by Daniel Ford
Leah, still at his bedside, folded her hands behind her. “Three turns past the innkeep’s dinner bell,” she replied. Though it was dark in the room, he had a sense of her studying him carefully.
“Why are you at my bedside again, Leah? And why all the way over here instead of sitting by the fire, or with a lamp?”
She turned her head away, and said, “I…I dunno, m’lord. I just…you were so fearsome back in that warehouse last eve, I wasn’t sure…I wasn’t sure you were a man at all and not somethin’ out of a story.” Her voice was thin, apologetic. She took a half step away from the bed.
Going to let this one keep calling you m’lord, then? Allystaire was glad of the darkness, given the flush that his thought sent creeping up his neck.
“I am not your lord, Leah, or anyone’s. And I promise you,” he said, trying to lighten his words and smiling for all the good it did in the darkness, “I hurt too much to be anything out of a story except a corpse.”
Leah laughed a little desperately and inched back toward him, turning her gaze once more upon his face. Suddenly she stepped even closer, bent down, and moved her mouth over his, kissing him inexpertly, but enthusiastically. She pressed a timid hand against his bare chest.
Opposing forces immediately began to war in Allystaire. On the one hand was the sudden, wild urge; he remembered suddenly and all too well the shape of her cheeks and the soft gold glinting of her hair that afternoon, the curves beneath her peasant’s dress. On the other hand, something nagged at him intensely. He reached up and gently pulled her hand from his chest and tugged her away from him.
“Leah, lass…what do you think you are doing?”
“Kissing you, m’lord. In gratitude.” Even in the darkness, he could see her face move in a smile. “And gettin’ kissed back if you don’t mind me sayin’.”
Allystaire chided himself inwardly. “Leah, I am not a lord. Please remember that. And…” He felt his flush deepen as he straightened up on his bed, painfully aware of the drumbeat of his pulse. “…this…has nothing to do with gratitude.”
Leah sniffled slightly at his mild rebuke, but she found her courage and replied, “’Tis not the first time I’ve kissed a man, you know.” A pause. “Well maybe the others were boys, but still.”
Allystaire suppressed a laugh, even his stunted instincts telling him it was the reaction that would sting the most. He tried a gentle tone. “Leah, I am probably old enough to be your father. Why would you want to kiss an old man?”
Leah sat on the bed, bringing her face into his vision. “You aren’t that old, Allystaire, and ‘tis my eighteenth summer.” She looked intent, her eyes wide circles, darker than the shadows around them.
Two thoughts nearly collided: At least she’s using my name and Freeze me, I am old enough to be her father. He swallowed, finding it hard to meet her gaze, even shrouded with dark as the room was. “Leah, I think you should probably go back to your own room, or to your kin, and sleep. In the light of day you will think better of this.”
Leah darted from his bed and out of the room in a flurry, leaving the door open behind her.
With a sigh, Allystaire stood, his legs aching from disuse. He fumbled at the table for the lamp and lit it from the fire with a twig. After setting it on the table, he rummaged through the saddlebags that were pushed against the wall, coming out with a clean pair of trousers and a plain but finely made linen shirt. He pulled them on, seized the lamp, and trudged down the stairs.
The taproom was neither crowded nor empty. Idgen Marte sat at a corner table in front of a window with its oilskin untacked, and Allystaire could feel the breeze wafting in. By the time he had crossed the room, the lean warrior had turned to face him, and the innkeep was dogging his steps with a pitcher of wine.
“Did you send her back to my room?”
Idgen Marte gave the innkeep a nod of thanks, set down the pitcher and poured a cup for Allystaire. “Good eve to you too. Send who?” She pushed the cup toward him with a finger.
Allystaire sat down and took the wine, but did not drink. “The lass. Leah. Did you send her back to my room?”
Idgen Marte shook her head and spread her hands. “Not at all. Why? You scare her off again?”
