by Jane M. R.
When the song concludes, something else takes over my body so I almost fall when Zadicayn loosens his hold on me. He reminds me to courtesy when I see him dip into a bow.
“I see,” he says when he straightens, “Dost nary give the vault monkey a second glance, but take this dashing, clean shaven younghede and ye lose your wits!”
I look away, though I know he can still see my cheeks burning like I have too much rouge. It doesn’t help that he’s teasing me about it.
A prompt from him urges me to vacate the dancing floor. Ravaging with thirst, I guzzle a whole glass of wine before taking a breath. I wish he would stop looking at me like that. And I know why it’s different now than when he was hairy. He’s actually… attractive. And giving me eyes like… does he actually like me?
This revelation comes as a shock, and is so foreign I don’t know what to do with myself. I start to remember all these little hints he’s thrown at me and the fact he made this tremendous effort to show up to show off tonight has my nerves Waltzing in my hands. No one has ever been attracted to me before. Not even Jaicom. I don’t know what to do with this except either shout for joy or whimper in the corner. I do neither, because my father is approaching. I look around for somewhere to hide Zadicayn.
“Father!” As if part mannequin, I alight with a courtesy so my father can’t see my jittery hands. “This is…” I panic. I don’t know Zadicayn’s last name and I’d only botch it if I made one up.
“Mr. Eldenshod,” Zadicayn saves, reaching in to shake my father’s hand. “Pleased to meet yew.”
“The same.” My father’s eyes scan Zadicayn’s choice of dress. I’m holding my breath. “Brine, come with me for a moment.” My father steps away and I look back at Zadicayn whose sure to connect my glance with a smile my nerves won’t let me translate right now.
When we are far enough away, my father begins in a low voice, “Brine, what were you thinking dancing with that young man? Aren’t you worried of upsetting Jaicom?”
Anger gives flight to words. “I’m not married, father. I’m not even betrothed. Dancing with whomever I choose is perfectly acceptable…” But something mischievous lights in my father’s eyes and with a hard thump in my gut, I pale. “Father, did Jaicom…”
“He just asked me at the beginning of the last song.” His smile almost breaks his suddenly stupid face. “Brinella… you’re going to be a Whaerin!”
A numbness surges to my toes and a sour tang stings the back of my throat that no amount of frantic swallowing will expel. A mad, panicky roil tosses in my stomach.
“He’s going to announce it. Come on!” My father claws onto my arm and pulls what I feel is a dead weight across the floor to the musicians’ dais who are making room for Jaicom to stand.
My father pulls me to the stairs. Jaicom is beckoned me up. He’s not even smiling at me.
I take a step back. I’m not ready for this. I don’t want this. I don’t know what I want but I don’t want this.
But if he doesn’t marry me, who will?
I’m going to throw up. I say I’m going to do such a thing a lot, but this time I mean it.
“I need another minute,” I say, all my logic lodged tight in my corset so they can’t make their way to my brain. “Give me one more minute. I need to… do something.”
“Trust me,” my father has the gall to laugh at the turmoil in my chest, “you will never be ready to have your marriage announced. Now get up there.”
I don’t move. It’s not until my father gently nudges me forward that I remember why I’m standing there.
I mount the Horse Stage, standing beside Jaicom but I couldn’t have felt farther from him. He signals the triangle player who chimes the instrument several times until the crowd silences and faces us. I look at the ceiling.
“Can I have your attention please!” Jaicom calls out. The position of the dais in the Hall makes sound echo too nicely, too clear. “I am Jaicom Whaerin and I have just asked Brinella Frondaren for her hand in marriage.”
It should be illegal for a father to answer the marriage question for his daughter.
The crowd erupts into applause and cheers. Jaicom leans into me and gives me a kiss on my cheek that I barely register. The show done, I climb off the dais on legs turned into bed springs.
