The Assassin: (Mortal Beloved Time Travel Romance, #2) (12 page)

“I’m sorry.” I squeezed her arm.

“Better than sorry would be finding me work in the palace kitchen. Get your oldest friend, your best friend, Miri, a job in the kitchen of King Afonso. I will cook stews. I will scrub pots. I will kill chickens. I would even—”

“Miri, you already kill chickens and you hate it,” I said.

“Killing chickens in the castle is a far cry from wringing their scrawny necks in a dank, dark place that smells of blood and piss.” She pouted.

“I’ll lay odds the job description is the same at King Afonso’s kitchen,” I said as we approached the palace.

“Blood and piss in a royal palace smell completely different than blood and piss in the gypsy slums.” Miri sighed. We stopped walking and she gazed up at the castle doors flanked by armed guards.

I was tempted to tell her that spilled blood smelled the same whether one was rich or poor, in a pristine villa, or a less affluent neighborhood.

“I’ll put in a good word for you,” I said.
 

She jumped up and down and clapped her hands. I couldn’t help but smile. “What were you even thinking leaving here?” Miri asked.

“Someone asked me to deliver a message. A simple errand,” I said. “Now I’m headed back to work.”

“Oh, Nadja,” Miri said. “You must be so careful about delivering messages these days. The nobles want our services, but then panic if they do not hear the missive they desire. Then the gypsy who delivers an unpopular message loses his or her head, or is poisoned, or—oh my saints!” She pinched my arm and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Is that what you think happened to Durril?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I am sorry that Durril died. Will there be services?”

“Already happened.” She shrugged. “A few men dug up gypsy burial ground and pitched his body inside. The priest said mass for a few seconds and the men shoveled the dirt back on top. It was quick, but well attended—the exception being you. That is when I started to worry—I knew you would not miss that for the world.”
 

“Don’t worry about me.” I suddenly realized that I didn’t want Miri to leave. She was a kind girl and seemed to like me—well,
she liked Nadja.
“I would love to work with you at the castle. I’ll see what I can do.”

Miri jumped and clapped her hands. “Working at the palace would be the most exciting job ever!”

I smiled. “Don’t get your hopes up yet, okay?”

“But my hopes are very, very high! I knew you would not forget me when you rose to a higher station. Will I see you soon? I know; come visit our decrepit abode. Perhaps I can convince father to roast a rabbit in your honor.”

“I would love that.” I smiled at her.
Ryan’s Time Traveling Lesson #10: Make friends with the locals.

~ ~ ~

I was back inside the confines of the palace and tried to fit in as I performed my duties as a kitchen attendant, a servant, and a ‘waitress.’
 

Just like a bad case of poison ivy, the news spread quickly through the palace that thieving rogues had murdered Inêz, and her villa had been burglarized. According to the gossips, Prince Pedro and her children had been at a friend’s house when the deed was done. While King Afonso and Queen Beatrice were deeply saddened by the news, they felt very blessed that the children were un-harmed. Extra guards were stationed around the castle to heighten the sense of security. Everyone wondered what Prince Pedro was thinking but no one had actually heard from him.

Because Durril had died, the castle kitchen was short-staffed and actually needed, of all people, a new butcher who could also cook. I sang Miri’s praises. She impressed the head middle-aged male chef with her skills—I didn’t ask in detail what that included—and she got the job.
 

For nearly a week, Miri and I enjoyed working around each other. We giggled about the cute guys: noblemen as well as commoners. We gossiped about the other kitchen workers and the aristocrats we served: what they wore, whom they were dating, as well as their noble bling. I traded frivolous comments with Miri about which ring or dress I would like to wear while I silently worried about why I was
really
in Portugal. How could I discover my real message?
And I never told her anything about Samuel.

I’d see him in the palace’s dining area during parties and gatherings. He was still gorgeous. I dropped off food or beverages to him multiple times but he never met my glance or addressed me by my name, but strangely, he always thanked me.
 

I’d bow my head, or curtsey, and say, “You are welcome,
Lord De Rocha.”
It was like we were playing a game of sorts. But I didn’t know who was winning.

