by J. M. Frey
“No,” I say, and offer him instead a decanter of the standard stuff. It’s actually even a little subpar for Turn Hall, but I wasn’t about to decant the decent liquor, knowing that he would be here within the fortnight. No point wasting it on someone who cannot appreciate it. “You drank the last of it the last time you were here.”
It’s a lie, but Kintyre doesn’t need to know that.
Bevel trots in on his heels. He plunks himself down in the most comfortable chair in the room—that is to say, mine—and sweeps his dusty Dom-amethyst travel robe to the side. This liberally smears the upholstery with what is surely months of road-dust. I drop a tumbler of the richly amber whiskey into his hand too, trying not to breathe in too deeply.
“Gentlemen,” I say. “May I offer you the use of the servant’s bathhouse around the back of the garden before this evening? I doubt the copper indoor tub will be enough for your . . . generous needs.”
Bevel snickers at that, sniffing himself and nodding. Kintyre, ox that he is, doesn’t understand that I’ve insulted him. He never does, and it’s the only way I can get my revenge for his ill manners—by doing it underneath his understanding. Instead, he simply drains his tumbler and reaches around me for the decanter. Rude!
“So, who was that sweet piece?” Kintyre asks, as he helps himself to a generous splash of my alcohol. “Lucy Piper. Cute name. Strange.”
I wish I could simply not tell him, could tell him I’ve changed my mind, and that the person he was to escort on a quest has already departed without him. He would never need to know that it was Pip I was going to send away with him, and he especially would never need to know that I am horrifically jealous of the way she looked at him just now in the gymnasium.
But I owe it to Pip to tell him the truth. I owe it to her to help her try to get home, as her host, as the king’s Shadow Hand, and as a man who—No. Stop it.
So I sit down across from Bevel, my own tumbler in my hands, and I tell them.
✍
Sending Kintyre and Sir Dom off to their toilette, I go to make my own. They will also be discussing travel plans, and I do wish that I could be present for that. But the price would be having to share the bath with them, and that is more of my brother and his partner than I would ever care to see, or smell.
While we have been talking, Pointe has been availing himself of one of the guest rooms, and he comes into my own apartments now glowing with good health, good exercise, and a good wash. He wears only a thin house robe, and he is scrubbing his short silver hair with a towel so that it stands up in all directions, rather like a hedgehog. I cannot help but grin at him as my valet, Keriens, unlaces my fencing boots.
“Now, there’s a change,” Pointe remarks, letting the towel fall down to collect around his shoulders like a scarf. Once I am into my own bath, Keriens will help him dress. Until then, he must wait.
“What is?” I ask, stepping behind the modesty screen in the corner so Keriens can work on my buttons. No point in flashing my friend my winter-white bum.
“You, smiling.”
I am relieved to be where Pointe cannot see my face flush red.
“I smile,” I protest.
“Not enough.”
“Keriens, I smile, don’t I?”
My valet raises an eyebrow at me from his place beside my stays. “Only lately, sir, and only around Miss Piper.”
My staff are all traitors. Pointe makes a small noise of triumph.
Keriens pulls my billowing shirt over my head, and I use that as an excuse to end this topic of conversation. He wraps me in my own thin bathrobe, and I take over from there, tying the belt myself.
Keriens, at my instruction, moves the screen to obscure the copper tub that is already filled with gently steaming water, so that I may continue my conversation with Pointe while getting clean. Pointe wanders over to my valet stand and investigates my outfit while I slide into the water.
“All black, Forsyth?” he asks. “What about that Shiel-purple waistcoat? The one with the, uh, the stripes?”
“With the silver embroidery? No. Kintyre will likely be wearing Shiel-purple.”
Pointe snorted. “Kintyre will be wearing Turn-russet. Wouldn’t want the Chipping forgetting that he’s the late lord’s son, would he?”
“Pointe, really,” I admonish, scrubbing. “That’s unfair.”
