58. Now Whiskey
NOW: WHISKEY
Igot no sleep that night, unable to shake the terror of being seized and marched towards my death. And when my mind had relived that over and over, it began to dwell on the scorching heat and blossoming flame that my flicking the little drop of blood into the cresset torch had caused.
And then, stupidly, when there were more important things to worry over, I obsessed over Reed’s use of “another man,” as if he implied that he was the first man and anyone else was “another.” Or had I read into that?
Whiskey had been passed out, a jug per wagon, even ours. Ilsit and Tessa had quickly opened it and added it to their tin cups of tea, but I had waved them away after the first few drams, claiming it was best left for medicinal use.
“Just go into town and buy more,” Ilsit protested.
I caved in and let them use it, too distracted and too tired to argue.
With an entire day set aside for rest, the campgrounds were happy.
Some folks complained of a sore head from the whiskey the army had purchased.
Others, who had kept the whiskey for things like toothaches and medicine, who found drinking it to be sinful, were rather happy with themselves over this outcome.
Word had got out who traveled in wagon four hundred and twenty-three, and with folk settled for a day, they decided to inquire after their aches and pains.
What was supposed to be a day of rest was not for me.
I walked up and down the campgrounds, folk finding me, giving me the numbers of their wagons, and asking for different things.
I stitched up a cut, pulled a bad tooth, provided oil for aching joints, and so on.
When I returned to our camp, Ilsit and Tessa were playing cards while Fox combed nits out of Daisy’s fur.
“Where is Jade?” I asked.
“Went drinking with the scouts in town,” explained Ilsit.
“She what?” I snapped.
Tessa looked up. “What’s the trouble?”
“The trouble? None of us should be left alone with anyone—”
“Oh piss and hell,” Ilsit said in dismissal. “They’re like us. They invited us, remember? We’re too tired to make the walk.”
I glared at her. “You’re the one who said we shouldn’t trust anyone!”
“Well, I changed my mind,” she said and looked at Tessa. “Are you hearing this? It’s pretty godsdamn insulting to Jade. Like she doesn’t know how to look after herself.”
“I agree,” said Tessa, and her clipped tone surprised me.
“They’re not of the church or of Sheridan.
They’ve no judgment for folk like Jade or folk like me and Ilsit.
In fact, the one with the braid and the big Helmsman used to be lovers.
And, yes, Jade is nearly your age, Robbie. She’s not a girl. No offense, Fox.”
Fox smiled at Tessa.
“Fox is no girl,” Ilsit countered, slapping a card down and grinning at Tessa, who groaned. “She’s practically a woman now, and a smart one.”
Outraged, I charged across the camp, making for the road that led into Griston, making the remarkably stupid decision to be alone in the dark after having nearly been killed the night before.
By the time I realized my own idiocy, I was closer to the town than the camp and reasoned I may as well make for whatever tavern they were in.
I had put myself in the danger of being alone at night.
Then I understood my second stupid choice of not asking my family if they knew where Jade and the scouts were, especially as Griston was a sizable place.
“Sir?” I called to a man in the street. “Where are most of the penitents drinking tonight?”
He looked at me, bleary-eyed, and pointed behind him to a loud tavern.
The place was a dozen times the breadth of The Pale Horse.
It was packed with men all talking, laughing, playing cards.
There were a handful of women in the midst too.
I stood in the doorway feeling out of place when I was jostled by more patrons entering behind me.
When I straightened, I saw Jade and Keir sitting at a table that was cast in more shadow than most as the lit sconces were not nearby.
They were kissing softly, Keir’s thumb and forefinger tipping her chin closer to him.
I felt tremendous guilt. It really was none of my business. And now I was stuck there, afraid to walk home on my own. And I had no coin with me to buy drink.
“Midwife!” came a shout from the crowded counter.
Dermid, Evangeline, and Reed were standing watching me, cups in hands, Dermid and Evangeline with open faces. Reed wore his usual shuttered look.
The big Helmsman and the lady warrior were exuberant in their greeting when I joined them. Reed gave me a nod.
“He’s drunk,” Dermid said, bringing his tin cup crashing into Reed’s. “Too drunk to risk greeting you properly.”
“I am not drunk,” Reed said.
He did not sound drunk, but I did detect a measure to his words, as if he was drunk and might be trying to cover it with his enunciation.
“He is an all-at-once drunk,” Evangeline said to me. “He can hold his liquor, always. No matter the drink. But every so often, maybe once a winter or so, it will all hit him at once and he gets emotional and tells us all how much he loves us. It is precious, I tell you.”
“And hilarious,” added Dermid.
“Why,” Reed said, again using that practiced voice, “is it funny for a man to tell his brothers he loves them?”
Evangeline snorted. “Because you are so effusive.”
“So insistent,” agreed Dermid, nodding at me. “So much cupping of the face, the backs of our necks, so many promises. Once he kissed me on the forehead like a mother putting a child to bed.”