Allystaire took a long drink of wine; it had been chilled, and its coolness, along with the slight breeze, made the taproom a smidgen more tolerable. “Not quite. She was rather less shy this time.”
Idgen Marte fell into such a deep laugh that she had to lay her head in her hands. “And how did you handle that, you brave knight, you?”
His face warmed again, less in shame than anger. “I told her that trying to kiss me had nothing to do with gratitude and that she should leave. That the morning would show it to be as bad an idea as it was.”
“You can walk into a room full of hardened reavers and start killin’ ‘em with no plan, but you can’t kiss a farmgirl for a bit, eh?”
Allystaire slapped his right fist on the table lightly, then winced at the pain. “Dammit woman, that lass had more than kissing on her mind,” he hissed. “I did not rescue her from life as a chattel whore only to try and make her my own.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Am I paying you to insult me? I would have sworn I hired you just to guard Mol.”
The swordswoman waved a hand. “Stop trying to change the subject. Think. Think about why the lass was kissing you, hmm? You were frightening at first, yes, but in your own words, you rescued her. And what was left of her entire village. Do you think she came there on her own? Or do you think mayhap her mother, or another woman, or even her father, sent her up to your room? Did you even wonder why they sent a fetching lass like Leah to watch you in the first place?”
Allystaire narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together. “Just what are you suggesting?”
“They are simple folk, but they aren’t dull-witted. They see you as a lordly type, and that’s what you are, no matter your chaste squeaking otherwise,” Idgen Marte said, forestalling argument with a raised hand. “In their world, a lord never does anything for free. And if a comely maid is the price they must pay, well…” She trailed off, lowering her hand. “Do ya see? And supposing you took a particular liking to her; well then, who knows what might happen?”
Realization dawned on Allystaire, yet something about Leah’s wide, knowing eyes still troubled him. “I see, I think.” His second pull at the wine emptied his ample cup. “Even if it was her own idea, it would be wrong.”
“You tryin’ to get me to tell you what to do?” Idgen Marte chuckled. “You won’t like the results.”
Allystaire shook his head, and reached for the pitcher. “No. I rarely come to an answer without speaking aloud. Old habit.”
The woman gestured to his hand. “Swellin’s gone down. You didn’t get someone to bring you some fish oil, did you? I meant what I said.”
Allystaire lifted his right hand, suddenly surprised at how easily it had been working. “No. Appears to be healing fast on its own.” Then he turned narrowed eyes on Idgen Marte. “Not that I would need your permission if I did.” Then, quickly, “That brings me to a question. Why are you still here?”
Idgen Marte shrugged. “You seem like an easy mark and I aim to keep milking you till the links stop flowing.” Allystaire’s face darkened, and she waved a hand. “Relax, crusader. I don’t mean to bilk you. You’ll pay for the work I did, and I think I earned a bonus share for hauling you out of the warehouse and keepin’ you alive afterwards.” She swung one booted foot up on the table, and tilted her chair back casually, keeping her eyes fixed on his face. “But I’m still here because I want t’know how this ends.”
“How what ends?”
“You, Mol, Bend, the Thornhurst folk, the Baron of Bend…all of it.” She waved a hand to indicate the space around her, and presumably the town that slumbered beyond the stone walls of the inn. “I
’ve always had a head for stories. Liked hearin’ ‘em, rememberin’ ‘em.”
Allystaire snorted. “You’re a bard, then? A minstrel? Where’s your harp?”
Idgen Marte leaned forward and scowled, dropping her foot back to the floor. “Mind what you say. I said nothing about singin’ ‘em. Said I like hearing and remembering. That’s all.”
Allystaire raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Apologies. I did not mean to strike a sore spot.” He waited a moment before adding, “You were saying?”
