by J. M. Frey
But all of these worries are vague and remain mostly in the back of my head. For I find, in the wake of my trothing, that I’m a very, very happy man. I wake with a smile on my face, I go to bed with a smile, and I’m told I smile entirely too much while smoking my pipe after meals, and that it’s disturbing one of the footmen.
Kin and I have no trothing tour, though we do travel to Kingskeep a fortnight after Solsticetide for a few days of merrymaking, taking in the galleries, and delivering the highly fibbed version of The Vicious Vanquish of the Viceroy to our printer, along with Kin’s accompanying woodblock stamp illustrations. Now that we are in Turn Hall permanently, we’ve decided to use our royalty payments to fund a second Free School on the opposite side of Lysse. Walking to Turnshire is often too daunting for the children who live near Faversquare, and it isn’t all that fair.
It feels odd to not take the earnings purse and immediately use it to buy field rations, new tack, or to repair or replace clothing and weaponry. If there was ever a sign that we were no longer wandering adventurers, this is it. Or, no, it’s that I no longer wear my sword belt festooned with its tiny metal tubes of precious spices everywhere I go. I have considered turning the tubes over to Cook, but I can’t give away all my secrets. One day, Kin and I are going to be nostalgic for something we often ate on the road, and I want to be able to produce it.
As soon as the ground is thawed enough, the focus of the estate shifts from paperwork and catching the lord up on the last two decades’ worth of financials and habits, and over to the farms. The tenant cottages are seen to—wattle-and-daub painted, roofs repaired, leaks mended. I’m finally able to spend a few days with a carpenter and a glazier team who teach me how to re-shim and seal windows. I repair Turn Hall’s ballroom windows by myself soon after. Yeah, I could have hired those same workmen, but I was itching to dig in and do something for myself. Learn a skill, apply it, and work with my hands.
When the first buds of green appear on the branches of the covey forest, the head of the farmers’ group informs Kin of the planting bee date. Though Forsyth never went into the fields to push a plowshare, or sowed seed himself, Kintyre and I have no objection to doing so. All hands are welcome on a farm when there’s work to be done, and Kintyre and I are no strangers to hard labor and physical exertion. In fact, after our winter of desk work, we welcome it.
Dauntless and Karlurban appreciate it as well, enjoying the daily rides to and from the far-flung farms, and the opportunity to stretch their legs and try to outpace one another.
Kintyre and I are just home from the last of the season’s planting, filthy with field-mud and pleasantly exhausted, when a commotion drags us out of the stables and around to the front drive. There’s a racket of shouting, and I catch Pointe’s distinctive growl amid the voices, yelling: “Oi! Hold up there!”
The skid of booted feet on gravel comes closer to our side of the house and, still imbued with the instincts of battle, Kin and I bolt in the direction of the sound, ready to intercept. The person fleeing is faster than I thought they’d be. They fly around the corner before we can get there. A black blur slams into Kin’s broad chest, staggering back a few steps and giving me a glimpse of a dark, surprised face with a broad nose and whites showing all around jet-black eyes. Human, but unfamiliar.
The man—the lad, I correct myself as I duck down and aim to tackle him to the spring-damp lawn—doesn’t waste air on a shout of surprise. He just rolls backward, under my grasping reach, flipping himself neatly over his head and back onto his feet before Kin has really even registered what he knocked into. Pointe comes skidding around the corner, and all four of us size each other up, warily, for a second or two, before Kin surges forward to try to pin the black-clad boy.
He evades by leaping high and stepping on Kin’s shoulder, flipping over mid-air, landing in another tightly controlled forward roll, and rising straight into a dead run.
“Bloody hell,” Pointe pants, watching the lad bolt toward the stables. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“I have,” Kin says grimly, and is off after the lad like a bloodhound.
I’m straight on his heels, and we catch up to the boy as he’s trying to yank Dauntless’s head around. The horse—the Shadow’s Hount—has never taken kindly to strangers riding him, and while the lad tries to get a foot in the stirrup, Dauntless gives a rough jolt, body-checking the boy onto the cobbles. Clearly offended by his rough treatment, Dauntless lifts a dwarvish-steel shod hoof. I dash forward and haul the horse sideways by his bridle before he can strike at the terrified lad’s face.
Kintyre wrestles the lad upright with a grip under his armpits, and the shock of the attack from the horse shakes loose. The lad comes back to himself quickly. He bends double at the waist, quick as an eel, wraps his legs around Kintyre’s neck, and twists, using Kin’s own mass to bring him to the ground hard.
