by Megan Hart
“Ten years, Cassian. Ten long years. Is that not a long enough penance?”
Cassian shook his head. Roget sighed. Cassian poured his friend another pint from the pitcher between them.
“You could come back at any time and be welcomed. You know that.”
“I know it. I don’t wish to return to the priesthood.”
Roget let out a truly astonishing belch, even by the standards of those whose company they currently kept. “And yet you stay on with the Order. Tell me again why this is so, as I know it’s not for the abundance of opportunities to partake in sensual exploits. Presuming you’ve kept to that vow as well, which I’ve no doubt is true based upon what I know of your stubborn nature.”
Cassian shrugged.
“It truly is a penance,” Roget said when it became apparent Cassian meant not to answer. “By the Arrow, Cassian. Truly? I meant it in jest before, but I’m right?”
“You’re drunk. We should go back so you can sleep it off. Have you not a service to lead in the morning?” Cassian stood.
Roget didn’t. He shook his head and pushed away his mug. “Oh, brother. Still, now? Think you she’ll come back? And what then? What do you hope to gain if she does?”
“I don’t stay—”
“You have ever been the poorest of liars,” Roget said.
Cassian sat. He poured himself another mug of ale, meaning just to sip at it, since drunkenness did naught for him but bring about an aching head and regret. “I made a promise to my brother.”
“Your brother,” Roget said as though the words tasted bad, “is dead, ten long years hence. He’s unlikely to hold you to such a promise from his place in the—”
“Don’t you say it,” Cassian warned. “I know what you thought of him. He was my brother, my true brother of the blood, not merely of the heart.”
“Your mercy.”
The men both drank while around them the merriment went on. Roget leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his bald head. He looked younger without the thick lines of ceremonial cosmetic around his eyes. Cassian blinked, remembering suddenly the sting of it.
“He’s gone, Cassian.”
“I know it.”
“Yet you still punish yourself for what was not your fault?”
“I played as much a part in it as anyone.”
“If anything, the blame rests upon her and him. Not you.”
“This story,” Cassian said, “will never have another ending no matter how many times the tale is told. Say no more, Roget. I know full well what you think of it. Of me, and my choices. I tell you now as I’ve told you before, I can’t return to the priesthood. Nor do I wish to. I’m . . .”
“Say that you’re happy in your place and I’ll reach across this table and punch you in the teeth.”
Cassian raised a brow. “Not very peaceful of you.”
“I’d be acting as your friend, not a priest.”
“You are still and will always be a priest first, Roget, it’s your nature and your life. Aside from that, you know that I could whip you easily, even if you were not eight mugs ahead of me.”
He’d meant to make Roget laugh, but his old friend only shook his head. “Even if she comes back . . .”
“You would do well to bite your tongue,” Cassian said coldly, “brother.”
Roget sighed, shoulders lifting. “Ah, you wound me, but then you have ever done as you pleased and none could stop you. I think that’s why I miss you so.”
“You needn’t miss me. You see me every time you make your rounds to the Motherhouse.”
“Once you’d have been there with me during every service. Now you don’t even attend.”
“You know I can’t.”
“I know you won’t,” Roget said.
Cassian drained his mug and pushed it aside. “The hour grows late. I’m for home. Are you joining me?”
“I supposed I’d best, else I’ll never make it back.” Roget cast a grin toward the pretty barmaid he’d ogled earlier. “And as much as I’d like to discuss the finer aspects of philosophy with that lovely maiden, the morn will come too early and I’m older than I was yesterday.”
Cassian laughed despite himself. “We are ever older than we were the day before.”
Roget sighed and stretched, rubbing a hand over his pate. “Ah, lad, but not all of us live the good, clean life you do. All that exercise. You still rise with the sun and practice the Art?”
“I do.”
Roget grimaced, but made no comment. “Come, then, brother. Lead me home by the hand as though I were the bumbling, drunken fool you’d have me be.”
