I shrugged. “There are bits I like.”
He smiled. “There are bits of Crammer I like.”
Sparring ought to have been a chance to kill him, but it was not so easy with an opponent as good as Nicolo. And, if I failed in my mission just once, he’d know what I was about and that would be that. I was always alert to opportunities, always on the look-out for vulnerabilities, but thus far, the perfect opportunity hadn’t yet presented itself.
Truly, it ought to have been simple. I was well-trained and all I needed was an instant to stick a knife between his ribs and flee. Fleeing was important—partly because I had every intention of continuing to live—but also because Guild assassins didn’t get caught, it was unprofessional. Getting caught left you open to revealing things under torture—and torture was first on my list of things to avoid.
But Nicolo was almost obsessively careful, though he never looked it. To anyone observing, he seemed casual, as louche and laidback as Balduin. But watching him closely, I saw the way his eyes moved and could almost hear his mind ticking, assessing the risk in every room he entered, aware that his life was constantly under threat.
What a way to live.
Regarding the strange situation between Nicolo and me, as his squire, he was still enjoying the novelty of having such an unexpected squire, particularly in the face of religious objections.
“It is our duty as men,” Low Priest Affa of the Denn sect explained, “to protect women, from the violence and sin of the world, as they have neither the mental acuity nor strength to protect themselves.”
Nicolo took this in, nodding as he scratched his chin. “Is that what you were doing the other evening with that maid with the mop of orange ringlets atop her head, Priest Affa? Protecting her?”
Affa turned red. “I was offering her instruction and guidance.”
Nicolo shook his head as he gave Affa a conspiratorial smile. “Is that what you’d term it?”
Many high priests, low priests, bishops, llamas and other religious leaders lived in the Great Castle, reluctantly relinquishing the monastic virtues of solitude and abstinence to live in the luxurious comfort of the court, sacrificing themselves by serving the Great God in this sinful place.
“Master, how did you know about Priest Affa and the maid?” I asked, as we walked away.
Nicolo shrugged. “I didn’t know the specifics. But it was a safe bet.” Then he shook his head and sighed long and hard. “Those priests are nothing more than a bunch of self-righteous perverts.”
“Absolutely,” I nodded feeling a strange sort of comradery with him, maybe that was owing to the fact that he’d basically just stood up for me.
He looked at me with a raised brow. “You seem to know more than you let on?”
I nodded. I did know more because I’d lived in the maid’s dormitory for a time. “Your safe bet was exactly that,” I responded as I shook my head, reminding myself of Priest Affa and his penchant for scullery maids. “What sort of reprobate would mate a different maid every night?”
Nicolo and I had come to get along well enough that I sometimes forgot to think about what I was saying before opening my mouth. He looked at me a moment, then shook his head.
“I sometimes think those priests are right about you: you are an affront to the Great God.”
Remembering myself and my role, I hung my head. “I am what he made me, sir.”
“He does good work.”
The way he looked at me, fully clothed, was scarcely different from the time when he’d watched me bathe. And that spark of interest suited my purpose. I was increasingly of the opinion that the only way to get Nicolo alone and at a disadvantage was to get him into bed. And even then, I suspected he wouldn’t exactly be at a disadvantage.
So, I played with him. I made excuses to bend over, knowing how my squire’s uniform hugged my body and outlined the areas of myself I most wanted to bring to his attention. I brushed up against him when we were working in close proximity. On a hot day, I untied the strings of my tunic and allowed him to see the valley between my breasts.
And I enjoyed every second of his attention, which I was fairly sure was now more frustration than anything else.