The Unbroken by C. Clark (ebook reader .txt) 📕

“You don’t even know what you’ll be doing.”

A strange mix of emotions flickered across the other woman’s face. Luca caught an initial flash of anger followed by dutiful resignation.

Inside the cell, there was a piss pot in the corner that was pungent with dehydration, and an empty tin bowl with scraps of watered grain drying to paste along its sides. Luca doubted honor had anything to do with the soldier’s eagerness.

“We’ll discuss it later, then. I’ll get the good sergeant to assist us.”

After a silent carriage ride, in which Gillett sat warily across from Touraine and the bodyguard Lanquette sat beside her, they arrived at the town house. They’d taken off the soldier’s handcuffs, but she still held her wrists close together. In the daylight, she was only marginally less imposing. The look on her face, though, was one of such amazement that Luca smiled a little behind the woman’s back.

“Welcome to your new home,” Luca said.

CHAPTER 10THE ASSISTANT

Welcome home, Sands.

The princess’s words echoed with Rogan’s scorn, and Touraine flinched, but the princess didn’t seem to notice as she led Touraine inside.

Touraine had expected opulence, of course, garish displays of wealth from a woman who had never lived without in her life.

She was not prepared.

The princess’s sitting room was full of books. An entire wall was covered by a shelf more than half-full of books and sheaves of paper and even a few scrolls. The table in the corner was messy with paper and writing materials, and a large book lay open on it as if the princess had been studying and called away abruptly.

There were a few minor flourishes, too, like the Shālan carpets stretched over the floor, springy beneath Touraine’s boots. One of them depicted angles and rigid shapes, and the other had designs of the Shālan script, curled into shapes at the center. They showed slivers of a wooden floor, not earth. Two stuffed chairs sat beside a small table with an échecs board. A rough metal stand held spare canes near the door.

“It’s rather small,” Princess Luca was saying. “When they built this place, they never anticipated… esteemed guests, so I’m afraid I have no private chambers for you. The guards’ room connects to mine, so you’ll share with them.”

Small? To get to the bedrooms, they passed a flight of stairs, the wooden handrail curling up like a cat’s tail to the second floor, and then walked through a dining room. Luca’s rooms were closed off, but even the guards’ room was airy compared to the room she’d shared with Pruett and Tibeau in the guardhouse. And then Luca led her up the stairs—haltingly, for both of them—to a bathing room with a wheeled tub.

The princess gave Touraine the same appraising look she had in the jail. It was different in the sunlight streaming through the window—a glass window!—but Touraine still felt like a new horse getting its teeth checked.

She was suddenly self-conscious of her ragged black coat, the old spare she’d put on before Rogan arrested her. The other one was still crusted in Émeline’s blood. She’d worn this coat—or one just like it—every day in her working memory. And the undershirt, stained with blood and dirt and smelling like week-old sweat.

For her part, the princess wore trousers and a black coat as well, a swallow-tailed velvet one that should have been too hot to even dream of wearing. Gold embroidery shaped like braided wheat grains crossed the torso and met at the black buttons in the middle. A shock of gold lace spilled from each cuff. It told Touraine everything she needed to know about her: stiff, formal, and very expensive.

The princess came to the same conclusion Touraine had: “You’ll need new clothes. We’ll have your measurements taken soon. Until then, I’ll send Adile up to start your water, and something spare from Guérin. Do you know they’ve had Balladairan plumbing here for a few hundred years? Before it was even a colony. This is newer, obviously, but still. Isn’t it marvelous?”

Touraine bowed again. Already it had become habit, like saluting. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

Then she was alone, and she stood unmoving until Adile came, and even then, it took the maid’s prodding to shake Touraine out of the physical stupor.

“The bath will help, sir, I promise you that. You need some help, is that it?” It was the kindness that jolted Touraine into the moment. Adile pushed a blond curl back behind her ear.

“No, thank you.”

Adile tsked. “You’re not so different from the other soldiers, are you? They think they can do everything alone, too. Here.”

She set to work at Touraine’s golden buttons and didn’t grimace once at the stains or the stench. She stopped only when she saw the bandage below Touraine’s collarbone. “Make sure you tell Her Highness about that if you don’t want to go rancid.”

Then Adile was gone and Touraine was in the bath, fighting the pressure in her chest that squeezed tighter whenever she tried to think.

The trial had been only this morning. Squeeze.

She wasn’t going to die. At least not right now. Squeeze.

She’d been stripped of her rank. Squeeze.

Her mother might be out there, in this city. Squeeze.

Adile came back with her change of clothes and then led her to Princess Luca’s office. Unlike every other room in the house, there were few books, and the desk was surprisingly empty. Touraine suspected that the sitting room had replaced this office, since it was downstairs and more accessible.

“Adile was worried you might drown yourself,” the princess said when they were alone.

Almost alone. Her guards stood close.

Touraine didn’t know how to answer that. “Your Highness, may I ask a question?”

“Yes?”

“What is today?”

“Ah. It’s seventh-day. It’s been a week since we arrived.” Her cool voice softened just a little on the edges.

Only a week, but her body felt like it had been on campaign for a month. Her knees threatened to go soft. Émeline and Thierry had been dead for days.

“Your Highness, my