Chapter Forty-Six. For the Best.
Forty-Six
For the Best.
As I step into the water closet once again, I feel as though weeks have passed.
I shut the door most of the way, leaving the same crack I did before, and go to the sink, where I set the clothes I was wearing during the birth to a soaking.
If Julion the golden nobleman knew where his fine togs ended up?
No doubt he would have kept them in his saddlebags.
Then I head to the big basin. Dipping my hand in the water I had planned to sit in, I find it cold and pull the plug in the bottom.
Exhaustion settles in as the gurgling rises into the silence, and it’s only concern over infection that motivates me to start another run.
Before I undress, I take a glimpse out into the bedroom.
Merc is back where he was in the window seat, facing away from me, his legs bent, his boots once again pressed against the alcove’s wall.
His pack is on the floor beside him, however, and a lot of his weapons are with it, the cluster of deadly metal objects arranged with the grips facing him.
His elbows are on his knees, and his hands are out in front of him. He’s flexing his fingers open and closed, and then he’s staring at his palms.
I wonder if he’s remembering the bundled bairn and I want to talk about the experience we shared. All of my previous near misses and dangerous saves have been nothing I could speak with anybody about.
As if I had anyone other than Mare?
And her I only had for a year.
Merc has not said one word since we returned to the room, though, and he is certainly not looking like he wants to chat.
Leaving him to his brooding, I back away and undress. The skirt stands up on its own, forming a cone of red, and the hooded jacket fits on top of the point as if designed to do so.
“Odd, but rather handy…”
Back over at the sink, I unwrap the soap, and though the level is not very high in the tub, I get in and sit down.
The water falling from above is warm, and a balm to every ache and chafe I have—and there are a lot of them.
Sinking into the pool I’ve created, I let the overhead rain dapple on me like fingertips.
As I’m eased, my lids drift down and I put the soap to my nose—
The sensation of constriction on my forearm reminds me I haven’t unwrapped again the injury yet.
The pain is too great to be good news.
I’m quick with the undoing, knowing that drawing things out is just going to hurt more. In the dimness, I can’t tell much, but I know from the throbbing that the wound is even worse than it was as I left.
“That’s what the soap is for,” I say out loud.
Working the bar in my palms, the suds come as they’re called, and I hiss a curse at the first pass over the injury. That talon was not clean, for certain, and I pray my raw flesh isn’t a breeding ground for some kind of disease as well as the infection.
The latter is bad enough.
After three cleaning rounds, I can’t take any more attention in that tender area—and given the amount of scrapes and rough spots I have in other places, I pass the bar over the whole of me, even my hair.
At some point I have to stop and release the drain, for the water level is too high, and when it’s time to rinse, I unplug things entirely and stand up.
As I tilt my head back to the fall of warm water, I think of the rain outside. There’s got to be a cistern on the roof collecting what’s falling from the sky.
Whatever the Outpost can be criticized for, one cannot fault its bathing facilities.
When I finally turn off the faucet and step out of the tub, I feel quite a bit refreshed in spite of the thumping pain of the wound, and I don’t want to put the felt outfit back on—
“Here.” Merc’s thick arm comes through the gap between the door and the jamb. “Dry off and wrap up with this.”
It’s one of the sheets from the bed, that he’s evidently stripped off.
I slap a hold across my breasts, and my other hand goes to the juncture of my legs. But it’s not as if he can see through the gray wood panels—and he comes no farther inside.
“Ah … thank you.” I take what he’s offering like it’s going to bite me. “That’s most kind.”
The sheeting is soft and fragrant, and after passing it over my body and damp hair, I wind it round and round. Then I tear off a piece and wrap up my forearm. After that … I stay where I stand, very aware of my nakedness in spite of all that covers me.
Except I’m not about to sleep in here.
Squaring my shoulders, I open the door as if I’m fully clothed and step out—
Merc is back in the window seat, his arms crossed over his chest, his chin down, his eyes closed.
His dark hair is already drying, and I think of how grateful I am to be out of wet, constrictive clothing, all clean and warm.
Doesn’t he want the same? Then again, we are not the same.
Nothing about his circumstances ever seems to discourage him.
“Take the lantern,” he tells me without looking over. “To the bed. And then turn the flame down until it’s almost out.”
“All right.”
I go over and pick up the source of light by its handle. Before I pivot back around, I notice that he has followed his own rule this time. The bolting to our room is well latched.
At the bed, I see that he’s remade that which he no doubt messed up getting the sheet free.
“It’s quite big enough for the both of us,” I hear myself say. “The … bed.”
“I’m fine over here.”
“All right.”
My cheeks are flaming with embarrassment as I mount the mattress—and I find that there’s a hook driven into the wall right by my head.
The lantern hangs from it readily, and I take a last glance at Merc before I turn the little lever and the illumination is strangled down to just a blue and yellow nub at the crown of the wick.
With the glow all but gone, sounds swell to fill the void: I hear the rain still falling with ferocity on the roof above, and the whistle of the wind in the shutters, and the distant notes of a piano. Voices crest and fall in volume and number, but they are far off.
“When are you leaving?” I ask into the darkness as I lie back on top of the covers.
There’s no reply, to the point where I assume he has fallen asleep. And then Merc clears his throat.
“Soon,” he says. “I’m taking another job.”
Curling onto my side, I give him my back, and tell myself it’s because I always face the door when I sleep. That’s not it.
I need to leave him first, and not just for my pride’s sake.
The sooner I get used to being on my own again, the better—
“I don’t want any payment.” His voice winds its way to my ears. “For getting you here.”
I close my lids and shrink in my own skin. What happened to the man who kissed me by the stream, I wonder. “Not even money?”
“I’ve never been motivated by coin.”
“Isn’t that the point of being a mercenary?” When he doesn’t reply, I feel churlish. “Well, I got a deal then, didn’t I.”
The silence between us presses down on me like a weight, and my lungs burn.
I want to prod him into telling me the things he’s hiding.
I know they’re there—if I have secrets, he does as well.
But something changed again when he went down for our food earlier, though I doubt I’ll ever know what it is.
And then came the baby.
Perhaps it’s for the best.
Too bad it hurts.