The musicians begin strumming again and the room buzzes back to normal, if with a little more energy as disappointed girls relocate. Dresses, coats, buttoned vests with dangling pocket watches blur in front of me as I look for Zadicayn.
I can’t find him anywhere.
The life crushed out of me, I make good on my promise and throw up in a bush outside where no one will see.
Three more dances with Jaicom and it’s still a dreadfully long time before my father announces it’s time for us to go home. I can’t get my coat on fast enough. I slip my arms into the sleeves, formulating an escape out of my room tonight to tell Zadicayn what happened. I shove my hands into my pockets and crunch paper.
I pull it out. It looks like a page torn out of the guest book. There are two signatures in the ragged left corner:
b,
i wish i couldst sayeth i be not suprised. after all, yew hath a life i new no thing about. I just wish so it maketh sense. so congratulations! i wish ye the best. i dost nary wit if ye art still wiling to helpe meself in reclaiming me lost item. if ye do, i shal tarry at the ege ede edge of the road where the game trail mets it 2 dAys from now at moon rise. i shal be at that spOt for 2 3 days in a row at the same time in case the first most or second niht nite nary work for ye. please nary seee me before that time. i also forgeteth to tel ye that it wilt be dangrus. i canst nary elaborate on why in case others seees this note. after that I shal go on my own. i shalt, however more, under stand if ye chose nary to helpeth me. i hopeth that ye shalt stil take upon me ofer to pay ye back for the freedom ye hath given me. i stil owe ye for that. however more, if to nite wast the last time i see thee, i pray peace and good health upon thee and thy husband.
Z.
“I’ll be there,” I whisper to the note.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ZADICAYN
I forgot how good it feels to stretch my muscles, to flex and bulge as I test their strength against my body weight as I lift and drop, lift and drop, up and down like the bobbing heads of my snakes of Reason and Disappointed.
I release the bar and drop to my feet with a crack to my knees that are still remembering what that feels like. Fisting my tunic off the back of the chair, I walk out of my bedchamber.
The night air crinkles across my naked skin and I replace my shirt, leaning against the wall of the roof and watch the moon rise.
I try again to force reason into my brain that is still trying to rein in the snakes of all my emotions that want to have their turn to flicker in and out of my body. It’s none of my business what kind of life she has. I’m a parasite for attaching myself to her, especially so quickly. I’ve only known her a few days. Lucky her, it is only because she is the first girl I laid eyes on when I crawled like an invalid out of the vault.
The snake of Embarrassment takes its turn before passing the gauntlet to Anger. All I did to make an impression on her, going so far as to steal a book about dancing from the town library two days prior and practice with myself.
But anger is unreasonable, because she has a life I know nothing about and it is none of my business. By the end of ten minutes I’m able to stroke the head of Anger enough times to where it settles down into purring Irritation.
I can’t help it. The head of Disappointment still whimpers in the corner of my soul.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
BRINELLA
I’m going to go against the priest’s words and find an unsavory cohort to go cohorting with.
I hang a clean sock in my window, hoping that will summon the thief like Joseara promised it would.
It does. While I lay in bed wide awake, the window whispers open so silently I don’t even know the thief has ent
ered until the black mass blocks out the moonlight.
“Mmmmm,” Joseara murmurs, closing the window. “Lucky girl getting married to the richest, most handsome man in Valemorren, I hear.”
I don’t want to talk about it. I sit up and toss the covers off my legs. “Zadicayn needs help recovering his amulet.”
The thief sits at my vanity. “I’m listening.”
I fish Zadicayn’s note out from inside my secret box and hand it over. Her pretty eyes scan across it.
“I’m going to do it,” I say, “But I’m certain the more people who help the more success we’ll have. In case we have to… pick a lock or something.”
Joseara hands the note back. “Sure. Glad my friendship to you is linked purely by my usefulness.” Her tone is a perfect balance between sarcasm and seriousness so I have no idea how to respond. “When?”
