12. Leoric
Chapter 12
Leoric
D rums banged. Flutes tooted. Cymbals crashed. The twang of zithers filled the night, luring the people of Barrowdeep to the cacophony of sound in the town square.
The great bonfire that the Gwerenese had started there would have tipped them off, too. Good thing it didn’t lure any of the ghouls instead. I looked over my shoulder to check on my shovel. Still leaning against the wall by the entrance of the Ugly Mug, exactly where I’d left it. Good.
The Gwerenese caravan had arrived shortly before sundown. Bold, boisterous folk, huge on laughter, with husky voices, ink-black hair, and hearts as bright as the bonfire. Skirts swirled and bells tinkled as our Gwerenese guests danced around the great fire, casting handfuls of powder into the flames, making them rise and roar, turning the inferno green, then blue, then red again.
It was fascinating to behold, this spectacle of music and laughter and light, a welcome reprieve from the darkness of the graves. And then a bright pink bird flew out of the flames, along with streams of glowing bubbles — Orphium’s magic at work.
My jaw clenched, my lips pursing with distaste. And then I sighed, relenting. Orphium was a pain in my side, but I couldn’t begrudge him for wanting to join the festivities. I had plenty of other reasons to hate him already.
Two Gwerenese men holding hands spun by, laughing as they reached their fingers for me, luring me to the fire dance. A woman followed suit, her hair like black waves as she spun, inviting me to the flames with a quirk of her mouth, a swish of her hips. I smiled politely and declined both times. I was happy enough to watch.
Some of us were built for watching and guarding things. From somewhere among the revelers I heard Riggs’s laughter, the clank of his mismatched armor. I shook my head and grinned. The man deserved a break, some time for merriment.
Frankly, this was good for morale in Barrowdeep. And the music wasn’t as bad as any of the others had insisted, either. It reminded me of how traveling bards might perform at Father’s feasting hall in exchange for a night of food and shelter.
Father tolerated music more than the other arts, at least. I’d never heard of him having any visiting bards put to death. Jesters and actors, yes. The cleverer they thought they were, the greater the likelihood that Ederick Stonesguard would find fault or offense in their words. Laughter wasn’t welcome at Stonesguard Keep.
Perhaps that was part of why I didn’t like Orphium very much. As different as we were, perhaps there was still a bit of my father in me after all.
Jeromah had kindly set up some tables outside the tavern, perfect for enjoying the Gwerenese performance. I sat alone at one of them, trying to show that her effort hadn’t gone to waste. Most of the tables were empty, the townsfolk inching closer and closer to the bonfire as the night carried on. Those who weren’t dancing and spinning with the revelers gathered in a wide circle, clapping and cheering.
And Orphium, allegedly of the Dawning Court, danced among them.
Somehow I’d managed to avoid bumping into him all day, apart from that small encounter in the garden. I was busy enough with my regular work without having to deal with itchy fae fingers. Imagine being robbed in your own bed, and before breakfast, too.
But my time had been spent well, regardless of how my morning had gone. Pennifer was happy with what I’d done for her garden, and I was happy with the preparations I’d completed with Riggs and Redginald in the graveyard. Another day of inspecting the graves for signs of ghoulish activity, another day of staving off the undead threat. Nothing to report, I was pleased to discover. All was well in my sweet Barrowdeep.
And somehow nothing felt more dangerous than the thought of spending another night in the same bed with this deceptive, delusional illusionist. There he was, scattering his spellwork among the flames and his adoring fans, sending whizzes and bangs of color and light into the air, unleashing flocks of his pretty birds. His smile glowed gold in the firelight, his eyes twinkling like stars. A courtyard away, across the flames, I thought our eyes connected.
I dropped my gaze, staring hard into my mug of ale, slamming it back and pouring it down my throat. He didn’t catch me looking. And so what if he did? That was my job, wasn’t it? A watcher, a guard, the keeper of the graves.
Fingers brushed against my shoulder. I jumped in fright, spitting out a fine mist of ale. I glanced over my shoulder at an equally surprised Father Whiston. Him and his silent steps. Where was his censer with its clanking chains?
