Firethorn

by Sarah Micklem

  “He has looked better,” I said.

  Mai grinned. “Even so, I can see he’s cut from good cloth.”

  I swallowed the knot in my throat before saying, “He’s cut to my measure, anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t mind taking his measure myself,” said Mai.

  I answered quickly, “That would finish him for sure.”

  She laughed that rumbling laugh of hers from deep in the belly, the one she had when the jests were especially pungent. “Never fear,” she said, holding up her hands. “He has troubles enough without me.”

  I leaned close and lowered my voice to ask, “What do they say of him in the Marchfield? Do they think the sacrifices ill done?”

  She said, “He never puts a foot wrong. If he’d taken it meekly when the Crux made him a foot soldier, he’d have lost all repute. Instead, he tied the Crux’s beard to his mustache and the old man had to stand still for it—he couldn’t very well say the gods didn’t deserve such a generous propitiation.”

  “But surely every man of the Blood who envied Sire Galan before will scorn him as soon as they see him walking.”

  Mai shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he’ll start a foolish fashion and the young men will jump off their horses and go strolling after him.” She paraded two fingers down the hill of her thigh. “Of course the sober men, the careful old miserly men—Sire Torosus for one—they say the Crux was too lenient and Sire Galan too extravagant. But what of it? The whores love Sire Galan, the hotspurs love him—it seems the gods love him.”

  I’d never wager against him.”

  “To be lauded by fools is no great feat,” I said, “and no great comfort to me, either. He’ll be killed with his first step on a battlefield. As well fight naked as without a horse.”

  Mai sighed and took my hand between her own. Her fingers were warm and mine were cold. “Didn’t your mother warn you when you were on the teat to stay away from warriors?”

  I shook my head and couldn’t say a word. We sat a moment in silence and I thought of what would become of Mai if Sire Torosus should die, leaving his wife high on a hill with no reason to love her husband’s sheath and her husband’s mudchildren. I squeezed her hand and said, “Good advice often falls on deaf ears, doesn’t it?”

  I looked around the tent. Noggin was sleeping behind some sacks of grain; perhaps he thought he was hiding, but his wheezing gave him away. Sire Rodela and Rowney were out. Trave and Pinch diced near the doorway. Spiller sat nearby with the leather tack and bards of the warhorses spread all around him. He was oiling the leather and polishing the metal fittings. The caparisons would be sent back to Sire Galan’s home, as they were no use to him now.

  I chose my next words with care, for Spiller could hear us. “Mai, do you remember that—that harlot you told me about—the one with the wasting sickness? How does she fare?”

  “Well, she’s not dead yet, though I can’t imagine why not. I visited her yesterday and gave her a bit of medicine: barley water mostly, and the cleanest mountain water I could buy.”

  “Barley water should be good for what ails her,” I said. “And what of her sour old aunt? Does she still tend her with such—devotion?”

  “She’s much distracted with other affairs. The whole brothel, you might say, is in an uproar.”

  I lifted the grate on the brazier to feed the flames. We sat in a small puddle of heat. Day by day, the air by the sea grew more chill, the brazier more welcome. As I broke a branch, I hid my voice in the crack and rustle and said, as if indifferently curious, “I suppose the whore could be got cheap now. She looks worthless, but someone who could cure her could get quite a bargain.”

  Mai laughed. “Do you plan to take up pandering?”

  I rolled my eyes toward Spiller to caution her and said, “No. I just wondered what price she’d fetch these days.”

  Mai looked at me askance. “Hasn’t she cost enough already?” was all she said. I knew she took my meaning, even if my reasons puzzled her. She’d find out for me what price Ardor asked for a concubine now that she was used and had not worn well.

  On the evening of the third day, Sire Galan asked for water in a grating voice. I sat up to put my eye to the peephole. I’d been lying under a bit of awning I’d made from two old sacks. A mizzling rain, driven sideways by the wind, stung the bare skin of my face and neck. Drops clung like sand flies to the fleece of my cloak.

