Chapter 11 #2
Olly never talked about his time in France. Only Pepper knew the true extent of it – the rest of his band only ever being privy to the barest details. And yet here he was, spilling it at the feet of the brother of the man who had betrayed him.
Raff paled. Olly slumped back into his seat, grabbing his drink. He saw it off in one go, enjoying the hot burn of the wine in his throat.
Finally, Raff spoke. ‘Please. You have to talk to him. You do not know.’
Olly shook his head. ‘I know enough.’
‘You know nothing.’ Raff glared at him. ‘Nothing. Do you love him? Did you, and now you no longer do? Because if that is the case, then I understand – I do, and I will not curse you for what your heart wants – but you cannot just leave like this. You have to talk to him.’
It was no longer a request. Olly thought he could escape the grasp of the taller man, but both, and trapped in this tiny room? It was impossible.
‘Will you talk to him?’ Raff asked once more. ‘Please, Oliver?’
It was the first time Raff had called him by his name. Olly had no choice, he realised.
At least this way he could finally force Ash to atone for what he had done to him.
He stood.
‘Fine.’
To Olly’s surprise, they didn’t lead him back to the cell, but up a wider staircase to a heavy oak door. Raff shot him a look, as if expecting him to flee again, before pushing open the door and shoving him inside.
The room was dark. An antechamber of some sort, Olly realised.
Raff pushed him onwards, through to a second, larger room beyond.
This must be Ash’s bedchamber. It was huge.
Olly wasn’t sure why he was so surprised: Ash was an earl, now.
Of course his sleeping chamber was impressive.
The floor was covered in thick skin rugs, the enormous bed in the centre of the room wide enough for at least three people and hung with embroidered canopies. A fire burned too hot in the hearth.
Ash sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. He didn’t look up when the door opened. In his hand was Olly’s ring.
‘Ash.’
Raff was the first to break the silence. Ash looked up. His gaze flicked between the three of them before finally settling on Olly.
‘I thought you had gone.’
‘He tried,’ the curly-haired man grumbled. ‘I stopped him.’
Ash gave out a choking laugh. ‘Did you, now?’
‘Call it a favour returned.’
‘I do not know if I should be thanking you.’
‘Neither do I. You will have to tell me later.’
And then they were gone, the door shut, leaving Olly locked with Ash in the flickering firelight.
Ash stood. His limbs hung limp, and as he moved the ring slid from his hand and onto the floor with a heavy thud.
He stepped forwards, close enough to touch. Olly kept his arms by his sides, clenching his hands into fists, feeling his heartbeat in them.
‘You were—’
Ash reached out. There was a deep indent in his palm: a perfect circle where he’d been clutching the ring. He brushed his hand against Olly’s jaw – the touch as gentle and as horrible as the first wind before a storm.
‘You were …’ Another shuddering breath. ‘I love you.’
Something snapped. Olly wrenched his face away. ‘No. Ash— No.’
Ash was off him in an instant. ‘Olly—’
‘Is this all you want me for? Even whores get paid, Ash!’
There was a ringing silence. Finally, Ash spoke, voice small. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Why didn’t you come for me when you had the chance?’ Olly demanded. ‘Or do you only want me when you don’t have to pay for me? When I just land in your lap?’
‘Olly, what are you—’
‘I could have died and none of you did anything! None of you! You vowed to be by my side! You swore I was yours! But I wasn’t even worth a bag of coins to you. I never was!’
‘Olly—’ Ash strode forwards and grabbed his shoulders. ‘What do you mean?’
He was so close. The fight fled from Olly’s body, the weight of it suddenly too much.
‘They took me prisoner. They sent letters to Mother. To you.’ Each word was punched out of him. ‘Demands. They made me write them myself. It wasn’t … it wasn’t even that much—’
‘Demands?’
‘They ransomed me. They knew that Father was rich, and important, and they thought …’ A silent, tearless sob racked through his body. The only thing keeping him upright was Ash’s hands on his shoulders. ‘They thought someone might pay for me.’
He shook himself free from Ash’s grip, shoving him away.
‘They were wrong,’ he spat. ‘No one even refused. They just ignored them. You ignored them.’
Ash’s pained expression sloughed away. In its place was one of horror and grief.
‘They ransomed you?’
‘Twice.’
Ash took a staggering step backwards. He collapsed onto the bed, straight down, like his legs had given way.
