by J. M. Frey
She nods once, and I do it, carefully, palm cupped on her whole right shoulder blade, fingers curved along her neck. She sighs into the touch, and her tension eases.
“He doesn’t know,” she mumbles. “I didn’t tell him.”
“That I am the Shadow Hand?”
She nods.
“Is that the only thing he wanted to know?”
“No.” Her voice is scratchy and low, so quiet and ashamed that I can barely make out her words. “But I didn’t say anything. Not a thing, after the first day. He never even knew my name.”
“That is something of which to be proud,” I say softly, and I mean it. “Bootknife is not an easy man to defy. I’ve never seen such an elaborate carving as yours. You must have made him very angry.”
“I did.”
“Good girl.”
She snorts. “Loosey.”
Another strange word. “What’s a ‘loosey’?”
“I am. It’s my name. Ell-you-see-why, Lucy Piper.”
“You gift me with your name when all of Bootknife’s attention could not wring it from you?” I ask. The weight of what she has just done nearly sends me to the floor with shock. My knees shake, and I have to put my other hand on the bed stand to remain upright.
“You’ll protect it.”
“I will,” I vow. “I will, Lucy Piper.” I take a moment to clear my throat and try to keep the tears that have sprung into my eyes from falling. What a great thing she has done. This conversation, her bravery, has left me flayed.
I must turn away, before too much emotion shows on my face. Preparing the promised pain potion is the perfect excuse. Mother Mouth left the concentrated elixir on the bedside table, and it is convenient to turn my back on Lucy Piper as I mix it with a little wine to make it more palatable. Then I help drip some onto her tongue. Lucy Pipers drowses.
When the kettle has boiled again, I resume cleaning her back.
Her eyes slip closed just as I have finished. I rinse out the cloth and spread it across what is left of her skin to keep her warm until I can move on to the ointment, and then stand.
“Try to rest,” I say, when the feel of the cloth startles her back to wakefulness.
“Thanks. Hey,” she mutters sleepily, worn out by the pain, both the physical and emotional. “You’re not stuttering anymore.”
“No,” I agree. “I am not.”
.
Two
When Lucy Piper wakes the second time, nearly a full day later, Mother Mouth is there to decant broth and watered wine into her. Lucy Piper cranes her head around to watch all that happens over her shoulder, and Mother Mouth obligingly mixes her potions on the bedside table where her patient can see. She follows Mother Mouth’s every movement with an expression that reminds me sharply of the looks on the faces of the village children when they see a fairy for the first time: wonder that such a creature is really before their eyes.
It disgruntles Mother Mouth, and, very strangely, keeps her quiet for once. I find I miss her brash laughter and blunt pronouncements. I do not like her silenced, not at all.
When it is all done and her bandages are changed, Lucy Piper reaches out and grabs the healer woman’s hand as she packs up her bag. “Thank you, Mother,” she says softly.
Mother Mouth’s eyes dart to mine, just as surprised as I am that Lucy Piper knows the term of endearment which only the Shadow’s Men use.
“You’re very welcome, Lucy Piper,” Mother Mouth replies and, flustered, wishes us a very hasty goodbye. She doesn’t even linger to converse with me in the hall, as she usually does.
“Neris will help bathe you now, if you like, Lucy Piper,” I say, once we are alone. “It’s too early in your healing for a full tub.”
“I’d like that. And just Pip is fine,” she says. “It’s what my friends call me.”
“Pip,” I allow. “Am I your friend?”
“Gee, lemmie think. Do I want to be friends with the man who rescued me out from under the blade of Bootknife? Uh, yeah. Yeah I do, Master Turn.”
I wonder what my name will sound like in her mouth, and so I offer it: “Forsyth, please.”
“Forsyth,” she says, obligingly, and I suppress the shiver that crawls up my spine, which has nothing to do with the temperature of the room. Oh, I like that. Her accent turns the last syllable of my name into a sweet little lisp.
