She eyed Jindra a moment more, and seemed to find something she liked. She sighed, and drew herself up, stern again; and she stepped aside, and continued on her way. "The girls will get you settled."

Before Jindra could say more, the three other women grasped her by the arms, pulled her into one of the tents, and started talking all at once, at the same time, in a hushed gaggle. Darja, Vlasta, and Radka were their names, and they were all desperate for news, for gossip, for anything that wasn't the drudgery of a bandit camp.

"Is it very bad out there?" Radka asked. "Is the world on fire? Does anyone care that we've gone?"

Klara might have had some news of that, but Jindra hadn't been to see her in so long, and she had no idea. "I don't know." Another person to fail. Another loss. "I'm sorry."

"Well don't cry about it," Radka sighed. "Cow eyes."

Vlasta pulled Radka's ear lightly. "Shush. She's probably scared to death. She's seen how many boys we have."

Jindra scowled. "I'm not – "

Darja patted Jindra's arm. "It's not as wild as you think. The men holler at us plenty, but they know better than to touch."

"They know better?"

"They have rules here," Radka said, shaking her head. "You won't have to do much whoring. It happens, but the men usually just come for baths. And they come in shifts. They have their times and they're expected to stick to it, like good boys."

"You can tell they want to run wild," Vlasta added, and shuddered. "There's a few who have a mean look and too many ideas. But they don't step out of line."

Jindra had noticed. She realized that it wasn't calm that she'd been sensing in this camp; it was the lack of it, forced, pent up and straining, like the violence in her own black heart.

Rabid dogs were one thing. But so much control was a different kind of fear. What manner of man wold hold the leashes of so many dogs, and keep them at bay?

Jindra through of Johanka's wolf that walked as a man, and swallowed. "The leader must be a fright."

Darja lowered her voice. "That's Erik. He's up at top of the hill. There's some lord who gives him orders, but I've never seen him. But Vlasta's seen his horse!"

"Very fine." Vlasta's eyes were huge. "Dark with a cream mane, it was, like a horse the devil would ride."

"He must be the devil, the way the men whisper," Radka said. "He's a foreigner, like Erik. Hungarian, I think. But he never stays long, and he hasn't called on the likes of us."

Jindra glanced at the entrance of the tent, towards the glimpse of the inner wall, frowning. "Is Erik a devil, too?"

All three girls physically reacted. Darja ducked her head, and Vlasta's whole body shivered, rolling from neck to belly. Radka glanced quickly behind Jindra, outside the tent, as if Jindra could have summoned this man just by mentioning his name, like bad luck through an open window.

Adela and the other women at Pribyslavitz had cringed cautiously from Runt, but this was something else. Jindra's heartbeat quickened. "Is he…violent?"

Darja shook her head slowly. "Not to us. He never wants anything but a wash. He bathes every single night at the same time."

"The same time," Vlasta repeated, in a hiss. "He gives me a bad feeling. When he looks at you, it's like he – he looks through you to something else."

"He could kill you and he wouldn't care one way or the other," Radka added. "That's the honest truth."

"And he's too quiet!" Vlasta shuddered again. "He won't laugh, or smile, or joke. But he's not angry, either. It's just…he makes me feel small, or like…"

"Like he's bigger than he really is." Darja nodded decisively. "You know?"

Jindra didn't know. But fear was filling up the tent like smoke, and she knew that well enough. She thought of Johanka's vision again; this wasn't like Jindra's first hunt, when she'd been on Runt's scent. She wasn't sure what she was hunting, and she had to know more.

"Maybe I could bathe him tonight," she offered.

Darja clicked her tongue, and clearly tried not to look hopeful. "If you do, it'll be in the farmhouse, up at the top of the hill. He has his own tub brought in. But if there's a fine horse waiting outside, you're to turn right back around. That's the Hungarian, and they're not to be disturbed."

Jindra thought of what might be found in a wolf's lair. "I'll go and see now."

"It's too early. It'll be on your head!"

"I just want to see where the farmhouse is. I won't go in," Jindra lied.

When Jindra ducked out of the tent, the proprietress was outside, and had clearly been listening. She glanced between Jindra and the inner wall, and huffed. "Don't be too grasping," she warned.

There was a guard at the inner wall's entry, but he hardly glanced at Jindra as she slipped past. Once inside, she found it oddly peaceful. The bustling sounds of the camp, talking and training and drinking, faded into the background, muffled by the wall and by distance.

She wasn't being watched here. There were a few other men, mostly guards on patrols, but they seemed too distracted to pay her much mind.

It did not make Jindra feel safe. Once again, she thought of the the leering stares of Pribyslavitz, or even bold men on the streets of Rattay. What manner of man was this Erik, to hold killers in check like this?

An abandoned farmhouse stood in the center of the hill top. It had been repurposed, but it looked a wreck to live in; one side of the structure had nearly collapsed. Jindra felt more unease than before, even as she took her moment and darted to the entrance.

The front door worked well enough, squealing forward on rusty hinges. The main room of the farmhouse must have been humble in life; now, in death, it had been transformed, and Jindra blinked hard as her eyes adjusted.

Even in late afternoon, the chamber was already illuminated with torches. Rugs hung from the walls, in rich reds and golds and purples, woven with foreign, flowing designs that Jindra had never seen. They covered the cracks in the walls and rotting wood planks, with one draped like a curtain over a crumbling doorway. More rugs were scattered across the floor, dirtied by footfall and dirt.

It was…pretty. It was warm. Someone had taken a place that was bare and rough, and tried to make it better than it had been found. It was Ma's flowers, pretty with a use behind them, and not pretty for their own sake.

Jindra thought of Runt's tent, empty and sour, without a scrap of beauty or color, or even a proper bed. They both seemed wrong, for a bandit leader's chambers. Too bright and too base, too much and too little.

But Jindra preferred Runt's. That was easier to understand. This room, Erik's room, was one more new piece that made this camp hard to grasp, filled not with rabble but with fighters holding bloodlust in check, led by a man who liked fine things.

Jindra crept closer to the desk at the center of the chamber. It was covered in documents and maps, and her heart leapt hopefully. Most of it was written in German, but at least one letter looked to be in Czech. Jindra tilted her head, trying to read the parchment without disturbing its place in the pile.

Then the door swung open, and Jindra spun around so fast that she almost twisted an ankle.

A man filled the doorway.

The light changed. The room changed. Jindra's body, strained from the hunt, from hunger, from failure and fighting, reacted as it never had to a man's presence, and screamed a warning at her without words, without sounds, made up only of colors: Black. Red. Black.

It sensed the threat. It told her to fight.

Erik – it could only be Erik – looked at Jindra in silence.

Jindra shoved down her instincts, startled by the force of them. She ducked her head and reached for what had never come naturally to her: obedience. "I'm sorry, sir," she said, as meek as she could.

A pause. And then the sound of boots, softened by rugs, as Erik crossed the room, unhurried and heavy. He halted in front of Jindra and hooked a finger under her chin, cold from armored gauntlets. Jindra did her best not to shudder, as she let him lift her head to look up, and up, and up.

Erik's eyes were blue. They were a pale blue, much lighter than Jana's, like the streak of first light on the horizon when morning came, when it was time to flee the grove. Everything about him was pale: his skin, his eyes, his blond hair and his armor, the color leeched away by water, or bleached by the sun.

But in those pale eyes, Jindra saw no predatory gaze or cruel hunger. There wasn't even anger. If there was darkness, it had nothing to do with her. Erik simply looked bothered, and perhaps impatient.

He was also young. They must have been of an age.

“You shouldn’t be here," he said. His voice was calm, almost flat, and not unpleasant.

A bathhouse girl's sly grin and empty laugh had no place in this room. But they felt as good an armor as any. "I was curious about you," Jindra said. She let a half-smile curl her mouth, as her head throbbed, throbbed, throbbed with pain. "Can you blame me?"

It didn't make Erik angry, but it didn't please him. "You're a fearless one."

Strangely, out of nowhere, Jindra reached for what Sir Radzig might say. "Is there a difference between being fearless and being brave?"

Erik's stone expression flickered with surprise. "No." The answer was certain. "There's not."

Jindra had been gambling all day, and now, anxious, sharp, and pained, she found she couldn't stop. "I'm not afraid of you," she blurted out.

Erik scoffed. He released Jindra's chin, and stepped around her like a rock in his path. "I don't have time for this. Play the slut with the men, not me."

"It's nothing like that," Jindra said. Throb, throb, throb. The room swelled and shrunk, filling with torchlight, and Erik's presence. This was what the other women had sensed and feared. Jindra didn't know the name of this feeling yet, but it compelled her to be honest against her will. "I don't think you'll hurt me."

Erik shot her a look, and raised his eyebrows nearly to his hairline. In another life, in another time, Jindra could imagine both of them laughing.

"I don't think you'll rape me," Jindra said bluntly. "That's enough for me."

That made Erik pause. He straightened and looked Jindra up and down, head to toe, from her messy hair to her drawn, hungry face, to her borrowed kirtle; Theresa's kirtle, plain and worn, given to Jindra on a dark night near Uzhitz.

And Erik smiled. There was no warning, no softening of the mouth, no crinkle of the eyes, no brows turning in. It twisted up and over his face like a bird across a clear sky, streaking and silent, without build or tell.

"Fine." Erik turned his back and picked up a letter from his desk. "Tonight, I'll have you."

Jindra probably could have fled, and she ought to have tried.

But if she left now, found a way out, made for the gap in the wall or flirted through the gate, the other women might be punished. Darja, Vlasta, and Radka were openly relieved when Jindra returned in a daze, even as they cringed and offered her apologetic advice.

He liked his water hot. Bring extra jugs. Don't speak to him. Don't say a word. Don't talk.

When evening approached and the sun dipped low, Jindra gathered what she needed. She still hadn't eaten, and the smell of meat on cooking fires turned her stomach.

She was lucky, and should remember that. She had a chance to find out more, from the letters on Erik's desk from or Erik himself. How could she think about eating, or resting, or leaving, when there was still more to do? There had to be. The certainty bubbled beneath Jindra's skin, in the boiling over stewpot of her need.

Soon, she promised, or begged, to no one in particular. Just a little longer.

She thought back to the rugs, woven in such warm colors. At the last moment, as she left the tent, she grabbed a bottle of lightly perfumed oil, meant for hair and skin.

Darja laughed nervously. "Don't bother. You won't ensnare him that way."

Jindra had no intention of ensnaring. She just wanted to survive this.

The large wooden tub was already set up when she arrived. But it was Jindra's job to heat the water, jug by jug, and carry it to the farmhouse and to the tub, filling it slowly. Her arms ached by the end of it, and the sun was dipping below the horizon, red as fire, when Erik entered.

He wore no armor, and began stripping naked without ceremony or a glance her way. Jindra hadn't seen a naked man in a very long time, and she averted her eyes, looking intently at a map on the wall that she couldn't read. Erik didn't seem to notice her discomfort, and slipped into the water in silence, without even the smallest sigh of relief or pleasure.

Jindra had helped Jana bathe so many times that the movements came naturally. She lathered up the soap – expensive, made from oil and not tallow – and rubbed it across Erik's shoulders, his neck, and his arms. Every line of him was hard, like washing a warhorse or a solid suit of iron.

Her body rebelled at the intimacy, cringing and coiling , and the throb, throb, throb of her heart and her hunger was drawing her mind inward and away. But the longer she bathed Erik, the more the discomfort faded to confusion. As before, there was no leering, no lewdness, no push or pull, and no softness to speak of. Erik was as closed in on himself as Jindra was on herself, every muscle drawn tight. He wasn't taking any pleasure at all.

Jindra had always been foolish, and now, she felt pity.

Before she thought better of it, Jindra reached for the bottle. "I brought some oil for your hair."

Erik took a moment to reply, and sounded incredulous when he did. "Why would I need oil in my hair?"

"Not need," Jindra corrected softly. "Want."

The silence in the room was nearly deafening. Then, in answer, Erik reclined even more, tipped his head back, and closed his eyes without a word.

Jindra uncorked the bottle. The light scent of chamomile filled the room, with hints of warm spice beneath. Jindra poured a bit of the oil into her palm, and then ran her fingers gently through Erik's short hair, ghosting along the scalp, lingering at the ends of the choppy strands.

His hair was paler blonde even than Jana's. He wouldn't need any wood ash at all to keep the color bright.

Erik let out a small huff of air, caught against his voice. It was a pleased sound, almost like a child might make.

Other men might be embarrassed to ask for fine things, their pride too fragile. But if Jindra had to bet, in this dangerous game of dice, she would wager that Erik wasn't ashamed; maybe he was unused to asking.

"I'm glad you like it," Jindra said, very quietly. She should have left it there, and finished the bath in silence. But there hadn't only been a wolf who walked as a man, had there? Johanka had seen an armored dog, held above all others, who knelt at the wolf's feet. Maybe a dog could be befriended; maybe a dog would speak softly, if treated softly first. "How old are you?"

Erik looked surprised again. It made his youth obvious. "Why?" There was a faint accent to his voice – German, maybe?

Jindra grinned. It was her bathhouse mask again, but it was very close to her real smile. "You look my age. But all the men respect you, and some of them are weathered old cunts."

The bawdiness was another gamble. Erik snorted in amusement, and Jindra felt the victory like a swig of schnapps. "They respect strength. I don't give them cause to doubt it."

Jindra gently urged him to tilt his head back, so she could rinse the excess oil away. "Is that why you don't bathe where they do?" she asked. "Or is it just their smell?"

Erik shot her a mildly baffled look. "What's your name?" he replied, as if it had just occurred to him that she had one.

"Jindriska."

"You're too bold, Jindriska." He closed his eyes and settled back again. "You ask too many questions."

Maybe Jindra was drunk. It would explain where her good sense had gone. "They'd respect you anyway," she insisted. "They're too scared of you not to. Of you and your lord."

Erik grew even more still, if that were possible. Jindra's body whispered another warning to her.

"The other girls told me about him," she added, overly casual, without being asked. She set aside an empty jug, fiddling with the handle. "Do you want more oil?"

"What have they told you?" Erik asked softly.

Jindra's heart beat out of her chest. She knew without knowing that she was in more danger than she'd been in a long while; in more danger than even in Runt's tent.

She shrugged. "Not much. Just that he sounds like a great man."

That might have been laying it on a bit thick, but some of the tension bled from Erik's shoulders. "What would whores know of great men?"

"I've watched them." Daringly, Jindra splashed Erik lightly. Her armor was a bathhouse girl's detachment, and the fool men thought her to be. "And washed them."

Even from her awkward upside down view, Jindra saw Erik smile again, flashing across his face before he pushed it down. "He is a great man," he said, his pride warm and obvious. He looked at the wall, or perhaps through it, seeing something that Jindra could not. His voice was still soft, but not gentle. "It's good that even you know that."

Jindra was beginning to understood what the women had meant. Erik's silence and quiet words held something unsettling and unspoken. It wasn't gruff, or annoyed, or even simply threatening. It was practiced. It was the false calm of the camp. It was a shield, a locked door, holding someone in check. Erik filled the chamber with what he wouldn't say, and wouldn't do; darkness restrained beneath a mask.

Was it like Jindra's own?

Jindra couldn't shake the thought, as she continued to bathe him. She began to drift; her hunger was finally crashing around her, pulling her down. The faint weakness of that hunger, the unending danger, the smell of the oil and the steam of the bath; all of it caressed her, shifting and twisting, lulling her into a strange world of dreams where she could be something different, where things were true and untrue.

It was unsettling. It was wrong. Jindra reached for comfort, and found Ma's song, ready and waiting to calm her.

She hadn't realized that she'd begun to hum out loud until Erik huffed out an amused, surprised breath. "Fearless," he repeated, almost mockingly – almost wonderingly.

Jindra had already thought of what flower to give him. Nettle's sharp sting didn't fit; Erik was blunt, bruising, a crush and not a cut. Belladonna was closer, but it was too deadly, and maybe too beautiful.

And so, she sang:

Mine own love said, “What here does grow,
in the meadow where we sow?”
Said I, “It is the dandelion,
Its golden mane aglow.

Its leaves to eat and root to brew,
And a tonic good and true.”
My true love walks where blossoms be,
In the meadow, beside me.

It was Ma's voice, and would never fail her. Jindra felt her daze retreating, as if the song was a candle held high at midnight, or a charm against evil hung in the rafters of her body.

Erik said nothing, but his stillness had changed.

"It's a good country song," Jindra said, courage restored. "Don't you have country songs where you come from?"

"My village burned when I was a child, and the country songs with it."

Jindra's poor heart, weakened, bled even more. "I'm sorry," she breathed. No wonder her body had sensed danger, had cringed back, and hadn't stopped screaming; it had recognized its own kind.

Jindra poured another jugful of water into the bath. "My parents died in a raid," she offered. Her throat caught oddly, in this room of lies and truth. "When d'you think it stops hurting?"

"When you're stronger than your pain," Erik replied, in the strangest voice yet. Was he drifting, too? "Strength is all there is. My parents were weak. I was taught strength."

Jindra caught another whiff of the scented oil. She imagined Jana, naked in her bath, rubbing rosemary and roses into her damp, shining skin. "Weakness can be earned."

"Or granted." What was Erik imagining? "By those who know better than ourselves."

They grew quiet again, until the only sound in the room was the splash of water. Jindra, as if waking from a dream, shook her head and bit the inside of her cheek. She hadn't found out anything of use. She'd fallen too easily into the kindred darkness of Erik's silence.

She cleared her throat. "Will we be expected to travel with you, sir?"

"Travel?"

"When you go off to…the next place. Wherever that is. Some of the lads have been talking about a big sortie."

Silence again, and more dangerous than before.

"My mistress would hate to miss out on the coin," Jindra added. Her voice cracked with anxiety, the bathgirl's forced cheer slipping. "I think she's too afraid to ask. But I'm not afraid of anything."

Erik twisted, looking Jindra dead on. His eyes bore into hers, and for a moment, he nearly saw her, right through to her lying heart. The portal between them was open both ways. The low, endless scream of Jindra's body increased in pitch. She'd pushed too much, too fast, too far –

But then Erik's eyes lost their fervor. Jindra watched as he dismissed her, and decided she wasn't worth the effort of anger. A threat from a hungry bathhouse girl, up to her elbows in water, seemed too much to imagine, even for him.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. "Keep singing."

Jana slipped out of her window, her bow clutched in her hand. She knew the way by heart. Out the window; down the walls; through the back passage, rusty and rarely used; and under the stone arch and down the rough hewn steps to the river.

How many times had she made the journey to her grove, sneaking out of Pirkstein like a thief? She'd been eleven the first time she'd opened her window and sat teetering on the stone edge, staring into the wild, dark world, before retreating in frightened defeat; twelve the first time she'd had the courage to jump and stumble farther, and farther, until the castle's stone walls disappeared and she could breath open air, forest air, green and growing.

How many times had she walked this path alone?

How many more times would she walk it alone?

Jana paused, her hand on the stone arch, and shook her head at no one and nothing. She wasn't alone. The grove was her heart, and Jindra was a part of that heart now. They would come back to it together. Even if Jindra was an idiot, and cruel.

Jana studied the sky, watching as the first stars appeared, before continuing down the steps. The nights were getting longer. Soon there would be a chill in the air, brought with the harvest. And while the grove would stay shadowed, the fingertips of its secrets stretching farther than in summer, it would be too cold to linger. The roebucks would be in their rut for some weeks yet, but that would fade with the last of the summer sun, too.

Autumn meant less light and less freedom, as the woods became too cold, without game to be found. And then the long winter after, when Jana's breath would make clouds in the air, as the walls of Pirkstein became slippery with ice. Jana still bore a scar on her upper arm from a topple from her window at thirteen, when she'd tried to defy the cold and learned a sore lesson.

And then her birthday would come, the longest night of the year, without sunlight or warmth, when the castle, the snow, the chill, the land itself confined her as tightly as it could. And so it would go on, and on, and on.

Jana sighed. She'd been out of sorts since Jindra had gone. That girl had a talent for making Jana look directly at what she would usually glance over: her father, her own heart, her own failings, and, if she were honest, perhaps Jindra herself.

Jana scratched at her wrist. Stop it. Jindra was important to her. Even if she'd –

Jana clutched her bow tighter. Jindra could be cruel all she wanted, and Jana would still help her; let no one call her disloyal. It seemed obvious that if the sad, starving people of Skalitz were kept fed, kept safe, maybe Jindra wouldn't wander so far. She wouldn't be so tortured and so foolish, so careless with her own life. That would teach Jindra her own lesson. Her own scar on her arm, indeed!

And Jana could not stay in her room tonight.

She picked her way carefully down the steps, mindful of where they dipped into shadow before the river. She dared not hope for a deer. She'd never manage to drag it home alone. But surely she could manage a clutch of hares. And it was an attractive image, enough to make a girl preen: the beasts lashed to her belt, bleeding in steady drops, staining her skirts with proof.

She'd have to dress them first, of course. She'd seen animals butchered often enough, as she lurked around corners, unseen in kitchens, watching animals fall to flesh and flesh fall to meat. As a child she'd imagined herself on the table, with such terrified fixation that it could only have been longing.

Jana could learn to be a butcher, as well as a killer and a liar. There were plenty of things she was not that she was learning how to be, for Jindra's sake – pleasing and kind, chiefly.

Jana reached the edge of the river and stared at the dark water. It wouldn't only be hares. She would do as she ought to have promised, and turn to the care of Jindra's people with a lady's solemn duty. She would help, somehow, and then Jindra would…stop. She would stop.

Jana wrapped the lie around herself like a quilt, shielding her from the cold without erasing it.

But it was no use, was it? Even if Jana fed every urchin and widow, Jindra would never stop. Who would know Jindra's terrible determination and single minded force of spirit better than Jana?

Jana crouched on the ground and ran her hands over her face. "Awful girl," she groaned, to Jindra and to herself. "Awful, awful."

She received a short, sharp squeak in reply.

Jana lifted her her head and squinted at the ground by her feet. Her shoes sank into the muddy ground, softened first by the river and further by the rain. A little shape, lingering by her dirty hem, squeaked again.

It was a toad. It was fat, squat, rough and warty, with dull green skin turned grayish blue-brown by the low light. As Jana stared at it, the toad blinked up in her direction, neck bulging and looking vaguely put out. It was the very image of a tired, sullen old man, sitting on his haunches.

Jana giggled. She couldn't help it. She needed a reason to laugh tonight. "Why, Captain Bernard," she gasped, "You've caught me red handed, I see."

She grinned when the toad squeaked a third time, somehow quite unlike Bernard's gruff grunting and yet undeniably its match.

Jana sighed, settling onto the ground, resting her arms on her knees and her head on her arms. The fearless toad didn't move, watching her with either an animal's disinterest or vague disapproval. "I wish I could show you," she confessed. "My archery, I mean. I wish you could be proud of it."

