Hope and the Patient Man

by Mike Reeves-McMillan

  “I went and got my knife back. Couldn’t take his crossbow, it would have slowed me down too much, so I cut the string and damaged one of the limbs so nobody else could use it, and started crawling up the ridge. On the other side, I cut a crutch from a tree. Got back to camp just in time to rouse them before the rebels attacked, and we called in an airboat, and then some reinforcements, with that handy farspeaker device of yours. I told you about that when we first met.”

  “But your leg…”

  “Well, you know, moving round on a leg that has a crossbow bolt in it is what Mindhealer Lily would call ‘contraindicated’”, he said. “Not smart, in other words. And so.” He gestured to his scars.

  Hope had tears standing in her big dark eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Well. Had to tell you sometime. And this seemed… Somehow this seemed like the time.”

  They fell silent for a long pause.

  “Well,” he said. “Suppose we should finish the exercise before the water gets cold. Actually,” and he let out some of the water with the plug and refreshed it from the hot tap, swirling it round. He had almost forgotten his nudity, but now he flushed a little, and not from the renewed heat.

  “Um. This bit,” he said, poising the sponge above his crotch.

  “Yes.”

  “Could be fairly key to, um, future plans.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Well. It’s an ordinary enough one of them, average size. A bit unruly,” he said, as it unfolded itself in response to the thought of their, as he’d put it, future plans. He washed it.

  “And my back,” he said, washing that also. “Never seen it, so I don’t have any strong opinions.”

  “There’s a scar across your shoulder,” she said.

  “Ah, that. Yes. Fell out of a tree when I was twelve.” He finished washing his back, and said to her, “Did I miss anything?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “All right.” He began to heave himself out of the bath.

  “Wait,” she said. “You need to lie back, close your eyes, and I get to talk about your body now.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Curses. Forgot that. Can I get some more hot water first?”

  “Of course.”

  Hot water run, he lay back as instructed, and she approached. He closed his eyes.

  “Your hair,” she said, “is a little shaggy. We need to get you a haircut. But I like how it feels when I touch it.” Obedient to the instructions, she didn’t touch it. “It smells like cedar shavings and wood oil, did you know?” He shook his head.

  “Your face is honest,” she went on. “Your eyes. Kind. Warm. I feel safe when I look in them. And your nose is a perfectly fine size.

  “Your lips. I like them. I’m looking forward to feeling them on mine later on. I think you have a nice chin, not too large. And your strong shoulders are very masculine. So is your hairy chest, and your big arms. Now that I know the history of your scars, I want to run my hands over them. And kiss them.”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them.”

  “Even the big ones?”

  “Especially the big ones, though we might leave that for a little while, because if I start kissing you there who knows what will happen? Those strong legs, I like to feel them behind me when you hold me. And as for your, um…”

  “Yes?” he said, daring to tease a little with his eyes closed. “What part of me?”

  “As for your penis,” she said (she was, after all, a lifemage, so he should have expected the anatomical term), “I think it’s very fine, and I look forward to getting to know it… intimately.” Her last word dripped with honey, and the organ in question twitched, at which she chuckled.

  “Overall,” she said, “I’m very satisfied with what I see. Or at least, I plan to be very satisfied by it. Very satisfied.” He was uncoiling more and more as she spoke, which he was sure was the intended effect. “Oo,” she added, as he reached full size, and throbbed.

  “You,” he said, “are very naughty.”

  “You,” she said, “had better believe it.”

  “Are you quite finished?”

  “Quite finished. You can stand up now so I can watch you dry yourself.”

  He opened his eyes, and found hers focussed some way south of his face. “You are a very bad girl,” he said.

  “You have no idea. I suspect, in fact, that I have no idea, not until we’ve tried everything in Lily’s book two or three times, anyway.”

  “What will we do in the second shift-round?” he said, as he stood. Water cascaded off him, and he brushed it from his body hair into the bath. Manoeuvring his bad leg carefully, he stepped over the side of the tub and reached for a towel, deliberately facing her to display his body. Is this me? he thought. When did I become like this?

  She smiled at his joke, and watched with intent interest as he towelled off, and then dressed. When he was fully clothed, she sighed.

  “That was fun,” she said.

  “Glad you liked it. Now,” he said, his mouth suddenly dry, “your turn.”

  She turned shy again at that, biting her lip and pulling her arms in awkwardly, then squared her shoulders, looked him in the eye, and slowly lifted her nightgown over her head, as he had done earlier. She paused just below her hips, and he licked his lips nervously, at which she smiled a one-sided smile, then lifted the gown further, to the base of her breasts, where she paused again. His eyes followed the hem. She pulled it off over her head and dropped it, then turned and walked — no, sauntered — to the bath, where she leaned over and swished the water with one hand, showing him her body in profile. He let out a long, slow breath.

  She ran a little more hot water, then stepped into the bath and lowered herself into the water. Her breasts floated, the water surface closing and opening about them, and she gave the languorous stretch that she did when she woke up. He sucked in his breath again, and she smiled and picked up the sponge.

