by Kaplan, EM
She didn't want to be a Mask, but she didn't know how to be much else other than what her instinct told her. She knew Mask code of conduct. She knew what her mother would have done or said. And she realized with a start how much her mother must have loved Ley’Albaer. Passionate, romantic, unrequited love, perhaps her entire life.
Mel was bone-tired from removing the agamite from the trog in the cellar and from meeting with Rob. That had been nearly as exhausting as pushing agamite. In the private chamber earlier, she had tried to use Mask-taught skill to ascertain Rob's motives and goals. And failed. Instead, she ended up making him suspicious and wary of her. She never should have tried anything in her depleted state. Even her judgment was bad. She should have learned by now that the proximity of the trogs, and of Ott himself, made her self-control poor and her senses unpredictable. She was no good as a Mask.
I should know that by now.
But at least she had found a skill she was good at. Pushing the agamite. Controlling it. Manipulating it. Finally, she had purpose. She found her mind wandering back to the conversation she'd had with Jenks—Guyse, her natural father—back in his small cabin outside the Mask settlement, the day she'd run through the forest helplessly, out of control, thinking that she would never see Ott again. She and Jenks had talked about finding true purpose, finding what they each were meant for, if not for serving as Masks. Maybe serving the trogs who required her to manipulate their agamite was her real purpose.
Never mind the trogs’ fascinating history. She would have to learn their signing language faster than she already was. She wanted to be able to converse directly with Bookman instead of using Rav, who was adjusting to the harsh northern climate as stoically as a native, as a partial interpreter. Maybe she could convince Bookman to let her inscribe their history . . .
Ott cleared his throat. She hadn't truly noticed till then that he was only picking at his food. At the rate he was increasing in size, he should have been inhaling the cured meat and smoked cheese. He abruptly pushed his chair away from the table, jostling their makeshift meal and cups with his long legs. No matter how it changed in scale, his body was still his body, familiar to her in a way imprinted on her mind, the feel of the skin on his belly, the smoothness of the side of his neck, but it was also new.
There was undeniably more of him. She felt stupid and dreamy, enjoying that there was more of him to love, but she was also sorry to have been the one who changed him. However the agamite had gotten into him—she would figure it out somehow, someday. But what she felt the most at fault for was that she, Mel, had been the one to stir it up inside him. It was entirely her fault that he'd gotten bigger. She had changed him when he hadn’t needed to be changed.
He had expanded in her mind as well; he meant so much more to her now, and more every moment. He took over her thoughts just by being near her. A part of her focused entirely on him and nothing else. He consumed her attention and held onto her thoughts like an obsession. She tried to pretend indifference just to reach a state of affection tolerable enough that he wouldn't be afraid of her. She could easily overwhelm him with her need, with neediness enough to make him cringe away. Where was the balance in a normal relationship? She moved her eyes carefully away from him while he spoke.
"I won't hold you to it," he said. At her frown of confusion, he clarified for her, "The marriage. My proposal."
Surprise stunned her into a deeper silence as she scrabbled for words. The proposal had completely slipped her mind, but not for the reason he assumed. He thought she didn't love him.
It wasn't obvious to him? That was the real shock—that she had to reassure him of what she already knew and took for granted. One look at his face made it clear that her silence was a death sentence for him. Every second more she hesitated was another hellish eternity that he thought they had nothing between them. She took a breath, running a finger around the edge of her knife nervously, trying to find the correct words. She wanted to say out loud everything running through her mind though it nearly choked her to do so. Externalizing the interior narrative of her mind ran opposite everything she'd been taught and trained to do. But she was not a Mask, she told herself.
"I completely forgot about your proposal," she said. Oh. Wrong thing to say. He looked briefly like he was going to vomit, so she hurried on, "But only because I considered it done. I feel . . . I feel already joined with you, already married to you."
Now he was frowning, his wind-burned face showing first a total wash of color, then pallor, then flush again. She was glad he was sitting in a chair. Slumped, actually, like he was nursing a stomach pain. He looked completely overcome, twisted up with anxiety incongruous with his huge body, legs sprawled out under the table, enormous feet crossed at the ankles. She was startled into just beginning to comprehend the depth of his sensitivity, his insecurity.
