He stood, “There is a chamber pot behind the arras. I will step out.”
I didn't know then what he thought I was looking for. I would have been mortified if I'd known. But the chamber pot was useful. I reached the arras just in time to hurl.
Geoffrey peeked his head back in to see me spitting out the slit that passed as a window, once again proving myself oh-so-worthy of the title lady. I leaned a little further out and took a deep breath, “Nope, no one staking out this perimeter.”
A merlin glided across the sky as I looked out, powerful wings limned in golden sunlight, tracing a beautiful arch in the light grey mist. The sky overhead promised a bright, clear day although a couple menacing clouds hovered a distance off. From even this height the forest stretched into the horizon to fall off the edge of the world. The scent of rosewood filtered out all else, calming my stomach and easing my embarrassment.
I glanced down at the storm damage sustained by our apple tree as I undid my mussed braids. It was nice to feel the cool brush of my hair on my neck and arms. After so long in braids it hung wavily to my elbows. Mama hated it that long, but I had vowed to go out for Halloween decently but authentically dressed as a mermaid. I, of course never told her this vow, or anyone else, because then I might’ve been held to it. I picked through the few knots with my fingers until Geoffrey coughed uncomfortably.
“Would my comb be of help?”
“Thank you.” I looked into the room.
It hadn’t been rosewood I’d noticed. It had been roses. The little writing table was covered in roses. They weren’t those quaint little closed buds you find in flower shops or the corner market. These were more like the huge, beautiful, colorful blooms they plant in civic flowerbed clocks. My pages were neatly stacked in a corner of the wooden board, a single, smaller, white rose with veins of pink and yellow lain atop. This bud was dry, but the rest still sparkled with dew.
“I found a flowerbed in the rear, off of a study of sorts. The scent might make our meals go down more easily.” He retreated to the hearth after handing me the comb.
“And stay down?” I spoke sheepishly.
He poked at the fire, “There may be edibles in that little garden or stores I’ve overlooked, but for now we’ve got burnt bird and mushy apples.
“I think I’ll hold off for a bit.” I paused to take another drink from the water jug. “Unless we’re heading out on the double?”
He tilted his head. Apparently I was speaking in tongues again.
“What’s the plan for the day?" I tried again. "Where to?”
Ah! Comprehension.
“I'd like to know why this castle is empty. Mind if we stay a few days?”
"My feet adore that plan."
Geoffrey turned to the hearth. A Dutch oven type pot hung from a swiveling arm and white droplets fell hissing into the fire as it boiled furiously. Geoffrey adjusted the arm with a thick cloth and the bubbling slowed. He added some crystals from a leather pouch on the hearth and then ignored it, turning politely to me.
“Please,” I picked up a couple of roses and carried them over to sit cross-legged on the bed, “eat. Don’t defer to my presence.”
“I don’t commonly break my fast. I roasted the apples for you. The bird will keep nicely for a later meal.”
“And that bubbling crude?”
“This is clean water and a salve for your shoulder. You ripped it open last night and again this morning. If you will allow, I can treat it to speed healing and reduce the pain.”
When it boiled over, the mixture had left a white scum on the outside of the menacing and, I was assuming, leaden cauldron.
“It doesn’t really feel too bad.”
Every beat of my heart throbbed in the wound and though I hadn’t previously noticed that my mad dash to the primitive sculpture of the porcelain god had ripped my back open again, I could now feel blood trickling down my scapula, soaking into the fabric of my silk cardigan. I could use my arm so I knew there was no damage done to the bone or tendons. He’d just bruised the muscle and broken a few arteries or whatever. No big deal.
Geoffrey grinned from ear to ear at my discomfort, “At long last my lady is afraid.”
“I am not afraid. Not that it would in any way diminish me as a person if I were.” I secured myself on the bed, holding one of the canopy posts.
“I have been trained in the healing arts by the finest naturalists. All but the water I have supplied from my pouches.”
“And the lead from the pot? That’s poisonous.”
