“Clever.” “I have my moments.”

“You could still be wearing a bit more,” he said reproachfully, keeping his eyes very obviously above her collarbone. Halla looked down, realized that anyone looking at her would know that it was quite cold in the room, and fumbled for her dressing gown.

“Not him. He’s my bodyguard. My husband’s dead.” “Sorry for your loss.” “That makes one of us.

“Does it hurt?” “Stab wounds usually do.”

That Halla had absolutely no idea that men would find her attractive was either a sign that she was just as naïve as he thought or that men in the decadent south had no taste whatsoever. Possibly both.

Midafternoon on the second day, there was an ungodly commotion downstairs. Halla heard shouts and a scream, and for one moment thought that someone might be coming to rescue her. She half-rose from her seat by the window. Then she heard a guttural voice shouting, “Hellfire! Hellfire and burning for the worm, the worm that gnaws the roots of the

It was that night, as she sat brooding, that she realized that she was probably going to have to kill herself.

“I’m a warrior, not a lady’s maid,” he said. “If you’re summoning me to help you dress, there’d better be assassins in the garderobe next time.”

She got up and stared out the window into the dark, thinking about all the ways a woman could die.