Never After

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Dannette was scrunched down toward the back of the wagon, near enough to the half-open back flap to be able to read by weak sunlight. “There’s a little space there between the table and the black trunk,” she said helpfully, pointing. “You have to put your feet up on the bag of goose feathers, though.”

  I situated myself with a little difficulty, eventually deciding to sit on the goose feathers to protect myself from the jostling of the ride, even more pronounced back here than up on the bench. “It’s raining,” I said unnecessarily. “Darius doesn’t want to stop.”

  “Yes,” she said absently. “That’s fairly typical.”

  “I don’t think I like traveling in the rain,” I added.

  She laughed. “I find it’s just not worth fussing about.”

  I sighed. I usually found everything to be worth fussing about. I squirmed in my spot, found a pillow to wedge behind my head, and finally leaned back against a crate of unidentifiable items that chimed together in time with the jouncing. It wasn’t more than another ten minutes before I fell asleep.

  * * *

  The cessation of motion woke me and I guessed we had stopped for the night. The rain had ended, but the air had that cold, sodden feeling that reminded you how very unpleasant wet weather could be. Climbing out through the back of the wagon, I found myself standing in the cluttered yard of an inn appreciably bigger than the one we’d patronized the night before. I allowed myself to hope it would have more amenities and better food.

  Once grooms had come for our horses, our whole group filtered inside. I noticed that Harwin was limping, but I turned my head away without asking him why. Dannette was the first to arrive at the proprietor’s desk, and I heard her ask for two rooms.

  Two! I thought with excitement, before realizing that Harwin could easily afford his own and I still would be sharing a space with the others.

  The innkeeper, a very tall, very thin man with lank gray hair and overlarge spectacles, looked down at her over the rims and shook his head. “We only have one room left,” he said. “A great number of people were caught in the rain earlier today and checked in instead of traveling on.”

  Dannette glanced over her shoulder, her eyebrow raised in a silent question. Darius shrugged. “I don’t mind four to a room,” he said.

  Harwin appeared shocked. “Four! You don’t mean that you plan to sleep in the same room as the princess!”

  Darius shrugged again. “I did last night.”

  Harwin was even more shocked, so much so all he could do was stare at Darius. Dannette touched him lightly on the arm. “I played chaperone and lay beside Olivia in the bed, while my brother curled up on the floor,” she said. “You need not worry. I take my responsibilities seriously.”

  Harwin had recovered the power of speech. “Well, you will not share a room with the princess while I travel with you. You and I shall sleep in the stables in your own wagon.”

  “There’s not much room in the wagon,” Dannette began, but Darius spoke over her.

  “You may sleep there if you like, but I will sleep in the bedchamber. I see no reason to camp in a barn when there’s a room available.”

  “I cannot allow you to compromise Olivia’s virtue in such a fashion.”

  Darius shrugged, took the key from the hand of the very curious innkeeper, and settled his bag over his shoulder. “Well, you can stand guard over me in the room, or you can bed down in the stables, whatever you choose,” he said. “I’m going to wash my face and then come down for dinner.”

  Trying not to smirk, I followed him up the stairs, Dannette at my heels. I was not surprised, upon looking over my shoulder, to see Harwin reluctantly following. He was still favoring his left leg.

  The room we had been assigned was more spacious than the one we’d had the night before, and featured a small settee in addition to a fairly sizable bed. Harwin was obviously too tall to fit on the settee, so Darius claimed it, but then Darius went to some trouble to gather blankets and pillows to fashion a bed for Harwin on the floor.

  “No doubt you’re tired enough to fall right to sleep,” Darius said.

  “No doubt,” was Harwin’s cool reply. “Let us repair to the taproom for dinner.”

  He hobbled toward the door and Dannette said, “What’s wrong with your foot?”

  Hand on the knob, Harwin gave her a wintry look. “I have a small cut.”