She'd never had a mother, not in truth. Even the nurses of her memory were nameless and faceless. But she'd never lacked for fathers, and Bernard was one of them. Bernard, who must have been born an old man; hands warm and soft as old leather, curling Jana's fingers around a bow. He'd called her my young lady and saved a smile for her that she had not seen him give anyone before, or since; even a decade on from the memory, Jana still reached for his lessons, for his approval.

There were more. Old Oats, who never stopped smiling, always ready with a gentle word for Jana, a gentle glance, slipping her sweetmeats and sugared nuts; Hanush's father, old Uncle Henry, older than Jana's father had been, white haired and so distant that he could have been a mountain, or a thunderstorm, or a priest's sermon; a dozen tutors and scribes, teaching her letters, and music, and horsemanship, giving her cruel glimpses of a larger would she could never reach.

And Hanush, born under the same heraldry; Hanush, who lost his father a year after Jana lost her own; Hanush, boisterous, booming, irreverent and loud, with the temper of a bear and the heart of one; Hanush, less than a father and more than an uncle, cousin by blood, guardian and jailer, who taught her to laugh.

All of them together could never banish her father's ghost. All of them together could not equal the weight his love, even half-given; and they could not fathom the weight of Jana's betrayal, bearing her father's name and his death.

Only Jindra knew that.

The toad gave one more squeak, and vanished into the tall grass of the riverbank. Jana's eyes followed it, glancing over the dark water, and imagined arms outstretched, waiting for her.

She shivered, knowing that Hell would be cold.

Then Jana stood and brushed out her skirts, as if the filth could be so easily cast off. She walked the rest of the way to the grove distracted, memory guiding each step.

Where was Jindra? Was she slipping through the darkness in silence just as Jana was, avoiding teeth and blades? It was a chilling thought. She should be on her way home, returning as she'd sworn to. Was she safe?

She'd been sent into a den of wild dogs. How could she be safe?

Jana forced her fear away. Hadn't Jindra hunted dangerous game before? Hadn't Jana sent her off with her blessing before, and hadn't she returned victorious? Hadn't Jana tasted that victory, kissed it from their shared blade long before she'd kissed Jindra's mouth?

Jana told herself that this was no different, wrapped in another lie.

She ought to be thinking of her own hunt. It was soothing to dip and dance through the trees, running the plan over in her mind: she would slip through the grove on the way to the deeper wood, to gather her quiver and her arrows from their hiding place.

She hadn't been hunting properly since Hanush and the gyrfalcon, which hardly counted. But it was a new feeling, to go out out with a true task in mind beyond pure need. The thought of actually providing meat, bringing it home to fill bellies…Jana found that she liked it.

Jindra must be nearly home by now. Maybe she was already at the walls, and Jana had just missed her on the stairs. Jana imagined returning home and meeting Jindra at her window, bloody hares and all. Jana would steal a kiss and climb through as if she were the knave and Jindra the lady; Jindra, beautiful and safe, rested, dressed in silk and linen, ready for Jana to take in her arms and to cherish; Jindra drifting off in a bath, fed sweet cakes and honey, her dark hair spilling down her back.

It was an easier fantasy, more comforting, than the reality of Jindra's absence.

The dream distracted her as the grove revealed itself slowly, bit by bit, in glimpses and gaps between the trees. Everything was it should be; the color of the leaves this time of year, the gentle sound of the wind through branches, the gentle scatter of the smallest beasts.

But then, between one soft breath and the next, Jana heard a new sound; faint, indistinct, close.

The hair stood up on the back of Jana's neck. She stopped walking. She knew every inch of this grove, and had loved it for so long that its heartbeat was her own, its breathing second nature; and she froze, feeling only the instinct of both hunter and doe.

Someone was in the grove.

Jana dropped to the ground before she had time to think, nearly soundless. She pressed flat onto her stomach, hidden by bushes and tall grass, concealed, the woods wrapping around her in protection. She could see the grove more clearly from the ground, the open clearing spread before her, framed by sapling roots and leaves.

There was movement. There was – a shape, a shadow, circling – searching –

Someone was in the grove.

Jana's mouth went dry. It couldn't be. It was too much to accept, to understand. It was the sun gone dark in the sky, devils spawning from Heaven and not from Hell; it was a fact so wrong and twisted than her mind danced past it, shied away, pushed back until it rippled, a stone thrown against a lake's reflection.

But the sky was cloudless. The stars and the waxing moon cast their cruel, cold light. Jana strained forward and was forced to see the truth for what it was, as the shifting shadow became a person – became a man.

A man was in the grove.

Jana choked back a gasp of horror.

Black Peter, unmistakable in his dark clothing, pushed through the branches and brambles at the edge of the clearing. He slunk and slithered like a snake, yet his footfalls were heavy, crushing green growth beneath his step.

He began to circle the grove as if he did so every night, examining with a base lack of reverence. He paused when he reached the scattering of rocks, bursting from the ground on one end, and stepped closer, sticking his hands where they didn't belong and examining every crack and crevice.

Jana couldn't breathe. Her stomach turned over. It wasn't – he couldn't –

Black Peter paused, and laughed softly under his breath, in a nauseous sneer of sound. He reached between two stones, and pulled out a piece of metal that gleamed in the moonlight. It was one of Jindra's gauntlets, taken from the armor she had stolen for the tourney.

Jana's heart vanished with the rest of her into a long tunnel, deep and inescapable as a grave. The broken branches she'd seen the night before danced across her vision in spots of colored light, over-bright and fractured. He had been searching all this time, ever since the tourney. He had been hunting them – hunting Jindra, making both of them prey.

The ripple in the lake grew wider, swallowing Jana whole. He had been here. When Jana and Jindra had tumbled together for weeks, a man, a cruel stranger, had been to Jana's grove, her secret heart, her sanctuary, led here by the scent of Jindra's careless triumph and allowed by Jana's stupidity.

Black Peter leaned down again, reaching for a different, older, more cherished hiding place. Jana could only watch in helpless horror as he pulled out her quiver, as if it was a prize for him, or a –

Stop, she thought, in broken pieces. You can't! It's mine, it was –

Black Peter dropped the quiver carelessly, and turned away, as if it were nothing to him.

The grove was gone. The truth of it remade the world. It had been gone, soiled and spoiled, lost without Jana's knowledge or her leave, and she would never get it back.

Jana tried to look away, keep the truth at bay like her father's body and her father's hateful eyes and her father and her father and her father – but – she couldn't bear the weight, and it ripped and tumbled and tore, a gutting, a botched butchering, a miscarriage, living blood and puss and a mass made rotten –

Jana lay flat on the ground and pressed her face into the dirt, until she could hardly breathe and her face ached and her eyes throbbed and her mouth filled with bitter soil.

Never had a lesson been so clear. There was no place she could ever escape to. Nothing could ever be protected. It was a world of – of walls, shrinking stone walls, and ceilings pressing in, and beds filled with childblood, and – and rivers, frozen and dark, portals to Hell and a father's broken promises. There was no freedom and no safety. There was no place in all the world that was safe.

And Jindra was out in that world – her Jindra, hunted even in her victories, prey without knowing, so brave and so stupid; and her soft mouth and her beautiful eyes and her foolish words made Jana a fool with her, forgetting the trap and the chain and the snapping jaws and the walls that closed in forever, and now –

Why had Jana let her go? Why, why, why, why, why?

The mill girl, Theresa, Jindra's Tess, had looked at Jana with knowing, deserved, damning anger.

You should keep her safe.

Somewhere, in the grove that had once been Jana's and never would be again, the crunch of unworthy footsteps grew farther away, retreating into the night.

"Jindra," Jana choked, tasting dirt. "Forgive me."

It was dark when Jindra returned the water jugs to the bath tents. All three of the girls were tending to men, splashing behind the white canvas walls. There was some giggling and some low, bawdy murmurs, but as far as Jindra could tell, they were only having baths.

The bathhouse proprietress was shaking out clean linens, and smiled drily at Jindra. "Still in one piece," she observed. She nodded at the tents, where the vague shadows of figures danced. "You missed the last rush of them."

Jindra set her jugs down and helped fold the linens. It was easy to watch the tents from here, and even the whispers were clear enough. That was probably why the proprietress had chosen this spot in the first place.

"You keep a good eye on them," Jindra said. "I'm glad they're looked after."

The woman scoffed. "Are they? They're here."

Jindra couldn't think of a comforting reply, but the woman sighed the next moment, and pushed past it. "You know Anezka. Are you one of her old girls?"

"No. But she did me a good turn." Jindra set the linens aside. "How did you meet her?"

"We worked the baths in Prague when we were young. Kuttenberg, after that. The old cows who ran them were sour old witches and we swore we'd do better." The proprietress huffed, but her eyes grew softer. "My Esther is from Kuttenberg, too."

"Esther is a beautiful name."

For the first time, the woman smiled without bitterness. "For a beautiful, wild girl. A wolf-child, she was."

Jindra though that was a very fine thing for a girl to be. "I've been thinking about how to help her." Jindra lowered her voice, leaning closer. "You should go to the Rattay baths. Ask for Klara. She's been gathering whispers from all over. If anyone can help you find Esther, she can. Tell her Jindriska sent you."

The woman said nothing at first. She watched, steady and thoughtful, as Jindra stood, shaking her skirts out. At last, the woman said, "There's more to you, isn't there? There's something in your eyes."

Anezka had said the same thing once, seated at her table in Uzhitz. She'd seen murder in Jindra's eyes, then; what could this woman see in them, now?

"You called Esther a wolf-child." Jindra smiled, and imagined Jana's blade gleaming. "We she-wolves ought to stick together, right?"

Night had well and truly fallen, and all Jindra wanted to do was sleep. Her body ached, and the pain of hunger had faded into heavy, desperate fatigue. She could have curled up on a rock or a log and slept like a babe. But her mind and her heart knew better, still alert and unrelenting.

When she'd gathered up her jugs and her soaps, she'd left behind the little bottle of oil. Maybe it had been an accident, a consequence of her exhaustion. Maybe it hadn't. It was hard to explain what she did or didn't know; but Jindra had an excuse to return to Erik's chamber, filled with its maps and letters. And if she slipped back now, maybe he would be gone to find a meal, or already off to bed.

It was an excuse and a reason, even if poor. As Jindra climbed back up to the inner wall, she felt more dog than she-wolf; starving and unable to unlock her jaws.

The guard who'd been at the entrance was gone. In fact, all of the men, the scatter of guards and the few others on errands, were gone. The circle of silence had become startlingly complete, and soon, Jindra saw why.

There was a horse in front of the farmhouse. It was a brown so dark that it looked black in the dim light, with a striking cream mane. The saddle was of noble make, and it stood steady and unmoving, with the discipline that came with breeding.

Jindra lifted a hand to stroke at its snout. "Is your lord inside?" she whispered.

The horse flicked an ear her direction, but made no other movement, as silent as the rest.

A wiser girl would have turned around. Jindra was many things, but tonight, wise was not one of them. She glanced at the farmhouse, and remembered the broken doorway on the wall of the main chamber, covered by one of the rich, hanging rugs.

Jindra slipped to her left, through a ruined, unused entrance. This side of the farmhouse had completely collapsed, and was covered in fallen beams and splintered wood. Jindra weaved carefully through the debris, lifting her skirts and stepping slowly, keeping as quiet as she could. A hunter's light step; a doe's step.

The doorway was almost glowing, illuminated from within, and warm and red from the rug. There were muffled voices drifting from the inner chamber, in low, quiet conversation. Jindra pressed her body against the wall, caught the edge of the rug, and very slowly inched it aside, peeking through the crack of streaming light.

There were two men in the room. Erik was standing by the corner of his desk, dressed only in shirt and hose, his face very serious.

The other man was shorter almost by a head. He wore a chaperon of black wool, and it hid his face from Jindra's angle. He wore clothes of fine damask, and he held himself with confidence; she could tell that one hand was resting lazily on the pommel of his sword, through she could only see the scabbard.

He was touching Erik's face. Jindra was struck by how covered he was, wrapped in silk and leather gloves, while Erik was laid bare.

"Every man here has gone through me," Erik said, frowning in dark frustration. "I've looked each one in the eye. I would know."

"Oh?" The other man's voice was low and pleasing, and Jindra felt herself drawn to it. "Do you control them so completely?"

"I understand how to hold a man’s leash."

"I don't doubt you. In truth, I wouldn't have thought that Radzig had it in him." The man let out a thoughtful hum. "But with how quickly he took Pribyslavitz, you should look for a rat amongst your curs."

Erik's frown deepened. "Maybe Runt was weaker than you thought."

"He served me well."

"But he wasn't me. He wasn't me. Ist – "

"Hush."

The man put his hand around Erik's neck. He squeezed – he must have, because Erik went limp in the hold, like a kitten.

It was…familiar. It was the dead parents, a kindred link to Erik that Jindra couldn't find the name for. She could hardly breathe, pinned on the spot.

Erik's throat bobbed. "He failed you. I won't."

"You never have." The man grew quiet for a moment, and tilted his head to the side, lightly inquisitive. He took a long, slow breath, and whispered, "Chamomile. And cinnamon, I think."

Erik's chest rose and fell a little faster. Jindra didn't think it was fear.

"Have you taken comfort, Erik?" the man asked, almost teasing. "A whore's embrace, maybe?"

“Never,” Erik declared at once, passionate and urgent. "I wanted – this was for you."

"My, my. I should be honored."

"And what if I did?" Erik's words tumbled out, stumbling over each other. "Would you hate me for it? Am I to blame? What if I turned to someone else, asked for a touch, begged for a look, when you're always – "

The man shifted his hand. Even from here, Jindra could tell that he was loosening his hold, and not tightening it. But Erik fell silent, and went even more limp than before, boneless. The man's gloved fingers traced gently along the side of his neck, beneath the jaw.

Once, not so long ago, Jana had done the same to Jindra, and held her pulse, her heart, her life beneath her touch, cradled and calmed in the dark.

"Would you?" the man asked, hushed, in either threat or reverence.

In the torchlight, Erik's pale eyes were fire. "Watch me. That's all I want."

"Don't look away," the man returned. His voice was chiding and knowing, and Jindra could hear his smile; but there was an edge beneath.

Jindra thought of a wolf, and the cracked edge of a howl.

Then the wolf opened his jaws and sighed, and became Jindra's deer in the woods, dying in relief and release. "Sweet boy, open your mouth."

Jindra had never seen two men kiss before. They seemed to meld into each other, deep and slow, without fight or defiance, as the man used his loose grip to move Erik as he liked. Erik gave a muffled groan and kept his eyes open, clearly fighting to, wanting to see; until he melted, surrendered, fell into it, buckled under the weight.

Jindra couldn't stop watching. Erik shifted and pressed against the desk, parting his legs as the man stepped between them, crowding him. The silence of the room was stripped back and the darkness became passion; not unleashed, not violent, but steady, full, complete; and as the man turned to the side, running his other hand up Erik's thigh, the torchlight caught on the hilt of his sword.

The world froze. The world lost its color. The silence ripped open, erupted, and screamed.

Jindra knew that sword.

She would recognize it in death. It fell from her grasp every night in her nightmares, covered in her own blood. She could close her eyes and see every inch, every detail; she could close her eyes and see the inscriptions, Latin that she couldn't read before and might read now, if she could only remember the shape of the letters.

It was her father's sword.

Then the thief turned his head, and Jindra caught the side of his face, the curve of his cheek and nose.

She wouldn't have recognized him if she hadn't fixed every detail of Skalitz's death in her mind. So many other faces had filled her nightmares: Ma's, in terror, Pa's, in anguish, Bianca screaming, the bubble of Matthew's blood, the soldiers and their leader and Runt's smile –

The draw of his voice had been a memory. She'd heard him. When Sir Radzig came to inspect the sword, the dead girl from Skalitz had watched in silence, hidden in Pa's forge and spying, where she wasn't supposed to be; Sir Radzig had noticed, and winked when he'd spotted her, but had said nothing. And beside Pa and Sir Radzig, holding her father's sword in his hands – handsome, polite, presumptive, lying, lying, lying, lying, lying –

Istvan Toth, the wolf who walked as a man, smiled into Erik's mouth.

The world roared in fury. Jindra clutched Jana's knife, pressed against her chest, trembling with effort. She didn't remember drawing it from its sheath. Her eyes were fixed on the pulsing line of Toth's throat, imagining the slice of the blade, and the spill of his murderous, guilty blood.

If Jindra had been a man, she would have lunged. If Jindra had been a man, she would have surged headlong with the force of her anger. If she had not been tempered by danger and death and caution and terrible consequences, forced into shadows and kept from armor and sunlight revenge, she would have stumbled into the room on heavy legs and with a starving animal's desperation.

She still nearly did. But in the moment of hesitation, the brief moment of quiet where her heart drew breath to begin screaming again and again in its tortured cycle…Jana saved her. She saved Jindra's life once more, as she had in Pribyslavitz. It wasn't her knife this time, although Jindra was clutching the hilt so tightly that her hand ached with pain, keeping her rooted to the solid shape of her body.

It was Jana's eyes. Jana's bright, fierce, angry eyes, her unshed tears, her open face, baring her secret pain and begging Jindra not to leave her alone with it.

Erik's eyes were the same.

I'll never forgive you. Jana's voice breaking, hurting too much to tell the truth. I hate you.

Jindra was a false friend, a garden without flowers, a killer, a witch. But she wouldn't fail another person.

It was the hardest thing she had ever done. But she closed her eyes, and let go of the edge of the rug, letting the stream of golden light fall away, leaving her in the steady red glow.

Her breath wasn't steady. Her heartbeat was worse. She weaved back through the fallen wooden beams, half-blind, nearly tumbling, trying to be slow – don't jostle them, slow – don't run – until she –

In her dream –

Her father's sword tumbles from her gasp and it's covered in her own blood, her mother's blood, womb blood –

Sir Radzig stands with his arms outstretched and Jindra's hands are empty –

She almost managed it. She made it out of the twisted farmhouse warren into the quiet blackness, and would have slunk out in the night, her soul and her heart and her fear held on the edge of a blade, a hunted animal. She would have slipped away in silence, like poison leeched from a wound.

Except –

A hand shot out of the darkness and grasped Jindra by the elbow. She spun, her gasp over-loud in the dark, cracking like a whip or the crash of armor. She lashed out with Jana's knife in a clumsy, arching slash, unworthy and weak; but the figure jumped back anyway, released her arm, and swore.

"Jindriska!" it hissed. "It's me!"

Jindra's panicked eyes darted, taking in the man made of shadows, before they widened, her mind dropping away into horrified recognition. "You!" she gasped.

Zbyshek stood before her, alive and whole. He hadn't been one of the ghosts of her madness after all – he lived, as cringing as a rat and with his beady eyes shining, as if he'd been plucked whole from the ash and shit of Skalitz's corpse, and set before her by the devil's own hand.

The last time she had seen him –

In her dream she is on her back, in Skalitz – her wrists are bruised, she hears Runt's laughter, and the laughter of his men, smells the rain and decay –

And Zbyshek is huddled among them, sniveling, filthy, frightened, weak and false, looting the corpses of his neighbors.

The maiden –

"You fucking traitor." Jindra didn't recognize the sound that came out of her. It wasn't a voice. "Coward."

"Be quiet," Zbyshek whispered. "Christ, I thought it was you. Listen – "

Jindra was wound too tight – she was pushed too far. No poison, no plan, and forced to leave her father's sword behind – "Out of my way." Her hand shook around the knife. "Get out of – "

"I need to leave," Zbyshek said, in his desperate bitch-whine, as if he hadn't heard. "The whores can come and go, so you can help me – "

"You want my help?" The not-voice that came out of Jindra jolted and twisted, growling and gnashing. "I was trying to bury them. And you handed me over like a pig at the market."

He'd watched. He'd watched.

The maiden –

"Would you've joined in?" Jindra rasped. "Had a turn with the lads?"

Zbyshek's silence was the answer.

Jindra's mind reached the end of its endurance. She fell to the bottom of a well, where her vision blurred and the sounds were muffled, spiderweb hatred crossing and crackling under her skin and in front of her eyes. She watched Zbyshek swallow, open his mouth – until his wet, sickly eyes grew wide, and his gasping spittle lips parted –

And blood poured out.

Jana's knife sang, blade dark with gore. Jindra had slit Zbyshek open without thinking or seeing or feeling, in a swift, slashing smile across the neck. Zbyshek collapsed to the ground in a heavy heap, wheezing, clutching at the gushing redness seeping through his fingers.

Jindra stood over him and stared, flying away into the sky like the terrible bird-streak of Erik's smile. The body was already twitching and already no longer a man, curled up on the ground like a bug, like a thing already dead.

There was no righteous fury, no revenge. The last of Skalitz died without pity or dignity, by Jindra's own hand, and Jindra felt only horror, hunger, the anger that exhausted; there was only the famine-made ruin of her body.

There was nothing else.

Jindra ran.

Wulf, my Wulf! These violent love-longings
have made me sick; your seldom-comings
have left me famished, deprived of real meat!

From Wulf and Eadwacer (c 970–990 AD), translated by Michael R. Burch

Chapter Text

Dawn broke clear and cold over Rattay.

Galloping towards it was a girl in three places: in Skalitz, burning in a body that she'd thought long-dead; in a bandit camp above Sasau, stumbling, falling, killing, smelling of shit and fear and blood; and clinging on the back of her horse, face buried in the mane, running, running, always running, always fleeing, always more a hunted animal than a woman.

She was close – she was –

The world was silent, trapped in the half-slumber of morning. The only sounds were hoofbeats on dirt, on stone, on unforgiving ground; Pebbles and her steady breath; and a girl's gasps, tearing and heaving.

Jindra was crumbling into pieces. Jindra didn't know how long she had been riding, pushing poor Pebbles in a race against the sun. Jindra was so out of her mind that she didn't think to be careful, as she usually might have been.

She'd tumbled through a gap in a wall – she'd run to the woods – she'd run –

Memory and nightmare were the same. The countryside blurred. Sometimes Jindra was chased by an army of men, or a pack of baying hounds, until she spun recklessly in the saddle and found the road empty behind her. Sometimes she smelled smoke. Sometimes she was the only person left alive in the world and she flew through a land burned black and filled with bones.

Sometimes her mother was there, weeping for her.

Jindra didn't have a care for caution; no thought to stop riding before the walls, to dismount and guide Pebbles carefully to the stables in darkness, or to look for an alternate route, to wait out the morning in the grove. Rattay opened to her like a flower the same way Pribyslavitz had opened like a corpse, and Jindra thundered through the gates in full view, less bold than desperate, less daring than crazed, galloping to safety, to home, to where Jana was and would always be.

If Jindra had been clear headed at all, she would have anticipated shouts of surprise and alarm. What she would not have anticipated were shouts of relief, and to be met in courtyard of the Upper Castle as if she were expected.

"Jindra!"

