The Reckless Oath We Made

by Bryn Greenwood

  “I vowed we should return ere the midday meal, for my aunt, the lady Bernice, needeth my help,” I said.

  “I know you have things to do. You don’t need to worry about me.”

  She released my hand and, all the while she paced the hilltop in her fiery splendor, I kept watch. She spake not to me of the battle that raged in her, but ere the sun rose above the trees, she returned to me.

  “I think I need to go see my uncle,” she said.

  “My lady, I shall take thee wheresoever thou wilt.”

  “No. I can’t ask you to do that. It’s all the way in Missouri. Plus, I haven’t seen him in a long time. He acted really weird when I called him, so I don’t even know if it would be safe to take you with me.”

  “If it be not safe for me, how can it be safe for thee?” I said.

  Lady Zhorzha put out her hands as though she meant to place them upon my breast. I braced myself, but she did not lay hold of me.

  “My uncle is— He used to be involved with some really bad men and maybe he still is. I wouldn’t feel right taking you there.”

  “Fear not for me, but give me leave to stand at thy side.”

  “Ah, thy pride revealeth thee,” Hildegard said. “Thou speakest like a braggart, not one content to serve. Thou wouldst that she see thee as a great warrior.”

  “More like she shall see thee as a preening cock,” Gawen said.

  “’Tis not preening to declare I am unafraid to meet her enemies.”

  “I’m not saying you’re afraid,” Lady Zhorzha said. “But maybe you should be.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Zee

  Rhys said they sometimes fought with real weapons, and on Sunday morning, they did. It was crazier than MMA, because it was seriously three guys in armor with swords and shields waling each other. Or anyway, Gentry waling on Rhys and Edrard, while they tried to defend themselves. After two hours, they took a break, and Rhys looked pissed when he pulled his helmet off.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said. When Gentry didn’t answer, he knocked on Gentry’s helmet and said, “Are you in there?”

  “I am here, Sir Rhys.” Gentry took off his helmet and picked up his bottle of water. He was dripping with sweat and red in the face, but completely calm. Rhys was the one who seemed out of control.

  “Did I do something to piss you off that you’re trying to kill me?”

  “Nay,” Gentry said. He didn’t look mad to me, but I didn’t know him that well. His left hand was relaxed, and his right hand was closed around the metal water bottle. Rhys looked over at me, like it was my fault.

  “Whatever it is, maybe we could discuss it without weapons?” Edrard said.

  “I am not angry with ye, my brothers. I am sorry if I was too fierce.”

  “Shit.” Rhys laughed.

  “What’s going on with you? You’re acting a little crazy.” Edrard laid his gloved hand on Gentry’s armored shoulder. So that was allowed.

  “’Tis not madness, but the Witch claimeth my blood be not hot enough.”

  I hated the idea of Gentry feeling he had to prove to the Witch or to me that he was brave enough. Had I started it by talking about going to see Uncle Alva? By saying Gentry ought to be afraid?

  “I don’t know where the Witch is getting her information, but your blood is plenty hot enough,” I said.

  “I hear the voice of experience.” Rhys was back to leering.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not having a feud. I don’t want my husband hurt,” Rosalinda said. “Why don’t we go ahead and have breakfast?”

  “Nay, I promised my lady mother I would return ere noon.” Gentry was already unbuckling his armor, but he stopped when he got to where my headband was tied. This time he’d asked me for it.

  “Without breakfast?” Rosalinda said

  “We already had breakfast,” I said, since Gentry didn’t answer.

  “But we always break fast together on Sunday.” Apparently me being there was screwing up traditions.

  “Sorry. Gentry cooked.”

  He raised his head when I said his name, and came toward me, holding out my headband. I wasn’t sure how to feel about how he was acting, so I didn’t move, and he eventually closed the gap between us. I took the headband and put it back on. When I was done wrestling with my hair, he was still standing there.

  “’Tis common that a knight might receive a kiss from the lady for whom he hath stood champion,” he said. That’s what he’d been thinking about. How to say that. Whether to say that.

  “You can kiss me.” I was pretty sure he’d meant for me to kiss him, but I didn’t want to overstep.

  “Where, my lady?” He brought his head up a little and smiled.

  Oh, jokes. We were making jokes.

  “Right here.” I put my finger up to show him where, mostly to tease him, and got a clean-shaven but sweaty kiss on the cheek.

  “Aww,” Rhys said. “Our little boy is growing up.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Zee

  After Gentry got home from work on Tuesday morning, he took me to pick up my car from the police impound. From there, I drove straight to Mom’s house, which was worse than I remembered. The hutches were still standing in the yard with their doors hanging open. Smaller pieces of furniture were lined up beside the porch, and the stack of dead microwaves had toppled over and blocked the front steps. Everywhere else—every square inch of dead grass and weeds—was covered in cardboard boxes and trash. Like a tornado had hit the house.

  Sitting in my car, staring at the mess, I didn’t even know where to start. Movers? Gasoline and matches?

  When I walked into the front room, the shock of seeing it almost empty was nearly as fresh as it had been on Friday. There were maybe a dozen cardboard boxes that she’d managed to drag in herself. Or maybe a neighbor had.

