Chapter 18 #3
‘What would you have picked?’ Ash asked, sounding panicked. ‘I should have let you speak, God, I—’
‘It is fine,’ Agnes said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
‘Angus is perfectly acceptable. I would have likely given him my true name and ruined everything, anyway. And it is not as if we can very well turn up to this hunting party of his and introduce me as something else. He will think you’re mad. ’
‘I am mad.’
‘It’s remarkable really,’ Oliver mused.
‘What is?’
‘That he assumed you were a man so quickly. You do look very— Well.’
‘Well, what?’
‘Very much like a man,’ he said, with a one-shouldered shrug.
‘Good.’
They proceeded down the slope towards the river.
It was a fine day, the sun warm, the treetops bursting with birdsong.
As they walked, Agnes noticed Oliver’s eyes landing on her time and again.
When he had met them in the great hall, he had not passed comment on her unusual dress, and now it seemed as if he had only just realised how strange it was.
Particularly, she noticed his eyes darting downwards at her chest. Or, the place where her chest would be, had she not been wearing the cuirass.
She would have thought the looks salacious, were it not for the glint of curiosity in his expression.
When Litillwitte was distracted by a darting hare, running off into a thicket of trees with Ash swearing and scrambling after him, Agnes and Oliver were left alone; she absent-mindedly fussing behind Qwippe’s ears while Oliver leaned against a tree.
He was, she realised, once again staring at her chest.
‘Why is it,’ Agnes said, watching him closely, ‘that I feel as if you have something on your mind?’
Oliver’s eyes snapped from her chest to her face. ‘Nothing,’ he said, far too quickly.
‘Oliver.’
‘… It would be improper.’
Agnes raised her eyebrows, thinking on the myriad improper things about their situation.
‘Oh, curse it.’ Oliver huffed. ‘I was wondering how you did … that.’
‘Did what?’
‘Did that!’ Oliver gestured impatiently at her chest. ‘How did you—’ He made another, cruder gesture with both hands. ‘I mean, they—’
‘You are asking how I flattened my chest?’
Oliver blushed. She’d never seen him blush, before. ‘Yes,’ he mumbled.
‘It is a kind of cuirass,’ Agnes said, trying to find the correct words. ‘I made it myself. I simply put it on and tighten it and it …well. Presses.’
‘A cuirass?’
‘Yes, it’s quite simple really. And about the only thing I’ve ever used my years of needlework for,’ she added, with a laugh. ‘Why so curious?’
‘No reason,’ he said, although he was looking thoughtful. ‘Truly, just that: just curiosity. I suppose it is to make shooting easier?’
Agnes frowned.
‘You use a bow,’ Oliver said. ‘I have heard that they’ – another crude gesture – ‘get in the way.’
‘Was that something you learned on the road?’ she asked.
Oliver barked out a sharp laugh. ‘It makes sense,’ he protested.
‘I was once told this story – I met a man in France. We were both prisoners, both trying to get home. He was a poet, he said. Why he’d seen fit to become a military man I cannot say, although he was very loyal to the king.
He told me this tale he’d heard of a whole country of fierce warrior women in Scythia.
They were led by a mighty queen – I forget her name – but they were all skilled marksmen.
’ He paused. ‘Markswomen. Regardless, they favoured the bow, but their womanly assets often got in the way. So they cut them off.’
Agnes pictured it – the blood, the shine and slice of the knife, the carved body. While visceral, the image held no horror.
‘Both of them?’ she said at last.
‘Just the one,’ Oliver said. ‘I presume for—’ He mimicked pulling back a bow.
‘Oh.’ Agnes considered this. ‘And they all did this?’
‘I am unsure. My friend did not elaborate.’
She let the thought hang in her mind. A whole tribe of women, not mutilated, but freed. It was intriguing. She wondered what it felt like, how much it hurt. If it was worth it, afterwards.
Soon after, Ash reappeared, half-dragging Litillwitte beside him, whose fur was now full of burrs.
‘Stupid hound,’ he muttered, letting him go and watching him bound down the path. ‘What have you two been discussing? You look guilty.’
‘Nothing,’ Agnes said quickly, just as Oliver said: ‘Breasts.’
Ash looked between them. He opened his mouth. He closed it again. ‘I regret asking.’
They continued on. They’d only gone a little further when there was a noise from up ahead: a laugh. Ash stilled, Agnes and Oliver coming up sharp behind him. And then, from the trees, burst a pair of familiar figures.
It was Ash who spoke first, his shoulders relaxing. ‘Greetings.’
Raff and Penn froze as they realised that they were not alone.
Penn was ruffled, and Raff’s tunic was slung over his arm, his undershirt slipping from one shoulder.
There was a fresh, dark, bruise nestled just below his collarbone.
His eyes darted towards Agnes and then, skin turning pink, he quickly tugged the undershirt up.
It was all the confirmation she needed.
Perhaps this was why Ash had thought she would fit within his family. Perhaps it was as Penn said: they truly were all eccentrics and degenerates. All of them were blurring the rules of sex – changing between man and woman – herself and Ash included.
