Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
The weeks follow a pattern.
Ethram wakes first, curled into Ky’s back, or into his shoulder, or, on one mortifying occasion, into his chest. Ky is always asleep, or pretending to be asleep, and if so, Ethram is grateful for the falsehood.
Ethram makes breakfast, and Ky mentions something to do in return, something that takes the entire day.
He patches the roof and fixes the unstable shelf in the pantry and hammers down the floorboards where they stick out.
He props up the tumbling woodshed eaves.
He tackles the brambles, and that takes a full week of labour and thin scratches up his arms that are gone each morning, but eventually the front garden is a bare patch of earth.
And then it is spring.
Ky looks up from his book, staring until Ethram gives him his attention.
“Yes?”
Ky smiles. It’s a new thing, this smile. It’s barely there, and soft at the edges. Ethram despises it because it means that Ky is growing fond. Ethram does not allow people to grow fond of him. He doesn’t trust people who grow fond of him. Though Ky, he supposes, can hardly be counted as people.
“When are you next going to the market?” says Ky, with a worrying sort of intention.
“The day after tomorrow.” Ethram narrows his eyes. “Is there something you wanted?”
“The garden will be ready for planting soon. We should buy seeds.”
Ethram hasn’t the slightest clue what seeds they should buy. It turns out, he needn’t worry, because on market day, when he stands from lacing his boots, Ky is standing beside him.
He frowns at Ky’s battered shoes and thinks perhaps it is a good thing for Ky to come. He’ll need better shoes before he leaves, and it’s best to try on anything like that before one purchases. And Ky is an unusual size. Finding shoes that fit won’t be easy.
“Is there something wrong?” Ky is looking down at him.
Ky is always looking down at him. Ethram considers his own boots. A heel, perhaps, might be desirable if he’s going about with this man. Ethram is not used to feeling so small. He’s never considered himself short, and yet he does not even come to Ky’s shoulder.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
The market is a half-hour walk, most of it through the channel of woodland that winds through the eastern edge of Esk. The wood is why Ethram had chosen to live so far from the town proper. It made him feel secluded, set apart. It made him feel a little forgotten, in a good way.
It’s hard to feel forgotten lately, not with the way Ky is always nearby. Watching his moods, remembering the things he likes and the things he does not. Ethram tips his head to the sky and reminds himself that Ky will leave soon.
Of course he will. Everyone does, eventually.
It’s a bright morning, the ground glittering with frost. The birdsong from the bare branches is clear and strong. Near the market grounds, the plum trees in the cottage gardens are blooming in bursts of pale cream and lilac. Ky stops for a moment, looking over them with a considering eye.
“I feel that plum blossom is important,” says Ky, the words almost reluctant. “Though I can’t remember why.”
Ethram makes a note of that. Plum blossom is notable in several obsolete Eskan rituals and extant festivals. He has at least one volume on the subject. “It also makes for a pretty garden,” he adds lightly. “Though I’ve always preferred crabapple.”
He doesn’t even know why he says it. He regrets it as soon as the considering look in Ky’s eyes deepens.
“Don’t plant trees in my garden,” says Ethram sharply. “I won’t know how to care for them.”
Ky makes a dismissive noise, as if the thought had not occurred to him.
Ky, Ethram is learning, is a dirty liar.
The market provides enough distraction. As much as Ethram despises the press of bodies and chatter, Ky relaxes into it. He attracts enough attention, even with his hair bundled up under his collar. He’s too tall not to do so. He’s too fine of face, if Ethram must be honest.
He is quite clearly something different.
The woman who sells Ethram his garden greens casts a measuring eye over them both. “Wondered why you’d been buying so much over winter,” she says, amused. “Where’d he come in from then? Must be far east, with hair like that.”
“Somewhere that way,” says Ethram, paying for his choices. “Thank you, Etta.”
“Thank me by keeping yourself upright. No repeat of last spring, understand?”
Ky leans in as they head to the next stall. “Last spring?”
“I had my Luminary paper due,” he says. “I missed some market days.”
He’d missed a month of market days, and run out of food, and hadn’t noticed.
And then he’d collapsed in his front yard and drawn the combined ire and concern of the entire hamlet of well-meaning neighbours upon himself.
He tries to block it from his memory. Unfortunately, no one else will do him the service of doing the same.
He shifts the bag to an easier grip, and then Ky takes it from him. Ethram doesn’t complain, because it frees his hands to pick the best herb bundles from Marc’s table. Marc also makes a sly compliment to Ky, and Ethram resigns himself to the busy-bodying of the lot.
Once they’ve visited all the regular stalls, Ky leads them to a woman at a table absolutely smothered in small packets of seeds. Ethram readies his coin purse as soon as Ky makes that pleased noise under his breath. He’s come to learn that it means nothing but trouble.
They leave with another parcel, this one full of rosemary, thyme, sage, over-leaf, borage, parsnips and carrots, radishes, spinach and kale.
Ky has not stopped there. There are bulbs of freesia and hyacinth and snow-bane, and climbing jasmine and stock, and even a few bare canes—elder and gooseberry and currant.
Ethram is quite sure he hasn’t enough garden to fit all of it.
While Ky is off bartering with a tool-seller on some small hand tools, Ethram distracts himself with a wood-carver’s wares.
He’s dithering over a set of kitchen spoons when he spots the clasp.
It’s smooth as silk, curved in the shape of oak leaves, an elegant over-form and a straight crosspiece.
It reminds Ethram of the oaks on his street, the way they rattle in the wind and send acorns skittering against his front door in autumn.
“I’m afraid you don’t have the hair for it,” says the wood-carver, smiling. She’s a young woman, but her skill is clear.
“Nor do I intend to grow it out,” he says, quite dry.
He buys the spoons. At the very last moment, he buys the clasp, too. It’s practical, he tells himself. He puts the purchase in his pocket and tries very hard to forget about it all the way home.