Nobody’s Son

by Sean Stewart

  “They’re so bloody good,” Mark said, shaking his head. “I thought I was neat, but even Deron could take me to pieces.”

  Valerian grinned at him. “You’re lucky then you had such mercy on Sir William’s creaking bones, to forswear beating up old men and let him have your precious Sweetness.”

  Mark shuddered. “Aye. I would have had my coxcomb trimmed, and deserved it. He probably would have killed me by accident, thinking I was half his match.” He paced back to the window and stood, head bowed before the night.

  “Don’t decide to carry millstones, Mark: the world is heavy as it is,” Val said kindly. “These men had tutors, time and money; but it was Shielder’s Mark who did what no knight had done in a thousand years of trying: broke the spell that lay upon the Ghostwood.” Valerian took a brass-handled poker from its hook on the mantle and stirred up the fire, which hissed at him, spitting sparks. “Why do you say Sir William let young Deron off? I thought he fought well.”

  Mark shook his head. “Deron’s blows came fast and hard, like darts. Sir William cut one moving line: he even picked up speed from Deron’s blocks.” Mark stopped, trying to phrase what it was that made Sir William special. “For three springs I worked as a shepherd, with an awd man who’d done it all his life. It was a big flock, and every time we moved the sheep, I’d have to count them out by rhyme. But t’awd man never counted a lick: he could tote up that weight of sheep wi’ one glance, and know if it were light or heavy. It was the same today. Deron sees blow, parry, step, strike: but William sees all one thing. When he parries, he doesn’t just block a blow, he changes the shape of the whole fight…God, Val, I’d give my right hand to be his squire.”

  Valerian glanced sideways at Mark with the ghost of a smile. “You are eloquent.”

  “I’m an idiot,” Mark said gloomily. “I can see it, but I can’t do it.”

  “I feel that way about Janseni’s music.” Valerian sighed. “Sad it seems to me, that Deron risked his life for one who does not love him.”

  “She doesn’t!”

  “Of course not. Did you not observe? He wore no favour. I do not blame Janseni; no more can she command her heart than can the rest of us. But it seems hard, that such a love as Deron bears could leave her heart untouched.” Valerian peered down, frowning at his toes, speaking as much to himself as to Mark. “But women seldom love the men that love them best.”

  “Not if the men are sappy about it,” Mark said absently. “Look, Val, remember what you said yesterday, about the Ghostwood changing my life?” Valerian nodded, peering solemnly at Mark through his spectacles. “Well if you had asked me about my life a month ago, I would have said it had been pretty good. My dad left when I was young, but I was too little to really remember him, and my Ma and I got along great.”

  Mark walked to the window, looking out through his own reflection at the night. “But something did happen in the Ghostwood. At least, ever since I left the Red Keep I’ve been thinking about my childhood. Things I’d forgotten for years, like how it felt to dive into a pile of autumn leaves and how they smelled when…when my Dad burned them one time and it started to rain. Once I even remembered my Grandma the day before she died, the exact way she looked and the sound of the fire and the way the embers glowed when I blew on them to keep her warm…” Mark trailed off, then turned to his friend. “And the funny thing is, now I don’t know if I was happy or not. Isn’t that queer? If you asked me now if I was happy as a boy, I wouldn’t know what to say.”

  Reluctantly, Val said, “All spring I too have been thinking of my father.”

  Mark tapped his finger on the butt of the black iron dagger at his hip. “Was I happy?—It just seems like the sort of thing I ought to know.”

  Later, after Val had gone, Mark put another faggot on the fire and sat hunched before the grate, hooking his boot heels on the rungs of his stool, thinking again of the duel between Deron and Sir William.

  So you aren’t a warrior after all.

  That hurt. All that sweat, all those lonely mornings practising with sticks in the Commons, dreaming of fame and honour, kindling every muscle with slow fire, hammering himself into what he thought was a hero’s shape. But if you weren’t Somebody’s Son, it didn’t matter.

