by J. M. Frey
Kintyre sits and descends into what I can only describe as a resolute sulk, arms crossed over his chest. It is embarrassing.
The next course of dinner is served, and the head table eats in intense silence. Only Lewko is oblivious to the cloud that hangs above our heads, ready to rip the air into thunderclaps of argument. I am used to such family dinners, but Pointe and his good wife are highly uncomfortable. Pip is lost in her own head. I chance it and settle my free hand over her own, which has balled up into a fist around the armrest.
She starts, but then flicks a grateful look to me and relaxes into the touch, fingers coming loose so I may lace my own between them. Bevel is watching with narrowed eyes, slurping his wine at an unhealthy rate. He hasn’t cut his or Kintyre’s with water, as the rest of us have done. Crude. And unintelligent. I can see them both getting drunker by the mouthful.
Velshi, my good, observant Velshi, swaps out their jug of wine for a pre-watered mix. Knowing him, it is probably much, much weaker than standard, as well. Oh, how I adore my staff.
When Bevel has imbibed enough liquid courage—I don’t know what his gauge is, but he seems to have met it—he stands and sways over to Pip’s side.
“Sorry he hurt you,” Bevel slurs gently. He’s not quite too drunk to be clear, but his lips are tumbling over the consonants.
Dismissively, Pip answers, “Kintyre should be apologizing, not you. You’re not his keeper.”
Bevel laughs. “Oh, but I am.”
“And aren’t you sick of it?” Pip challenges.
Bevel shrugs. “That’s just Kintyre. You get used to it. It doesn’t bother me.”
“Well, it bothers me,” Pip returns. “Actually, no, you know what bothers me? It’s not that he doesn’t know the social cues and common practices of politeness. What bothers me is that he observes them around him every day and has decided, however unconsciously, that they aren’t anything he needs to bother himself with. That learning to communicate and interact with other human beings is beneath him. That everyone will just recognize his superiority and marvel, and obey. That is what bothers me.”
I am so stunned by the boldness of her words that my tongue seems to be blocking up my throat. My heart is there, beating alongside it, hard and loud and painful. I have never, ever heard anyone challenge Kintyre this way.
Bevel isn’t certain how to respond. “Listen,” he says. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. You’re a pretty little girl—” he doesn’t seem to catch Pip’s incredulous look at the insulting diminutive “—so why don’t we just jump ahead to the end of the evening, hm? We promise we’ll be very gentle with you, won’t hurt your back at all.”
“And what happens at the end of the evening?” Pip asks, wary.
I cover my face with my hands. I cannot watch this. Either Bevel will insult and embarrass himself, or Pip will say yes, which will be worse. Either way, I do not want to see her face when it happens. I couldn’t bear it.
Bevel leans in close and whispers filth into her ear.
“What? Both of you?” Pip yelps, and her face twists in disgust. Bevel leans close and says something else, and Pip physically shoves him back. “No! No, I’m as happy to have a threesome with two hotties as any red-blooded girl, but you guys are complete sleazes. Get off me.”
She shoves him hard enough that Bevel knocks my chair and I have to look. He is stunned. I don’t know if he’s ever been turned down before. And Pip looks like fury incarnate.
On the other side of me, Kintyre raises himself from his indolent slouch and scoffs. “So, I suppose it will be to Forsyth’s bed you go to tonight, then?”
Pip goggles at him, eyes wide and mouth a scandalized ‘o’. “Hey, how about I go to nobody’s bed, because, one, I am in pain because of you, you stupid behemoth, and two, because I’m not a prize that’s meted out at the end of dessert. Here’s a startling and revolutionary idea: maybe I just don’t want a fuck!”
Ah, so that’s what that expletive means.
“Maybe you’re just a frigid bitch,” Kintyre snaps.
Pip rocks back in her seat, stunned. “Oh my god! I cannot even believe I used to look up to you! You’re incredible! You’re nothing like Forsyth!”
“So, that’s what this is about,” Kintyre snarls, his bright blue eyes snapping over to me. “Forssy’s already got his scrabbly little fingers and flaccid little prick into you.”