At night I shared a sleeping space with seven other servant girls in a tiny, low-ceilinged room that was tucked away down a skinny corridor a quick walking distance from the kitchen. I shared a thin pallet with Miri. When her nightly snoring woke me, I’d stare up at the ceiling and imagine Samuel and I together, under the stars, in the year 1675. When he was sweet as well as handsome, and when he remembered that he loved me.
 

I’d close my eyes, roll onto my side, clamp one hand over my ear, and try to drown out Miri’s rumbles with memories of Samuel: his arms wrapped around me, his hand pushing back tendrils of my hair, the night he gave me the necklace that he had made for me. A totem necklace—the necklace designed specifically for one Messenger—me.

A little over a week after I time traveled to King Afonso’s castle in Portugal, there was another party. Miri had butchered a few pigs and spent hours roasting them on spits. The grand hall was packed with nobles, a few commoners, guards, merchants, and servants. Beautiful young women wore gorgeous gowns and flirted with handsome young men who eyed them like they were delicious candy. Live music played.

King Afonso sat at his table with his inner circle of finely attired guests—the exception being Rat-Face, also-known-as Alvaro. He was dressed in simple clothes that were more-than-a-little dirty, and chewed on a large piece of meat.

 
A middle-aged, tired-looking woman sat at a table adjacent to Afonso’s. The King leaned between the tables toward her, took her bejeweled hand in his, and squeezed it tenderly between his palms as he smiled at her.

It was almost fairy-tale sweet. If I’d never witnessed the King’s coldness with Inêz and his grandchildren, I would have believed that he was simply a kind man: a ruler who was in love with his wife, the Queen, and throwing yet another royal party during an uneventful day.

Miri kicked the back of my calf and I jumped. “Stop mooning over the King and the Queen and take this platter of pig to the guests.”

“Stop kicking me and I will.” I took the platter from her, turned and spotted Samuel at a table a third of the way across the room. A very pretty girl wearing a silken gown sat so close to him on the bench, she was practically in his lap. She had porcelain skin and brilliant red hair—sections were braided and cascaded down the back of her fancy dress. She held his arm, leaned in, and whispered into his ear. Her boobs threatened to escape the confines of her tightly laced bodice and at least five guys in the near vicinity ogled them.
 

I frowned. She looked awfully familiar—but I couldn’t place her. “Miri. Who is that girl?” I nodded my head in their direction. “The one with Lord Samuel?”

“Lord Samuel De Rocha.” Miri fanned her sweaty face. “Now there is a fine example of a man if I do say so myself.” She peered up at me. “You fancy him?”

“Of course not,” I said. “That would be ridiculous. We’re completely different.”

“Lord De Rocha is a frequent visitor to the castle. You work at the castle.” Miri lifted one eyebrow. “Perhaps you run into each other—frequently. Horizontally.”

“Miri!”

“Oh, please. There is no harm in that.”

“I’ve run into him on occasion,
not horizontally,
but there is nothing between—”

“Right,” Miri said. “Just because you have different stations in life does not mean attraction cannot grow. I mean, just because I slaughter my fair share of animals, skewer them with rods, and baste them gently as they simmer over a fire pit does not mean I never covet a Lady’s pretty dress or desire the attentions of a handsome Lord.”

“Yes, Miri, I understand that. But trust me—Samuel, I mean Lord De Rocha, and I are totally
not
attracted to each other…” I felt my face flush and I fanned myself.

He probably wasn’t interested in me—but liar, liar, pants on fire—I was still totally hot for him.

She giggled. “Right.”

“I just want to know who the sleazy girl is, I meant
The Lady who’s sitting so… familiar and cozy with him.”

“Cozy?” Miri wrinkled her forehead.

“Yes. You know… tight,” I said.

“You do not remember?”

“I don’t follow the comings and goings of the royals the way you do, Miri.”

“You used to,” she said. “That’s Lady Giulia De Rocha. She is a stepsister to Samuel: his mother married her father. But it is rumored Giulia cares for Samuel much more than a sister of any kind should care for a brother.”

“That’s pretty obvious.” I watched her giggle, tilt her head back, and display even more cleavage to her growing crowd of male admirers. My only comfort was that Samuel didn’t appear to be one of them.

“Lady Giulia has never hidden her desires or ambitions,” Miri said. “Lord Samuel’s real father moved away from Portugal and left him and his mother behind just a few years after he was born. He was a mercenary of sorts and did not desire to be tied down to one place, one country, or one family so the gossips chattered. Even though Giulia is a few years older than Samuel—she took to him. Her fervent affection for him is quite obvious to everyone—the exception being Lord Samuel.”