It was Janek or Jaroslav. Jindra couldn't tell which one spoke. They swam in front of her hungry eyes and could have been one man or two, with one heart and one voice. But they were there. She didn't know why they were not guarding their usual posts; but they were whole and real, and a living piece of Skalitz – a village that wasn't completely dead, after all.

But she was given no time to let it sooth her.

"Jindra! Thank God!" Jaroslav or Janek's voice was fervent with relief, caught on the familiar name of her childhood and keeping her in the dream. "They're sending men after you!"

Jindra stared down at them, trying to remember how to speak. "After…me?"

"They're in the Upper Castle." Janek or Jaroslav held out his hands to help her down. "Come on."

"You take her," the other said. Jindra was off Pebbles in a moment, in a flurry, a confused shuffle, colors spinning like a web, with nothing but the kind hands on her waist to steady her – even as she recoiled at the touch, rebelled – "I'll go and –"

There was no time to react or reply. Jindra was herded up the stairs and into the Upper Castle in a daze, fumbling and stumbling. Her fatigue could not be held at bay any longer, and Jindra had never felt so clumsy and easily led. The dark halls, quiet in a castle that still ought to be sleeping, were a maze that she hardly recognized.

Jindra must have been dreaming. She was supposed to be here with Jana. She only ever walked these halls with Jana, holding her hand, holding her heart, lending her courage.

A room that she recognized opened up in front of her – large, with a long table. Every torch within was lit, making the room unnaturally bright. As Jindra squinted, her head still spinning, she heard the sound of chairs scraping on stone, hastily pushed back.

Three figures were on their feet. Jana was one of them, clutching at the edge of the table with a hand pressed to her mouth. When Jindra's eyes met hers, Jana let out a wild gasp; but Jindra relaxed on instinct at the beautiful sight of her, unfurling for the first time in hours, perhaps in days.

But Sir Radzig and Sir Hanush were also there, and Jindra tore her eyes from Jana's dear face to look at them.

Sir Radzig was already halfway across the room. But when Jindra turned to him, he froze mid-stride, and tried to close his expression behind a wall, as he had so long ago in a garden; but that wall was cracking. There was an edge of wildness to him that was…familiar. Jindra couldn't place it, or name it. She might have taken a step back in alarm, but she was too weary for anything but confusion.

Sir Hanush was much easier to read. He didn't seem angry. He was exasperated, and very stern indeed.

He looked at Sir Radzig for a long time. Then he turned to Jindra, looked her up and down, and huffed out his breath. "Are you badly hurt, girl?"

Jindra blinked slowly at him, and looked down at her own body.

Zbyshek's blood was splattered on her sleeve up to the elbow. It was smeared in angry streaks on her filthy hem, where she'd stepped through the pool of him as she'd fled. It had no doubt stained her shift beneath, where Jana's knife was tucked away.

What a funny thing. It was so little blood, really, compared to how much had come from the body. And it was drying quickly, shifting from red to dull brown. Runt's blood hadn't been base and simple; it had stayed fresh, like a saint's miracle, hadn't it?

Jindra swayed on the spot, off-balance and uncomprehending. "It's not mine," she managed. Her voice crackled, like meat on a spit.

Sir Hanush let out another rumble of air, sounding like the bear Jana called him behind his back.

Jindra's sluggish mind caught up, tumbling off of Pebbles later than the rest of her, and slammed back into her body. This was wrong. It was all wrong. She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't – why were they looking at her? Why did they care?

Janek and Jaroslav had been glad to see her – not surprised that she'd been gone. They're sending men after you!

Jindra's head snapped back to the table. Jana wasn't looking at her. Jana wouldn't look.

Understanding came like the dawn itself: clear and cold.

"Jana, what have you done?" Jindra gasped.

Jana closed her eyes.

"Well, she's alive," Sir Hanush said, with another great huff. "But this will be the last time your girl plays a spy and a soldier, Jana."

It couldn't be real. Jindra was still dreaming, in her nightmare-memory that told her lies and twisted the world into evil shapes.

Jana had once been spiteful and cruel. She had scorned Theresa, and spit on Bianca's memory. She had offered to give Jindra to a man in marriage like a side of meat to a butcher. But she had been in pain, then, and they understood each other now…Jana knew her heart.

"How could you?" Jindra whispered. "How could you tell them?"

"You're as troublesome as my niece," Sir Hanush said, as if he hadn't heard. He glanced back at Sir Radzig and raised a brow. "We've found her match in disobedience."

Jindra clung to denial. She shook her head. She held out her hands. "You don't understand –"

"I'm too damn used to Jana's insolence to have much patience for yours," Sir Hanush snapped. He waved a hand, dismissive. "Jana, go. Take her back to Pirkstein, and be damn sure she stays put."

Sir Radzig stood dark and unmoving. He wasn't looking at Jindra either. It was that, more than anything else, that snapped Jindra out of her stunned, heartbroken fugue. Now, of all times, he was too noble to look at her? Now?

"I'm covered in blood!" Jindra exclaimed, "You don't want to know why?" Her shout rang like steel on an anvil. "I know who's behind the bandit raids! Pribyslavitz – all of it!"

Sir Hanush hadn't expected that. Sir Radzig hadn't, either. They both looked at her as if she was a madwoman; and Jindra switched bodies with Johanka, saw through her blazing eyes, saw the world scorning her as she screamed warnings and prophecies to her grave.

Jindra's exhaustion was forgotten. She bared her angry teeth at Sir Radzig, in viscous, righteous blame. "It's Istvan Toth! The nobleman you hosted the day Sigismund pillaged Skalitz."

Sir Radzig's face twisted with something more than shock, even as Sir Hanush made a sound of disbelief, even as Sir Radzig turned to look at him, looked away –

"Listen to me!" Jindra bellowed. Her peasant's instinct to shy away, to hide, to duck her head and trust a noble's judgment, and to fear a noble's ire – gone, gone, gone! "They're coming to fight and to kill and you're siting on your fat fucking arses doing nothing!"

Sir Radzig's head snapped back. If punishment would follow, Jindra couldn't tell, because her desperation gave way to vibrant color, and her mind flew open. Every man she'd seen and tent she'd spied and every smell and shining cruel blade was as clear as when she'd first seen them, fixed in her memory like a brand.

"He's gathered an army – trained and armored men, not bandits! He has at least a hundred! They're in an old abandoned fortress on a hill above Sasau." Words spilled out of her mouth fast and scattered, jumping, catching, jolting on passion. "There's an outer palisade that goes around the whole camp. There's an inner wall inside, with a ruined farmhouse – that's where Toth is! There are fifty tents at least inside, kept to the right –"

Sir Radzig's voice caught on her name.

Jindra couldn't stop, wouldn't, racing against dismissal. "The east side is all rocks, you can't launch an assault from – but I escaped from there. I tumbled through a gap and waded through blood and mud and shit!" Jindra shook her skirts and her bloody hem, daring them to deny the evidence. "Look at me!"

The room was so quiet that the only sounds were the crackling of the torches, and Jindra, panting like a beast. Sir Hanush narrowed his eyes at her; Sir Radzig looked like he was in physical pain.

Jindra refused to look at Jana, or even think of her. If she did, she would shatter into a thousand pieces, and she couldn't allow herself to be anything but stubborn and strong.

Finally, Sir Hanush crossed to Sir Radzig, who still stood unmoving in the middle of the room. When he spoke, it was steadier and quieter than Jindra thought he was capable of being. "If your girl is right – "

Sir Radzig closed his eyes. "Hanush."

"If she's right, I want that cunt skinned alive." Sir Hanush gave Jindra glance that was nowhere near as dismissive as before. It wasn't respect, and it wasn't trust, but it was considering, and sharp. A lord's look. "Do you think he could be behind it?"

Sir Radzig let the room stand in frozen silence. Then he gave Jindra a glance of his own; something rippled behind the wall of stone. In a man's voice, and not a lord's, he said, "I believe her."

Jindra went as weak and liquid as water, as Sir Hanush let out a shout of pure anger with nowhere else to go. "Bastard! I'll crush that rabble of his."

Sir Radzig took a breath, and shrugged on a lord's voice like a heavy cloak. "That's easy to say. I suspect Toth isn't taking any chances."

"That bastard wants a battle." Sir Hanush turned away from Jindra and stepped closer to Sir Radzig, ducking his head; already discussing war, in the practiced tones of men who knew it well. "Much better we pick a time and place than he does. Bernard can ride for Talmberg, and Divish will muster the rest of the men we need. "

Sir Radzig leaned closer, nodding. Even from her distance, Jindra could see his eyes growing sharp and focused. "We have to take them by surprise. It would be best to attack tomorrow night. We can't get ready any sooner."

Sir Hanush laughed, a triumphant sound that was almost savage. "That's what I like to hear! We'll –"

"Take me with you!" Jindra exploded. The men turned back – they had looked away again, and forgotten her. She couldn't let them, wouldn't let them. "I have to be there!"

Sir Hanush snorted. Jindra hated him more than ever, but Sir Radzig was the one who went stony and cold, and said, harsh and final, "No."

Jindra felt his betrayal almost as deep as Jana's. "You said you believe me! Why can't I go?"

"Jindriska, enough."

"Toth has the sword! It's my father's last and he has it." The sword, ripped from Jindra's ravaged body with the rest of her honor, torn and shredded, shrieking with the corpses in the mud. "I promised –"

"You're not a child." Sir Radzig's usual calm was gone, a man feeling the loss of his power. "Stop acting like one. You have no –"

"No skill?" Jindra snapped back, angrier, angrier, always angry. She didn't care how high above her he was, if he wanted to hurt her, he could try, he could – "No weapon? You don't know anything!"

Sir Hanush groaned. "Oh, for Christ's sake."

Jindra snapped apart. "You only took Pribyslavitz because of me!" she shrieked, uncaring and wild. She slapped a hand against her breast. "Those men were dead because I was there! I killed them!”

“I know,” Sir Radzig said.

For a fragile second, the world held only two people. Jindra didn’t know how Sir Radzig knew and didn’t care, but a thread of iron snapped between them and grew taut, an unseen tether.

Then Sir Hanush rounded on him. “You what?”

Sir Radzig didn't answer. He looked at Jindra with unblinking, persistent severity, willing her to deny him.

"Then you know I can kill." Jindra held her hands out again, entreating, as she had the first time she had ever asked him for anything. "I will again! I want him! Let me go."

"No." Sir Radzig's voice was harsh again. "You'll stay here, as you ought, behind lock and key if I must."

Jindra's open hands clenched into fists, curled in like claws. Sir Radzig wasn't a threat. He was an obstacle. He was a wall. Why did he care? Why wouldn't he let her go, let her try, let her die in the attempt –

"Then I'll break the door down!" Jindra snarled. "I'll climb down the walls! I'll escape and I'll kill him and –"

The sword was so close. So close, close , close, close, close – !

"Jindriska!" The man's voice, the man's, the man's, seeping out where the lord's voice cracked, and the order rang with a plea. "Know your place."

"You can't make me!"

Sir Hanush snapped, "Control her, for God's sake."

"Be silent!" Sir Radzig commanded or begged.

"I won't!"

“Uncle.” Jana spoke up over the din, cool and calm. “I have a suggestion.”

Three head turned to Jana as if they'd been pulled by strings. She'd spoken with a noble lady's steady authority, in a voice Jindra had never heard her use before. At any other time, she might have felt proud.

Sir Hanush had narrowed his eyes again, but less suspicious than considering. "Speak up, then."

“Lady Stephanie has offered me an open invitation to visit her for months." Jana clasped her hands in front of her demurely. "Let me accompany Bernard to Talmberg, and I can take Jindriska with me. Stephanie would gladly receive me, and it would keep Jindriska out of harm’s way and stop her from doing anything foolish.”

It was like being punched in the stomach. Jindra stumbled back, looking at Jana with uncomprehending horror.

Sir Radzig had pulled himself together somewhat, and frowned. "She's escaped Talmberg once."

"Indeed, sir. But look at her. She's run ragged now and hardly at her best." This wasn't Jana. It couldn't be. It was Lady Capon, cool and unkind, a lady of ice. "I would keep an eye on her, and Stephanie would, too. And even if she were to slip away, at that distance she couldn't hope to reach you on foot before your raid is complete."

Jindra's voice failed her. It landed with a dull thud on the ground, dead, a shot down hawk. Stop talking over me, she begged, begged, begged, begging Jana as she never had before. Stop talking as if I'm dead already.

"She was given to my care, and I have failed in that responsibility." Jana cast her eyes down obediently. "It is my duty not to let it happen again. I would prove that to you, Uncle. Please."

Jindra splintered with a terrible realization. This was why the men cared. This was why they called for a search, roused themselves early, sent out guards.

After Skalitz, when she'd nearly died in that mud with Ma and Pa, Talmberg had sent men after her because she was a prize, a conquest, Sir Radzig's own creature. And now, she was Jana's creature. She was Jana's failure. Her lady's lapdog, gone rogue; the pretty necklace, a jeweled ring in a box. Jana's lesson.

Sir Hanush looked at Sir Radzig again. Jindra couldn't comprehend either of their expressions, hidden beneath unspoken words.

Then Sir Hanush nodded simply, in the way of men. "So be it. Get her back to Pirkstein, and rest if you can. You'll leave with Bernard in a few hours."

A moment ago Jindra had fought with tooth and claw. But the blazing forge of her anger was doused in cold water, and the fight drained away and left behind something barren and unending, and it had nothing to with with her shaking, spent body.

There was no way out. There was no – there wasn't –

Somewhere a wolf was howling.

The world swam again. Jindra was ushered from the Upper Castle without another word, and drifted through the hall, down the stairs, through the quiet streets of Rattay. Two guards who Jindra didn't know stood at her back, as if she might bolt at any moment; as if her broken heart were not welding her to the earth. She could hardly stand.

She was thrown back to the first night she had come to Rattay, when she'd walked from the Upper Castle to Pirkstein in a daze. There had been another girl in her body, guiding her steps; the dead girl in Skalitz, haunting her. Maybe Jindra was dead after all, and they could finally be together.

Dead like Zbyshek, curled up and rotten, with the rest of the Skalitz bodies.

Her failure was complete. The men would fight, and her father's sword would be thrown on a pile with the rest, discarded and unmourned. She was kept from revenge, from action, from justice.

And Jana had been the way out, in her understanding, in her care, and in her help. She had looked into the heart of Jindra's black soul and sworn to share blood. In this world without grace, it was the only sacred thing Jindra had known.

There was a hand caressing Jindra's neck, splitting through her flesh, parting her ribs; slowly, tenderly, lovingly ripping her into two pieces.

Pirkstein embraced her with a bailiff's tenderness. It wasn't until Jindra reached the courtyard that she realized that Jana was not with her. She must have still been in the Upper Castle; enduring a scolding from Sir Hanush, or plotting against Jindra, or laughing at her.

In a dream, Jindra walked to Jana's room, and shut the door behind her. The freedom from the guards who'd followed was not a relief. At this hour, the fire in the hearth hadn't been lit, and the room was as dull as the rest of the world. Jindra half expected to find Jana waiting for her, sitting in front of the hearth as she had the night they'd met, embroidering her blue wool with golden thread, lonely, cold, and unkind.

But Mutt greeted her instead. He bounded up and trotted to Jindra with a happy bark, as if he'd been waiting for her. He was a creature too good and simple for betrayals.

Jindra found her voice, for Mutt's sake. "You and me both, eh?" she whispered to him, scratching behind his ears. Her throat was so pained that she couldn't swallow. "Two stupid beasts."

After a moment of Mutt's comfort, Jindra sat on the edge of the bed and rifled under her skirts, feeling for Jana's knife. When she pulled it free, she found the blood old and brown, like the stains on her hem; the color of rust on tarnished steel.

Jindra let the knife fall to the floor with a clatter, and kicked it under the bed.

She was heavy, weighed down with stones. She laid down, dirtying the blankets, and held her hand in front of her face. She found it trembling with exhaustion. Zbyshek's blood was under her fingernails.

What did it matter? What was one more dead bastard turning the soil foul?

The prey was in sight. The hunt might have ended. But they hadn't let her. Jana, her huntress, hadn't let her.

And if Jindra couldn't hunt…

The pit where Jindra kept her rage and her sorrow and the blackness of her days opened. It smiled and held out its hands. The howling grew worse.

Jindra rolled onto her stomach and pressed her face in the rosemary-scented blankets. After a moment, she felt Mutt rest his warm, wriggling weight on top of her body, a final stone pressing her down with all the rest.

It was finally enough. Between one breath and the next, Jindra plummeted into a dark, dreamless sleep.

The road to Talmberg was familiar, open, and bright. Jana had not made the journey in some time, and it should have been a delight to glimpse beyond Rattay's borders, a respite of sunshine between two prisons of stone.

It was not. Jana and Jindra were traveling by wagon, bouncing on the hard seats like bags of grain. They hadn't been allowed to bring their horses; not even the old nag. It was just as well. She might not have survived the long ride, anyhow.

The mangy little dog had been allowed, and he was curled up in the wagon with them, his head pillowed on Jindra's thigh. Jindra was petting him idly, her fingers drifting back and forth over his fur, but she wasn't looking at him. She wasn't looking at Jana either. She stared straight ahead at the passing trees and rocks and dusty road, with dim eyes that clearly saw nothing. She hadn't said a word since Jana had shaken her awake in Pirkstein.

Jana bit her lip and looked away.

She tried to focus on the good things, and kept a careful record of them in her heart, as exacting as a quartermaster. Jindra had washed briefly, and no longer stank of blood and filth. She had brushed and braided her long hair and was dressed in a clean kirtle: green silk, deep and vibrant as an emerald, striking against her beautiful blue eyes. She had eaten at least two apples, and probably more food when Jana hadn't looked. What a relief it had been, to see her finally eat.

Jana hadn't eaten anything herself. Her stomach was in knots, her insides surely blackened like bloated entrails. She rubbed her thumbnail back and forth over the scar on her wrist, less of a press than a slow tearing, willing the blood to come slowly, drawing the skin red and raw first.

Telling Hanush where Jindra had gone had been one thing. His glower had been expected, endurable, tempered by a lifetime of lectures and a bleeding wrist. Radzig was another matter. He was always with Hanush, always lurking – and he hadn't said a word, his mouth thinning into a hard line and his face gone dark – as if he had any right, any claim to –

Jana ought to be grateful, really. There was no reason for either of of them to put so much care and effort into Jindra's keeping; even Radzig and his lechery wouldn't extend that far. What was one peasant girl to the lords of the realm, who didn't know or love her? It was Jana's punishment at the heart; a final bolt on a closing door. Bur Jindra would be safe in the making. Jindra would be safe.

Jana would endure this terrible bargain. And one day she would put an arrow in Radzig's stomach, and he'd die gut-shot and groaning, his intestines poisoning his blood and bloating him to bursting, the way men said was the worst way to go, and –

Jana hissed softly. Fool.

She thought, as she had not in many days, of the dead Cumans in the woods; of one in particular, straddling Jindra with his hands around her throat. Jana closed her eyes and felt the bow in her hands, the arrow notched and ready – and saw it slipping away, dull wood and not a weapon, falling from her shaking, weak fingers.

How many deer had she killed and left to rot? How many hares? How many birds? For all their small lives, she had never killed a man. How stupid to think she ever could.

Jindra had killed. And Jana had let her, had helped her. Jana hadn't even tried to keep her safe, had tossed it aside so easily for her own bloodlust and pleasure. She let Jindra be her blade, drawing blood, sharing the kill and bringing it home.

Jana had been drunk on it. It made her blind. It made her believe in a world where –

Her father was dead in the river. Jana's affection had not been a haven before. How could it ever be safe for Jindra?

Jana's heart threw up its shields of cruelty, desperate and fragile. If Jindra hadn't been so careless with the tourney, so reckless, than Black Peter would have never – and Jana wouldn't have had to –

Her wrist began to bleed.

Jana swallowed. No. There was no point. It was no use. The only protection to be found was locked doors and cages. If Jana couldn't be a blade, she would be a shield, in what ways remained to her, even if Jindra hated her.

Jindra would never understand, and Jana couldn't blame her for that. And she would not insult Jindra by giving into her shame and begging for forgiveness.

Perhaps this was her mother's final lesson. A lady's burden was loneliness in exchange for duty; given charges to care for, rather than lovers to hold. Forced to be a jailer, just as Hanush was, as her father had been, and not a true friend.

Jana's blood stained the inside of her sleeve, a red secret inside the yellow silk; a yellow that was sickly and choleric, the color of bile.

Rattay's men-at-arms marched around them, surrounding Jana with shields and tabards of gold and black. About half had already joined Hanush and Radzig on their journey to Sasau. Jana tried to amuse herself by watching Bernard, riding beside the wagon. It was impossible not to think of him as a gruff, stout toad with a dog for his steed, or perhaps a snail; one of the spirited and unnatural menagerie riding into battle through the margins of Jana's horae.

It would make Jindra laugh. Jana hadn't even been able to tell her about the toad by the river. Everything she'd ever wanted – the little things like sharing the toad, and the things so vast that she didn't dare name them – were all far away, lost, stars behind veils. The only thing she dared to want now was Jindra whole and alive.

The silent journey lasted an eternity and a day, but eventually they arrived in Talmberg. It was just as Jana remembered: small and lonely. As the wagon clattered over the drawbridge, Jana glanced at Jindra again. She had spoken of her flight from Skalitz to Talmberg only rarely, in bits and pieces, whispered in the safety of their bedchamber.

Jana imagined Jindra galloping through the gate, following this very same path, wild eyed and tumbling from her dying horse. She had a scar on her thigh from the arrow she'd taken in fleeing; Jana had often touched it, running her fingers up and down the raised skin just to watch Jindra shiver.

Would Jindra ever let her touch it again?

After the girls climbed down from the wagon, stiff and sore, they were ushered into the keep, with the little dog trotting after. In the largest chamber of the small castle, Lady Stephanie of Talmberg received them. She was still pale faced and still utterly pitiful, and was clearly trying very hard not to seem overly excited, with a lady's subdued grace. But she let out a little gasp as soon as Jana entered the room, and it ruined the effect.

"Oh, my dear girl!" Stephanie took Jana's hands in hers, squeezing intimately. "It's been too long. Far too long!"

Jana forced a tight smile. She was taller than Stephanie was, and it made the entire scene ridiculous. "I hope you'll forgive how overdue I am. And the…circumstances."

Stephanie's smile softened in genuine, bleary gratitude. "Don't think of it, and I won't hear another word about it. You are here now, and most welcome."

Jana's tight smile grew even tighter. But Stephanie turned her attention to Jindra, who stood to the side with the dog, unnaturally still and unobtrusive in Jana's shadow. Jana's blackened insides twisted again at the wrongness of it.

"And Jindriska!" Stephanie held out her hands again. "It's so wonderful to see you. Jana speaks of you often in her letters."

Jindra didn't take the offered hands. She lowered her eyes, and dipped into one of her clumsy countryside curtsies, more of a bounce than a dip; but it was without energy, and without defiance. "My lady," she murmured.