  “I told you not to come back here,” she said, after she lit a fresh cigarette off her butt.

  “Are you still having a temper tantrum?”

  That fast, I failed at the resolution I’d made not to snap at her.

  “Go away. Just leave me alone to die. It’s what you want to do.”

  “When’s the last time you ate?” I said.

  “What do you care?”

  She picked up the remote control and turned the sound back on her TV show. The cordless phone charger was there on the side table, but the cradle was empty, which explained why she hadn’t answered all weekend. I went to see if there was any food in the house. Someone had brought the mini fridge and the one working microwave and set them up in front of the sink. Mom yelled something I couldn’t hear, so I went back out to her.

  “—cares more than you do,” she was saying.

  “Who does?”

  “Kevin. He helped me bring some of my things in.” Mom waved her hand at the boxes scattered around. Kevin was the same neighbor who got her cigarettes and brought her garage sale treasures, no matter how many times I asked him not to.

  “Gentry and I tried to bring things in, but you wouldn’t—”

  “Oh, I know. I’m not allowed to have an opinion about anything. I’m just supposed to sit here and smile like a doll, and be grateful for anything you do,” Mom said. To prove she wasn’t a grateful little doll, she picked up the pack of cigarettes and butt-lit another one. She was using a Peter Rabbit Melmac cereal bowl as her ashtray.

  “Where’s your phone, Mom? I tried to call you a bunch of times.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Maybe Mr. Mansur can tell you what he did with my phone.”

  She took a big drag off her cigarette and did a French inhale. Then she turned the volume up on the TV. Some Hollywood doctor was talking to a thin blond woman about superfoods. Some berry that would just melt the pounds away.

  Back outside, I walked up and down, looking in boxes. After almost half a
n hour, I saw the cordless phone’s antenna poking up out of a box of paperbacks. I grabbed the phone and an armful of books, and carried them back inside.

  “What did you bring those in for?” Mom said, when I set the romance novels on the side table next to the phone. Like they hadn’t come out of her house.

  “So you can have something to read.”

  “Those old things? I’ve already read those.”

  “Okay. Well, here’s your phone. I thought I might call some movers today and maybe a cleaning—”

  “Mind your own business! If I want movers or cleaners, I’ll call them. I certainly don’t need your help.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the middle of Peter Rabbit’s face and picked up one of the books. “Don’t you worry about me.”

  She read while I stood there trying to decide what to do. The phone nook was still unburied, and the poster board with Uncle Alva’s phone number and address. I tried to think practical thoughts, and what I kept coming back around to was that Uncle Alva knew Craig Van Eck, because he’d been in Van Eck’s gang, the White Circle. And Van Eck knew Barnwell and Ligett, because they were also in his gang. To me, it looked like Uncle Alva was already three steps closer to LaReigne than the marshals were.

  He’d told me not to call him, but if I showed up at his house, he would have to talk to me. Plus, going to see him seemed less crazy than staying and fighting with my mother. In the ten years since I moved out, nothing had changed. Wasn’t that the definition of crazy? Doing the same thing over and over, thinking you’ll get a different result. I might as well have stuck my head in Mom’s oven as think anything was going to change.

  I went outside and locked the front door behind me. Then I got in my car and drove. I went past Marcus’ school, but it wasn’t recess time. I drove out to the Gills’ house, and circled around their fancy lake. I drove by the restaurant where Kristi was probably getting ready to work my lunch shift.

  Before I could think about it too much, I drove past Toby’s house to see if his car was there. Then to the Juarez Bakery, where I bought those pink conchas he liked. I knew he would still be in bed, and when I knocked, it took him almost five minutes to open the door. Just a crack, to peek out and see who it was.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Red?” he said.

  “I brought you breakfast.” I held up the Juarez bag.

  Maybe if he’d seemed mad at me, I would have done the smart thing and left, but he only looked surprised. Deep down, I wanted him to send me away, because if I was making a list of people I was scared of, Toby was at the top. Once, this woman had come to Asher’s, begging for a fix. No money. Making a scene. Asher had told Toby to get rid of her. Toby had punched her so hard her teeth went rattling across the floor like loose gravel. Then he’d thrown her down the stairs.

  I should have left, but when Toby opened the door a little further, I didn’t wait for an invitation. I went into the living room and sat down on the couch. It was the only place to sit. He stood there barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of old gray sweatpants. I set the pastry bag on the table and, after a minute, he sat down next to me and opened it.

  “Seriously, though, what do you want?” he said while he was eating the first pan dulce.

  “Can you get me a gun?”

  He laughed, spraying crumbs on his coffee table. For a minute, he looked at me without saying anything. He had a couple of nasty bruises on his knuckles.

  I shouldn’t have come to Toby.

  “You for real?” he said.

  “Yeah. Can you get me a gun?”

  He stuffed another big bite of concha in his mouth and nodded. I stayed on the couch while he went into the bedroom, and a few minutes later he came back with something wrapped in a dirty rag. It was nothing fancy. A 9 mm.

  “How many crimes has this been used in?” I said.

  “Ha-ha. Fuck, I dunno. I got a couple of them. I can let you have that one.”