  Inside the tent was a haven of light and warmth. They’d put three braziers around Galan, for he had wandered from fever to chill and back again many times. Rowney jumped up with alacrity and took him a cup of water; he and Spiller had watched by turns. Divine Xyster squatted beside his patient to watch. Galan couldn’t sit up by himself, so Rowney lifted his head and put the cup to his lips. Galan gulped three or four times—I could hear the dry working of his throat—before he began to cough. Divine Xyster rolled him on his side until the fit passed, then let him lie on his back again. He pushed Rowney away and gave Galan water himself, but slowly, one sip at a time.

  When Galan had drunk his fill, Divine Xyster took his arm away and asked gruffly, “Are you with us now? I began to fear the shades would take you.”

  Galan shook his head on the pillow. “The shades would have none of me,” he said. “They turned me back.”

  Divine Xyster said, “It’s just as well. The Crux would have clipped my ears if you’d died. But it wasn’t your fatal hour. I thought you’d live—it was a clean wound for a belly wound. It will make a fine scar.”

  “Just my luck,” Galan said. He turned his head toward the wall, toward me. His eyes closed in the sleep of a man so exhausted another word was beyond his strength.

  Divine Xyster claimed he knew all along that Galan would live, but I’d seen the carnifex when he hadn’t looked so certain, when he’d gotten up in the night to touch Galan’s forehead and peer under the bandages, when he’d bidden his varlet to bathe him with cool water or Rowney to bring coals and furs and be quick about it.

  When Galan had asked for water, I’d taken my first unfettered breath in days. Fear had so beset me during my vigil that when his breath came short, so did mine, and when he shivered, so did I. My neck was crooked, my back bowed, as if I’d been trussed up in my own sinews. The thought of that maiden—Vulpeja—stayed with me while Galan lay helpless. She was helpless too, surrounded by her loving enemies, and he was to blame for it, as he was to blame for the feud that had already taken lives. Beneath the fear, there was rage. The more I tamped it down, the more it gained strength.

  How could I speak of her when he was downcast already? And I dreaded his fury. He’d brooded these last days away; surely he’d had time to contemplate how I’d failed him with my silence.

  If I didn’t speak now, I’d fail him again.

  Deep in the night I heard Galan turn on his pallet from one side to another, and on his back again, and I guessed from his breathing that he was awake and suffering. All those men sleeping in the tent—the priests and their drudges, Galan’s jacks—and yet Galan was alone. Pain is always borne alone.

  I leaned my cheek against the tent wall and sent my whisper through the canvas. “Sire, you’ll be coming home soon. On the morrow or the day after, I heard Divine Xyster say.”

  “Are you there? I thought I heard rustling outside the tent, like a mouse in the wall, these last few days. Yet it wasn’t like you to hold your tongue.”

  “Nor like you, Sire.”

  “You should have spoken.”

  “Would you have answered?”

  There was silence. I was so afraid he wouldn’t speak again that I held my breath.

  “I dreamed you were here,” he said at last. His whisper was just above a sigh.

  “That was no dream.”

  “So did you truly lie beside me in the tent, and wrap yourself around me, and give me a fever against the chill?”

  “I fear I wasn’t so bold.”

  “I also dreamed you left me,” he said.

  “I never left.�
��

  “But I seem to recall I sent you away.” His words were sharp but the voice was wry.

  Joy was rising in me. He didn’t speak of my transgression; nor would I.Maybe the fever had burned his anger to ash. So his jealousy too had sometimes passed, quickly as a summer storm raking across the mountains.

  Now that I was sure of his answer, I dared to ask, “Do you mean to banish me again?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Just as well. I wouldn’t have gone.”

  “Stubborn,” he said. I heard fondness in it. “That’s a flaw in a woman.”

  “You have the same fault,” I said.

  “It’s no fault in a man.”

  One of the priests stirred on his feather bed and I waited until he was quiet. “I say it is. You were so set upon the sacrifice of your horses, you got up from your sickbed beforetimes and it nearly killed you.”

  “Ah, but I’m too stubborn to die.”