Jana was unsure of just how much Stephanie had been told. Perhaps Sir Divish was a husband who preferred his wife ignorant. But Stephanie's smile was much more tender with Jindra than it might have been, and when she caught Jana's eye, she gave a conspiratorial little nod.

Allies, then. Dual jailers. Jindra's enemies, hiding treachery beneath silk and gentle smiles.

As Stephanie spoke softly to a servant, making some arrangement or another, Jana took a moment to look over her shoulder. Just outside the doorway, in the hall, the men were gathered. Bernard was speaking in a low, urgent voice to Sir Divish, as Sir Robard listened beside them. Jana couldn't hear much, but gathered it was some talk of the number of men they would find, and what manner of battlefield awaited them.

Jindra's eyes were locked on the men, her face its own battlefield, her jaw so tight that Jana could see it shaking.

"It should be me telling them." Jindra's voice was so quiet that Jana knew she was not meant to hear it. "It should be me."

Blood was seeping from the cut on Jana's wrist, making her palm slippery. She hadn't realized that she'd started pressing against it again, and hadn't felt it; not when her heart was being carved from her chest with a dull knife. She ought to be bleeding from her chest instead, in a streak of gore down her breast to her hem, in a criminal's brand.

Standing beside Jindra in silence became unbearable. Jana crossed to the door, eyes down and posture meek, and waited for the men to take notice.

Divish turned to her first. Just like his castle, he was exactly as Jana remembered him: white haired and old enough to make Bernard look spry. It was a reminder of her father that she did not care for.

"Lady Jana," he said, in a calm voice that was amused beneath.

Jana curtsied low. It made her knees ache. "Before you leave, sir, my uncle bids me to apologize for inconveniencing you on the eve of battle."

Divish smiled at her with that same gentle amusement. It prickled. "If it cheers my wife, I assure you that it is no inconvenience to me." He tapped a knuckle under Jana's chin, over-familiar and patronizing. Jana suspected that to such a man, she would always be twelve years old. "I shall make that clear to your uncle."

Jana resisted the urge to wipe at her own chin, as if at a stain or stench. She supposed that might be unfair to Divish, whose only crime was being as doddering as his wife was insipid. "Thank you, sir."

Divish's smile never wavered, and he stepped easily around Jana without another word. Bernard looked Jana up and down, at his most grim and toad-like. "I bid you to stay out of trouble, my lady."

At one time, Jana might have reached for her wit or her spite in reply. But those days were over. She might not have said so to anyone else, but Bernard had once taught her to hold a bow, and had once smiled kindly. "I find I haven't the spirit for trouble," she admitted quietly.

Unexpectedly, Bernard said, gruff, "I shall make that clear to your uncle, too."

It was an undeniable and unexpected lapse into tenderness. It hurt. Jana deserved so much worse.

Jana turned back in time to see Divish speak in a low voice to Stephanie, smile, and kiss his wife's hand. Then he swept from the room, the other men on his heels, their hurried footsteps echoing on stone. The women were left alone.

Stephanie broke the silence. "Come. You must both be tired from your journey. You'll take wine with me while your room is prepared." She caught Jana's eye again, and gave Jindra another kind smile. "Would you like that, Jindriska?"

Jindra kept her gaze down. "Aye, my lady." Her voice held no inflection. It was the worst sound that Jana had ever heard.

Jindra was safe. Jana clung to that. But Jindra's voice had sounded the same the night they met, when she'd been an empty shell of herself, the kicked dog without life. Jana had made her smile, made her laugh, brought her back. For the first and only time, her touch had made something, someone, better.

The cold stone walls of Talmberg shuddered, and drew in closer.

Stephanie led Jana and Jindra into her solar and bid them to sit, cluttering all the while like a hen. She even had a smile for the stupid dog, which was keeping close to Jindra like a small squire. "There was a horse race held not too long ago, Jana," Stephanie said, pouring the wine. "How you would have loved it!" She smiled with obvious hope. "I recall how you adore horses. Perhaps I can arrange another."

Jana smiled another tight smile, thinner and less convincing than the last. "Perhaps." Behind them, Jindra had crossed to the window, and was staring out of it.

"How long do you plan to stay?" Stephanie asked. "Or I should say, how long do you wish to stay? You are welcome for as long as you like, of course!"

Jana rubbed at her wrist, wiping the blood subtly on the inside of her sleeve. "I suppose that is up to my uncle."

Stephanie laughed. It was high and nervous. "Forgive me," she said. "I mustn't carry on so. I do fret when Divish leaves on such business, though I shouldn't."

Jindra was clutching the window's stone ledge, her knuckles white. From her seat, Jana could only catch a glimpse of Jindra's view: banners in Rattay and Talmberg's colors, and the sun shining on steel, a shifting mass of armor and blades, as the men marched away.

"That is our lot," Jana replied.

For the next hour, Stephanie chattered on and on about nothing of value or worth, as Jana drank the wine without tasting it. All the while, Jindra stared out the window, long after the men were out of sight, with a look of aching grief.

Lady Stephanie was as gracious as Jindra remembered. She showed Jindra and Jana to the chamber they would be sharing, not far from their hostess's own. "You've been pulled too thin, I think," she told Jindra. "I must insist that you rest. Jana and I can entertain ourselves, I'm sure."

Jindra nodded silently, though she shouldn't have bothered. It clearly wasn't a suggestion.

Jindra almost expected to hear them bar the door behind her. They didn't, but the heavy sound of wood on stone, the grind of metal hinges, was almost as bad as the click of a bolt, and just as final. Jindra was left alone with Mutt, and she looked over the room, feeling sluggish and slow.

It was small and very dark. There was a small hearth and candles, but they were unlit; in the day it was almost a cave, with meager light from a window so small that nobody could ever hope to squeeze through.

It was more like Johanka's cell than Jana's room in Pirkstein.

Jindra wanted to hate Lady Stephanie for her part in this. It would have been at Jana's bidding, after all, as a favor between noblewomen. Why else would a fine lady take the trouble to confine Jindra like a heretic, or a prisoner, or a rat?

But Jindra didn't have the energy. Lady Stephanie was kind and generous, and was all things that a lady should be. Jindra couldn't be angry with her. None of this was her fault.

And Jana…Jindra had refused to look at Jana for hours. She didn't know what would be worse to see: Jana looking away, like a coward, or meeting Jindra's eyes, shameless.

But hating Jana was unthinkable. Jindra wanted to hate someone, and the tendrils of her rage and stifled frustration looked for someplace to strike. But there was no knife, no hunt, no deer or man, no sword and arrows in the grove, no revenge or path forward. There wasn't even Jana's friendship to cling to.

Jindra had always been festering, and now the rot of her body had nowhere to go. It was poisoning her blood as surely as Black Peter's blade might have, as Runt's sour seed had once done.

Mutt whined beside her, as if her thoughts had a bad smell. But Jindra was spent. She stumbled forward, fell onto the unfamiliar, hard bed, and let sleep take her again.

She slept all day long. She woke off and on, restless and groaning, and found Mutt always curled beside her when she opened her eyes, steadfast and sweet. Jana was never there.

She was too exhausted for true nightmares, but not for their shadows. The taste of fear kept pulling her away, and the memory of hopeless struggle followed her; faces danced before she could catch the color of their eyes, voices slipped from her fingers before she could make out the words. Sparks flew from an anvil, when the metal went wrong.

When Jindra woke briefly in the late afternoon, she found food left on a plate by the bed: bread, sausages, a bit of roast pork with pepper and caraway, and a glass of wine to go with it. The rich, spiced smell of the pork turned her stomach, but she ate the bread and nibbled on the sausages, sharing them with Mutt. She gulped down the wine too fast, burning her throat, before lying back down and sleeping again.

More faces drifted across the ceiling and behind her closed eyes. Erik. Ma. Istvan Toth, smiling. All of them watched her, arms outstretched. But she couldn't reach them, because she was far away, watching from a distance, pinned to the ground by hands and by chains. She was tumbling from a boat into dark water, failing and helpless, with no rope or hand to pull her out.

She tasted bitter wormwood on her tongue, heard Ma's urging voice, and drank deeply.

When Jindra woke again, night had fallen. Mutt was curled in front of the hearth, where a fire had been lit, along with all the candles. The small room danced with warm colors, and for a moment Jindra was back in Jana's room, on one of the nights Jindra and Jana spent wrapped in each other; she was in Erik's chambers, stifled with secrets and danger; she was behind the rug in the doorway, as it cast the world in a red glow.

Jindra wasn't alone anymore. The mattress dipped as someone sat on the edge of the bed, and Jindra caught the barest scent of rosemary, clove, and wine.

Jindra didn't bother to pretend she was asleep. Jana knew her too well for that.

"Can I bring you anything?" Jana sounded anxious. "What do you need?"

Jindra needed so many things. "My mother."

The room rang with silence. Jindra felt a fierce, cruel rush of satisfaction, to know it was a wish Jana could never grant, even if she tried all her life.

"I need my mother, or my father's sword." Jindra pushed herself up and brushed her long hair from her face. She didn't bother to soften her expression for Jana, whatever might be found there. "You can't give me either, can you?"

Jana had the gall to flinch. Then her face became pinched, as it had been in the old days, when she'd been an adder in the road. "You were never going to have justice, anyway," she snapped. "You've been lucky before."

It was an insult, and Jindra took it as such. "You think it's been luck?"

Jana looked at her hands and tried to huff, like Sir Hanush might. It was a poor display.

"You helped me." Jindra wished she could hiss, accuse, condemn, but all she heard was misery. "You believed me. We – what changed? How could you change?"

"I –" Jana wouldn't meet her eye. She curled in on her body, hunching over and drawing herself in under unseen weight, and Jindra recognized the look of suffering. Jindra couldn't ignore it, and felt her heart twist and yearn. Jana's pain had always called to hers for help, for comfort.

But Jindra was in pain, too. It hurt worse than finding Bianca's body; worse than watching Johanka bleed to death. It was worse than tugging at the bloated bodies of her parents without the strength to bury them; worse even than staring up at the rain, on her back, dying in the mud.

Jindra shook her head, disbelief and denial. "You swore – "

"I swore no binding oath, as I recall," Jana sneered, or tried to. She turned her face to the wall, rubbing at her nose. "Perhaps you ought to – to have thought of that."

Jindra watched Jana sway slightly. Her nose was red, and her cheeks were flushed and slightly damp; her eyes were bright and rimmed red, hazy and heated. "Jesus. You're drunk."

Jana shot her a weak glare. "I am not."

Jindra made a small sound of contempt, and pushed herself roughly away from the bed, up onto her feet. She crossed to the hearth and stared into the flames, even as Mutt raised his head and snorted softly beside her. The embers were burning low already, from a fire long past its strength. Jindra saw, and smelled, Skalitz within.

"I had him," she snarled quietly. "I had him. My father's sword was there, and I could have killed him if – "

"You'd die in the attempt," Jana said, blunt and cruel, as if it mattered to her, or to anyone.

Jindra turned, the fire at her back. "Aye." That was satisfying too – hurting Jana with her own pain. "I probably would."

Jana's eyes widened in shocked understanding, and she shot to her feet. "Your sword isn't worth dying for!"

"Maybe it is!" Jindra's voice filled the room. "You wanted blood – that's what you told me! Why not – "

"Shut up!" Jana yelled. Her voice filled the room, too. No noblewoman's cool order, but a woman's simple fury. "Don't say that again! Stop it!" She bared her teeth. "This is why I need to protect you, even from your own stupid, foolish –"

"Stop trying!" Jindra's voice cracked, and she lashed out, aiming to cut. "You'd protect me by locking me up?" Jana flinched again, as Jindra knew she would. "Are nobles all alike? Will you give me to Radzig next?"

"Never." Jana's voice also cracked. They kept mirroring each other. "I would never. Jindra, I promise you –"

"Your promises don't mean much to me." Jindra curled her lip with all the disgust she didn't, couldn't, could never feel, but wanted to, wished she could. "You swore no oaths, remember?"

Jana sucked in a gasp of shocked hurt. It was too much to bear the weight of, along with everything else.

"I don't want a noble's protection. You're my –" Jindra broke off, swallowed, her throat too tight to speak. "You're my friend. If no one else…I thought I would always have you."

Jana sucked in another sharp breath. "You have me," she choked. "My God, Jindra, you have all of me. But I can't do anything as your friend!"

Jindra's heart split open. "You did everything." Her voice broke on tears. "We had everything. We had each other, and the hunt and the grove, and –"

"No." Jana closed her eyes. "The grove is gone."

Jindra stared at her, uncomprehending. "What?"

Jana swallowed, and Jindra heard her throat stick with the effort. "I went there last night. We've been discovered. Found out. Black Peter was there, pawing like a common – following your scent after the tourney."

The fire cracked, another log crumbling to nothing. Jindra stared and stared, as Jana sat heavily on the bed, her hands balled into fists on the thick blankets.

"Don't you understand?" Jana whispered, broken. "I can never – we can never go back. It's over. Black Peter will have gone to the bailiff, no doubt, and once Hanush returns from this raid he'll hear of it. I'm sure he'll think that young tourney boy has been lingering, and he'll raze the grove to the ground to find him. Or maybe Black Peter will hide there himself, waiting to slaughter the boy he thinks you are."

Jana looked back up, and her eyes burned with fierce, unyielding defiance, even as they filled with tears. Her true self, at last. "There's nowhere safe in this world for girls like you and I. Nowhere. I will never be sorry for protecting you from it. I will never regret it. You can't make me."

Jindra nearly staggered under a terrible new blow. The grove was Jana's, where she had never taken another living soul; it was her heart, given to Jindra freely and gladly, where Jindra had learned to smile again. It was more their home then Pirkstein was, and now…this?

Jindra tumbled through guilt and fear and blame and horror, with grim understanding at the end. But she was still so – angry. It churred beneath the heartbreak, beneath the terrible nothing of her helplessness. This, she realized, was also like the first night in Rattay, when she had been wrapped in a fog of pain, and only the hateful spite of a spoiled, silly girl had broken through that fog and made her breathe again.

"God damn you," Jindra groaned quietly.

"I'm already damned," Jana said. Her voice dripped with hatred – and Jindra knew it was not meant for her. "And now you see me for the wholeness of myself. Bleak, isn't it?"

No matter what had happened between them, Jindra couldn't let that stand. "I don't think less of you. Not for your father."

Jana laughed softly. It was the same as Adela's laugh on the way to Sasau: empty and hopeless. "If you hadn't made me so angry, I doubt that I would have ever told you."

Jindra sat on the bed beside her. The mattress sagged beneath their weight, dipping them towards one another until their hips touched.

Jana clasped her hands together in her lap. "Don't blame me for wanting to keep the one good thing I have safe."

"I'm not a thing."

"That's not what I mean, you clothead girl." Jana shook her head, frustrated. "You've protected me. You've…saved me. You've – not just…in more – bah!" Jana threw a hand up, embarrassed and bitter. "I should save you for a change. I must."

But she had saved Jindra. In the camp, when Toth's throat was within reach, Jindra had let the rug fall from her hand and left the world in that endless red glow. Johanka was dead, and the last thing the Virgin let her see was Jindra killing…and Jindra had chosen Jana over Skalitz, and over the command of God.

And Jana had betrayed her. Jana had locked them both away. It should have been easy to blame her. "You could have waited for me." It was what Jindra could not accept and could never understand. It was where the knife cut deepest. "You should have."

"I didn't know if you were coming back." Jana brushed a hand over her flushed cheek, wiping impatiently at a tear. "If you hadn't – I would have –"

What would Jindra have done in Jana's place? The rot in her chest grew cold, lanced from anger into sadness, but she didn't know where to place that sadness, and where it might rest its head. She didn't know what she was mourning, and how it should be buried.

All that remained was silence. Mutt, with the wisdom of all animals, kept by the hearth with a little snuffle, as the space between Jana and Jindra filled with too many unspoken words.

It would be so simple to reach out and take Jana's hand, or for Jana to reach out and take Jindra's. Jindra would never be a dog yearning for a master's caress, no matter what anyone thought; but she was ever weak and ever aching, and she looked glumly at Jana's hands.

Then she frowned. The sleeve of Jana's yellow gown was discolored, smudged reddish brown around the edge.

"You're bleeding." Jindra touched Jana's wrist gently. "When did that happen?"

Jana blinked and raised her head with wide, uncomprehending eyes, as if she had been asked a question in Greek. Her mouth opened and closed. "I –"

Elsewhere in the castle, there was a shout.

Jindra and Jana both turned towards it. It hadn't sounded frightened or alarmed, but Jindra's skin prickled in silent warning. After a pause, it was followed by a low, distant rumble.

Jindra was already on her feet. "That's the gate!"

"Have they returned already?" Jana jumped up as Jindra dashed for the door. "Jindra, wait!"

Jindra nearly got lost in the unfamiliar castle, sprinting through the dark halls with Jana on her heels and Mutt close behind, barking in excitement. By the time they reached the stairs to the inner bailey, the gate had been raised, and the small number of guards were ushering the newcomers inside. Jindra paused on the top stair, trying to make out details, but the four men were obscured by distance and the narrow mouth of the gate. They carried no weapons and wore no armor, and their clothing was dark. Lady Stephanie was with them, speaking quietly.

They looked like messengers, sent ahead of the men with news. But Jindra's heart was beating out of her chest as only a heart tempered by violence could. Jana must have felt it too, because her hand flew out and clutched at Jindra's sleeve.

But Jindra was still bitter and betrayed, and the warning touch only angered her. She shook herself free and ran forward, as Jana darted after her with an impatient hiss. Jindra was so impatient that she only dimly noticed that Mutt had frozen, as still as a statue, and didn't follow them.

"Every Christian should help his neighbor in his time of need," Lady Stephanie was saying, her voice growing clearer. One of the men walked beside her, head bent close to hers.

"True," he said. "Especially now, when treachery and deception surround us on all sides."

That voice. Jindra knew it. It was in her nightmares and in her memory, one and the same – she knew it –

Jindra barreled into the ring of torches and skid to a halt, so sudden that Jana nearly crashed into her back. At the sight of them, the man at Lady Stephanie's side paused, and looked up. The torchlight cast his face into both darkness and warm flickering light, a half-known secret; and as his bright eyes met Jindra's, he gave a languid, satisfied smile.

"When the devil lurks in the shadows," Istvan Toth said, drawing a dagger, "one fears taking a guest into his house."

Greet amiably each that you will encounter. This does not cost you much, and many hold in much greater regard one who greets willingly. One who is miserly with his greetings is not generous with his giving.

- from Le Chastoiement des Dames (13th century), a manual of instruction on courtly behavior for noblewomen, by Robert de Blois, translated by Jaidyn Williams.

Chapter Text

Men were dying in the courtyard.

Screams drifted through the windows as Jindra, Jana, and Lady Stephanie were forced into the great hall of the castle, pushed and herded like livestock. A few terrified servants – two men, and three women – were shoved into the room after them, and cowered in a corner.

If Toth had joined them, Jindra would have already lunged and tried to tear out his throat. But he had vanished, and instead five bandits with bloodied swords stood in the room and blocked the door, leering.

Jindra recognized all of them. They'd been among the guards posted at the inner walls of the bandit camp, the closest to Erik's quarters and the most trusted. Not one of them seemed to recognize her in return. None had noticed the invisible bathhouse girl slinking through their camp like a rat.

Jindra felt viciously satisfied, even if it did her no good now. These men were stupid animals, and she had fooled them once. If she kept her head, she could fool them again.

But –

Her blood roared in her ears. The room was narrowing. She was filled to the brim with blind anger, and she could only hold two thoughts inside of her, banging like a drum, calling her to war: men were dying, and Istvan Toth was somewhere in the castle, holding her father's sword.

The bandits hadn't bothered to bind her hands. Arrogant. She and Jana had nothing, but Lady Stephanie had a knife on her belt for her food. Jindra could make a grab for it, run forward, and –

"Jindra," Jana hissed. "Jindra."

Jindra turned to glare, and found Jana with her eyes locked on the men.

"You can't kill all five of them," Jana whispered. It was both gratifying and enraging that Jana could read her thoughts and her open face, even now. "But they look stupid. We can find another way." She raised her voice. "We'll not cringe from these motherless bastards!"

The men chuckled ominously, but Lady Stephanie pulled Jana back. She'd been breathing like a panicked, cornered animal, but had managed to regain her composure with a clear struggle.

"Be silent." She was surprisingly firm, even as her voice shook. "We must be calm."

"Calm?" Jana repeated, indignant even now. "I will not endure –"

"Think, Jana. If our men have been captured or worse – "

"Ridiculous," Jana snapped, her nostrils flaring. "Hanush would never be defeated by a dirty pack of mutts." She glanced at Jindra. "But why this plot? Talmberg is hardly the greatest prize."

Lady Stephanie shook her head, almost with pity. Her eyes were locked on the men, too. "We are the prizes, my dear."

Jana's eyes went wide with understanding; Jindra went cold. "They dare," Jana snarled. In her face Jindra saw no fear, only outrage and hateful, white hot fury. She was back in the woods, held between two Cumans, defiant and brave even in her panic.

That's my girl, Jindra thought, fierce.

And then she didn’t think anything at all, because the door swung open, and Istvan Toth entered the room.

"Well, my good ladies." He spread an arm wide and bent at the waist, in a mockery of courtesy. "I suppose we'd best get comfortable."

Jindra lunged with an animal cry. One of the bandits caught her roughly around the waist and wrenched her back, throwing her with such force that she slammed into the long table hard enough to bruise. She scrambled at the edge, and would have thrown herself forward again, snarling, but Jana grabbed her arm and pulled. Jana, her Jana, with her archer's strength, her nails biting even through the silk and wool, was the only person in the world who could have stopped her.

Toth looked mildly amused. "Good God," he murmured. "If your father could see this."

Jindra let out a half-scream, and yanked so hard that Jana cursed and dug in her heels. How dare he talk of Pa, lying dead in the cold ground and food for the worms, how dare he –

"This one won't behave," Toth remarked, almost lazy. "Bind her."

Jindra's vision scattered and the world flashed red, and it took three men to grab for her, hold her flailing arms, and bind her hands, twisted awkwardly behind her back. It took the other two to hold back Jana, who shrieked loud enough to crack glass. Lady Stephanie simply stood and watched grimly.

Jindra's mind was on fire. She was pulled two directions, ripping into her sides like butcher's hooks. Her heart screamed in her mother's voice, urging her to be still, to think; but Istvan Toth's hand was resting on the pommel of her father's sword, hanging from his traitorous, whoring belt, and every bone, every muscle, every breath screamed, kill him, kill him, kill him!

Once Jindra was bound, Toth jerked his head at the servants. "Kill the men," he said, cold and flat. "Make sport of the women if you must, but do it where I can't hear."

The world rang with fresh horror, but it was Lady Stephanie who spoke. "You will not harm my household."