“I’m not wrong.” There’s a clink, like he’s availing himself of the decanter of whiskey I had Velshi bring up from the parlor. Well, that’s acceptable. I don’t mind Pointe taking some without asking. He needn’t. Our friendship is beyond that.
“I never said you were wrong. I just meant that your comment ascribes far more forethought to Kintyre than I think he is actually capable of.”
“Oh, vicious,” Pointe teases. “Good for you. You’re far too nice sometimes.”
I sigh and, though he can’t see it, wave the comment away with a soapy arm.
“Be off, Sheriff,” I say gently. “Go dress, and spend some time with that wife and son of yours before the catastrophe of Kintyre Turn and Bevel Dom at a formal dinner begins.”
“C’mon, Keriens,” Pointe says, his ever present sword-grin in his voice, and I hear the tumbler of whiskey be set down on the salver. “As our lordling commands.”
“Sir?”
“Yes, Keriens, go on,” I urge. “I can dress myself tonight. Take care of the Pointes.”
“Sir.”
“Off we go, Keriens. Might be the last time you have to help my family clean up before dinner.”
“Oh, sir?” Keriens asks, polite but also curious as their voices and footsteps move toward the door.
“Yeah. The next formal ball, you’ll probably too busy helping the Lordling Turn and his wife and son.”
“Oh, Sheriff!” Keriens exclaims, giggling.
“Do you suppose the babe will have Master Turn’s eyes, or Mistress Piper’s pretty green?”
“Pointe!” I shout after him, even as my friend’s voice erupts into uproarious laughter. “Do not spread such gossip!”
Groaning as the door closes between us, I lay my head back on the rim of the tub and drape my forearm over my eyes. Drat and damn that man.
I resolutely do not imagine a plump young babe with Pip’s sweet, upturned eyes, and my own gingerish hair.
✍
My own appearance proper and in order, I decide to hazard dropping by Kintyre’s rooms so as to ascertain that his own and Sir Dom’s will pass muster. I know that Kintyre keeps a few sets of replacement formal robes and road clothes in his apartments, but have no notion of Sir Dom doing the same.
If he requires something, Sir Dom will have to borrow clothing from a nobleman down in the village, for Kintyre is far too large and I far too skinny for him to plead attire from. I meet Velshi halfway down the gallery, and he simply shakes his head at me as he passes, making it clear that my brother and his partner are not, in fact, ready. I repress a long-suffering sigh and, instead, pinch the bridge of my nose to ward off the ache I can already feel growing behind my eyes.
I hesitate at the door, my hand up and my fingers curled to rap on the frame, when I hear Sir Dom exclaim: “Oh, for the sake of the Wri—Kin! Would you please put the whittling down and put on your shirt!”
“I don’t want it to smell of your pipe,” Kintyre says calmly, voice only mildly gilded with petulance. “I’ll dress once you’ve opened a window.”
There is the sound of boots stomping across the floor, ogre-like, and the crash of the sash being thrown up.
“Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
There are some softer sounds that I can’t parse, and then Sir Dom’s voice again, coddling: “How’s your elbow? Still stiff? Let me see.”
“It was only a twinge,” Kintyre replies, and then there is a great sucking hiss, an audible wince.
“My arse,” Sir Dom says. “You went flying up that hill in Gwillfifeshire swinging so hard I thought you’d pulled your arm straight from you
r socket. Foesmiter was a blur.”
“She was running toward the children. And you’re blowing smoke on me.”
A long-suffering sigh, not unlike the one I nearly puffed out in the hallway a few minutes ago, and then the muffled fabric sounds of two men dressing, punctured every so often with Sir Dom’s fussing.
I am about to retreat, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping when they emerge, when Kintyre says: “So, what do you think? Is Forssy’s quest worth the bother?”
It most certainly is! I bristle and raise my hand again to knock, but wait for Sir Dom’s reply instead.
“It’s simple enough, a fetch-and-carry. It will be nice, I think.”
“And Miss Piper is very . . . nubile.”
“That she is.”
“Good sport, you think?”
