Page 16 of The Man with the Violet Eyes

“I don’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Yes, you do.”

“Sir… I’m just… a maid,” I started but he cut me off with a sardonic laugh.

“You are most assuredlynotjust a maid.”

“I believe you are… you have me confused with someone else, sir.”

“You knocked me out, which I’m not happy about, but it would have given you time to kill me had you wanted to.” I couldn’t help it as I looked up to the large scab above his eyebrow from the brass knuckles. That wasn’t even the worst of his injury—that prize was awarded to the horrible purple and blue bruise forming around his eye. He followed the path of my gaze and looked down at me.

“I’m giving you the chance to explain yourself,” he finished. He brought the knife to my collar bone and outlined it, drawing the knife closer and closer to my heart.

“Explain… myself?” He pushed the blade down until it caught the hem of my blouse as his eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing to explain, sir.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

He brought the blade down hard and it ripped right through my blouse as I yelped and tried to pull away but he held me tight.

“There is plenty to explain,” he insisted, glaring at me. “And I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

My blouse now lay in pieces and the swells of my breasts were clearly visible. He brought the tip of the blade to the skin just between them and pressed. As the tip of the blade broke through my skin, the pain was acute. I could feel the blood dampening the material of my blouse and corset and the scalding sting was making it hard to think straight.

“First things first; how does a girl of—what? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

“Twenty, sir.”

“How does a girl of twenty know how to fight like that?” He rubbed his chin. “The punch I will grant you—brass knuckles are a bit of a cheat though. Yet, I imagine a girl as pretty as you has had some practice of fending off men. But you handled that sword like you’d been born with one in your hand.” He chuckled then and it was the scariest sound I’d ever heard. “But, clearly, as a maidservant, you are hardly one to know the stealth of swordsplay.”

“My father taught me,” I gasped, trying to give the impression that the information was being forced out of me. And with his hold on the blade, it basically was.

“Explain.”

“My father wanted me to be able to defend myself.” I inhaled deeply and looked around myself even though I knew we were the only two people here. The scared, little rabbit routine was all for show, of course. “Please don’t tell anyone… I… I need this position and the wage.”

By religious law, women weren’t allowed to handle weapons larger than a knife, nor were they supposed to know how to fight. The Guild ignored this law because the Great God wasn’t that happy about paid murder either.

“You were trained by your father then?” suggested Nicolo.

I nodded, screwing my face up in pain to sell the lie—though it was getting easier and easier to act as if I was in agony, especially with my bodice ripped to the extent that my breasts were nearly bared to him. Nevermind the red stain of blood that was spreading through the fabric. How I was to explain that to Mistress Rosana I didn’t know.

“Let’s assume I believe you for the moment.” Nicolo relaxed his grip a little, but not much. “I don’t care what priests or the Great God thinks about women training in the art of combat. Frankly I’ve always found that rule ridiculous. I’ve known women as ruthless as a wounded wolf—women who would have made fine warriors if only they’d been allowed to pick up a blade. But… I still want to know why you were in the attic last night, dressed for all intents and purposes like an assassin.”

He squeezed the blade harder again and I whimpered in pathetic submission as he trailed the knife up from my breast, to my neck, then to my throat, the point trailing back and forth as though he were trying to figure out the best way to carve a roast.

“I snuck out of the maids’ dormitory, master,” I explained. “I dressed in black so’s not to get caught.”

“And the mask?”

“I… I did not want to be recognized if I was seen, sir.”

“Mistress Rosana runs a tight ship,” acknowledged Nicolo as he cocked his head to the side and regarded me with an expression I couldn’t place. All at once, I realized for all my training, all my excel in my studies, I was underprepared for this post. The Guild should have sent in a woman with experience under her belt, her maidenhead be damned.

“Not so tight that girls don’t escape,” I argued and he nodded as if to say I had a point. “Plenty of girls take similar precautions to mine when they leave the confines of our dormitory,” I continued.

“Why did you sneak out?”

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