The tremor in her voice was gone. Jana had spoken much the same way in Rattay, with a noblewoman's cool tone; but this was different, more practiced. "Are you a common man, with a bandit's common violence?" Lady Stephanie asked. "Do you expect my husband to match your conduct with civility?"

"No civility in war, my lady." Toth's smile was the most mocking yet. "But if it appeases the mistress of Talmberg, very well." He turned to his men. "Put them in the house in the courtyard."

Jindra was barely capable of coherent thought, and she was confused for half a moment when the servants were pulled from the room and she stayed behind. She must have looked the part of a lady, dressed in Jana's overgown of green silk, two inches too long and too loose in the bust.

She was lucky. She was guilty. She hadn't earned this safety.

Toth watched with disinterest as the servants were dragged away. He was standing by the windows. At least one of them was wide enough for a man to fall through, and if Jindra could run, catch him off guard, and push, she might topple them both –

"You bastard," she growled. The torchlight was gleaming off of the hilt of the sword, and it called to her, pleaded with her, begged. Unlike the bandits' swords, there was no blood on it. "You thieving, murderous bastard."

Toth finally looked at her again. He was almost puzzled beneath his amusement, until he followed her line of sight. His smile grew, as if he had found the answer to a riddle.

"I see." He ran a gloved finger over the grip and guard, where the engravings flickered like sunlight on water. "I had wondered. I was told it was taken from a girl ravaged in the road."

Jindra refused to flinch, but the sound that came out of her wasn't human. Next to her, Jana made an identical sound, but quieter, and more punched-out.

Toth sounded like he were about to laugh. "How it must have grieved your father to hear of it."

It hurt so much – it was awful – because it was true. To think of what Pa would have thought, what he would have said if he knew, if he'd been watching when Jindra was shamed mere feet from where his body bloated and rot.

"My father is dead," Jindra rasped.

Whatever Toth saw in Jindra's twisted face did not frighten or startle him. His smile cracked open wider. "You don't know, do you?"

Jindra didn't care what he meant or what she didn't know, and wouldn't be baited. She willed her eyes to become daggers, for her hatred to seep from her like Ma's belladonna, willed God to finally hear her and strike Toth dead.

But Toth didn't die, because God never listened. "I confess that I've forgotten your name," he said, shrugging. "Hardly matters, but –"

"It's Jindriska."

Sound vanished from the world, muffled beneath a blizzard. Toth turned, and Jindra's body awoke in a silent scream. Standing in the doorway, looking past Toth to Jindra, his white armor splattered with blood, was Erik.

Jindra stepped in front of Jana with immediate, unthinking instinct, shielding her.

Erik and Jindra stared at one another, as the air thrummed as it had in the bandit camp, in the ruined house that smelled of cinnamon and chamomile. Jindra had circled Black Peter in the tourney yard with her blade raised high and the scent of poison hanging heavy, and this was the same. For an instant they were locked like two scavengers over carrion, or two roebucks, antlers caught.

"Jindriska," Toth repeated slowly. Jindra couldn't read his expression without looking away from Erik, so it remained a mystery; but his voice was very quiet. He was staring at Erik, too. "I recall now, yes."

Erik shook his head slowly, once, as if in denial; and then he shook his head a second time, brisk and short, as if to wake from a dream. He tore his eyes away, and Jindra breathed again. "I – saw her. In the camp. She was among the whores."

Toth barked out a single, incredulous, delighted laugh. "His own daughter!" Jindra felt his eyes return to her, and knew them to be cruel. "How much can he care for you, really? Sending you into danger and in a whore's clothes, and you don't even know."

Were Jindra in her right mind, were she not smelling the fire of Skalitz and the oil in Erik's hair, she would have been able to make sense of that. But Toth could have been speaking in tongues, and the snarling pit of her body was too full to make room for confusion.

Toth crossed to where Erik filled the doorway. All he did was incline his head, but Jindra saw him take Erik's chin without taking it; she saw him touch his cheek without touching it. Ghosts of ghosts, swimming in front of her, memory filling where words would not form. "We have things well in hand here. You know what to do. Give my regards to Sir Havel."

The name tugged at something in Jindra's memory. Very far away, Lady Stephanie gasped softly.

Erik hesitated. If Jindra had not been sharing his heartbeat, she wouldn't have noticed; but his eyes swept the room, the gathered men, the women, and Toth himself. His eyes flashed, and within them Jindra saw the rug over the doorframe, and the world's red glow.

Then he nodded his head, turned on his heel, and was gone.

Toth clapped his hands together. "Now, then." He turned his cruel smile to Lady Stephanie. "I imagine Sir Divish is discovering our ruse about now. When he does return, I trust he will think twice before breaking down the walls with you inside."

Lady Stephanie raised her chin and didn't waver. "As I said. He shall match your conduct."

Toth hummed, and stepped closer: slow, deliberate, and light, not unlike a dancer, or a thief, or a man fighting a duel he knew he could win. "I admit that I only expected to find you here, my lady. But your young companions have nothing to fear. When your lords arrive, if they do as I ask, none of you will be harmed."

Toth looked at Jindra again. "Then again," he mused. "Radzig told me, but perhaps he cares for you less than I thought."

Jindra felt like a mouse, toyed with by a cat who wasn't even hungry. What had Sir Radzig told him? On the very day that Skalitz had burned and died, had Sir Radzig pointed her out to Toth, made some claim to her, plotting even then?

But her heart knew that wasn't right. It wasn't right at all.

Jindra tried to sneer. "Sir Radzig doesn't care about me." That wasn't right, either. It didn't fit. Nothing fit.

Toth laughed again. It sounded different this time: this was a man who loved to laugh, who found little cause for it and clung to it now. He darted forward and bent down, until he and Jindra were nearly nose to nose; Jindra, to her shame, stepped back.

"Radzig Kobyla is your father, girl." His voice dripped satisfaction. "And for your sake, I hope he holds you in some value, or you hold none to me."

Jindra's mind lost its balance and tumbled from Jana's window, falling away.

In the breach, her heart stirred, and for the first time in days, looked to something other than rage or despair. Her heart, knowing, aching, lonely, still bleeding, reached for truth and stole denial, offered no moment of rejection. It was pitiless. Her heart saw Sir Radzig on the walls, staring into the clouds. Her heart felt his embrace and heard his voice in the garden, and saw him bent in grief. Her heart said –

Then her mind fell to the earth, and recoiled. Pa dying all over again, rotting anew, never able to rest. Hanush and Radzig and even Divish, holding her in Rattay and in Talmberg, kept close and kept away, not for Jana's sake after all. Whispers, favors, Sir Radzig's kindness, wrapped into plots and secrets beyond her knowing. Ma, her Ma, her mother, dishonored, discarded, filling Jindra's pockets with tansy and pennyroyal. And Jindra herself, the fool, the child, caught in the middle: a secret, a shame, a crime.

Toth stepped back, still smiling; always smiling.

Pa awake in the dark, tracing Ma's face with his fingertips. Ma living in the shadow of a lord's castle. Jindra couldn't –

"My father is dead!" But her shout was weak, and everyone heard it; weak and broken in two places, on two words.

Toth clicked his tongue, as if sympathetic or disappointed.

"Enough." Lady Stephanie spoke again; impatient now. "What are your intentions beyond malice?"

"My intentions?" Toth repeated, as if it were obvious. "I intend to take everything. A great void is left when the plunder is finished." He gestured at Jindra. "Jindriska here can attest to that."

Even through her stupor, to see Skalitz reduced to the wave of a hand was enough to make Jindra stagger forward. One of the bandits, tallest and ugliest, pushed her back again.

Toth ignored her. "Your lord husband will arrive and bang on the door, but I have more men, and more will be coming. The only force capable of defeating me is Sigismund's, and he pays me quite well." He bowed in another mockery. "Meet the new lord of the realm."

Behind Jindra, Jana let out a high, hysterical guffaw. Toth's eyes snapped to her.

"You may kill, rape, and burn as much as you want," Jana said. Her voice was incredulous. It was biting. "That isn't rule. A tyrant's cowardice would never last."

"Jana," Lady Stephanie warned, hushed.

Jindra understand Jana's reaction. It gave her back her courage, and refocused her anger. "A man like you will never rule here," she spat.

Toth snorted. But he was looking at Jana now, considering her for the first time. Jindra's stomach clenched uneasily. "Noble ideals, my lady," he said. "But I'm not the first to plunder land for my own taking, and emerge with the prize. How many lords have done the same for your own drunken king?"

"The rightful king," Jana retorted, always so bold. "Better than your usurper's greed."

Toth's eyes narrowed. He wasn't angry. It was a look of study, and steady calculation. Through Jindra's anguish and the lash of pain, her heart sped up and warned her of danger.

Stop looking at her, she thought. Her mouth went dry. Stop looking.

"Though I suppose you have a point," Toth said. "War is such a nasty business. Taking the realm is one thing, and keeping it is quite another." He looked Jana up and down, as one might examine a horse. "Lady Jana, isn't it? Lord Capon's only child."

Jana understood before Jindra did. She jerked away, as she had from Sir Hanush's slap.

Jana, ward of the Lords of Leipa, unmarried and bringing Pirkstein with her dowery, whose father's lands might pass to her son.

Jindra didn't remember moving; she didn't remember doing anything. But the next moment she was nearly across the room as Toth backed away, wrenching her arm nearly out of its socket as her rough guard scrambled for her, as she screamed, "Get away from her!"

Toth let the tallest and ugliest of his men wrestle Jindra, and kept looking at Jana, even as he tsked and said, in a voice of nearly genuine promise, "Don't fear for your mistress. I'm hardly about to take her roughly on the floor."

Jana said something – Jindra had no idea what, because her blood roared and roared, urged her, hating, howling, snapping and needing – "Shut up!" she bellowed. A second man now grasped Jindra by the arms; she barely noticed, surging forward and struggling, gnashing like something gone mad. Her voice cracked with more than anger: panic, betraying her. “Touch her and I’ll tear your fucking heart from your body!”

"Not like Runt," Toth pressed. He was playing. "Though I got the impression he was quite pleased with you."

"You are hateful, sir," Lady Stephanie said, with her own cold venom, "for hate's sake."

Jindra's panic collected into a solid mass; wall and shield and sword, beside Jana and in front of her. Look at me! It was more than a thought, or a wish, or a demand. It was what Jindra needed. It was what she became. Don't look at her! Look at me!

So Jindra laughed, as if she were proud and pitying. But it came out unhinged; overloud, bitter, savage. "You want to rule," she bit out. "You think you're in command. But you don't even know who killed Runt."

Toth didn't seem surprised. But he did look at her.

Jindra would say anything to keep him looking. "I killed Runt." To say it openly, to declare it; it was a battle cry, a war hammer. "I killed your men at Pribyslavitz. I killed that man in your camp."

She struggled forward again, until one of the men cursed; Toth's smile was steady. She hated him. "I told Hanush and Radzig everything I found, but I wasn't Radzig's spy." Jindra's lips curled back, a feral horse before the bite. "I did it all for myself. And now Radzig is coming to crush you, and when he does I will take back my father's sword and kill you with it!"

Toth listened to her pant for a moment. Then he took Jindra roughly by the chin; she smelled the leather of his gloves. "Your father –" his voice grew tight for the first time, "– your real father – knows that the stronger dog fucks the bitches. You had best get used to it."

Jindra tried to bite his hand, but he drew it back before she could. "You sold yourself to the man with the most coin," Jindra spat. "Between us, you're the bitch. And a sodomite."

Toth snorted softly. "Where did you learn such an ugly word?"

Jindra thought of nothing but making him bleed. She needed him to know that she had seen the open, pink throbbing of a wolf's tender flesh. It was the hunter's instinct, guided by Jana's hand.

Jindra smiled with her teeth bared. "Sweet boy," she crooned. She poured tenderness into her voice, as if it were Jana she spoke to. Soft, open, longing and aching, and mocking him, mocking him, mocking him. "Open your mouth."

The air grew very still.

Then Toth grasped Jindra by the neck and slammed her face into the ground so hard that her world rang with thunder.

Jana screamed. Jindra was too dazed to understand it, and too frantic beneath –

Toth put his knee between her shoulders. Not pinned, not pinned, not pinned, not pinned – ! "I possess something that both Divish and Hanush hold very dear." His voice grew rough, silk over untempered iron. "You, on the other hand…" His knee twisted as he threw his full weight onto Jindra's back, as all the air left her in a muffled grunt. "As I said. I can't really be sure if your father cares for you at all."

Toth wrapped Jindra's long dark braid around a gloved hand, and yanked. Her head snapped back, bent at a merciless angle. "There are ways to test how dear you are to him," he hissed, his mouth very close to her ear.

Jindra heard him draw a dagger from its sheath.

Jana exploded like a rabid animal, thrashing in the corner of Jindra's vision. Toth pulled her braid harder, and Jindra understood. Don't make her watch, Jindra thought, half blind, half mad. Jana shouldn't watch – please –

God never listened. Toth crushed Jindra's writhing body to the floor, put his blade to the base of her plaited hair, and cut. And cut. And cut.

Let me up! Jindra didn't know if she was screaming it or thinking it. She didn't know if she had a voice at all. She was no killer, no knight, no wolf, not even a dog – just a girl, pinned, ruined, again, again, not again –

She couldn't twist out of Toth's grip. She couldn't see his face. All she could see was the floor, the blur of Jana's frenzy, and the very edge of a sword's scabbard; it scorned her.

In her dream the sword tumbles from her hands into darkness, covered in her blood –

Let me up!

It was roughly done. Jindra struggled, her face scraping and dragging against the unforgiving stone, but Toth was heavy and his hands were hard, and all the breath was shoved out of her lungs –

She is in Skalitz and the world is pain and pain and pain and she is facedown in the mud instead of looking at the rain – and her lungs fill with water and shit and Ma's tonic of pennyroyal and her eyes can't see –

The sound of her hair being cut was impossibly loud, and it ripped like flesh –

The tender open girl in Skalitz is ripped asunder and Jindra screams and watches and Jana screams and watches and they are one body one girl one creature and Jana shouldn't watch –

Toth's blade caught on her scalp and he tore at what he couldn't cut, as Jindra was smeared against the ground like rotten fruit beneath her shoes – the world had too much color, too many smells, not red and black and colorless rage, but vivid, helpless fear –

Runt is there, Runt is there, Runt is there, Runt is there – sour, brutal, blood in his teeth, his skull a red pulp, a club that crushes her ribs and a laugh that never ends, he stinks of the grave and gore pours from his mouth and she has failed –

And Bianca screams –

The cruel touch fell away.

Toth stood, and took his weight with him. Jindra finally gulped in a full breath of air, and then two, and found herself back on the cold floor of Talmberg, and not in the mud after all. She began to shake so violently that her teeth clacked together. Her bound hands ached, her wrists burned from the ropes, and her shoulders screamed in protest. She wasn't in Skalitz. It hurt too much to be Skalitz.

Slowly, so slowly, she managed to sit up.

Jana was still screaming, high and tormented, restrained by one of the rough men while Lady Stephanie spoke to her, loud and urgent, in words that seemed garbled. Jindra wanted to tell Jana to be calm, to tell her that she was all right, that everything would be all right; but when she opened her mouth, only heaving, wrenching gasps came out of it.

Toth stepped back, illuminated by fire. He held Jindra's long braid in his hand, less cut than hacked, scraggly and uneven, hanging from his grip like a dead snake. Jindra's head throbbed and spun, and she felt blood seeping from where the dagger had cut her in the struggle, and dripping from her nose, crushed as it had been against the stone floor. She realized, horrified anew, that the blood was mixing with her tears.

Toth was panting. A few strands of sandy brown hair had pulled loose from beneath his chaperon, and hung in front of his flashing eyes; there was a sheen of sweat on his face, shining in the firelight.

He wasn't a wolf. He was a man like any other, undone by his passion. Jindra was starved of victories, and she latched onto it with spiteful greed.

Toth stared at her a moment longer than he needed to, and then tossed the braid at one of his men. "Leave it outside the walls," he spat. "When they come, make sure Radzig sees it."

Then Toth took a breath of his own, and slipped a mask of disinterest on his face. He smoothed back his hair and smoothed away his passion with it, as if he had never been provoked and felt nothing but arrogance.

Jindra, for her part, felt nothing but hatred. She imagined his throat giving way beneath her teeth and the warm gush of his blood; imagined him dying, the way a man could die.

She found her voice. "Rot in hell," she snarled.

Jana kept screaming.

It was the longest night of Jana's life.

The three of them – Jana, Jindra, and Stephanie – spent the long wait until dawn in Stephanie's own chamber, sitting on the floor. It might have been an odd thing, to huddle on the ground with the useless lady of Talmberg as if they were all young girls of the same age, but Jana hardly cared. She hardly looked at Stephanie at all.

Jindra was all the mattered.

No one spoke. Stephanie dabbed gently at Jindra's split lip with a wet rag, dipped in a bowl of cool water, slowly tinging pink with Jindra's blood. Jindra endured it without a sound, leaning her heavy head on Jana's shoulder. She never flinched, and stared straight ahead as she had on the long ride to Talmberg, trapped in the back of a wagon. But her eyes had stared at nothing then, and had been dull, lifeless things; now they saw too much, caught in pain and memory that Jana could only guess at.

And her face. There were bruises, already dark and blossoming, and she had bled from her nose and her torn lip. Her hands were still bound, twisted and restrained behind her back, a final, painful insult on top of all the rest. But worst of all was her her hair, her beautiful brown hair, burnished bronze in the sun, curling softly beneath Jana's fingers in the dark and pressed to her lips.

Toth had been brutal. What hair remained was patchy, cut too close to the scalp in some places and left too long in others, dangling in ragged strands past Jindra's chin. She was bleeding where the cuts had been careless. It made her look like a woman dying from plague, or a shamed adulteress, or like one of the heretical condemned. Men sheared sheep with more care.

Jana had never known hatred like this. She thought she had hated Hanush, in a child's way, and had spitefully dreamed of pushing him down the stairs or hunting him in the woods; but that wasn't hatred, was it? It was anger, and a cry to look, look, look at her. That wasn't the same.

The closest she could imagine was the morning she had woken and hated her father so much that she'd wanted him dead. But she hadn't truly known what it meant, and at eight years old, didn't have violent images to put to it. There was no fantasy or pleasure. This was different. She wanted Toth dead with breathless desperation, and imagined the ruin of his body, a boar's spilling entrails, with arresting clarity; she finally felt like a butcher, instead of a hunter, kept from her true work.

But Jana reserved the worst hatred for herself. Jindra had always returned from her hunts, her adventures, her kills, so clean and whole. But here was the evidence: Jindra had always been in more danger than Jana had known. Jana was even more selfish than she'd realized.

Jindra should be home. She'd be safe in Jana's bed now, or safe at the mill with Theresa. She would be better off anywhere else.

Jana put pressure against a seeping cut just above Jindra's ear; pushed her silk sleeve against it, stained with her own blood already. She swallowed several times before she attempted to speak. "Jindra, I'm…"

Jindra blinked away her memories, and looked up into Jana's face. "Mutt," she whispered. Her voice was rough, as if she'd never stopped screaming. "D'you think he's all right?"

Jana stared at her incredulously. "The dog?" she blurted, fond and frustrated. "Of course you would worry about the damn dog." Jana ran a soothing hand across Jindra's head, smoothing back hair that was no longer there. "He's fine, I'm sure. He probably slipped out of the castle and is off chasing rabbits and rats, merry as you please, waiting for you."

Jindra nodded, and leaned her head on Jana's shoulder again. It was so trusting, and so without malice, when Jana deserved nothing but disgust. Jana leaned closer in turn, helpless, even as her chest grew tight and a useless apology bubbled up like a retch – but Jindra spoke first, turning her face into the silk of Jana's gown. "It's my fault."

Jana faltered. "What?"

"It's my fault." Jindra's voice trembled. She meant it. "I killed Zby – a man in the camp. They must have known someone had come and spied, and they changed their plan –"

"Stop it," Jana begged. "Please…please, stop." Jana would give anything to pull Jindra against her chest, to cradle her and be cradled; but she had no right, after what she had done. Jindra's bound arms were proof. "It's my fault that we're here." Jana's eyes filled with tears; shameful, shameful, a child's tantrum, not a woman's penance. "We should be back in Rattay. All I've ever done is cause you pain. I've hurt you from the day we met."

Jindra lifted her head. "Jana."

"I'm not your safety," Jana moaned. "I'm your doom."

"Jana." Jindra frowned at her. And then, a miracle occurred: Jindra shifted up, and butted her head against Jana's red nose hard enough to make her yelp. Her voice, raspy though it was, wasn't cold. It was tinged with gentle, tired, simple affection, just as Jindra's blood tinged the water in the bowl. "You little fool."

The relief of it! Never had a girl been less worthy of an olive branch. But Jana let out a watery, hiccupping laugh, too weak to reject it. "I hate you," she said, soft and bordering on hysterical.

It would be an insult to Jindra to hope for forgiveness. But Jana ached for peace at least. She sniffed heavily, and placed a hand gently against Jindra's jaw, rubbing her thumb where there were no bruises. For a moment they were lying in a meadow of flowers, awash in perfume and sunshine, where Jana might spend hours, a lifetime, watching Jindra sleep.

Jana dared to hope that they might have that peace again; that she might find the words for it, and understand its name.

Then Jindra straightened, and Jana's hand fell away. "I'm not giving up," Jindra said. Through the pain, she was still stubborn, still determined, and Jana's relief grew sharp enough to be triumph. "I have to do something. Anything."

"And so you shall. We both will." It felt good to decide, to strike, and put doubt to rest. "Toth's blood first?"

Jindra didn't smile. But she set her jaw, and her face cleared at Jana's open understanding. "Aye," she growled. "His first."

Jana would have sworn another oath to her right then, as she once had in front of her hearth. But Stephanie spoke up first, quiet and even. Jana had forgotten she was there. "What good would it do you, Jindriska?"

"What good?" Jindra's eyes flashed with anger, unashamed and impertinent – oh, how Jana ached with jagged pride to see it, how she – she – "My parents – everyone I ever knew was slaughtered. Someone needs to die for it! He does!"

If Stephanie were shocked, she recovered quickly. "And will his guards be next? All five of them?"

"Yes." Jindra snarled.

"And the five after that? The dozens in the keep, guarding every door?" Stephanie set the bowl and rag down, and her frown deepened the lines of her face. "You'll find no mercy with failure. They will not spare you as they might Jana or I."

Jana felt Jindra's groan of frustration as her own, in this castle of shrinking walls and blood and hellsmoke. Her patience with Stephanie finally met its end.

"Jindra is no coward," she sneered. "Nor am I. I don't intent to accept my fate quietly, unlike some."

Stephanie sighed patiently. "They could have done much worse."

"Worse?" Jana's shocked fury rang like a bell. "I doubt Jindra would say so! And lest we forget that the bastard threatened to rape me on the damn floor."