  “Face,” she said, holding his eyes. “I’m told it’s pretty. Looks very like my mother’s, and she was a famous beauty when she was my age, so I suppose it must be true. My eyes are too large,” she said, closing them to wash the lids, “and my nose is unremarkable. I have thin shoulders and arms.” As he had done, she washed each body part as she discussed it, without hurrying.

  “My breasts,” she said, “are uneven.”

  “What?”

  “One’s larger than the other, look? And they point in different directions. And this one has a mole. They’re not very big, either.” He nodded. It was all true, but he didn’t care. They were beautiful.

  “My belly sticks out. My legs are bony, not a very nice shape,” she continued, slowly, stretching the limbs in question out and sticking them out of the water to soap them with the sponge. “My womanly parts are a monthly inconvenience, and have never really been of any positive use to me, so far. My hips are fat. My backside is overlarge and an ugly shape,” she added, lifting herself up in the water on one arm to wash it with the other, a sight he found delightful. “And my back is, as you said, a part of myself I’ve never seen, and I have no particular feelings about it.”

  “My turn?” he said, as she put down the sponge.

  “Your turn,” she said, lying back and closing her eyes.

  “You,” he said, “are gorgeous. Your face is not pretty, it’s beautiful, and your eyes are the most beautiful part of it. Your nose is delightful. Your chin and cheeks are symmetrical and in perfect balance.”

  A smile was slowly spreading on her lips, and he added, “Your lips are wonderful, especially when you smile. And when you kiss me.” Her smile came to full flower.

  “Your breasts are glorious. I’m obviously no expert, but I cannot imagine any more beautiful, even if they are not perfectly alike, and they are exactly the right size for you. I’m going to name them, once I think of names, and change my favourite every day.”

  She made a pleased “mm” noise. “And will you play with them?�
�� she said. The dark nipples at the tips of the breasts in question were hardening as he spoke.

  “I will play with them with great delight, for as long as you’ll let me,” he answered.

  “They like you too,” she said, and stretched to give him the full effect. He swallowed.

  “Stop that. I’m talking,” he said. She chuckled. “Your belly,” he continued, “is delightful, and I will rest my head on it and kiss it and rub it. Your legs are magnificent, long and graceful and beautifully shaped. If I ever carve anything as, as luscious as your buttocks I will give up carving forever, because my life’s work will be completed.” He paused.

  “And my womanly parts?” she said, through a broad grin, in a flirtatious cadence.

  “I look forward greatly to making their close, intimate and long-standing acquaintance,” he said. “Repeatedly.”

  “Well,” she said, “I’m in favour of that. So, in summary, you rather like my body?”

  “In summary, I think your body is the most beautiful thing I ever saw.”

  She opened her eyes. “Good,” she said. “Are we finished?”

  “Yes,” he said, and watched her stand, running his eyes unconcealedly up and down her curves. She was not a large woman, but she was definitely the right shape. She smiled at him, and stretched as she dried herself, showing her body off to his appreciative gaze, then dressed slowly, lower half first. He sighed as her breasts disappeared behind her shirt.

  “You’ll see them again soon,” she said.

  “Glory and Splendour,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Those are their names. Glory and Splendour.”

  “Which is which?”

  “Glory has the mole.”

  “The right one.”

  “Yes,” he said, after mentally reversing her body to figure out left and right from her perspective.

  She moved forward and kissed him briefly. “They look forward to making your closer acquaintance,” she said. “But for now, we must be good.”

  “I suppose we must,” he said, and sighed. “Don’t want to trigger you.”

  “Well, think how far we’ve come already,” she said. “I couldn’t even kiss you, what, six or seven shift-rounds ago? And we’ve just been naked in front of each other.” She took his arm, and led him out of the bathroom.

  “Yes,” he said, “I’m in no danger of forgetting that any time soon.”

  “You really like how I look that much?”

  “I really do. You really like how you look so little?”

  “I could probably be persuaded round to your way of thinking. Eventually. With the right techniques.” She smiled up at him.

  “I shall make it one of my life goals.”

  Chapter Eleven: Oathbond Discussions

  They went for another walk by the river. Hand in hand, they watched the ducks in silence, and then Patient said, “Hope.”

  “Yes?”

  “Are we going to get oathbound?”

  “I hope so.”

  “You want to?”

  “I do. But… don’t ask me yet.”

  “Why not?”

  She turned and looked him in the eyes. “My love, I’m a long way from cured yet. We made big strides, but… I’m not willing to take that step, or even promise to, until I know that won’t be a problem.”

  “Why not?”

  “What do you mean, why not? I can’t ask you to bind yourself to me if we don’t even know if we can be intimate together.”

  “Again, why not?”

  “Patient, listen to yourself. Are you seriously suggesting that you’d oathbind to a woman you couldn’t even…”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I won’t let you.”

  “You won’t?”

  “No, I won’t. My parents… I saw their relationship. I’m as certain as I can reasonably be that they don’t ever… I mean, they must have once, obviously, or I wouldn’t be here. But it’s no way for a couple to live.”

  “That’s a bit different. You said yourself they dislike each other. It’s not like us.”

