Six of Clubs (War and Suits Book 5)

by J. A. Armitage

  There were a few villages within a couple of hours of Yelpish, in any of which she would be able to purchase wine and chocolate. Whichever she chose to go to, she’d be back in the early afternoon. I only hoped that no one asked to look in her bag when she returned. I didn’t want her to get into trouble on top of everything else she was going through.

  I brewed myself a cup of tea and sat with my book. It was one Mali had given me on my last birthday and was a particularly dreary tome on the history of runes in The Club Kingdom. What I wouldn’t give for a nice, long work of fiction and a cup of coffee. I mentally kicked myself for not remembering to ask Bryony to buy coffee. After reading as much as I could and not taking a lot in, I placed the book on the small table. It was impossible to read. If I wasn’t going to be working with Mali anymore, what use did I have for runes?

  My thoughts settled on Aspen instead. He was a good-looking guy, the tallest in our village with longish black hair. I’d just never thought of him as someone desirable because everyone knew he would end up with Bryony. Obviously, everyone was wrong. He was the antithesis of Mali. Where Aspen was tall, Mali was short; where Aspen was good-looking, Mali was, well, not so much. It made me wonder what I saw in Mali in the first place, but I knew what it was. It was his undeniable intellect. I guess people’s looks just weren’t that important to me. There was a chance that Aspen would turn out to be extremely intelligent. I didn’t know him enough to rule that out, but the likelihood of him being as wise and as wonderful as Mali was slim to none. He just hadn’t been on my radar at all, and in the three years I’d spent in Yelpish, I’d barely said three words to him.

  I could see the attraction of him if you liked that sort of thing. I knew him to be an excellent horseman, and he was great with a bow and arrow. We were a peaceful community, so our archery skills were only put to use for competitions, most of which Aspen won.

  However much I tried to see myself with him, I couldn’t. Yes, we’d look good together. I was pretty tall for a Club, and our heights weren’t really that much different. I think I matched him in the looks stakes too. I was not traditionally stylish, but I liked to think I had a little natural beauty, which would hold up against his good looks. Apart from that, I was stumped. It was ok to look good together, which we undoubtedly would, but surely, it would be better if we actually had anything in common. As I barely knew Bryony, I didn’t really know how good of a match they were together, but you didn’t have to look twice to see how besotted they were with each other. She had the same look in her eyes when she looked at Aspen as I expected I did when I looked at Mali. The only difference was Aspen looked back at her in the same way.

  I sighed.

  What a mess it all was.

  I desperately longed to go out and find Mali and tell him what I thought of him. Of course, leaving the house during bonding week was against the rules. It was one thing to hide a bottle or two of wine and quite another to brazenly go against the rules of the whole village. I wasn’t sure it would accomplish anything anyway; he wouldn’t change his mind.

  “How bloody convenient for him!” I said aloud.

  The relationship between love and hate is a funny thing. They say they are different sides of the same coin, and for the first time, I understand just what that meant. I loved Mali to the depths of my core, but I’d have been hard-pressed to find anyone I hated more right then.

  So much for thinking about Aspen. How could I when all paths in my brain led to Mali? Everything always came back to him.

  “Focus!” I shouted out loud to myself.

  Aspen, Aspen, Aspen.

  I wondered if it was possible to be happy living with someone you barely knew. Maybe Mali had picked the right guy for me, and maybe it was written in the stars. Maybe I’d look back on this moment in five or ten years, surrounded by children with a big happy smile on my face. Maybe Aspen would learn to love me too and forget about Bryony.

  Maybe she’d find someone else. She was a beautiful girl with long dark wavy hair and fresh-faced. She’d easily find another suitor.

  Of course, we’d all have to live in the same village—the same small village. The same small village where Aspen would see Bryony every day, Bryony would see us, and I’d have to bow down to our spiritual leader, Mali.

  “Yes, this is going to go really well!” I spoke to myself again, allowing myself some sarcasm. It was times like this that I wished I had a pet, a cat or a dog, just so I could speak aloud and not feel like a complete fruitcake.

  It turned out, being alone to get some thinking time was not helping me at all, and I wished I’d not sent Bryony out on such a long errand. I paced up and down, which didn’t take that long as the house was tiny. It was then that my eyes rested on the bookcase from which I’d pulled the now discarded rune book. Mali had given me quite a few books over the years as gifts, and I’d borrowed quite a few too, wanting to learn about all things spiritual. There was a book on bonding in there. Mali had given it to me when I’d first come to Yelpish and had asked him what bonding was. I’d only skimmed through it at the time, but now seemed like a great time to reread it.

  I looked through the bookshelves, passing great books such as The Encyclopaedia of Voodoo, Mysteries of Our Time, Are Diamonds Really Witches?, and my personal favourite, A Guide to the Paranormal in Vanatus.

  I found the small The Nature of Bonding and Why It Beats Marriage by none other than Mali himself.