“You’ll be the death of me some day, Whiston,” I growled, dragging my hand across my beard, wiping away my wasted ale. I shook my flagon at him. “And you owe me a bloody drink, too.”
Whiston twisted one finger into his ear. “I’m sorry. What was that? I can’t hear you.”
I squinted at him. What was it Jeromah said she ordered? Soft wax from Whiteport. Right. Perfect for plugging the ears. I grabbed him by the arm, pulling him into an empty seat.
“Take those things out of your ears,” I said, right into the side of his head.
“But the dreadful cacophony — I mean, these sweet melodies.” Father Whiston tugged on his collar, suddenly sweaty. “Far too indulgent for a man of faith such as myself. Ah, but if I could partake of these earthly pleasures, when such things are reserved for — ”
“I’ve seen you devour one of Jeromah’s honey cakes in two bites. Don’t be so silly. Live a little.”
Father Whiston pouted as he dug the wax out of his ears, depositing two bright white lumps into his pocket. “In my defense, those honey cakes are very small. And very delicious.”
“See?” I said, waving at the celebration. “This isn’t so bad. I suppose it’s because you’re more accustomed to the noises of the Ivory Abbey. Maybe this is too much for you. You’re more comfortable with the clanging of church bells and the chanting of the clergy, considering where you’re from.”
Whiston sniffed. I could tell he was trying to decide whether or not to take offense. “I’d be more annoyed with you if it wasn’t so true. You can take the man out of the Ivory Abbey, they say.”
I sat there waiting for him to finish, but nothing. “You still owe me a drink. That’s the other thing I meant to say.”
The priest sighed, wordlessly rising from the table as he went off to secure some fresh flagons of ale. This was nice. At least I’d have someone to drink with. Jeromah was preoccupied — great business at the Ugly Mug, serving both locals and our Gwerenese guests — but she seemed to thrive on the pressure. Nothing made Jeromah happier than the jingling of coins.
“A coin for your thoughts?”
I flinched again. Apparently everyone could creep up on me tonight, their movements muffled by all the merrymaking .
“Penny?” I said, looking up into Pennifer’s smiling face. “Um. Hello.”
Two of her fingers traveled up the length of my arm, a dancer tiptoeing on pointed legs. She stopped at my shoulder, squeezing my muscle. “You should be out there dancing with us, Leoric.”
I swallowed, even though my mouth was empty. “I’m not much of a dancer.”
It was true. I never was. Lord Ederick Stonesguard did not think it was fitting for men to dance. I should’ve remembered. That was the only thing he hated more than jesters. It was dancers.
“Nobody cares, Leoric! It’s all in good fun. This isn’t about being a good dancer. Let’s all just have a good time.”
She pulled me hard enough to drag me out of my chair. I stumbled after her, still protesting. “But — but my boots. They aren’t fit for — ”
“That’s right, Leoric,” said a grinning Father Whiston, a mug of fresh ale in each hand. “Don’t be so silly. Live a little.”
I recognized the echo, too far from the table now to fire back a proper barb. Still grinning, he drank a bit out of one mug, and then a bit out of the other, leaving a strip of white foam on his mustache. Oh, so he couldn’t partake of earthly pleasures, could he?
Pennifer led me to the very edge of the bonfire, just outside where the dancers swelled the thickest. She laughed as she skipped along. Something about the fire, about the music surged through my body. I couldn’t help myself. My feet fell into step .
She was right. Nobody cared. This didn’t even feel like dancing, only drawing a great circle with my feet, running around the bonfire. My chest expanded, my lungs clear. When had I ever felt so free? Ederick Stonesguard would never approve. I gasped for breath. I laughed.
A few turns around the fire, and then the music died down to something slower, almost somber. A woman played a fiddle, the song at times bitter, at times sweet. Here, a serenade, there, a dirge.
Dancers paired off, and instead of the great circle around the fire, we drew smaller ones with our feet. Pennifer pulled me in, and we danced slowly, our hands and arms still linked. I never thought I’d see her bosoms so close. She was lovely — perhaps the loveliest girl in Barrowdeep — but my tastes leaned in a different direction. I liked something else. Someone more like —
“Mr. Orphium,” Pennifer said.
