by J. M. Frey
Not falsely, I vow. I would never do anything to make Pip think I had tricked her into trusting in me. I want her trust to be genuine, and I want to earn it. I hope I have already.
But then, for the rest of the afternoon, while I work at my portable desk in her chambers, she is the one watching me. It is unnerving, the way her muddy green eyes follow me around. Clearly, there is a question in their depths, and I wonder if she knows my superstitious suspicions.
If she really is a Reader, then perhaps she already does, but that is silly, silly twaddle. And she seems more frightened of me and what I can do than I am of her and what she might be able to accomplish.
No one has ever met a Reader; they don’t even exist. They shouldn’t. . . . But then, why did the Viceroy want her so badly? And what is it that was so important she keep from him that Bootknife carved her so deliberately? If she was a Reader, couldn’t she have stopped him? So that would mean that she is not, that she is just human, boring old human, and nothing special. Ah, but if she was nothing special, then the Viceroy would not have. . . . And around and around my mind has been spinning.
Oh, to simply have an answer!
After Pip retires for the evening with an illustrated book of fairy stories from the next Chipping over, I remember that Pointe and I are to spar tomorrow. I take myself to the gymnasium and practice until my thighs ache and my arm can no longer lift my sword. Pointe will be more handsome on the floor, but I am resolute not to make a fool of myself.
I have not slept well these last few days, my worries too loud between my ears to allow me much rest. I think tomorrow will finally be the day Pointe bests me. I want to put on my greatest performance for Pip, but I can feel the exhaustion of both body and mind pulling at my bones.
I retire to my bed wondering why I care so much for the good opinion of a woman I have known a mere week, and decide that I dare not dwell on the potential answer.
I am pathetic; falling so entirely for a woman with whom I’ve had only a handful of conversations. She is vulnerable and beautiful, but that is no reason to behave like a love-soaked sot.
✍
Pointe is to meet me in the gymnasium any moment now, and I can put it off no longer. I cannot deny him the opportunity to be devastatingly competent for Pip. I scrape the strands of thinning hair from my forehead, correct my posture, and enter the room. My first reaction is to raise my hand against the light—all of the curtains are tied back, and I’ve forgotten how much sun the ballroom gets mid-morning. My second is to seek out my guest, but I resist that temptation for fear of seeing disapproval of my attire on her face.
Velshi has informed me that Pip is arrayed on a chaise that has been brought in from the sitting room, and I am flustered at the thought of her seeing me so indecently clad. She’ll be able to see the full curve of my posterior, for goodness’ sake! No robe trailing to the floor to hide my horrible stork legs. Pointe wears trousers and a jerkin all the time, but that’s because he must chase after drunk hooligans and the occasional thief, and robes of station would just trip him up. Every other decent man and woman keeps their bottom hidden.
Hmph. Unless they are Kintyre, who seems to take great joy in flouncing about in leather tight enough to be a second skin and wholly indecent. At least Bevel Dom—who has the sense of a belligerent bulldog, for all that he is a deft hand at weaving a narrative—wears a sleeveless short-robe; it keeps his arms and legs free, but his modesty intact.
I’ve opted for a formal dueling outfit for today, and Pointe will be wearing the same, seeing as this farce of an exercise began with a mock-formal request. He has, of course, brought his dining robe for after our duel. Silver, as is his wont. The Pointe family is not high-class enough to have claimed a color for themselves, but the Sheriff of Turnshire knows which shades compliment him and uses them to good effect.
Mother Mouth has tried to convince me that I should wear my bold red robe to dinner, but I think it makes me look ruddy. Perhaps I will wear the Turn-russet one that is so dark it appears blackish, no matter that I appear sallow in it. That way, if I spill, the stains will be hidden.
I’ve always felt faintly ridiculous in official fencing attire. It was designed for heftier statures than mine, and my lapels stick out obscenely over my collarbones. But there is sense to the design; no swaths of fabric to trip up feet or in which to conceal secret weapons. The trousers are so tight that I’ve had to resort to a pouch instead of my regular drawers, which would bunch awkwardly beneath the thick canvas. I’ve opted for my Turn-russet ensemble, because then I can wear my normal brown sparring boots, and topped it with a cream silk shirt and the regulation lapelled jerkin with the ridiculous shoulder puffs. Modern dueling fashion has replaced the puffs with loose lacing to allow the shirt to froth out of the arm hole and give the joint itself full range of motion. The jerkin I am wearing today was my father’s. It is perhaps too large and too old-fashioned, but I never saw the need to replace a perfectly adequate regulation jerkin simply because fashion dictates it dated.