  She came closer to him. “Not walking that way, you don’t. You have a deep wound, I’m guessing, and it’s gotten worse during a day of travel.”

  I suddenly remembered. “Oh! You were bitten during the dog trial!” I exclaimed. “Harwin, you idiot, did you not have someone take a look at your hurts?”

  He looked both embarrassed to have roused our concern and irritated at being called an idiot. “I cleaned all the bites myself before setting out,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  Dannette pointed toward a stiff-backed chair that was set before a graceful table, as if inviting travelers to pause and write out correspondence. “Sit down,” she said with such authority that Harwin stopped protesting and dropped into the chair. “Take off both your boots and roll up the ends of your trousers.”

  Not that I wanted to, but I was seeing in my mind the last few moments of Harwin’s competition against the dogs. “He should take off his shirt, too,” I said. “I know he got hurt on his arms and his chest as well.”

  “I am not disrobing in front of all of you,” Harwin said shortly.

  “Olivia will look the other way,” Dannette said and knelt on the floor in front of Harwin.

  I did not, in fact, look the other way, but watched in some fascination as Harwin slowly removed everything except his trousers. I heard a low whistle from Darius as he settled on the floor beside his sister.

  “That’s a nasty piece of work,” he observed, touching Harwin’s left foot. I couldn’t see too well past the screen of their bodies, but I thought it looked swollen and red. Perhaps there was a little pus oozing out along the anklebone. “It must feel like your flesh is on fire.”

  “It’s a little painful,” Harwin acknowledged.

  Dannette sat back on her heels and looked at her brother. “Do what you can, then I’ll put on salve and bandages.”

  “No,” Harwin said sharply, jerking his foot away and tucking it under the chair. “I don’t want his magic. I don’t want his help.”

  Dannette came to her feet. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said calmly, using my word again and making Harwin glare. “You don’t like my brother, but you have no reason to distrust him. And don’t say you don’t want to be beholden to him,” she added, raising her voice when he tried to interrupt, “because that’s just stupid. Let him heal you. Or let your foot fester, and succumb to gangrene, and require amputation. That will certainly improve your lot and make your next bride easier to woo.”

  As if he couldn’t help himself, Harwin looked directly at me. His face was so wretched that I actually felt pity for him. “Don’t be silly,” I said softly. “Accept his help. Maybe you’ll be able to save his life a couple of days from now, and then you can feel better about it.”

  That made Dannette laugh, and even Harwin’s face relaxed into what was almost a smile. He offered his foot to Darius again, who took hold of it in a busi nesslike fashion and began pressing his fingers along the toes and heel. Now Harwin’s expression was one of wonderment.

  “That already feels much better,” he said. “What did you do?”

  Darius laughed and kept manipulating different sections of the foot. “Magic,” he said. “My greatest strengths are in altering the basic structure of things. So I can turn a butterfly into a bird, for instance. Or I can change a broken bone to a whole one and an infected patch of skin to a well one.”

  “It is a most useful skill,” Harwin said stiffly. “I thank you for using your talents on me.”

  “I always enjoy the chance to put my magic to use,” Darius said. “It’s like swordplay. If you don’t practice your skill
s, you lose them.”

  Dannette had gone to rummage in her bag, and now she returned with a small bottle and a roll of gauze. She bent over Harwin’s naked chest, examining slash and bite marks on his arms and torso. She touched two of them and shook her head. “You should have had these taken care of before you left the palace,” she scolded.

  “I was in a hurry,” Harwin said. He was looking at me again.

  I sniffed and tossed my hair. “I suppose you told my father you were coming after me,” I said. “Maybe he even suggested it.”

  “I had no conversation with him at all,” he replied.

  He didn’t say anything more, but I could read his tone. Harwin had never openly criticized my father, but more than once I had been convinced that he had a low opinion of how my father ruled his kingdom. I knew Harwin had hated the idea of the competition, but I figured that was just because he had so little chance of winning, or so I’d thought. Now I wondered if he had just believed it to be a callous and random way to select a husband for a princess.