I wanted to see Zadicayn last night right after the Ball but his note specified not to see him until I was ready to help him with the amulet. And I need Joseara’s help. “Can we do it right now?”
“Now?” The way she says it makes my heart sink. “Will the wizard know I am coming along?”
“No. But I’ve explained to him how you helped find the pieces of the key which is what freed him. I know he won’t mind.” I hope.
“Alright, we can do it tonight. It’s not like I have any other illegal activities pending right now.”
I want to hug her in relief. Instead, I rifle through my wardrobe and find the canary yellow untiable dress with white bird patterns all over. It is atrocious.
Tying my hair into a braid, I look at Joseara who is perched on the window sill like a crow.
“Yellow?”
My voice matches my narrowed eyes. “The only thing I have a choice in now days is whether I should eat my pudding with a fork or spoon.”
She makes a face I can clearly see despite the mask. “I suppose I can’t blame you. Sometimes I wish I could participate in society and wear nice dresses, to share dinner with family and friends, to be betrothed to a rich man. But then I look at you and think… bloody hell no!”
“Not my fault!” I snip. “Now will you help me tie sheets together so I can get out of the window?”
“Sheets?”
“Unless you can teach me how to fly, I have no other way to get out of my room.”
She must have taken my tone of irritation for urgency because she climbs off the sill and starts tossing blankets around on my bed. I assist her in tying my sheets together and only when I am certain that I am going to fall this time or my sheets are going to tear do we bless them done and throw them out the window as if tossing an anchor off a ship.
She bows elaborately to me, indicating it is my turn.
The hardest part is getting over the sill, my dress sliding up to my lower back as I sink lower down the sheet-rope. I bang both elbows on the way down, clinging ridiculously tight to the rope so I almost don’t slide at all. My feet touch grass. I look up at her. She sucks the sheet-rope back in the window as if someone had seen us. I look around. But I see no one in the dark.
She emerges, and as if the entire side of my house is a stair case, I watch her find hand and footholds in spider cracks in the mortar, ant-sized protrusions on the edges of the stone, and it isn’t fair that she jumps the last five feet without any apparent injury to herself.
There’s no way I could have reduplicate that coming down. And forget trying to get back up that same way.
“How am I going to get back in?” I ask, surprising myself with all the indifference in my tone.
“I’ll climb inside first and get it for you when we come back. Now, you ready Miss Whaerin?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“You’d have all the girls in Valemorren chasing you with knives if they heard you say that. What’s the matter?”
Marriage is the matter. And it doesn’t look any prettier saddled in money and dressed in Whaerin. I walk passed her and into the trees.
We walk like two silent thieves down the road toward the game trail that branches off and leads to The Boulder. We are almost there when I stop.
“Since I didn’t tell Zadicayn I was brining you, wait here so we don’t scare him.”
Joseara nods and takes a seat in the dirt. I move into the trees.
“Zadicayn?” I whisper. “It’s Brine.” My heart sticks in my throat as I see movement. He emerges out of the darkness, wearing a long blue hooded coat which touches the tops of his calf-high black boots. A tall collar and elevated shoulder devices make him look exactly like drawings of fantasy wizards I have seen in Durain’s books. He’s resting a crossbow over one shoulder.
I see him and I don’t know how to act. Smile? Reaffirm his attraction toward me?
He won’t hold my gaze. “Evening to thee, Brinella Whaerin.”
“Just call me Brine. I’m not married yet and I despise my full name. It rhymes too closely with my mother’s. Only… only my closest friends call me Brine.”
He tilts his head at me. “Friends, Brine?”
“Yes. We… can still be friends, can’t we?”
“I shall dost whatever ye desires. I be more indebted to thee than Edmund wast to King George the fifth.”
“This isn’t about… debt. I… I want to talk about what happened last night.”
