9 Clare
9 Clare
Chivalry, Clare Grandhart found, was a real pain.
He did not experience the sentiment figuratively. Very real pain presently pervaded his shoulders, neck, and spine from the
joyous position of sleeping on the wooden floor of the inn where they decamped for the night.
It was embarrassing, honestly. The swordsman and scoundrel, aching like the old men who posted up in his neighborhood pubs.
In his youth, he could sleep for hours on the stone floors of the dungeon cells in which he not infrequently found himself.
His duskjay-feather pillows and sleeping-spelled drapes in his Farmount home had wrought this misery on him.
Nonetheless, chivalry was chivalry, and it was in keeping with the gentlemanliness Clare would practice on their journey.
When he and Elowen had reached their room, it dictated ceding her the narrow bed wedged into their quarters.
The escape from the company of Beatrice, however, had been welcome. Very welcome. He’d faced nightwalkers and gnarlivores and precipices of eroding rocks—yet he did not know if he would have survived
the night sleeping next to her. Huddled for warmth under the dark starlit sky, wrapped in the sweet shroud of her smell, her
soft—
He definitely would not have survived.
Instead, the evening he passed with Elowen had been pleasant enough. She had not protested when he consigned himself to the floorboards. She had protested, in her way, when he peppered and prodded her with questions. How did she find the cursed forest? Was she excited
for the wedding? How was her journey? Elowen had replied sullenly, ending conversation after conversation with monosyllabic
replies or sometimes just grunts.
It had been just like old times!
Clare was unashamed of how deeply it overjoyed him to find himself once more spending a unilaterally chatty evening with the
flame-haired girl he’d once considered as close as a sister. It was, he’d confided in himself while he rolled and repositioned
on the worn oak of his sleeping situation, a reunion for which he had not let himself yearn. The famous life he’d found in
Farmount had helped him forget how fiercely he missed Elowen. How much he missed them .
When his former companions had absconded into the forest and into nobility, respectively, he had, in part, embraced the public
role of “hero” in response to their retreat from it.
Or, Elowen’s retreat. In the days following Galwell’s funeral, when the pain of what Beatrice had done was still fresh, he
could not have cared less about what discomforted Beatrice.
Elowen, however—he knew grief had forced her into isolation. Mythria needed a hope they could hold on to, and Clare had stepped
onto the stage so she did not have to. His flaunted life had not earned him only purpose in his days, coin in his coffers,
and a gaudy knighthood. In occupying the role of hero in part for Elowen, he felt a connection with his old friend, even when, deep down, he knew none existed.
Now, it had earned him a creaky pain in his left hip.
He rose with the morning sun, wincing. The hubbub in the inn hallway, the cacophony of parenting, entertainment, prayer, and sex—in, he hoped, separate rooms—had subsided, leaving only the upbeat shuffle of morning journeyers on their way.
While Elowen slept, and ignoring the stabbing hip pain, Clare quietly went downstairs. The tavern, now the morning meal hall,
was rich with the smells of sweetspiced sausage, corncakes, and four varieties of eggs. Clare helped himself, liking the look
of the dawnlark eggs, and headed to one of the open seats.
And waited.
She arrived looking refreshed, her wooden plate heaped with pink-salted eggs. She sat, her eyes lit with eagerness for the
day.
“The innkeeper gave me your message,” Vandra said.
Clare said nothing in reply. He was inopportunely in the midst of a mouthful of eggs.
Vandra smiled. “Early breakfast with Clare Grandhart,” she went on. “I imagine people would pay a fortune for the pleasure.”
“They do,” he remarked, swallowing. “I sometimes auction off my meals to raise money for charitable causes.”
Vandra looked indulgently interested, like his explanation was the setup she was entertaining in expectation of the punchline.
She flagged down the drinkmaid and, once she’d ordered a dark brew with cream, returned him her focus. “What charities does
a former outlaw support?”
“I have an eagle sanctuary, if you have farthings you’d like to devote to our wonderful creatures.”
Her smile widened. “I suppose I can’t make fun,” she conceded. “Like you, I’ve given up my life of crime for the straight
and narrow!”
Clare reminded himself to remind her to fund his precious eagles. Despite her insinuations regarding his past, his charitable endeavors were entirely in earnest. “How do you like it?” he asked instead, with no meager curiosity. While the intent of his morning meeting with Vandra was not chitchat, her cheerful ease interested him. He’d wrestled with his life’s direction recently—how had Vandra found comfort in hers?
Well, she doesn’t have the pressure of upholding the desired image for sponsorships for ale or horseball apparel , he comforted himself pettily.
Of course, she only shrugged. “You know me, Grandhart. I always make my own fun,” she replied dazzlingly. “It matters not
whether I’m assassinating an evil cultist or escorting a grumpy hermit across the land. I’m going to find the laughs!”
