of hearing about how tired she looked. “I’ve eaten nothing but squash and oatmeal for weeks. How should I look?”
“I know life in here isn’t easy for the four of you.” He was always so placid. “And I’m sorry about that. It was the only way I could keep you alive: to tell the people that you were undergoing some of the same hardships they always have.”
“Yes, I’m sure this is all very satisfying for them. Can I have the food now?” Breakfast had been slim that morning: Elly’s latest bread experiment, which was rock-hard and flat-tasting, and—of course—squash. She knew the bulging bag held the drabbest and cheapest of foodstuffs, but she wanted it anyway. The last bag the magus had brought was already empty. Had it really been only a few days? Or longer? She reached for the bag.
The Seneschal held it away. Grabbing for it would mean dodging around him like a child and she didn’t have much pride left, but she had too much for that. Just the faintest awareness of it, like a limb about to go numb.
“Marry me,” he said.
She froze. “You’re joking.”
“Not at all. You’re the only one everyone in the city unequivocally likes or sympathizes with. Seeing you throw in with New Highfall would raise morale.” He considered, then added, “There needn’t be anything physical between us, but you’d be treated well. And you’d get to leave the House. You wouldn’t have complete freedom, of course—you know nothing about the city, and you wouldn’t be safe without a guard—but life would be easier for the others while they remain inside. Food goes further split three ways than four, doesn’t it?” He held up the bag. Still not giving it to her. “They’d be better fed. Healthier. So would you. Also, the Nali chieftain is still in the city. What if we can figure out how the bond between you and Gavin works? You’ve spent your entire life subject to him, haven’t you? When he misbehaved, you were punished. When he got drunk, you ended up with the headache. Wouldn’t you like to be your own person? Completely independent, beholden to nobody?”
“Except you,” she said.
He dismissed that. “You’ve always been beholden to me. I’ve protected you your entire life. When you were a baby, and Clorin wanted to keep you, I convinced Elban it would do no harm. Later, when we discovered the bond...you might not realize it, but I protected you then, too, just as I’m protecting you now.”
“You held a hot coal to my foot,” she said.
He nodded. “And put you in the snow, and bled you. Elban was for killing the both of you and starting over entirely. Once again, I convinced him otherwise. I told him I thought the bond could be managed with the proper training. Elban enjoyed seeing you hurt. I didn’t.”
At last, he offered her the bag. She still wanted what was inside, but she didn’t want to take it from his hand. She didn’t want to take anything from his hand. But she needed the food. They all did. Humiliated, furious, she snatched the bag from him. “Go away.”
For the first time, he stepped toward her. She automatically stepped back, but his gray eyes were serious, not amorous. “You have known me in unkind circumstances. I am not an unkind person. I will not force you to do anything, but this is your best choice. Surely you see that.”
Her best choice. She had spent all her life watching Elly prepare to be Lady of the City and listening to the Tiernan talk about how it could always be worse, how wives in Highfall had only the rights their husbands gave them. What rights would the Seneschal give her? A life outside the Wall, in the city, but under guard. As much a prisoner as she’d ever been. Brought out occasionally, perhaps, to make the Seneschal look good. On the balcony over the Lord’s Square, say. Twice a year. On the solstices.
No. With every weary shred of her being: no. The Seneschal wasn’t even not awful; he was merely not as awful as he could have been. He had deliberately tortured her when she was a child, every year, for all the years of her life. And now he expected her to marry him because he hadn’t enjoyed it.
She didn’t mean to tell anyone, but that night, watching Elly milk, the words came out of her mouth, anyway. And she’d known they would, hadn’t she? She’d