Nor Iron Bars A Cage (4 page)

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to do with you.” I couldn’t drop the light, happy voice, although he winced again when I used it. “It’s been a long time. I hardly even notice now.”

“Stop!” He went to his knees in front of me, reaching for my hand, but when I drew back out of reach he didn’t pursue me. “Don’t pretend.”

“I’m not pretending.” I smiled to show him I meant it. “I’ve learned to do everything left-handed. My penmanship is better than it ever was. I’m fine.”

“Lyon.” It came out a groan.

I kicked at him, one foot catching his hip and spilling him on the floor. “And you wondered why I never wrote you.”
Here was a lie that would serve me, twisted up in truth.
“I can’t stand that look. Don’t you
dare
pity me. I’d like to see you have the guts to burn…” I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood.

He rolled to his feet and asked slowly, “Burn what?”

“Nothing. Go away and leave me alone. Tell your king you couldn’t find me. Tell him I died. Or tell him to have some scribe trace the document and bring it and I’ll translate it. For free, even, since he’s a friend of yours. Just go.”

“I can’t. He’s my liege and has my oath. And he’s your king too.”

“I really don’t care.”

“But I care for you. I don’t want to see you get in trouble or hurt. More hurt. There is no spell holding you here, is there?”

I glared at him.

“Be reasonable, lion-boy. He commands you.”

“Don’t call me that!” I surged to my feet, facing him, furious. He was ripping open all the old wounds today. “Just get the hells out of here!” I set my hand on the back of the chair, swaying and hearing the rush of blood in my ears.

“All right.” I must have looked bad, because he backed away from me, hands held out at his sides. “Listen, I’ll go away for a bit. But you know he
is
king. If he wants you in court, sooner or later you’ll have to go.”

“The hells I will.”

He backed toward the door. “I’ll come back later. You should maybe eat something. Think about it a bit. How bad would it be, really, to come with me? It would be like the old days, but with horses. You and me on an adventure. Five days ride, a little job for your king, and I promise I’d escort you all the way back. You’d not be gone more than three weeks, maybe less. And well paid for it. And we could catch each other up on old times. How bad could it be?”

“Worse than the fire,” I said, and meant it.

When he was gone, I had barely enough strength to shut and bolt the door before dropping back into my chair. I pulled my feet up on the seat, heedless of my shoes on the fine leather, and wrapped my arms around my knees.
How bad could it be?

Part of me wanted to go. Oh Mother Bian, the picture he painted. Tobin and me riding side by side, comrades again. And not just friends, but two fay men. We were no longer boys, and neither of us virgins, even if…
not going there.

I closed my eyes. I could almost picture it. I could also picture his face the first time I woke screaming and puking in the night. The first time I put a fist in his face, in unknowing panic, as I’d done to one of the nurses at the hostel so long ago. He’d watch me trying to cut my meat left-handed as it slid about my plate, or buttoning buttons, or any of another thousand simple tasks that I did slowly and not well. He’d get that look in his eyes again and I could not
bear
it.

I had a life here, and however circumscribed it was, it suited me well.

I looked up at the shelf that held my books. I had dozens now. Faithful friends who took me on journeys without judgment and without pity. Over there on the counter, Mother Fiona’s bread was fresh and good, and I could haggle off a thick slice in here with no one to watch. I was my own man, and I would choose, and my choice was to stay here.

****

In an odd way, the thought of leaving had made my home lovelier in my eyes. Although I didn’t sleep, that also meant no bad dreams. I spent a quiet night in my chair, resting, and each time I opened my eyes I took in the thick stone walls and the glow of lamplight with satisfaction. I read a little, off and on, from a book in
teshmidoran.
I’d gotten it cheap, because there was no one else around who could now read it.

It was a travelogue, which had almost made me set it aside tonight. But in fact, I thought it was probably mostly fiction. Surely no real trip went half that smoothly, and although I’d never been to the far Southlands across the seas, some of the adventures he described had to be apocryphal. I’d heard of elephants, although no one I knew had ever seen one. But riding on the back of an elephant in a little house filled with soft cushions was taking it a bit far. I read along with pleasure at the author’s imagination.

