Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“Come to my room,” she said. “I’ll make tea.”
Bridget let herself be led, and ended up sitting on the edge of the tiny four-poster, the hangings a very faded silk and gilt, high relief between the soft scarlet and the shining gold.
Brocatelle, that’s what it was called; her mother had told her once, and the information had fallen out of Bridget’s head until right this moment, when she had absolutely no need of it …
“Gauntlets,” said Gwen, and Bridget offered up her hands and allowed Gwen to unstrap them, and her vambraces too.
She knew how. She’d done it before. It had felt exciting, then.
Bridget couldn’t feel anything about it now.
Gwen went away for a while, and Bridget watched a spark from the fire catch on the rug, burn brightly and then die, leaving a black hole where it had landed.
“Tea,” Gwen said, handing her a hot cup of something that only bore a vague resemblance to tea, mostly sharp citrus and herbs.
Gwen drank it constantly. She’d had them pack a small crate of lemons on the wagon, just to feed her habit.
“Drink it, Bridget. I have to take some to Gabriel, and then I’ll be back. ”
Bridget took a sip, and then another. It was sweet and tart, a strong enough taste that it felt like she returned to her body a little.
She sat there nursing her cup, and eventually Gwen came back, and busied herself taking out her elaborate self-tied braids, running a comb through her hair, taking a rag and a basin of hot water and cleaning her face by the glass.
All the things Agnes would normally do, if she were here; she could have called for someone, for a maid of the house, but the door was now barred between them and everyone outside this room, and Bridget was glad of it.
Gwen took off her cloak, hung it by the fire, and then came to stand in front of Bridget, gesturing to the back of her dress.
“Could you … My bliaut, it’s laced at the seams, it’s meant to be invisible but if you poke around…”
Bridget put down her cup and felt for the seams, until she came across the fine, narrow lacing.
She’d done this before too. If she pulled too hard the fabric might tear, so she had to go slow and steady, concentrate absolutely.
It quieted her mind, the methodical work, the care she had to take …
and then as the dress started to open, revealing fine Flemish linen and the tops of Gwen’s freckled shoulder blades, she let her fingers wander to stroke the downy hair on Gwen’s neck, following the topography of her spine one vertebra at a time.
She moved her fingers aside and kissed her there, unthinking.
Gwen’s breath caught, and she stayed absolutely still until Bridget reluctantly moved away, letting her mouth graze across the surface of Gwen’s skin as she did.
“Bridget,” she said gently. “Drink your tea.”
“I did,” Bridget said, watching the way Gwen’s hair slipped over her half-bared shoulder as she turned.
“Then I’ll get you some more.”
“Okay.”
More tea was delivered to her, and Bridget dutifully drank it, but it was hard to pay much attention to the lemons as Gwen continued to unbuckle the rest of her armor as best she could, the pauldrons coming off easily, her cuirass and gorget slightly trickier, Gwen briefly trying to reach around to the back of Bridget’s legs and then giving up when this proved too difficult.
She went away to the mirror and came back with a basin, which she placed on the bed, and the rinsed rag, which she pressed to Bridget’s cheek.
It was warm and damp, and satisfyingly coarse; Gwen was gentle as she washed, but still it felt like she left behind a certain rawness, delicate skin scrubbed new and clean.
She’d been using one hand to hold Bridget’s hair out of the way, and Bridget took that hand and kissed her on the wrist. It was nice kissing backs, yes, but kissing wrists was also very good, and this time she could see Gwen, her eyes still and focused. She paused.
“You don’t want me to,” Bridget said, neither a statement of fact or a question, just a sentence she was tossing out there to see how it landed.
“No,” Gwen said. “I mean— It’s not that. I do. I really do.”
“Oh.” Bridget nodded slowly. “Good.”
She put her tea down again because it was only in the way, took the cloth from Gwen’s hand and dropped it in the basin, and then she could kiss Gwen properly on the mouth, where they both tasted like lemons.
Gwen sighed when she was kissed—Bridget didn’t think she knew, or could help it—and it was good, but tonight it wasn’t enough, just one little sigh. She needed more.
“Here,” Bridget said, and she pulled Gwen onto her lap, let her hands fall to the small of her back, tried to remember to be gentle with all that unlaced green silk, and only somewhat succeeded.
Gwen wasn’t saying anything at all, just kissing and kissing Bridget back, closing her eyes, catching her breath when she could.
There was so much of Gwen everywhere that Bridget didn’t need to think about anything else, the feeling as urgent and all-consuming as pain, obliterating anything else that might have mattered mere moments ago …
and then Bridget realized that Gwen was suddenly gripping hard on to her wrists—both of her wrists—keeping Bridget’s hands at bay.
“Hello.”
Bridget was still looking at Gwen’s lip, red and flushed where she’d … Had she actually bitten it? Already hard to recall the events of the last few minutes. She leaned in again.
“Bridget, no.”
That was like a bucket of ice. She froze, horrified, then eased Gwen from her lap, took up the basin, carried it over to the dresser, and splashed her face with now-lukewarm water.
“Sorry,” she said, burning with shame. “I’ll—”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
She started picking up her armor piece by piece, misjudging how much of it was still strapped together and losing a pauldron with a loud clatter, then having to fumble to pick it back up again.
Gwen sat on the bed, watching her seriously, saying “Bridget” softly, again and again. It was only when Bridget dropped her pauldron for a second time that she stopped, gave up, sat down on the bed next to Gwen, and closed her eyes.
“Look, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Gwen said. “All right? So stop self-flagellating and throwing your armor around. I just … I can tell your mind isn’t really here, and I’d rather not be kissing somebody whose soul has exited their body.”
Bridget didn’t open her eyes, but she felt Gwen’s fingers questing for her hand, and turned it over so she could grasp it better.
“What was it, today? The crowd? The shouting? I know it was something, because all the way back here you had that panicked-animal look, like you were somewhere else.”
Bridget opened her eyes, surprised.
“I’m not stupid, Bridget. And I rode out onto that battlefield too, even if I wasn’t there for long. I remember what it was like. Hell.”
“Hell,” Bridget repeated. “Blood and mud.” She was back there for a second, choking on the stench, and then she was back in the crowd watching that man spit on Bowen, magnificent Bowen, who took it with his head held high. “The rain,” she said suddenly. “It was raining. And it smelled like…”
“Yes,” Gwen said. “Yes, I remember. Damp, but also … rotting. That’s what happened today? The rain? It reminded you?”
“Maybe.” Bridget took in a breath and let it out slowly, unable to stop the shake on the exhalation. “I told you, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Gwen was quiet for a beat too long, and Bridget was starting to actively hate herself again for pushing her too far, when she said, “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you actually. I think you’re having a very reasonable reaction to a very terrible thing.”
“We’ve all been through a terrible thing. Nobody else is like this.”
“You don’t know that. And even if it’s not exactly like this, we’ve all got something going on. I only wish I knew how to help.”
Bridget was so tired. Her eyes were hot and prickly, almost like she might be on the verge of tears. “You are helping.”
When Gwen opened up her arms, she felt too sad and small to do anything else but lay her head down in Gwen’s lap, and let Gwen rub small circles behind her ears, and breathe and breathe into it until, quite by accident, she fell asleep.