by J. M. Frey
She laughs, and it is a clear, cheerful sound that rings around the vaulted ceiling of our private dining room—no sense in using the big, formal one when it’s just the two of us—and I wonder when the last time such pretty laughter was heard by these walls. Surely not since Mother died. Perhaps even before that; my father was not a man known for his mirth, and I wonder how much my mother had to repress her own jovial nature. I recall her soft giggles and gentle smiles, but the memories are always framed by either her chambers or my nursery. I don’t ever remember her laughing anywhere else in the house.
I am suddenly determined to make sure that Pip laughs in every single room, at least once. It is a foolish vow, but I make it all the same.
“When does Mother Mouth think that I’ll be able to move around under my own power?” Pip asks, breaking into my reverie. “I’m sure Velshi is as sick of carrying me up and down the stairs as I am of being carried.”
“The, uh, the wounds are nearly closed over. The ointment is working well. But you ought to rest a week or so more before you begin to stretch and strain the new scar tissue. And you’ve been bedridden so long, you must give your legs time to adjust.”
Every day, her back heals more—the ointment speeds the process, and between Mother Mouth, Neris, and I, it is always fresh and layered over with Words of Healing. The exposed muscle scabs over; the thin slices begin to turn red and close. In a matter of weeks, the whole mess will be puffed with tender white scar tissue, beautiful and horrible.
I wonder if Pip is the kind of woman who will cover the designs completely, ashamed of them, even to the point of sweltering in the summer months. Or will she be the sort of woman who has her clothing cut to display them, proud of this sign of her strength, in the twisted attractiveness of the intricate designs? Perhaps she is neither, and she will dress and behave as if they aren’t even there, pretending that it never happened and showing no extra care to either cover or reveal the scars. When her hair returns to its normal length, no one will ever see the pattern under a woman’s usual wardrobe, not unless they are a lover. I wonder if, one day, a woman or a man will lay their lips upon the leaf-shaped scar at the very nape of her neck and kiss Pip, tell her that she is beautiful despite the marred flesh. Perhaps even because of it.
She groans. “That seems so long, but, god, really that was actually fast. I can’t believe how fast that healed.”
Ah, her words tell me so much about her world and where she comes from without telling me a thing. Does she realize how much she gives away in choosing to give away nothing? Perhaps so, and that is why she refused to speak at all for the Viceroy.
“Have you magic for healing where you come from?” I ask.
“None,” she says, softly, and spears at her own cheese to, I assume, keep her mouth busy and unable to answer further.
“I cannot guess how long or painful a convalescence it would have been, then,” I say, instead of saying what I really want: namely, But you’re a Reader, aren’t you? Can you not use your power? Has the Great Writer given you no magics of your own whilst infusing our world with all manner? What are the rules of the world from which you are from?
“There’d be morphine for the pain,” Pip says. “Like poppy milk. But nothing like the ointment or the . . . the Words. How do the Words work?”
“You simply Speak them,” I say. “You weave them into the air and lay them over things or people like, well, like spider webbing.”
“But you have to know them, first. You have to learn them. Who teaches you?”
“Mothers teach their daughters housework Words. Soldiers teach other soldiers the Words to keep their blades clean and sharp, their clothing free of vermin. Fathers hand down books of Words to their sons and apprentices. Farmers teach their hands. Or you overhear and learn.”
“But I can’t.”
This is a startling revelation. “You can’t hear them, or you can’t weave Words?”
“I tried to repeat what Mother Mouth said. I heard it, but it was like my ears were unfocused. It’s all fuzzy sounding, like . . . like an ink drawing that someone spilled water on. I can’t make it make sense.”
“The Words are perfectly intelligible.” I sit forward on my chair, intrigued. “Yet you cannot hear them at all?”
“No.” She shifts on her own seat, suddenly acutely uncomfortable, her lower lip jutting out so deliciously that I nearly fool myself into believing it is an invitation to take it between my own. But, no, Pip is pouting. Adorable.
“Fascinating.”