‘We were just heading back to the keep,’ Penn said, while Raff stood by looking awkward.
‘Oh indeed?’ Ash said. ‘Do not let us delay you.’
As they went to pass her, Agnes shot out a hand, grabbing Penn around one of his skinny wrists.
‘One moment—’
He turned an appeasing smile on her. He knew he was caught.
‘When you return, do seek out Joan,’ she said. ‘I believe she is baking. I would hate for you to be forced to feast on poor Raff again.’
Penn’s expression went slack. Behind her, both Ash and Oliver burst into unconstrained peals of laughter.
Penn blinked at her. ‘Uh—’
She maintained her sure smile. ‘We shall see you later, I am sure.’
Without another word, he and Raff dashed off.
‘That was wonderful.’ Oliver approached from behind. ‘My God, his face …’
‘You were aware of their— of them?’ Ash asked, he too holding back laughter.
‘I had suspected there was something more between them than a simple friendship, yes,’ Agnes said. ‘They … are not very subtle.’
Ash gave her a conciliatory look. ‘That they are not. God’s bollocks, I am happy to have it out, now, at last. Now everyone knows everything: everyone who matters, that is. No more secrets. I had intended to tell you,’ he added quickly. ‘Or insist one of them told you. Just in case.’
‘It is not a secret easily given,’ Agnes reassured him.
‘That it is not.’
They didn’t need to walk much longer before Agnes could hear rushing water. The path was rough and footworn, little more than a track through the brambles. They emerged onto the bank of the river, the sunlight sparkling from the water and low trees hanging above it, branches drooping.
Olly rushed ahead, already making quick work of his tunic and undershirt. Before Agnes could look away, he’d shucked off his hose and braies as well, throwing them aside and leaping into the water with a splash. Ash called after him, his words utterly unheeded.
‘He will be at this for hours,’ Ash said. ‘Come, join me …’
He perched on a low bough facing the water, shuffling along the mossy wood to grant Agnes room. The tree sagged as they sat, leaves rustling above them.
They watched Oliver turn neat lines through the water, cutting through the flow of the river like it was nothing.
His arms were strong and powerful, even if the sight of his firm muscles betrayed how poorly he’d been looking after himself for far too long.
Scars littered his chest and arms, as well as perhaps a dozen bruises all over his right side.
Despite his cockiness, Agnes found that she liked Oliver, too.
He was charming, annoyingly so, and appeared determined to either win her favour or drive her utterly mad.
Thus far, he had succeeded in both. It was because he was so deeply unserious, she suspected; he treated most things as if they were amusements.
‘Do you intend to join me?’ he called, pausing to float. ‘Or will you be sitting there all afternoon?’
Ash laughed, heaving himself from the bough.
He, too, began to strip. Agnes watched as he removed his clothes layer by layer: tunic, undershirt, hose, breeches.
His body was softer than Olly’s, with thick, strong-looking arms and legs furred in wiry, dark hair.
Like this, she could see that the scar did not stop at his jaw, but grazed across his chest as well.
Her heart beat out of time, a stuttering thing between her ribs. With the soft sunlight dappling Ash’s skin, she could not tell if the feeling was something cautious and gentle, or something voracious, wanting to bite.
Ash stopped at his braies, leaving them about his waist as he threw his clothes aside and stepped into the water with a muffled curse at the cold.
He entered the water with far more care than Oliver; a choice that was utterly wasted when Oliver immediately swam over to him, grabbed him, and pulled him beneath the surface.
Ash remerged red-faced and spluttering, and a childish splashing war began.
Agnes watched as they spun around each other.
Like this, she could see where they had been trained in the art of war: skills now used, apparently, for thievery and water fights.
‘Agnes! Will you join us?’
She looked up to see Ash standing, watching her. The water barely reached his thighs, and the expensive linen of his braies – which he had no doubt kept on in an attempt to maintain some sense of propriety – had become entirely transparent.
She swallowed heavily. She tried, truly, to keep his gaze. She failed magnificently. He was hard beneath the fabric, no doubt the result of such fervent contact with his lover.
‘Agnes?’ he said, entirely unaware of her predicament. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Get down.’ Olly grabbed him from behind and pulled him into the water. ‘Or do you truly mean to speak to her with your prick on show? There are ladies present.’ He shot a look at Agnes, a wild, cheeky grin. ‘Allegedly.’
Ash went scarlet.
‘Actually, Oliver,’ Agnes said haughtily, ‘I had not even noticed.’
Oliver caught her eye. He raised a single, suggestive eyebrow.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Terrible of me to suggest otherwise. Will you join us?’
Agnes rose tentatively from the branch and placed herself at the edge of the water. The chill of it seeped into the fabric of her hose. For a moment her hands went to her laces. But that clawing feeling inside of her whispered – Do not. Do not make me look. Do not make me be like that.
She lowered her hands, took a deep breath, and flung herself into the water between them.