I am too embarrassed to look at Pip when I enter, and instead, I go straight to the sword rack.
“Whoa,” Pip says. “Hi.”
“Hello,” I say, turning away so she can’t see my shameful blush. It feels like her eyes are sliding down my back, and I stomp down on both the flight of fancy and the urge to check.
“Is that what you’ve been hiding under those robes this whole time?”
I don’t rise to the taunt, having learned long ago that it is better to ignore such insults. It’s not like I can defend myself, anyway; no matter what I say about it, my body will always be mawkish and flabby. Instead, I turn my attention to the metal swords in the rack. They have been dulled for practice. They will sting when they score contact, but they will not cut, and they will flash more impressively as Pointe and I cut in and out of the sunbeams. Vain, I know, but I can’t help wanting to impress Pip.
It may be the last chance I have before Kintyre arrives.
My blush finally under my control, I turn to greet her and am forced to stop, a stupid smile on my face while my tongue pushes at the back of my teeth. I don’t dare speak now; I would stutter like an utter fool, and probably embarrassing truths to boot.
One simply does not tell a woman that she is utterly and entirely divine looking.
The Words of Healing, combined with the ointment, the stitches, and a day and night of enforced bed rest has done wonders. Pip is already dressed for dinner in an ivory chemise with butterfly sleeves and a modest scooped neckline, overlaid with a stunning blue-velvet sleeveless robe, belted low on her hips with a Turn-russet sash. I don’t recall my mother ever wearing such an ensemble, so it must have been put together from disparate items from the wardrobe.
I wish, suddenly, that I had formal dining robes in a complementary shade.
As Pip shifts, her own blush rising as I mark her garb, something sparkles over the sash knot. It is a jeweled brooch, and this I certainly do recognize as coming from my mother.
It is the symbol of House Turn, a key lancing an open lock, suggestively phallic and archaic. That she is wearing my family emblem so close to her most womanly of parts causes a heat to rise where I want no heat rising while in such restrictive clothing. I hastily begin mentally reciting the names of the rulers before King Carvel’s dynasty in order to bring my blood back down.
Luckily, before either of us can embarrass ourselves further, the door slams back and Pointe, looking rakishly dashing, enters. He crosses the gymnasium floor and claps a hand on my shoulder, a knowing look spreading across his own features when he catches sight of Pip. I really wish he’d cease this strange desire to pair me off with whatever pretty girl comes flouncing through Turnshire.
“Good morrow, Miss Piper!” he enthuses.
“Morning, Pointe,” she rejoins, grinning, his good humor infectious.
“Ready?” he asks me.
“Okay,” I agree.
There is a very long, very confused pause be
fore Pointe repeats: “‘Okay’?”
I cannot help the small smile at my verbal slip. Pip’s jargon is delightfully endearing. “Ready, I mean.”
We salute one another, and then, in a flash of steel, we begin. The fight itself is little different from our usual sparring sessions, save that I am not stopping whenever he makes a mistake to correct his stance or his footwork. Now, I am taking advantage of these errors. Well, some of them. It would embarrass my friend to have the match over too quickly, so I take perhaps one in every three openings his clumsy style offers.
Our swords clang and clatter as we pace first one side of the floor, and then back again, chasing and running, turning and twirling, lashing out and scuttling back with such intense concentration that I think perhaps I have never had such fun. It reminds me of the great demonstration fights the foreign swordmasters put on for the court, all laughter and witty banter and the mirror shine of the other man’s buckles and blades. Serious and not-serious, all at once.
Pointe seems to be as pleased by the fight as I. His face is open, and he laughs with joy when he scores a hit off me, genuinely enjoying the game, and slowly, my fear of Pip’s assessing gaze dissipates. She is gasping and clapping, engrossed in the display, and I cannot help holding my chin higher, puffing out my chest and adding a ridiculous flourish to a ringing backhanded riposte that would get me disqualified at court.
