Firethorn (50 page)

At last he said, “Sire, my offenses are many, but there is one in particular I wish did not lie between us—that I misspoke when I doubted your justice last night.”

“Wishing won't unsay it,” said the Crux.

“I spoke in heat.”

“Men say what they mean when they forget to guard their tongues.”

“Maybe. But don't we sometimes grow wiser on reflection? I know you for a just man. I own I shouldn't have doubted you. Will you permit me to ask your forgiveness?”

“You thought me corrupt, but you're the one who corrupted the ordeal. There will always be questions, now, about the truth of it.”

Galan said nothing. He kept his head bowed low and I couldn't see his face.

His uncle gave a sour laugh. “Have you learned at last not to quarrel with me?”

Galan looked up at him. “Sire, I am your penitent. Absolve me, I beg you, so I don't have to go into battle tomorrow carrying this regret.”

The Crux beckoned to his jack, Tel, to bring him his underarmor. Tel knelt to pull on the red leggings, thick with many layers of linen and stitching, and to lace them up. The Crux looked over his head at Galan. He said, “I have had it in mind to forbid you the tourney.”

Then sly hope whispered to me that Galan might outlive the next day. The heart is a fool and will listen to any sweet insinuation.

The Crux lifted his arms so his shirt of linen underarmor could be pulled over his head. Boot and Tel tugged at it on either side. When the Crux's head emerged, he said, “Did your tongue swim away, Nephew? Have you nothing to say?”

“I'm in your hands, Sire. I'll do as you command.”

“Will you, now? I'm not accustomed to finding you so biddable.” The Crux's voice was cutting and his stare just as sharp.

Galan looked away from his uncle's gaze and down and waited in stillness. I thought perhaps he submitted himself to Fate as much as to the Crux.

And yet, how could I trust such meekness from him? I saw the same distrust in the look the Crux gave him.

He frowned at Galan. “You'd lack your own armiger.”

Galan's head came up. “That's just as well, isn't it, Sire? Seeing that my armiger was faithless.”

“I can't let you ride. My word will not bend so far.”

“I'd never ask it.”

“A man afoot will not last long.”

Galan shrugged. His eyes were steady on his uncle.

Now the Crux's mail leggings were girded on. They fit snugly, with many points to fasten them to the underarmor. When the Crux spoke again, his voice was rough. “I dread to tell my brother his son died before ever we got to war. But this is your battle, I can't keep you from it.” He put his hand on Galan's shoulder.

Galan got to his feet and smiled, his face so bright I looked away. “Don't grieve for me, Uncle. I'm not dead yet.”

I turned my back to them and my face to the wall. I lay on my side; anything else was intolerable. I had kept pain at a distance and now I made it welcome. It had its own pulse and everything yielded to it. Galan and the Crux talked on, but I no longer listened.

Hope was a viper.

It was near dawn before Galan came to lie down beside me in all his armor. I kept my back to him and looked over my shoulder and there he was with his head propped up on one hand.

Rowney and Spiller had been lying on their pallets nearest the door, whispering. When Galan came they fell silent. Tourneys were for the Blood only, though jacks had been killed trying to get their wounded masters off the field. Maybe they fretted about the dangers to come tomorrow; more likely they'd been wagering on the outcome.

“You went to sleep in your clothes,” Galan said behind me. He began to untie my headcloth. He unwound the headcloth twice, three times, and I lifted my head so he could do it. He let down my hair and I hissed when I felt it against my burns.

“Your pardon,” he said, and combed it to one side with his fingers. Then he laid his head down with my hair for a pillow. He took care not to touch my shoulders. “Is there much pain?” he asked.

“Sufficient,” I said.

“Where Rodela cut you?”

“Not so bad. The burns have nearly driven it out of my mind.”

A small laugh, a puff of air against my neck. “That's a blessing.”

Galan's hand was on my shin, under my skirts. He wore a metal prick-guard, which was cold even through the wool of my dress. “Tomorrow,” he said, in a voice so quiet I had to turn my head to catch it, “no—today—I'll kill my bastard cousin.”

I rolled toward him and groaned, but he said to keep still.

I said, “You can't.”

He said, “Many men will die today. Why shouldn't he be one of them?”

“You swore, you gave your word you'd abide by the Crux's judgment.”

“Hush,” he murmured. “I never did swear. He said—if my reason was satisfied—do you remember? And reason tells me it wouldn't be safe to let Rodela outlive me. Do you pretend you don't want him dead?” And he pushed my skirts up and bared my legs. I felt the kneecop and the scales affixed to his leather kilt against my skin.

“No.”

“Well then,” he said, and his hand was busy undoing the laces of his prickguard.

“You must not,” I said. But I didn't move away.

“Why not?”

“I can't lie on my back or my belly, it hurts either way.”

“I have considered it,” Galan said in my ear. “Get on your hands and knees.”

I thought if he mounted me like a dog, he'd be quick as a dog, and that was just as well. I feared the pain, and feared the Crux too, that he might see us there in the dark corner. Yet I wouldn't deny Galan. I wanted him. It wasn't desire I felt, but longing. I longed for him as if I'd already lost him.

Galan was not quick, he was one to linger if it pleased him. I braced against his weight but he did not shove into me so much as sink, and the pain was overtaken slowly at first and then faster. And Desire brought me her gifts after all: the craving of any bitch in season, forgetfulness. We were long past tenderness and he was relentless and I didn't want him to relent, I wanted the slickness and his hands on my hips and his gasps and the moans jolted out of me. I wished I could see his face but I'd take this. I could take it. I raised my head and my hair clung to my face, and though my eyes were open, I was blind. Metal from his armor galled as he dug into me, and when he was in so deep that it hurt when he moved, he shuddered and bent over me, his hands on the ground beside mine, and bowed his head, breathing hard.