Now it was Clare who laughed. It was the finest eloquence he’d ever heard in a description of Elowen.
Vandra had not mischaracterized herself, either. The former assassin’s demeanor—shining like the sun outside their window—was
unique in her line of work. Clare knew this from personal experience, having encountered the Deathrose Guild on memorable
occasions in his rougher days. Named for the Mount Mythrian flower with ebony petals like opening lips and thorns capable
of stopping the heart, Vandra’s cohort of former colleagues was... interesting.
“So.” Vandra shifted in her seat like she was waiting for noblewomen’s gossip of whose wife was sneaking around with the neighborhood
weaponeer. “I expect you didn’t invite me to breakfast so we could bond over our criminal pasts.”
Clare finished off his dawnlark eggs. “Well, I’d hoped we might bond a little, but no.” He placed down his fork, continuing
delicately. “How—was Beatrice?”
His guest’s eyes widened, her smile sharpening with accusation. “You’re still carrying your massive torch for her? I remember staking you out and watching you watch her the entire night with utter longing.” She shook her head. “Massive. Utterly fucking massive.”
He could not help flushing. “No,” he replied hotly. Chivalrous men don’t lose their cool , his conscience reminded him. Nevertheless—Vandra calling him out on the complicated emotions hiding under his and Beatrice’s
betrayals of each other made him feel the way he did when pub rabblerousers contended the Farmount Falcons played inferior
horseball to the Northwood Knights. He had to dispute her. “We’re in the past,” he insisted with warning. “Like you and Elowen.”
“We’re not in the past at all!” Vandra exclaimed.
The declaration distracted Clare from his indignation. “Wait, really? You’ve pined for her all these years?”
“Of course I have. Isn’t she wonderful? She’s the grumpiest human being I’ve ever met. I’d say the grumpiest being in Mythria, except I once had a cat who bit me whenever I ventured to pet her,” Vandra replied.
“Does Elowen know?” Clare inquired.
“She knows of my ill-tempered cat, yes.”
Clare pinned her with his gaze. “Not what I meant.”
Vandra grinned. Her impishness softening, she looked down. “It’s... complicated,” she confessed. “We weren’t there for
each other for many years. It hurt how easily she left everything—left me— behind. I knew she owed me nothing, of course.” Vandra sighed, the rattling sigh of someone impatient with their own sorrow.
“I wanted to leave her behind, too. It hurt nonetheless. Then... when I parted from the guild, I did a great deal of reflecting.
Elowen was on my mind often,” Vandra replied. “I couldn’t forget her.”
Clare stared into his dark brew. He knew something of the im possibility of forgetting, no matter how much misery entwined itself within the memories.
“Couldn’t forgive her either, though, I suppose,” he finally said.
“Oh no, quite the contrary,” Vandra rejoined. “I forgave her easily.”
He glanced up, uncomprehending.
Vandra went on. “After all, I could have reached out to her as well, and I did not. I refused to resent Elowen when I knew
she could resent me in return.” She regarded Clare. “In my old line of work, I learned one thing,” she said. “People are not
all bad or all good. We are both. And to be happy, sometimes you must forgive.”
You must forgive.
Clare wriggled under her pointed gaze. Yes, very well , he wanted to say. I know you mean me.
He offered the only honest reply he could. “Some things cannot be forgiven.” He knew not whether he meant what he or Beatrice
had done. Does it matter?
Vandra said nothing, yet her expression made no secret of how his reply left her unsatisfied. The drinkmaid returned with
the steaming mug of dark brew and a small cup of cream.
Clare watched in fascination while Vandra swilled the hot, spicy drink—then promptly pounded the creamer on its own like it
was a shot of liquor.
While he contemplated the combination he’d just observed, which was not, to put it mildly, customary, Vandra made no comment
on her unusual morning ritual.
“Well, while we are certainly in no way discussing Beatrice currently,” she replied, “I will now answer your question. Beatrice was... wary,” she explained. “She delved into my memories to confirm my story. I don’t think she liked what she saw. How... Elowen lives. She went to bed immediately, except I’m pretty sure she didn’t sleep. She went very still for hours, unresponsive. Like she was... in her magic.”
“Doing what?” he managed. For hours? Sleepless? Regardless of whether he could forgive Beatrice, he was discovering his instincts toward her hadn’t changed. Worry pulled
him like storm winds on perilous mountain paths. Unless he entrenched himself, remembering she cared nothing for him, they
would push him over the edge.
Vandra shrugged. “I’m an excellent spy, but even I can’t see inside someone’s head. Memories, I’d imagine.”
Memories.
Clare had been in his memories last night, too, but not like Beatrice. He knew his were only fumbling, forced-up recollections,
nothing like the renderings Beatrice could revisit, yet they devastated him—which reminded him of the horrible power Beatrice
possessed. How vividly she could see every failure, feel every loss.