  My lips near the canvas, I murmured, “Then I’m glad of it. If the shades won’t have you because you’re mule headed, I suppose it’s some use after all.”

  I heard a muffled laugh that stopped short with a gasp. “Less chaff, please,” Galan said. “I haven’t the stomach for it tonight.”

  Our whispers made free of the dark, went where we ourselves couldn’t go, as if lips brushed against an ear, as if sound were touch. And if we talked nonsense, what of it? It eased me to spar with him. Yet we crossed wits near a precipice; one misstep and we might fall.

  I put my eye to the slit. The lamps were out, but his face was clear before me. His cheek and jaw were shadowed by beard; the rest was white as bone. He turned on his side, toward me, and cradled his head on his arm. To turn made him wince, but he smiled when he said, “I have a chill. Come and warm me.—

  I did imagine creeping in to lie beside him on the pallet, and the thought burned. But I said, “Divine Xyster doesn’t sleep as soundly as you suppose. You have only to stir and he’ll come running.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  “I will not.”

  There was no smile on his face now. He labored to sit. The covers slid down, leaving his torso bare save for the bandage crisscrossing his midriff. He bowed his head and his hair fell over his face; his breath came harsh and quick. He began to hitch himself across the floor toward me. Only days ago he’d have covered the ground between us in one stride.

  “What are you doing?”

  “If you won’t come to me, I must come to you,” he said.

  “Then you’re reckless, and a fool besides.”

  “Fool, is it?”

  “What would you call a man who throws everything away on a whim and a wager? Even his life—for you’ll lose that too if you’re not careful.” I was reckless myself. I hadn’t meant to speak so bluntly, but my anger was hasty, and wouldn’t tarry for wisdom.

  He reached out his hand and touched the wall between us. “Hush,” he said. “I’ve had time and enough these last days to reckon how much of a fool I am, and of what sort. I don’t need you to tell me. But tell me this: have I lost everything? I dreamed I lost you too. Is it true?”

  I said, “I know why you want me, why you keep me. It’s for luck, only for luck. You’ve said so yourself. Now your luck has turned, what use am I?”

  “What use?” he asked. “What use is breath?”

  I answered, “None, to a dead man. So lie you down and rest.” But the words lingered between us and now I heard them better: What use is breath? I’d sought this when I bound him, that I should be as necessary to him as air, water, and bread. Yet I had reason to mistrust his words.

  He wouldn’t lie down. I had the advantage, for I could see him where he saw only darkness. I searched for omens in the furrows of his brow and the corners of his mouth. I should be able to interpret him well; I’d studied his signs, since we’d met, as carefully as any priest studied auguries. I’d taken his long silence as a token of sorrow and of rage that he’d been cast down. Nor did I forget his anger at me. Had I misread him? There was both sorrow and rage, I was sure of it; but if he was contrite, it meant he’d turned his fury most of all upon himself.

  I traced the line of his profile from brow to nose to lips, and there I tarried. I could barely hear him. “You’ll leave me now, sure as Chance has abandoned me.”

  He turned away, and by the hunch of his shoulders, the angle of his nape, the curve of his back, this much was plain: he grieved, and yet refused to weep. What could I say to ease him? I had nothing as precious to offer as what he’d lost—Chance’s favor, horses, the regard of his fellows. I’d already given what little I had, and as far as I could tell, sweet words aside, he didn’t value that little so highly.

  In a while he turned toward me. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth was grim. “You’ll leave me, sooner or later. Well—you may try—but you’ll find you don’t have my leave to go.”

  “It was a dream,” I said.

  “It was a true dream.”

  “It was false. Why say this? I’ve been steadfast. You are the one who dallied elsewhere.” Vehement words, constrained by a whisper.

  “And perhaps I will again. That means nothing.” He was jealous of the breeze touching my skin; a sheath hadn’t the same prerogative.

  “You paid dear for that nothing.”

  “And if I lose you too, I will have paid too much.”

  “Fine words. If you mean them.”

  “Do you willfully mistake my meaning? I have been plain as I can be. I’ve tried to please you, haven’t I? I thought you were content.”

