33. Now Brothers
NOW: brOTHERS
Reed did not replace Evangeline again, but I would see him early in the mornings, reporting something to Thane or an army officer and then riding his roan far past the first wagons.
I wondered when he slept as he also seemed to prowl around the campfires at night, his eye roving over both penitents and soldiers.
I began to regret my dismissal of him when he had visited our wagon that day.
We had yet to decide whether or not we were “at peace” as I had not taken his offer to ride his horse.
But we had been in a somewhat decent humor, a tentative truce, before I had said the cool words, Off with you.
I lay awake at night wondering why I let this bother me so, why my dismissal of him weighed on me like something I should regret.
And I could not seem to forget the glimpses of his tattooed skin I had seen, wondering how his naked shoulders would look and how the snakes’ design looped over them.
I could not forget the lean angles of his face, the hollows in his cheeks making his close-lipped smile—whether it was genuine or not—more pronounced than another person’s open smile with a flash of teeth.
Finally, I caved and brought him up to Evangeline.
She was riding her horse alongside me and I was on Zara, a rare choice on my part as I did not like to tax her. Ilsit was driving with Jade beside her while Fox napped; and Tessa, swearing her legs were cramped from having driven the whole day before, was walking at the back.
We were between our wagon on the left and another wagon on the right, the dust road thinner on this stretch and not as wide.
Evangeline was telling a story about her “brothers” as she called them.
I could not understand the exact story because it mainly seemed to concern Dermid—the big Helmsman—and Keir.
I was rudely only half listening for Reed’s involvement.
And so, due to the sun on my face, the nights of sleeping on the ground or in the wagon, I was drowsy, and when she said his name I turned quickly and said without thinking, “Reed was there too?”
His name on my lips, spoken for the first time, used as a name should be, felt sinful, decadent. I was grateful the sun had made my face pink already and that the lady warrior faced away from me.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Well, he was there and he wasn’t. That’s how he is.”
“How he is?”
She leaned over as much as she could in her saddle. Low voiced, she said, “He told me of your—you know. I myself am full-blooded.”
I nodded. “I don’t know my blood. My mother was a foundling.”
“Well, he and I are both blessed by Brother Air.”
“In your body or your mind?”
“We both have soundless steps. I am excellent with a sword. He has such balance. I’ve seen him walk along a rope. But he is best at not having to even fight.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is so relaxed. So when someone else is aggressive, he becomes even more relaxed. Every time I have seen a man in a tavern give him a hard time, he has them talked out of their ire before they know it. Or if they throw a punch, when he throws one back, he acts as if it is a mere inconvenience. He never reveals much. So when I say he was there and he wasn’t there, I mean he likely crept in and crept out and as this is a drinking story, I really cannot remember the details. ”
I chuckled. “So you are both recipients of air. I see.”
“Just our bodies really,” she corrected me. “I have no visions and nor does he, but his actual sight is air blessed. And maybe his hearing too.”
“What do you mean? I thought air—” I cut myself off, having just been about to say “air Tintarians.” “I thought those blessed by air either had physical stealth and speed or were prophetic in nature?”
She shook her head. “Some can see beyond a horizon and hear a word spoken in a room in a house next to their own house. I think it is that—Well, the gods try to make up for being so cut off from us. After he lost his eye, he was able to see past a horizon. He might just have good hearing.”
“You’re saying Brother Air gave him gifted sight because he lost his eye?”
Evangeline looked around us.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This isn’t a conversation meant for all ears.”
She shrugged. “I was careless too. I think it best not to speak of my and Reed’s having Tintarian blood, but then I think none of these Perpatanians even pay attention to womenfolk.”
“Yes, but they also don’t like women talking to each other. The saint calls it gossip. And our communication is deemed troublesome and sinful.”
“Why?”
“When women talk to each other we also warn each other. Usually about men. And some men don’t like that.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I guess that is so for the people of Rodwin. But mostly women talk about their irritating families, their courses, and sex.”
I snorted. “You can’t be a little kinder to us? Surely we have better imaginations than just that.”
She grinned. “I grew up in a brothel. My grandmother’s women were all pleasant and well cared for.
But all they wanted to talk about was how their sister’s husband wasn’t good enough for her, how this cycle was worse than the one before it, and which patrons lasted how long.
That’s how I met my brothers, actually.”
I forced my face to remain composed. “They were patrons?”
