The baker looked to the kitchen and back to Essa, found himself caught between them, and panicked. Essa was drugged, the whiskey downed, and the arasyl would do its part, regardless of his presence. No-no-no-no-no. Already she was settling into her blush. Voren wanted to scream, to curse Assal above and piss on the markers of these soldiers' graves. He was close, so close, and this was his one chance. If he didn’t move he would have to—Calm. He tried to tell his mind to calm, but his heart was racing and he could scarcely think for fear of what he had done.
At a brisk dread, Voren moved across the space separating himself from his love. She glanced up as he approached, smiling warmly. Her gaze flicked back to the table—Rurik, perhaps?—and back to him, uncertainly.
“What is it, Voren?” The words were not particularly warm, but they made his heart flutter. He eyed the kitchen, expecting Irdlin to emerge at any moment. He still had a chance. He just needed a few moments. That was all. If he could speak with her he could still salvage this.
He cleared his throat, and reminded himself to breathe. “I was just wondering if I…might I…if it’s no inconvenience…”
“Out with it, baker,” her cousin snapped from behind his cards. “Don’t stand there all night jabbering, or we’ll have you playing cards in short order.” Then Rowan set two pair on the table. “Here you go, little lord.”
Voren spared a glance for the man, and nodded, putting himself to it. “Might I…have a word, Essa? I wish—that is to say, I need to apologize for my actions before.” A glimpse of her drink confirmed there was still a good quarter left. “Please.”
Essa looked to Alviss, as if for approval, but his eyes were focused squarely on Voren. Voren felt the shake in his palms. He’ll find me out. Essa would say no and he would go on without another word and she would look at one of them and all she would think would be…
“Very well. Outside, a moment? I need to stretch my legs anyway.”
As she rose, practically hopping off the Kuric, Voren started at the feeling of something hard pressed into his back. When he turned, Rurik rattled his mug at him. “Another drink, if you’d kindly?” The exile managed a winning smile, but Voren was of no mood.
With thinly strained patience, Voren snipped back, “I’m afraid I am to be off in a moment, messars. And the last of the tap’s gone dry anyhow. There’ll be no more rounds.” He could spot the very moment that grim realization truly sank into the boy’s thick skull.
Essa, however, touched Rurik’s chin and leaned near to him, shaking her head. “No-no. No more anyhow. You’re done. Cut off. Any worse at cards, and Rowan’ll have you naked in no time.” Her own eyes, Voren noted, met that possibility with a quick saunter down the youth’s frame. Not good. “And such a shame that would be.”
Rurik scoffed at her, but Essa smilingly offered her arm to Voren, and waited for him to show her out. Voren’s heart elated at the chance. He led her off toward the door, both the whiskey and her friends forgotten for the moment. Over his shoulder, he glimpsed Rurik pulling her mug into his own lap. Nervously, Voren led Essa out into the cold, under the awning, away from prying eyes. Nevertheless, she insisted on leaving the door open, to take some of the warmth with them. A few of the tavern’s louder denizens put him off, but then he remembered Essa, and how close she stood, and his mind focused to the task. They might have gone upstairs, had he been thinking straight, but it was too late for that now. He glimpsed her bare feet on the frosted boards and rubbed his own hands together against the cold.
“Well,” Essa asked, leaning against the wall. Her legs brushed against his own. Voren could imagine his hands on them, the feel of her skin on his. Warm, hot breaths, mingling white between the sheets as the cold surrounded them but could not breach their bed. She shifted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Voren,” she snapped, and he nearly jumped.
“M-my apologies. Yes, that-that’s what I wanted to say. My apologies. I have made a terrible mess of things of late. It wasn’t you, it was just—I couldn’t—I want to say more but I just—I have to be off. That ponce Irdlin is sending me in armors, filling in for one of his degenerate friends’ shifts. A soldier, can you imagine?” He scoffed, resisted the urge to spit.
Essa laughed sharply. “A soldier’s work? He truly doesn’t know you, does he?”
