“You’re overdrawing,” Mouse heard Leifr call out from behind her. But his warning came too late, and the arrow slipped over her finger, sailing through the air and past the dummy without finding its mark. Mouse let out a sigh and reached for another arrow, nocking it in place and drawing her elbow back as she raised the bow. The wood gave a gentle groan as it bent to the tension of the string, and Mouse held her breath as the string pressed into her cheek.
“Tip of your nose, girl,” Leifr called. Mouse relaxed her right arm just enough so that the bowstring no longer touched her cheek. “Aye, but keep your elbow up,” Leifr said. But again, his counsel came too late. Mouse loosed the arrow, and this time it found its way into the straw, but hung at an awkward angle far from the center. Mouse gritted her teeth in frustration but took up yet another arrow and drew again.
She could hear Leifr trudging through the grass toward her. “Elbow up, I said, not back,” he grumbled as he drew near. Mouse stood still, waiting for the feel of an exasperated sigh on her ear that she knew would soon follow. “You’ll have me hoarse,” the old archer muttered, kicking at her left foot until she straightened it and nudging her right elbow upward with a finger. “Steady now,” he said, stepping back a few paces, “and don’t neglect to follow through.”
This time the arrow came closer to the center of the dummy, but still farther than Mouse would’ve liked. She dropped her arms and reached for another arrow, but Leifr stopped her. “You’ll not waste any more of my griffins,” he said with a frown. Mouse opened her mouth to protest, but he would not hear her. “Come back when you’ve put your eyes back in,” he grunted. And with that, he yanked up the quiver and strode off across the green. “And don’t forget to pick up your shafts!” he barked over his shoulder. Mouse watched him go, frustrated by his mulishness but more frustrated at her own ineptitude. She had not felt herself since her interview with Ludger the preceding day, so distracted had she become, and so overwhelmed with curiosity, and while she had hoped that a few rounds on the archery range would improve her state, it had only seemed to make things worse. In fact, the more she tried to turn her thoughts from the box that now lay tucked beneath her mattress, the more she seemed to dwell on it. She plucked at the string of her bow absentmindedly, cursing herself for raising Leifr’s temper.
Mouse had not always enjoyed archery. In fact, she had hated it at first. She hated everything she was made to do as a course of developing herself as closely to the Empress as possible; the Empress’s love of shooting all but secured Mouse’s contempt of it. But the Empress’s natural skill for the bow meant that Mouse was forever trying to match her, and in doing so, had found that she was able to secure a few moments of solitude for herself from time to time, in the name of improving herself to the royal standard. Archery was a solitary sport and one that allowed her to be out of doors, free of the confines of courtly decorum. And besides, Leifr was one of the few people on the castle grounds that Mouse felt treated her kindly. That is not to say that he showed her any particular cordiality, as evidenced by his coarse manner some moments ago, and he certainly did not spare his words with her, but he treated her the way he would treat anyone else who stepped onto the range with a view of sharpening their aim. He helped her, in his own squally way, and Mouse was grateful for it.
Mouse had risen early, finding it difficult to sleep, and she was the only one, save Leifr, on the range. She was glad of it now; there were fewer witnesses to observe her shameful performance. It was uncommon for Mouse to strike the dummy so seldom these days, and knowing that Leifr had been watching was painful enough. She could not have beared to perform so poorly in front of anyone else.
“Gods, have you ever seen such a crooked spine?” a voice came from behind Mouse, rousing her from her reverie. If the sneering sound of his voice was not enough to give Johannes away, his maliciousness certainly was. Mouse tried her best to ignore the preening nobleman coming up from the short end of the green, hoping that if she did, he would simply go away, though she knew the improbability of it. She had not noticed his approach, which was to say something of how fixed her mind was elsewhere, for he had an aptitude for making himself noticed; if she was a mouse, then he was a peacock, and no display of finery or feathery could requite his horrible squawking.
“It is no wonder he spends all his time on the pitch, he probably sleeps standing up,” he jeered, looking over Mouse’s shoulder after the seasoned archer. It was true that years of practice had warped the bowman’s frame, and his right shoulder sat decidedly higher than his left, but Mouse did not think him crooked; she saw this merely as a sign of his dedication to his craft, a kind of badge that, after countless hours of application, could not be removed. “Is that the sort of man you like?” Johannes asked, leaning in so close to Mouse that she could feel his warm breath on her ear as he spoke. “Perhaps I’ll let you bend my back.”