“Gods, no. Dermid was one of my grandmother’s guards. It is one of the finest places in Pikestully, the capital. Expensive. The girls were protected, as they are in most places. Oh and Dermid only likes men. He was like an older brother to me.”
I waited, desperate for her to say more.
“And then Keir came to work there, and that was a disaster.”
“A disaster?”
“Well, the girls all kept offering him their favors for free. My grandmother was beside herself. And then he and Dermid became lovers. Except they fought all the time. Anyway, Reed is Keir’s stepbrother, and he came to the brothel once to see Keir and that’s how I met him, and then the four of us became friends. ”
“They were lovers?” I interjected. I thought of Dermid teasing Keir about ogling Jade and found myself confused.
“Yes. But it was a terrible pairing. The jealousy was absurd.”
“Dermid was jealous of Keir’s having a house of fawning women?”
Now she snorted. “Keir was jealous of Dermid.”
“I am confused. Not that your Helmsman friend is not—”
“As it turns out,” she said, turning to me, “men who like men love men who look like Dermid. Drove Keir mad.”
“So, men—and forgive me, I have never left the low country and also, that is illegal in Sheridan—not that I feel that way,” I rushed on, worried she would take offense. “What you’re saying is men who like men prefer a burlier man?”
“I guess. I only have Dermid and Keir’s word to go on. Anyway, they fought so much they decided to try to be friends, and that was much better for them and for Reed and me.”
“I see,” I said, not seeing. “Does Keir also like women?”
She gave me a slow grin. “Yes. And lots of them like him.”
“Oh I can imagine,” I said perfunctorily, combing over her words in my mind, painfully aware of how limited my life had been.
“I hate to burst the bubble of your hope though,” she added.
“Pardon?”
“You’re not nursing any passion for my Vyggian brother with the braid?”
I shook my head. “I am wary of pretty faces.”
She laughed. “I like you, Robbie. I was going to say”—and she lowered her voice—“Keir pines after Jade. He keeps asking me to ask you if she has a man or if one of you is her lover.”
I tensed. Any notice of Jade always caused my hackles to rise. “She is unwed. And none of us are each other’s lovers. But I will add that Tessa and my sister were as good as married. And none of the five of us subscribe to the church’s teachings on that.”
Our conversation grew hushed again. She asked me about the church, about Rodwin, and I explained my role in Sheridan, how in some way or another, all of us had been a kind of outcast, Jade and Ilsit both being the severest kind.
“It seems a dreadful faith,” the lady warrior mused. “I am sorry you have lived that way for so long.”
“Well, we have had each other. May I ask you a question?”
“Please. I enjoy speaking with you.”
Her guileless attitude was disarming. As I drew in breath to speak, I realized that I had treated Reed with distrust and even unkindness.
Yet I had, to a woman who called him brother, confessed a great deal about myself and my family.
I wanted to ask what a Helmsman, a Tintarian, a Vyggian, and a man who seemed to be half of the latter two were doing on a penitents’ pilgrimage from the low country to Perpatane.
But I was conflicted with my catharsis. I should be more careful.
I had been so open with her in the past weeks.
I said, “Why does Reed think I am a piss-poor criminal?”
She squinted, not understanding. Then she replied, “Oh yes, he did call you that. I don’t know what bee has stung him of late. He is out of sorts. He is usually not so rude. I’m sure you’re a wonderful criminal.”
Laughing, I said, “I really am, but I won’t tell you why or how and lose your generous supposition that I am wonderful.”
“It probably is that he finds you attractive, but I am unsure.” Her words were spoken more to herself than to me, but she looked me up and down from her seat on her big horse, a mount even taller than Zara. “I mean you’re a comely woman if I may say so. That could be it.”
I lifted a hand from my reins to say that, yes, she could say so, praying the casual gesture covered the heat on my neck and the eagerness I felt. Before she could continue, I offered, “I think we just irk each other. He must be several winters younger than me. I doubt that he—”
“He is nearly thirty-four. Only a few winters older than me. What is your age?”
Seven winters younger, I thought, but I was unsure how I felt about it. “Older than that,” I said.
Evangeline went on, looking at the everlasting line of wagons ahead, “He must want to bed you.”
My chest was splotched with pink. I pursed my lips to keep from smiling like a lunatic. I was behaving like I was Fox’s age.
“What are you talking about?” came that voice I had come to think of as smoke. If smoke could make sound, it would be his voice.