Chapter 19 #2
No matter how he pushes it from his mind, the Rath are still massing over the border. Still preparing to breach the stones of it, to besiege the tomb of King Dunmail and awaken the terrible Beast. To dissolve the People’s Kingdom, to take it for their own, to slaughter and enslave its people.
And even worse, Lavellin, with its pale eyes, the delicate angles of its cheekbones, keeps looking at him. Concentrating, gently perspiring. But looking at him all the same, and he…
He is looking back. Gritted like a tooth, like a stag poised in a clearing, he can’t stop looking back.
So he’s grateful when Winander strolls over, claps him on the shoulder and offers to buy him his first beer of the night.
“You’ve earned it, after the day we’ve had,” he winks. He takes Bassen by the hand. “And you, little miss, are getting anything you want.”
She laughs and he pulls her toward the tavern door. Torver swiftly follows, eager to no longer be rained on, eager to get some alcohol inside of him. Light footsteps follow and he feels Lavellin’s heat smoldering at his back as they cross through the threshold and enter the throng gathered within.
It’s even busier than Torver expected. He breathes in the smell of beer—new in cups and tankards, old spilled into the carpet and oozing a haze into the air.
With Lavellin glamoured, and Bassen’s new hair no longer marking her out as the famed deathmancer, there’s no fanfare at their entrance.
Not for them at least. There is a sizable crowd; a group all facing the direction of the low stage at the end of the room, a man on its planks, a distinct buzz in the air.
“Why are all these people here?” Torver shouts over the bustling chatter, the sounds of the bard on the stage tuning his lute. “This village seemed so small!”
Someone pressed to his shoulder, trying to squeeze through to get to the bar, overhears him.
“Special occasion!” calls the burly man with a bushy beard to match. “Do you not know who that is?”
The man’s stubby fingers point to the stage, to the thin bard perched on a stool there, his brightly coloured costume clashing flamboyantly with the bucolic decorations on the walls: iron horseshoes, vases of dried wheat, paintings of babbling becks. The bard’s nails are green, his lips blood red.
“That’s Emlin,” the man says, his lined face lit up like the fire that roars in the grate across the room. “Emlin the Bard.”
“Ah.” Torver widens his eyes so that he looks impressed, but the man can instantly tell that Torver isn’t cool, that he has no idea who Emlin the Bard is.
“Emlin, as in—direct descendant of Aneirin the Bard?”
Torver’s eyes widen, in earnest this time.
“No way.” He stands on the tips of his toes, cranes his neck to get a better view of the man, even as Winander and Bassen wander away to the bar. “Really?”
The man beams. “He tours the Kingdom every few years to sing the tales passed down through his family—half of them aren’t even sanctioned! That’s why he only performs in small venues where there’s no Enforcers.”
Torver’s grin splits his face.
He thanks the man and goes to the bar, aglow with the knowledge there are no Enforcers around and that he’s about to witness a performance from the most important bardic lines in all of Hen Ogledd—that is, all of the known world.
Lavellin appears beside him and he flinches, as if the lightning outside has found its way in to strike him. Before he can say or do anything, it thrusts a small cup into his hand and says, “For you.”
He grins, throws back a hearty swig and immediately begins to choke.
“What the fuck is that?” he splutters, his throat on fire, racking wet coughs.
Lavellin takes an elegant sip of its own matching cup.
“Nettle whiskey.” It grins devilishly. “You have to drink it slowly.”
Torver glares. “I know how to drink whiskey, Lav—I wasn’t born yesterday. I was expecting beer.”
He grumbles, but continues to drink, the amber liquid scorching fire down his innards and igniting him.
“Figured you’d need it after all the rain outside.” It raises its cup, offering to clink it against his, which he does—begrudgingly. He’s still not sure how to feel about it, how to act. They’d come close to something on top of that temple watchtower. Something he doesn’t want to address.
Torver shrugs and is about to say something distracting, something suave and witty, when he realises something else. His eyes widen in horror.
“Lavellin, you can talk! Why aren’t you glamoured?” He hisses the words low and crowds it into the wall. It’s still got its hood up, its hair and ears covered, but its eyes are still inhumanly pale, its face irritatingly beautiful.
The crowds around aren’t looking at them at all—they’re all looking at Emlin. Even Winander and Bassen are cheering alongside them as the bard introduces himself to his audience.
But Torver, imagining the noose on his neck, ragging his throat like the string that was once around his finger, presses Lavellin to the wall all the same. He holds his hand to the brick next to its head, so that his arm hides it from anyone who looks.
“What are you doing?” he grunts into its face, mere inches away.
“Oh relax.” It tries to push him off with a palm to his rain-wet chest, but he doesn’t move. “I’ve got my hood up and no one’s even looking. I realised I could unglamour as soon as we got in here—I even ordered the whiskey myself! It’s so busy in here, no one’s paying attention.”
Torver grits his teeth. “Are you daft?” he asks, bringing his face a fraction closer. He can feel its sweet breath on his lips. “Or do you think that they are?”
He gestures to the human crowd with a pointed finger. The corner of Lavellin’s mouth twitches.
“Because you may have forgotten where you stand here,” Torver’s mouth feels dry, feels empty. He takes another burning hit of nettle whiskey. “But if any of them realise what you are, then we are all dead. Lavellin, do you understand?”
Its small smile drops. “I just thought… I thought we could have fun. I wanted to be able to speak to you.”
Torver catches his face softening. Lavellin looks down at its feet and a damp lock of red hair falls forward.
“We’ll have plenty of time for speaking later,” Torver’s hand reaches forward before he can stop it. He brushes the amber strands away from its eyes, his fingers softly grazing its cheek. “Please, just glamour. Beast below, we can’t get executed now, can we?”
Lavellin’s lips press into a reluctant line. It nods and Torver’s heart beats harder. His insides dance when it looks at him.
“But you can still drink while glamouring, can’t you?” He casts his mind back to the bothy, a lifetime ago. It had eaten and drunk then, while looking like a human woman.
Lavellin nods, examining the cup in its hand, swirling the bitter nettle whiskey within.
“I certainly can,” it says, looking up at him from where it has slouched against the wall.
One of its feet is pressed casually to the brick so that it stands lower than him.
Like he could lean down and kiss it. Press his lips to its warm, sweet skin.
He tries to shake the thought away but it won’t leave. The best he can do is pretend.
“Let’s see how messy we can get then, hm?” he says.
Just in time for the crowds to cheer, for Emlin the Bard to begin raucously strumming his lute, Torver steps back.
Lavellin sighs, then its face hardens in concentration, its eyes turning hazel, its cheekbones flattening. Its scars disappear and freckles ornament its newly round cheeks. When it pulls down its cloak, its hair is raven black, tumbling to its shoulders in curls.
Torver nods in approval, linking his arm through its own one, pulling it toward the crowd so they can hear the bard better.
He looks and Lavellin is smiling a foreign smile, raising its cup once more. He clinks their drinks together.
“Cheers, sweet thing,” he declares.