“I should think not. But I—lady, I just wanted to say,” and he took her hand in his for this, daring a closer step. “Please, cease your drinking. I—if not now, then after tonight. All this—it’s madness. I know I have supplied it, but this just won’t do. I can’t get any more. I won’t. I was wrong to have done it in the first place. Ever. It’s unbecoming, both of you and of Rurik. And the risks I take—I just, I don’t know. I would speak to you more, of him and the rest, and take no offense lady, but please, if you might just—if you might just go to bed, I would speak to you later, when I return. On the morrow perhaps. Would you do that? This—this is not good for you, if I might be so forward. Not for tomorrow. Not for the march.”
Essa rubbed her thumb against the inside of his, her white breaths pressing back the cold. She closed her eyes, gently shaking her head. “This is an odd way of apologizing, Voren.” He glanced past her, saw Rurik drifting nearer, her mug in hand. The panic was returning.
“I have ever been an odd fellow.” He nervously tightened his grip on her.
“But why all this bloody silence?”
Voren tried to look her in the eyes. “Fear. Foolishness. But I am just trying to watch out for you.”
At first, Essa smiled contentedly, seeming to sink deeper into whatever dream she was fancying, but then he froze to watch her yank her hand away for the second time that night. “I can watch over myself, Voren, if that is what you are afraid of. And if you have such a low opinion of me and my unbecoming ways, I must say I bid you good day.” No expression.
“But if—”
“We will be fine, Voren. I will speak to you when you return. We have things we need to address anyway.” She shooed at him with her hands. “Now get along before your master yells. I will be getting back to my cards.”
“Essa.” She brushed past him. “Essa.” Voren tried to call out to her, but she kept walking, each seductive sway of her hips another dagger in his heart. His lips opened to reach for her one more time, but no sound emerged, and he felt as if he were sinking. One of the women from the kitchen was laughing at a nearby table. Pointing and laughing. He did not even have the energy to scowl. Everything walked away, as if at a crawl.
So much given, and for what?
A step into the light brought him nearer, but not near enough. Rurik was already moving toward her, mug in hand. Through her words, he could feel the smiles she was heaping on him, like little spears through his heart. The rest went on, uncaring or unnoticing, at their cards and their drinks and their lives, and his was expected to simply slink away with dignity.
She walked away from Voren, leaving the baker to watch as the space between them grew and every chance and every vision of worlds that might have been came crashing down about his head. He looked to the door, shuddering without chill. He could not but wonder if it would be so bad to freeze upon those shadowed streets. Men often said it was like a sleep descending—a cold, shivering thing that settled about your shoulders and took you down, down without a sound. It did not seem so arduous a thing, and his finger had already gone before him.
* *
“I don’t like that one,” Alviss observed, staring over his shoulder at Essa and the baker.
Rowan reluctantly inched another card from the pile. As he bent it up enough to see the number on its fore, he grimaced, and left it facedown with a heavy sigh. “And why’s that,” he replied miserably.
“The way he looks at her. It’s not right.”
“He looks at her in much the same way as our good lord here. Come now, Rurik, ante up.”
“So you agree he likes her, too?” Rurik gulped.
“That is not like,” Alviss said dryly. �
�Lust. Much worse.”
“Of course he likes her,” Rowan drawled. “That’s why I incite you to make your move, Rurik. It’s not as though you are the only one looking for the task. Curse it. You had my ace.”
Rurik snatched up Essa’s mug and pushed back from the table. Ignoring his winnings, he pressed away from the game and started toward the pair, intending to apologize, much as Voren was. The young noble didn’t know exactly what it was he had to apologize for, but he must have done something for her to treat him this way. The alcohol, most likely, but she partook of it as well, and one could not blame the alcohol. Or…him.
Then again, perhaps the alcohol was the thing to blame. Not him.
Rurik gnawed at his own lip as he shambled off to the side, effectively lurking as the two concluded their conversation. He sniffed at Essa’s mug, impatiently weighing the cost of downing the rest. It smelled so warm and inviting. Certainly she couldn’t blame him if he indulged a touch. It was she that had abandoned it, after all. Besides, Voren could always bring them more—but then he remembered, foggily, that Voren would not be returning to them.
