Moth and Spark

by Anne Leonard

  It had not even occurred to her that such might happen. “Isn’t that the whole point of having guards?” she asked. “To keep out the fools?”

  “Most of it,” he said, looking into his glass. His hair had just a bit of curling unkemptness to it.

  There was a heaviness in him that would pull them both down if she tried to pretend it was not there. Hesitantly, she laid two of her fingers across his hand, clenched on the stem of the wineglass. “You must be free sometimes,” she said tentatively. She did not want to talk about any of that yet, it was too serious.

  “Not with—” He broke off, sighed. He put his hand over hers. He said, “I need to ask you this. I’m sorry. Yesterday, the book you dropped, it was about Sarium. Why did you have it?”

  It was not at all the sort of question she had anticipated. He had meant it when he asked in the library, then. He had been staring at her in such a way that she had not thought it mattered. Something must be happening, or he would not be asking.

  I know what killed Lord Cade. She couldn’t say that, not yet. If there was some present danger from the Sarians, she would learn when it was time for her to know. The shadows in the room looked like clumps of moths. Glistening moving blood. No.

  Carefully, glad of a story to tell, she said, “My father was there, years ago. Before he married my mother, and again eight years past.”

  Corin interrupted. “Twice?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s heroic.”

  “He doesn’t think so,” she said truly. His eyes had changed, to a clear green. She went on. “Just determined. He has told me things about it. When we first heard about Tyrekh. He said to me once that we should not call the Sarians barbarians. They’re cruel, but clever, and they know many things we don’t.”

  “A wise man, your father,” he said, surprising her. “Go on.” It was an encourager, not a command.

  She tried to frame her next words unalarmingly. Telling him the whole truth of it was too complicated. “Some of the things my father told me were horrible, and I wished he hadn’t told me. But once I had heard them, I couldn’t forget them. There are many, many ways of being cruel.”

  “It’s parasitic,” he said. “The more you give it, the more it wants.”

  Tam looked at him. He was speaking out of experience. He was not all soft silk and fine wine, then. He must have seen or heard of wretched things. The courtiers were a flock of bright silly birds, and he was not part of them at all. He worked. It would have been very nice to kiss him, but she was not bold enough for that.

  She said quickly, “So when I saw the book—I was bored, I was browsing—I had to read it, to know more.”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s a fine library,” she said, and could have kicked herself. That was worse than idiotic, it was presumptuous.

  “It ought to be.” She thought there was humor lurking in him. He shook his head as though he were shaking off water. “I don’t need to put this on you, and I will do my best to put it off myself tonight. Let’s start over. More wine?”

  “Perhaps I will have some more,” she said, sliding her glass to him. He refilled it and slid it back. She drank, then said his name, feeling the way her mouth shaped it. She had not really expected him to let her use it.

  “What?” he responded.

  “Nothing. I’m just trying it.”

  “Tam,” he said, lengthening it slowly as she had done his. “It’s an unusual name.”

  She had wondered how long it would take for that to come up. It always did. People usually tagged something onto that phrase—“for an unusual girl” or “It’s pretty though” were the most common. She waited for him to say one of them.

  He didn’t.

  “I think you are the first person I have met who didn’t ask to hear the story of my name immediately,” she said.

  He moved his chair around the table until he was right beside her. Gently but with no tentativeness he lifted her hand and turned it over so its back lay in the palm of his own. “I want,” he said, and kissed her fingertips, “to know every single thing about you. Including your name.”

  “Corin . . .” she said, hearing uncertainty she did not welcome in her voice.

  He looked at her with a very serious face. “I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to,” he said. He let her hand drop. “I didn’t think we misunderstood each other, though.”

  “No,” she said, “we haven’t.” She reached back down and locked her fingers with his. Just that simple touch roused her body more than any man ever had. She was in a fair way of needing to restrain herself. “But allow me a little bashfulness.”

  It would have been easy for him to make an ironic remark—after all, she had hardly been bashful in the library—but he said, “Then come sit beside me on the sofa, which is much more comfortable than these chairs, and we’ll talk. Nothing more until you want it, Tam, I promise.” He stood up and pulled gently at her.

  She drained her wineglass in two quick swallows, then followed him across the room. They sat, and she settled herself so that she could see his face. That seemed safe enough. It was a very nice face.

  Feeling shy again, she said, “I have no idea what to tell you. It would be much easier to tell you what I’m not.”

  “Negatives can reveal quite a bit,” he said. “Go ahead.” It was hard to tell if he was serious.

  Tam took a deep breath and spoke, rapidly, almost nervously. He must know her background, she did not have to say anything about that. “I am not a poetess. Patient. Either brokenhearted or engaged. A good archer or rider. A spendthrift. A faithful correspondent. Uneducated. An older sister. Kind or a drunkard.” She stopped. “Is that enough?”

  “And which of those is a failing?” He refilled her glass. “I must say I am glad about the heartbreak and engagement.” His face had a look on it she knew quite well from herself, politeness covering amusement. Well, if he laughed at her he laughed at her. She could always go home.