"But he didn't," Stephanie pressed. "You're not a silly girl, Jana. You know what the rules are. Toth is following them. We were unmolested. Even my servants were."

Jana felt the blood draining from her face, leaving her pale with rage. "My Jindra was not! Look at her!" Stephanie had always been weak, small, and stupid, but now Jana loathed her; that she would declare Jindra's hair and honor as a loss worth enduring! "If you think," Jana bit out, "for even a moment, that I will let this go unanswered, you're as foolish as you are afraid."

"Toth doesn't care about rules," Jindra added. "He's a traitor. You can't trust him."

Stephanie hadn't wavered. "I don't trust him. But he needs legitimacy. We are the path to it. If we were not, we would be dead. If he acted without honor, he would be shown none by my husband, or your uncle." She paused. "Or your father, Jindriska."

Jindra looked down and away, and Jana's heart broke for her anew. "Did you know?"

Stephanie dipped the rag in the water, and her voice grew kinder. "I…inferred. I was never told as such." She dabbed a bit more blood away, this time from Jindra's brow, where a bruise had bloomed to the surface and torn through the skin. She added tentatively, "You do look very like him."

For the first time, Jindra did flinch.

"You're upsetting her!" Jana held out a hand presumptively. "Give me that!"

Stephanie's face was grave, but she passed the bowl of water and the rag to Jana without a word. Jana busied herself with cleaning Jindra's cuts, washing the blood and grime away as gently as she could, with care that Stephanie couldn't possibly provide. It was Jana's job; Jana's duty. It ought to have been a steadying thing, but Jana felt only the useless limitations of it, and the confinement of these walls.

Blood, water, repeat. Belatedly, it occurred to Jana that this blood of Jindra's was noble. Perhaps that should have mattered a bit more. But Jindra didn't look any different. She was still Jindra, herself, cherished and dear, hurt and bruised.

It also should have been a relief that Jindra was not, in fact, Radzig's prey. But Jana felt nothing but anger, and with it a terrible revelation, cracking across the sky. Jindra had none of the protections of nobility. She was still a peasant girl, without the armor of a family title or a powerful man. A noble father had not saved her. Radzig hadn't even bothered to tell her, or moved to protect her himself.

Nothing would protect Jindra, unless Jana did so.

And Jana had no weapon. Her one attempt to keep Jindra safe, this brutal betrayal that had shattered both of them, had locked them in a cage worse than Jana could have imagined. She'd made it worse. She was no better than Radzig, the coward, or Toth, twisting a second knife.

"Honor," Jana spat, throwing Stephanie's words back at her. "Toth acted with no honor against Jindra or I. I won't be a pawn and I won't be weak."

"We are pawns now," Stephanie said. "And bait at that. We must navigate it, not defy it."

"I don't care what you think."

Stephanie sighed again, as though she were exhausted; though not offended or even surprised. She must have seen through to Jana's spiteful heart all along. Jana had made a fool of herself trying to hide it.

Jindra twisted away from the wet rag, and met Jana's gaze steadily. Her eyes were both doe and woman, and summer lakes. "If he touches you, I'll kill him. I will."

Jana nodded. She didn't care if Stephanie heard. "I know."

But Toth had already touched Jindra. Some of her blood had stained her gown of green silk; the gown that had been Jana's before. Jana recalled wearing Jindra's clothes from Skalitz, when their scents had melded and Jindra's pain and shame had become her own. The two of them had become the same girl, with the same dishonored body.

Jana wanted the kill for herself.

When morning came, it brought Istvan Toth with it. He swept into the room with the first birdsong, and Jana stood up so fast that her head spun. Stephanie stood, too, slowly and with a good deal more grace.

"I trust you are well rested," Toth said, like the joke it was. One of his men stood in the doorway behind him, creating a new wall of flesh. They all looked the same. "We have work to do."

Jindra moved to stand herself, struggling slightly with her arms still bound. But Jana reached down, put a hand on her shoulder, and held her back, before planting herself between Jindra and the door.

She understood why Jindra had thrown herself at Toth so viciously. God, oh God, Jana yearned to do it now, to tear asunder and punish. But that was the she-wolf, the wild beast yearning forever; and Jindra was in danger now, and Jana had lost the privilege of indulgence.

Instead, wrapped in the skin of a girl, Jana said, "You will not touch Jindriska."

Toth hummed. He saw no threat, and deigned to answer her. "Will I not?"

How easy to lash out, to scream, to strike in vain! To seek the kill she wanted, to die trying! But she was Lady Jana of Rattay, daughter of Lord Capon, blood of the Lords of Leipa. And even if she was evil, and blackened, and bound for hell, she would not be afraid, and would not be useless.

She had failed in every other way. She was not a blade. She was not a shield, and she couldn't offer the protection of walls of stone. She had no recourse but her meager self, and Jana held that in no great value.

Jana took a deep breath, filled her voice with presumption and power, and spoke plain. "If you harm her again, I will take my own life."

Toth raised his eyebrows.

From the floor, Jindra let out a soft moan. "No."

Jana ignored her. "One more scratch," she promised. "One more blow, and you will lose a hostage. I'll find a way. I'll steal your man's dagger. I'll shatter a bowl for its crude edge. I will do it bluntly with a stone if I must." She leaned forward, poison pouring from her mouth. "I will slit myself from neck to cunt and rip out my guts and display myself on the walls."

Her voice filled the room to the rafters, like Hanush's did when he thundered in rage. He had taught her to laugh; he could teach her to command.

"And when Hanush sees what you've done to me," she snarled, "there will be no lord's promises between you. No chivalry, no protection. He'll raze this castle to the ground. He will hunt you like a dog and kill you like one!"

Jindra made a muffled sound, a cry held back by clenched teeth.

Toth said nothing. It occurred to Jana that he had not looked at her so directly until this moment. Even his japes, his threats, his cruel smiles had been dismissive, and his scrutiny had been for her name, not for her person. He'd never looked into her eyes and taken in the whole of her fire. Now, he observed. He did not blink.

Jana had spent so much of her life ducking her head – no more. She glared with all of her passion, all of her hatred, all of the wicked need of a damned soul. She could see her own shape reflected in his eyes, and beneath the violence, she felt the creeping discomfort of recognition.

Talmberg's walls, pressing so close, wavered.

Then Toth inclined his head. It was not quite a nod, and his expression certainly held no scrap of respect. But it was…acknowledgement. It was a whisper that Jana had been heard, and perhaps even believed.

"If she behaves," he said, as if it were some great concession, "I shall have no need to."

Jana imagined digging into her throbbing wrist and ripping her scar from a tiny crescent into an open, screaming maw, up her arm and to her heart, her blood spilling until all of Talmberg was made unclean. She imaged Toth's blood following. It satisfied.

Istvan Toth glanced out the narrow window, where dawn was breaking; light a terror, again. "But I am expecting company," he said. "And I've need of her."

Jindra was overcome with a new, crushing sense of dread. Toth and his men forced the three women through the halls, with Toth himself pressing his hand to the back of Lady Stephanie's neck. Jindra could hear shouting; some of it excited, or urgent, within the castle, and much of it more distant, more raucous, echoing from outside the walls.

It could only be Sir Divish, returning to reclaim what was his.

Jindra tried to remember how many men Sir Divish had with Sir Hanush and Sir Radzig in league. But she'd been too wrapped in betrayal and grief and the smell of Zbyshek's blood, and hadn't thought to count them at the time.

Jana stumbled a step ahead of her, snapping at her own guard fearlessly. Jindra watched the back of her golden head and bit back a moan. Jana had looked Toth dead in the eye and said – she'd –

Jindra needed Jana to turn around. She needed to see her. She needed to call out, to beg her. Her own mind shied away from Jana's terrible promise, unable to bear its weight.

Their sad, battered party tumbled into the morning light, so sharp that Jindra squinted. From the top of the stairs they could oversee the inner courtyard, filled with bellowing armored men, with archers on the walls.

There was already fighting in the outer bailey, beyond the walls, and Jindra could only catch bits and pieces. The colors of Rattay, Talmberg, and Skalitz swirled amid bandit black and brown, and the crash of steel mingled with screams. One of the outer buildings was on fire. The smoke and violence – it was the first true battle Jindra had seen since Skalitz. It was the second of her life.

She was back, she was –

Jana and Lady Stephanie and Toth all vanished, along with the guard holding Jindra's arms. There was only the wholeness of Jindra's nightmares, filled with the froth of blood and the cries of dying horses, lives burnt to cinders, and a girl who watched without hope of waking.

Men all wailed the same when they were slaughtered, but Jindra knew that she heard Skalitz men dying. She quaked with horror and shame; they'd survived the first massacre only to die here, while Jindra was held back, bound and bleeding.

But Toth's men were dying, too. Jindra repeated it to herself in a prayer's litany. They were dying. They could die. They had nowhere to retreat to, and soon, the inner bailey would be breached. It had to. It would.

Today, God listened, but only to play a trick.

It happened very fast. As Jindra watched, a horse thundered through the gate at a full gallop, bursting past the first wave of men into the inner courtyard. Jindra's stomach dropped. It was reckless, and a lone man would be cut down and dead in moments.

Then the man swung down from his horse, and Jindra's heart stopped.

It was Sir Radzig. No, her father –

She'd never seen him fight before. Somehow she hadn't thought of him that way. To her, Sir Radzig had always been a lord who ruled from afar, who guarded and protected, but didn't draw his blade. But he was fighting, in a flurry without frenzy, without hesitation. It was almost cold. The first man he killed was caught in the throat, scattering poppy-red gore down his front. The next was thrown onto his back and stabbed through the chest, screams garbled.

More men were retreating to the inner bailey. Jindra should have counted them, kept track of how much blood had been spilled, but she couldn't stop watching Sir Radzig. He wore no helm, which was such a stupid thing to do, as if he hadn't had the time or care for one. He didn't seem to noticed that the courtyard was filling with more of Toth's bandits. A man fell down dead, and then another. He wouldn't stop.

And then, Sir Radzig looked up.

Their eyes met.

Jindra saw herself in his face: in the brown of his hair, in the slant of his brow, in the curve of his nose, in the shape of his chin. Jindra had seen them all in her own reflection, blinking up at her in puddles, in rivers, in troughs, warped and hidden beneath the face Ma had given her.

In a split second, Sir Radzig's eyes changed. Even from afar, Jindra saw them dart over her bruises and her bloodied nose, her shorn hair; and for the first time in her entire life, in all the years she’d known him, Jindra saw Sir Radzig’s expression twist out of its noble mask. It transformed into something she recognized from her own heart, primal and wild and impassioned and –

Oh, no, Jindra thought. No, don’t!

Too late. Sir Radzig lunged forward blindly, clumsy and unthinking, and Toth's men were on him. His skill was gone and forgotten, and his sense with it.

Toth appeared out of nowhere; he'd moved so fast that Jindra hadn't seen him cross the courtyard. With a strength Jindra had not expected, he shoved Sir Radzig back so hard that he staggered and stumbled, and hit the side of his unarmored head with the pommel of the sword. The crack was the same sound Jindra's pommel had made when she'd stuck Black Peter; the same sound a rock had made on flesh and bone, when she'd killed a man in the woods.

Sir Radzig crumpled into the dirt.

Jindra's ears rang as if she'd been the one struck, and she stared mutely, frozen. It was so sudden, so abrupt, so ruthless and final. She was filled with more feeling than thought, and she might have been ashamed if she'd been able to linger. He couldn't be –

Toth stood over Sir Radzig, panting. From this distance, Jindra shouldn't have been able to make out his expression. But it rang as clear as day, as bright and vibrant as this violent sunrise, as if Jindra knelt beside her lord, her father, and stared up into Toth's face herself.

There was more than triumph in his gaze. He was illuminated by sunlight instead of by fire, but there was the same glimpse of a truth made bare, his own mask stripped away to the passion beneath. A man made more base, and more true.

And Jindra saw it all: her bruises, her stolen braid, her pain and humiliation. She realized, with a sick, heavy thud, that they had nothing to do with her. She hadn't angered Toth – Sir Radzig had, and she was a tool used in a plot she couldn't see the rules for. She was tangled and tugged between the lies of men, again.

The sword of Jindra's fathers gleamed before Toth shoved it back into its scabbard, hidden away and beyond her reach.

Then Toth made a careless gesture, and stepped back as two men hauled Sir Radzig to his feet. His head lulled to the side, but he stood under his own power, however unsteady, and Jindra let out all her breath in a low groan. Alive, then. Still alive.

It made her faithless to Pa, and a betrayer to Ma. She was still the heartless girl who could not even cry for her parents after Skalitz, who'd shivered in Jana's bed and writhed and stifled her screams without tears, who had run, who had failed them, who was a coward still.

But she couldn't help it. She was so glad he was alive.

The sounds of fighting increased in pitch, closer and more chaotic. As Toth's men held the gate, Lady Stephanie was pushed down the stairs and across the courtyard, marched as Sir Radzig was dragged.

Jana twisted to catch Jindra's eye, her face a thunderstorm, before she too was forced down the stairs. The rough strength of Jindra's guard was all that kept her from pitching over the railing to follow, and she watched helplessly as Jana was forced with the others to the mouth of the gate and the drawbridge, put on display like the shields they were.

The sound of fighting stopped. The battle froze in time. Lady Stephanie had said that Toth knew the rules, and Jindra realized just how little she knew.

She prayed to the only person who had ever answered her, even if she had no right.

Oh, Ma, what should I do?

In her hand she held a mirror.
A rich headband she did favour
Binding the tresses of her hair,
Tightly, her tresses fine and fair.

- Le Roman de la Rose (c. 1230s), by Guillaume de Lorris, translated by A. S. Kline.

Chapter Text

By the time Jindra's arms were unbound, her hands were numb.

Toth ordered everyone into the great hall again, but the weight of the air had changed; it was still oppressive, but it was less languid, more urgent. The men were not drunk on victory. The restrained violence of their camp had been set loose and was now being drawn back in, gathered and shoved into a smaller shape. The castle was quaking with it.

When the ropes fell away, Jindra bit her tongue to keep from crying out at the rush of blood, and then hissed in pure frustration. It hurt everywhere; her neck ached, her face throbbed, her shoulders were cramped and twisted, her wrists were rubbed raw. Her hands and arms were so weak that she couldn't hold a sword, or a knife, or a rock even if she wanted to. No wonder Toth had unbound her. She was made useless.

Jana was beside Jindra at once, rubbing anxiously at one of Jindra's hands as painful, tingling sensation returned. Her face was ashen, and had been ever since she'd been paraded in front of the castle drawbridge with the other nobles; she had bit her lip until it bled. Lady Stephanie was as pale as Jana was, her mouth trembling in the fading light. What had Toth had said to them, and to Divish, when he'd displayed them like trophies at the gates?

Jindra looked at Jana's mouth and licked at her own split lip, tasting her own blood.

Then Toth entered the room, shoving the doors aside with such force that they slammed into the opposite wall. The look of naked frustration on his face was enough to make Jindra snarl like a dog over a bone; she hoped he'd lost more men than he expected. But all other thought abruptly died, because behind him, pushed so hard by one of Toth's men that he stumbled, was Sir Radzig.

Jindra hadn't seen him in hours; not since the courtyard, when he'd been dragged away barely conscious into the bowels of Talmberg. She'd spent all the time since imagining the ways a blow to head could be fatal. She'd seen men with gore seeping from their noses and ears after mining accidents, or known of folk who had taken brutal falls and fallen asleep and simply never woken up, no matter how much their families had begged Ma for tonic or cure.

But Sir Radzig was alive. His arms were bound in front of him, and there was dried blood in his hair, but he was alive, with his eyes open and alert, only slightly clouded with pain.

Jindra had a sudden mad thought, staring at Sir Radzig's bound hands, flexing her own as the blood rushed back in a thousand knife cuts: that only one of them could be bound at once, because they were the same blood.

She felt another jolt of guilt, shame, confusion, as if she'd been caught blaspheming by a God who cared. But there were so many dead. Ma, Pa, Bianca, Matthew and Matthias, Johanka by Jindra's weakness and Zbyshek by her blade. Even Theresa walked free, looked for a way through, until Jindra had been alone in the mire.

It wasn't only that Sir Radzig was Skalitz. He was Jindra's. He was someone who was hers.

Look at me, she thought. She wanted to see his eyes again. Just to be sure. Please.

But Sir Radzig didn't look. He sat heavily, forced down by rough hands on his shoulders, as Toth took a seat at the very head of the long table: the lord's seat. Lady Stephanie sat, too, with only slight hesitation. Jindra heard her swallow heavily, but wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't stood so close.

Jindra didn't sit. Neither did Jana. They and Toth's men stood pressed against opposite walls, glaring at each other. The room smelled of sweat, stained steel, and damp leather; outside smells, base smells, shoved into Talmberg's tidy box.

Beside Jindra, Jana started scratching at her wrist.

"So it begins," Toth said. If his confidence was shaken – and Jindra believed that it was, had to believe it – he hid it well. The only true signs were the dent the door had left in the wall, and the fact that Toth was no longer smiling.

He turned slightly in his seat, so that he faced Lady Stephanie head on with the full force of his body. "Let us be practical, my lady. This siege is already decided. The only remaining question is how much blood will be spilled inside these walls, rather than outside of them."

Lady Stephanie's hands curled into fists beneath the table.

Jindra's eyes darted everywhere. She counted a dozen possible weapons in the room, from swords and daggers to chairs and firewood to Jindra's own hands. But she didn't lunge blindly for any of them as she had before.

It no longer felt – she couldn't – it wasn't simple. Jana was beside her, with her body at risk. And Sir Radzig was – he hadn't –

Lady Stephanie said, in a steady voice, "May we expect to be treated with dignity?"

"You may expect to be treated as I see fit," Toth snapped. He tucked the impatience away quickly, as if he had no need for it. "I guarantee the safety of every soul within these walls, even your young guests and the servants you are so fond of. Your own safety is also assured, provided that you keep to your room." His tone grew rich with sarcasm, and he gave Lady Stephanie a glance up and down that was pure dismissal. "I doubt you will notice much interruption to your routine, such as it is."

Even Jindra could hear the insult, but Lady Stephanie didn't flinch. "And for how long?"

Toth still didn't smile. But his mouth twitched, less in humor than in satisfaction. "As I told your husband. We have supplies enough here, and my only intent is to watch them die."

The plainness of it was shocking. Lady Stephanie's hands clenched tighter. "You've called for men from Valdek," she said, unexpectedly cutting; an accusation, not a question. "With my husband and his men caught outside the castle, it will be –"

"A slaughter?" Toth finished smoothly. "Don't excite yourself. Perhaps Havel will be content to lock your husband up again. I expect your own life will go on unchanged."

Jindra saw a shiver go through Lady Stephanie, in a cringing curl from the base of her spine to her shoulders, as a feeling that was sharper and hotter than fear flashed across her face. But she dipped her head, almost demure, and said no more.

Jana gave a low growl of disgust.

Sir Radzig had listened in steady silence. But now he spoke, and his voice filled the room without being loud or urgent; he was almost gentle, as though he were running a hand down a horse's flank. "You've made your point rather well." He became the lord of Jindra's childhood, who never raised his voice because he knew he would be minded. "But we both know you have more hostages than you need. Let the ladies go, and keep me."

Toth turned to him so slowly that it was clearly deliberate. Jindra finally realized that speaking to Lady Stephanie without acknowledging Sir Radzig, a fellow lord, had been a strange thing for Toth to do. It was another game she didn't grasp, another cut she saw after the sting.

"How noble that would be," Toth sneered. "And how tiresome. Shall I take away Divish's reason not to knock the walls down?"

"The girls, then. Lady Jana's return would be an act of goodwill to Hanush. She and her maid –"

"Her maid," Toth interrupted. His face split into a fast, blade-sharp smile, as if he'd been lying in wait. The smile was gone in the next instant, but the malice lingered, and Toth's eyes gleamed once again. "Yes, the servant girl, with no value to anyone. I could send Lady Jana to her uncle and the maid to my men, perhaps. No need to spoil the unspoilt."

One more game that Jindra could only watch, and another set of rules she was the last to understand.

Everyone in the room knew. Even Lady Stephanie knew. And Sir Radzig wouldn't say a thing, even now. He would rather listen patiently to Toth as he used Jindra's greatest shame, her crime, the grave of the girl from Skalitz, to make Sir Radzig flinch; she saw him build to it like a minstrel's epic tale with a death at the end, or the conclusion of a joke that always earned a laugh. All this while Sir Radzig sat with his back to Jindra and pretended he didn't care, for no one's sake but his own.

What was left for Jindra but to stand in silence, like Lady Stephanie with her bowed head?

Toth's words lost their bite beneath bleak disappointment. Jindra had no more room for anger or for tears. She felt tired, spent of everything else.

Enough.

She swallowed. "Father."

The room grew very quiet.

Sir Radzig turned around.

The thread of iron snapped taut again, heart to heart and body to body, as it had in Rattay. It wasn't like Erik, when Jindra's body had recognized its own quiet self; this held no cringing, screaming horror, no flinching back from the bared blackness of shared suffering; there was only an open, outstretched touch, wide eyes blinking, the glimpse of light when flint struck steel.

Sir Radzig looked like her. She hadn't imagined it. All at once, Jindra was young again; younger than the weight of her body and the press of her pain. She leaned forward and thought, unraveling, of Pa running a hand through her hair; and she realized that the memory was split in two, and one memory was Sir Radzig in a garden; and she forgot to feel tired or angry or ashamed, or even confused, because they were –

The look that crossed Sir Radzig's face was almost grief.

Toth hummed. It was a low, pleased sound, but different than Jindra had expected. Less gloating, more thoughtful.

"And to think she didn't know," he murmured. His smile returned slowly, like a creeping frost. "After all the poor girl has been through for you."

Back to the tale, to the cruel jape. Jindra had set him to it beautifully, handed him the knife herself.

"Did you know, Radzig?" Toth's mouth twisted, and his smile went hard. "Did you know that she's a whore, like her father?"

Jindra's heart tumbled to the floor.

Sir Radzig swung back around, and it hid his expression from Jindra. But whatever it was, it made Toth laugh; his first of the evening. He tapped his finger on the pommel of the sword, steady and mocking. Tap, tap, tap, like raindrops, falling from the sky and onto Jindra's face.

"I thought not." For a moment, when he smiled, Toth had fangs. Jindra would have sworn to it. "I'm told my man found her wet."

Jindra's throat burned with a scream that wouldn't come.

Toth and Sir Radzig hadn't looked away from each other, while Jindra burned behind them with all her screams used up. More than anything in the world, more even than the shame and the insult, it was fucking unfair.

Jindra's tingling hand shot through with new, sharp pain: Jana had grabbed it, and was squeezing as tightly as possible. Jindra silently urged her to squeeze tighter, and tighter, until she broke the thin bones of Jindra's fingers. Jindra imagined it: crushing her thumb and each knuckle, snapping her wrist beneath new, brighter bruises. Short, loud fractures, crackling like fat in a pan, popping like embers on a fire.