What a lark.
It might have been wrong, but he could not help but feel a glimmer of satisfaction at the devastation lining Voren’s face. The baker seemed to fade away as Essa spun from him.
She, however, looked rightly flustered. Rurik shuffled a bit, stepping lightly into her path, trying to look as demure as possible. He did not wish her to think he was attempting to touch her again. She stopped a few inches from him, staring up at him intently. Her breath labored, drew itself out, and he thought she was gathering for another strike. Quickly, he put the mug between them and smiled his grandest smile, however gaudily it might have been.
“I merely…wished to say sorry, Es. I’ve been acting a right idiot of late.”
“You have,” the girl breathed, but she stepped a little closer. Essa’s eyes settled on something lower, and Rurik thought he had spilt on his shirt, but was determined not to make it worse by looking. She reached out to grab the mug, but drew her hand about his own instead. It lingered a moment, as she started to flush.
“Damn it. Why do you have to look so sad?” She groaned, abruptly tugging the mug from his hand. “You’ve had your last; you promise?”
Rurik nodded dumbly, pondering whether to reach out and touch her again. It risked a slap, but she seemed more receptive, at the least. “I’ve already drank it, and I’m done. That’s it.” He spread his arms a little, expecting a rebuke, but she stepped abruptly forward into his embrace, wrapping her arms about his waist and burying herself against him. He drew her close, idly stroking her back as he cradled her. “Forgive me?”
Essa slowly nodded away her reluctance. “Can we get back to the game?” She sounded impatient, but she placed a little kiss on his chest as she asked it.
They returned to the table for another three hands, though her drink was gone by the end of the first. Alviss won all three. The man had a face that was nigh unreadable. Essa seemed distracted through most of their games, occasionally squirming, smiling at any questioning glances but speaking little. Anger had gone, but left something else entirely in its wake.
At the end of that hand, the increasingly skittish girl politely asked to go. She was flushed, and cradling her stomach. “I think the drink does not settle well,” she said, standing only slowly. She looked excessively pale, despite the rose in her cheeks. Rurik rose to accompany her.
“No,” she exclaimed. “I’ll be fine I just—keep playing. I think I just need to lie down.” She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it tight. “Thank you, though.” She leaned toward him, swaying, then promptly yanked herself away again, in seeming horror. “Excuse me,” she muttered, and promptly lurched away toward their rooms.
Alviss pushed away from the table and moved after her. Rurik sat back down, staring at her flight.
“Strange girl,” her cousin said.
“The very picture of grace and beauty,” Rurik replied.
Rowan dealt them all in to another game and Alviss returned a few moments later, looking grim. That cued a touch of alarm in Essa’s cousin, who quirked a querying eyebrow at the Kuric.
“Is she alright?” the swordsman asked, a stroke of concern rising in his tone.
Alviss drew up his cards and sighed heavily. “Burning up. I gave her bucket, sent for compress. Harsh whiskey, I say.”
“Does she need anything?” Rurik blurted.
“Just rest.”
By the time Rurik had surrendered his last game of cards and put in for bed, they were the last ones—save the sleepers—left loitering about the tavern’s common area. Rowan and Alviss remained, ostensibly to continue playing cards, but more likely to gossip about those that had already gone. Rurik was too tired to care. His thoughts drifted to Essa as he passed the room she shared with Rowan, and considered checking in on her, but it had been over an hour since she had left them, and if she had taken ill, he had no intention of waking her.
When he had left the table, Rurik had thought he would surely drop to the floor and plunge into the deepest sleep that alcohol and repeated nights of deprivation could muster. Yet when he strode into his room, contemplating the slightest burbling of a hangover beginning to form, he found that the weariness had crossed a sort of wall, and for all his efforts, he could not seem to embrace slumber, even when he buried his eyes in the darkness of his pillow. Energy sprang from nothing, and he was left to regret how the coming morning would feel.
