“You didn’t know, I take it.”
It was an effort not to peel Tolrep’s skin like a potato. “I wasn’t there. She didn’t offer anything.”
“You should go to her. Offer her comfort.”
“I already have. It didn’t end well. She damn near fell in love with me.”
“And you do not love her back.” A pause. “This woman of yours –”
“Caryl.”
“Caryl must be damn special.”
“Was. She was special.”
“I see.” The seconds slipped by with the tension of teetering above an abyss.
“You just don’t snuff out those feelings,” Mykel said hastily. “That’s what love is. You get it, you hold onto it. No matter what. You’re not supposed to forget what she looks like, or her laugh, or her smile. I mean, that’s what love is, right? If it fades...If you grow feelings for another...Then it’s not love.”
“You are one fucked-up moron, you know that? Look. Caryl’s gone. I’m sorry but she’s gone. Nothing can change that. You can’t change that. You can’t torture yourself every time you see a pretty head. You’ll end up alone.”
“It’s what I’ve been training myself for near my entire life. It’s my choice.”
For a moment Tolrep just looked at him. “Look. I came here for another reason. I’m leaving. Lazarus gave me a ship and crew to chase after the Tennant. No doubt one of the nobles will notice me leaving and whip up a conspiracy, but...I’ve never been one for good-byes, so I...arg!”
“I know, Matt. I know it better than you might think.”
“You know, I believe you.” Ducking his head to hide his reddened cheeks, Tolrep dug a hand into his jacket and revealed a small porcelain figurine styled as a white dove. “If you get into trouble...just show this to any sailor.” Tolrep pushed the small figurine into Mykel’s hand. “They’ll know what it means.”
“Thank you.” Mykel wished mightily there were more words. As it was all he could do was pull a wolf-headed pendant from his cloak. “Here. This always brought me luck.”
“Thanks, Myke. I’ll be sure to return it someday. I promise.”
Mykel smiled, and kept the smile until Matt disappeared into the twilight, knowing all the while he would never see the privateer again. It was the way of things. And Caryl? My choice.
He did not return to bed. He felt electrified, with a sense that the night was not done with him. As he did now, as he had done a thousand times before and would likely do a thousand times in the future, Mykel returned to the one task he returned to: the story. The story. The never-ending masterpiece that would make him a legend. The penultimate excuse for evading the responsibility assembled by others of his age. He could barely look at it now. The fiction seemed so childish compared to the night’s travels. I killed a man. In cold blood. Fear had him by the throat. Even his shadow was threatening. Mykel dropped the slim sheaf. The hounds-stable was right below him; the dogs would take care of the embarrassing fiction –
A slap of wind and a blur of fingers dazzled the librarian. He turned about only to see Stromgald with the parchment in his fist. “Is everyone up tonight, or is it just me?”
Stromgald eyed him oddly. “What?”
“Never mind. Just give that back.”
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing. Give it to me.” For a moment, his eyes dueled with the hawkish gaze in which lifetimes of violence had been seared into memory, then fell away. “It’s my story. I’ve been writing it for most of my life.”
“Ah. What is it about?”
“The usual. Hero rises from common grounds to fight the evil tyranny ruling his beloved homeland. Sex, war, battle, swordplay and so on. All the elements of a good story.” With the physical description stirred a daydream of heroic endeavors that hooked him like a caught fish and enveloped him in the rich fantasy.
“I see you are more than a simple author.” Stromgald sped through the pages with a growing smile. “I have the nose of a hawk?”
“I was trying to describe your face. You try describing details on horseback.”
The ranger captain responded with a slight smirk. That could only be the reaction towards Orson’s character, thin as a stick and a reedy voice that twisted daggers into the ears that hear it. “You have passion, Mykel. You should not refuse your talent.”
The librarian was silent for a while, the memories of the previous night ghosting across his eyes. “I could have died, John.”
“Better them than us.”
“Is that all you can say? Better them than us?”
Stromgald’s brow sharpened. “You think you are the only one paralyzed by fear? We all need comfort, a justification, to keep us free of that doubt. I accept the plain truth. They died. Tomorrow, it could be us who die. Or the next day, or the next. We can only brave the dangers as best we can.”
“Death is death, whatever by steel or sickness.”
“Yes. The first few steps are the hardest. It might be cruel to you –”
“No. You are right, John. I must stand up on my own two feet. I have to depend on me, without support or excuses.” He eyed the sheaf of parchment as though it might grow fangs and pump venom through his veins before hesitantly took it to its place within the cloak. The uncertainty of the fiction was still there, but it felt right having the leather documents nestled in its usual pocket, as though a part of him had been restored. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
The crisp silence sparked the librarian’s curiosity. “She kicked you out, didn’t she?”
A pause; a working out the divide the emotion from events. “I decided on a strategic retreat.”
Mykel could not help but grin. “Mighty fancy words for showing your ass to the door.”
