Chapter 13 Guillaume
Guillaume
Benoit and Lucas scowled at the new man, their overprotective instincts towards Milord clearly inflecting their postures.
Unlike them, I knew better than to become sexually involved with Milord.
Unlike them, I was irrevocably tainted.
The fae had left their mark upon our world well before they left their mark on me.
Sometimes what they had said while reworking me haunted me.
They had foreclosed the reality of our world, altered the binding nature of promises, and tamped down on the explosive technologies beginning to reach our continent from the East.
They had changed how weapons work. And then they had changed me.
Put a crossbow in my hands, or a longbow. Even throwing knives and axes, any ranged weapon that required my vision to land a shot—I could do it effortlessly.
The weapon didn’t matter.
I was the weapon.
I would not lie about it when pressed. If they figured out the right questions to ask.
But like knows like, and I had heard enough rumors at the court to know that Aubert was nowhere near the harmless herbalist he pretended at.
Our party resumed its meandering pace towards the new capital. I kept my eyes mostly covered to avoid the monotony of it all. Let Benoit bristle and let Lucas fret; I would suss out whether Aubert was who he said he was. I had my methods.
If he was who I thought he was, he was far from without guilt in terms of our current situation. And that worried me, less for myself than on behalf of Milord…
…I stopped mid-stride, only momentarily, fervently hoping that no one had noticed. I was not in the habit of referring to the Chevalier as Milord, and certainly not in the saccharine tones that Benoit and Lucas used in reference to her.
Still, concern for the Chevalier overshadowed my own feelings. I watched her astride Comrade, conversing easily with the new man. The herbalist who was likely much more than that.
My faerie sight showed her to me as she truly was: golden hair pulled back in a low ponytail under her hat, a magnificent tricorn of silver suede that matched her embroidered coat.
Her blue eyes sparkled and her wrist lifted elegantly as she gestured at something out in the forest. The fine bones in her face were perfectly balanced, elevating her natural beauty.
For a moment, the faerie enchantment flickered against my vision, showing me a dashing young man, whose elegance was the height of courtliness. Then my vision reasserted itself, and I perceived the delicate bones in her wrist, the way her fingers extended expressively.
She had not yet touched me with those fingers, unlike the other two.
I did not desire her touch, I told myself. She was a good master to serve, nothing more to me. And men like us, we needed a master, especially in times of war. We could only live in the wild for so long, seeking solitude so as to evade attention.
It seems Benoit and Lucas had managed it. I had not.
I would not be a weapon against my choice again.
A gallant chuckle jarred my senses. I did wonder when I would get to hear the Chevalier’s true voice, one that would no doubt ring with feminine resonance, gentle and lovely on the ears.
Though my faerie gifts enhanced sight and not hearing, I could readily follow the gist of their conversation: the identification and properties of local herbs, which ones had medicinal or culinary uses or both, and so on.
I cursed my limitations for a moment, since the Chevalier had begun to disclose aspects of her past that intrigued me, against my better judgment.
Shooting a glare at Lucas and Benoit, who had let themselves fall behind, I jogged to catch up with the Chevalier and the new man.
Comrade directed a furious series of blinks at me, which would have made me chuckle if I were not already in a dour mood.
The horse had won this round, predicting we would meet up with at least one faerie-gifted man today.
I suspected that I lost because the new man was prone to spending time pressed up against the earth, and thus my far-seeing vision could not discern him when I had looked at the path ahead.
“Ah yes, my sisters are far more versed in herb-craft than I am,” the Chevalier was saying. “Our estate pressed up against the wilds, and thus we had opportunities aplenty to forage. Mostly I hunted though,” she amended, as though self-conscious about her ruse.
Aubert nodded amiably. He inquired about the region she grew up in, and as soon as she had named it, he listed a dozen herbs that could only be found there. None of them were, to my knowledge, poisonous. But I still saw the “little lord’s” face as she took it all in.
The conversation meandered around the topic of the various medicinal uses of various herbs, and Milord asked about contraceptive herbs.
That’s when it hit me: based on what Benoit and Lucas had said, Milord was a virgin, and planned to remain that way until she could reliably prevent conception.
Hence her keen interest in the herbalist. And with any other herbalist, I would have rolled my eyes and held my tongue while the woman explored her desires.
But not with this herbalist.
I dropped back to where Benoit and Lucas strolled behind us.
They looked up from their conversation, mild surprise on both their faces.
I had to admit, I had not been the most agreeable of companions. The thought only made me scowl more.
“Stop,” I mouthed, deliberately exaggerating the shape of my lips, while vocalizing no sound. They did, looking even more alarmed. Lucas’s hand found the stays on his legs, as though to undo them in case of conflict.
“I think Aubert is an ally of Matapa’s,” I carefully mouthed. “I do not trust him.”
They exchanged a look, then nodded.
“His enhanced hearing—we must be careful,” I said. And then I turned to walk, as though nothing had occurred between us. And for the sake of Milord, we could only hope that nothing more would occur, that I was wrong, that Aubert was as harmless as he looked.