Firethorn

by Sarah Micklem

  Galan laughed a short, breathless laugh. I heard him drag himself closer. “And you call me a fool,” he said.

  CHAPTER 8

  Honor

  ivine Xyster was true to his word, sending Sire Galan home to his tent on the morrow. Those who’d wagered on Sire Galan dying paid up and made new wagers on whether he’d go home or go to war. A few fools bet that the Crux would relent and let him ride. A race was on between Sire Galan’s mending and the war beginning.

  The king’s men had finished cutting their road to the sea, leaving a wide white scar behind them, paved with chalky rubble. The sledgehammers were silent. But down by the boatworks, the thump of caulkers pounding tow between the cracks with heavy mallets echoed off the cliffs; the armories in the market sent up a thudding, ringing, clanging, tapping, rasping, hissing din from the various hammers, large and small, and from the files, chisels, bellows, and hot metal doused in cold water. All that would go on until we departed, and after; such work was never finished.

  Why, then, did the king dally in the Marchfield with winter coming on? At night our breath clouded the air and some mornings there was a rime of frost on the gorse bushes. It was not the cold alone that people feared, but the damp that came with it; those two companions roamed the encampment, spreading ague and other ills, making mischief. From our own tents a two-day fever called the burning carried off Sire Limen and left the Crux with the unlucky number of sixteen cataphracts; it also took Sire Erial’s jack, Ware, and five foot soldiers. One of them was Dag, from my village. The carnifex bled the sick in the tents and dosed them with some kind of fever-soothe, and left the foot soldiers to fend as best they could. They said Divine Xyster could tell a man was likely to die by the color of his blood, for it would be nearer black than red. Most who got the burning recovered from it as swiftly as it had come, whether Divine Xyster bled them or not. As for the others, the soldiers shrugged and said Chance wanted their bones for dice.

  But restlessness too was catching. “Sow out of time and reap a poor harvest,” the drudges said, meaning war had its seasons and winter was not one of them. The longer King Thyrse waited, the more we’d suffer for it, food and fodder and shelter all harder to come by. The rumormongers claimed he had a reason for delay, but no two agreed on what it might be, or when we might leave. The Crux, who spent hours closeted with the king, said nothing, and time proved rumors to be lies.

  Once I asked Mai why the king tarried. She shrugged and told me I must learn to love the waiting. She said it was a soldier’s lot to wait and wait and never know why, and the rest was dust and mud and a hard slog followed by a sudden sharp poke in the eye, and if a man lived through that, there’d be more of the same. Much like a sheath’s life, she said, only we mind so much when we got poked.

  Sire Galan was determined to mend fast. He aimed to go to war even if he had to walk. He promised to obey Divine Xyster, to sleep when he was bidden and to lie abed until he was bidden to rise, to eat and drink as he was bidden and in everything be more biddable than I’d ever found him.

  I hoped he might be as obliging to me, for I must try him on the matter of Maid Vulpeja; already I’d waited too long. At times I’d doubted she was poisoned, but then I’d think how a slow poison was better disguised. Nearly a tennight ago Mai had said the maid had no more than a few days to live, and yet she lingered. But I had no doubt she’d die soon if she didn ’t leave her clan’s tent for better care. That was a race too, though no one wagered on it.

  That first night Galan was back in his own bed, I pinched the wick of the last burning lamp between my fingers and bent over him.

  “I’ll lie on the floor,” I whispered, “for your comfort.”

  “I think not,” he said.

  We were alone in the tent save for Noggin, asleep on his pallet by the grain sacks. The rain had moved on, east toward the mountains, and fog had come in its stead, settling on the camp near evening. The Blood had taken their supper outside and now most of them sat up late around the common hearth, a ring of blackened stones. Sire Guasca’s jack brought out his pipes and another man a pair of gourd drums, and they played melancholy tunes at first and then the raucous songs that follow too much wine. The fire waxed and waned as it was fed a bit of driftwood, damp gorse, or one of the bundled sheaves of salt hay that could be gotten cheap; the firelight hollowed out a vault within the white fog.

  I untied my headcloth and shucked off my dress and crawled in beside Galan. I was afraid I’d hurt him. The cot had never seemed so narrow. No room to lie unless we clasped tight, or one turned when the other did. Galan didn’t smell sweet; he had the sour taint of fever sweat still on him.