Pip pushes up to her feet and leans over me, her face puce with fury, in order to threaten Kintyre from as close a proximity as possible. “Don’t talk about your brother like that! He’s a good man! Better than you’ll ever be!”
“Oh, and now you let your woman talk for you, too, brother?” Kintyre sneers, rising to his own feet. “Perhaps she’s the man between you? Does she stick it to you? Do you think you’re in love, just because she hasn’t run away from you yet?”
I shrink down in my seat, too mortified to even get my tongue to stop fluttering against the roof of my mouth. I could never make words like this.
“And is there something wrong with taking it up the arse?” Pip challenges. “Does it make you less of a man? Because Bevel seems to like it!”
Bevel and Kintyre both go pale and stagger. Bevel clutches at his chair. “How did you know?” he hisses.
“Silence!” Kintyre booms.
“Oh my god!” Pip says, exasperation written into every feature. “What does it matter what you two do together? Bevel’s disgustingly in love with you, you ridiculous moron! He always has been! It’s barely even subtext! He sets up threesomes for you just so he can touch you! Is that what all this macho manly shit is about? ‘Cause there’s nothing wrong with loving who you love!”
“Nobody loves Forsyth Turn,” Kintyre snarls.
“Qu-qu-quiet!” I snap, standing and pushing Pip and Kintyre away from one another. “E-e-enough!”
“Not here,” Pointe snaps, his voice just loud enough for us to hear, but quiet enough that music keeps his words from reaching my guests. He crosses behind my chair to lay hands on Kintyre’s shoulders. “You’re not doing this here, Sir Kintyre. You’re drunk and shaming yourself. Master Bevel, get him into Forsyth’s study.”
But Kintyre is incensed. He is insulted. He pushes the Sword of Turnshire away and holds a hand out to stay Bevel. “I am shaming myself? Me? You’re the one shaming the Turn name, brother! You are pathetic,” Kintyre sneers. “Deciding that the first woman to show a grain of interest in you is actually infatuated with you? Look at you. What in the world could she find attractive about you? You saved her, that’s all. She’s being nice to you only because you saved her. And everyone here knows it.”
Faces which had been frozen all around us narrow and shut down. Nobody, not one guest, makes a sound in my support. Of course. They are laughing at me, silently, inside. Laughing at foolish Forsyth Turn, who thought he could make this woman fall in love with him.
“Now,” Kintyre says. “You are going to apologize and sit down and act like a proper lady, or I will leave you here to rot and never take you home!”
“I will not!”
“Kintyre . . .” Bevel starts, plucking at his sleeve, but Kintyre is embarrassed and feeling cruel. He pushes Bevel away hard enough that he slams into the table. Bevel turns hurt, dark eyes up at my brother and goes silent, biting so hard on his lower lip that the flesh turns white.
All the breath rushes from my body. Oh, incredible, Pip was right. Bevel Dom is in love with my brother, and I never noticed.
Poor Bevel.
I hate the hedgehoggy little lackey, but to be in love with my brother, and Kintyre so in love with women’s bodies . . . how cruel this Elgar Reed is. Poor, poor Bevel.
“Sit!” Kintyre repeats, pointing to the chair magnanimously, and Pip throws her own finger into the air, the middle one. It is clearly a rude gesture, but its exact meaning is unclear.
“I am not some docile dog you can order around,” Pip screams. “You are an asshole and a bully, Kintyre Turn, and I don
’t want your help!”
The whole room falls into a screeching hush.
Kintyre goes very, very still. I can’t help the involuntary step back as his fingers twitch into a fist. It seems the survival instincts of childhood are still deeply ingrained.
“Good,” he grunts, fury in every line of his face, “as you will not be receiving it.”
“Kin!” Bevel squalls. “You can’t just turn down a maiden in distress.”
“I can, and I have.”
“I’m not a maiden in distress,” Pip snarls, rounding on Bevel, who is utterly unprepared for his own tongue-lashing and stumbles back into my brother’s arm. “I’m a woman, and I am damn well capable of rescuing my own damn self, thank you very much.”
“Let us hope so,” Kintyre rumbles. “For your sake.”