He muttered something, his words lost to the crackling of the fire.
‘What?’ Olly couldn’t help the sharpness of his voice. He glared down at Ash, heart thundering. ‘What?’
Ash swallowed. He finally met Olly’s gaze, his eyes wide and haunted.
‘I thought you were dead,’ he said, voice flat. ‘I saw you fall. I saw you die. I see you die every’ – he choked around it – ‘every night. I see it.’
‘But—’
‘Their letters never came. Olly, you must believe me. They never arrived. Not here, not to your mother. If I had known …’ The noise he made was not a laugh, not quite.
‘If I’d known you were alive I’d have swum across that fucking sea myself to get you back.
I’d have given them anything. I’d have demanded Father pay, or stolen it from him, stolen it from …
from anyone, Olly. I swear to you, I didn’t know. I never …’
Ash’s words died. His expression broke, his lip – his scarred, torn lip – trembled as the tears overtook him.
The anger, which had been red-hot and wieldable, suddenly had nowhere to go.
‘Ash?’ The word escaped Olly’s mouth like a breath.
‘You must— Olly, Oliver—’ Ash was suddenly up on his feet. He grabbed Olly’s arms, hard enough to bruise. Olly did not move away. ‘I do not know how I can prove it to you. I will do anything, anything you ask.’
Olly’s head was full of smoke. Ash looked distraught, his eyes manic.
It did not look like a lie. It did not feel like a lie.
But so many years of hate and betrayal coalesced still in the back of Olly’s mind.
The resentment. The fear. Nothing felt real: not Ash’s words, not his own memory, the things he had known to be true for so long.
‘I don’t—’ He struggled for words, nauseous. ‘I cannot—’
‘I know. I know. Please, Olly, just … just let me try—’
Olly opened and shut his mouth, trying to find his words. He was shaking, he realised; his whole body was shaking. His cheeks were wet: was he crying?
‘What happened to you?’ Ash asked. ‘I saw … on the field I saw that bastard with the mace take you down, but I couldn’t get to you before …’
His voice cracked into silence. Olly wrapped his arms around Ash’s shoulders at last. He did not want to speak it aloud. But he had to.
‘I fell from the horse,’ he muttered. ‘It was so loud.’
He still dreamed of that noise. The sound of metal on metal, the mace colliding with his helm. The ringing: the horrible sound that had built and built until the ringing was all that was left.
‘They took me to a keep,’ he continued. ‘I don’t remember … I do not remember any of it truthfully.’
‘What about your head?’
‘No wounds, thank God,’ Olly said. ‘No blood. No breaks. But …’
‘But?’
He didn’t want to tell him. It was desperately important that Ash did not know. But he was staring at Olly with open, terrified eyes. He deserved to know it all; he deserved to know the state of the man who had returned to him.
‘My hearing,’ he said. ‘And … my eye, my right eye. It took a while, and then … gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘My right side is not as strong as it once was, I am afraid.’ Olly laughed, the noise strained. ‘I will never be able to aim a bow again. I cannot hear, on this side. I am no longer the man you wished to make a marshal of.’
‘Olly …’ Ash pulled him close. ‘I am so sorry. I am so sorry.’
Olly buried his face in Ash’s tunic. The tears came freely, now.
‘I went to see your mother,’ Ash said. ‘After.’
‘What?’ Olly was sure his heart had stopped.
‘It was too soon. They all told me I was not well enough for the journey, but I insisted. She was …’ Ash looked down. ‘She was like a ghost.’
There was a terrible weight in Olly’s chest. His mother had been all light and laughter. She had been so solidly real compared to the aloof God of his father. She had been something he could hold.
‘We spoke for a whole evening,’ Ash continued tonelessly. ‘We grieved for different things, but she understood. It was barely even a conversation; she spoke of your youth, and I of our training together, of our squiring.
‘I stayed for only a day. I slept in the servants’ quarters and the next morning she came to bid me farewell.
She took my hand, and—’ Ash suddenly fell silent.
‘Her eyes were like stone. She looked at me, but she didn’t see me, as if I were made of mist. She said …
’ He took a breath that caught in his chest. ‘She said that it should have been me. That I should have died on the field, and God should have brought you back in my stead. She was right.’ His eyes were drowning in unshed tears. ‘It should have been me.’
‘Ash …’