“We’ll have enough days on the road to teach her if she’s inexperienced. That is the benefit of these rambles. How soon do you think we’ll go? Should we—”
“Bev, wait, don’t pack up the—leave the dirty stuff out for the staff.”
“Oh, clean laundry! That’ll be bliss!”
“Pull the bell—we’ll have someone do it now.”
Now? All of my staff is engaged in preparing for the ball, and they want to pull a laundress away to do their filthy, stinking travel gear now? Thoughtless! Rude! Selfish!
Disgusted, and suddenly not caring if my thick brother and his little hedgehog are underdressed and make fools of themselves, I turn on my heel and flee before any of my staff answer the bell and find me loitering and fuming outside of Kintyre’s rooms like a thwarted gnome.
✍
Escorting Pip into the dining hall was to have been my honor—ought to be still, as Lordling of Lysse Chipping—but my brother claimed that his elder status and his own accomplishments outstrip my rights. He has taken Pip’s arm instead. Bevel, always happy to be one step behind, is right on their tails, nearly treading on their dragging formal robes. I stand in the alcove just outside of the entryway and try to school my expression into impassive nonchalance. Dressed in a rich velvet formal suit of Turn-russet, just as Point predicted, Kintyre’s attire compliments Pip’s. To my utter chagrin, I must admit that they look good together.
The merchantmen and their spouses in attendance are those with whom I must do business daily; I cannot let my ire at my brother make me unruly and moody. I cannot be anything less than calm, collected, and in control. That is what they expect of their lordling, and that is what they must see. I cannot afford to give them reason to move to a new town, taking their business, their money, and the employment they offer to so many away with them.
Kintyre abandons Pip at her seat, not even helping to pull back the heavy chair before cutting over to take his own. It is the height of ill manners, even if Pip was healthy enough to do it for herself. As it is, her back is not whole enough for her to do it, and I step up to remedy Kintyre’s faux pas. Bevel seems cheerfully oblivious to the misstep, even if the men and women arrayed around us are not. From Pip’s left, Pointe rolls his eyes. His wife, seated to his left with Lewko on her lap, copies the gesture.
I help Pip settle up against the heavy feast table, and then take my own seat to the right of her, at the center—which, thankfully, Kintyre deigned to ignore. He is to my right, Bevel beside him, and one of the merchants’ nubile young daughters is beside Bevel. She is fluttering her lashes at him, but his eyes are on Kintyre. I wonder what manner of creature she diced with to have won the seat from the mayor, who was supposed to have been honored with the position.
The other side of the table is empty, so that we have a clear view of the center of the room. On either edge of the space are two great long tables that I’ve always found ridiculously un-intimate, really just too ostentatious to be worthwhile. My father always entertained in this room, the cavernous formal dining hall, and I dislike it greatly in comparison to the cozy little nook that is the small parlor beside the kitchens, with its modest, battered table and chairs.
The long tables are stuffed on both sides with men and women dressed in every color of a fairy’s wings. Their clothing blends into the busy background of the tapestries that line the walls behind them to keep the chill of the manor at bay. They are woven with scenes celebrating local life—farming, harvests, spring crops, industrious tradesmen crouched over carpentry or quills, and women hunched over looms, or children, or dye vats. When my father was in Turn Hall, the tapestries depicted the great battles of dynasties past, but I felt that having to stare at embroidered renditions of the Bloody Battle of Bigonner put me off my pudding. I had them replaced with something more local, tame, and less . . . red.
As far as I can tell, perusing the crowd, my guests’ family heirlooms have been left at home. But for all that I specified that this was to be an informal affair, my guests seem to have been unable to resist dressing up just a little. I see many second- and third-best dresses, elaborate hair styles on both sexes, and children with bows in places I am sure will only encourage other children to tug at the tails. Everyone is laughing and happy, the wine already being poured, and it fills me with proprietary pride to know that I have made them so. My people.