  Considering who might have won, I had to agree.

  Darius stood up and ran his hands lightly over the wounds on Harwin’s upper body, while Dannette spread salve on his foot and wrapped it in a winding layer of gauze. Harwin flexed his toes.

  “Thank you,” he said, smiling down at Dannette. “You have a most gentle touch.”

  She patted his knee and came to her feet. “There. Now we don’t have to worry about you dying before you can challenge my brother for Olivia’s hand.”

  He actually laughed. “It is kind of you both to preserve me for such a future.”

  “You deserve to have your life saved, since you saved another man’s life two days ago,” Dannette said. At his inquiring expression, she went on. “During the trial against the fighting dogs. A man had gone down and you went to his aid, even though he was a rival.”

  “You saw that?” Harwin asked, gazing up at her. “I didn’t realize the actions inside the arena were that plain to spectators outside it.”

  She glanced briefly at her brother. “I had reason to be paying close attention. I thought you showed honor—and bravery.”

  Harwin shrugged. “Hard to exhibit either quality in a competition that possessed neither.”

  “Well, I observed you, and I was impressed,” Dannette said softly.

  He bowed his head and made no other answer. I shifted uncomfortably where I sat. I had seen his act of courage as well, but it seemed awkward and insincere to add my own praises. Oh, yes, now that you mention it, that was a very noble thing to do. It was very annoying to have to feel bad about not being nice enough to Harwin.

  “Well, that’s as much as I can do for you,” Darius said, stepping back. “How do you feel?”

  Harwin rolled his shoulders experimentally, and the muscles on his chest briefly stood out in relief. “Extraordinarily improved,” he said, standing up. I noticed that Darius looked quite short next to him—although Harwin looked even plainer next to Darius. “You must let me buy dinner for your sister and yourself as part of my thanks.” He glanced at me with a touch of humor. “I will still wait eagerly for my chance to save your life in turn, but perhaps the meal will serve as a stopgap measure of gratitude.”

  “Excellent,” Darius said. “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

  4

  The Wicked Stepmother

  The meal was more convivial than I would have expected, for either the act of kindness itself or the sheer relief at being out of pain had served to make Harwin more outgoing than usual. He asked Darius and Dannette where they had traveled and was particularly interested in their expeditions to cities outside Kallenore’s borders. It turned out—I had not known this—that Harwin and his father had pursued commercial ventures in a few neighboring nations but without receiving as much return as they’d hoped, so he was keen to hear their opinion of other markets. Darius didn’t seem to have paid much attention to the possibilities of trade and profit, but Dannette had formed strong opinions, which she was happy to share. I listened, bemused, as she talked about the diamond mines in Liston, the spice routes through Newmirot, and the drought in lower Amlertay that had left the countrymen eager to trade for seed and other staples.

  “I do not think I would have learned half so much if I had passed twice as long in any of those places,” I said in an undervoice to Darius.

  He was finishing up his second beer, and I held out my glass to silently ask for a refill. I still didn’t like the taste, but I didn’t find it quite so unpleasant, and I did enjoy the way it softened the harder edges of the day. “No, everything that she says comes as quite a surprise to me,” he said airily. “Now, what I noticed while we were in Newmirot was how the women wore their hair, with ribbons braided into it right around their faces. It was so colorful and lovely.”

  I felt a moment’s flash of stupid jealousy. “And I suppose all the women in Newmirot were very pretty?” I said.

  He smiled and tipped his glass against mine. “All women are pretty in their way,” he said, “but you are the most beautiful of all.”

  I laughed, but even that was not enough to earn me more than a glance from Harwin. He didn’t seem to care that I was getting along so well with my fiancé; he just returned his attention to Dannette to ask a question about coin denominations in Amlertay. I took another few large swallows of my beer.