Again, Cassian laughed. “I’ll lead you, but not by the hand.”
“Sinder’s Balls!” Roget exclaimed. “You’ll not suffer me even such affection as that! I’m mortally offended.”
“You’re mortally intoxicated.”
“Mayhap a bit of that is truth,” Roget admitted. “But know you this is the only time I ever become so. With you.”
Outside in the night’s crisp air, Cassian breathed deep. “And why is that?”
“Because I know you’ll not indulge. And because”—Roget spit into the dirt by their boots—“I know it gives you pleasure to look at me in such a state, that you might feel superior. And as your everlong friend, I like to make you happy. If such a thing were possible for you to be and which, my friend, I fear is not so.”
“You are drunk,” Cassian said and slung one of Roget’s arms around his shoulders. The words, barely slurred, stung. “You’ll remember none of this on the morrow.”
“But you might.”
“I’ll do my best to forget it.”
“You would do your best to forget other things,” Roget said, but thankfully kept his line of conversation from continuing, instead bursting into a song that kept him occupied during the walk from town to the grounds of the Order.
“Quiet!” Cassian laughed, knowing it would do no good.
“What? So that all who reside here, all those lovely ladies, the simpering twits, the giggly gadflies, might maintain their view of you as the imposing and cold-as-stone Master Toquin?”
“Yes.” There was no point in denying it.
Roget snorted laughter and made pause to loose himself from his breeches to piss in a long, hard stream into the bushes at the edge of the drive. “You might be better served if they knew you as I do, Cassian. As a man who can make the best of jokes.”
It had been overlong since Cassian had been that man. He watched as Roget tucked himself away. The moon had gone behind some clouds. The Motherhouse loomed in the distance, but he heard the faintest sound of laughter and voices from behind the stable and caught the scent of woodsmoke.
“Someone’s having a party,” Roget remarked.
“Not of our concern.”
“Tell me something, brother.”
Cassian sighed as they trudged up the gravel drive toward the back of the manse. He’d regret this late night in the morn, but not as much as Roget would with his swollen head. “What?”
“Do you really think you’re so strong?”
“I do.”
Roget straightened, his voice steady and no longer slurring. “Because you hide yourself away from everything in the world and avoid all that would tempt you to life? You think that’s strength?”
Now angry for the first time this night but not the first time with Roget, Cassian threw off his friend’s hand. “You shouldn’t drink so much. It makes you stupid.”
“What makes you stupid, Cassian? Ah, that’s right. Naught. Not a bedamned thing, is that so? Not drink, not drug.”
“Why would I seek to be stupid?”
Roget laughed, low. “Ah, and there I hear the glimmer of anger in your voice. Careful, brother. You’ll have me thinking I’ve had a rise out of you.”
Cassian swallowed hard before answering. “I’m going to bed.”
“Alone.”
“Of course alone,” he snapped.
&nbs
p; “Of course,” said Roget. “As ever. You know something, Cassian? This vow you took. The promise you made. Were they truly for your brother? Or were they mayhap instead for your own sake?”
“Please don’t make me—” Cassian broke off.
“What? Hit me?” Roget laughed, tipping his chin up to offer a better target. “If I thought I could make you, I would keep taunting.”
Sickness nudged at Cassian’s gut and he breathed through it. “I think you’d better find your own way to bed.”
“Resisting temptation is only admirable when you put yourself in front of it, Cassian.”
He stopped a few steps away from Roget but didn’t turn. “As a glutton in front of a banquet?”
“Just so.”
“I live in a house full of women,” Cassian said wearily. “Think you that’s not enough to tempt me?”
“No. It’s not what they have between their legs but what they have in their brains that’s bound to tempt the likes of you, and I’ll wager you refuse to allow yourself to engage in more than the barest conversation with any of them. You keep them at bay with that glower. You make them fear you, brother, so they might not love you.”