“Hey, fancy!” Pointe crows as he steps out of the way. The flourish telegraphs my move terribly, but I don’t mind, because I have an actual follow-up. I bring my point back around and button him in the shoulder. “Trickster!”
And then Pip screams.
The shrill fear in her voice is enough to root me to the spot. It is a good thing it does, too, because, with a whoosh and a dull thock, a knife embeds itself into the floor—my good hardwood floor!—right in front of my foot. Had I turned or stepped toward Pip at all, the knife would have cut right into my toe! It shivers as it comes to a sudden halt, and then sways back and forth between Pointe and I like a waggling tongue.
I am startled by the appearance of the knife, by how close it came to lodging itself into my boot, and I stumble right into Pointe’s sword. He drops it with a clatter and grabs my arms to keep me from tripping us both.
“Watch it!” Pointe snarls, whirling to address, over my shoulder, whomever it was that threw the knife. I know who it was already, of course. I’d recognize that knife anywhere.
“That little weasel never could fight fair,” a new voice cuts across the expanse of the gymnasium. He guffaws as Pointe holds me upright. “Always had to do that fancy, tricky stuff. Could never fight face to face, steel to steel, eh, Bevel?”
“Forsyth?” Pointe whispers in my ear. “You’ve gone all white.”
“Give me a moment,” I say, trying to get my shaking knees back under me and breathing in slow, deliberate pulls in order to regain my grip on my temper. How careless! I rage to myself. He could have hurt Pointe! He could have hurt Pip if the knife had ricocheted. What a careless, thoughtless, stupid ape!
Pointe nods, hands still on my upper arms, and, over my shoulder, hails the newcomers. “Sir Kintyre, Sir Bevel! Well met, again, and welcome back to Turnshire.”
“Well met, Sheriff Pointe, Master Forsyth,” Bevel chirps obligingly, for we all know that common manners are below my brother, and the duty of fulfilling them always falls to the younger, round-faced man.
Bevel Dom is dishwater bland in every way. Even his short-robe of Dom-amethyst has faded from outdoor wear into a sort of soppy, milky shade. He bears deep lines around his eyes, caused, no doubt, by the stress of handling my brother’s ill manners, and a jaw set stubborn from many years of clenching it around rebukes. The only remarkable thing about him is how dark the blue of his eyes are, and that he has remained by my brother’s side after being his squire and his apprentice. Now, they are knights together, partners in adventure and in causing my hair to fall out all the faster.
“Forsyth!” Kintyre’s booming bellow echoes across the cavernous space. “You look a right prat! What’s all this, then? Playing at swordsmanship?”
“Hello, Brother,” I say, drooping in every way as I turn to face him. I feel my shoulders hunch back into the curled position I cannot seem to break them of while in his presence, and feel my sword point lowering to the floor. I don’t bother extending my hand. He wouldn’t take it, anyway. “Just practice.”
“And what do you need to practice for?” Kintyre snorts, large hands on his large thighs. The sunlight gilds his blond hair and the gold thread that picks out the swirling Urlandish designs around the collar of his Sheil-purple jerkin. It’s silly of him to wear the colors of Mother’s house when everyone knows him for a Turn; and yet, he continues to do so. He thinks it’s some sort of disguise. In the light of my sparring room, Kintyre glows like an ostentatious wood sprite—teeth straight and white, jaw strong, and overall hatefully handsome. “Need sword mastery much, sitting around in your study like a mouse making a fort out of books, eh?”
Not for the first time, I wish I could throw being the Shadow Hand into my brother’s stupid, broad, crooked-nosed face. But the king explicitly told me not to tell my brother, and goodness only knows what would happen if Kintyre Turn, who is never cautious about what he says, and when, were to tell the wrong person what his little brother does behind a mask.
It would bring the Viceroy down on Turnshire for sure. While my own safety is of negligible concern—the king can always appoint a new Shadow Hand—the safety of the people of my Chipping is not.