Reed shrugged. “Again, I don’t see how that is funny. What you describe is a man devoted to his family. Where is the joke?”
“Nothing beats his tattooing my name on his stomach,” chortled Evangeline. “Nothing can beat that one.”
Dermid slammed his mug down on the counter and roared laughing. “Except he wasn’t very successful, because you’ve a long name. Show her!”
Reed shook his head.
“Oh come on,” Evangeline cajoled. “It was your finest hour. You called me your true sister and lay down on your back with Dermid’s needle—”
“Which he bloody lost doing it, by the way,” Dermid complained to me. “I’m who repairs our clothes, and I only had the one.”
Evangeline’s face was red from laughing. “Anyway, he gets a pot of ink from the gods know where and lies down on the floor—I think we were staying in someone’s house? Does that sound right?”
“I think so,” agreed Dermid. “But whose house?”
“It was my house,” Reed interjected. “You had come to Vyggia with me and Keir—”
“No.” Dermid was shaking his head. “It was in Pikestully, I’m sure of it.”
“It doesn’t matter! You’re ruining the story,” Evangeline interrupted. “Alright, so he’s lying on the floor, propping himself up on his elbows, and then he starts tattooing my name on his—”
“Fine,” sighed Reed and lifted up both his hooded leather jerkin and the short-sleeved tunic to reveal a jagged scrawl of the first few letters of Evangeline’s name, upside down on the skin of his hip and stomach.
He looked at me and then, expressionless, said, “I think I fell asleep by the fourth letter.”
I burst out laughing and blushed at seeing that strip of his flesh.
Dermid and Evangeline laughed at my own laughter.
Reed smiled slowly at me.
“I am going,” I said when I had finished laughing. “I am so tired I can barely stand, truly. I confess, I came here because I was worried about Jade. Not that you four have not been kind to—”
“Oh, Keir is a randy bastard and desperate to bed her,” Dermid said, cutting me off. “But his heart rules his prick this time. He already asked her what she looks for in a husband. Then he asked her if she cared for poetry. Poetry!”
“It is why we’re here at the counter and not over there,” explained Reed.
“In-bloody-sufferable,” pronounced Dermid. “He’s so lovesick he’s going to turn all our stomachs and poor Jade’s too. I told her to wave me over if she can’t take any more wooing. Tell me, Madam Robbie, your friend isn’t troubled by an overabundance of politeness, is she?”
“I think,” I replied, both caution and a tiny bit of hope in my words, “she does not sit at that table out of politeness.” There must have been something like fear in my face.
A sincerity in his speech, Dermid said, “You’ve nothing to worry over.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” I replied with a nod, smiling at both the Helmsman and the lady warrior, sparing Reed only the briefest of looks, that bit of his skin still on my mind.
I said, “Good night,” and walked away, elbowing my way around a roomful of men—residents of Griston, penitents, and soldiers alike.
The tavern was stuffy, and I was ready to go back to the wagon and sleep.
I had been awake for nearly a full day and night now.
I spied Thane deep in conversation with Wynne and Kent and kept my head down, pretending not to see Wynne’s head move, not to see his wink as he watched me make my way outside to the street.
I found the alleyway through which I had entered the town and made my way into it, slinking between the torches mounted outside.
It only took a moment of cool night air to remind me how incredibly asinine I was. “Oh, shit,” I cried. “I did it again.” Perhaps I was a piss-poor criminal. I kept forgetting I was the target of a murder plot.
“You’re always talking to yourself.”
I nearly squawked as I spun on the spot. I stood in darkness, but Reed was lit by one of the torches on the outside of the tavern’s wall.
“Can you walk me home?” I blurted out.
He had moved to step closer to me, and he froze. “Of course I will. Why do you ask? Do you feel unsafe?”
Again, his voice was pronounced and measured.
“Maybe,” I admitted, watching him continue to approach.
“Will you tell me why you were breathless last night?” he asked when he was nearer to me, when he was close enough to reach out and touch me.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, relieved at his being there. I should have told him, should have asked for his protection, but I kept hearing Bertram’s words about Fox. I kept worrying that telling anyone could lead to her death.
Reed exhaled, letting his breath rush from his nose. He brought his forefingers up to the neckline of his jerkin and hooked them there. “You never want to talk to me,” he said, his words low.
“I’m so glad you’ve appeared,” I said, adopting a spirited friendliness. I turned back around and said, over my shoulder, “Just accompanying me back to my wagon would be so helpful—”
The air rushed out of my lungs when he stepped so close behind me, his body cradled my own.
Had I the breath, I would have exclaimed in surprise when he corralled me to the side and pushed me, not violently but decidedly, against the wall, anchoring me there with his hips pressed into my rear, his hands placed on either side of me.
Reed sighed and put his forehead on the back of my own head. Then he asked, ragged and anguished, “Why don’t you like me?”