“I don’t think it’s fascinating. I think it’s frustrating!” she says. She bangs a fist against the table hard enough that our dishware clatters. “I loved the idea of Words, and it’s not fair that I can’t even hear them.”
I reach out, mindful of her forceful entreaty not to touch her, giving her ample time to move her hand out of the way and demonstrating my intent. She watches warily, but doesn’t flinch or move. I take her fist into my own hand, running my fingers along hers until she relaxes her grip and turns her palm up, showing the bright red half-moons cut into the flesh by her own nails. I run the pads of my fingers across them and Speak Words of Healing. Swiftly, the red marks vanish. It was just a shallow hurt, and recently done; the Words have little actual work to do.
I look up and find that Pip’s expression has gone glassy and vague. She is staring at nothing, eyes blearily focused on the place where my bowed head had been, which is now occupied by my mouth. I cannot help the involuntary lick of lips. The motion startles her back into awareness, and she withdraws her hand from mine and stares at her blemish-free skin.
“That’s amazing,” she says, and then swallows heavily. “And really, really terrifying.”
Knowing that Pip is too good for me—that, in fact, she is, in all probability, going to fall for my brother the moment she meets him, as women always do—makes Pip’s presence both bearable and more frustrating to endure than I anticipated. She is not meant for me, so I may admire, but not want her. And yet I do want her, in a way that I have not wanted another person in years—to simply touch, to savor, to comfort. I have been Master of Turn Hall for nearly a decade, and I have spent too much of that surrounded by servants and employees and spies. No one tender. No one personal.
I ache for a connection that I cannot rightfully demand of Pip, and yet Pip is the first woman, the first person to be available for it. It is pathetic how attached I have become, and how quickly. How easily a pretty woman has unorganized my mind, muddled my priorities. I am like a lad in a tavern for the first time, head turned by every woman who walks by until dizzy. But there is only one woman, and I needn’t make myself dizzy tracking her—instead, I cannot seem to separate myself from her presence, like a magnet and iron.
Oh, but Pip is not perfect, and that is part of what is both enchanting and infuriating about her. She says things, compliments me in ways that are beginning to grow tiresome because I know that they are patently untrue. I cannot decipher why she would want to flatter me with such untruths. What does she believe she will gain from it?
And yet her optimism, the honesty with which she says things she cannot really believe . . .
I do enjoy her company, and so, I endure it. But it has also become increasingly obvious that Pip is unhappy.
“You are missing someone terribly,” I say softly.
She laughs, but it is not the mirthful version I have become accustomed to. This laugh is bitter and pained, and for the first time, I wonder if all that kind, happy strength I have seen in her has been a mask of her own. A mask which is now cracking.
“I couldn’t even begin to explain it to you,” she says.
“I am both a patient and a clever man,” I say. “Please try, and I will do my best to follow along.” Yes, yes, tell me. I am desperate. I am parched for this knowledge. Give me a drink. I have struggled so hard to simply soak in what she says, to absorb her words and press for more, not ask why, or who, or when; not demand that she tell me everyth
ing, now, the whole tale, for fear of offending her and scaring her into silence.
The Viceroy had demanded, and Pip had met that with clamped lips. Gentleness and patience seems to have so far been the much more effective tack, and I shall continue sailing that course, no matter how I desire to do otherwise.
She shakes her head, and suddenly her whole body is trembling, her face gone parchment pale again. “No, not yet. Please, I . . . I can’t. Not yet.”
The disappointment is strong, but her resistance does not surprise me. “Very well,” I say. “When you are ready.”
“Thank you,” she says, in such a small voice that I nearly do not catch it. She picks up her bread and resumes eating. Pip devours the slice of bread still warm from the wood ovens and a piece of melty, soft cheese that had been a gift from one of my tenants. She sets down the bread and takes a moment to swallow before dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “This is really, really incredible.”
