Have you ever been torn out of darkness so quick it leaves you blinded? It doesn't last long, but it's fucking awful. I don't recommend it.

When my vision returned, the first thing I saw was my own hands and feet, which wasn't a particularly gorgeous sight, but it was reassuring. I looked about and saw the black streak of dirt that made the path to the dungeon. The grass on either side was lush and soft, like it gets right after a hard rain. It was little things like that I'd forgotten in the dark.

The guards had my arms tied behind me, and they were frog-marching me toward the castle proper. Looking at them, they could have been any of the guards who'd beaten me, fed me, or taunted me-- before they spoke, I couldn't tell.

Whoever they were, I hated them all the same.

Compared to the towers and bastions I'd see later, the Duke's castle was nothing special. At that point, though, I’d seen nothing bigger that human hands had built. All white stone, well-washed, covered in flags bearing his sigil, the Duke's stronghold painted a pretty picture. In my mind, it always looked a bit like a cake, finely crafted, neatly decorated.

The guards noticed I'd stopped struggling.

"Given up, then?" The one on the right asked. It could have been teasing, but his voice was too flat, his expression too bored. He was taller than the other and had a nose the shape and color of rotten fruit still hanging off the vine. He sounded familiar, but I couldn't place him. Not all the guards had come by often enough to get nicknames.

"No, no," said the shorter one. He had one of those thick Eadling accents, real common around Sigan-Faru, that made him add extra 'R's to everything. It sounded like he'd said, nawr, nawr. "She's tickled to see her fancy man. Doing her a favor, we are. She's only finally realized it." He gave me something like a shove. Graciously, I ignored it.

Honestly, it's never worth talking to people with power over you unless they ask you a question. Sometimes not even then.

And they'd told me plenty already. My fancy man, he'd said. So the yarn I'd told Ecka to spin for the Count and his men had landed well enough to be gossiped over. Now we just needed to make sure it stuck well enough for them to let us go.

That's the thing about lying. The first step, of course, is telling the lie convincingly enough that the mark believes you at first. The second step is making sure the story you spin out of the lie is not just good enough to stick, but that it sticks long enough for you to get what you want.

And what I wanted, and what Ecka wanted, was to get out of Sigan-Faru alive.

The main doors of the Duke's castle were locked shut, as ever. I don't think I ever saw them open. Big, grand things, painted red and orange. The doors were more for decoration and defense than letting anyone in; it was built to be stronghold as much as it was a castle, after all, and with paranoid Ceorl running the show, it was mostly a stronghold.

The guards took me around to a side entrance, and then up a flight of stairs. The stairway was all stone, curling into a tightly wound spiral, the sort of thing you build for defense. If you have a bunch of bastards invading your fucking castle, they'll all rush up in this tiny spiral, and since it spins clockwise, their right hands get all cramped. And there's you, sitting at the top, and facing down your right hand's free to pick them off nasty and slow. Going up those types of stairs was always a reminder of how much power you didn't have. The very castle was built to oppose you.

Being pulled up something like that after weeks (I later found out it'd been two) of being stuffed in that dark little cell, just walking up was an accomplishment. My whole body was weak, and the guards weren't particularly gentle, dragging me along. I say dragged, seeing as I was still unsteady on my feet, and the guards were none too patient with my slipping and stumbling. Every time I stumbled, the guards had to readjust their hold, and being punters, one was taking certain liberties. After the second time the shorter one fucking groped me, I gave into my worse impulses and tried to bite off his ear. It was on impulse, immediate, before I had time to think.

I missed, of course.

He used his free hand to knock me hard in the jaw. "Careful, now." Nowr. "Your fancy man wouldn't like to hear you're of a flirtatious bent."

A bite isn't a kiss, but a prick is always a prick. I figured this one, the shorter guard, wasn't one I'd dealt with in the dungeons. His voice wasn't familiar, and he was far too interested in lording his power over me for me to forget it. I was dirty, stinking and underfed-- whatever he did to me wasn't about lust. He just wanted me to know who was boss.

"Get your fucking hands off me," I hissed. It fit what I was going for, that I was wild and unpredictable, half-mad with rage. Nice coincidence, that happening to be how I really felt.

Have you ever lied so long, the truth feels like an act?

"Feeling feisty, ain't we?" The shorter one continued, but the other guard cut in.

"Knock it off, Waelgrim" he grumbled. "This one's a fighter. I don't want any more trouble dragging her up the stairs."

