ready for you, if you’d like to stay the night,” he said. “Dinner will be served in an hour.”
Nate stared at him, dumbfounded. Sewing together tattered flesh wasn’t the sort of thing that built up an appetite. Then he remembered that this had been Arkady’s habit: to treat his patients, and then spend as much time as possible living like a courtier. “No, thank you. I have matters to attend to in the city. But I’ll be back tomorrow to check their wounds, if you’ll send the phaeton first thing.”
“I will. Is Judah pregnant?”
“I didn’t check.” He’d been too busy keeping her from bleeding to death. “If she is, it’ll keep a few days.”
“Are you familiar with Lady Amie of Porterfield?” the Seneschal said.
“I think I treated her mother for a headache.” The headache had been caused by the violent green dye the woman favored, for dresses and everything else. Nate had warned her against it but she’d scoffed and dismissed him.
“Please arrange to see her. There’s a chance that she’s pregnant, too. I need you to make sure that she isn’t.”
“Even if she is, you mean?”
“You can do it, I assume.”
“Of course I can do it. But why does it matter if a courtier is pregnant or not?” He heard the rudeness in his voice and was distantly surprised by it. Apparently his patience stores were drained for the day.
“This empire is a machine. All the cogs must spin without impediment. She can have another child later, if she wants,” the Seneschal added offhandedly, and then Nate understood: she could have someone else’s child later, if she wanted. Would the maybe-child in question be Elban’s or his son’s—and which son, for that matter? He would not have suspected Theron, since the poisoning, but he supposed it was technically possible.
“I’ll pay her a visit,” Nate said.
“I’ll let her know to expect you. By the way, I understand that you provide some of the courtiers with preventative measures. You’re not to do the same with Lady Eleanor. If she asks, give her something fake. And harmless, of course.” He ran a hand over his thinning hair and suddenly looked very tired. “Judah’s timing really is spectacular. I hope Lord Gavin won’t be ill long; it would be good for Lady Eleanor if she were pregnant by the time Gavin’s father returns. It would be good for both of them, really.”
They had been walking all this time, and now they came to the door leading to the main corridor. There would be no guarantee of privacy on the other side. “So, that’s two possibly pregnant who shouldn’t be, and one who should be and isn’t,” Nate said.
“As our day’s work shows,” the Seneschal said, as if he and Nate had spent the day building a stone wall together, “people don’t always know what’s best for them.”
True enough. But Nate had no intention of letting Eleanor get pregnant. Not with Elban’s grandchild. Elban’s line would die with his sons; she, too, could have someone else’s baby later, as far as he was concerned. She seemed nice enough. He hoped she did.
* * *
He found Derie waiting in Arkady’s parlor, shoes propped in front of a blazing fire, tumbler of wine in her hand. She cackled when she saw Nate’s surprise. “Read you like a book,” she said. “Not that it was hard. You were practically shouting.”
Nate dropped his things on the floor and himself into the other chair. “I’m tired, Derie,” he said, and then, “She still lives.”
“I know that, boy. Tell me everything else.”
So he did. When he was done she said, “I hope you got everything her blood touched.”
“It’s in there,” Nate said, nodding wearily at the bundle he’d carried.
Derie crouched on the floor next to the bundle and untied it eagerly. It fell apart: the rags, the destroyed towel, even the silk quilt from Lady Eleanor’s bed. He’d told Lady Eleanor he would burn it all. Nate was not squeamish but when he thought of Judah bleeding on that quilt, he felt queasy. Derie pressed her face into it like it was a perfumed handkerchief.
“Good boy,” Derie said, and stuffed the quilt into a big rough-spun bag like the one laundry women used. Nate hadn’t noticed it before now, but she’d had it waiting. “Help me.”
So he knelt and helped her, choking with revulsion as she exclaimed with delight over every bloodstained scrap. Nate was no innocent but normally, when he’d dealt with blood in these quantities, it had been