And then he pushes past Pointe and storms out of the hall, Bevel quick on his heels.
Seven
“Have you gone completely mad? He was your one chance!” I snarl.
“I told you,” Pip lobs back, “I don’t need help from some misogynistic asshole!”
I slam my palm against the surface of my desk, and Pip doesn’t even flinch. I think she is too angry to react now. Perhaps even too angry to feel pain. I worry for her, for her knee and her back and her hands, but the last thing she will accept from me right now, from anyone, is coddling.
“Well, you can’t very well do it yourself!” I snap.
“Why not?” she challenges, chin raised and arms crossed over her breasts. “Why can’t I? I know this world as well as anyone else! I probably know it better than Kintyre! Why can’t I figure this out and go on an adventure by myself?”
I gesture at the papers my spies have collected for me. “There are charts! Spells! Objects that must be collected in the right order at the right time. You don’t know the land, no matter how much you may have read about it, and you do not know the temperaments and habits of the creatures you may encounter. Have you even traveled, Pip? Can you start a campfire and direct a horse? Have you bartered for anything in your life? You cannot go on a quest alone.”
Pip clenches her jaw and says nothing, eyes scanning the papers. I brought her into my study to show this to her, to plot the quest she would have to undertake with as much precision as possible so she would see, so she would understand that she cannot do this, she cannot go home without the help of Kintyre Turn.
As much as I hate to have to admit it, she needs my brother.
“I could learn,” she says. “You have everything else I need here. God, you’re clever, Forsyth, you’re really clever. You can lay it all out. You’ve put half the pieces together for me already.”
I have saved my strongest argument for last, and I lay it out before her now with solemnity: “You cannot Speak Words, Pip.”
She stares at me, muddy eyes wide, and then, slowly as an old woman, she creaks her way down into the only other chair in my study. She is furiously silent, and I take the respite to fetch us both brandy for our abused throats. She accepts the goblet from me without comment, and without eye contact.
We both sip, and the silence stretches on for longer than is comfortable. Just when I am debating whether to fetch a second glass, Pip sighs and slumps awkwardly into the side of her chair, closing her eyes. The skin around her mouth is white and stretched, and every line of her body screams that she is in pain.
“Let’s get you upstairs and put to bed,” I whisper, pulling the glass from her slackening fingers.
“Poppy milk?” she whimpers.
“Yes, of course.”
She opens her eyes and smiles at me, warm and sad. “You haven’t won this argument, you know,” she says as I help her to her feet. “This is just an intermission. A pain-delay. Ha ha.”
Velshi, who has been lingering by the door to my study as Pip and I argued, ducks under Pip’s arm and helps me spread her other across my shoulders. Together, we carry her gently, slowly, up the back stairs to Mother’s chamber. Below, I can hear Sheriff Pointe’s distinctive voice coming from the direction of the formal hall, calling for the next course, for more wine, for the dancing to continue. He is trying to salvage the night, and I am grateful, once more, that I am able to call him my friend.
Where Kintyre and Bevel stormed off to, I do not know and, frankly, do not care to know. Let them go fling themselves in the river and be eaten by Kelpies, for all I care. All I hope is that they return come morning, when I have talked sense into Pip. I don’t want her to go off alone with them, but what other choice is there? Pip needs to go on a quest, and for that, she needs a hero.
That is how these things are done.
Neris takes over for Velshi when we reach Pip’s room, tutting at me as we maneuver her over to the bed. She already has poppy milk mixed into tea in her hand, and Pip drinks the whole draught before she sits.
The potion works quickly, and soon, Pip is swaying on the mattress. I toe off my shoes and climb up onto the bed behind her, holding her upright so Neris can begin to undress her. I frame her thighs with my own, my hands on the unmarred forward curve of her shoulders, her head falling back against my collarbones. I cradle her skull under my chin, discreetly memorizing the scent of her hair and skin. Warmth, rose oil, the tang of pain-induced sweat, the lemon-mint of the ointment, poppy milk, and something musky under all of that, almost like vanilla but less cloyingly sweet. Pip.