“The pot is lined with pure stone. I used the salve on my face while you were sleeping.”
His cuts were looking less red and angry. Still, that could be due to a good night's rest.
"I'd have to take my sweater off."
He laughed. "You think I might be overcome by the sight of your naked shoulder?"
I peeked at him. "Would it be so bad if you were?"
The look on his face was not what I had been hoping for. Oops. I lowered my eyes, letting my hair fall forward to hide my blush. He didn't speak for a full minute. When he did, he spoke carefully.
“You are beautiful, Nanda,” he murmured. “But I am searching for a particular woman.”
I didn’t respond. Didn’t raise my head. I couldn’t.
∞
I remember our times together in America where he had loved me and I was the distant, unapproachable fool. I could hear in my head, him calling to me from the attic of our new apartment building in Denver, our downstairs neighbor yelling at us to keep it down. One of her four mangy dogs raced me up the stairs to him. I peered down the dusty hall strewn with cans and cobwebs and, I’m sure, rusty old nails as the mutt bounded gracelessly to a shaft of sunlight.
I picked my way towards the light, stooping for some reason like it wasn’t a perfectly normal ceiling. I was blinded momentarily when I stepped into the ray of visible dust, but as my eyes settled, I saw Geoffrey standing by the window. He turned as an old bit of newspaper crackled under my step. Such a smile. I have never seen such a smile on anyone. I like to tell him it’s the smile of a little kid full of the wonders of the world.
I stunned him by bounding forward, like the dog, and smiling back. I was so cold to him most of the time. So scared of feeling anything. I believe he actually forgot for a moment what he was going to show me. I raised one eyebrow and he turned to show me where the branch of a tree had once worked its way in through a crack in the glass and then wormed its way out again through the rotting wood of the wall. It was blooming little yellow and white flowers with purple specks inside the attic.
I remember him earlier that week driving in circles around the parking lot of Murphy’s at two in the morning after I’d played my fingers to the bone to earn the security deposit for that sad apartment, yelling his fool head off about dragons and castles, to Sean Murphy’s great amusement. We’d been invited back in to sober up before letting either of us near the car again. But Murphy and his lagging after-hours regulars had begun betting their drinking money against my boasts of Geoffrey’s dart skills. Geoffrey not only rounded out our security deposit, he won our first month’s rent.
I remember Halloween when Geoffrey almost did in a couple of ghosties with that minni of his. He caught them trying to steal Kelly’s candy and gave the bullies the scare of a lifetime. The boys, in their early teens or so, leaped out at Faite’s ward, Kelly and her friends thinking that they were un-chaperoned. Geoffrey buried his minni and consequently several folds of ghost costume three inches into a tree.
By the time I arrived the only bully left was the one struggling to pull his sheet out of the bark. The four kids trick or treating with Kelly under our supervision were staring wide-eyed at Geoffrey who was smiling politely at the ghost.
“Okay, let’s hit the last house and get back to the theater before your parents all think we’ve been trapped in old Mrs. Leary’s place.” I grabbed Geoffrey’s collar and shoved him in the direction of the next driveway b
efore I turned to rescue the terrified delinquent. “You gonna go home now?”
“Yes.”
I coughed in what I hoped was an appropriately substitute-teacher-like manner.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You gonna tell your parents what you’ve been doing?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Sure you are. Are you gonna tell them who put a hole in their sheet?”
“No?”
“Good. Picking on little kids is cowardly. Stop it. And don’t go as a ghost if you can only find a fitted sheet. You look stupid.”
After we got the candy fairly traded, our fee of all the peach Jolly Ranchers and old lady Leary’s rum balls never more willingly handed over, and the other kids safely off to their respective parental units, Geoffrey and I headed off to Cheesman Park to meet Faite and hand over his ward, our sugar high princess. I don’t know if Faite spent any time at all with Kelly, Geoffrey was so often babysitting her. And whether I went with him or not, whenever Faite went away for workshops or shows, Kelly stayed at our place.
