Nor Iron Bars A Cage (5 page)

My knife called to me and tonight I didn’t even try to fight it. The little blade winked in the lamplight as I picked it up.

I wondered if Tobin actually had the stones to make me go with him. If I cried— make that if I screamed— would he still bundle me up and drag me back to his king, like a cat bringing home a half-dead mouse? He’d called me friend. He’d even said he liked my hair.
I couldn’t afford to get distracted down that path.

Tobin had been a soldier, for over a decade apparently. I was sure he’d been a good one. And he liked King Faro, or at least trusted him. I could hear it in his voice and see in his flinches when I defied the wishes of the Crown. Set that long history of service, and his duty to his liege lord, against some old, lingering friendship for me, and I knew where his loyalty would fall.

What choices did I have? I could sit here and force him to come in after me and drag me out. I could run away, leave all my comforts and start again. I’d almost have done that, if I wasn’t certain that, now that he knew where I lived, Tobin would have little difficulty in finding me again. Probably six miles down the road and already limping.

I could try to kill him before I ran. A stranger coming later to the hunt might never locate me again.

Sometimes I wondered if the thoughts of violence that came to me were the normal imaginings anyone might have, or some kind of stain on my soul left by the wraith. This one was pure stupidity anyway. I had my kitchen cleaver, an axe, and this little blade. Tobin had a dagger and his sword, and a decade of experience. Not to mention three inches of height on me. He’d disarm me and laugh doing it. And not even I had enough darkness in my soul to imagine killing him by stealth or poison.

So truly, it came down to letting him take me, or hoping that my powers of persuasion would somehow miraculously change his mind. I could tell him that a spell would drive me mad if I left these walls. It might be no more than the truth. But he might still feel compelled to try it.

The tip of the little blade slid familiarly over my skin. I pushed my shirt sleeve higher to keep it clean. I hadn’t bothered to change for bed, knowing I’d never sleep. This was my good shirt, that I’d put on after washing the garden soil off myself, because… well, it was my favorite. And I didn’t want it stained.

I looked at my forearm, bared to the light. I always tried to use the arm as much as possible. I had a bag I’d made with handles that fit my elbow, to fetch and carry with. Sometimes I filled it with stone weights and lifted it up and down, until I had to stop. I did exercises, holding myself up in a plank on my elbows. But some days, some weeks, it ached too much to do that, and despite my efforts the muscles had dwindled until my wrist was as small around as a child’s. Useless. The skin was thinner too, and against its winter pale, the veins stood blue. I wondered idly if this would be the night. Would I finally push the tip a little deeper, and let the crimson spill inexorably from those blue lines? I dipped the tip just deep enough to coax free a drop.

The window across from me exploded with a shattering crash, as a heavy body plunged through it. I was knocked from my chair. Even as I fell, I knew Tobin’s touch and his voice, gasping, “No! Gods, no. Don’t.”

He wrestled me for the knife, pried it from my startled grasp, and threw it across the room.

“Damn it, that was my good blade!” I struggled to get free from him. “If you’ve broken it…”

“Broken it!” He held me in an unshakable grip, wrapped against his chest with both wrists prisoned in his hands. “You son of a whore. I hope it’s shattered!”

His arms were bands of steel around me, his chest a stone wall at my back, and I fought him. I struggled with all my might, my vision dark with the need to get free. “Let go. Let go. Let GO!”

“Promise you won’t move if I do. Promise you’ll stay right here.”

His breath was a foul thing against my cheek, in my hair, the whisper of graveyards and creatures long dead. I fought to get free. The fetters bound my wrists to the wall. The floor under my bare feet was cold. He pressed against me, whispering of the power we would gain. He asked for permission, asked for free will, told me of the riches of the world laid before us if I yielded to his request. His eyes were Meldov’s brown ones, the words ones I’d longed to hear, but under the honey was acid and decay. I fought him. I denied him. Until he turned me around and took what he wanted, with a snarl at my intransigence. Took and drugged and cajoled and suborned me. And I was left with only a shred of free will, deep inside, hoarded and cowering in the dark of my soul. Kept hidden against the day…

I eventually realized I was sobbing. My cheek was pressed to my floor, my hair glued to my face with tears and snot and sweat. I was curled as tightly as possible, knees to my chest, the flagstones hard under my hip. Something rubbed across my shoulders with a firm soft pressure, like a friendly cat. I realized it was a man’s hand, and scrambled away, dragging myself up to my knees. I couldn’t stand. I pushed off from the floor with both arms, whimpering as my bad wrist took the strain. I raised my head.