For once, Stromgald looked poleaxed. “How...”
“Never mind that. Just tell me what happened.”
“She...she quoted some passage to me and asked my opinion of it.”
Oh, for the love of fuck. “The book. What was the book?”
“I do not remember...the author was named Fireheart, I think.”
“Emerald Fireheart?”
“Yes. Yes. That was it.”
Mykel thought that this was probably not the first time this accident happened. If Sylver had forgiven him once, she could do so again. Patience was a woman’s virtue, but it was not eternal. Besides, it was refreshing to know that even the great John Stromgald was lacking in wits when it came to women just like everybody else.
“What was the title?”
“Star-Stepped Lovers.”
This is going to take a lot of work. “Crossed.”
“What?”
“It’s “Star-Crossed Lovers.” Not Star-Stepped Lovers.”
“Oh. I don’t know why she was so angry. She kept talking about how the book changed her life. She kept misplacing the damn thing too. She was always asking me if I had found it.”
Ah ha. Now the pieces were clicking into place. “Okay, John. Listen to me. She kept losing the book because she wanted you to find it.”
“To what purpose?”
“That you would read it.”
“Read? Why should she care if I read the book or not?”
“Emerald Fireheart is famous for her romance novels. Sylver probably got inspired by a couple in the book. She wanted to assure herself that you two show the same fierce loyalty and love that the characters exhibited.” He paused. “If it makes you feel any better, you would have been kicked out in any case. She was gambling with an ideal you couldn’t beg
in to match.” That was the problem with ideals. They rose to such grandeur that mortal action was always a speck in comparison.
“Then I suppose I must read the book.”
“Yes. But not with her around. She’ll think you’re reading the book to humor her. It must be genuine. Which means you have to get her off-guard.”
“Off-guard?”
“Surprise her. You must act quickly. An odd behavior here, a grand gesture there. Keep her guessing. That way she’ll be so surprised; she’ll forget why she was mad in the first place.” Mykel let the thought sink for a few moments before continuing. “You’re going to have to do something drastic.”
“Drastic? Like what?”
Mykel told him.
“You’ve gone daft. That’s never going to work.”
“Fine. I hope you enjoy the night sky. That’s all you going to see for a long time.”
Stromgald sighed. “Very well. But if this doesn’t work, I’m going to kill you.”
“Fair enough.” With that, hunched in the shadows, the pair planned the most daunting of tasks: rekindling a love threatened, time and time again, by a moment’s stupidity.
XVII
However, there were some difficulties.
“Why do I need to wear the dress?” Mykel fumed.
It had taken them the night to compose the preparation. And of course, there was the problem of running the castle end to end to acquire the needed ingredients for the plan. Mykel winced at the throbbing in his right shoulder. A maidservant had mistaken him for a soldier stalking for a tumble and broke her roller down upon him. Of course, once she got wind of the plan she pledged her loyalty to it, even resorting to the full company of servants for aide. John, on the other hand, managed to smuggle a fleet of tailors without an injury. Mykel grumbled and quickly fell silent as the ranger himself bound the shoulder with one of his Eastland tinctures. He was too busy soothing himself from the scalding acid in his gut. It was only a foolish slight. What mattered now was the success of this plan. Between the two armies of servant and tailor, the stage could be created within a few hours’ time.
There was just one small problem.
“I said why do I need wear the dress?”
“Pish-posh, milord. You are the only one to fit it. Stop fretting about; you’ll tear the stitching.” It was hard to be angry with Miranda. She had a calming effect on the crew. Almost like a grandmother. No one could remain angry with their grandmother.
However, the slight still burned his stomach. “Why don’t you have one of them do the role? They’d fit the dress easily.” Her three-servant girls cast approving glances at the librarian, which quickly vanished at the way the jest stretched Miranda’s face.
“Milord, you should not speak such things. The stage is not for women.”
A thousand arguments rattled around in the librarian’s skull. Mykel bit his lip to keep from releasing them. It would do nothing. Tradition was a paradise to some; so long nothing out of place breached the fragile borders.
Piece by piece the humiliation mounted. The dress’s shoulders were twisted strips of silver, laced in shades of sunlight. The arms were mere gloves, gold as before, extending to the forearm. It was meant to be an elegant addition to the pristine beauty of womanhood. The dress itself was slashed at the rim, to better reveal the snow-white layers of petticoats that would flare outward with each spin. There was only one thing wrong. With the librarian’s hair peeking from bodice to elbow, he was exactly what he looked like: a man in a ballroom dress.
The wig was the final straw. It was a tower of golden curls, with spider-webs of silver flowing like a maze across the impossible hair, dotted with small emeralds and rubies and amethysts. “I look like a fool.”
“You’re the one who suggested this project.”
Mykel gave Stromgald a venomous glare. “No, you dressing up was my plan. It was your idea to make it into a duet.”