I eyed him—he seemed blind to her over-the-top charms. I turned my attention to Giulia: she was gorgeous, clearly aware of that, and acted like Queen Bee of Medieval Flirt Central. Why wasn’t he interested in her?
When a sinking feeling made my stomach flip-flop.
“Is Lord Samuel gay?” I asked.

Miri looked up at me and hesitated. “He does appear to be somewhat melancholy at times. But, I have also seen him laugh. I do believe he experiences happiness.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Is he, is he…?” I struggled to find the appropriate word when a man screamed, harsh and raw, from the bottom of his lungs which shut down the chitchat, the gossip, the flirting, and the party’s frivolity like brakes screeching on a train attempting an emergency stop. All eyes swiveled to him.

“Oh holy Mother!” Miri dropped to the floor and I bobbled the greasy platter in a desperate attempt to hold onto it.
 

The man appeared to be almost forty years old, tall, built, and wore nice but dirty clothes. This man was not a peasant. This man was a noble. His hair was unkempt, his face red and sweaty, and his shoulders heaved. He walked past me and I felt light-headed from the fury that emanated from him like violent winds circling the eye of a tornado.

He flung his arms open as he strode through the crowd headed toward the King, as the nobles shrunk back into their seats. “Father!” he yelled, his voice ripped. “What have you done?”

~ fourteen ~

Two men burst into the room from an adjacent hallway, pushed through the crowd and raced to keep up with him. “Do not even think of it!” One of them hollered.

I recognized the one man from Inêz’s house the morning after she was killed. They were friends of—

“’Tis Prince Pedro in the flesh,” Miri gasped and pushed herself to standing.

“Father—” Prince Pedro pulled a knife from his pocket and pointed it at the King, his hands trembling. “Father, why have you betrayed me?”
 

King Afonso calmly watched him approach. “No my, son. I have not.”

Five palace guards leapt from their seats, and surrounded the King, as they drew their daggers and brandished their swords.
 

The King swatted at them like gnats. “Stop it! No harm will come to me. He is my flesh and blood. Get out of his way!” They hesitantly moved several paces back, their weapons still drawn. The tension in the room was so thick you could have cut it with a blade.

“Prince Pedro knows.” An older noble man at a nearby table slugged back his goblet. “He knows the truth.”

“Fool!” Another man seated next to the first hissed. “There is
nothing
to know.”
 

Rat-face pushed himself back from the King’s table, grabbed his goblet with one hand, a piece of meat with his other, and scurried away, disappearing into one of the many connecting corridors.

“Nadja.” Miri squeezed my arm and tugged on it hard. “I fear this will not go well. The next thing you know, some noble will accuse a gypsy of being involved. You know how the aristocracy loves to blame the gypsies. Come with me. Hurry!”

Oh crap—
I was the gypsy who was involved.
I broke out into a sweat and gripped the greasy, pork-filled platter so hard my knuckles turned white.

“And then,” Miri whispered, “another one of us will be poisoned with the scent of mandrake on their breath, accused of witchcraft and hung, or just found dead in an alley—drenched in blood and piss.”

“Enough with the ‘blood and piss’ commentary,” I said.

“Have you forgotten Romani life now that you live at the King’s castle, Nadja? Have you risen so high above the rest of your gypsy tribe?” Miri asked.

“No,” I whispered indignantly. “I have not forgotten.”

 
How could I forget? Until this past week I’d never led a gypsy life. Until a week ago, I was Madeline Blackford from present day Chicago who liked gossiping with her friends, drinking lattes, eating cupcakes, hugging her dad but pretending to hate it, and was desperately in love with a boy named Samuel who didn’t remember that he’d fallen in love with me some time in the past.
 

“Father,” Prince Pedro said, his voice cracking as he stumbled toward King Afonso. “Father, Inêz is dead. My love, my life, my beautiful, sweet Inêz was
butchered!
Our three children are motherless, bereft. I am, I am… I do not know
what
I am.” He dropped to both knees on the stone floor in front of his dad and wept. “I do not know
who
I am without Inêz.” His guttural sobs wracked the silent, cavernous room.