Tobin sat back on his heels, staring at me. His pupils were so wide they swallowed the honey-brown of his eyes. He held his hands up, empty. “Do you know who I am?” His voice was agonizingly gentle.

I sat back on my heels, and wiped my face with my sleeve. “The bastard who’s going to drag me back to Riverrun.”

“You called me Meldov.”

I had no good answer for that.

Tobin whispered, “I thought he was a good man. What did he do to you?”

“Oh, he
was
a good man,” I said jauntily. “He was long dead when he did that.”

If Tobin had been pale before he was sheet-white now. “He was
what
?”

I sighed. “It’s a long story.” The tears had done something for me, emptied me out. I actually felt better than I had. I was loose and drifting and untouchable, all my doors swinging open. That was a dangerous thought, and I tried to care about it.

“I have lots of time. Tell me?”

“You should just go.”

“The hells I will.” He stood up. “You’re bleeding. Do you have any bandages?”

“This?” I looked at my arm dispassionately. I’d cut deeper than usual, when he grabbed me. Still, it was nothing that wouldn’t heal. In fact, when I looked at him, I saw way more blood than that on his own sleeve. Which reminded me— “You broke my window! Who told you to dive through like some run-away beer wagon and break it? Damn you, do you know how much that cost?” I’d had to buy the large panes in the city and have them carefully shipped, and paid the local carpenter to frame it. I’d loved it. The local glassmaker couldn’t come close to it. “And you’re bleeding worse than I am. Look to your own wounds.”

He looked down in surprise, as if he hadn’t noticed anything, and slid his sleeve up his arm to check it. A shard of bright glass fell from the fabric to the floor. A long, shallow gash scored his tanned forearm. Blood welled slowly out. He grimaced and wrapped his hand over it. “That’s nothing. But you. You were going to…” He swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet night.

“No, I wasn’t.”
At least, probably not.
“I like to play with the knife. It calms me.”

“
Calms
you?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t going to explain myself to him.

“Well it sure as hells didn’t calm me.” He took down my dishcloth from the rack, not looking at me. “I was so damned scared.”

“Don’t use that. It’s for the dishes. There’s a basket of cotton strips under the sink there.” Because this wasn’t the first time I’d gone a bit deep.

He wrapped his own arm, his motions so practiced, down to tying the strip with left hand and teeth that it came home to me how often he must have done something like this.
He was a soldier.
I’d known, intellectually, that he was in the cavalry all those years ago. But that simple, practical action brought home the impact of that.
He might have died.
That realization stunned the breath out of me so well that I scarcely moved as he came over and knelt in front of me, reaching very slowly for my arm.

I came out of my distraction before he touched me though. “Just give me a bandage.”

He handed it over, careful not to brush my fingers with his own.

Well, I had practice at bandaging too. I wiped my wrist clean, knowing he was looking at it as I did so, and resisting the impulse to hide from his gaze. The original damage was less visible in the lamplight, but the low angle somehow brought out the lines of scars that overlay the first, parallel ridge after ridge, and small nicks, old and new, marking my bad nights. I hadn’t realized there were so many. I covered them in stained but washed cotton, and pulled my sleeve down over it all.

Tobin said, “If you weren’t going to kill yourself, what were you doing?”

“It’s a distraction.”

“Cutting yourself?”

“Sometimes.” I had the impulse to see if he could understand this. “Or just knowing that I could. Knowing that I can make that choice, can lay the blade on skin, or push in just a little and draw blood, or go deeper and no one can stop me.”

“I stopped you tonight.”

“You grabbed me. That’s not the same thing.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand. I want to though. I want to help.”

“I thought you wanted to take me back to your king.” I stood and turned my back on him.

“Watch where you walk,” he said quickly. “There’s glass on the floor and you’re barefoot.”

I had to laugh. It came out surprisingly real, and after a moment he chuckled too.