How can I convince him otherwise? She didn't know, but she was willing to keep trying.
He said, "You never actually said yes, you know. I thought you might want to go . . . home. Wherever that is. Back to the Mask place. Now that your parents are gone. I'll help you get there, if you want to go."
He flinched when her eyes swam with tears. He was suddenly on his knees on the rug in front of her chair. She didn't bother to stop the moisture running down her face though it alarmed him. Tears were a normal reaction, she reassured herself, trying to stay objective and not fall apart completely. Then again, she couldn't stop them. She hadn’t cried since she was a child. Now she was a wreck, an emotional eruption waiting to happen. The slightest thing could set her off. But she was not a Mask, so she allowed herself to cry and allowed herself to feel the warmth of Ott's arms wrapped around her as he knelt on the floor in front of her chair. He smelled so very, very good.
She said, with her mouth on his hair, "You don't understand. My home is wherever you are. Sometimes the need to be near you is so overwhelming, I’m afraid I might lose control of myself. All my life, I’ve been in control. I’ve hidden my feelings. I’ve suppressed my natural inclination to love, to feel, to express my emotions, whether they be joy or sadness, sorrow or pain. I don’t know what’s right, what’s normal. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Please, be patient with me while I learn. Because you make me want to learn, to discover what I was meant to do. I promise I will make it worth your while," she said.
He didn't move, so she thought he might not have understood her. She said it again, "My home is wherever you are," and his big arms tightened around her till she had trouble breathing. He eased up, but it didn't matter. She could never be stifled by him, by the scent of him on her skin, mingling in her hair, and on her clothes. She could carry the smell of him with her wherever she went and be reminded that she belonged to him, and likewise he belonged to her.
Chapter 75
Why now? Rob wondered as he sat in the dark on the cellar floor.
Why did fate strike him down now when he had so much to lose? Jenny. Her kids. Love . . . something he'd never felt for most of his own kin. But now, once again, the rug had been pulled out from under him. Just when he had begun to believe in something . . . even the smallest, most minute amount—brutal attacks, a small city of homeless citizens to worry about, and even Harro missing at the last report, threatened his sanity.
And where was Harro? Where had the stableman gone? Had he been ambushed? Dragged underground at the last? Charl had confirmed seeing him in the tent city when the trogs retreated. Rob himself had seen Harro in his own dead father's bedchamber, but Harro had since disappeared. Would he turn up before the harshest winds of winter blew or simply be assumed dead? Rob shook his head. Just another sign that things were falling apart around him.
So much for good luck—that nonsense was only for Ott. Rob had fooled himself into thinking things had been looking up. In fact, all that had changed was that he’d mistakenly thought he’d been granted a chance at a future with Jenny and that maybe she could be persuaded, over time, to love him. His bliss had clouded h
is mind and made him view everything through a glass the color of happiness . . . Happy?
He couldn't remember ever having been happy here in the big house. The only time and place he'd come close to contentment was out on the trail with Ott. Sleeping across the campfire from his friend, back to the ground, and stomach to the stars, his worries had been wrung into peaceful submission at the end of each day. Now, that was a feeling to recall in times of need.
Like now, he thought.
Or not, he corrected.
He frowned, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. The cold, hard-packed dirt floor of the cellar didn't bother him. It was oddly comforting in its familiarity. He'd been having flashbacks on and off the whole night long; memories of himself as a cold, scared boy tied to the lashing pole were bested by the warmth of the richer clothes he wore today. He should have felt as if he were trapped in a childhood nightmare. Except he was fully an adult now. Dressed warmly. Loved by someone.
He snorted, but the sound was drowned out by the shuffle of the trogs. He could hear them breathing. The trogs were in the cellar with him, on the opposite side of the cellar from him, but he could hear them and smell their gamey odor. Gods, did they sleep standing up? Did they have cloven feet? He couldn't see them. He knew they communicated with each other through hand signals. He wondered if being forced into darkness for the night drove them insane with frustration. He found himself wondering and wanting to ask them.