The pain, real and imagined, pulled her back. Pain, and pain, and pain, and defiance at the end, to temper it.

Toth leaned back in his seat, filling it more comfortably than before. "No," he said. "I will be keeping your soiled bitch and Hanush's whelp, and they will not be harmed. In return you shall have to look at her face whenever I wish, and I will like that very much."

Sir Radzig was silent.

Always silent.

It gave Toth the last word, which pleased him. He made a sharp motion with his free hand; he still held the pommel of the sword with the other, and Jindra's eyes fell upon it with renewed obsession. "Take them."

Toth's men went for Sir Radzig first, yanking him to his feet. That was something, too; that he was grabbed more roughly, treated with less care, because he was a man; just like Jindra was a peasant, was no one, was nothing to anybody –

Sir Radzig twisted as he was pulled from the room, his eyes hazier than they'd seemed when he'd first entered.

Their gazes met again, and the thread of iron held. How much easier it would have been, if it would only snap apart.

Sir Radzig whispered something. It was a punched out, rough rasp, so quiet he must not have meant to do it; so quiet that Jindra must have imagined it.

"Jindra."

He had never called her that before.

Toth was true to his word, and for nearly a week, he trapped Jindra in three torments.

The first was the cage.

Jindra had prepared herself for more beatings, but nothing could have prepared her for the shape of a noblewoman's prison. The hostages – Sir Radzig, Lady Stephanie, Jana, and Jindra herself – were treated with mocking respect. There was no more violence or even outright threats. There was only a set routine, and the overwhelming stench and shadow of guards at every corner.

The women were kept separate, waiting out the long hours in Lady Stephanie's room, with a cot moved in for Jindra and Jana to share. Jindra and Jana spent much of the first day looking out the tiny window, wondering if one or the other could survive the fall if they could break the lattice, or squeeze through without wrenching a shoulder from its socket, but soon it became clear that their cage was locked tight.

The comfort drove Jindra mad. They were kept warm and dry. They had beds. They had wine to drink and food enough, brought to them on clean plates. The three of them were even permitted to walk in the courtyard once a day, to take air and stretch their legs. Jindra had hardly believed it when she'd heard, and had actually leapt up in excitement, thinking of escape and murder; but this was another calm, cool, rigid bar on the cell door.

Bandits were posted everywhere: standing on the battlements, leaning in the halls, filling the doorways, and always watching. There was no escape beneath the constant reminder of violence at every turn. Jindra and Jana and Lady Stephanie were being turned like meat on a spit, and they could do nothing but stare at one another, old mares locked in a culling pen.

Jindra tried to think of it as another hunt. She studied the bandits just as she'd studied their camp, trying to count them, to memorize their faces. Talmberg was a small castle, and even filled to the brim as it was, Jindra guessed that there were around fifty fighting men in all: less than half of what she'd expected. But she didn't know how many had left with Erik, and how many might be returning, and how many had already died.

But then what? What good was it if she couldn’t fight, couldn't move, couldn't breathe? What good was it when everyone looked at her and saw her for the ruined girl she was, without either weapon or hope?

The madness crept in, stinking and crawling, the way that meat began to rot.

The second torment was the silence.

At night, Jindra was bewildered to discover that everyone would eat together: Lady Stephanie, Sir Radzig, Jana, and Jindra, with Toth in the lord's seat, watching them all and enjoying himself. Lady Stephanie and Sir Radzig and Toth played a strange game of polite conversation, where their hands clenched into fists without doing so; Lady Stephanie demured quietly, and Sir Radzig smiled, and Toth watched, and they all lied through their teeth, acting as if nothing was wrong.

It was a dream, drifting and untrue, with masks and words no one meant. It was frozen faces on altarpiece, painted into place, unmoving even when Jindra's eyes would swim and blur when mass stretched too long. It was the games she and Bianca played, when they ran wild though the tall grass and proclaimed themselves fine ladies, or wild dogs, or Tartar raiders, knowing that it wasn't the truth; when the lie was the point and not the prize.

But in the midst of them sat Jindra: a peasant girl with her hair roughly cut, her bruises dark, her mouth so swollen that she couldn't eat without splitting it back open and making it bleed. She tasted iron with every bite of food.

But she didn't scream. She didn't lunge. She didn't rail and push at all the lies, didn't attack Toth even when he sat within reach.

Because Toth wanted her to.

He was baiting her. She knew it. He made small comments, short and soft, usually about honor, his fingers caressing the sword with a lover's attendance. He was trying to draw her passion out on purpose; he wanted her to attack and lunge.

It wasn't for her. She clung to that fact until it frayed, until she frayed. She was nothing to Toth. She was the shit on his boot. He wanted her to be his creature, his blade to cut at…at her father, whom he hated. The pain was not hers to own. She haunted her own body.

But Jindra's rage, her hot blooded need to rip and howl, her pit of snapping murder and dripping jaws, wanted Toth dead with overwhelming lust. It didn't care.

It was almost unbearable. Jindra would break apart soon, dive for a knife or bite a guard's hand or simply start screaming and be unable to stop, until Toth took an ear instead of her hair or one of his men beat her bloody or ripped her to pieces, and then –

And then Jana would die.

"It's a farce," Jana told her. Every night her face blazed with anger; Jana's moods had always been flighty, flaring hot and cooling fast, but now her rage was as steady, and frustrated, as Jindra's.

"I'll have his blood for yours," Jana promised, a declaration of war, as she had when she'd made the first covenant between them, in the call for Runt's death. "Remember that."

Jindra had never wanted to kiss her more.

She should have clung to her anger at Jana, too. It should have been part of the fuel, of the festering. It was Jana's fault that they were here. Jana hadn't trusted her, and had thought Jindra so weak that she'd needed to be locked away.

Because Jana had never learned another way to protect, to care. Because Jana worried for her like no else ever had. Because Jana was so brave, but wrapped inside startled, harsh instinct. Because she was Jindra's best friend, own sweet girl, her Janinka, her bird, and her adder.

Toth hadn't threatened Jana again. He hardly looked at her. But when he did, even only briefly, in appraisal or dismissal, Jindra's pain grew blunt, longsword discarded for war hammer. She couldn't stop hearing Toth's threats, wrapping themselves around Jana's throat. And there were also Jana's threats, the blade held to her own throat, all for useless, bound Jindra's sake.

Later. They would talk later. Jindra willed it to be true. There would be time to speak of everything, to reach for her anger again and grant it a voice. But now she needed Jana safe and alive.

If only she could kiss her.

Jindra could stay silent for Jana and stay her hand. She'd done it when the world glowed red in Erik's chamber; she'd done it in Jana's bed, when Jindra stifled her cries to keep Jana safe. All of it for the only person in the world who could ever keep Jindra from screaming when she woke from her nightmares.

But she swallowed blood to do it; thick clots of it, forcing themselves acrid and painful from her heart, demanding their say, with the lives of everyone she'd ever loved weighed against her own weakness – would a braver girl die in the attempt? Would a braver girl suffer it, for Jana, for herself?

Jindra began to doubt if she had ever been brave. The madness moved from rot to music, curling around her head in a gentle, constant hum, the wails of the dead lingering in the stones.

The third torment, and the worst, was her father.

In the cage, in Lady Stephanie's room, Jindra could pace and groan and shout and slap her hands on the walls. In the silence around a liar's table, Jindra could latch onto her anger in the way Jana taught her to hunt; calculating, sharp, waiting to line up her shot before shooting her arrow, hoarding it like fuel.

She could have found a way through all of it, but for Sir Radzig.

Jindra sat beside Sir Radzig every night at Toth's command, and watched him. He was cordial to Lady Stephanie and Jana, and was almost cheerful with Toth, throwing his jabs back with a unflappable ease. For every cruel bite, he had a cool response; for every insult, he gave a smooth shrug of his shoulder, a sly turn of his head. Jindra sometimes forgot that Sir Radzig had served at a king's court, but it was impossible to forget now, as he twisted Toth's poison around his fingers and tongue without flinching.

But when Jindra looked up at him, he was cold. There was no more wall of stone holding back a man behind a lord's voice; he was made of stone, of ice, so far away and above that Jindra cringed back instinctively. He rarely looked at her. When he did, it was a short glance up and over, like she was a stone in the road, faceless and gray.

It was water poured upon a fire; it was a late frost upon flowers.

He had not said her name again.

She'd wanted him to say it again. She wanted him to answer her questions; she wanted him to – she flinched to think it – to be hers. It was so childish, so small. Every night, he looked more like her; she found herself in new lines on his face, new colors in his hair. His rage in the courtyard had looked like hers; his anguish had looked like hers. She'd heard her own voice when he'd whispered.

And Toth saw. Toth knew. He'd shaped her cage and her silence and now her father was curled around both, splitting through the sinew of her body.

"Your whore daughter," Toth called her; sometimes out loud, but most often with his eyes and his smile, the caress of the sword. "The ruin of your girl."

Sir Radzig said nothing.

It was crushing, to be orphaned three times. Jindra was a raw wound open to the air, stinging without plaster or protection, ducking her head to hide behind a curtain of hair that she no longer possessed, damning for its absence and declaring her shame.

She became that shame, and it wore every face. Any truth was one that Jindra couldn't bear: that her mother had loved a man who had scorned her, and had never loved her Pa; that Pa had not loved Jindra, and blamed her; that Jindra's mother, her own Ma, her first teacher, her first friend, with skill that lived in Jindra's hands and and pain that lived in Jindra's bones, might have been dishonored, cast aside, ruined, hurt, used, and forced to serve the lord who'd done so.

And now her daughter might stare at that same cold man with longing, begging him for a look that would never come. Jindra, ravaged and ruined, less than half the girl she once was, dreaming of pus pouring from her cunt and weak with relief when her courses had come, and betraying Ma more completely than Judas did his Lord.

At night, Jindra stayed awake and turned her three torments over in her mind. She watched the door, ready for Toth to change his mind and for his men to burst through to rape and ravage, ready to die clawing and screaming. She wouldn't blink, stiff and shaking with tension, until Jana would stir and touch her arm gently. Then Jana would watch the door, with her sharp hunter's eyes that were more clever than Jindra's.

But sleep did not come easy, and Jindra would wake with tears on her face, reaching out into the darkness towards nothing.

She imagined herself aged ten, or five, or a babe in arms. She imagined her mother grasping her chin to make sure their eyes met, as she did when she was being very serious, and wanted Jindra to mind her. She imagined Ma calling her Jindriska; a woman's name, too large for Jindra's small body, to full for her small heart. She imagined memories, or dreams, or some mix of both, reaching for her mother's voice: even and patient, a lilting valley and gentle river, lost to her forever.

Life is long, my lovely.

He will take care of you, when I can't.

Do you understand me?

"No," Jindra whispered, without sound or air. "I don't understand."

Years ago, on a midsummer night when Jana had been sixteen and brave, she'd found a fox's burrow deep in the wood, surrounded by lynx tracks. She'd placed her own hand beside one of the paw prints and imagined the lynx pacing back and forth, back and forth, with a predator's desperate patience. But there was no blood and no struggle, no tufts of torn fur, and so the lynx must have gone hungry.

Jana had watched for hours, waiting for the fox to emerge, imagining his bloody pelt; but the fox was clever, and still smelled the lynx when Jana could not, and had never appeared.

Jana remembered it as she glared at Toth night after night. She thought of it each time she walked the ridiculous loop around and around Talmberg's courtyard, as she stared up at the glimpse of the battlements they could never reach and felt herself going mad.

She supposed Toth worried that if they were allowed on the battlements, they would find some way to signal the men. Or perhaps he simply worried that one of them would jump.

Not that Jana would jump. If she were to die, she had promised Toth a grand performance. But held as they were inside the walls, growing smaller every day…well. There were times in the dark, while Stephanie slept and Jindra tried to, that Jana would lie awake and watch the walls continue their unending press.

Jana had never been in a mine. But Jindra had told her of the mines in Skalitz, where shining silver was pulled from the damp, dark earth. Jindra wove her a tapestry of rocks and shadows, where the earth opened up in a great maw and curled up and over you, and the swelling breath of many men gave the stones life.

Jindra spoke about it without much fear, and only a slight shudder, left over from childhood memory; but Jana thought of a darkness without stars or moon, complete and utter, and a room without door or keyhole. She thought of a tunnel that stretched forever until the hell waited at the end, where an outstretched hand waited to collect a debt. She thought of true confinement, and herself an anchoress in the tiny cell of a nunnery, where old Uncle Henry had threatened to send her. All this and more she felt in Talmberg's walls, growing closer with a predator's need and the gaze of restrained, hungry men.

So perhaps, in the lonely stretch of night, Talmberg's clenched fist became the gloved hand of a hunter, and Jana became the little merlin with its leather hood and jess; and perhaps the battlements whispered flight, flight, flight, and open air, in the moment before –

At midnight Jana would slip from the cot she shared with Jindra, pad in her bare feet to the window, and press her face to the lattice. The pinprick glow of distant campfires dotted the fields like fireflies, spread about in a half circle. She wondered which firefly was Hanush.

She hadn't…when Toth had shoved her in front of the gate, a human shield of meat, Divish had been there, his face wroth and looking more the warrior than Jana had ever imagined. But Hanush had been behind the men, out of her sight. Unless –

It couldn't be worse than that. Toth would have taunted her if Hanush were hurt or killed. He was spiteful in his violence, and masked his frustration with malice, and played when he could. There's nothing I want from you, he had said. Except to see you all die.

Jana's stomach twisted into knots every time she recalled it. She'd seen his viciousness and feared to find something familiar, again. A mirror of polished bronze, like the Romans had, where she might see some warped twin of her father's murderer.

How to stay sane, then? How to keep the walls from growing so close that there was not enough air for everyone, pressing Jana's bones and heart into dust?

She decided on the path of study. Study, study, study, like the steps of an istanpita learned at her tutor's hard pace, the rod slapping at her shins impatiently; or the hunter's study, examining deer tracks, the shit the animals left behind, the signs of hare in the underbrush. Like the broken branches left by Black Peter, that Jana had seen and forgotten to fear.

She wouldn't forget again. She would gather the signs and the tracks and the shit together until they could form a man, until she could turn the bronze mirror upon Toth and smash every tooth from his fanged smile.

It was torment, naturally.

Each night she watched as Stephanie played along with Toth and Radzig's game of words and courtesy. Jana might have once played it herself, and certainly felt the temptation of it; of the closed vessel of her own noble body, the shielded treasure of her chastity, with Hanush and the other Leipa lords standing behind her chair like golden ghosts. She would have felt golden herself; she would not have been afraid.

But Jindra sat among them, with her bruised face and ruined hair. It made the artifice clear. She was living proof of the brutality, and the lie within it. How noble the promises of chivalry were, and how false and fragile they proved!

When Jindra insisted on keeping watch each night, Jana couldn't blame her. What faith could she have in the words of men or in their honor? What protection did she have but Jana's own body, pressed close to hers?

So while Jindra watched her cold, useless father, Jana watched Toth.

Nearly twenty years of spite kept her tongue in check, even as her wrist became a constant, raw wound, bleeding freely. It was no longer a crescent moon, but something more jagged, less defined, with crooked edges. Surely the scar would never heal now. But it was a small price in the end, and the blood became Jindra's, shared between them. Jana didn't even have to taste it to draw from its strength. It dripped from wrist to fingertip, as gently soothing as the kiss of a lover.

Toth took no notice of her silent study; he never examined her in turn, as one opponent to another. She hadn't sensed desire from him, thank God, but surely he saw the golden ghosts of her fathers, too. To think of the countless times Hanush had declared her a poor bride, an ill match, unmarriageable! To now be appraised for her value, to not be found wanting, and ignored anyway. She would have laughed, if she'd had the heart for it.

It left her free to stare at Toth with open murder and open interest. With each meal, Toth took something sweet: very small, but always present, honeyed nuts or sweetmeats. He liked to lead conversations, but not dominate them; he always let others speak, setting their own traps, slowly baring their throats for his cutting knife.

And he was always frustrated. The men around him all looked the same to Jana, dirty and lowborn and dog-ugly, but those open peasant faces were ill-suited to masks, and made them easier to read than their master. They were a cruel, confident mass that slowly became scowling mass, always muttering to themselves in groups. They shifted like they'd been sitting too long, like boys kept over-long at punishments.

Toth was unforgiving. If a man coughed, his arrogant smile slipped out of place, and his eyes flashed; if a man shifted uncomfortably, Toth's hands flexed, as they might when clenched around a throat, and that man would freeze on the spot, as if he felt that cold grip already.

He hadn't lost control. He held his men together. Jindra had once called Toth a wolf, in the words of her dead, doomed prophetess, and perhaps that was so; but Jana would be loath to concede the point to a peasant heretic. If he were a wolf, he was lone wolf and a poor one; foxes were not pack animals; a lynx did not command others of its kind.

They were held apart, above, an island; Jana before Jindra, when Diana hunted alone.

She said as much to Jindra on the fifth day, quietly and under her breath, as they took another ridiculous turn of the yard. "He hates that his men are restless."

"They don't know him," Jindra whispered back. "He's too high above them. They knew Erik."

Even the guards who lumbered a few steps behind them, two of the ugliest men Jana had ever seen, hadn't leered or laughed at them after the second day. It wasn't just that the brutes were trapped with enemies at the door, or afraid, or unable to fight, or angry and growing angrier. They were bored.

"Maybe they'll rise against him." Jana couldn't keep the glee from her voice. "Maybe they'll slit his throat in the night, and –"

"Hush." Stephanie glanced over her shoulder, leading the way in their dismal turn and as stately as a court mourner. "That's the last thing you want."

Jana had long abandoned civility. She curled her lip and scoffed as loudly as she could, to let Stephanie know exactly what she thought of her fine opinion.

But Stephanie fell back and linked one arm around Jana's arm, the other around Jindra's, and pulled them along sternly. "What knowledge do you have of sieges, Jana?" she asked, voice low. "Do you think chaos would serve us? What friends might we count on if these men are set loose?"

Jana dragged her feet on principle, even as her stomach clenched. "And I suppose you do have knowledge."

Stephanie glanced at their bored, dull-faced guard, lingering on the blades on their belts. "I know that our well means there is no lack for water," she said, quieter than before. "I know that the stores of food will last two months even without rationing."

Jana's clenched stomach dropped. "That long?"

"I keep my house in order." Both girls gaped, and Stephanie's mouth softened, almost amused. "When you run your own household, you will find that you think of little else after your first hard winter."

Jana did not care for the amusement or the implication.

Jindra looked back at the battlements. "If they won't be starved out, then what?"

"I know my husband. He will hesitate to demolish his own walls." Stephanie paused for a moment too long, and the empty air held a dangerous weight. "But he will do it, when all other options have been exhausted."

"Demolish the walls?" Jana repeated, a shrill whisper. "With us still inside? Hanush would never –"

"Hanush is left with no choice." Stephanie looked up at the battlements too, and seemed to look beyond; and Jana remembered, as she strangely had not before, that Talmberg, cave and mine and cage, was Stephanie's home. "There aren't men enough to storm the keep by force, and no easy way to breach its defenses by ruse alone."

She sounded so grave that Jana believed her.

Jindra had gone gray in the face, and her eyes were blown open. "How would they knock down the walls?"

Stephanie pulled the girls along faster, ducking her head down as if demurring. "They'll have to build a trebuchet, God help us. And that will take too long, if Sir Havel is coming. Longer still if there is no master builder to aid them."

They reached the end of their turn of the courtyard, and the open doorway of Talmberg loomed in welcome, dark and lit only by candles. Stephanie gave a final look up towards the sky, blue and bright. "Sir Havel will be sending men, and even if they only intend to capture my husband and your uncle, it will not be bloodless." She shook her head. "I would not watch a massacre from these walls."

Jana's wrist stung untouched, as she thought of all the firefly pinpricks, and of a world that would deprive her of yet more fathers.

Jana was still thinking about it when, as the night drifted into the morning, Jindra groaned softly in her sleep, her head pillowed against Jana's thigh.

They were both stripped to their shifts, and the thin blankets were tangled hopelessly around their legs from another restless night. Jindra slept as poorly as she had in the early days of Rattay, and the dark circles under her eyes grew starker every day. Jana had once slept through most of Jindra's nightmares, but now she watched anxiously, mindful of every pained whimper.

In the bed beside them, Stephanie slept in complete silence. Jana suspected that she never dreamed at all.

Stephanie's chamber had been stripped bare. There was no table, no chairs, no candles, no logs upon the fire. There had once been heads of hunted animals upon the wall, long-dead trophies from long-ago hunts. It had seemed a funny thing to find in a lady's room, but Jana had liked them; it was the one interesting thing about Stephanie, and perhaps the one aspect of her life that Jana envied. If only Jana could display such trophies in her own room, and bring death out into the open. But the trophies were gone too, taking their sharp antlers with them.

It occurred to Jana that there was nothing sharp in the room, or anything that could be made sharp. No knives, no jugs that might be shattered, no wood that might be split for a crude spike.

It was proof without words that, no matter how Toth might posture, he had taken Jana's threat seriously. That was something.

A knife slash of morning light cut through the window and fell across Jindra, catching on the soft down of dark hair dusting her arms and turning her skin golden. Jana hadn't paid much attention to Jindra's arms before, distracted by her breasts and her thighs, her neck and her perfect lips, her honest smile and her dark waves of hair, and her smiling, dewy doe eyes, holding the open ocean of her.

But now, Jana stroked Jindra's arms lightly from elbow to fingertip, drinking her fill. They were stronger than they looked, and were scattered with small scars, hidden in darts and dashes amid Jindra's freckles, each no higher than the elbow and each no bigger than a speck of grain.

How strange that Jana had never noticed the scars. But then, she saved her hungriest looks for the dark. The grove, or their bed, always under night's cloak, always in secret, where passion blurred the details.

Jana trailed her fingers up Jindra's arm, past her neck, and landed feather-light over her cheekbone. Her bruises were still dark, but the swelling could have been much worse. She was lovely, even bruised, even shorn. She was – she was so –

Oh, Jana had not kissed her in days.

She had resigned herself to that even before their capture, knowing that her own betrayal had separated them forever. But to suffer it in the living world and not just in her fears! Enduring a day, or even an hour, without Jindra's touch had once been unthinkable, and now it was unbearable. How could she survive it?

And she hoped, prayed as she had no right to, that she saw the same need in Jindra's eyes. There was anger there still, but also longing, and hope. How little Jana's fears and grand sacrifices mattered in the face of true violence, true horror. What a fool she had been!

Jana leaned down. "I would kiss you in front of all," she whispered. "If you asked me to, I would kiss you in front of silly Stephanie and your – your father." She let out a little laugh. "Isn't that funny? We've been so stupid."

Jindra slept on, her kiss a brand upon Jana's memory.