For their sakes, I hold my tongue and let Kintyre think what he’d like. Pip cuts a glance between us, a small wrinkle of confusion between her eyebrows betraying her surprise at the manner in which my brother is being welcomed home.
My glance in her direction does not go unnoticed, and both Bevel and Kintyre have the absolutely abhorrent manners to turn their backs on us and gawk at her. Pip straightens self-consciously.
“And who is this vision?” Kintyre asks, holding out his hand to her.
Her eyes go wide with that same childlike awe she seems to turn on everyone but me, and the surge of jealousy is nearly overwhelming this time. Why am I not fascinating to Pip? Why does she not regard me as a wonderful and fantastical thing?
“Uh . . . Pip. Piper! Lucy Piper!” she breathes, stumbling over her own words in her excitement. “And, and wow, you’re Kintyre Turn. And Bevel Dom!” I do believe her bosom actually heaves, and her eyelashes flutter.
It has begun.
“And wearing my family crest, no less. A sister I did not know I had? Surely my brother did not wed without inviting me to the ceremony.”
“No, no,” she giggles. “I’m not Forsyth’s wife, no way! Just, uh, a guest.”
I wince at the speed of the denial, and Pointe turns to take in my reaction. Well, he won’t be getting one. I shut down my face, putting on my Unimpressed Shadow Hand look. Pointe’s own expression sours, and he begins packing up our equipment.
The servants will be in soon to transform my gymnasium back into a ballroom for one night. The formal dining hall is cavernous and usually where the dancing begins, but it always ends in here—the room is more modern, more comfortable, and better lit. And I do not begrudge it for one evening.
“A guest, how lovely,” Kintyre oozes. “Passing through, I assume. Come to take in the hospitality of the little lordling.”
“Er, sorta,” she allows. Bevel, the hedgehog, plops right down onto the chaise beside her and takes her other hand for a kiss.
I think I might be ill.
Disgusted by Pip’s sudden degeneration into some maidenly moron by the mere presence of my brother, I turn away and begin to work Kintyre’s stupid knife out of the floor. I don’t want to gouge the hardwood, if possible, and I rock it back and forth carefully. Pointe picks up both our swords and returns them to the rack.
Kintyre bends over Pip’s offered hand and smacks a kiss off her knuckles. Pip giggles. I ta
ke a deep breath and do not scream.
I invited them here, I remind myself. She needs a guide home. They came far too early, though, which annoys me. The message I sent out requested his presence in a fortnight, not immediately, but Kintyre is Kintyre, and he takes such instructions only when they please him. They must have been between adventures, for them to return to Turnshire so swiftly. Probably, his travel was speeded with the thought of getting at my private reserve again; at least he won’t find it. I’ve had a second cellar built since his last visit, one to which only I have the key.
Even still, Pip is not yet well enough to leave Turn Hall. I will have to host them for a week, maybe more, until Pip can keep her seat on a horse. And, besides that, we haven’t even managed to have a discussion about where her home is without her reacting negatively. It is delicate going, and I was hoping to have answers for Kintyre so he doesn’t crush her fragile mental health under his ham-handed attempts.
Blast and drat!
Bevel trots over, and, mistaking my gentleness in working the knife out of the floor for weakness, bats my hand aside and wrenches the wretched thing out sideways, leaving a naked scar of wood splinters behind.
“There you are, Forssy,” he says, handing me the knife point-first. I have to twist my wrist at an uncomfortable angle to grasp the hilt, and I resent him the casual cruelty of it. I plaster on my fakest smile and nod, and he trots right back to Kintyre’s side, crowding Pip and peppering her with such artificial flattery that I wonder what I ever saw in the woman, if she is lapping it up so.
They have been here five minutes, and already I am so livid I feel that my head might boil. How will I be able to stand them for as long as it will take for Pip to be well enough, and for the three of them to leave?
Five
“D’you have any of that whiskey that makes your stomach tingle?” Kintyre demands as soon as I am able to herd him into the formal sitting room. I would prefer to do my shouting in my study, where the servants are used to me rebuking my Men and so pay the loud noises no mind, but I don’t dare trust my brother around the sensitive documents and priceless tomes my current line of research has forced me to acquire. “The dragon whiskey?”