A chuckle escaped Stromgald. The librarian took in the grandeur of the scene to distract his growing humiliation. It had been Mykel himself who suggested the event should be played at sunrise, and now he was regretting it. All the layers of clothing did nothing against the winter’s kiss. The ground was damp with melted snow, which in turn wet the pink slippers Mykel wore. They were two sizes too small, and now cold enough to numb his feet. Yeah. A romantic scene of stage and song. Great idea, you idiot.
Then came the servant’s whisper. “Quiet! She comes!”
Hidden in the last layers of twilight, the company watched Sylver pluck the last of the carefully-planned trail of roses. The rose went up to the laurel crown Sylver had deftly woven from the previous flowers, a fiery halo upon her brow, catching the golden threads of her hair. She was as elemental as the rest of her kin, her beauty only a shell for the force of nature she was, never to be contained.
This better work.
“My lady, if you were so kind as to sit? Please, no questions. Answers will come in time.” Sylver’s giggles were justified, as Stromgald looked twice the clown. His helm was a battered, golden-embroidered piece of tin, with the awkward visor clearly cut by a clumsy tailor’s apprentice. The rest of his raiment was a sewing lady’s nightmare, patterned after the patchwork design of a jester...if jesters were demented and driven to madness.
High cheekbones topped a whisker-thin mustache, settled on wrinkled cheeks. And atop that, blue eyes like sapphire, intelligence mingled with bouts of senility. Giants out of windmills, a princess from a farmer’s daughter. Yes, that was Sefiros Cayokite all right.
A sharp jab to the ribs snapped him from his spell. Mykel sighed, took the necessary three steps into the patches of sunlight, and waited for the inevitable laughter. It was there, but not the husky rasp of Sylver’s voice. With flaming cheeks, he opened his eyes and saw a small army of soldiers and wenches gathered for the play-acting. How in the hell did they know? A quick search brought Orson to the forefront, his lips twisted in a knowing leer. I’m going to kill you. Orson laughed as though he’d heard the jest, smiling like the child sneaking cookies from the jar.
“Oh, you stubborn old fool! Why must you advance through this charade? Why must you see with those accursed eyes?”
“My eyes see the truth. Why must you deny what you know to be true? You are my Shayna, now and forever.”
After a while, the story proceeded into song.
“Who is this man, this braggart old man,
Who fawns over me like a child?
Love he boasts to me, a love long brewing by hands of fate not mild,
And me a princess. A princess, do you hear?
In this silly old thing? Rags and dirt are royal in his eyes unteared.
Red becomes me, his words force my vise.
Eyes, laughing eyes, flog precise.
Shall I play in his game,
Revel with his name,
Never be the same
Until the gold is ‘tween my fingers.
My sisters’ laughs burn,
Thinking me fault in my turn,
Thinking me unlearned,
Prey for the taking.
He is gold, and if I speak real,
Unravel his tiers,
Their talons will be in before I draw last breath.
A doxy who cannot draw coin keeps coin from others.
What shall I do?
What shall I do?”
John’s lyrics were more heroic.
“My dreams are filled with you,
No matter the temper, no matter your low.
Our souls have twined in ever-vaulted heaven.
Down the paths of holy seven.
You know naught of your true name.
My Shayna.
Can you remember those innocent days?
When we sat in the grass and exchanged come what may?
A thousand lives we loved,
Guided by the stars above.
My Shayna.
Ask any task
And I will produce a crystal glass,
A tear for every day past.
My Shayna.
My world was empty,
Now it is fulfilled.
Embrace me,
And you will see.
This I swear
I will spend years without error and mar
Counting the stars in your name.
Shayna.
My lovely Shayna.”
It went on for some time. The plot teetered from one end to the other; reality versus fantasy. Sefiros went on many adventures and fought many injustices. Oftentimes he would take the jobs other men would cringe to. This would win over the woman-folk, which in turn infuriated the men. Sefiros surprised them further by his sudden skill in swordplay. They whimpered like beaten dogs, masked with part anger and fear; double that when aroused with the shame of being beaten by a youth in his prime.
When it was all said and done, Sylver rose and embraced Stromgald. The magic had done its work; they were kissing the other’s tears with gleeful abandon. Wisely the crowd had parted to leave the pair. Mykel turned and followed suit.
“Mykel.”
The librarian turned. In Stromgald’s eyes Mykel saw the gratefulness. He merely nodded, and that was that. Now to get this damned dress off.
Minutes later, in his room, Mykel was making the final arrangements about his clothing when a knock rang from the door. He didn’t bother asking for a name; he already knew who stood upon the other side.
“Lad. It’s time.” Mykel nodded to Lazarus. The pair followed Stromgald to his rangers, smiling as though they’d not meet each other again. Even Orson had a smirk that began its curves in a grin. Mykel shook every hand, joked with his dry humor, and knew beneath all the jocularity they would never see each other again. Their worlds were too far apart. It was the way of things.
Chased By War Page 18
