Chapter 34 #2
“Very well.” He crouched to unwind the rope from the boys’ waists. “Do not go far, and do not enter the trees. Jeya, you have the keeping of them.”
“Aye, aye.” Jeya grinned, suddenly looking a good deal younger. “C’mon, you lot.”
The triplets leapt up, and Jeya took Daisy’s hand. They scampered to the slope that dropped into the spring. Penn gave Richard a cheery wave before sliding down.
Richard snorted and lounged on the log. Around him, several men and women were already eating.
Talia sat nearest, the tattoos on her forearms rippling as she blew across her bowl—a fox curling around her wrist, a vine creeping over the knuckles.
Beside her was the woman with the wealth of piercings, the snake keeper crooning to her python, and a pair of men arguing over whether Master Clemens cheated at cards.
The woman with piercings caught his eye and winked. “A misunderstanding last night, Flint told me. Sorry about that, friend. I’m Svetra, I am.”
Richard gave her a strained smile. “It was no matter.”
“So, where’s your handsome man, then?”
“He is in the queue,” Richard said, peering over his shoulder. He could see Kaelen near the front, two wooden bowls stacked in his hands. The knight said something to the cook that made her slap his arm affectionately. “Fetching me my lunch.”
Talia exchanged a grin with Svetra. “Now ain’t that a fine thing.”
“You have him well-trained, you have.” One of the men—Lamrod from last night—laughed. “Got you your breakfast and lunch yesterday. Even hung out your tunic to dry.”
The snake-keeper glanced at the queue. “Poor thing looks dead on his feet.”
“No surprise there,” Lamrod rumbled, licking his spoon. “Master Clemens and Boris have him hauling all sorts on account of his strength. Yet off he goes to fetch his lover’s soup besides.”
Richard opened his mouth and closed it again.
“I—” His collar felt warm, and he plucked at the lacing of his tunic. “I—that is…He is merely—he often—” By the gods, how was he to explain it? “I—I am simply used to him being so.”
The circle around him erupted into laughter.
“Used to him!”
“What a luxury!”
“No,” Richard said weakly. “It is not like that. I mean, Kaelen—he is generous of nature—”
“Oh, exceedingly generous,” Talia said. “And exceedingly trained. You must be a marvel in bed.”
“Oh, aye,” Svetra mused. “Must be to have a beauty such as he waiting on you hand and foot—”
A familiar voice came from behind Richard’s shoulder, calm and a touch chiding. “Pray, good sirs and madams, leave my lover be.”
Kaelen ducked into the cluster, two steaming bowls balanced and a chunk of bread tucked under his chin. He passed a bowl to Richard and lowered himself into the same log, knee grazing Richard’s thigh.
“He carries more than you could ever know.” Kaelen tore the bread in half and gave the larger piece to Richard. “I am quite content to fetch his soup. So peace, the lot of you.”
A chorus of ooohs and aaahs resounded.
“My, my.” The snakekeeper smirked. “Carries more than we can know, does he?”
“The poor, weighty lamb,” Svetra giggled. “Look at the colour of him, will you, Talia—”
“Oh aye, he’s ripe as a strawberry, the dear—”
Richard wasn’t surprised. The heat had crept up from his collar to the very tips of his ears. He bent low over the bowl.
“—leave my lover be—”
A strange buzz swept through Richard, and he found himself struggling hard to contain a smile.
“So,” Talia said brightly. “Tell us. How came two such pretty creatures to find each other?”
Kaelen rubbed his nape. “There—there is no great tale to it. Our parents were the closest of friends. We grew up under the same roofs, in a manner of speaking.”
“Ah, the childhood sweethearts,” the snake-keeper sighed. “Lovely.”
“Hardly that.” Svetra squinted between them. “Richard’s older. Aren’t you, Richard? You’ve a few years on him.”
“Ten,” Richard admitted, picking at the crust.
“Ten?” Talia gasped. “Watched him grow, then, did you?”
“I did not notice him at all, in truth. He was simply the son of my parents’ friends.” Richard stared at his soup. “It was not until recently that I have come to know him better and…to see him as a man.”
Kaelen stiffened.
“And you, Naradeshi boy? When did your eyes open to Richard here?”
For a moment, Kaelen did not speak. Then—
“Seven,” he said quietly. “When he rescued me from a pack of Velari.”
Richard’s spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. He turned and, for a heartbeat, saw only Kaelen—wreathed in sunlight that illuminated the dust in his hair, the smudge of broth on his upper lip, and the line of his throat as he swallowed hard.
“I—I should—” Kaelen gave a strangled cough and set his bowl down. “I’ve just remembered—” His voice climbed an octave. “I told Boris I’d check the strap on the bay mare’s harness, and, um, it is rather urgent, so I shall do so directly, if—if you will excuse me—”
He was on his feet before the sentence finished, almost tripping over the log as he dashed towards the horses.
The group dissolved into delighted howling.
“Oh, the hapless creature—”
“Did you see his face? Younger lovers, you know—”
“Oh, friend, I daresay he’s not let you sleep a proper night since you noticed him—”
“Excuse me.” Richard stood up, pocketing his bread. The soup sloshed in his bowl, and the heat in his face was now a furnace. “I shall go check on the children.”
“Sure thing, sweet! Mind they ain’t getting up to no mischief.”
“Mind lover boy don’t catch you on the way—”
Richard fled. The path to the spring was no more than thirty paces, and then down a little slope, but he took it with his head down and did not stop until he heard the babble of water.
Drawing in a long breath, Richard pressed his palms against his eyes.
The warmth from his face seemed to spread through his whole body, and bizarrely, another smile wrenched at his mouth.
Good gods. I have become quite ill.
He lowered his hands. Warmth fled, replaced by a chill that froze his blood.
The spring, with its embankment of flat stones and moss, was empty.
“Jeya?”
From the undergrowth, a bird startled from cover and fluttered up through the canopy.
“Pip. Penn. Puck.”
Nothing.
“Daisy!”
There came a sob from behind a boulder. Richard spun and crossed the distance in three strides, dropping to one knee.
Daisy was crouched in the ferns, tears streaming.
“Daisy.” He grabbed her shoulders. “Where are they?”
“I told them not to go. Told them not to—” She wailed.
Richard hugged her to his chest. “Tell me what has happened, Daisy. Quickly.”
“The old lady,” Daisy hiccupped into his shoulder.
“The old lady was at the trees.” She pointed a trembling finger past the spring and into the dim of the forest where the path disappeared and tall trees loomed.
“The old lady waved at the boys when Jeya wasn’t looking.
And Pip—Pip said it was just an old granny and she had sweets and they could just look quick.
And Jeya said ‘no’. Jeya said come back, but they ran.
They ran into the trees. And Jeya went after them.
But she didn’t come back. She didn’t come back, she didn’t come back, she didn’t come back! ”
Richard’s jaw clenched. He pulled Daisy back from him by the shoulders. “You shall run back to the camp. Tell them a stranger has lured the children into the forest, and that I have gone after them. Tell them to bring blades. Tell them to come quickly. Do you understand?”
Daisy was crying too hard to speak, but she nodded.
“Good girl.” He stood and drew his sword. “Go.”
Daisy bolted as Richard turned to the trees. On the other side of the spring’s bank, the earth had been scuffed by many feet. And beyond that, bent fern stems and a broken bramble branch led deeper into the woods. A trail.
Richard followed.