With a sigh, he moved to the window, for a look at the night beyond. Little fires burned throughout the town, torches and campfires and watchfires all, with shadows stretched about them and the many and cold myriad of bodies all set to slumber, awaiting the coming march to the deaths that had not yet found them, or to the eternity of victory. The boy could not say. That was for the nobles and the generals, in their infinite wisdom to decry.
Thoughts of the Emperor sparked a touch of hope. He looked as shriveled as an old nut, his hair had gone, and by all righteousness so too should his mind. Weaker men would have broken before such things. Matthias had spent his entire life warring, be it with men or Assal, seemed to taunt death with every waking breath. Death took his sons and his wife and ravaged friend and foe alike. Yet he pressed forward, without complaint or discontent. There was more strength to him than there seemed, and Rurik had begun to regret his earlier misgivings.
There is more strength in this man of eighty years, he mused, than in this boy of seventeen.
In many ways, the man reminded him of his father. That only diminished Rurik more. Kasimir had loved his sons, even if they did not know it, and had died for it. Did the Emperor have the same relation with his own children? Rurik heard the stories. Hatred and plotting in the shadows of the court. Such was the intrigue, the whispers of the land. Could fathers and sons and brothers and sisters yet move so readily against their own blood? He thought of Cullick, and that was enough. He thought of his own headlong plunge, and grew bitter.
Men were weak. That was the trouble. Rurik did not doubt the whispers, for as absurd as they seemed, the thought of power made all men absurd. Blood was no shield against ambition.
The world spins upon a needle, and I greet it as a drunken fool. Rurik could not help but laugh at that as he settled against the sill. Ivon would ring his neck if he knew. If he continued on this path, though, Ivon would be the least of his troubles. Battle would find him either too drunk to swing or too hung over to stand. A sword would catch him, quick enough, and he would die upon the field.
Was that what he wanted? He might have said no, but he was no longer certain. It was foolish. So long had been spent hating his father. Now he let himself go to pieces over his death. Absurdity. It had been his own fault. His father was a better man. Anelie. Liesa. Isaak. All of them were better people than he, and Isaak and Ivon had families as well—wives and children that depended on them, and could well be dead and buried now, in some faraway place, the
ir spirits lost to the Traitors’ Hell because no priest would bless and keep them. He had brought that on them. He and he alone. Cullick would have left them if he hadn’t played the fool.
There it was. Piece by piece—the reason he drowned his misery.
Rurik could not tell the others that. They know anyways. They only tried to help, and he greeted the help with still more drunken foolery. They deserve better. Essa certainly did. His mind swirled to Voren, and that crushed, vacant expression as Essa peeled away from him. Rurik knew that look. He might have shared it if she had done the same to him.
All at once, he felt a great pity for the baker. If things had been different, perhaps they might have worked. For all his hatred of the baker, it was a shallow thing—he recognized that even that twitchy youth was a better man than he. When life shoved him, Voren made something of it. He merely wallowed, be it in debauchery or depression.
Assal’s breath. If this is how you get when you’re coming down—you had best get back to it.
Dejected, the would-be Matair rubbed at his eyes and looked out at the crumbling city. After the tents had gone, it would be nothing but a gutted waste. Their gutted waste or the Effisians’, it did not matter to the people. They suffered either way. The only difference was which lord stood to blame them when all was done. That was one lesson hard-learned from his life abroad. Merely because you had money, and power, the world did not revolve around you. Or perhaps it did, but it shouldn’t. The world revolved around the mass of nameless faces that did the labor and worked the land—the ones that turned word into reality. People like Essa. Or Rowan, or Alviss. People like Voren. People that lived and never said a word about it.
People the world didn’t care to hear about.
There came a knock on the door, so faint he nearly missed it. Three little taps, then silence. “Come in,” he called, expecting it was Alviss come to check on him before bed. The door creaked open only slowly, but no footsteps followed. He twisted, intending to snap at the old man to hurry it up, but he stopped cold.
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