By morning I’d convinced myself that Tobin would take my
“No”
this time and go back to his king with it. I’m not sure where that delusion came from, because I surely knew better.

He showed up mid-morning, as I was pulling weeds in the garden. I heard him whistling before I saw him striding up the lane.

“In seventeen years you never learned another song?” I teased him. But I said it lightly. The sun was warm and the lettuces were growing well, and in a little while he would be gone.

“I like that one.”

“I know.”

“Show me your garden,” he said.

“I imagine one is pretty much like another.”

“No doubt. But I was a horse-boy and then a squire and then a knight and company commander, and now I do my king’s errands. I’ve never owned a garden.”

“You poor man. There’s nothing more worth having. Well, other than books. Look here.” I showed him the early greens, leafing out well enough already to harvest from around the edges. I pointed to the lacy fronds of carrots, and the beans galloping skyward on the climbing frames I’d made for them.

“What’s that? It’s doing well.” He pointed, and then made a sound as I tugged the plant up, leaf and root.

“Coldwort. It’s a weed. It likes the cool weather so it outgrows the rest in this season, if you let it.” I tossed it on the compost pile.

He bent to touch a smaller furry leaf. “Is this the same?”

“Yes. You can slay it for me.”

He glanced up through his eyelashes at me, but yanked on it. The leaves came free, leaving the root in the soil. He peered at his trophy. “Mine’s falling apart.”

“You only wounded it. Oh well. I’ll get the root next time.”

“I never leave a wounded enemy behind me.” He knelt to dig around the root with his fingers. I passed him the trowel, and he quickly worked the taproot free and tossed it with the rest.

“Victorious over weeds. Congratulations, Tobin.”

He laughed. It was the same laugh he’d shared with me a hundred times. I’d missed that laugh. I moved quickly on down the row. “Here we have the squash. Nothing much yet, but by fall there will be more than I can eat. Luckily it keeps well.”

He looked around. “This is nice and big. No chickens though? No cow? What do you do for meat and milk?”

“I’ve a woman in the village who supplies me. Chickens are noisy and a cow needs too much tending. I have some money coming in, and she can use a little coin, with three young ones to clothe and shoe.”

“You always were good with children.”

I looked over, startled. “That was you. The little ones followed you all over. I barely put up with them.” I’d been jealous, truth be told, of the easy way he’d smile and kiss small cheeks and hold them on his hip. “I thought you’d have a brood of your own by now.” It was one of the things that had made it easier not to go to him, thinking that he’d have a wife and a family, and not need a strange man— a very strange man— coming near them.

“I wouldn’t have minded children,” he said. “But no amount of prayers to Bian can make the union of two men fertile. Plus I’ve never found a man I’d actually want to raise a child with.”

“I hope you do someday,” I said, and meant it, even if it took him one step further from me. He was leaving soon, no matter what, and if ever a man was meant to be a father it was Tobin. “There are plenty of orphan children who need a good home.”

“Maybe. What about you? You’re settled here with a house and an income. If you never found a girl to please you, why not take in a child?”

I shuddered. In the orderly routines and quiet I needed to survive, a child would be a disaster. As for the rest… “What makes you think I was looking for a girl?”

He gave me another sidelong look. “Weren’t you?”

“I’m as fay as you are,” I said tartly. “Now who’s blind?”

“I’d guessed it,” he admitted. “But it’s not something I like to assume, unless the man tells me so himself.”

“Well, now you know for certain.” My good mood was fading. I wrapped my hand around a fast-growing strand of threadbind, and pulled hard, heedless of the way it dug into my fingers. The long, wiry stuff resisted my efforts. I’d have twined it around my right forearm for an assist, as I often had to, but Tobin’s strong hands landed on the stem below mine and together we dragged it from the earth. I dropped it on the pile, and wriggled my fingers to return circulation.

“It’s not a bad thing that you’re fay,” he murmured, closer to my ear than I’d realized.

I jumped sideways, and concealed it with a quick tug at my boot. “I didn’t say it was.” But I moved away from him down the row.