“Right. Stories. Stories and songs are probably the reason I’m not a farmwife or a whore, and thank Fortune for that,” Idgen Marte said, raising her cup, her cheerful insouciance returning in a heartbeat. “For the former, anyway. Whore and sword-at-hire are much the same except whores probably get cut less.” A pause. “Most places. Anyway…” She tilted her cup back again, draining it. “I like stories. And I think you are one, now. Never before seen one as it unfolded.”
Allystaire shook his head, closed his eyes. “There is no story here. And even if there were, it would not end well.”
“Who’s to say there isn’t some charmed fate leading you on? Perhaps Fortune awaits you with wealth and fame? Ever hear the stories of Elinthanar? ‘The Blade of Oaken Fire’ n’ those?’”
Allystaire nodded, his head tilted to the side. “Sure. What is your point?”
“My point is that story makes much of Elinthanar facing and killing ten men in open combat, on his own.”
The man shrugged his broad shoulders, glancing down in surprise at how little the movement hurt. “Still sounds as pointless as a tourney lance.”
“You faced ten men in open combat, alone. You killed nine, the tenth yielded, and you’re still here.”
Allystaire snorted in derision. “Most were rabble. Reavers who were used to culling sheep. The only one who knew what he was about was the Captain.” Allystaire rapped the table with a knuckle as he thought. “A popinjay he was, but dangerous. And fast.”
“You were faster?”
Another shake of the head. “Hardly. If anything I was a good deal slower. But he wanted to fight with style, as if fencing masters were standing by to assign points. Now there was a man who thought he was in a story.”
“How’d you defeat him, then?”
“Well, he did me the favor of waiting till all his men were dead.” He didn’t exactly wait, he reminded himself, remembering the Captain’s blade tearing out the throat of the crossbowman he’d maimed. In his strangely vivid memory, he saw the pain in the young man’s eyes, how pale his cheeks were beneath the stubble it had likely taken him days to grow. “Decided it meant he would not owe them shares or wages.”
“And it meant you were wounded and slow. So how?”
“As I said, he wanted to fight with style.” Allystaire shook his head, his lips curling in disgust. “Style is for the mêlée or the yard, not for hot-blooded battle.”
Idgen Marte sipped from her refilled cup. “And what do you fight with?” She quirked her lips. “Besides, apparently, your nose.”
“Patience,” Allystaire replied, smiling lightly. “And a willingness to get hurt.”
“That’d explain the nose, then.”
“Hardly a fight unless this gets broken,” he responded, reaching up and tapping a finger against his splayed, slightly-leftward pointing beak.
She laughed, drained her cup, and stood. “I’m for bed. Tomorrow you’ll need to see the baron, who, ah, thinks I’m your second or your castellan or your major-domo. Whatever the Cold you northern lordlings have. I’ve let him think it because it meant you got to rest.”
“I am not—”
“A lord. I know, I know,” Idgen Marte said, heading for the stairs. “Ya talk like a lord, have the armor and weapons of a lord, the horses of a lord, the links and the gemmary of a lord, and the bearing of a lord. But, nay, by all means, you are not a lord. If you aren’t a lord, you had better decide what you are, because a lord is what we’ve got every reason to think ya are.” She didn’t wait for a response as she nimbly hopped up the wooden stairs, her soft boots barely making a sound.
“If I knew I would tell you,” Allystaire said—to the swordswoman who was out of hearing, to the innkeep asleep on his feet behind the bar, to his cynical thoughts, to himself. Then he heaved to his feet, his knee twinging as usual, and marched toward the stairs.
Once inside his room, he set down his lamp and stared at the door for a long moment. “If I leave it unbarred and Leah wanders in, that is not my fault, right?” Right. He closed his eyes, steadied his breathing, barred the door, and fell into a fitful sleep.
CHAPTER 10
Ardent
Allystaire awoke the next morning shortly after dawn. He dressed simply: linen shirt, leather vest, riding trews, boots. He paused before the door, frowning. Feel naked without any steel on. He considered the armor neatly piled with his bags, and he finally stuffed his arms through the bracers and buckled them tightly. He sighed contentedly. “Better.”