I said
no
when he withdrew. I was not ready for it to end and this day to begin, I would never be ready. I lowered myself onto my side and he lay in front of me this time, face-to-face, knee to knee.

For a while we were silent.

“Did I hurt you?” asked. “You're crying.”

I shook my head.

He put his arm over my waist and his forehead against mine. “Dear heart,” he whispered, “if I die today … I have thought on it … there are some here who would treat you well. Pava, you know—but you might also go to Sire Lebrel; he's often admired you.”

He might as well have struck me. I doubled over and put my arms over my head and wailed, but the sound was stifled, I couldn't get it out. I couldn't breathe. I'd thought only of his death, not what might happen after. And he'd pass me to another as a man might leave a favorite horse to a favored friend. Not even a friend, he had no friends now.

“Listen, listen!” He pulled my arms away from my face. “Do you think I'm not jealous? Even as a shade I'll know when another man touches you. But if Rodela should outlive me—though I mean to see he doesn't—you'd best find yourself a new cataphract. Rodela will kill you if he can. You need a protector.”

A thin keening escaped me at last and I began to weep. Galan said
hush, hush
soothing me like a child. But even as I tried to hold back the sobs lest they be heard, even as I was overtaken and harrowed by them, my thoughts went on ahead with a terrible clarity.

When the weeping had passed, Galan kissed me and rolled on his back to fasten his prickguard. In that moment his face looked pure, his utter self, washed clean of the smiles that had played about his mouth and the frowns that had troubled his brow. Only the ash on his forehead marked him.

If he would not hear me now, he'd never hear me. I said, “Galan, there will be sacrifices before the tourney, I suppose.”

He turned his head toward me and nodded.

“Then you must give my mare to Hazard. The mare you let me ride.”

“Must I?” His eyes were wide and dark.

“And you must pray to Hazard—to Fate—to relieve you of Sire Rodela. You must not meddle with him.”

“Mustn't I?”

“You have enough enemies on the field, you don't need another. Leave Rodela to the gods—even if he should survive the tourney, I think he'll not live long. Promise me to leave him be.”

“I'll do what's needful. I won't promise otherwise.” His eyes had narrowed. I saw he was displeased, yet I went on. “Didn't you tell me this very evening that I had a wise heart, that I led you true? Why will you not listen to me now?”

“Because in this matter, my head is wiser than your heart. I know Rodela too well. Let a dog live and he'll bite.”

“It's your hot blood that speaks, not your wise head.”

“Is your blood so cold, then?” He was glaring now.

For a while I was silent, turning over in my mind words that might persuade and also mollify him, for the more I insisted, the angrier he became. But no words came to me save the truth, and that I couldn't say. That resolve that I'd taken in heat to kill Sire Rodela had indeed grown cold, cold as winter. And though I couldn't kill him in hot rage, I'd kill him nevertheless.

It was only yesterday that Sire Rodela had stolen part of me. A long, empty night and a long, eventful day since. In the night I had lingered over the idea of steel; it was voluptuous to imagine driving a blade into him. But I kept coming back to poison. I had the dwale to hand, yet how to give it to him? He was not such a fool as to take food from me. In the day, still I fretted over this puzzle—never asking whether I should kill him, only how it might be done. Even the fire hadn't driven such thoughts away for long, for he'd rekindled the feud that killed Consort Vulpeja—he might as well have carried a torch himself. Had I wished to forget Rodela, the pains he'd given me would not permit it; they kept faithful company.

The unrequited desire for someone's death is like unsatisfied lust, in this way: it will not leave you be. I had suffered it before, hating Sire Pava, but he'd been beyond my reach.

Rodela's death was mine. I found I was jealous of it. And furthermore I saw as plain as could be that Galan had missed his chance to kill him clean, and if he did it now, it would all begin again. Even if—as he claimed—he would not be forsworn, the gods did not take a man at his word, but at what he meant by it. Among all the dangers of the day, this one he could avoid. He shouldn't carry this to battle with him and tempt the gods again.

I was angry with Galan for his obstinacy, yet why should he be otherwise? He didn't know I claimed Sire Rodela's death for myself, and I couldn't tell him. I saw the danger in speaking; but silence was dangerous too.

“No—I see you're not cold-blooded, but rather too warmhearted,” he said, after a long pause. I didn't like the way he said this, or the upright lines that gathered between his brows, or the tightening of his lips so that a crease appeared at either corner. “For you claim your heart tells you I should spare Rodela.”

I nodded.

“Then I ask myself,” Galan said, “why is your heart so solicitous of him? Perhaps he didn't lie after all. Maybe you won't be sorry if he outlives me. Maybe you already have your next man.”

In my outrage I hit him with my fist, a glancing blow under the eye. He blinked but did not flinch. Now the emptiness of his face was frightening, barren instead of pure, a wasteland.

So wrong. It would never go well with him—I was too forward in my speech and he too ready to take offense. Always when I thought I saw the way most clearly, then I was snared by the unforeseen.

“I can promise you this,” he said, rising to his knees and setting his scaled kilt to rights. “If he's in reach of my sword, I'tl strike him down—because if Chance puts him in my way, can I refuse her gift?”

I cursed that jealousy of his that had turned him from me. His doubt lay just under the skin. I had only to scratch and he bled distrust. He stood and I grabbed his ankle. My voice had been ill-used and I could hardly make myself heard. “Sire, how can you doubt me now? You know he lied. Please … it can't be borne.”

He moved away from me and nudged Spiller with his foot. “Rouse up, lads. We mustn't be late.”

Not long after, I heard the Crux say to Galan, “This is why I can't abide women on a campaign. They're always wailing.”