  “How much?”

  “Oh, come on. We ain’t that kinda friends, are we?”

  “Last I checked, we weren’t any kind of friends,” I said.

  “Come on, Red. You know I like you, even when you’re being a bitch to me. You know what I want.”

  Toby liked me too much to take my money and just enough to want to see me on my knees, sucking his dick. Like I knew he would, he put his hand around my throat while I did it, and it still wasn’t as bad as having sex with Asher.

  I only wanted the gun because I wanted to feel less scared, less helpless. Wherever I was going and whatever I was going to do, I didn’t want to be unarmed.

  “You’re pretty good at that,” he said after it was done.

  I shrugged, because my mouth was full and I wasn’t about to swallow.

  I picked up my shirt and bra, which he’d made me take off, and carried them down the hall to his bathroom.

  “You’re not gonna use my toothbrush, are you?” he yelled.

  Like putting his toothbrush in my mouth would be an improvement over his dick. I spat in the sink and took a big slug of his mouthwash.

  After I gargled for a minute, I got dressed and went back out to the front room. He was still lounging on the couch with his sweatpants down around his ankles. I rewrapped the gun and put it into my purse.

  “You know how to use that, don’t you?” he said.

  “Yeah, I know how to use it.”

  “Well, whatever you plan on using it for, keep my name out of it.”

  Like I’d want to tell anybody how I got a gun from Toby.

  I drove out to Cabela’s and bought a box of ammo. Not target ammo, but the serious shit that’s meant to blow a hole in somebody. Then I went to the bank to empty the household account, because it wasn’t like I needed to pay the rent or utilities on the apartment anymore.

  After that, I did the only thing I could think of: I went back to the Franks’ house.

  Charlene and Elana were doing math problems when I walked in without knocking. She kept telling me to. I carried my purse back to the guest room and counted my money. At least I had the Colorado money and the weed money, even though that was supposed to go to my medical bills. Add in the household money, and I had four thousand dollars. I put it, the gun, and the ammo into the secret pocket in my backpack with the last ounce of weed. Then, because I still felt gross, I brushed my teeth and gargled with the mouthwash in the bathroom cabinet.

  Since we came back from camping, Gentry and I had only seen each other in passing, and his bedroom was empty as I walked by. I thought about taking my stuff and leaving, but I owed Gentry something, at least a thank-you. Also, I really wanted dinner and a place to sleep. Story of my life.

  “Are you looking for Gentry?” Charlene said, when I went back out to the front room.

  “He’s outside sleeping,” Elana said.

  “Does he always sleep outside?”

  “As long as the weather’s good,” Charlene said. “He has trouble sleeping. Always has.”

  I went to the patio doors and looked out. Sure enough, he was lying in the middle of the backyard with his shirt off. When Trang got home from school, he woke Gentry up, and they went for a run. After that was dinner, and then family TV time, which Gentry spent on the floor reading a book.

  “Gentry? Could I borrow another book? I finished the other one,” I said, thinking I might get him alone that way.

  “Gladly, my lady.”

  He jumped up, and I followed him to his bedroom, where some of the shelf space was used for books instead of weapons and armor.

  “What liketh thee?” With his book tucked under his arm, he squatted down to look at the bookcase under the window between the beds.

  “I don’t know. What’s your favorite book?” I said.

  I didn’t understand what he said, but it sounded like Vain Laurence Olivier O’Leon.

 
“’Tis there. Yvain.” He pointed at a row of books lined up on the dresser behind me.

  “Hey,” Trang said from the doorway. “I was gonna FaceTime with a friend for a little bit.”

  “With thy lady?” Gentry said.

  “Well, I’m trying to talk her into being my lady.”

  “We shall not keep thee from thy noble task.”

  “I’m just getting a book.” I pulled down one that said Yvain on the spine, but when I opened it, the actual title was Yvain ou le chevalier au lion. “Okay, I’m almost a hundred percent sure this book is not in any kind of English.”

  Gentry came to me and took it out of my hand. He said, “Nay, ’tis Old French.”

  “And you speak Old French?”

  “I know not if I speak it well, but certs I can read.” He said something else that was a bunch of random sounds to me. It didn’t sound snooty like I thought French would, but then he didn’t have a fancy accent when he spoke Middle English, either. So he sounded like himself in Old French, too, except saying words I didn’t understand at all.

  “He knows Old German, too,” Trang said.

  “Here, my lady.” Gentry put the book back and took out another one. Also Yvain, but this one in English.

  We took our books, and Trang closed the door after us. We stood there facing each other, me pointed toward the front room and Gentry pointed away. I thought about stepping past him and going back to where his family was, but I’d wanted to be alone with him, so I turned around and led him to the guest room.

  Only I didn’t want to be alone alone with him. I worried that he might want to fool around, and I didn’t think I could stomach that after sucking Toby’s dick. I sat down on my bed and left it up to Gentry to close the door, if he wanted. He left it open, but came and sat on the bed beside me.

  I took a pillow and put it behind my back so I could lean against the wall. I handed him the other pillow and he did the same thing. Then we sat on the bed next to each other with our bare feet hanging off the side, both of us reading.