His ordinary memories were enough—combined with the uncomfortable floorboards—to forestall hours of his own sleep. He’d found
himself remembering the last time they were together, united on their journey. The quest. He remembered how Galwell’s death
drove them apart. If Galwell could, impossibly, have known what his death would do to them... Clare knew the fallen hero,
their dear friend, would have been heartbroken.
He would be disappointed.
The conviction had given Clare new resolve. He’d woken in his upstairs room with a hurting hip and a new plan for the coming days.
It was why he’d invited Vandra here. He leaned forward, hiding none of his hesitation, none of his self-doubt. If Vandra felt he was only acting cavalierly, she would feel less of an imperative to go along with his plan. She needed to know he was serious.
“I was... hoping the four of us could travel to the palace together,” he proposed.
Vandra’s eyes narrowed, for once. She sipped her drink. “I’m not eager to forsake my one-on-one time with my prickly paramour,”
she said.
He’d expected that point. “After Galwell’s funeral,” he elaborated gently, “Elowen and Beatrice had a huge fight. I feel they
should... talk. Heal old wounds. It would help them. You said you have forgiven her. Yearned for her, even. Mending her
past might help her...” He measured his words. He did not want to promise what he could not deliver. “...return to herself,”
he finished.
Concern vanquished the cheer in Vandra’s expression. She set down her mug. “Of course. Of course it’s not just her brother’s
death that drove Elowen into the trees,” she replied, pacing out each deduction in words. “Beatrice was her best friend. It
must have hurt her horribly to lose not only her brother, but her oldest friend.”
Clare nodded. While he knew Elowen was the route to Vandra’s cooperation, he could not help considering how the rift had hurt
Beatrice as well.
Oh, he didn’t sympathize with her. How could he, when she knew exactly how she’d shattered his heart?
He couldn’t, he told himself. He couldn’t wonder whether she would never have settled for her miserable marriage if she’d
held on to her dearest friend. He couldn’t contemplate whether she would be less lost, or less inclined to losing herself
in drink, if she’d had Elowen to hold on to. He couldn’t concern himself with whether she would be happier.
Not when she hated him the way she obviously did. He could entertain none of those caring questions about her. Even if he occasionally wanted to.
“Why do you want to push them together?” Vandra queried. “It’ll surely be a headache for us .”
Clare straightened. He did not know exactly how to respond. Or, he did. He just did not know exactly how to respond in his
own voice, his own person. Putting honesty into words he usually only employed for performance.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he mustered.
He felt the inquisition of Vandra’s gaze on him, the full depth of her familiar scrutiny. She could see through him. How he
postured greatness just to hold himself together. Hold everyone together.
She decided not to pry. The next moment, like the clouds parting in front of the sun, her cheerful resolve returned. “Very
well! I like your plan, good sir. If Elowen and Beatrice can mend their own relationship, Elowen may more freely open her
heart again. It is here resolved—we shall journey together on the road to Queendom.”
She stood, drink finished. Clare joined her.
“A road voyage,” she elaborated. “Road trek. Road trip. Road trip! ” she repeated in delight. “That’s the one, isn’t it? Doesn’t it just sound fun?”
It did not, to Clare, in honesty. He would, however, hold the course. It was his plan, which inspired commitment if not confidence.
Galwell had been the Four’s planner. Clare could only hope and welcome the presence of intercessors to his and Beatrice’s
hatred. “Then,” he ventured, “we’ll just need to find a way to convince them to travel together.”
“Oh, we can’t do that,” Vandra replied instantly. “Fortunately”—Clare could only follow her out of the tavern, into the morning light dazzling over the greenery outside the inn—“I know what’ll work instead. Which are your horses?”
Clare pointed, wary. “Why?”
Promptly, Vandra went to the hitching post, where she untied Clare’s horse. Next, she loosed the obsidian-black mare. Exactly
the one Clare had discerned! He made a mental note to tell Beatrice I told you so. In a very gentlemanly and noble way, of course.
Then, with one slap of the horses’ hindquarters, Vandra sent the horses running.
“Lead him home, Killer!” she called out sweetly. “Have fun, you two!”
Clare watched the dispatch with puzzled horror. “Vandra...”
“Trust me.”
He needed to now, he knew. He followed her, returning into the inn, where, with the growing group of guests waking up and
hungry for dawnlark eggs, they found Beatrice and Elowen. The women were, naturally, standing as far from each other as possible
while remaining in each other’s sights. They looked up in guarded expectation when Vandra strode into the room.
Vandra did not disappoint. “Misfortune, ladies! Our horses have run off in the night!”
Faces fell.
“We know not how,” Vandra continued. “However, we are in surprising luck, for the inn has chartered a coach for everyone going
to Queendom. We can ride. Together!”