Neris comes in, clad in Turn-russet livery and carrying a wash basin. I step out of the room to allow the ladies the privacy required. I find I am imagining what Pip’s hair will look like when it is clean and dry, spread out upon her pillow, a soft, straight curtain of ebony. I shake my head—and the thought away—and trot to the other wing of the Hall to ensconce myself in my study. I must get caught up on the paperwork with which my position, unfortunately, is filled.
Anyone would think that being the king’s chief spymaster would be a duty overflowing with dangerous chases and listening at keyholes, when in fact it is largely comprised of sifting through missives to separate the truths from the elaborations and tracking spending so I may pay off informants. Snowdrifts of paperwork wait for me upon my desk in all seasons, and I shovel down through the layers daily, as best I am able.
If action needs to be taken, I have my Men to do that for me. Very rarely must I don the Shadow Hand’s mask and cloak and venture out with a sword strapped to my hip. And even then, I am usually capable of diffusing the situation without ever having to draw my blade—my tongue is a far deadlier weapon, and I have leverage on nearly everyone in Hain.
A few hours pass in this manner, and by the time I am finished, my shoulders have seized up from being hunched over a desk for so long. I stand, stretch, and decide that now is the perfect time to spar to loosen them up, and then to indulge in a hot bath of my own.
Sheriff Pointe’s home is the next estate over; when the old man who previously lived there died heirless, the lands and house reverted back to the possession of the Turn estate. As I had more than enough land to supply my own kitchens and tenants, and no need for a second home, I turned it over to the constabulary to be used as both a courthouse and a jail. One of the wings was also transformed into the Sheriff’s apartments, where he and a very small staff reside. The outbuildings were made into cottages for the farmers who work the estate’s land and pay their rent in food for the Sheriff’s table. It is an excellent arrangement, and I have entailed the estate to the constabulary in perpetuity. The estate’s previous owner’s wastefulness was frustrating—there is no need for a single man living alone in such a large house, hoarding some of the most fertile land in the Chipping when, in the town center, the tenements are rarely large enough to even include a kitchen.
Pointe became both my neighbor and my friend the day I installed him and his family in the newly dubbed “Law Manor.” He had been struggling with the rundown apartments he’d kept above the squashed jailhouse in the town square for years. It should have been torn down rather than inhabited, but when Pointe took the commission, he’d not been a wealthy man and could not afford to upgrade the structure.
He thanked me, but I was only doing as the lord of the Chipping ought: provide for those citizens who could not provide for themselves until such a time that they can. I am certain, had he thought of it, that my father would have done the same. Pointe disagrees with me, but I flatter myself that I knew my father better than he. He just simply did not think some days, but he was Master of Lysee and Turnshire, and its people were his responsibility.
Thus, when I send over an errand boy with promises of swordplay and supper, the Sheriff is at my doorstep within the hour. He comes bearing a seed cake from his lovely wife. We exchange small talk about his son, just old enough to begin riding lessons come the autumn, until we reach the cavern of my sparring hall. Once, it was the ballroom, but as it has the most pleasant summer sun—and I do not have enough friends for whom to throw a ball—I have converted it into a gymnasium.
“So, village gossip says you’ve got a pretty youn
g girl shut up in your mother’s chambers.” Pointe says it without preamble as we both enter the practice room. He strips off a glove at his pronouncement and hits me good-naturedly in the shoulder with it, then the second glove and his jerkin join it on one of the benches that line the walls. The shoulders of his jerkin are damp from the drizzle that persists outside.
I sigh. “What I wouldn’t give to have a spy network as efficient and quick as the grandmothers of Turnshire,” I say. Sheriff Pointe is one of my very few friends, and the only one outside of my Men and Mother Mouth who know that I am more than the indulgent younger son of a wastrel country lord.
I remove my heavy house robe and velvet waistcoat, leaving just my cream shirt and dark trousers. I tuck the latter into my high sparring boots as I slip them onto my feet. Pointe is already dressed to spar.