  * * *

  As I had expected, sharing a bedroom with Harwin was even stranger than sharing one with Darius and Dannette. I was always aware that he was on the other side of the room, even though he did not snore, as Darius did, or thrash about, as Dannette continued to do. Merely, I could sense him lying there, disapproving of us all. Well, I would not let Harwin’s presence oppress my spirits. The beer had made me too sleepy to fret for long, anyway, so I closed my eyes and drifted into dreaming.

  I woke up once, abruptly, when Dannette uttered an urgent cry of warning. I jerked upright, unable to see anything in the utter darkness. I heard a stir on the other side of the room—Harwin, surely, since Darius’s gentle snores went on uninterrupted.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked sharply. I could see a shadow move through the blackness. “Olivia? Was that you?”

  “Not me. Dannette,” I replied softly. I could tell by the way she curled in upon herself that she was still sleeping.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “I think she has nightmares. This happened last night, too.”

  Now his shadow was beside the bed. I could smell the soap he had used to wash his face and the herbs from Dannette’s salve. “Should we wake her?”

  “I think it will just start again when she goes back to sleep.”

  I waited for him to say something like, It’s intolerable that you should have your slumbers interrupted in such a way. But, from what I could tell by staring at his silhouette in the darkness, he was merely looking down at Dannette’s restless form. Perhaps his face, if I’d been able to see it, would have been creased with compassion or concern.

  “What gives her nightmares?” he asked.

  Scandals. Accusations in the dead of night. Secrets. “I don’t know.”

  He hesitated a moment. I didn’t need to see his face to be able to imagine his expression: serious, considering, truthful. “I like both of them better than I thought I would,” he said at last. “But they are still strangers about whom you know almost nothing. It was reckless of your father to send you off with them in such a scrambling fashion.”

  “Well, you’re here now,” I said flippantly. “You can make sure they don’t harm me or lead me astray.”

  “Indeed,” he said, “that is exactly what I mean to do.”

  * * *

  In the morning I felt absolutely dreadful. My head was pounding and my stomach clamped down when I so much as thought about breakfast. For some reason, this seemed to amuse Darius and Dannette. “Too much beer the night before makes the dawn a grievous chore,” Darius chanted. I gave him a heavy look of cond
emnation from eyes that felt scratchy and hot. His stupid little verse didn’t even make sense.

  “I don’t think I can move,” I said, still sprawled on the bed after the other three had washed and dressed. “Let’s stay here another day.”

  “You’ll feel just as bad lying here as you will sitting in the wagon, so you may as well travel on,” Darius said, with rather less sympathy than I’d hoped for. “Come on. Dannette will help you get dressed while Harwin and I go down and order a meal.”

  I allowed Dannette to cajole me into a loose fitting gown, and then she combed out my hair and put it in a simple braid. I was horrified at my image in the mirror, my face pale, my eyes shot with red. “I’m ruined!” I cried.

  Dannette laughed. “You’ll be fine later today and show no ill effects at all by tomorrow,” she said. “That’s because you’re twenty-one. If you drink a pitcher of beer every night until you turn fifty, well, that’s another story.”

  I met her eyes in the mirror. She looked perfectly rested and cheerful as always. She’d put her own ginger blond hair back in a bun, a careless style that looked good on her since it accentuated her high cheekbones. This morning she had added small gold earrings to her ensemble, or maybe I saw them only because her hair was pulled back. I wondered if she was trying to improve her appearance in subtle ways to attract Harwin’s attention.

  “Why do you cry out in the middle of the night?” I asked abruptly.

  “Do I?” she said. “I’m sorry. Does it keep you awake?”

  “Yes, and it kept Harwin awake last night, too,” I said, watching her closely.

  She turned away from the mirror. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I will try to muffle my sounds.”

  I stood up and turned to watch her as she put the last of her clothes in her bag. “But why are you so upset? What are you dreaming about?”

  She merely continued to fold her skirt, carefully lining up the pleats. “Things I cannot remember in the morning,” she said.