  “Lack of kindness, I suppose,” she said. “I am not a nice person.”

  He grinned, a splendid and amazing smile that made her want to do nothing but look at him. “Of course you’re not. Most of us aren’t. You try, though, don’t you?”

  “Yes. But sometimes it just slips out, like it did with you yesterday. I mock people.”

  “You were completely right,” he said, sober again. “I deserved it. I’ll wager you would not have said that to someone who was vulnerable, or who could not have known better. It’s not unkindness to scorn pride.”

  “And you still like me?”

  “Anyone who can’t have his pride punctured once in a while is headed for disaster.” He sounded like he meant it.

  She said thoughtlessly, “You ought to teach that to some of the servants.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. I shouldn’t have said it.”

  “If someone has been disrespectful to you, I want to know.”

  “It’s nothing, Corin, really.” He was clearly not going to let it go, though, so she told him about the page boy. “I’m sure he thought he was protecting you.”

  “Thirteen-year-old boys don’t get to make decisions about who sees me. I do.” He leaned over and kissed her quickly on the lips, drawing back before she even had a chance to respond. She shivered. Light as it had been, she could still feel it. She wanted him to do it again. “He was out of place, and I’ll make sure he knows it.”

  It put her on the edge of a power she had not expected. “No,” she said hastily. “It’s not necessary.”

  “It’s not the first time he’s been complained of; he suffers from believing himself more important than he is. He knows better, or should.” He kissed the back of her hand. “And an insult to you is an insult to me.”

  “But.” If he took the effort about her that
meant it was public. It was foolish to have hoped it wouldn’t be, even for a little while.

  “I can be subtle about it, Tam.”

  “I don’t want to acquire a reputation as a shrew,” she said.

  “Of course not. Don’t worry.” He touched her hair.

  They were silent for a while. It was surprisingly comfortable. She was tempted to slide closer to him. She said, “It’s Liddean.”

  “What is?”

  “My name. It’s for one of my father’s teachers.”

  “I think I want to meet your father,” he said.

  “No,” she said at once. Then she realized he had said it solely to see her reaction. So he had an imp himself. Time to unleash hers a bit more. She said, “It’s your turn. Tell me something about yourself. Something I don’t already know.”

  “Oh God, do I have to? Anything you don’t already know is going to be embarrassing. Let’s see. My sister Tai came to visit me once at university, and of course no one thought a fifteen-year-old princess should go any of the places she wanted to go, so we dressed her as a boy and she came with me to the tavern. I wanted to make her a scholar, but she’s too short, so she had to be Lord Somebody’s son. Efric’s, I think. We made him up.”

  “Did you get away with it?”

  “That’s not the response a perfect gentlewoman is supposed to make,” he said, grinning. “Thank you for not scolding me.”

  “I never claimed to be one. Did it work?”

  “Mostly. It was autumn, so she wore a cloak and hat and heeled boots and passed for a boy with no problems. But she didn’t sound like one, so she had to keep silent, which she didn’t much like. And she became bored rather quickly with male conversation. She told me it was all either pompous philosophizing or vulgar gutter-talk about women.”

  “I’m sure it was,” said Tam, thinking that she wanted to meet Tai. “I’d like to do that and see what I hear.”

  Corin unabashedly looked her up and down and said, “It would be rather difficult for you to pass as a boy.”

  She blushed.

  “I have to be up at dawn,” Corin said at last. “We need to go.”

  They were sitting beside each other on the floor with their backs against the sofa. She would not have expected it of either of them. The wine was gone, but Tam felt extraordinarily sharp and clear, not drunk. He had not kissed her again. He kept looking at her, however, in a way that indicated he had no less interest than when the evening started, and he had not been shy about touching her hand or arm. The hours had passed very swiftly; there had been no shortage of things to tell or question or explore. She could have gone on all night. She liked him, which she had not anticipated. He was not at all the way she had imagined he would be.

  “There’s one thing I want to show you here before we leave,” he said, going to the balcony. She followed him.

  The last of the rain was gone, with a starry sky, vast and clear, and a stiff wind in its place. The moon was at the half and low in the west. Darkness stretched out below to either side and ahead in a broad expanse. In the distance there were little spots of light. As her eyes adjusted, she began to make out shapes, trees and shrubs and flower beds. The paths were lighter graceful lines, the ponds perfectly smooth blackness. Here and there something reflecting the moonlight glittered silver. Thin branches were whipping back and forth.

  “It is more beautiful in the daytime, but not so bad in the dark, I think.”

  “It’s tremendous,” Tam replied. “All that black. But it isn’t really black, if you look you can see lighter parts, shades of grey. Silver. Do you suppose there’s anyone out there?”

  “Unlikely. The ground is still far too wet for midnight trysts.”

  “How long will it be that way?” she asked, thinking she would like to take a walk the next day. Then she realized how the question probably sounded. “For walks, I mean.”

  He laughed. “The gardeners will put fresh gravel on the paths in the bad patches,” he said. “If it’s sunny there will be a crowd out there tomorrow. You should go wherever you wish.”