  I hadn’t tied the door flap and it snapped in the wind. A draft of cold air found its way inside, fraying the ribbon of smoke rising from consolation flowers on the brazier. A faint red glow breathed from the coals. I would have gotten up to fix the door, but I was grateful for air that carried the smell of the sea.

  Galan and I lay face-to-face. His skin burned against me except where the bandage covered him. I put my arm under his neck and he tucked his head between my shoulder and cheek; he sighed and I sighed. Then he began to shake, and after a moment I realized he was laughing silently. “Oh,” he said, “I’ll never forget it, how you opened a door in the tent last night where none should be. You’re a clever seamstress.”

  “Maybe. But don’t boast about it or the Crux will throw me to the dogs. He promised to do it once if I got underfoot, and he’s a man of his word.”

  “Ah, yes. My amiable uncle …,” he said, and there was a freight of bitter pride in those few words. He claimed the Crux had taken his pride when he’d disgraced him, but it was there regardless—and no small part of it was pride in his Blood, his house, his uncle, and his uncle’s favor. But Galan had spent that favor lavishly, spent it until it was gone. There’d be no leniency from the Crux, no kindness beyond the one mercy he’d already been offered.

  Thinking of this, I moved my head so I could look him in the eye, and said urgently, “Galan, you must take your time mending. Or feign sickness, if need be. No one will blame you if you’re not well enough to go to war. Accept your uncle’s charity and go home. Why should you cast your life away? You won’t please the Crux-he’s past pleasing.”

  He laughed. “You’ve not met my father. It’s no safer at home.”

  I was vexed that my fear amused him; I’d not show it again. I mocked him, saying, “So your father frightens you?”

  “More than any army,” he said, and took a kiss before I expected it.

  And soon he had one leg between my legs and a hand traveling down my back, and his mouth was on my neck and the question I’d thought of asking was flown. And then I had my leg on his waist and the blanket slipped down, and then his teeth on my lower lip and his arm under my knee and yet some sense enough left to both of us to know he couldn’t take my weight on him nor should he lie on me, so we stayed side by side and it was awkward until we found our fit. Then I opened my eyes and found Galan watching me with a narrow smile. He moved a little and no more, gave a little and no more, my hips a cradle for this rocking. My breath caught at the intolerable sweet torment and I closed my eyes against his smile. Then he grasped my shoulders and his hands tangled in my hair and he pulled me down hard.

  Afterward he lay sighing against my neck and there was honey in my veins. My limbs felt full and heavy and warm even as cold air licked sweat from my skin. He asked if I was content and I was sorry he’d spoken, for I was content, and wished I could remain so, side by side with him through a peaceful night. I waited too long to answer, making excuses to myself that Maid Vulpeja would keep till the morrow, and if perchance she didn’t outlive the night, the gods could hardly fault me for it. Knowing all the while that my courage was failing and all the speeches and words I’d mustered against this moment had run off like so many deserters. He pressed me and still I hesitated and he pressed me harder, thinking I kept a secret from him. By then I had so vexed him w
ith my silence I might as well speak up, and I told him I’d be content if he would pay Maid Vulpeja’s price and bring her to his tent as his concubine and save her life. He surprised me by laughing long and hard.

  “I’m in earnest. Why do you laugh?” I said.

  “Save her life? Do you suppose she dies of lovesickness, and I’m the cure?”

  “She lies closer to death right now than you lay these last nights. I’ve heard that her kin have poisoned her, and all because she let a certain pickpocket at her maidenhead, a light-fingered, ungrateful thief. A fickle thief. You’ve forgotten all about her—haven’t you?—though she dies for you.”

  He said, “Her father showed her about like a whore. He shouldn’t have been surprised she turned out to be one.”

  I’d stifl ed my fury a long time. Now, as it rose, my voice rose with it. I said that if she was a whore, he’d made her one, and now she was dying for it, as her father and Sire Alcoba’s armiger and Semental too had died for it, and for his honor he should do something to make amends.

  There was a long wait before Galan spoke, and when he did his voice was low, and where my words had rushed, his had a deliberate pace. “My honor is not in your keeping,” he said, and he turned on his back and stared at the ceiling of the tent.