He listened carefully to them for a while but soon their sounds faded into nothing. They were sleeping.
Damn, the truth was odd. He didn't know what to make of it: he was content. He had been thrown in a dungeon, but he was actually as cheerful as a kid on the first warm day after a long winter indoors. Except the warmth was inside his chest. In his heart and mind. If this were love, and he were in a fool’s state of bliss, he'd take it any day over the loneliness that paved the rest of his life up until now.
But his life before Jenny wasn't worth dwelling on. Now he was incapable of thinking beyond the minute, moments neither prior nor subsequent. Maybe that was the secret to Ott's infernal good luck. His unflagging, annoyingly buoyant optimism. Belief in the good of the common man. Brotherly—and sisterly and wifely and husbandly—love. A smile split Rob’s face as he sat cross-legged in the dark on the floor of his cell.
Chapter 76
In late morning, the judgment council assembled. Marget the housemaid had secured a standing spot toward the back. The old advisors had chosen to use the great hall, as overcrowded as it was, and forced its temporary tenants to pile their belongings to one side of the room in a great, disheveled heap, evoking poorly-suppressed grumbling and a few rude hand gestures. As a conciliatory nod, the people were invited to stand witness to trial, and a good many people stayed to hear it. Bodies crushed against Marget, and someone grabbed a rough handful of her backside. She smacked the offending paw away without bothering to see who it was.
Minutes later, hundreds of eyes focused on the front of the room as burly guards, erstwhile stable hands, escorted in the young master Rob. Animal handlers turned into wardens. Miners turned into soldiers. People were falling out of the roles that had identified them their whole lives. Marget wondered what Lady Lutra had next in mind for them.
Rob was put in a chair toward the front of the room. Then the council members filed in. Old men, all of them, and dressed in their dark purples, reds, and goldenrod, necks stiff with ceremony and self-importance. More than a few observers’ mouths puckered in disapproval. Most of them would take Rob over the whole council put together. Any day, and that was Dovay’s truth. Even Marget was willing to bet her next turn in the soaking tub that the people around her would stand up for Rob, too.
The old men arranged themselves in the big chairs on the wooden dais. They took their time settling, speaking among themselves as if they didn't have so many eyes following them. Marget watched their sunken cheeks puff in and out like the bellows of fireplaces that spewed pointless words instead of smoke. Wispy hair near to falling out. They were a group of men patterned in the likeness of old Col Rob himself. Eventually a hush fell over the spectators, and then the silence swept over her in a wave until it caught hold of the whole room.
Marget craned her neck but didn't see handsome Ott anywhere. She was surprised he wasn't there standing by his friend. If anything could be said about Ott, other than his near-heart-stopping face and the casual way he had of trampling on a girl's heart, it was that he was unfailingly loyal to those who were fortunate enough to be loved by him. A very small set of people, from what Marget had observed, and she'd observed him for most of her life. She sighed.
At that moment, while she was on her toes, craning her neck for a better view, a hand shoved her in the small of her back. She was pushed off balance, which made her to jostle the person in front of her. When she turned back from shooting a dirty look at the person behind her, she was just in time to catch the glare from the person into whom she had inadvertently shoved herself.
"Sorry," Marget muttered and threaded her way out of the crowd toward the doorway. She'd had enough of the crowd, and it felt a little like the room was getting too hot for the crush of people in it. Made her feel a little dizzy and sick to her stomach. She made it to the entryway and spied Charl leaning against the wall.
Now, there was an attractive fellow. Blond. Taller than her by a head. Yet broad, too. He hadn't always been this way. No, this magical transformation had happened within the last couple years, probably when she hadn't been bothered to notice him. He was a good three years younger than her, so she'd been shocked to look at him lately and see nothing of the thin boy she'd often eaten dinner with in the kitchens. Before, she'd had eyes for no one but Ott.