He wasn't strictly right. If the shorter one-- Waelgrim, apparently-- stopped bothering me, I'd still have to make a fuss. When they got me to where I was going, I needed to look beaten to all the hells. I had to make a mess. But maybe, if Waelgrim hadn't spat in my face, the whole thing would have been less dramatic than it ended up.

I kicked him as hard as I could at a shitty angle with weak legs. He punched me in the side, which meant he got in close, and I bit his face. I'd been going for his throat-- in fights with armored men, I don't fuck around-- but I took what I could get. I tasted blood, and the other guard grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled like I was a kitten.

Now, I'll be the first to tell you, that shirt was falling apart. It hadn't been of fine make even before I'd been thrown in a dungeon with it. It had suffered a fair deal in my two weeks in that dark pit, so when it got pulled, it parted down the front like the waves under prow. My dugs were covered by a thin wrap meant to hide what little I had on my chest, but that was quickly ripped off by Waelgrim's clumsy attempts at fighting back. I hated it, I hated being like this, and it just made me bite harder. I could feel skin getting caught between my teeth, flesh ripping.

Waelgrim was fully screaming. He'd entirely given up his hold on me, now; all he was doing was beating on me as best he could, shoving and clawing behind thick leather gloves. The other guard was pulling at my hands-- still bound, sadly-- and occasionally my hair.

At one point, Waelgrim finally got around to kicking me in the stomach. That it took so long was powerful fucking evidence he was a shit fighter at the best of times. Go for the gut, always, before the face or the groin. Everybody's got breath to get knocked out of them.

Which is to say, dungeon-weak little me with no cuirass for protection-- not even, at this point, a shirt-- wheezed and let go. I'd have collapsed into a lump, if I'm honest, but the taller guard held me upright.

"Bitch," he muttered, and I smiled with a mouth of blood.

So that's how I made it up the rest of the stairs, shirtless and dazed, with my teats hanging out. If I was going to look like this, be seen like this, I was going to make it work for me, but that didn't make me happy about it.

Right then, I wanted to spit Waelgrim's blood in his face-- there was still a fair amount in my mouth-- but I had an image to project. I sent it dribbling down my jaw instead. Playing the part of the poor maid beaten savage, I let myself collapse and got dragged alone. My body was a dead weight between them, my head lolling forward like the fight had beaten all sense from me. It hadn't, but that's another trick; always go down before you have to, so you can spring up later.

From what I could see through my hair, the room at the top of the stairs was very nice, maybe even cozy. It was clearly a private chamber, rather than a place you entertain guests or the average fool. I guessed a study, from the amount of books, but any number of books was deeply impressive to me in those days.

The tapestries on the wall were fairly sedate, pastoral scenes, mostly. No grand battles, like the ones in the main hall. The windows had embroidered cloth as dressing-- what little of the walls left naked stone were carefully painted. I hadn't known, then, that this was the fashion for any landed lord, but I recognized even in those days that it was a sign of wealth.

I hoped I clashed real bad with the decor.

There was a shriek, and someone ran up to me, covering me with cloth. I was grateful, but I didn't show it. I just kind of twitched, like I was barely sensible. It was important to emphasize how I'd been knocked around, how unfair it was. When you're on the chopping block, it doesn't matter about pride; get sympathy however you can.

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The person who'd draped something over my front, to either hide the blood or my shame, was a young little page in Duke Ceorl's livery. He couldn't have been older than fourteen, and his face was scarlet. His eyes kept darting away from me, toward the rest of the room. He was more afraid of fucking up than he was embarrassed by or interested in what he'd covered up. Poor little bugger, just trying to do his damn job when I come in to make a scene.

The guards shoved me into a chair, and didn't fight when they tied my hands to its arms. One of them tied the cloth around my neck like it was some great dinner napkin.

Only then did I look around.

Sitting at the end of the room was Duke Ceorl, looking pretty displeased. I'd never seen him look angry-- not that he was a jolly man. Most days he was just smug. If I had to describe Duke Ceorl in one word, I'd say he was self-satisfied. If I had four, I'd say he was very pale, and very self-satisfied. His pallor stuck out on account of the bright colors he wore, mostly red and orange, the colors of his crest. On every finger, he wore a ring.

