Chapter 20
Olly
It should have been more momentous. It should have felt like the end of something; like a door slammed shut, Olly’s fingers trapped in the frame.
It did not. Ash and Agnes had married in front of what appeared to be the entire county, and nothing at all had changed.
At least the wedding feast would soothe his anxieties.
After removing his armour – better for dancing, he had said – Olly stood with Ash on his left, so he could hear him above the din, and peered around the room.
He had not been a part of such excitement in years, and he was determined to make the most of it.
His attempts were waylaid, however, by the overwhelming number of people who were determined to greet the new couple.
Olly had not yet really seen how important Ash was, and here it was as clear as the red beard that prickled across Ash’s chin.
Everyone wished to speak to him, and those who had nothing of import to say wanted to greet him anyway, likely to ensure he remembered them and would continue to do so.
‘I do not know how Father managed all this,’ Ash said, when they were granted a moment of peace.
‘You will get used to it,’ Agnes said. ‘If only because you have no other choice.’
‘Wonderful,’ Ash huffed. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘Don’t look so sour,’ Olly said. ‘You are supposed to be enjoying yourself.’
Ash gestured to his mug. ‘Is this not enjoying myself?’
‘You have not even danced yet.’
Ash did not move. ‘Good.’
An evil little thought bloomed in Olly’s mind.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘This is your wedding feast. Everybody will think you are a poor match if you do not even dance together.’
‘You said yourself I have no skill in it.’
‘And?’ Olly exclaimed, ‘Neither does he!’ He gestured to a man crossing the hall uneasily, hoisted up by the people dancing on either side of him. ‘Yet that does not stop him.’
‘But—’
‘Go! Dance!’
Ash shot a sideways glance at Agnes. She, too, looked unsure.
‘As much as it pains me to admit it,’ she said, ‘he is right.’
Ash looked between them with an expression of betrayal. ‘I hate you both.’
Agnes took his hand. ‘Come, the sooner we can get this over with the sooner you can go back to drowning in wine.’
They moved into the centre of the hall just in time to join the beginning of another dance.
They made a good pair, if only because their awkwardness was matched in the other.
Neither of them looked particularly keen, either; at least that way they could claim it was a shared dislike for dancing rather than a dislike of each other.
Not, Olly thought, that anyone would assume they disliked each other.
It was clear that they were fond of each other, and they made a good couple; Agnes’s practical nature was an effective ballast against Ash’s more tempestuous one.
As they shuffled around the other dancers – Agnes wincing as Ash stepped in the wrong direction – something hot and acidic rose in Olly’s throat.
They were wed, now. And while they were only friends, he had known too many people whose marriages had started on bedrocks far less certain but had still bloomed into love.
For Ash, of course, Olly knew himself to be lost: how could anyone not love Ash, as he did?
How could anyone not want him? Agnes, too, was fair and bold and, Olly had no qualms in admitting, pleasing to look at.
It was natural that, given time and proximity, their relationship would bloom into more.
Part of him wondered if it had not already happened – or at least had for Agnes. He recalled the way she had so gently stopped Ash from picking at his scar. She looked at him with a fondness that Olly was all-too familiar with.
He had pushed them to dance for little more than his own devilish glee, delighting in watching Ash be forced into something he detested. And now, as they moved together around the hall, he regretted doing so.
What would become of him if Ash and Agnes’s friendship did become more?
The one jealousy that Olly allowed himself, while watching Ash step on Agnes’s foot and then quickly and effusively apologise, was the fact that their relationship would always be real.
In the eyes of their family and friends and of God Himself, it was an unbreakable union.
There was no recognition for him and Ash – not beyond the vows they had made to each other before entering the battlefield, and those would only ever be recognised as a comrades’ bond.
They were knights, brothers-in-arms, soldiers.
Not lovers. Not joined in the way Ash and Agnes were.
At least that bitterness was not directed at Ash or his new wife. It was directed at the world around them, at the God who had made him this, made him other, and then rejected that otherness and made it a sin.
Ash had insisted that he would not leave Olly again.