With no alternative, I hide my frustration and instead tell her where the cheese comes from. I try to distract her back into genuine mirth by recounting the tale of the first time Sheriff Pointe had this particular farmer’s goat eat his prized hat. You would think that Pointe would stop wearing hats when he wandered past this farm, but it seems that he has not learned his lesson, as the goat has taken a liking to this particular delicacy and ambushes him for the new one each time it has the opportunity.
When Pip laughs this time, it looks and sounds real. But I know about putting on faces and assumed personas, so I do not take her renewed happiness at face value. I cannot, not yet.
I conclude the story with my advice to Pointe to simply arrest the goat, and she guffaws. “Your people sure do like you,” Pip says. “You’re really good to them.”
Uhg! More compliments that she does not mean and surely cannot know enough about me to believe honest. I shrug. “It is kind of you to say so, but it’s no more than a lord ought to provide for his charges. To make certain their farms are workable, their lives are happy, and their needs provided for. I am the Lordling of Lysse; it is my duty to protect and enrich the lives of those who live within it.”
“Not everyone feels the same as you. Not everyone would have given the Sheriff a whole estate to run the law enforcement from. Not everyone builds a school and pays for a teacher for all the children of the Chipping. Not everyone would want their tenants educated. They think ignorant people are easier to control.” She takes a drink of her watered wine, daring me with her eyes to rebut.
“Possibly they are,” I allow. “But they certainly would be more miserable.”
“And not everyone would care about their happiness,” Pip points out, setting down her cup with an air of finality. It seems to say, There, see? Don’t argue with me.
I let that linger between us for a moment, take the time to memorize that look on her face, the seeming genuineness of her admiration. Then I fold it up and tuck it away to go over later, when she is gone and I am alone again and in need of consolation.
“Speaking of my people,” I say, slowly, “you must know there’s been terrible curiosity about you.”
“What are they saying?” she asks, amused.
That I ought to gather the stones to propose marriage, I think, but do not say. Even with the speedy meetings and engagements among the minor country nobility, like myself, it is not uncommon for the proposal, and marriage, to come swiftly after a first meeting. Not with titles, lineages, and wealth to negotiate. Marriages are business transactions for heirs. But even so, only three days—and ones where the maiden in question is mostly too ill to rise from bed—is excessively fast. How desperate must Pointe think I am?
Instead, I veer the discussion toward safer territory. “If you are feeling up to it, I thought perhaps I might have a dinner for the merchants and their spouses. A little light fare, a little dancing, and everyone can go home with their curiosity slaked and more gossip to turn the mill wheels.”
“See?” Pip says. “You’re good to them.”
“That is not a yes.”
She raises a teasing eyebrow. “Oh, were you asking me if I wanted to go?”
Oh, drat, I’ve insulted her again. Made assumptions, made decisions for her, which no one ever appreciates. What a horrific mistake.
“It will only ha-ha-happen if you want it to,” I scramble to add. “By all m-me-means, if you don’t wa-wa-want to, then I c-c-can certainly—”
“It’s fine,” she says hastily. “I really want to meet Mrs. Pointe. She’ll be a hoot.”
Pip is unguardedly unraveling more of her secrets than she has in days, and I am devouring it the way she devours the cheese. “You are a mystery, Lucy Piper.”
“And I’ll take that for a compliment, Master Turn.”
She smiles fondly, sets down her wine, and finally leaves the bread and cheese and tucks into the rest of her meal. I am impressed by the delicateness with which she handles her utensils, and self-consciously adjust my own ham-handed grip on my fork in an attempt to mimic the same level of etiquette. It has been a long time since I’ve dined with anyone but myself, and it seems that my manners have slipped. I wonder if I’ll ever remember how to do it all. Then I wonder if she’ll even be here long enough for me to need to.
Then I wonder if she actually wants to return home. We haven’t discussed it yet. Is there a home for her to go back to? What happened when Bootknife snatched her from that life, that place beyond reality? Who had she been forced to leave behind? What had he destroyed in his wake?
