Chapter Seventeen #2
It also meant, however, that I could no longer hold him gingerly by the hips, but had to clasp my hands fully around his waist. This made my cheeks flame, but had the pleasant side effect of allowing me to lean my head against his shoulder blade.
I could almost fall asleep that way, I thought.
I rested my cheek against the motley coat and breathed in his scent of soap.
At least he smelled inoffensive, I told myself.
Imagine if he was some enormous, sweaty man who stank of onions.
“What are you thinking?” he asked me. “You’ve been quiet now for a mile.”
“I was thinking how thankful I am that you are not an enormous, sweaty man stinking of onions.”
This startled a laugh from him. “I do my best,” he said.
Clouds gathered over the course of the day, and, by evening, it was well and truly raining. Fane, as it turned out, among her other inconvenient qualities, was not an admirer of rain.
When a horse doesn’t want to walk, absolutely refuses to walk, no amount of pulling has the slightest effect.
Patrick yanked on Fane’s bridle, whispered both sweet nothings and epithets into her flattened ears, slapped her flank, and even in desperation got behind her and pushed her by the rump.
None of it worked. At last, he sank down to his haunches and put his head in his hands, letting out a low growl of frustration.
“I suppose we’re camping here for the night,” I said, rather enjoying the sight of him sweating, disheveled, and, for once, not the picture of composure.
“Apparently,” he barked. Scowling and muttering under his breath, he started to remove the saddlebags, tugging at the straps as if they had personally offended him. “Plague take it!”
“Need some help?”
He did not respond, but wrestled with the fastenings until the bedrolls came free.
“You don’t have a tent?”
“I wasn’t anticipating the rain.”
“I thought you anticipated everything.”
This didn’t improve his foul mood. He shook out the blankets and spread them on the ground with pointed precision, then laid the bedrolls on top.
“Feel free to assist me at any time,” he grunted.
“You’re doing a marvelous job. I’d hate to interrupt.”
But when a vein in his temple started to pulse, I dropped my posture of detached interest and went over to help.
We lashed a blanket as best we could between two boughs, creating a rudimentary roof over the bedrolls, and sat beneath it to escape the drizzle—light by now, but cold and needle-sharp.
Fane crowded her front end under the shelter with us and started nibbling at a clover patch.
“Hello?” came an uncertain voice from the direction of the road. I looked up to see a woman huddled with a large basket and two young girls, all three of them under one cloak. She kept her arms protectively around her daughters, but gave us a half smile, as if gauging our friendliness.
“You go to her,” said Patrick. “I think they’ll be more comfortable.”
“You just want to stay under the blanket,” I grumbled, but got up and went over to them.
“Forgive us for startling you,” said the woman softly. “We do not mean any harm. We are travelers on this road.”
The little girls buried their faces in their mother’s side.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “Where are you all going? Here, let me help you.” I took the basket from the woman’s arm and ushered them all under our makeshift shelter.
It was cramped, and we had to sit shoulder to shoulder, but we all managed to fit.
The rain seemed to be easing off, too, and I hoped it would stop before long.
“Thank you,” said the woman breathlessly when she had settled in and nestled her two children close by her sides. “I didn’t know what we were going to do.”
“You are very welcome,” said Patrick. “I am Patrick, and this is Netta.”
“My name is Gisane, my lord.”
His face softened as he talked to the children. “And what are your names, young ladies?”
“Answer the man,” coaxed their mother. “Don’t be shy.”
The younger sniffled, but did not speak. The older one, still clutching tight to her mother’s skirts, whispered “Lina.”
Patrick swept a low bow, as if meeting a princess. Lina giggled.
“Lady Lina,” he said gravely. “It is an honor. And you, little one?”
The smaller girl mumbled something.
“Speak up,” urged her mother.
“Mari, my lord,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Lady Mari.” Patrick bowed again. “Pardon me, there seems to be something … May I?”
He reached towards her ear. She flinched and shrank away, but his hand reemerged with a copper coin.
“Very wise, to hide your riches thus,” he said to her, holding out the coin.
Lina giggled. Mari smiled despite herself, taking the coin in her chubby fist. Patrick repeated the trick for Lina and then, with a theatrical flourish, produced a sprig of wildflowers from behind his back and presented it to the girls.