I remember Geoffrey running around the park with Kelly bounding around after him with a hand on her head to keep the garland in place on her wild red curls and the other hand trying to whack him with the pine bough I’d given her. Geoffrey allowed the pointed slippers of his Robin Hood costume to trip him up so the little be-pearled princess could catch him and win the game. We’d waited until well after dark, organizing Kelly’s Halloween booty into piles of goods and no goods, before Geoffrey finally jogged off to find a phone.
As usual, as soon as Geoffrey had gone, Faite appeared to pick up his ward. And for the first time ever, I witnessed her throw a fit. In her most distinguished four year old voice, Kelly informed Faite that she could not leave yet as she had struck Robin Hood with the pine bough and he was now required to marry her. When Faite told her they were running late she responded in her most undistinguished voice, “I hate you!” threw her pointed hat at him and ran away to his car where she couldn’t get the door open and so proceeded to sit on the ground in all her finery and mope.
“I was hoping you’d finally meet your daughter’s fiancé.”
“I think I have a few years yet until the wedding. Tell Geoffrey he won’t need to pick her up Monday after preschool, I’ll be getting her myself.”
I remember when Faite had me tell Geoffrey that he wouldn't need to baby-sit Kelly anymore because she'd gone to be with her mother. I'd tried every trick in the book to cheer him up. In the end I just held him and loved him.
I had all these memories of our time in Colorado. This Geoffrey didn’t even recognize me. He wouldn’t know little light brown Kelly with her dark brown freckles if she threw herself on him. This Geoffrey had only a day and a half of memories of me.
∞
I stood to leave our little castle suite because I didn’t want him to see me crying over him and I really didn’t want him putting that salve on me, but too late.
He stood as I did thinking I was moving to him. “Can you remove your wrap or is it stuck in the blood?” He reached out to help me with the sweater, pulling it carefully away from my crusty shoulder.
I knelt on the rug by the hearth while he scrubbed the wound clean. He was, shall we say, conscientious about getting the dirt out.
“You can be a little gentle!”
“I could indeed, my lady, if you weren’t so fond of rolling in dirt.”
It never ceases to amaze me how effectively the truth can end a conversation; ‘Fine, you’re right. I don’t love you anymore.’ ‘You weren’t cleaning out my sock drawer, young lady, you were looking for presents.’ ‘Well I wouldn’t have to keep breaking up your fights if you’d just admit that Dad is dying.’ Certainly I can’t be the only person who finds it nigh on impossible to achieve a comeback to the truth. I crumble under it. My whole body just droops, okay, okay, you’re right – it is all my fault.
But I discovered something while Geoffrey was sticking anemones into my shoulder; truth can be combated with truth!
“You do recall that you’re the reason I’m bleeding.”
Three beats of silence. Hah! I can use truth as effectively as anyone.
“It was an accident.”
“Nuh uh!” He couldn’t deny the truth. “You meant to hurt me.”
“I didn’t know that you were you.”
Damn, that was true.
After I tripped while Geoffrey was helping me choreograph a fight in Cheesman Park in Colorado, I found myself somehow transported to the middle of a clearing in the woods. Before I could think, I saw Geoffrey fighting off five big men and dove in to help him. One attacker brought his dagger behind himself, preparing to stab into the circle they’d formed around Geoffrey. I bent the guy’s wrist back and took the dagger. He was shocked and thinking it was his comrade, he turned to beat the little guy next to him but the little guy had already taken notice of me due to the fact that I was whacking at his back with my blade. My sword, being blunted and having a knob on the point, couldn’t do much worse than bruise them and block their blows.
As soon as Little Guy and his buddy, Scarface—this guy had obviously learned swordplay the hard way—broke from the circle around Geoffrey to deal with me, I dove past them to come to standing in the circle with my back to Geoffrey’s back. My momentum knocked me into him a bit and as I swiped at number three with my acquired dagger, Geoffrey neatly held off the last two with his rapier long enough to reach over his shoulder and whack me just above the scapula with the jeweled hilt of his minni. My left arm went temporarily numb, I lost my dagger, and almost went to my knees.