“Is your garden why you don’t want to leave? Are you worried about this place? I’m sure someone from the village will be willing care for it for a few weeks. On the king’s coin, of course.”

He hadn’t followed after me. At a safe distance I turned. The sun was behind him and I had to squint to see him while my features were no doubt clear in the light. Unfair. “I’m sure they would, except that I’m not leaving it.”

He scrubbed his face with one hand. “How do I convince you? You don’t have a choice. I’m charged with bringing you back to Riverrun, one way or the other.”

“You’d have to tie me up and throw me across the horse!”

The long silence that followed was cold as winter.

“You wouldn’t.”

“This isn’t some kind of whim for His Majesty. Something serious is afoot, something vital. I could tell by the way my instructions were given. I’ve already waited a day for you to agree, but… I have orders.”

“Damn you then. You’ll have to do it! You’ll have to drag me back there.” I was so angry it froze my bones. Deep down shaking-with-it angry. I’d said
never again
. Never again would I let myself be suborned or coerced or forced at another’s will. I’d die first. I wished there was something nearby to hold onto. I took three steps back to put my hip against the fence.

He hadn’t moved forward. “Please. Don’t make me choose between my duty and what you prefer.”

“What I
prefer
.” I put both hands behind me to hide the shaking. “Yes. You will have to choose, you bastard. Now get off my land or arrest me.”

“I’m not a constable. I don’t arrest…”

“Whatever it is you do, when your king commands you. Either go or take me.”

He froze, even more still. The sun shone in his dark hair, raising the red in it. I’d said,
“or take me.”
I suddenly heard the double meaning in that, totally unintended. But retracting or explaining would dilute the words, and if he heard both meanings he was welcome to them. But not to me, in any way, shape or form. I’d fight him on this as long as I could.

“I’ve just found you again, after so long.” His voice was weary. “Could we please not do this? Could we just sit and talk? Get to know each other again? And then you can pack a few things and make a small trip. One short job for your king, and you’ll be back here in your sanctuary none the worse for wear. I’ll be at your side the whole time, I swear it.”

I could almost taste the picture that made. So my voice was harsher than ever when I asked, “How can you swear to it? What if your
king
wants me to stay in Riverrun at his beck and call? What if he
orders
you on another errand?”

He gave me no answer then, and I turned away. “I’m going inside. You can stay here, or leave, or come and drag me out by my hair. I see no other choices.”

I’d gone a dozen steps toward the house, hearing nothing behind me, when his voice drifted to me, softly. “I like your hair.”

Gods-bedamned mother-screwing bastard. I went inside and closed and bolted the door.

****

CHAPTER THREE

I spent the evening curled up with my most prized possession. The book was battered, with some of the first pages torn out. The peddler who’d brought it to me said they’d been used to start a fire.
“What good is a book no-one can read, save for the paper?”
He was lucky I’d had to let him live. If my glare could have started a fire, he’d have been charred.

Still, for once,
no-one
included me. The wraith had left me owning a dozen old and forgotten tongues, and a few newer ones, but this one was unknown to me. It was naggingly familiar, having the sound of
britarian
when read phonetically, and here and there a few words that seemed to make sense in that language. I thought it might be a much older form, but the paper was modern. Perhaps it was a copy. I puzzled at it when I needed my brain totally engaged.

And tonight I really needed that. I’d spent all afternoon and half the evening waiting for Tobin to knock on my door and take up his arguments. I had my heart hardened against even opening the latch for him. So it was a distraction and annoyance, instead of a relief, when the sun was long down and he still hadn’t come. I leaned closer to the book. Could
teshmian
mean the same thing as
tesh-man
?
If so, this might be a household guide of some kind, dealing with the running of a large keep. The words I’d found were mostly domestic ones.

Eventually I put the book carefully back on the shelf. I hadn’t jotted a note for over an hour. I glanced out at the dark beyond the window, and wondered what time it was. I’d had a clock once, but I’d beaten the little gears out of it one night, when it refused to move forward at a reasonable pace. I’d decided not to replace it. The cycle of light and dark were enough for me.