  “Dislike is a bit weak, actually. Mother bullies Father unmercifully. She despises him.”

  “Well, then. Completely different.”

  “Not completely, if we can’t… look, Patient, there’s some mystery about my parents’ oathbond. Why did they oathbind in the first place if they hate each other? Until I get to the bottom of that and figure out whether it’s going to affect us, I’m not going to commit to anything with you.”

  “Not to anything? This morning seemed like something.”

  “You know what I mean. I’m not going to commit to oathbinding until I’m sure it’s going to be… fair to you.”

  They stared hard into each other’s eyes. The determination he saw there was unwavering.

  “All right,” he said. “But just so you know, I’d oathbind to you regardless.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “But… you do understand?”

  “I think so. I understand it’s important to you, at least, and I’ll wait for you to be ready.”

  “That’s all I can ask for.”

  “Can I ask you to talk to your parents and put your mind at rest?” he said.

  “I’m not sure that ‘at rest’ is where my mind will be after that discussion. But yes, I’ll talk to them.”

  She slept in the following morning, so it wasn’t until midmorning that she called her father from the lab.

  “Hope!” he said. “I’m just about to go into my regular Oneday meeting with the Countygold.”

  “Did you move the time?” she said. For as long as she could remember, her father and the Countygold had met first thing on Onedays to plan the shift-round.

  “No, it’s the usual time,” he said, puzzled.

  “But it’s only… oh, that’s right, you’re far enough west that the time is different. Doesn’t matter. Can you call me back afterwards?”

  “Of course.”

  She puttered round the lab, achieving very little. Dignified and Rosie were deep in a mechanical discussion that involved a lot of gesturing and pointing at diagrams. Rosie’s voice was taking on the patient-impatient tone of someone who has explained their point several times and still doesn’t think the other person understands. Eventually, Hope gave in to the inevitable and sat down with Bucket in his little kitchen with a cup of tea.

  “How are they doing?” she asked, gesturing out to the main lab. Rosie’s frustrated voice was still audible, occasionally punctuated by Dignified’s deeper tones as he made one of his abbreviated answers.

  “Not so well,” said Bucket. “They’re not… there’s something odd between them.”

  “Odd how?” she asked.

  “Well, it’s nothing I can scratch a glyph on. They’re odd people, and neither of them is very good at talking in the ordinary way of things. But they seem to be… not avoiding each other exactly, because they work together constantly, but…”

  “You think they’ve had some kind of argument?”

  “Could be that.”

  “Does she have any friends, do you know?” said Hope.

  “Not that I’m aware of. She’s never mentioned anyone apart from her family. I try to get her to take breaks, you know, talk to her over a cup of tea, but she’s not a chatter.”

  “Mmm. I get the impression she doesn’t like me much, or I’d try to say something to her myself.”

  They sat in silence together for several moments, and then looked up simultaneously at each other and chorused, “Briar!”

  “Briar can get anyone to talk to her,” said Hope.

  “And everyone likes her,” added Bucket.

  “Tell you what,” said Hope. “We’ll send a note to her office and you two can meet for lunch and strategise. I can’t, I have to work on this wretched article. The editor’s sending me curt notes.”

  “Sounds good,” said Bucket.

  Hope’s father called her back on her personal farspeaker not lon
g afterwards, and she hurried to a back corner where she could have some privacy and tuned a farviewer to the Western Isles code. She wanted to see his face when she asked him the questions she had in mind.

  When the image was stabilised, she pulled up a lab stool and regarded him. He smiled at her, but the smile looked forced.

  “What did you want to ask me, Hope?” he said.

  “Well, you know my young man? Patient?”

  “The one you mentioned last time?”

  “Yes. We’re… well, things are becoming more serious between us, and… Father, before I make any more commitments to him, I want to know what’s wrong with your and Mother’s oathbond.”

  He winced. “Sorry,” she said, “that came out blunter than I intended.”

  “No, no, it’s all right. I don’t think any of us need to pretend, or even can pretend, that everything’s wonderful between us. Or that anything is.” His face turned sad.

  “What went wrong, Father? Can you tell me?”

  He bit his lip. “I don’t know that I can, Hope. It’s your mother’s story too, and she’d want her side to be known. But I don’t know if she’ll be able to bring herself to tell it to you.”

  “Come on, Father. I need something. I need to know if there’s some… if there’s a problem that…”

  “Hope,” he said, in his serious voice, the one he used when he wanted her to pay attention, “what happened between your mother and me is… your situation is completely different. You’re older, for one thing. I’m glad you waited until now to become involved.” Hope twitched inwardly, but kept her reaction off her face. “And… how does he treat you? Is he a good man?”

  “He’s the kindest man I ever met. Gentle, considerate.”

  “Tell me more about him.”

  “Well, we met in a queue when we were waiting to be honoured by the Realmgold. He was in the military, a village warden, and got drafted to the war. He was injured, so he’s had to leave the service.”

  “Injured?”

  “Yes, his leg. He walks with a cane.”

  “But he still works?” said Father with a frown.

  “Oh, yes, he was only a part-time warden. His trade is woodcarving, I think I said.”