Cassian had no answer for this. He walked, instead, as fast as he could without running. Roget didn’t catch up to him.
By the time Cassian crossed the yard in front of the stables, the low murmur of voices had grown louder. Not quite the sound of argument, but definitely not a friendly sound. He’d have ignored it as none of his concern, if not for the sudden and familiar feminine lilt.
He stopped, listening.
“No!” It was Annalise.
Cassian ran. He skidded on the gravel and rounded the corner of the stable. On the far side and around the other corner he saw the flash and flicker of a fire. Shadows. He heard the scuffle of feet in the grass.
In his early-morning practices the names of the positions never failed to accompany the movements themselves, but here and now he found he had no time for even silent words. He moved. He rounded the corner and had the lad by the back of the collar before any of the three people there knew Cassian had arrived.
The lad hit the dirt with a thud and a cry and his partner, the one standing too close to Annalise, didn’t even have time to turn before Cassian had grabbed him as well. He stopped himself from jabbing the young man’s throat with the points of his fingers—that would’ve rendered him unable to speak, and Cassian meant to demand answers.
He hadn’t counted on Annalise leaping at him. She clung to his arm with her full weight. She didn’t quite break Cassian’s grip, but she almost broke his arm.
“What are you doing?” She yanked again.
The young man in Cassian’s grip struggled weakly, gasping and choking at the pressure of his collar bound tight to his throat. Cassian let him fall. He put his now free hand over Annalise’s and pulled her off him. He didn’t let her go.
“What, by the Void, are you doing?” He was breathing too hard, sweating too much. The ale he’d drunk sloshed uncomfortably in his gut, and Cassian realized too late he was quite a bit drunker than he’d thought.
The lad on the ground groaned. The one in front of him backed up. Annalise, hands on her hips, glared. Cassian looked from her to the two lads. They were disheveled, Annalise less so, but perhaps her fierce glare was distracting him from noticing if her mouth looked kiss-swollen. Cassian took another step back, swallowing against a rush of saliva.
“Annalise—” This came from the lad on the ground, who shut up when Cassian turned his stare upon him.
“Hush,” she said.
Terran, Cassian thought his name was from seeing him ’round the estate. The other was Eagen. Neither of them looked ready to go against him. Cassian realized he’d maintained a threatening stance. He relaxed even as his head swam and heart pounded. He spat to the side.
“You should go inside,” Cassian told her. “This is not the place for you.”
“I was unaware I was beholden to you for my every move,” Annalise said tightly, “or that I was required to ask your permission for anything I do.”
The scent of herb was thick around all of them, even her. Cassian jerked his chin toward Terran and Eagen. “You two. Get gone. I think you’ve other places to be than here.”
Eagen drew himself up, foolishly brave. “Annalise, are you all right?”
Cassian had no more patience. His head had gone from swimming to pounding. He changed his stance, subtly this time, but no less threateningly. “Sirrah, your desire to protect yonder woman is admirable, but think you I mean to harm her? Me?”
“You . . . ah, no, sir. No.” Eagen gave Annalise an apologetic look. “Mistress, you’ll be all right?”
“Yes,” she said with another glare at Cassian. “I’m certain Master Toquin will do me no harm.”
Terran and Eagen gathered themselves and left with bowed heads. Only when they’d gone did Annalise turn on him, and then she was in his face at once. True, she had to tip hers to look at him, but with her angry eyes and frowning mouth, she showed not a lick of fear.
“You are insufferable! How dare you? Who do you think you are?” She pushed him. Actually pushed him.
Cassian reacted without thought, capturing her wrist with one hand and yanking her arm at the same time to turn her. She ended up with her back pressed to his front, his arm imprisoning her against him. His mouth found a natural place at her ear even as she struggled. When he spoke, though, she quieted at once.
“Your behavior, mistress, is unseemly.”