I watched as the girls laughed delightedly, a smile tugging at my own lips.
“You’re very good at that,” I said quietly while the girls exclaimed over the flowers.
Patrick smiled crookedly. “A misspent boyhood, I’m afraid. And a lonely one.” The girls showed no trace of shyness now, as they clamored for more magic. Their mother shook her head, smiling.
“Apologies, my lord,” she said. “They have had little entertainment of late. We have been on the road all day.”
“May I ask where you are going?” asked Patrick.
“Headed to the Temple at Cindercott. Haven’t you heard the news from Mirthwater?”
My heart beat faster, but I tried to keep my face neutral. “Heard what?” A thought occurred to me. “Is the king dead?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But he might as well be. From what we’ve been told, the Temple and some high lord or other are both trying to claim the throne. Apparently, there was an attack on a band of Followers? The Temple is going to retaliate, they’re saying.”
“Oh,” I said faintly.
“I heard that the lord’s men slaughtered them all, but I don’t know for certain.
Anyway, if the Followers aren’t safe, then no one is.
We knew it would happen eventually.” She seemed more resigned than frightened.
“Our Margrave told us a civil war is brewing. He is a good man, loyal to the faith, and wanted his smallfolk to get out in time. We’re going to seek sanctuary at the Temple in Cindercott. ”
“And you’ll be safe there?”
She exhaled a long breath, blowing a strand of damp hair from her face. “Safer than most places, I suppose. Our liege lord will allow us all into the keep, and its walls are thick. The Temple will not turn us away.”
No, the more grateful converts, the better, I thought. How better to inspire loyalty than to provide sanctuary?
“We fell behind the others,” she was saying. “Mari has not been well, and it is hard for her to walk this long without resting.” She kissed the top of the little girl’s head.
“And they just left you behind?” I said.
The woman shook her head. “They did not mean to, my lady. We sat to rest awhile, and I’m afraid we fell asleep. Then the rain started.”
“Would the girls like to pet Fane?” Patrick smiled at them, at his most charming. “She is a good mare and fond of children.”
Fane submitted to having her velvety nose rubbed and exclaimed over.
The girls were fascinated with Baldbeak as well, petting him cautiously on his head and back and exclaiming at his softness.
He half closed his eyes and crooned a little under their touch, his expression foolishly contented, which made me laugh.
The rain stopped after a while, and we were able to venture out from our cramped shelter and gather enough dryish kindling to make a fire.
Patrick had a tinderbox, and built a little platform of stone to keep the wood from the ground, and soon the flames burned merrily enough.
Gisane had a little food, and combined with what Patrick had in the saddlebags, we were able to cobble together a decent meal for the five of us.
Six, if you included Baldbeak, who received any scraps and pieces of gristle with enthusiasm.
The stew was watery, but good. I sat on a damp log, wrapping my cloak tightly around myself, and Patrick perched beside me, infuriatingly graceful even as he juggled his bowl and a large cup of ale.
“Enjoying being the traveling magician again?” I asked.
“It is simpler,” he said.
He started up with his tricks again after dinner, making things appear and disappear for the little girls, and even making a stick appear to hover between his hands. They clapped with glee, urging him on to more and more theatrics. Gisane looked on indulgently, smiling at her daughters’ joy.
As the girls tired, and Gisane settled them down in their blankets, Patrick leaned back against a tree trunk, his long fingers loosely clasped around his ale cup. He glanced at me, a little sheepishly.
“I’m out of practice,” he said.
“Nonsense. You were excellent.” I tipped my head back to look at the sky.
The clouds had cleared after the rain, and the stars were bright and plentiful, like grains of sugar spilled from a Plaguenight sack.
A few strands of Hair curled softly about my face, as if stroking it.
In the firelight, out of the corner of my eye, I could just see the gleam of red that lay dormant beneath the black dye.
Patrick turned his head to look at me, his expression obscured by the shifting pattern of firelight. After watching me for a moment, he asked, “What did you think of me, when I was simply a traveling magician? When we met by the river.”
I dropped my gaze to where my hands lay relaxed in my lap. The scar on my ring finger caught the firelight. “That is an odd question.”
“Is it?” I could feel him looking at me for a while longer, and then he dropped his gaze. “I sometimes wonder if it would be a happier life.”