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Mouse looked down at the bow in her hand, wondering how hard she would have to swing it to break over the pompous aristocrat’s cheek. Johannes was probably the only person in the world who Mouse hated more than the Empress. He was not just cruel; he was lewd and lascivious and repellant in every way. Worst of all, he was handsome, and he had managed, through pageantry and adulation, to gain the Empress’s favor, meaning he was impervious to censure or decrees of common decency. Mouse was perhaps his favorite subject of torture, for not only was she captive to suffer his ill-intended advances, but any attentions paid her, no matter how undesirous, were certain to gain the notice of the Empress. So it was that Johannes had learned to stoke the flames of ire and invidiousness at once, and nothing, or so it seemed to Mouse, gave him greater pleasure.
“Excuse me, sir. I must unstring my bow,” Mouse said with every degree of composure she could maintain, hoping that he would not notice her hands quaking with perturbance. She did not like him to see that he had disquieted her, and though she felt there was little she could do to disguise it, she would not grant him an easy victory.
“I daresay, you do seem rather tightly strung,” he said, leaning closer and pressing himself against her, so that his chestnut hair brushed against her cheek. Mouse felt her skin prickle in irritation as she recoiled from his touch. Everything in her wanted to run, to flee, to put as much distance between herself and the oily, arrogant nobleman as possible, either that or to strike him so hard upon his pretty head that he could not remember why he had come to bother her in the first place. Though Mouse was tired of his misery and misuse, for now, she had no choice but to endure him. But there would come a day, she told herself, when the Empress would tire of him, when all the good grace which had been bestowed upon him would finally be exhausted and he would amount to nothing more than another common lord of the court propped up only by the Toth blood in his veins. Then, and only then, would Mouse be able to stand up to him, to flout his advances, and perhaps return his grievances. It did not seem right to Mouse, nor was it, that the Empress’s lady-in-waiting should be made subject to such daily tortures. She was Lady Maudeleine Toth, and all she had ever done was what had been asked of her, what she had been commanded to do—nothing more, and certainly nothing less. Why then was she made to constantly cower and submit?
But as Mouse’s mind ran through all this, another thought suddenly occurred to her. Though some time had passed since she had climbed from her own bed, it was still early, too early for Johannes to be prowling about the castle grounds. He was often nowhere to be found until well past the time when the bell tower’s shadow shrunk up to no more than an inch, and to see him on the archery green at such an unripe hour gave Mouse pause for concern. She pulled away from the pinching grasp of his fingers and turned to look at him.
“What is your purpose here, Johannes?” she asked, hoping to remind him that he may have matters to attend to which did not directly involve her own harassment. The nobleman’s green eyes glimmered in the morning sun as they traveled across her face.
“I am to see a man about a horse, if you must know,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips as he lifted a lock of dark hair from her shoulder and spun it between his fingers. “Oh, but don’t worry, it’s not for you,” he smirked. He knew how much she hated riding. Everyone knew. Everyone had seen how she clung awkwardly to the horse’s back like a leech, terrified of falling off. In fact, Ludger had told her more than once that her shameful riding would be the death of the Empress, for no assassin could possibly mistake the two when mounted, even if he was missing one eye and blind in the other. It was not that Mouse did not like horses, for she was fond of most creatures, whether great or small, but she simply did not find she had any business sitting atop one while it ran as though trying to outpace a violent westerly gale.
“If that is so, then I should not wish to detain you from your business further,” Mouse said, hinting to the nobleman and hoping that he would finally tire of his sport.
“Yes,” Johannes murmured, pressing the lock of Mouse’s hair to his nose. “Yes, I suppose I must be going.” He dropped her hair from between his fingers. “But I look forward to seeing you at banquet tonight,” he said with a leer, “and pray, wear something fetching, for I will certainly bring my appetite.” Mouse tried to suppress a look of disgust, at least until Johannes’ back was turned, though she could not be certain of her success. Once he had gone, she finished unstringing her bow and watched him stalk across the grass, still wet with dew, to be certain he would not return. She stayed silent until she was certain there was no chance of his hearing her, and then allowed herself the indulgence of every common-tongued curse she had learned in the kitchens as she watched him go.
It was now with a certain kind of dread that she recalled the evening’s banquet, but perhaps, she realized it would not be so terrible as she imagined. After all, with so many new peers in attendance, the Empress would be busy making every due attempt to excite her guests, while Johannes would have as many ladies to philander as was like to occupy the whole of his attention. As for Ludger, Mouse hoped merely that he would drink himself to sleep at an early enough hour that she might sit and enjoy a cup of wine without anyone knocking her in the shin.