They were breathing in time, shoulders rising and falling. Bodies moving together. Her hair hadn’t come entirely loose from the long braid but she wasn’t wearing a headscarf, and loose tendrils, sweet-smelling and silky, tantalized his cheek. Her body, pressed against his, was warm and solid. Curving. Lush. Entirely woman.
Cassian let her go.
Annalise stumbled a step or two from him and turned. Her red-rimmed eyes would’ve given her away even had he not smelled the herb clinging to her like perfume. She licked her mouth.
“Did you come ’round the corner like a daemon unleashed so that you might . . . protect me?”
“You sounded as though you were in distress,” he said without meaning to. It pained him to admit he’d been mistaken, and so foolishly. Clearly the chit hadn’t been fending off unwelcome advances.
“Did you know it was me?” she asked, tilting her head to look at him. “Not some random woman in need of assistance, but me?”
Her eyes flashed, looking him over. She might as well have stripped him bare. Cassian turned. He walked away. From behind him, he heard the sound of feet on the grass and he stopped cold, eyes closed, world spinning around him and not solely from the alcohol. Maybe not from the ale at all.
“Cassian.”
He wanted to ask how she’d learned his name, demand of her what right she had to use it with so familiar a tongue. He said nothing, hands clenched tight at his sides, eyes still closed. He didn’t see her move closer, but he felt her.
“You thought I was in trouble, and you came to help me. Where is the shame in that?”
“It is your shame for behaving so boldly,” he said hoarsely, still without looking at her. “Cavorting with stable hands?”
“I wasn’t cavorting.”
He looked at her then. “No?”
“I . . .” she hesitated. He could see the swipe of her tongue along her lips again. “No. I was not. But if I were, why would it be of your concern? If there are rules against it, I’m unaware of them.”
He drew himself up, shoulders stiff, making himself a rock. “You are required to act as a Handmaiden, Mistress Marony, whether you’ve taken your vows or not.”
Void take her, she laughed at that. Low and sweet, the sound set the hairs on the back of his neck upright. She shook her head.
“Ah, Master Toquin. I’ve seen you practicing the Art in the mornings. How do you figure any of us learn to please a patron in the most basic man
ner if we don’t practice our own . . . art?”
He didn’t want to think of her with those men, and didn’t want to think of why the thought so set him back. He wasn’t blind. He knew the women sought their pleasure from the few men here upon the estate—he’d been approached more than once himself, after all. Roget was wrong in that Cassian never faced temptation.
“Then go back to them,” he said in a voice thick with disdain. “Finish what I interrupted.”
He walked again, putting her behind him. Her voice followed, if she did not. He didn’t want to let it slow him, but it did, so that he might fully hear what she had to say.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” Annalise called softly.
“You didn’t need rescue.”
“But you were there anyway.”
He wanted to denounce this as coincidence, of no consequence, but his mouth knew it as a lie and wouldn’t form the words. He kept his silence, then. From behind him he heard another laugh, then the soft swish of her slippers in the grass.
When he turned at last, she wasn’t there, and where she’d gone Cassian could not tell.
Chapter 10
At last, a letter came. Annalise recognized Jacquin’s hand on the envelope before she flipped it to reveal the wax pressed with his family’s seal. Her betrothed had sent her a missive and her own parents had not. She couldn’t say why this so amused and touched her, only that it did.
She found the letter slipped beneath her door upon rising in the morning, but as the chime for morning service had already sounded and she was going to be late no matter how she might run, Annalise had folded the soft paper into a double square so the thickness of it became unwieldy and slipped it into her sleeve. It scratched her arm, gouged her deep, left her distracted. What had he written? What had happened since she’d been gone?
Services had become no more bearable, the only point of light was the fact she never had to explain her reason for silence. If she could not, or would not speak for herself, the priests did it for her. Even so, she could scarcely pull out the letter and read it right there in the temple, nor at the morning meal after. Not if she wanted to read it in privacy without someone seeking to tug it away from her, either the letter itself or the contents.