Within moments, she is breathing deeply, asleep. The strain on her face clears, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“She shouldn’t have gone back down, sir,” Neris says, settling onto the floor beside the bed and reaching for Pip’s shoes. “It was too much.”
“It was Pip’s choice,” I counter. I make a point of looking away as Neris pulls off Pip’s slippers and then, gently, runs her hands up inside Pip’s dress to unlace her garters and slide her stockings off.
“She’s a stubborn thing,” Neris mutters. “She’s pushed herself too hard, and you should have sent her to bed, sir.”
“I’m not her father, nor her master, to just send her off,” I counter, still keeping my gaze resolutely on the wall above the headboard. “But I am yours; mind your tongue, Neris.”
Neris sets aside the stockings, folding them neatly, and then looks me full in the face. “Then I beg your pardon for being so bold, sir, but you should not have let her push herself like this. And the healer woman would say the same thing if she was here.”
I glare down at Neris, angry not at her for her cheek, but at myself because she is right. Mother Mouth would never have let Pip return to the dining hall after her episode in the stairwell, no matter how much Pip herself protested. Pip has a stubborn streak as wide as my Chipping, and if someone doesn’t reign her in, she is going to seriously impede her healing. She was not supposed to have danced tonight, we discussed it, and all the running up stairs and screaming in my study has done her no good on top of that.
I look to Pip, drowsing against my chest, mouth slack. I give in to the urge to run my fingers through her hair, which is still soft but tangled with her earlier exertions.
“Yes, of course, Neris. You’re right. Apologies.”
Neris nods firmly, and then undoes Pip’s sash and begins plucking at the laces of her formal robe. She peels that off, then goes for the chemise.
“Oh, I should . . . go,” I say, but Neris shakes her head.
“I need your help, sir. And while I’m saying things I oughtn’t, I don’t think Miss Piper will mind, you seeing her in her altogether. Better you than Mister Velshi, hm, sir?”
I cannot disagree with her, except where she seems to be making the assumption that Pip regards me as anything more than her benefactor. The kiss in the stairwell was interrupted and never resumed, and now that Pip and I have quarreled so fiercely, I am probably right in assuming it will never be consummated.
Together, we get Pip down to her bloomers and the bandage that winds round and round her torso, binding her breasts nearly flat and protecting the cu
ts. Where Kintyre grabbed her, all along the small of her back, the bandages are spotted with blood.
“Stubborn, stubborn woman,” I mutter, as we lay Pip flat on her stomach and tuck the blankets over her legs. I repeat my actions from her first night here and set up the kettle for tea, while Neris cuts the now-useless bandages off Pip with her sewing scissors.
The wounds low on her back are red and raw, the scabs rubbed away, leaving the muscle exposed and weeping sluggishly. The scars further up her back seem to have held, the skin already knitted together in slim white ridges where the cuts were thin, or forming a pinky layer where they had been wide. The stitches are fine.
The ointment truly is wondrous, for the healing to have progressed so quickly in just one week.
When the kettle boils, I pour water into the wash basin for Neris and place the jar of ointment within her reach on the bedside table. I try to hand her a clean cloth, but Neris shakes her head and says, “I think she’d appreciate you, sir. I’ll be just in the hall if you need me.”
She curtsies and vanishes before I can say anything to the contrary.
Hm. I am beginning to wonder if the whole Chipping really is conspiring to get Pip into my bed, and me into her affections. Well, they are wasting their time.
I clean Pip’s back and reapply the ointment, and then, because the brandy and the wine and the emotional turmoil of the evening have caught up with me, I let my head slip onto the pillow beside Pip’s. I will not sleep; I just need a moment to rest before I go back downstairs to the party.
✍
It is several hours later when I wake. The process is slow, and more than once, I give it up as a bad job and muzzily contemplate just rolling over and staying abed. An unlooked-for warmth radiates from somewhere close to my pillow, and I sigh, contented for reasons that I cannot yet remember and am happy to indulge in rather than tease out, for now. The inhale of my sigh brings the sharp scent of lemons and menthol to my nose, and I snap completely awake.
I am in bed with Pip.
I fell asleep beside Pip. I slept beside Pip! Most of the night, it seems!