“So it’s true,” Pointe says, swaggering to the center of the room. The weak sunlight streaming through the windows catches on the water droplets collected there, making his silver hair glint like snow. I hear the women of the Chipping find his full head of silver hair very attractive. His lush wife certainly does. A sharp knot of jealousy pushes against my sternum, but I am so used to feeling it when I regard Pointe’s easy charm and manners that I am well practiced at ignoring it.
My own ruddy brown hair is already thinning on the top, and I have taken to wearing it slightly longer than a landed lordling ought, in order to disguise my ever-lengthening forehead while I can. Kintyre teases me for it, calls me vain. He wears his own fair hair so long, pulled back into a club, that if he is thinning, I cannot tell. But he is handsome where I am plain, and his hair is the last thing the opposite sex usually notices—they gravitate straight to the width of his chest and thighs, or the sword-calluses on his hands.
I am tall and gangly, and have inherited none of our father’s impressive physique. All too soon, I will resemble one of those farmer blokes down in the Chipping, bald pate covered in sunburn and wisps of forgotten youth, a paunch from decades of nightly ale, and a picker’s stoop from years of curling my long body over documents and desks.
I envy Pointe his full head of hair and his loose shoulders, even in his late thirties. I stand straighter, determined to at least have excellent posture if I cannot have anything else.
“Yes. It’s true,” I allow, and salute him with my wooden practice sword. He returns the gesture with his own, and we begin. My admission distracts Pointe, and my buttoned point jabs him lightly in the shoulder. He winces theatrically, and we reset to begin again.
Pointe has always been a good match for me; he fights with the gusto of the street, aiming to end the match effectively and quickly, where I have been taught the stiff, formal rules of dueling combat. One of these days, Pointe will best me, and each time, he comes closer. My twirling, dancing cuts will only protect me for so long.
“Bugger. Hold still, you twittering bird!” he guffaws, as I step out of his reach again. “You’ll be the death of me.”
“Not with these swords,” I say, and I use mine to swat his rump.
Pointe scuttles out of reach and rolls his shoulders, then takes a double grip on the hilt so he can use the wooden length like a cudgel. He telegraphs his intent easily, and I dodge again.
“They also say you abducted her and spirited her into the house in the dead of night,” he says, as he turns to the side to avoid my next thrust. He raises an eyebrow, his attempt at sternness ruined by the curl of his mouth. “Am I going to have to arrest my lordling for kidnapping?”
“Hardly,” I reply, smacking his forearm with the flat of my blade. “Pay attention. Your footing is still unbalanced. And that’s three for me, my friend.”
He rubs his abused arm and grins. “I don’t know why you insist on playing the useless fop in public,” he says. “You could skewer any man in court.”
“Oh no, of course not,” I argue. “There are men there who have been training with far greater swordmasters than my father ever was, and for far longer as well.” I salute again so we can start the next round.
Pointe doesn’t salute back, and I am left standing there like an idiot, waiting for his sword to reply. He watches me carefully, lips pursed, eyes roaming my face.
“Why do you talk about yourself like that, Forsyth?” he asks, all levity gone.
I strongly dislike it when he gets serious like this, as if he can actually convince me that I am more than I am. I wave his comment away and jiggle my sword, reminding him that we were in the middle of something.
He rolls his eyes and, instead of lifting his sword to mine, he asks: “Why is she really here, then? They say she’s your betrothed.”
“Do they?” I am suddenly very irritated. Gossiping old grandmothers! I drop my sword back down to rest position with a snap. “Is that what they say? Stupid, bumbling, ugly old Forsyth needs to kidnap a woman to find someone to marry? I bet they’re enjoying the laugh.”
Pointe’s expression softens. “Of course not. The whole of Lysse would rejoice if their lordling finally fell in love. Forsyth, it would please me to no end to see you happy and married. I think you spend too much time shut up in this Hall, alone with memories of your father’s favoritism. All you spend time on is your missives, and your staff—”
He reaches out and places a hand on my shoulder. It is meant to be comforting, I’m sure, but it feels condescending, and I jerk away.
“I am fine,” I spit. “This is the life I ch-cho-chose.”