He considered the weaponry, picked up the sword with a less happy sigh, and unbarred his door. He could hear the buzz of conversation in the common room from his door, but as soon as he’d descended the stairs, it hushed in profound silence.
He soon realized it was full of the folk he’d rescued, given their plain homespun, their stooped backs, and the awe and surprise on their faces as they all, in unison, stared at him. Taken aback, Allystaire could do naught but return their stares.
Finally, one man stood and whipped off the shapeless hat he wore, his huge, gnarled knuckles clutching it against his chest. This precipitated a wave of standing, kneeling, curtsying, and forelock tugging.
Cold, Allystaire thought, unable to keep from wincing, though when his eyes swept the crowd and fell on Leah—who was positioned rather near the stairway and curtsying in a way that left the neck of her already low-pulled blouse open to his eyes—his grimace became a bit flustered. He waved his hands, motioning everyone back into their seats, and pitched his voice to fill the room.
“None of that, folks, none of that. I am not your lord and you owe me no obeisance.” The sea of blank looks that met his gentle admonition compelled him to add more firmly, “You do not need to bow and scrape. Go back to enjoying your breakfasts.”
That order, they understood, and most of them obeyed, though very few without turning to glance surreptitiously at him once or twice. As an undercurrent of whispering filled the room, Allystaire couldn’t shake the certainty that most of it was about him.
Unlike the others, Leah stared openly at him, her eyes wide and dark, her back straight, and her face and form all the more alluring for being in the light of day, instead of shadows and insinuations in a shadow-filled room.
Close your eyes and think of Dorinne if the farmgirl’s interest seems so awful, he thought, shortly followed by a burst of intense self-loathing. He found Idgen Marte at the corner table, her brown eyes full of barely contained mirth at, he suspected, the way his cheeks flushed.
“Did you make it through the night with your honor intact?” she asked, before he could even sit down.
“Not amusing.”
“Y’haven’t the faintest idea how amusing it is.”
“It is not amusing,” Allystaire insisted, his voice starting to growl. “That lass has been to the iciest reaches of the Cold and back. Her folk have no right to try and shove her into a stranger’s bed.”
“It’s how their world works,” Idgen Marte said simply. “Besides,” she ventured, “perhaps it was Leah’s own idea. Have you considered that?”
“Even so, it would be a bad one. I would not see the girl hurt any more than she already has been.”
Idgen Marte turned her head to one side and studied him for a moment. “You actually mean that, don’t you? You are dead certain it’d be wrong to bed the lass, and now tha
t your mind is made up, nothing will change it.”
“Not certain about anything in this world,” Allystaire answered honestly, his voice calming. “But…yes, you mostly have the right of it. It would be wrong. I will not do it.”
“Have you always been this way?”
“No,” he replied without the slightest hesitation.
“How you got from there to here is a story I’d like to hear.”
“You could die waiting for me to tell you that story.”
“We’ll see,” Idgen Marte chirped brightly, as the innkeep toddled over rather unsteadily. His eyes were weighed with heavy bags, and his fringe of hair flopped in wild disarray.
“M’lord, I’ll be bringin’ yer breakfast soon. But, ah…there are a few matters. First, there’s this letter from the Baron o’ Bend, just arrived, and his courier is waitin’ in the stables for an answer. And, uh, second…” As he spoke, the innkeep rummaged in his grease-spotted apron and pulled out a piece of parchment folded to a square and sealed with wax.
“These folk are eating you out of business, aye? I will get you some gold to cover it, goodman. I promise. Their debt to you will be paid in full.” What am I saying?
The innkeep sagged with relief so visible that Allystaire was afraid the man might faint. In fact, both he and Idgen Marte had half-risen to catch and steady him, but his eyes blinked back into wakefulness. “Thank ya m’lord, and thank ya, warrior,” he half-murmured. “I’m run off me feet tryin’ to do for ‘em all.”