His too long pause makes me anxious. He shifts the crossbow on his shoulder. “I just wish ye hath told me ye wast being courted by another man. A Whaerin for that matter. If I hath known ye wert already taken, I nary wouldst hath put forth any effort nor showed up.” The hurt and irritation is obvious in his voice. I see again all that effort he made to impress me, and I noticed all of its obviousness too late.
“Jaicom has been courting me before I knew anything about you. You can guarantee I’m on your side.”
“I know that, Brine.”
Good. He’s back to using the name I link with friendship. “And I’m glad you showed up. I…” I don’t know how to communicate my feelings into words. Just read my heart! How can I tell him that was like a treasure, that feeling of being admired and adored for the first time in my life? “I’m glad you showed up.” My face is on fire. Does everyone have to go through weird conversations like this? “I’m not used to anyone being… attracted to me. I’ve never had anyone attracted to me. So… I missed the signs that you…” I don’t want to be having this conversation. “That you were. Likewise for Jaicom, I didn’t tell you he was courting me because I didn’t think Jaicom was serious. It really came as surprise to me last night, too. When I found out he was going to announce it publicly –”
“Tis a’right, Brine. Tis a’right. Ye hath the right to keep thy life secret from me. I wasst just… shocked and confused and…” He looks away from me. Apparently, we are both terrible at this. “Shocked and confused.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”
We both pause. I want to say more to explain myself, to tell him how Jaicom really didn’t court me, and how I witnessed he likes a girl that isn’t me. That I was overwhelmed with joy when I danced with Zadicayn and shivered the whole time I did it with Jaicom. But I don’t say any of that. Because I’m getting married to Jaicom Whaerin. The only words I know that would balm Zadicayn’s hurt are the ones that would reveal I really don’t want to marry Jaicom and then where would that put me declaring such things? If Jaicom doesn’t marry me who will? A Middle Ages man with no job who lives in a castle inaccessible to the outside world where he is wanted dead by the church and alive by those three families?
“I wast nary expecting ye to show up to help me with this. I still hoped. But I couldst nary durst to expect.”
“Of course I’d show!” I jam on the reins to bring the horse of the tense conversation back to a happy little trot. “You still owe me for freeing you.” I punctuate this with a grin. He returns a little smile, but that is all. I wish I could hug him to make the hurt in his eyes go away like I used to when he was still an emotionally broken prison
er of a mental vault. He still might be. He’s hiding it very well.
“No one hast ever been attracted to thee?”
He asks this question as if he can’t believe it. Strangely, this flatters me. “Yea. No one hast ever been attracted to meself.”
He looks at me oddly, and I can’t help but laugh, chasing the frills out of the tension clutched in my chest. I’m getting married by a man who isn’t attracted to me and only friends with the man who is. I hate my life. But I’ve gotten more of a smile out of him now, and it’s easy to pretend I didn’t get myself mixed up in one of those melodrama’s Durain used to read me.
“Try thy best to refrain speaking like this again.”
This makes me laugh again and I’m sure I now look like a crazy person to him but I need this relief. It’s also to keep me from blurting out that I still want Zadicayn to show he’s still attracted to me because I love how that feels, to tell him if he asked me in this moment to run away with him to his castle that I’d do it, despite it being unreasonable and a thought charged purely by emotions.
“I suppose we should start looking for your amulet.” I recover from my spell and look at him expectantly.
“I wouldst ask if ye couldst take me to the graveyard firstmost. I want to see if I can find my mother’s grave.”
Humbled to silence, I nod. “Oh, I forgot something.” Joseara. My heart is still so full of feelings I don’t know how to put words too that I almost forgot her. Actually, I did forget her. “Remember when I told you that two pieces of the Binding were acquired for me?” He’s silent for a moment, then nods slowly. “I paid a thief to get them for me. A very good thief, who can unlock doors and enter buildings without anyone even knowing. She is the reason you are free. Not me. I… I invited her to come with us.”
Zadicayn rubs his clean shaven chin, as if still trying to get used to its nakedness. “Okay? Can she be trusted?”