Jana's eyes began to burn. "I will not fail you again." It was more than another useless apology, or another hollow cry of grief. It was a vow, and Jana felt its power. "I don't care if you never want me again. It makes no difference. I won't fail you."

A tear ran down Jana's long nose, like the blood from her wrist. She wiped it away, before it could land on Jindra's face and dirty her.

On the bed, Stephanie stirred. Jana dried her eyes hastily, but Stephanie didn't look to her as she sat up; instead, she turned her face to the window. She stared out of it for so long and in such silence that she was less a woman than a pillar of salt, turned toward Sodom. Then she sighed, long and heavy, before looking at Jana.

"Another day," she said.

Jana almost laughed.

Unexpectedly, Stephanie slipped from her bed and sat on the cot beside Jana, drawing her knees up to her chest. Even after five days in the same room, it was oddly and uncomfortably intimate to sit next to Lady of Talmberg in her shift and bare feet, and Jana quickly looked back at Jindra, who slept on.

Stephanie looked down at Jindra too. "She is dear to you."

Jana nodded. "Dearer than gold or silver." She tucked one of the remaining long strands of Jindra's hair behind her ear. It still curled, despite its trial. "Dearer than my own life."

When Stephanie said nothing, Jana felt herself scowling. Airily, she added, "I suppose you disapprove of a servant's friendship."

"Not at all." Stephanie's voice grew very soft. "I have often wished for such a friend."

Jana glanced back cautiously. Stephanie had pillowed her head on her knees, her unbound hair spilling down her shoulders in waves of chestnut brown, somewhere between Jana's color and Jindra's.

How lonely she looked.

Stephanie smiled, and it was as soft as her voice. "It must have been hard with no companions in Rattay. I'm glad you found her."

It was even more intimate than before, and genuine; all in the face of Jana's spite and disdain. Jana shifted with uneasy, unwanted guilt, and brushed a finger lightly over the yellowing outline of one of Jindra's healing bruises.

Stephanie's voice changed again – more leading. "Have you found other friends?" Jana nearly laughed again, shaking her head, but Stephanie shifted closer, as if she were trying to catch Jana's eye. "You would not be the first girl to…seek comfort."

Jana's hand froze on Jindra's brow. "Comfort," she repeated flatly.

Stephanie hummed, and then lowered her voice to a light, almost gleeful whisper. "I heard talk of a boy at a tourney."

Jana whipped her head around, and found Stephanie, Lady of Talmberg, biting her lip to keep from smiling, her eyebrows raised, looking positively mischievous.

"You heard that here?" Jana blurted out, before she could think better of it. She felt a flush from her neck to cheeks, and tried to recover, sputtering. "There's nothing – there's no boy."

Stephanie looked less than convinced. "Well, I'm relieved to hear it." Her smile stayed put, as if she and Jana were telling the same joke. "I feared you wouldn't be…discreet."

Well! That wasn't the same thing as a condemnation at all!

On the first wretched night in Talmberg, when the three of them had huddled on the floor as if they were peers of the same age, Jana had thought it silly. But now, Stephanie nearly looked the part: like a young lady between woman and girl, teetering and excited, eager and nearly shy, bursting with a secret.

Surely not, surely –

"You?" Jana gasped. "Not you!"

Stephanie cleared her throat delicately, and sat up straight. She began to braid her chestnut hair, glancing at Jana from the corner of her eye. "I simply advise caution," she said.

It was all Jana could do to not shake Jindra wildly awake for the occasion. Stephanie of Talmberg, an adulteress, all but admitting the existence of a lover?

Jana was a girl of vibrant imagination, and this was the first diversion it had found in days. It tumbled out of her control like a child's game of hoops. What lover would a lady take? A wandering minstrel, with a poet's tongue and charm? A handsome landless lord, stopping by for midnight trysts?

But no lords or minstrels ever came to tiny, cold Talmberg. It would have to be a servant, wouldn't it? A man-at-arms in her husband's service? A farrier in the town, ruching up her skirts with rough hands?

Jana's delighted imaginings stumbled. Was that…appropriate? To bed those under your care, to whom you owed the duty of protection, and risk two lives? When your own honor was bought at so high a price, and when threats were made, lives held and taken, for its possession?

She thought unbidden of the man in her uncle's service, her second kiss, who had caught her up so tightly that he could have shattered her bones. She'd felt wild terror; had he felt the same? Had they not both been in terrible danger? Was it different? What if Jana had taken young Nicholas to her bed? Hanush would have had him whipped, or worse.

How to weigh a woman’s own trapped choice against the danger of men's lusts, and a woman's lonely heart against a lady's high seat?

But was it so different with Jindra?

Jana felt a jolt of horror. It had to be different. Jindra was another girl, for one thing, but she was also Jana's friend. Even if the rest of it, the consuming miracle of the fire, would never return, Jindra was her friend most of all, the understanding second heart of her days. Her dearest friend, her only.

Or she had been.

Jana's thoughts must have wrapped her face as badly as the bronze mirror, but Stephanie didn't guess at the reason. She laughed a little, sounding very much like the laughs Jana had not quite been able to manage. In a final tone of conspiratorial, feminine advice, Stephanie whispered, "I also advise precautions."

"God's own death!" Jana snapped, flustered by this whole damn thing. "I wasn't seduced by a – a peasant boy at a tourney like some doxy."

And then, like the little devil she was, Jindra spoke up, eyes still closed. "Don't worry, Lady Stephanie," she said, her voice rough with sleep. "He'd have to get through me."

Jana jumped, bouncing Jindra in her lap. Her heart leapt unsteadily. "How long have you been awake?"

Jindra must have heard the true question. How much did you hear?

Had she heard Jana's whispers, and felt her touch? Had she felt Jana's yearning, and her guilt, and the weight of her promise? Would Jana's touches and promises ever be welcome again? Were they welcome now?

Jindra cracked an eye open, and smiled. It tugged at her bruises and her healing lip. It must have hurt. "Just a little."

Jana heard the true answer. I heard everything.

Hidden beneath the blanket and the white linen of their shifts, Jindra's hand found the skin of Jana's bare ankle, and rested brief and light against it. It was a simple press and touch, a springtime shower that made flowers bloom.

The sun shone all the brighter.

Then Jindra sat up, and said to Stephanie, as sly as can be, "She did tell me he was charming and handsome." She raised a brow at Jana. "With piercing eyes, right?"

Jana's heart bloomed with the flowers. "How would I know? He never removed his helm."

Stephanie pressed the back of her hand over her mouth, swallowing another, louder giggle. It was nonsensical. It had no place in the dark cave of Talmberg. The world was topsy-turvy. Maybe all three of them had finally lost their minds.

But to see Jindra, through her rage and sorrow, still able to tease and play, still able to smile! Left whole and herself, her stubborn beauty holding through the ruin of the world.

The stolen cheer, however welcome, couldn't last long. A man's voice – one of the shapeless, bloody throng of brutes – called out a rough curse beneath the window, and it tugged the chamber back into the dank confines of its true shape. Even Jindra's bruises looked darker, as if the healing salve of sleep and smiles were only temporary.

All three of them fell silent again, and there was no more laughter.

It was Jindra who broke the new silence, and her voice had a hollow ring that cut Jana to the bone. "How much longer? What can we do?"

She clearly didn't expect an answer, and Stephanie didn't offer one.

Jindra twisted the blankets in her hands, as she often twisted her hands in her skirts. "How can we do nothing?"

Stephanie finished plaiting her long braid in silence. She drew in a long, slow breath, and leaned forward, taking one of Jana's hands in one of hers, and one of Jindra's in the other. "Listen and hear me." She squeezed firmly. "There is courage in enduring your trial."

Jindra made a sound of frustration.

"Enduring," Jana repeated, spite itself. Had she not spent her whole life enduring? Had she not tried to endure, chosen it, and only made everything worse?

"Brave it, then." Stephanie's eyes flickered with passion, as they had not in all the time Jana had known her. "Face it, weather it, as a mountain in a storm. Outlast your enemies."

She looked her true age again: past thirty, with her best years in her wake. Jana knew the story of Divish's long imprisonment, but for the first time it occurred to her that Stephanie must have been fresh eighteen at the time; younger than Jana was now.

"My lady." Jindra was almost pleading beneath her her frustration. "I can't."

"You already have." Stephanie gave Jindra a fierce, proud look, without pity or presumption. "Do you think I have not seen how Toth baits you? And you've kept your head in the face of it." She turned that look on Jana. "And you! Who knew you could hold your tongue so well."

Jana ought to have been more offended than she was. She huffed, more for show than true feeling, but let Stephanie draw her closer, until she and Jindra were nearly shoulder to shoulder.

"You have both borne these past days as few would have borne them, and with a dignity beyond your years." Stephanie gave each hand a final squeeze, more urgent than before, and released them. "That is more courageous than you realize."

It wasn't very comforting. One look at Jindra's face told Jana that she agreed.

Talmberg stirred and woke around them. Jana had decided early on that breaking their fast was the most laughable, insulting ritual of the entire day, and was not proven wrong. Their food was brought to them by one of Toth's rough men; never the same man, as far as Jana could tell, but always yet another churl with hands more suited to murder than to waiting on ladies.

Today's man clearly found the whole business as insulting as Jana did, and he dropped the three bowls of pottage on the ground so hard that half the contents splattered on the stones. Somehow eating in front of the stupid dog was an intimacy too far, and they all waited until he'd gone before reaching for their spoons.

The pottage was barley and oat today, coarsely ground and swollen soft by hours of slow cooking. Jana found it thick, brown, and thoroughly uninteresting, but there was at least some smoked ham in it, and it was flavored by a heavy pinch of dried herbs she couldn't name.

"Hyssop," Jindra mumbled, her mouth full of pottage, though no one had asked. "And sage, I think."

There was nothing to do but sigh fondly at her. Jindra was eating again, thank God, and Jana let herself watch, her amusement taking up a tender, painful post beneath her ribs, as Jindra scooped up another comically large bite, practically unhinging her jaw to fit the spoon in.

Then Jindra stopped chewing. She stared at her bowl, her face twisted up in bewilderment, and then she spat her mouthful back into her hand.

Jana had a brief, fanciful feeling of horror – had Toth poisoned their food to finally wash his hands of them? But even as Stephanie recoiled in surprise, Jana leaned forward, and spotted a small, twisted little scrap of something hidden among the oats and barley.

It was a strip of vellum, with writing upon it.

Jana squealed, dropping her own bowl and yanking Jindra closer by the wrist. "Too thrilling!" she gasped, thinking instead of secret messages and of holes in doors and of fireflies, of daring escapes and midnight raids. Anything was possible, anything! "What does it say?"

Whatever had been written upon the vellum had been hopelessly smeared. But as Jindra squinted at it, her mouth fell open, and her head shot up.

"I think it's my name."

When they took their walk around the inner bailey that afternoon, Jana halted just in front of the kitchen, and began shouting.

"Stupid girl!" she shrieked. "Stupid woolheaded thing! Lazy! Slattern!"

Her voice was at its most imperious, its most aggravating, nails dragging across rocks. Jindra did her best to arrange her face into the angry, twisted shape it had been on the night she and Jana had met, when she'd seen a squalling babe instead of a young woman.

"Shut up, my lady." It was easy to sound biting, barely restrained teeth beneath badly hidden exhaustion. Talmberg had seen to that.

"Oh!" Jana's eyes flew wide – comically so. "You wretched –"

She shoved Jindra through the door, and Jindra stumbled over her own feet for good measure. Three of Toth's men were inside, leaning against a table covered in tankards and scraps of bread and bones, and they perked up at once, half rising from their seats.

"Make yourself useful!" Jana turned on her heel, her golden hair whipping around with the force of it. "I don't want to look at you for another moment!"

All three men were watching. They weren't looks of pity or sympathy, but they weren't hostile or hungry looks, either. If anything, they looked like bored, beaten dogs lacking distraction.

Jindra stole a glance at the doorway leading further into the kitchen, towards the smaller, enclosed room where the food was prepared.

Lady Stephanie, still standing in the light of the courtyard, was a better liar than Jana was. "It's beneath you to treat Jindriska so," she said, witheringly disapproving. "And unworthy of a lady's station."

"Who is the lady and who is the servant?" Jana stomped to Lady Stephanie, well away from the door. "I will not be humiliated by the blacksmith's girl any longer!"

"Have some dignity, my dear."

Jana's shrieking filled the courtyard; a cracking chorus of how dare you and I will not and you cannot make me and other longer, more colorful words that Jindra thought might have been the noble equivalent of you stupid bitch.

It drew the attention of even the men in the kitchen as Jindra flattened herself against the wall, shrinking back. She ducked her head, as if properly chastened, and waited a moment before slipping through the inner doorway.

The old cook was crouched over a steaming pot, her head down and her back bent like an gnarled, ancient oak. She didn't look up as Jindra crept closer, but she smiled softly, as though she were unsurprised.

Jindra took up a place beside her, looking at her small collection of pots and jars as if she intended to help. The two of them were hidden behind the turn of the doorway. "God save, Bozhena," she murmured.

It was a good name. It was a name meant for stirring pots, for warm hearths and rich broth. When Jindra had stumbled into Talmberg after fleeing Skalitz, shivering with pain and horror, the old woman had filled her belly and made her feel safe.

"You can read?" Jindra blurted out, in a rude whisper.

"No." Bozhena glanced at the window; the only window in the inner room. "Your visitor can."

The window was even smaller than the one in Lady Stephanie's chamber, slanted and narrow, confined with a lattice and meant only to bring in meager light. It cast Bozhena and Jindra in stripes of thin shadows, cutting like cell bars; Jindra could only think of Johanka, waiting patiently to die.

Jindra immediately felt dizzy with nervous excitement, danger, suspicion, and a hope so unshakable that it was almost cruel. She swallowed. "Who is it?"

Bozhena shrugged. "Don't know that. Just told me to slip the note to you."

Jindra bit her lip. "You didn't have to do this for me."

The old woman kept her head down, stirring her pot. "It's a shame how they've treated you, my lady," she said, as if that were enough.

But Jindra wasn't a lady. Bozhena had once fussed over her like a grandmother and fed her when she'd stumbled into this same room, wounded and weary; were they so different now? Weren't they the same people? Nothing about Jindra had changed. Sir Radzig's cold looks were proof.

It wasn't true. It wasn't earned. It shouldn't have been the reason.

Jindra took a breath, and pressed herself to the wall on the other side of Bozhena, closer to the window and amid the stores of food and firewood. If a man walked in, she might just be checking the stores herself. The heat of the hearth was stronger here, and as Jindra craned her neck back, she began to sweat.

It could have been a trick, or a trap, or at least very stupid; but Jindra barreled into things before she thought. And her heart told her that wasn't the case.

There were dried, crushed leaves in a little jar on the shelf beside her, and the herbal smell cut through the smoke. Jindra stared at them, tapping her thumb on the inside of her palm, urging the rest of her body to be still.

"Silver sage," she whispered, repeating the word's of Ma's song; sage was silver, like Skalitz itself. "To ward off ill."

The silence stretched on. Jindra thought of what Lady Stephanie had said: the courage to endure. Jindra hated the sound of that, but maybe…she could be patient. She could be brave enough to wait. To listen.

And then.

A woman's voice came from nowhere, from the walls, from Heaven. "Jindriska!"

Jindra had never been terribly clever. She whirled, looking up and around for the source. Outside, Jana's muffled voice pitched feverishly, as if in some instinct at Jindra's blundering.

"At the window, girl."

Jindra couldn't see whoever spoke, with the castle's slant and window's size cutting off her view, but the voice was familiar: sharp and exasperated, like a mother and a bailiff, with a city accent's lilt.

Jindra's stomach turned over in shock. "Anezka?"

She heard a huff, and inside of it she also heard a stern glare, a half smile, too-old eyes. "Aye," Anezka's voice said. "Be as shocked as you like."

Jindra wouldn't have guessed this with a hundred clues. She had never felt so confused; even as her heart leapt to hear someone new, someone familiar. "What are you doing here?"

Anezka snorted loudly. Wherever she was standing, she clearly had no fear of being overheard directly. "The dog of yours ran all the way to Uzhitz."

Jindra gasped softly. "Mutt?" she squeaked. "My Mutt?"

She'd feared Mutt dead. Her wildest hope, her dream that she'd clung to like a child's lullaby, was that Mutt had managed to escape the castle before Toth's men took it completely, and had vanished into the night never to return. She'd imagined him curled up by another fire, growing fat off table scraps from a merry farmer, or back at Theresa's loving feet, where they could both grow old and gray and forget the pain Jindra had caused them.

"He barked for a whole night." Anezka's annoyance was wrapped in warmth. "I ought to have kicked the thing, really. But…well, I couldn't shake it, so I let the beast bark us all the way here."

"Us?"

"Godwin is making himself useful. There's men in those camps wounded and dying, and even that old fool of mine will put his ale down for last rites." Anezka hummed. "There's talk of the ladies taken captive, but the girls at the bathhouse were talking about you. So that's how I knew."

Jindra's mind was slow and stupid, filled with all the wool Jana had just accused her of. "About…me?"

Anezka rolled her eyes. Jindra sensed it. "There's not a bath wench between here and Sasau that doesn't know about you, Jindriska of Skalitz. Hadn't you noticed?"

Jindra hadn't noticed at all.

"So the lad from the baths brought me. He's a jumpy one, but stout hearted. Aren't you, boy?"

Jindra heard a muffled sound that might have been a young man's terrified whimper.

"Don't start," Anezka snapped.

Nothing made sense. Jindra shook her head over and over, even if Anezka couldn't see. Maybe it wasn't Anezka, and this was all a dream of Jindra's making. "But how? Lady Stephanie says there's no easy way in or out of the castle."

Anezka gave a scornful scoff. "For the lady of the house, maybe. But that old wench running these baths has forgotten more ways into this castle than the lord himself ever knew."

Bozhena, who had been listening, stepped over choose a pinch of herbs, and murmured, with a wry smile, "Even our Sir Divish was young and wild once. I remember when she'd slip in and out."

Jindra gaped up at the ceiling, reeling. Talmberg was still a dark cage, but now light peeked through the cracks, and the lock was loose and rusted, the corners and doorframes gnawed by mice. It could be broken. It could be beaten.

And in Bozhena's smile, she saw that there could still be mischief, as well as hope. That was the most encouraging of all.

But –

She heard herself plead, "But why would you help me?"

"Jesus Christ, girl," Anezka snapped, impatient and sharp, as if Jindra were acting stupid. "Can I help or not?"

Jindra's shock had been slowly crumbling away to a darker, deeper pain, and now the floor caved in from under her feet. She wasn't – it was wrong that someone, anyone, should risk themselves for her sake. Old Bozhena, in danger in this little room filled with smoke. Jana, holding a blade to her own throat. Theresa, riding to Uzhitz, sitting in the dark outside Pribyslavitz, swallowing her own horror. Bianca in the mud, taking on the death that ought to have been –

And now Anezka, who Jindra hardly knew; who had listened when Jindra made demands and ate her food and forced her way to her table. Following dear, loyal Mutt, who could have been free of her.

Jindra took a shaking breath. "There's men everywhere." Her eyes burned. "I can't – I don't know how to fight them. I can't kill them all."

The truth of it landed and cracked the foundations of the world. It was as it had been before Runt, and even before Jana; when the weight of Jindra's failure had crushed her, and her hate had nowhere to go. There was no action, no way forward, and all that remained was the risk taken by good people, for a girl who could not repay them. She was trapped, weak –

"Think!" Anezka hissed. The urgency of it pulled Jindra from beneath the weight. "You're not a fool, child. What can you use?"

Use?

Jindra had no weapon: no knife, no blade, no rock. There was only her own body, and it had proven itself weak and worthless, too. Beaten, stifled, shorn –

The room went cold.

Jindra's heart beat outside of her chest, pulled from inside her and exposed, painful and pulsing within the curling smoke. She stumbled very quickly through a wash of memories, all of them colored with both reverence and horror, when she'd been too young to know the difference. The saints watching her when she stumbled on a prayer, unforgiving and all-knowing; a charm placed above the doorway at the tavern, that Bianca always touched lightly for blessings and protection; Vynášení smrti, burning and drowning the little straw doll so that winter could melt into spring.

The soothsayer in Rattay, digging her long nails into Jindra's palm.

Use his love, when your hair is shorn.

Jindra reached out and took a pinch of the dried sage, rubbing it between her fingers until the scent filled her head, woody and green.

"There's reinforcements coming from Valdek," she whispered. "There's a man named Erik leading them. He'll be young, in white armor." Her heartbeat could have cracked the stones. "He's Istvan's lover."

Talmberg itself swayed closer, as if it listened.

Then Anezka laughed. In the sound, Jindra saw her too-old eyes that had known a hundred men with a hundred hearts, and they were sparkling. "Good girl."

Then Anezka was gone. Jindra didn't hear her leave, but she sensed it, and she finally let her body sag against the wall in quiet relief.

In the outer chamber, the three men returned to their table, laughing at some jape Jindra hadn't heard.

"Jindriska!" Jana's voice, spoiled and unpleasant, cut from the courtyard. "Get back out here! I need you!"

Jindra pushed herself from the wall. As she passed Bozhena, she added the pinch of sage to the pot. It felt grounding to do so, and right, as if it were the final incense of a holy rite, when wine turned into blood.

Erik's blood, flowing through his hair and smelling of spices.

"Thank you," she breathed again, choked.

Outside, Jana's face was red and ruddy from her screeching. She held her head high and marched back inside, letting Jindra fall in step meekly behind her, with Lady Stephanie in the rear like a tired nurse, while their guards grumbled and spat on the ground; until at last they were locked tight back in Lady Stephanie's chamber, for the first time a sanctuary as well as a cage.

Jindra told them everything.

Lady Stephanie was slightly scandalized, either from the talk of bathmaids or secret passages or both. Jana cared more about the important things.

"His lover!" Jana exclaimed, shrill. "Truly?"

Jindra looked at her blankly. "Didn't you know?"

"Oh, you never tell me anything!" Jana bounced on the balls of her feet in excitement, tugged at Jindra's sleeve, swatted at her shoulder, as if she had forgotten that she and Jindra still stood on fragile ground. "Christ, no wonder Toth nearly ripped your fat head off, you stupid, beautiful girl!"

It was almost like they were friends again. Jindra cringed and grinned sheepishly, as she hadn't in days.

It hurt her mouth and nearly split her lip back open. She didn't care.

"If any neighbouring or foreign prince wishes for any reason to make war against her husband, or if her husband wishes to make war on someone else, the good lady will consider this thing carefully, bearing in mind the great evils and infinite cruelties, destruction, massacres and detriment to the country that result from war; the outcome is often terrible. She will ponder long and hard whether she can do something (always preserving the honour of her husband) to prevent this war. In this cause she will wish to work and labour carefully, calling God to her aid, and by good counsel she will do whatever she can do to find a way of peace."

-from The Treasure of the City of Ladies (c. 1405) by Christine de Pizan, translated by Sarah Lawson.