“Well, you can clean it up then,” I told him. “You have boots on, and anyway it’s your mess.”

I went to my chair, managing to avoid cutting myself, and sat down with my feet on the seat while he worked. He picked up the big shards and pieces of the frame, and then swept the small stuff into a corner with my broom. “I’ll get that swept out the door in the morning.”

I wasn’t sure how he knew I didn’t want the door opened to the dark, but I said, “The market boy comes barefoot. You’d better get it away from the path.”

“I can do that.” He set the broom in its place and looked at me. “I’m really sorry about your window. I thought I was saving your life.”

He seemed so sad, I had to give him something. “Maybe you were. I’ve always known one day I might use the freedom to cut deep. This might have been the night.”

That didn’t make him happier. “Because I came here and ruined your nice quiet life.”

“Hardly. I mean, yes, right now I’m really not happy with you. But you saw the scars. I’ve cut myself often enough when you were hundreds of miles away. It’s not your fault.”

“Then whose?” He grabbed the kitchen chair, swung it around, and sat on it backwards to look at me, his arms crossed on the wooden rail. “Can you tell me? Please? You said Meldov was dead, and you sounded… tortured.”

I tried to say it wasn’t that bad, but it had been. Perhaps not torture of the body, but of the mind and soul. It had been.

After a silence he said, “Can you tell me about the fire maybe? We knew it wasn’t an ordinary blaze when we arrived to put it out, from how long and hot it burned. And you said Meldov was caught in it. And clearly you were injured.”

He was a soldier. He’d seen injuries. I guessed he could see that the burn on my wrist, isolated as it was, was unlikely to be from a house fire. But he waited patiently for my answer.

“I got out,” I said hoarsely. “Ran as far as I could.” I hadn’t been certain the fire would be enough to destroy the wraith, until I felt its hold finally let go. I’d been two miles down the road by then, with no reason to go back.

“And afterward?”

“I hid in an old barn, for days.” I’d cowered in the hayloft, as high above the ground as I could get. The fever had come on fast, but it had taken a thirst so severe I no longer cared if I died, to drive me out of my refuge. “Eventually I made it to the hostel of the Sisters of Bian in Lowbridge.”

“I searched for you. You and Meldov. I asked at the local hostels and everywhere else I could think of.” Tobin’s voice was thin. “No one had heard of you. Even in Lowbridge.”

“Perhaps I hadn’t arrived yet. In any case, I begged them to hide me. I was afraid, and delirious. The burn was suppurating by then.” And I was babbling, in a panic over some nebulous pursuit, and wouldn’t tell them my own name. They’d either believed my fears were real, or humored me. “They tended me for a little while. Then I… traveled, and eventually wound up here. It was peaceful. I stayed.”

His lips twisted ruefully. “And here I am to drag you out of your refuge. I am so, so sorry. But that doesn’t change the fact that the king commands it.”

“It won’t serve him if I wind up a babbling idiot drooling all over his floor.”

“Is that likely?” He looked at me intently. “Is there truly a spell tying you to this place?’

I was exhausted and wrung out. It was the only reason I could see for telling him the truth. “No. No spell. Just my own crazy mind, that likes hiding inside these stone walls. The books and the work come to me, and I stay here safe and snug.” I growled. “Less snug now my window’s broken.”

“But alone.”

“I like being alone. I wasn’t alone even in my own head back then.”

He was giving me that look again, pity and fear, and I couldn’t stand it.

“I’ve done fine. I built a life. I survived and I won and every year it gets easier. Keep your pity to yourself.”

“Every
year
?”

“Screw you.”

“Have you ever?”

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “Been with a man? You apprenticed to Meldov when I was sixteen, which means you were fourteen. And he was a cool man, and not one for boys, I thought, for all his looks.”

I made a sound, and Tobin shot me a glare. “You don’t think I was paying attention? I was a horny bastard at sixteen, and I was worried about you. But he seemed all right. So you went into his house, and then I went to training, and when I saw you off and on you seemed content. And then I was called out into the field. I had plenty of boys around in training, and later enough fay men in the cavalry to not be alone if I didn’t choose to be. But what about you? Did you ever have someone to hold you?”