That they would never be parted. That he loved him, as desperately and rawly as he had done all those years ago.
Olly believed him: Olly would always believe him, after seeing the pain in Ash’s eyes when he’d tried to leave, and after hearing the full and rotten truth of his life since Olly’s apparent death.
Given all he’d been through, the fact of Ash’s love felt like the only solid thing he could cling to, and so cling to it he did.
Ash had kept the ring, after all.
All Olly could do was hold on to the twin facts that Ash loved him, and that Agnes tolerated their relationship.
More than tolerated. It was another mark in her favour: she saw Ash for who he was and wanted him to be happy.
Another wife would have forced Olly away.
Another wife would likely have never known about her husband’s tryst with his oldest friend regardless, forcing their love into the shadows, breaking it through a thousand tiny blows.
The musicians – who were, by Olly’s high standards, very good – stopped their song.
It was the sudden silence that roused him from his thoughts, looking towards Ash and Agnes as the minstrels began readying for the next tune: a carole.
Ash gestured towards him, reaching out his hand. His expression was amused and daring.
Olly would rarely turn down a dance: especially after cajoling Ash into the act himself.
He had practised enough to see off some of the clumsiness that had plagued him since his injury, and besides: in such close quarters he would be less likely to trip.
He saw off his drink and rose to his feet just in time to join.
Ash handed him off to Agnes, placing himself on Olly’s other side.
Olly swallowed, half-amused that he was about to dance with the wife of his lover.
It was a farce: but one that only they were privy to, making it all the more amusing.
He took her hand with a low bow, fluttering his lips over the backs of her fingers. ‘My Lady.’
She gave him a half-annoyed smile. He edged closer, so only she and Ash could hear him.
‘My Lord Angus, how pleased I am for this dance.’
That got a reaction from her – the smile split into something far warmer and more real. Her cheekbones flushed.
‘I hope you are a better dancer than him,’ she said, gesturing over Olly’s shoulder towards Ash.
‘Far better.’
The dance began. Agnes’s skin was warm, fingers calloused from her bow.
Her hand was smaller than his own, but her grip was firm.
Like Ash, she was unsure of the dance, forgoing the more complicated cross-steps.
Unlike Ash, she hid her uncertainty well, where Ash continually forced himself to attempt steps his legs could not keep up with, tripping himself – and Olly – over.
When the dance ended, the other attendees politely clapping or complimenting each other, the call for another coupled dance began. Expecting to be dismissed again, Olly went to turn away, but to his surprise found Ash gripping his shoulder, preventing an escape.
‘You were quite right,’ he said, speaking so closely to his ear that Olly’s skin flourished into gooseflesh. ‘I am a dreadful dancer. Quite a danger. It is your turn.’
With that, he spun Olly around in a manoeuvre Olly was sure was from their training days, directly into Agnes’s arms.
‘Be good,’ Ash muttered, as he pressed their hands together.
‘Aren’t I always?’
‘I was talking to both of you.’
Agnes shook her head at him as Ash headed towards the edge of the room and was immediately pulled into a conversation by a wealthy-looking woman. Olly refocused his attention on Agnes, leading her into the next dance.
With a competent partner, Agnes’s own uncertainty was less noticeable. Olly found her easy to move and redirect as needed, and she seemed happy to follow his lead, only redirecting him when his bad eye nearly sent them crashing into another couple.
He had not been this close to her before.
She was a good head shorter than him, forcing him to peer down at her as they danced.
Her tight dress emphasised the width of her shoulders: he had not noticed how strong they were.
He could sense rather than feel the muscle of her archer’s arms beneath the silk.
Her hair, as always, was tied into a complex series of plaits crowning her head. Today, she wore a fine mesh of gold studded with little jewels atop it. It made her hair glow, imbued with some fiery magic. How had he not already appreciated how striking she was?
Unthinking, he reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Was it the heat of the hall and the wine in his blood making his cheeks flush, or something else?
When the music ended – a moment later, a lifetime later – it took several seconds for him to realise, only releasing Agnes’s hand when she gave it a little squeeze.