  “Nothing’s off limits?”

  “Nothing except the actual flower beds. I’ve nearly been strung up myself for walking across one. A trowel is a formidable weapon, and the gardeners don’t give a damn who they’re using it on.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Not even my father’s dog is safe.”

  “I’ll be good,” she said. A particularly strong gust of wind blew hard against the skirt of her dress. It was cold, and she shivered.

  “Here,” he said, and moved behind her. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her back to him. His hands were folded across her stomach. She felt warm and enclosed. She shifted to be more sideways and tilted her head to look at him. Very slowly and deliberately he lowered his lips to hers.

  Tam had been kissed before, if infrequently, and she thought she knew what to expect. But this was entirely different, not the nervous chaste press of lips together or the urgent wet fumbling that had been its predecessors. She thought, Experience is worth a great deal after all. Then she stopped thinking and just felt. Her whole body was responding to the sensation of her upper lip between his two, the brush of his tongue against her teeth. She pressed closer against him, brought her hands around his back. It was the most intimate thing she had ever done.

  He took his time about it but finally stopped. “My God,” he said. “I’m not sure that can be repeated.” One of his fingers played absently with a loose strand of her hair. She felt hot.

  “We can always try,” she said.

  “Yes, we can.” He took her hand and led her back inside.

  They looked at each other. Tam was surprised to feel no embarrassment. He was so beautiful. She wanted to feel his skin against hers, to take his shirt and slowly slide the buttons back through the holes, to place her lips on his round strong shoulder. It was his right hand that held hers, and she lifted it, kissed the palm very lightly, then brought the back of his hand to her cheek. For the first time in her life she could imagine lying with a man.

  “I think,” he said, “that was enough for this time.” His eyes seemed darker, and the light fell in warm gold across his cheek.

  It had not occurred to her that he would hold back. Words slipped out. “Are you sure?” She both wanted and did not want to sound full of desire. He could have done anything and she would not object.

  “Tempt me not, fair lady,” he replied. “I would rather leave you with disappointment than with regret.”

  She understood it, and at any other time would have thought that exactly what a man should do. This was different. Suddenly she had to know how he felt, be sure it did not mean he found her lacking. “But—Corin?”

  “What, my lovely Tam?”

  “There will be other times?”

  “There will most assuredly be other times,” he said, no hesitation or doubt in his voice. Then he sighed. “But I must warn you not to take absence as estrangement. Don’t depend on me to entertain you. I want to be with you, but it may not be very often. I have more to do than preen my feathers.” He kissed her hair.

  “I know,” she said. She decided to leave it there. They had successfully circumvented power and obligation all evening, now was not the time to bring it up.

  “You had better go to your bed so I can go to mine. Do I dare take you, or should I send an escort? You shouldn’t go by yourself, not this late.”

  “I suppose an escort,” she said. She had already been seen in his company on the stairs, but those men were not likely to know her. If Corin appeared anywhere near her room, the other women would all sense him immediately with their unerring instinct for a nearby male.

  He nodded. “Bron can do it. Where did they put you?”

  “On the fourth floor, in the Osstig wing.”

  “I can’t imagine
it suits you,” he said, almost grimly.

  An unexpected statement from him. “It doesn’t. It’s awful. I don’t mean that I can’t bear it, but the girls there, they are so silly and grasping and spiteful, all at the same time. They pretend to be nice to each other and then make plans behind each other’s back. All they want is rich husbands, and the higher the rank the better. Most of them, I should be fair, they aren’t all that bad.”

  “That is the whole point of having court,” he said. “Forgive me, I should not have said that. But yes, I know the lot. Should I get you moved?”

  He said it so casually, as though he could just snap his fingers and it would happen. Probably that really was the case. “Well, I certainly don’t want you to show up there, they’d be all over you. But they knew I was seeing someone, they’ll be waiting like vultures to pick me over. If I leave they will assume it’s into his rooms.”

  “That could be arranged too,” he said, grinning. “Oh, Tam, I’m teasing, don’t be shocked. No one ever expects me to be anything but stone serious. I can find you something entirely proper if you want.”

  It was very tempting. There would be no way to explain it to Cina. “I think I’d better stay. For now, at least.”

  “I promise not to come in unannounced. But tell me when you change your mind. Word will get out, you know, this sort of thing always does.”

  “I know.” If they wanted it to be a secret they would have to meet in a storeroom at midnight. “But we needn’t encourage it. I’m not going to show you off. Corin, whom did you dispossess tonight? I want to have expected it when someone starts complaining.”

  “Dispossess? You mean the room? Baron Arnet. It was no great loss to him.” He paused. She thought he looked tired, worried. He said, “Stay away from him, Tam. And his followers. They’re vicious.”

  “Of course,” she said, though she did not know who they were. She put her hand on his arm. “Have I a chance at one more kiss?”

  “A very good chance,” he said, and gave her a kiss even longer than the first one. It was different: she could taste the wine in his mouth, guess how his lips and tongue were going to move. She wanted him so badly. And he wanted her, that was apparent. She pushed her body harder against him.