My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 226

Irina

I had told Nyx first because Nyx already knew.

She had crossed the room, gone down on one knee in front of me, and waited.

After a minute she said, "How long."

"Eight weeks."

"You're sure."

"I am sure."

"All right." She stood. She held her hand out. "Up."

I let her pull me up.

She sat me at the dressing table. She poured water from the carafe into a basin and pushed the basin across to me, and I washed my face while she stood behind me and watched my hands. She watched my hands the way she watched my hands when she was deciding whether I was steady enough to be left alone.

When I was finished she took the basin away and sat across from me.

"How."

"A man."

"I know how. Where."

"My father's hall. The summer."

"The cloth merchant."

I turned my head.

"You knew."

"I stood outside the door for three nights, my lady."

I had nothing to say to that. I waited.

Nyx folded her hands in her lap. She studied them. She studied them, and then she studied me.

"Have you told the king."

"No."

"Are you going to."

"No."

She inclined her head once. The same once she had inclined when I had asked her to drive the carriage at a different pace than the one Aldric had ordered. The same once when I had asked her to teach me to hold a knife. The inclination of a woman receiving an order from a person whose orders she had decided to take.

"Then listen to me," she said.

I listened.

"There is a road from the eastern marsh into the spinewood that turns north before it reaches the watchpost. It is not used in late summer because of the rains. It is usable."

"Go on."

"There was a band of bandits in those woods two years ago. The pack chased them off, but the camps are still there. Three good camps. I can put men in the camps inside a week."

"Bandits."

"A great many of them. Twelve at least. Strong ones. Organized. The kind that travel together and choose their stretch of road for the carriage trade."

She paused.

"We will say they had been waiting. We will say they had a scout in the village two days ahead of our convoy. We will say they came down on us at the bend in the road below the watchpost. We will say the detail was outnumbered three to one and the carriage was overturned in the first pass. We will say they took you out of the carriage and held the men back with crossbows and the detail was forced to watch."

She stopped.

She did not flinch over the next part.

"We will say you were held down. In front of the detail. For two days. I will testify to that. The men will testify to that. The shame of it will be on us. We failed to defend you. We are prepared to accept the cost."

"What is the cost."

"The king will have us flogged. He will have me flogged first. He will probably have me flogged worst. He may have one or two of the men killed. I have spoken to the men. They are prepared."

I did not say anything.

She watched me.

"My lady. The story will hold. The road is real. The camps are real. There are men in the eastern marsh who will swear they saw the band moving north a fortnight ago, and we did not act on the report. The convoy was small. I had been arguing for a larger detail for years. The pieces are already in place. The king will not have to look for evidence. The evidence will come up to him."

"He will look anyway."

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