To Ceorl's right was the little page boy, who I'd describe as sniveling, as well as piss terrified. He kept himself silent as a monk, which I guessed was the smart move, being unusual behavior for a kid otherwise. Occasionally, his eyes stole back to my chest, but he mostly focused on the Duke. I reckoned the big thing on his mind was getting into trouble for shrieking.

To Ceorl's left was a man with more jaw than face, though what he had was being used to express something like worry. He had his hair in a style I'd never seen before, but I'd learn later was fashionable in the great cities to the north-- shorn short around the skull, and brushed forward. He had very classical Eadling coloring, dark blue eyes and darker black hair. The most important thing, though, was that someone had tied him into his chair. I could guess from that alone that he was Ecka, the man I'd met in complete darkness, but his voice confirmed it. "By the saints," he said, "what have they done to you?"

Us pretending to be sweethearts was part of the plan, yeah, but that didn't mean I was enjoying it. Rather than answer, I let some more of Waelgrim's blood dribble down my chin. Another tip: Always act like you have less of an advantage than you do. Folk will say all sorts of things in front of you, if they think you can't listen.

"I asked," Ceorl's voice came, high and reedy like I remembered, "for her to be unharmed."

I could hear Waelgrim babbling behind me. "She bit me, see-?"

"For her to bite you, she would have had to catch you by surprise. How, precisely, did an unarmed woman with a child in her belly manage that?"

Waelgrim blubbered an answer, and I put my effort into making sure I didn't grin. So Ceorl believed the lie Ecka and I had crafted: He'd passed through the area on his way home up north-- explaining his northern accent and all his things clearly being from the great cities-- when he'd seduced me, and had come back when he realized I was with child. That they'd found me out in the meantime was a complete coincidence, but it gave the story a slice of drama these people might like. It was like those plays they had in the dead of summer, where the lusty wife always gets discovered just after she'd given in and fucked the reeve.

That's the thing, you never want to tell a lie, a story, that challenges how people see things. Everyone knew women are always squirming for a fuck and that a knight always means well. The truth-- that Ecka was a spy, if a fucking awful one, and I was neither pregnant nor in love-- was too detailed, too messy, to believe.

And with all that going on, the question of why I'd dressed as a man didn't matter. I'd been found out, and now I had to squeeze out a baby. I was punished at the end, just like in the plays.

Ceorl turned to Ecka, as though remembering something existed beyond the borders of his incompetent guardsmen. "I am inclined to let a woman pleading her belly live," he said, "at least until the child is born. But nothing in your tale explains the encrypted correspondence we found you with."

This part would be harder to explain, and would require more quick thinking from Ecka. I'd coached him, yeah, but there's only so much you can do with a man as stubbornly respectable as him. He cleared his throat, like he was offended Ceorl would bring this up again, but too polite to say. "My lord duke, I am High King Eadh's man, through and through," he said, and I could hear a hint of pride in his voice. I'd told him to leave whatever bits of himself, whatever bits of the truth, that he could in his story. Honestly, I was impressed. I didn't think he'd been listening. "The King has many enemies, and many agents dealing with those threats." This was also technically true. "I am disheartened to hear you think you may be among them, being of all things his cousin."

Ceorl was a paranoid little bastard, through and through. I was hoping we could use that against him. If we could get Ceorl to believe Ecka was a spy-- because he was, and because Ceorl thought everyone was a spy, including me-- that would make him comfortable in his judgment. And if he was all cozy and warm with his view of the world, he might just believe the spy wasn't for him.

Half of lying is just flattery, I swear.

"Perhaps," Ceorl said, like he was tasting the story, "but who, then, were you spying on?"

"I hate the word spy," Ecka said. "It sounds so… villainous. I was simply gathering sensitive information, my lord." I hadn't coached Ecka to say that. Not only that, but I didn't even know if it were true; I just plain didn't know Ecka that well. But it sounded true, which was, right then, all that mattered.

"Of course, of course," Ceorl said, like he was humoring Ecka. That was either a bad sign, or a real good one. "But who were you gathering information on?"

I hadn't expected Ceorl to be dumb enough to ask a question like that-- why would any spy worth their salt answer?-- which meant I hadn't told Ecka what to say. I cringed a little, and I was lucky nobody was looking at me just then. Women beaten to senselessness aren't supposed to react to conversation.

"Of course, my lord," Ecka repeated back at Ceorl with a subtlety I hadn't expected. I'd never told him how to smooth a lie with commonality, how subtly mimicking someone can get them to like you more, to believe you more easily. Maybe it was a coincidence. "But you must know, I cannot tell you and risk the High King's safety."