“Oh, you did not, you ruddy great liar,” Pointe says. He is trying to keep the conversation light, teasing, but each word stabs at the fragile walls I have built around myself. “That arse of a brother of yours just up and walked off, and left you to do his job. It’s him who’s supposed to be lord of the manor, not you.”
“I li-li-like my life! I li-li-like L-Lysse Chipping!” I stagger over every l so it takes thrice as long to say the cursed thing and leaves me sounding unconvinced. Blast.
“Of course you do. But you should be out there, with your Men, staying at court, not trapped between duty to Lysse and duty to your king. If Kintyre had half the brains of a village idiot, he’d be back here fulfilling his pledge as the eldest son. You’re too cunning a Shadow Hand to waste your time stuck in the backwaters of Turnshire.”
“Wh-what Kin-Kintyre does is m-more important for the king-king-kingdom. Kin-Kin-Kintyre is a hero,” I argue, because I don’t want Pointe to see how badly I resent my brother. How I resent his physique, and the way that adventures always seem to fall into his lap, and how he always seems to come out of them the better for it. I resent the riches and rewards the king has lavished upon him for the monsters he’s slain; the women who throw themselves in his direction when he passes through the cities; the lands he’s seen; the treasures he’s discovered; the loyalty of his little friend, Bevel Dom, who follows him everywhere.
I resent him because he is out there being marvelous. And I am here, doing his job, when I have something of my own, something that I should be doing out there, being marvelous myself.
But I am lanky, skinny, and somehow, at the same time, growing to fat. I am book-smart, but life-stupid. Father always said so. Kintyre always said so, and he is a hero. He doesn’t lie.
Pointe merely sighs and puts his hands on his hips, waiting for me to calm enough for the stutter to vanish. I take several deep breaths and, eventually, my heartbeat slows again. My tongue becomes loose and fat at the bottom of my mouth, once more under my control.
“Forsyth, my friend,” he says. “Is this girl your betrothed?”
“No,” I am forced to admit. “My Men rescued her. From the Viceroy. She is here to recover, and then, inevitably, she will return home.”
Pointe winces. “How’s her back?”
“A ruin,” I say. “And it is large. Far more elaborate than I have ever seen before. The vines crawl all the way up her left side, from her tailbone to the nape of her neck. She resisted, the whole time.”
“That is impressive.”
“She is an impressive young woman,” I allow.
The smirk returns to Pointe’s face. “And attractive?”
“Yes,” I blurt, and then immediately wish I had not. “Oh, don’t look at me like that!”
“Is she of an age?”
“Yes.”
“And you find her attractive and impressive.”
“She’s only been here two days. Slow down, man. I barely know her.”
“And yet you find her attractive and impressive.” I swing my sword at him, gamely, and he leaps out of the way with a grin. “So, do something about it.”
“She is too good for me.”
“That’s horse shit.”
“It would betray the rules of hospitality. She came to me as a supplicant; she needs succor, not seduction.”
Pointe throws up his hands in exasperation. “You are an impossible human being.”
“But she does!”
“She is upstairs, in pain but safe because of you. You do not think that perhaps she might also be grateful?”
I wrinkle my nose at the suggestion. “I cannot take advantage of what Bootknife has done to her, nor my position as her host and rescuer. I am sure she is in a very delicate state at the moment, and I shall not push myself upon her, nor betray her trust.”
“I’m not saying overwhelm her. I’m saying court her.”
“What for?” I ask, hating how miserable I sound. “The moment she meets Kintyre, he will sweep her away, as he always does.”
“That was once, Forsyth, and Melinda was being seduced by a barrow wraith! It doesn’t count!” His voice rings in the echoing silence of the practice hall. Pointe takes a calming breath and says, slowly, “You can’t spend the rest of your life showing your belly to your brother.”
But I can. That’s the problem. I can, and I must, because Kintyre Turn is a legend in his own lifetime, a genuine hero with an enchanted sword with a ridiculous name—Foesmiter. Kintyre is a hero who has always appeared as if he stepped straight from a tapestry, and his little brother is nothing more than the village joke.