I blinked hard, skin hot, but not from the bonfire. “I beg your pardon?”
“Mr. Orphium, I told him what you asked me to say,” she whispered, eyes darting to either side, checking for the Mr. Orphium in question. “Early this morning, before you worked in the garden, remember? You told me to tell him that you keep all your valuables under your bed.”
I broke into a huge smile. “You are an absolute gem, Pennifer. A wonderful friend.”
She rolled her eyes dramatically and sighed. “Yet that’s all I’ll ever be to you, isn’t it, Leoric? Only a friend.”
I gaped, thinking I had something to say, at an utter loss for words. “Pennifer, I — I never meant to lead you on. I am very sorry if I ever gave you the impression that — ”
She tossed her gorgeous mane of hair and laughed. “Don’t be silly. I know, Leoric. I’ve always known. You’re a different sort of man. You like different things than other men do. And that’s all there is to it.”
Relief washed over me like a warm bath, a dip in a river on a summer’s day. I gave her a small smile. “How long have you known, then?”
Pennifer lifted her head, consulting the stars as she considered the question. “Since you first arrived in Barrowdeep, if I’m honest. You don’t treat me as other men do. You see me for the person I am, and not just as a lovely pair of melons with a face.”
A most unfortunate time for my eyes to settle on the general area of her lovely chest and neck. All that skin. Too much skin. Wait. Something was missing.
“I just realized — your necklace. You’re never without it. I haven’t seen you wear it in days.”
“Oh? What necklace? I’m not sure what you mean.”
Her hand grazed the soft skin at her collarbone, one finger twirling in a little circle, as if in remembrance of something that was once there. I’d seen it plenty of times, how Pennifer would girlishly tangle the end of her finger in its chain.
I frowned harder. How could her hand remember when her mind didn’t?
“You told me yourself, Penny. It was passed down in your family. It was a lump of amber, remember? It had a little leaf inside it. Still green after all those decades.”
Pennifer covered her mouth and laughed. “Oh, that old thing? Now I remember. Don’t be so silly, Leoric. It was just a lump of tree sap. Better for it to have a home in a traveling collection. A part of Orphium’s Emporium.”
Just a lump of tree sap? And an old button was only an old button, except when it was the eye on a beloved childhood toy. That was what Hertrude had told me about the button that used to sit in a prominent place on her mantle, among other keepsakes. I went in earlier to see if she could help me stitch something up — a rip in my tunic from that fight with the ghouls. And suddenly the button wasn’t there.
For that matter — something had looked different about Whiston tonight, too.
“I’ll see you later, Penny,” I whispered.
I pressed a kiss against her hair, spinning her into the arms of two laughing Gwerenese women as the music erupted into something lively and jovial. She was having too good a time to protest, unburdened by memories and old lumps of tree sap. I stalked away from the bonfire, heading straight back to the tables outside the tavern. Whiston’s eyes grew wide with apprehension as I approached. He must have seen the look on my face. I grabbed him by the arm.
“Goodness gracious, Leoric. If you wanted to dance with me so badly, you only had to ask.”
I held his arm up to my face, staring at his hand. Nothing there. He always wore a single leather thong around his wrist, threaded through a single clay bead. It was simple, almost crude, smoothed by lacquer and years, if not decades of handling. It was a prayer bead, one of dozens that fell across the classroom floor when the abbess — his beloved mentor — had caught her beads on the corner of a chair.
“Scattered like the stars on Ybura’s veil,” Whiston would say, every time he told the story, every time with fondness.
The abbess had laughed, saying it was a sign from the gods for her to finally purchase a new set of beads. She was Whiston’s favorite, and as he sometimes boasted when he had a little drink in him, the feeling was apparently mutual. Everyone in class kept a bead from that day as a memento. To hear Whiston retell the story, you’d think he valued the bead more than the hand that wore it.
“The bead, Whiston,” I growled. “Where is it?”