“Hey! I’m on your side!”
He half turned his head to glance at me, a thin little girl with strawberry brown braids hanging down on bare shoulders wearing a spaghetti strap flowered sundress over torn-up jeans, wielding a toy sword and, thanks to him, bleeding.
“You are?”
My daggerless friend attempted to stick his sword’s point in my breast, but as I’m rather fond of what little I’ve got I parried and whacked his left hand which was reaching for the fallen weapon.
Then I glanced at Geoffrey, “Apparently.”
That was good enough for him and we fought back to back until I used my unorthodox and extremely personal technique for getting-the-better-of-men-who-honestly-intend-to-do-me-harm to debilitate our last two able opponents long enough for us to engage flee mode and get well into the forest.
“Thank you,” he’d said as soon as we’d caught our respective breaths, after we’d run ourselves out of said breath. “I’m Geoffrey.”
I’d nodded vigorously at him from where I stood leaning on my knees concentrating very hard on remaining conscious. I meant, ‘Yeah, I know’ and would have said as much except that in the several moments it took me to recover the ability to speak I realized that he didn’t know who I was.
Looking at it rationally one could say he was acting in self-defense and not intentionally trying to sabotage his one defender.
“Well,” I winced as he started digging at the embedded dirt. “Well, you could at least have apologized.”
The immediate, jabbing pains stopped.
“I am very sorry.”
I thought for a moment that he was being sarcastic.
“I obviously did not apologize appropriately for you to have forgotten.”
He could not be for real. Tell me, does anyone honestly think that way? Still, he was hard to doubt.
“Dear lady, I am sorry that I tried to kill you and am very glad your reflexes kept me from hitting your skull as I had intended.”
“Aw, we’re cool.” I waved a hand at him.
He continued to stare at me, bewildered. Graciousness has never been my first language. I looked down at the rug.
“I mean, thank you. I... I know you wouldn’t have hit me if you had known that I was helping you.”
The fire crackled and spit at the bird still hanging above it, which popped as it cooked. A w
ind had picked up outside and the nested pigeons cooed and resettled when it ruffled their feathers. Even in our little room the gloomy hollow echo of nothing that filled the courtyard invaded. My breath, a little heavier, a bit quicker than it should be, sounded loudly in my head as I felt Geoffrey searching my face. He brought my hand up as he bowed his head to press his lips so lightly to my fingertips.
My breath silenced. The birds settled and a breeze blew through the thin window, wafting the sweet scent of the roses over us.
Then he dropped my hand and stood again, refreshing his cloth in the hot poultice, and continued torturing me.
So began our second day in Forte castle.
Six
∞ Edling Geoffrey of Kaveg’s journal ∞
Chicago, America
I was not, as she accused me, cranky yesterday morning. I was confused. And stiff. I fell asleep sitting up at the kitchen table and though I know I had been reaching for my glass of water, when she woke me my hand was on my sword and I leapt to my feet with the naked blade aimed for her heart. With shockingly quick reflexes for so early in the morning, she dropped to the ground.
“A little tense are we?” Nanda was lying flat at my feet, her hands up guarding her face. “Remember me? I’m your host, Nanda Junior. This is my apartment and you’re safe here. Okay?”
“Sorry.” I offered her a hand but she rolled out and stood on her own, at a distance from me.
The place and situation came back to me as she moved around the apartment, getting things in order for the new day. She was never conversant in the mornings in Kaveg, but that morning in Chicago I think she meant to reassure me with her running commentary. I found it mainly bewildering.
“We’re running late already, so we’ve got to hurry. We’re at the You I See Theater again, doing mostly hand to hand and stunt crap this morning so I say just wear what you got on. You really didn’t sleep in it all that long and it’s loads cleaner than your period stuff anyway.”
Geoffrey's Queen: A Mobious' Quest Novel Page 6