  “How good is your honor—to a woman? I wonder what you said to Maid Vulpeja in the privy tent, what promises, what swearing up and down, what oaths on your faith and by your word?” I had one arm over his chest and I felt his breathing change and his muscles stiffen. I moved my arm away. Suddenly I felt it was dangerous to touch him, though we lay so close.

  He turned a look on me that held my voice in my throat. When he spoke his mouth twisted, as if the words tasted sour. “Do you think I have to forswear myself to get a maid to lift her skirts? I said no more than I needed to say, which was that she was fair and I wanted her. Which was not a lie. And since she is the seventh of seven daughters and without a dowry—and within reach of any old man with a purse of gold who thinks a virgin’s blood and a tight sheath will polish up his rusty prick—do you wonder she didn’t require much persuasion? She gave her maidenhead away for a good jouncing, and what she gave, she gave freely.”

  He made me see it again, he meant me to see it as I had pictured it too many times unbidden since he’d won his wager: Maid Vulpeja astride his lap in the privy tent, skirts rucked about her waist, his hands gripping her hips, his voice in her ear.

  I said through my teeth, “You are a notable prickmaster, I’m sure. And I’m sure you’ve gotten in and out of many beds and many scrapes before and never felt it touched on your honor, though you dishonored those you touched. But this is different, isn’t it? Her maidenhead, which you claim you got for free, cost you your health, your horses, and will probably cost you your life before long. The rest of her will come cheap—because she was fair. She’s not fair any longer. Now her face, which pleased you so much, looks very like a skull. Three chests of linens and fifteen good milk cows toward a sister’s dowry and she’s yours. Or anyone’s.”

  “Let anyone have her then. I owe her nothing.”

  “But you dishonored her. And try as you might to gainsay it, you are dishonored too.”

  He rolled toward me and his hand was over my mouth, pressing hard, and his face was so close I felt his breath on my cheek. It was then I recalled how he’d let Sire Rodela say too much before he burned off his hair. So he had let me condemn myself, word by word. But it was too late to unsay any of it.

  In a hoarse voice he said, “I would kill a man for saying less than you’ve said tonight. And you—a mudwoman—presume to teach me what the honor of my Blood requires. It’s true what they say: ‘Smite a drudge and he will favor you, favor a drudge and he will spite you.’ I should have beaten you long ago. Maybe then you wouldn’t despise me.”

  He took his hand away and I drew breath to say I didn’t despise him, I never despised him. He put his hand over my mouth again and whispered, “Be still! I’d get no joy of thrashing you, but I’ll do it if you try me further.” And with that he pushed himself away and lay with his back toward me.

  I wondered at his forbearance, why he hadn’t struck me for the things I’d said. How could I have spoken of his honor when I knew he was so jealous of it? I’d blundered my way into this quarrel with unguarded words and lost my chance to win it. There was no shelter in his bed, so I got up and pulled on my dress; I put the blanket over Galan and he shrugged it off. Then I sat on the ground next to the cot and bowed my head.

  It was beyond my ken how if a man looked at Galan sideways he’d have his hand on his hilt, ready to draw for honor’s sake, and yet he had come from the privy tent with his honor intact while Maid Vulpeja’s was as broken as her hymen. The Blood claim mudfolk have no honor worth the name, and it’s true we prize fertility over virginity and lay no blame on bastards for being fatherless. And we steal from our masters and cheat our masters and shirk our duties, so the Blood say, and it’s not all a lie. Why shouldn’t we, for the Blood tax the bread right out of our mouths? But we shun a man who steals his neighbor’s sheep or his neighbor’s wife. And when one man promises to pay another a weight of grain when his crop comes in and they spit in the dust to seal it, sure enough the one will pay the other. If there are a few stones mixed into the wheat, why, the second man should have sifted.

  I knew something of honor, though I had none to call my own. In the Dame’s household, honor had to do with a certain fastidious honesty and touchy pride. No man could ever find fault with her good name or good husbandry, despite that she lacked a husband.

  I’d thought that was a woman’s honor until I’d come to the Marchfield and met Mai. She had many patrons among the dames of the Blood who wore their good repute like gilding; a scratch would uncover any manner of wantonness. Maid Vulpeja would be untarnished still if only she’d kept her secret from the wrong ears.