  “With a headcloth, a length of wool, and a pair of slippers.”

  “If it’s gifts you want—if that’s all you want—you shall have them. What rare and precious thing do you lack? I’ll get it for you. You forget my uncle left me something when he took my pride. He left me my money.”

  I pressed my cheek against the tent. My face was wet. A torrent of words had carried us this far, farther than I’d meant to go. Yet not far enough—I should speak of that maiden now, and how she too had paid for what they’d done. But I was afraid to speak of it. And I was selfish; never had bitter words sounded so sweet.

  Galan said, “I gave you something I thought you wanted more. You’re a hawk by nature; very well, I let you slip your jesses and hunt about the Marchfield with your fat friend amongst the dames and the whores, and make a few coins. Maybe I misjudged. I see I got no thanks for it.”

  “So you had me watched.” I thought of Noggin, simple Noggin, always at heel like my own shadow. I should have guessed he was carrying tales.

  “If you keep one secret from me, you may keep many. I may be a fool, but I’m not foolish enough to take a woman’s word for how she spends her time,” he said harshly.

  “Then judge me by my deeds, not my word—as I judge you by yours. What cause do you have for mistrust? Why accuse me, say I will leave? Is it because you want me to go? I’m just a sheath, and when the war is over, you’ll put away your sword and cast me off. If that time has already come, tell me quick and have done with it.” I looked away from the peephole, from his face and his blind staring eyes.

  “Enough,” Galan said. “Is this your revenge for a few nights away from your bed? You’d mock me to death.”

  “I’m not mocking you,” I whispered.

  “Maybe I deserve it of you. I’ve laid waste to all I’ve touched, even this, even what I hold most dear.”

  “Now you mock me.”

  “No, never.”

  There was a long, long silence. In that silence much noise that I hadn’t heard before: the wind, the spatter of rain on the tents, dogs barking, a man snoring. I’d been so intent on Galan, I’d nearly forgotten the priests and their drudges asleep in the tent. I’d followed his voice deep into the quiet between us, where we could speak no louder than a breath and be heard, and no other would hear us.

  When he spoke again I felt he had picked his words with great care before he let them go. “When I fi
rst saw you, you caught my fancy; maybe for the color of your hair. I thought a tumble or two would suffice. But the more I had, the more I wanted. On the third night, when I asked you to come with me, I asked myself why I should be so content to lie beside you while you slept. And yet—you agreed too readily and that made me wonder, and I was not the first and that made me jealous—and so I was discontent. On the fourth night I thought: what appetite grows the more it is fed, and finds no surfeit? I asked the same on the fifth night and the sixth and every night thereafter. I thought that the little maiden might cure my craving; I wagered on it, you might say. But all she cured was my doubt.” He paused. In a voice less than a whisper, he said, “If you truly don’t know this—if you don’t know I’m starving now for the sight of you—I fear it’s not mockery but something worse: indifference. It means you don’t feel the same want.”

  If a woman can be unmanned, I was. Unmanned and disarmed. I leaned on the tent and put my palms against the canvas and my eye to the slit and saw him sitting still and tense with his head cocked, as if he listened for something—for me.

  “Galan,” I said, and went no further. I had never called him Galan without “Sire” before it. I started again. “You sent me away, but here I sit. Why else would I be here?”

  He smiled faintly. He said, “To torment me, I suppose,” but he breathed freer.

  “Because we are bound, you and I,” I said truthfully. If I could believe him, he was tied to me even before I buried the womandrake. Now we must be twice bound—but this I forbore to say. “It’s a tight knot. Only a blade can undo it.”

  I pressed against the wall between us. Under one finger I felt a seam that held together two lengths of the canvas, running up and down the wall. Wax was thick over the seam to keep out rain, but the stitches were coarse and long.

  “Galan, do the priests still sleep?”

  “So it seems. Like bears in winter.”

  I put my knife to the heavy thread of the seam, cut it through, and with knife and fingertips began to unpick the stitching. I cursed under my breath that I had not thought of this before, how I might unseam a bit of the wall and sew it up again before daybreak, and none the wiser.