  Mark looked at the backs of his hands. He had strong wrists, very strong; he could take a calf over with a quick jerk, he could crack walnuts with his fingers. He remembered how he used to love the swing of the scythe, twisting at wrists and belly, knowing that what was a chore for every other boy was training for him. His mother walked behind, bundling the cut, and each bundle was another enemy slain, another harvest of future glory.

  A web of veins and tendons ran over the backs of his hands. Don’t see those in Val’s hand, in Peridot’s. Theirs are smooth. Smooth petal flesh that smells of rosewater, sheathed in kidskin gloves.

  A faint white welt ached in his right palm, a seam of frost lying under the flesh. Must have got it when you grabbed the iron dagger from the Prince. Best be ware about showing that around, or bloody Astin will find some reason to steal it too.

  “Aye well: sword for daughter’s not a bad bargain.”

  Mark laughed at his own audacity. He had reached out with his dirty hands and grabbed the chief treasure of the kingdom from its King. Stared t’awd bastard down.

  Well, all right: that wasn’t all of it. The girl chose him as much as he chose her. What a strange, proud, fierce, fox-faced woman! Quickness in her small hands, her narrow gold-brown eyes.

  His hands were stained by wind and sun: but she’ll be used to hands as pale as fresh-cut pine.

  Mark’s heart sank.

  He’d heard people say that before, but only now did he feel it, feel something sag in his chest, just beneath his breastbone; turn sick and hollow inside. She would want white hands, soft fingers—

  Mark spat on the floor. No. No! She picked you out where you stood wi’ the stink of the road still on you. She’s seen what you are. She’ll not turn her back on you for that.

  But what about Deron, risking his life for a lass who didn’t love him? And a cold little voice said, How can you know her reasons? P’raps the Princess thought you were Somebody’s Son, aweary from your labours. After what you’d done, how could she guess you were nowt?

  An even if she knows you’re dirt, how can she know what that means? All her life she’s seen only gentlemen: she’ll want things, expect things…and you’ll never guess what they are until she’s gone, and someone like Val tells you, and says it was clear as glass shed leave you from the start.

  Angrily Mark jumped up from his stool.

  How exactly d’you…do you swive a Princess? You don’t have to court her, thank God. But afterwards, on the wedding night…

  Mark had swived a girl or two before. He went at the thing with as good a will as anyone, and liked to see his partners laugh: they seemed to like it.

  But you’re no expert. He’d kept his pizzle tethered, for the most part. If you didn’t get out fast enough, the girl might have a baby, and if she had a baby you ought to marry her, and if you were married to someone you should never leave them, and if he was going to the Ghostwood he might very well not come back. So he had tried not to think about girls, and made love to his fist when he had to.

  Most of what he knew of swiving was from watching rams on ewes. A Princess now: a Princess would have expectations.

  They must know things, these thin-fingered gentlemen. Probably that’s summat else you get taught if you’re Somebody’s Son.

  Gail wore tights and a tunic the first time he laid eyes on her. Tights! What did you do about tights? The girls he had lain with were wearing dresses and nothing else: you didn’t need to be too handy, and they were helpful anyways. But tights! And corsets! These women wore corsets. Mark groaned. Nails to nuts the wedding dress will be a lace-and-button nightmare.

  How long d’you think she’ll wait while you paw and fumble? How long d’you think she’ll stay with a jack who doesn’
t know how to please a lady?

  She’d take a lover. He knew it. And everything he had worked for would be in ruins. His house would be a cuckoo’s nest, some smirking courtier would be slipping his powdered pizzle into his wife, his servants would sneer at him, his soldiers would make horns behind his back.

  “Shite!” He grabbed the brass-handled poker and jabbed at the fire, breaking its red heart.

  And another thing: you swear too much.

  Well.

  No point in getting sick ower things that might never happen. Hell, the only times you’ve seen her, she hasn’t had much use for well-dressed pricks like Peridot.

  The looks she’s given you, good and bad both, have been proud and sharp and straight as arrows. She’ll not take a lover behind your back, Shielder’s Mark. If she wants quit of you she’ll stick a dagger in your belly from the front!