The thought of Pip leaving is sudden and lurching. The boiled radishes make their bid for freedom, and I have to swallow hard to keep them down. A burning lump appears in my throat, and I clutch at the wine cup, swallowing its contents in an attempt to wash it back down.
“We have not spoken of how I will get you home yet, Pip,” I say softly.
The change that comes over her is so sudden as to be shocking. Immediately, every part of her begins to shiver and shake like a leaf in a violent wind storm, and her eyes drop wide. Their muddy depths glaze over with horror, and I wonder, fear that she is remembering something terrible. She shivers so hard that her fork drops from her hand and clatters across her plate, jarring. The sound startles her, and she gapes down at her fork in terror.
The shaking of her fingers almost makes a disaster of her house robe, but my astute attention saves the garment; I snatch the wine out of the way.
With no other ideas, I grab her shoulders, intending to shake her back into reason, but at my touch, she screams so loud and with so much animal panic that I jump away and crash into the table, sending both the table and everything on it toppling onto the floor.
Fear for her splashes up my spine, pulls my skin tight, and I am torn between diving for her and scrambling away on hands and knees so as to prevent another terrible spasm in her.
“Pip!” I cry. “What . . . ? Help!”
Neris and Velshi scramble into the dining room. Velshi helps me to my feet, brushing food off my clothing, while Neris goes to Pip. She is about to embrace Pip when I stop her.
“Don’t touch her,” I order.
“Miss?” Neris says instead, hands hovering over Pip’s shoulders. “Miss, can you hear me?”
Pip blinks, and then she is looking, really looking at Neris for the first time. Her eyes go wide, and then her whole expression crumbles. She clutches at Neris, buries her head in Neris’s neck, and sobs. It is the sort of heartbreaking, gut-wrenching sound that makes every human being in the world feel the undeniable desire to comfort the person making it. I press my fingernails tightly into my palms and force myself not to succumb to the urge.
I caused this. I am not wanted.
Neris wraps her arms around Pip, and I am only slightly jealous that Pip has chosen to take her comfort from my maid and not me.
“Miss . . .” Neris says, petting the back of her head, running a soothing hand in circles across the back of Pip’s neck, because she cannot do it to her back.<
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“I’m fine,” Pip answers, voice dry and cracked, attempting to preempt any gentlemanly platitudes on my part. “It’s nothing. It’s silly.”
“It’s not nothing,” I counter. “You were genuinely terrified.”
“It wasn’t real,” she insists. “It’s over.” She looks up over Neris’s shoulder to meet my eyes. “It’s just culture shock.”
I have no idea what that means, but I can guess. “I think it is more than just acute homesickness, Pip.”
“I’m just . . . everything is very different, and I . . . I mean, I . . . I’m . . .”
“Alone,” I supply softly, throat burning to see the brave face she has been trying to maintain cracking and falling to pieces. “And somewhere strange.”
“A—” she tries to repeat, but her voice cracks dangerously, so I snap my mouth shut and just nod.
“But you must tell me of your home eventually, Pip, for I am duty bound to get you back there.”
With a frankly admirable amount of self-control, Pip shuts down on the horror. Her whole body goes still, and she closes her eyes, taking deep breaths. For a moment, there is silence—the deliberate, pregnant kind that I dare not interrupt.
My own heart has answered in kind, fluttering and pattering against my bones, and I must deliberately relax out of my suddenly wary posture. There is no threat here greater than Pip’s memories; the Shadow Hand does not need to make an appearance, so I tuck him away.
“Do we have to?” Pip whispers, eyes still tightly closed, her voice harsh and small.
For a long moment, I make no answer. And then: “Eventually.”
I decide to leave it at that. For now.
Four
Lucy Piper’s panic attack and lack of desire to be touched is surprisingly gratifying, and relieves all sorts of concerns I had barely even realized I was harboring about her mental state. I have to admit that I had been waiting for just such an emotional breakdown. I have seen men who have been tortured crumble far faster and far more violently than Pip; I am relieved to see that she falls upon the scale of my normal experience. I think it would be unhealthy to express none of the trauma she must have endured.