“You’re gripping too tight,” he said, retrieving his arm, rubbing his wrist. “And what bead are you talking about, exactly? You look so upset.”
I backed away, holding my hands above my shoulders. We were friends, but this was no way for me to treat him. This wasn’t his fault. Not Pennifer’s fault, not Hertrude’s, not the priest’s. Only one person was responsible for all this.
“I’m so sorry, Father. I didn’t mean to.”
His fingers encircled his wrist, still rubbing, as if feeling for something that was supposed to be there. “It’s quite all right, Leoric. Must be this Gwerenese ruckus that’s whipped you into such a frenzy. I’m growing to appreciate it, I think. After a half dozen more flagons of ale, I might feel ready to join the dance.”
I held back a smirk, as if we’d never tried to drink each other under the table in the past. I knew Whiston’s limit. If he were to drink any more tonight, it would be in the hope of drowning out the music.
He raised his flagon. “Join me for a drink? Perhaps you can buy the next round.”
“In a bit, maybe. There’s just one thing I have to attend to.”
Whiston shrugged and raised his mug to his lips. I turned on my heel, scanning the circle around the bonfire as I approached the throng of dancers. It wasn’t hard to find him, whirling and dancing among the Gwerenese.
How they all laughed as they took turns casting colorful powders into the fire, as Orphium held his hands up, birthing enchanted birds from his palms, sending up eruptions of brilliant petals with his fingers.
I could break those fingers. Put a stop to this. But no. I couldn’t cause a scene. Shouldn’t cause a scene. I slipped into the ring of dancers, eyes boring so intently into Orphium’s head that my fury couldn’t have escaped his notice.
And as I expected, he greeted my anger with mirth, reaching out those long, elegant fingers, one hand kneading the meatiest part of my shoulder, one delicate arm wrapped across the breadth of my back.
Like a wounded bird he fell into my arms, a fragile flower, letting himself be carried in the frothing current of my rage. Together we spun around the flames, his soft chuckle as loud as the growl of my angered breath in my ears. He leaned close and whispered.
“Something I can help you with, Stonesguard?”
“You did something to these people,” I said, locking him in my embrace. “Stole their memories and belongings right from under their noses.”
Orphium scoffed. “Old junk. They told me so themselves.”
“No. You told them that. You convinced them with your fae magic, charmed them with your evil enchantments. Scoundrel. Thief. I don’t know what you’re planning to do with their memories, but I demand that you give them back.”
He rested his chin on my shoulder, his nose so close to my neck. So trusting, so vulnerable, so near — he was taunting me. I could feel his laughter thrumming against my chest.
“Give them back? Why should I? What would you do to me, young Lord Stonesguard?”
The blood rushed to my ears. “Don’t call me that. Not here. Not now. Not ever.”
He held my face in his hands, so soft, so warm. “That’s the problem with you, Leoric. Too somber. Too serious. A Stonesguard, through and through. Why not have a little bit of fun?”
My arms locked like an iron ring around his waist, his fingers like petals on my cheeks, his breath like a summer breeze. And those lips — gods, those lips. But I was angry. Wasn’t I? We were fighting about — something. Weren’t we?
Orphium’s brow pressed against mine. Barrowdeep and the bonfire spun in dizzying circles around us, but for me and the strange fae man, time seemed to have gone perfectly still. He leaned in closer. An inch, and I would have my first taste of his lips .
His breath smelling of summer blossoms, he whispered. “It’s all fun and games, Leoric. Until it isn’t.”
Birds and feathers and flowers exploded from his fingers, the colors of his magic merging into a prismatic burst that blotted out the entire world. My ears rang with a shrieking ache, a thick, gelatinous membrane separating me from the Gwerenese cacophony, from the flicker of the bonfire, from the cheers of revelers come to admire Orphium’s magic.
I rubbed at my eyeballs, cursing and sputtering. The ringing went away within moments, and so did the blurring of my vision. I blinked hard, finding myself standing alone in a circle of dancers.
Orphium was gone. He was the jester, but I was the fool all along.