Of course, they are all also staring at Pip in that spectacularly subtle way which only people born and bred in a small town are able to achieve—that is, without appearing to at all. (More than once I have brought my Shadow’s Men to such evenings and told them to observe the spying techniques of those with more experience than them.)
In short, everyone has turned out to gawk at Forsyth Turn’s mystery woman.
Just so.
The floor between the three tables has been specially polished for the dancing that usually breaks out when enough wine has been consumed. The two great fireplaces, which interrupt the line of tapestries on the long walls beside the tables, have been laid, but will remain unlit until the dancing is done. It’s not yet late enough in the day to require the extra heating—nor the enormous kettles of water that will be brewed for after-dinner tea. The fourth wall, the stone left bare to bounce the sound down the hall, is lined with a handful of minstrels I have hired to play along with dinner. They have just started to tune their strings.
Once I am seated, Velshi vanishes through the discreet, curtained door behind me to initiate the procession of food from the kitchens to our plates.
The music begins, calm and plinking, and I realize almost immediately the error of taking the honored seat for myself when Pip leans around me speak to Kintyre.
“So, where have you just come from? What adventures were you having, Sir Kintyre?” She giggles a bit, tripping over his name like a stupid milk maid, and I clench my teeth together, forcing myself to make no face over it.
“Miliway, east in the prairie lands,” Kintyre says. “My brother’s messenger hawk caught up with us just as I was squaring away business with a mountain elf who had a fondness for collecting human eyes.” Reaching right across my plate, Kintyre touches Pip’s chin and raises her gaze to his own. “He liked green eyes best.”
Ugh.
Pip flushes and turns her face away, teeth nibbling coquettishly at the corner of her bottom lip. “My eyes aren’t green.”
“Not completely,” I agree.
Pip grimaces. It looks like she is about to argue, and I keep my mouth shut, her expression broadcasting quite clearly how little she wants to have this conversation. Perhaps it is a sore point with her.
“But I bet they’re green in the sun. So lovely,” Kintyre says, and withdraws his arm. I take the opportunity to catch up one of the pitchers on the table and pour Pip a cup of wine. Bevel can see to Kintyre, if either of them want it. I’m not serving my damned brother. “We’ll have plenty of opportunity to find out.”
“Oh, you’re staying, then?” Pip asks.
Kintyre sits back and regards me. “You didn’t tell her?”
“Tell me what?” Pip cuts a look between us, clearly unimpressed that someone has been making decisions for her and with
out including her in the discussion.
I clear my throat. “Kintyre and Bevel have come to . . . act as your champions.”
Pip laughs. “What for?”
“Wherever it is that you come from, surely you—” I begin, carefully. Pip’s eyes go wide, and her jaw tightens. I cut myself off, quickly. “Never mind. Let us concentrate on our company and the evening for now, and discuss the woefully tedious business of adventuring in the morning.”
Kintyre flashes me an annoyed glare, but sits back and grunts for Bevel to fill his cup. I relish the small point I have scored off him, that he is reluctant to argue about the tediousness of his chosen profession in front of a woman he is clearly attempting to seduce. I wonder how he’ll get his own back.
Velshi, along with a string of other servants borrowed from Law Manor for the evening, appear around the tables in concert, holding baskets of fresh warm rolls and cups of whipped butter. Pip moans as Velshi sets the basket right before her plate.
“Oh my god, fresh bread straight from the oven.”
“I know!” Bevel agrees, with a nearly pornographic moan of his own. “We never get this on the road.”
There is a moment of blessed silence as Kintyre and Bevel dig in. Pip’s joy in the freshly baked bread is less demonstrative but no less enthusiastic.
Lips shining with melted butter, Pip leans around me to waggle her roll at Bevel. “So, I have to ask . . . the Dire Dragon of Drebin?”
“Yes?”
“It was really a sleeping potion, right? You put it to sleep first? You hid it in the horsemeat, am I right?”
Kintyre smirks cheekily at her, and I resist the urge to copy the Pointes and roll my own eyes.
“Perhaps,” he says. “Perhaps the dragon was overwhelmed and swooned.”