It was the right answer. It also wasn't one Ceorl wanted to hear. Nobody enjoys being told no, especially if you're a rich, paranoid little cur.

But Ecka smoothed it over. "What I did in Tihtle is between my Lord the High King and myself."

That was good. Give Ceorl a bit of information, make himself feel like he knows something he isn't supposed to, without going into what. And Tihtle was a neighboring hamlet; a new target for Ceorl's paranoia.

Where had Ecka learned to do this? He'd come off different, in the dungeon, a little stiff, and too formal. There was more to him than I'd thought-- which probably wasn't surprising, given we'd known each other for all of two days.

But if this made the Duke any more jolly, he didn't let it show. He just nodded and patted his knee.

"Sir Ecka, you are not a man of means," he said, like that wasn't obvious. Ecka's accent wasn't all prim and short the way upper class folks had it-- Ceorl, for example. And to look at him, you could see it. The shape of his mouth was uneven in that way that meant a split lip had healed bad. One of his ears looked like he'd had it deep fried-- the way an ear gets when it's been hit too much. I had told Ecka not to hide the fact that he was common-- it would be obvious from his accent-- but I was doubly glad now. He'd never pass as noble.

But Ecka just said, "no, my lord, I am not," like the Duke hadn't meant it as an insult.

"I wonder why my cousin, the King… the High King, why would he send someone of such… character?"

And there was another insult, plain as a slap. Ecka didn't so much as blink. He probably got a lot of this kind of talk, if he spent time in court up north. "The King needed a man who knows the minds of common people, my lord."

I didn't know if this was true or a lie, though I suspected the former. I had wondered, but it hadn't seemed worth asking.

"Did you know this woman," he gestured to me. I pretended to snap to attention just a little, like I was some wounded dog still trying to please its master. There are plenty of ways to flatter a man without talking, and I'd learned in nine years of service to the Duke, the bastard liked his flattery. The Duke went on, "did you know she was a woman, decided to lay with her? Or was that just a happy accident?"

Of all the fucking questions, this? Really? Sigan-Faru had a reputation for being a backwater, because it was in the middle of nowhere, but Duke Ceorl really went out of his way to make it backwards besides.

"We spoke and found much in common, my lord. I have a love of the hunt," Ecka said, again like he hadn't just had a third insult thrown in his face. "She then revealed her true self to me, and I am ashamed to say I fell on her with lust."

Real fucking poetic.

"Did you know she was Magni?"

"No, my lord," he said. "I only learned her true nature in the dungeon. Regardless, I intend to care for the child."

I'd told him to say that specifically, word for word. He'd wanted to say he was going to marry me, which was ridiculous; no knight in his position would marry a nobody. With no noble blood, he'd need to marry rich to ensure any kind of legacy. That, and marrying a Magni would just look bad for a commoner; it'd really fuck him over at court. You have to do what makes sense for the person you're pretending to be, in the story you're telling.

That, and the thought of marriage always made me sick. I didn't want to be tied to someone like that, expected to follow their orders. I didn't want that life, and the thought of having it left me cold and queasy. Maybe it was my upbringing, and what the cult of the Summer Lord asked of wives. And anyway, what kind of person would want to marry a virago like me? I didn't want to meet them.

But the Duke just laughed, like the idea of raising a Magni child was hilarious, and I guess it was, if you were a twat. After a while, he said, "I wonder what to do… Your story makes far more sense than this woman being a spy--" because I, you know, wasn't-- "or my good cousin spying on me--" which he definitely was-- "but I still have no evidence but your word."

Ecka looked just fucking despondent. I wanted to tell him the Duke was playing with him-- I knew what that sounded like-- but what could I do? I was busy playing dead. Nobody I'd ever known, but especially not the Duke, had ever wanted to hear a woman's opinion on anything important. A woman beaten senseless would garner more sympathy.

"I will swear it on whatever you like-" Ecka started, but the Duke cut him off, and Ecka had enough sense to keep quiet when a noble was talking.

"No need for that. I will strengthen your word myself," he said, and there was that smug face I was used to. I felt a little bit of dread bubble up. The Duke just smiled. "Prove your devotion to this woman. Do the respectable thing, Sir Knight.."

Ecka could only nod.

"I will let you leave this place," the Duke of Sigan-Faru said, "if you marry her."