  And you could learn. You’ve clever hands for most things: no reason swiving should be different. It won’t be your body that lets you down.

  She liked him well enough to look at, or she wouldn’t have challenged him with her eyes, daring him to ask for her hand. She’d seen him dirty then, and it hadn’t been his silver tongue that caught her fancy.

  He had come back from the Ghostwood.

  He could be a husband now, and a father too.

  And to be a father…

  They would be man and wife, after all.

  A sudden memory rushed over him from some tipsy holiday night, the press of skin on skin, the smell of a woman’s hair in his mouth, her laughter smothered against his shoulder. Her stomach pressing up hot against his and his hand in the small of her back.

  Mark drifted slowly to his bed, sat on the edge and pulled off his boots. Unbuckled his belt.

  That could be Gail, nipping on his shoulder, her slender arms vined around his back.

  A spark jumped through him. The salt taste on his lips could be her royal sweat; it could be her brown eyes kindled with candlelight, her thighs that made a valley for him to—

  There was a knock at the door.

  Goat’s-piss and puppy-guts! “Coming, coming!” Blinking to rid his mind of his fantasy of Gail Mark leapt up, swore, ran to the door in his stocking feet and wrenched it open with what he prayed was an easy smile.

  Lissa, Gail’s serving woman, stood on his threshold. Her eyes flicked from his stockinged feet to his strained smile: adding him up like a manor steward toting rents. She’s got you pegged to the last penny-piece, lad. O god.

  “I beg your pardon, worthy sir, for my untimely interruption.”

  Demure, attentive, and unthreatening, Lissa was just what Mark expected a princess to be: tall and willowy, with wavy gold hair that framed her face. Earlier it had been plaited into an elaborate coiffure, but now, long after bed-time, it fell free, and rustled against her satin shoulders as she walked.

  She was leading him down one of the darker, narrower, draughtier corridors in the Palace. Clearly the way was not much used; instead of glass lamps, empty torchbrackets hung upon the walls.

  Lissa walked ahead with a taper in her hand. “We thought it best to be discreet; some gossips out of malice love to speculate, and could to their advantage turn the seeming impropriety of your visit to my Mistress’ chambers.”

  “So why give them the chance?”

  “The Princess willed it.”

  Ah. “I bet this wasn’t your idea.”

  Pause. Carefully, Lissa said, “The Princess is so well-equipped with judgements of her own, she seldom feels the need to borrow mine.”

  Mark grinned. “I’ll bet.”

  Thrown by the light of Lissa’s taper, their shadows snuck after them like cut-throats. “What if someone sees us going into Gail’s chambers?”

  Lissa turned and cast Mark an amused glance. “Anyone who wishes to outface the Princess is very welcome to try.”

  Gail’s quarters were not what Mark had expected.

  On a peg near the door hung a heavy, ravelling felt cloak that had once been brown. Below, a pair of battered leather walking boots leaned like drunks against the wall.

  Still smelling of smoke, bits of newly cured leather were scattered across a worktable under the far window. Also on the table was a woman’s corset; a strip had been cut from it, as if to make a belt. A stuffed goose stood just left of the fireplace, peppered with spark-holes.

  Somehow Mark had imagined more lace. More pinkness. More finery. He looked at his bride to be.

  “I shot him,” Gail said.

  She was sitting on the edge of her bed, hunched over the worktable, sharpening a skinning knife as long as her forearm. The whetstone circled expertly up and down the blade: sliz sliz sliz sliz.

  Mark looked at Lissa, but her smile was blank as winter. “Uh—shot him?”

  “The goose. On my fourteenth birthday. I’m a good shot. Very good, for a woman of the Court. I practise most days. I ate him too,” she added. Sliz sliz sliz. “I hope you’re not one of those stupid people who kills for sport.”

  Mark looked at Lissa again, beseechingly. She replied with a tiny, definite shake of her head.

  Gail put away her whetstone and wiped the blade of her skinning knife with a rough oiled cloth. “I was hoping you would break the rules and try to see me, but frankly you don’t seem the wooing type, and I hate waiting.”