  It never struck me as odd at the time that a man would write a book about bonding when he was resolutely single himself, but it sure did now. I knew that Mali came to Yelpish when he was very young and was pretty much responsible for the way things were run. He told me he was actually born in Urbis, but as a young man, he had a dream to live in a village where everyone lived together in harmony. He set out for The Club Kingdom the very next day and found this little village. He quickly became involved in the day-to-day running of the village and quickly moulded it into the image in his dream. It all sounded so romantic when he told me the story three years ago. Now, it sounded egotistical. None of the people that lived here when he came still lived here. They probably hadn’t liked the way he ran things. No, Yelpish was founded by people from other places, people who wanted a different way to live, a better place to live. People who were disillusioned with their old lives like me.

  I thought back to when I lived at the castle with my family. I hated it back then with all the endless pomp and servants lackeying around every move I made. I couldn’t dress how I wanted, see whom I wanted, or do what I wanted. I even needed to take guards with me if I wanted to leave the castle. I had felt so claustrophobic.

  I pulled the book from the shelf and made myself another cup of tea. If I was going to read this book, I might as well be comfortable whilst doing it. I sat myself down, cup in one hand, book in the other, and turned to the contents page.

  Chapter one: What is bonding?

  Chapter two: How you can live in perfect harmony with your bonded partner.

  Chapter three: How two divine souls are chosen to be bonded.

  Right, it looked like I was going to skip chapters one and two and move straight on to chapter three. I already knew what bonding was and living in perfect harmony with Aspen would come later (or it wouldn’t), but knowing just how Mali picked bonding partners was still a bit of a mystery to me. I’d never really thought about how he went about it before. I knew it was something to do with the stars, but the details had always been a little hazy. I’d always been under the assumption that I’d spend the rest of my days with Mali, so bonding was not something I’d really had much interest in beyond attending the yearly bonding party.

  I flicked through to the correct page and began to read.

  Bonding is a spiritual process that delves deep into the hearts of two beings. Picking two people for bonding should not be taken lightly, and it is to the stars we look when we have to choose. A number of factors are taken into consideration before we even begin, such as age and comp
atibility. A general liking between the two individuals involved helps, but it is not mandatory for they will learn to love each other if they are bonded in this way. The woman is always the first to be chosen, and a suitable bonding partner must be picked to match her. It is important to do it this way, as bonding rarely works when the man is picked first. The woman is chosen from a group of unbonded ladies in the village and is, generally, the eldest, although not always. In exceptional circumstances, a younger woman may be picked.

  So I’m an exceptional circumstance, am I? It’s funny how these exceptional circumstances are not listed. I carried on reading.

  Once we have the woman, we have to find out about her qualities, her abilities, her likes, and dislikes. Then we look upwards into the heavens. The village elder will chart out the course of her life using the stars and do the same for all the eligible young men. When the three men who have the closest star charts have been picked, the village elders must go into a state of deep meditation, filling their minds with only an image of the young girl and her three would-be bonding partners. This should last for four hours. If, after this time, all the elders agree, then a suitor is picked. If there is disagreement, the runes must be consulted. Once a bond partner is picked, the word of the elders is law, and it is writtenas such.

  I turned the page to find chapter five. I turned back again, thinking I’d missed a page, but no, that’s all there was. It finished on the word written.

  Written where? In the stars? In a notebook? On the back of Mali’s hand?

  And what was this talk of village elders? Although there were village elders, Mali’s opinion was pretty much the only one that counted, and he obviously agreed with himself. That meant that my entire future had been mapped out because of the alignment of astral bodies a gazillion lightyears away interpreted by just him. The whole thing was so vague. How could you map out someone’s life by looking at stars? Ok, so on many occasions, I’d talked long into the night with various villagers in the temple about how our futures were preordained, and how just by looking up, we could see our destinies unfold. It suddenly felt like a big fat load of hokum. I threw the book across the room where it hit Bryony right in the face as she was coming in through the front door with a handful of shopping bags.

  “Shit, sorry!” I jumped up and ran over to her. She was holding her nose where the book had hit her. Blood began to pour down her face over her lips and drip onto the floor.

  I ran for some tissue and, grabbing a big wad of it, held it under her bleeding nose.

  “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t aiming for you. I didn’t expect you to be back so soon.”

  I guided her to the chair and let her sit.

  “It’s ok. Why were you throwing a book in the first place?”

  “Frustration!” I said simply, picking up the shopping bags where she’d dropped them when the book smacked into her.

  She’d done a good job. Technically, I was supposed to sit whilst she did all the work as my bond helper, but I didn’t care much for that tradition. Plus, I knew where everything went. She’d bought five large bars of chocolate, three bottles of wine and even a bottle of whiskey, the kind Mali drinks when he thinks no one is looking.

  “Nice work!” I said appreciatively. “I’m surprised about the whiskey after the look you gave me when I asked for wine!”

  “May as well be hanged for the sheep as the lamb. Besides, I’m really angry.”

  “Good for you. I am too!” I grinned. I poured a little into two of my mugs. I didn’t own any glasses, and I certainly didn’t own shot glasses, so mugs would have to do. I passed one mug to Bryony. She moved the tissue from to one side, drank the whole lot down in one go, and put the tissue back where it had been.