  Men also had honor of various qualities. Galan was not one to value his lightly. It came to me too late how I’d insulted him when I accused him of making false promises to part the maid from her maidenhead. It cut him deep that I rated his word so shallow. He might have forgiven the rest. I thought bitterly that he was more scrupulous of the wager than the woman.

  I wiped my eyes and nose on the blanket. Galan lay awake; I knew it from his breathing. Sire Rodela’s stuttering laugh came from Sire Alcoba’s tent, and Spiller joined in at a higher pitch. Sire Rodela laughing meant trouble for somebody. He’d left his mail shirt in our tent, but I took no comfort in that, for I’d seen him earlier and he was wearing a borrowed jack with metal rings laced to leather, so he could move quietly. They’d go hunting tonight, for they’d set a price on Sire Buey’s life and wouldn’t be satisfied until one of Ardor’s Blood had paid it.

  I kept thinking about what I could say now that I’d said too much. I tried one phrase and another and found them all wanting. All wanting. My thoughts scurried and made reckonings and bred doubts and meanwhile my body suffered. The cage of my ribs closed tight and I could hardly breathe. My throat was scraped raw.

  The gods had meddled, that was the difficulty. Otherwise I’d not be carrying the burden of Maid Vulpeja’s life. But soon I began to wonder if I had read the gods’ signs right, and before long I was in doubt that Ardor and Hazard had shown me any signs at all. Perhaps I’d made much of a few scraps: firethorn berries and two finger bones, a daydream that came untimely in the night—and my pride, my temper, my unruly tongue.

  I doubted Galan most of all. He’d told me plainly what would happen if I tried to talk to him. If Galan and I came to blows in hot anger, it would not matter so much, but a cold beating—a methodical beating—and after it, more of this cold silence—that would be hard to endure. The silence hardest of all. It gave me a chill to think how I’d bound us together. Suppose the binding held, though he despised me now and never troubled to speak to me again?

  I shouldn’t have risked so much as one of his frowns for the maiden, for she’d
done me nothing but harm. As for the harm she suffered, she’d chosen it. Let her die quick and trouble me no more.

  Still sitting on the floor, I turned toward Galan and watched his back. His curls were dark against the nape of his neck. The neat bandage that wrapped him from ribs to hips was disarranged and twisted. We’d done that in our recklessness. Last night, tonight even, I had been inside his keep; now I was outside. His back was obdurate, a wall of flesh and bone. I would make myself small enough to crawl through any chink in the mortar—if I could find one—and chance a beating if need be, for I would not be walled out.

  “Sire, give me leave to speak,” I said.

  He didn’t stir, though his breathing changed pace. He didn’t forbid me. I took my leave from that. I spoke low and asked his forgiveness. I hadn’t meant to say he was dishonored or forsworn, never that; my ignorance was to blame for choosing my words so poorly. He was right, I knew nothing of honor and should have held my peace. It was just my unbridled tongue—a fault of mine—I often had cause to regret it, but never more than now.

  All this I said to his back, and meant it too, much of it, but even to my own ear, my voice sounded false, no matter how earnestly I spoke. False and craven. The voice of a drudge to a master, for so he’d named me and so I was. Last night he’d sung a different tune. But wasn’t it the same song with which he had tickled Vulpeja’s ears? You are fair and I want you. I’d heard more because I wished to. I clenched my fists on my knees and rested my forehead on them and fell quiet. He’d let me talk without raising a hand to stop me, but I took no comfort in it; I had buzzed in his ear like some fly he couldn’t be bothered to swat. He didn’t even look at me. Speech was fruitless. I would wait him out.

  In the end, though I waited half the night, sitting by the cot and lying by it and sitting again, I couldn’t outwait him. His stubbornness outweighed mine. I had tried placating him and failed. He wouldn’t let me back out of this quarrel; there was no way through but forward. I couldn’t rid myself of Maid Vulpeja after all, because whether the gods toyed with us or not, as long as there was a feud every man and jack of Ardor would seek Galan as a trophy. It was fear that drove me, not courage, when I lit the wick of the oil lamp and brought it around the cot and knelt where I could see him face-to-face, within his reach. He glared and I faltered.