  “You said I wasn’t supposed to—”

  “Of course you aren’t.” Gail frowned up at him; it made her triangular face even sharper. “I just hoped you would try. But you are here now, so let me tell you how we will proceed.”

  “Princess.” Mark bowed as correctly as he knew how. Turning, he bowed also to Lissa, a little less deeply. “My lady.” He stepped politely back into the corridor. “I look forward to seeing you both at the wedding.”

  “Where are you going?” Gail demanded. “You just got here.”

  “I am going to bed,” Mark said. “I’m not a servant, Princess, nor a dog neither. I come when I’m asked, not when I’m called. I’m a free man born. I didn’t grovel for your father, and I won’t do it for you.”

  Gail was looking at him in genuine surprise. “But—”

  A spark smouldered in Mark’s voice, of anger and desire. “Your eyes, your hands, and even your bloody proud highhanded manners are in my heart like fishing hooks, Princess, but by the Devil you’ll get a fight before you land me.”

  Gail blinked. “Lissa? Was that a curse or a compliment?”

  “I would ask the gentleman,” said Lissa diplomatically, biting her lower lip and trying very hard not to meet Gail’s eye.

  Gail turned to Mark and cocked her head on one side with the strangest expression, commanding and vulnerable at once. A real person peeped around the Princess then, like a child peering shyly from behind a mask. “Well?”

  Like iron leaping to a magnet, Mark’s spirit jumped to meet her, the woman who would be his wife. “I meant to curse, but my tongue tripped ower my heart.”

  To his amazement Gail flushed. “You’re a better wooer than I deemed,” she whispered.

  Mark felt Gail touch him with her eyes, with herself. As some women bared their flesh she bared her soul, and from across the room he was stung by the shock of her nearness.

  He could know her, if he dared.

  That was the challenge in her eyes.

  Mark’s fantasy returned to him, of holding her naked beneath him. He blushed, shamed to have such a picture in his mind while the real woman sat before him, head bowed and strangely vulnerable. For a panic-stricken moment he was sure she could see his vision of them making love. Resentment and tenderness and desire swirled in his heart.

  He stood awkwardly in the doorway until by chance his hand brushed the iron dagger at his side. At its cool touch a weight settled through him, anchoring his heart firmly in his chest.

  Gail said, “Please don’t go.”

  Mark stepped back into the room. A moment hung between them then, clear and fragile as a bubble thrown up by a waterfa
ll, drifting, delicately dancing between them.

  Lissa closed the door behind him, and the moment was gone.

  Better say summat, lad. You can’t stand around stiff as a plank forever. “What is all that?” Mark asked, pointing at the worktable with its scraps of leather and gutted corset.

  Gail smiled mysteriously. “You’ll find out on your wedding day.—Which is what I wanted to talk about.” She sheathed her skinning knife and put it on the table. She was wearing her gold earrings, Mark noticed, the long teardrops that swung in tiny circles as she looked at him. “I’d like Janseni to do the music.”

  “Good. Yes.”

  “Do not answer quickly,” Lissa said. Her voice startled Mark; he had almost forgotten he and Gail were not alone. “Such a choice is not without its consequences. It will seem an insult to Lord Peridot, and through him to Duke Richard.”

  “That’s the point,” Gail said. “‘If you can’t strike the master, kick his dog.’”

  Lissa frowned. “No hope of any marriage to the Duke can now remain, Princess. You need not fear his band upon your finger: why antagonize him? The Lord of High Holt may decide to yield before inscrutable Fate, but never will he pass a challenge by, if you choose to offer one. He is not a gracious loser.”

  “He better learn to be,” Gail snapped.

  “Good by me,” Mark said. “Janseni will do the music. Was there owt else?”

  Gail uncrossed her legs and swung her heels so they thumped against the edge of her bed. “Well, there was one other thing,” she said reluctantly.

  * * *

  There are certain things a young man does not like to hear about his wedding night.

  “What!”

  “I’m sorry,” Gail said firmly, “but it’s out of the question.”

  Mark stifled a curse. “Can’t we at least fight about it in private?”