  I was beginning to think I might actually enjoy the pre-bonding week after all. I took a sip of my own whiskey and nearly choked. It was a strong taste, much stronger than I’d been expecting. How had Bryony managed to drink the whole lot down so easily? A quick glance told me she hadn’t. Her cheeks had turned bright red, and her eyes were beginning to water.

  I grinned to myself as I put away the rest of the shopping, most of it, boring food, but I did notice she’d bought bacon, beef burgers, pizza, and potato chips. She certainly was going to be hanged for the sheep—a bloody big sheep! I’d never seen any of this stuff in Yelpish before. We survived mostly on vegetables.

  “How on earth did you get all this into the village without being caught?” I asked her wide-eyed, as though she’d performed some kind of miracle.

  “I rode in through the back way straight to your cottage. The horse I borrowed is tethered up outside. I really should take him back to the village green.”

  “I think he’ll have to stay here tonight. You stink of whisky, and if your face gets any redder, you’ll be mistaken for a tomato. They’ll be trying to sell you in the fresh fruit and veg section of the village market.”

  I delved into the bottom of the shopping bag and brought out a jar of finest coffee. Oh, I could have kissed her; it was like she read my mind.

  Now was not the time for coffee, though. I still had my whiskey. I retrieved Bryony’s cup and poured some more, this time pouring more than a quarter inch. I topped mine up to match and went to join her on the sofa.

  The second cup went down a lot slower this time, and thankfully, the bleeding had stopped.

  “So are you going to tell me why you were so frustrated with that book that you felt the need to launch it across the room?” she asked, whilst launching her own bit of tissue through the air where it landed perfectly in the bin.

  “Nice shot!” I said. “I was reading about why two people are chosen to be bonded.”

  “I take it you didn’t like what you read?”

  “Not really.”

  “So why were you chosen to be bonded with my Aspen?” she asked and hiccupped. The whiskey was obviously going to her head as unused to it as she was. Aspen had become my Aspen. Until five days from now, he was her Aspen. Then he would become my Aspen for the rest of time. I sipped at my own whiskey and began to appreciate the burning sensation as it fell down my throat.

  “I don’t know, some bullshit about stars and village elders. This is all to do with Mali. The stars are just a cover up for him wanting to get rid of me.”

  “But why would he want to get rid of you? You two have been practically inseparable since you got here?”

  “Who knows? Maybe he was sick of me telling him I loved him.”

  “Then he’s an idiot! How wonderful it feels to be loved.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” I hiccupped and poured myself some more whiskey.

  We both sat silently for a few minutes, each sipping our own drinks. Bryony had stopped the tears now, but her face was still red.

  “I should make us some dinner,” she said eventually, standing up and then sitting right back down again, completely underestimating the effect of the alcohol. She stood up again, much more slowly.

  “Just put one of those pizzas in the oven,” I shouted across to her.

  “Do you know, I’ve never eaten pizza before in my life? I’ve never drunk alcohol before either.”

  “It shows,” I said, and she giggled. Perhaps I shouldn’t give her too much more. I didn’t want her throwing up on the floor.

  When the pizza was cooked, I sliced it and handed Bryony a couple of slices before putting the rest on my plate. The pizza tasted amazing, mainly due to the fact it was completely forbidden. Bryony, looked like she was in ecstasy with every bite.

  I followed it up by opening a bag of potato chips and sharing them with her. In any other village or town or city in the whole of Vanatus, this would be a typical girl’s night in. Here, it was a night of forbidden sins, and it felt bloody wonderful!

  “Do you ever think about how much you are missing out on just by living here?” I asked. My words were beginning to slur with the effects of the whiskey.

  “Not before tonight. My mother brought me to live here when I was re
ally small, so I don’t know anything else.”

  “And now?”

  “Well, this pizza tastes like heaven itself, and everything is really funny right now.”

  “That will be the drink,” I said

  “I can’t believe you have a crush on Mali!” she said and erupted into a fit of laughter. I suspect it was something she’d been wanting to get out for a while, and the whiskey had let her do just that. “He’s sooooo old and ugly…oops, sorry!”

  “He really is ugly,” I agreed and began to laugh along with her. From then on we were both so drunk that our conversations were meaningless drivel, fuelled by alcohol. I’m sure we talked about how awful Mali was, and I know she waffled on for ages about how Aspen would make the perfect husband.

  Bryony turned out to be much better company than I’d expected, and if I forgot the fact that the one person I loved most in the world had metaphorically thrown me to the dogs and I was going to have to be bonded to someone I barely knew, this week might not turn out to be the horror I thought it was going to be. I doubted Bryony would feel the same way. How Mali expected anyone to prepare someone else to marry their love was beyond me. He was punishing me for loving him. I wondered what Bryony was being punished for.

  31st January

  “Morning sleepyhead,” A voice cut through my brain, splitting it in two. I would have stood up and hit whoever it was, but I didn’t think I could move. My entire body felt like lead, and my head was filled with someone using a chainsaw.

  “Get up! I need to speak to you about your bonding dress.”

  If there was ever a sentence that would have me less likely to get up, that was it.