Charl cast a glance her direction. His eyes were serious, and she felt a curious thrill run through her. He was refined and intellectual, and looking at her speculatively. Then she remembered . . . Charl was Col Rob's valet-in-training, his errand boy, his protégé. It was rumored that he had once defeated Col Rob at that dull table game they always played. The other housemaids found him cool and achingly unattainable.
Marget realized with a start that Charl had been for all intents and purposes raised by Col Rob. He was in attendance here in the great hall to see Rob found guilty and exiled—Rob wouldn't be killed for punishment. In these parts, a convict was forced to leave the region, to walk out with no belongings, in the dead of winter. Death, surely, but not considered execution by the council. It was called taking a walk in winter. An old-time practice that kept crime at a minimum and left the guilty to the merciless elements. It let the land do the killing so no one had actual blood on his hands.
In the coldest parts of winter, it was said that death came so quickly there was no pain. The worst time to serve out a punishment had to be in the earliest and latest parts of the season, when death was a slow and drawn-out business—when the bodies of the convicted were later discovered all the way down south, so very close to the port city before they had surrendered to exposure. During those times, the convicts sometimes chose to walk further north into the even colder, harsher cliffs, having admitted their guilt and accepted their crimes. They chose not to tempt themselves with hope by heading south. They knew what was in store for them and chose to accept it. That’s what I’d do, if it was me.
Marget knew Charl was here to see Rob punished. Nonetheless, she approached him, unable to keep the long-studied flirtatiousness out of her glance as she leaned against the wall next to him, mimicking his posture. She'd often been told her eyes were her best feature, that they had great quantities of glitter and depth to them. Usually such compliments were punctuated with stolen kisses, but still, she was inclined to believe the flattery. She flicked a glance out of the corner of her eye at Charl, and found that he was watching her instead of the parade of ancient crusties in front of them.
"I'm sorry to hear about your father," she murmured, then was sorry that she mentioned it when Charl stiffened up
. Word had spread through the great house that Charl's father Haught had been killed in a trog ambush at the mines, and that the Masks had also been killed. Marget had lost her own parents at a very young age, before she even knew them really. She didn't have memories of anyone other than the house staff who had taken her in. Nan in the kitchen. All of them were like family, so she didn't feel sorry for herself.
Before he could respond, the doors next to them burst open and Ott walked in. No, not really walked. He was kind of prowling, crouched low, ready to spring, much like a bear, Marget thought, although she'd never seen a bear attacking. The only one she’d ever come up close to had been a tired old thing in a traveling menagerie that she'd seen as a child. Marget's eyes fixed on Ott now in wonderment. She thought she heard a derisive snort from Charl, but she was amazed by the sight. After Ott came Mel, the woman who used to be a Mask but now was not. Then gasps rippled through the crowd, because flanking Ott and Mel were a dozen or so of the trogs, close enough to brush against her arm.
Charl reached out a thick arm and shoved Marget behind him protectively. As much as she appreciated the gesture, she found herself yet again being blocked from a good view. She leaned to the side just in time to see Ott and his entourage position themselves around the young master Rob. Like a king surrounded by his guard. It was thrilling to behold, momentous, like she was witnessing a change about which she would one day tell her children. She took a deep breath and she could feel the waves of . . . something . . . irritation . . . coming off Charl's back, off his skin where she was now gripping his arm trying to pull it away from where it obstructed her line of vision.
"Would you let me see?" she whispered fiercely into the back of his shirt. In a single, fluid move, he tucked her under his arm in front of him, so she was pressed with her back against his chest. He'd deemed it safe enough for her to stand in front of him. Then she realized belatedly that all the exciting things were now happening off to their right. Charl’s body was still mostly between her and what interested her. She was annoyed. Though he felt nice. Until his fingers covered her mouth, effectively shushing her. She huffed, but found she didn't really mind his hand. It wasn't painful or constricting, just firm. And also, she wanted to hear what was being said, so she stopped squirming against him, although she found herself in an uncomfortable sweat from being a little too close to him. When she looked at him sideways, he was coolly observing the action ahead of them. She resolved to behave similarly and fixed her eyes on Ott and Rob.