Fury bursts in my guts, tainted with a fear that Kintyre is seriously hurt. Kin groans and rolls onto his back, only winded, thank the Writer, though there are vivid red marks on the flesh of his throat. The lad gets his feet under him again, and makes for Karlurban and the stupid groom who’s stopped to gawp instead of getting the horses inside and away from the scuffle when it was clear the lad was after a mount.
Pointe has his second wind back, though, and intercepts with a quick punch to the back of the lad’s head and a hand in his collar. The boy stumbles, stunned, and Pointe is holding him out far enough that the lad can’t swipe his feet out from under him or get his hands on anything but Pointe’s wrist.
“Slippery bugger!” Pointe says, whirling the lad around to face us.
I help Kintyre sit up, checking his neck as I do. He is hacking hard, trying to suck in a breath, and already one of the red marks is purpling up.
“You’re lucky you didn’t break his neck, you little wretch!” I snarl at the lad. “I’d have ended you where you stand!”
The lad blanches, and I straighten, letting my trothed lean back against my legs as he gets his breath back. We both take a good look at our interloper.
Dangling from Pointe’s fist is a boy of about fourteen or fifteen, with the dark skin and cloud of tightly coiled hair of the Gadotian Southerners. Or, if I was to be fanciful about it, the Pirates of the Sunsong Sea. His attire is all black, with a swath of blood-red around his waist holding a curved sword—which he never drew on us, I realize. I wonder how much damage he was really willing to cause to get a horse. And now that I’m thinking of pirates, all I can see in the lad’s face is—
“Isobin,” Kintyre groans, finishing the thought for me.
The lad’s jet-black eyes bug out a little, and I know Kin’s scored a hit.
Kintyre levers himself to his feet, twisting his head back and forth and scrunching his shoulders, assessing the damage. He doesn’t wince, so that’s good. But his eyes are half-lidded with wary anger. He and the pirate queen had not parted on good terms.
“So, you’re her, what . . . brother?” Kin asks.
“Son,” the boy says, and all the fight drains out of him. Pointe lets him go slowly, one finger at a time, worried the lad will bolt again if given half a chance. And I honestly think he might.
“And why are you here, at Turn Hall, trying to steal my horses, Prince of Pirates?” Kintyre asks, with a lot less sarcasm than I would have expected from him. Maybe I should have Velshi send for Madam Mouth to check him over, after all.
“Well, where else would tha dumb bitch dump me?” the boy mumbles, and crosses his arms across his chest.
“That’s what we’re asking,” Pointe says.
But the moment he does, I see it.
“Writer, Kintyre—he’s got . . . he’s got your eyes,” I breathe, and the rest of the revelation comes swift on the heels of that realization. I stagger back, toward the nearest bush, and flatten myself into the thick tangle of prickly branches. “Not the color, but the shape . . .”
“He what?” Pointe asks, and steps around the bo
y to peer at his face. “By the Writer,” he says with awe. “And your lantern jaw.”
Kintyre remains silent, but his face drains of all color, the red marks on his neck standing out in sharp, worrying contrast. He takes a step toward the lad, who straightens and thrusts his chin out, daring Kin to take a good look, to comment.
“Why?” Kin growls. Though of course, it’s obvious why the child of the Pirate Queen Isobin would look like Kintyre Turn. Or at least, it should be obvious. I mean, Kintyre was there. We both were.
“Kin,” I say softly. “Just . . . breathe for a second, please, and—”
“Why,” Kintyre snarls now, stepping closer, nearly nose-to-nose with the lad. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“What for?” the lad sneers.
“What . . . what for?” Kintyre repeats, aghast. “You . . . you’re my . . .”
“‘M yer son,” the boy says, and the truth of it smacks me between the eyes like a bag of rocks. “Go on, say it, hero.”
“My son,” Kintyre repeats, undeterred. “Why didn’t Isobin tell me?”
“Would you have cared?” the lad challenges. “Would you have come?”
“Yes!” Kintyre roars, and I can tell that this was not the answer the lad was expecting.
“Well, didn’t want to share, aye?” he dithers, and then adds: “You know now. The capt’n’d only get fifteen years with me, anyway. You get the rest.”
“The rest of what?” Pointe asks, looking back and forth between Kintyre and the lad, confusion writ large on his face.
“His life,” I say. “Isobin doesn’t let men serve on her ship. She barely tolerated transporting us. The moment the lad hit his maturity—”
“I was off!” the boy snarls.
“And what, she just dumped you on our doorstep?” I ask, aghast. “No note, nothing?”
“His doorstep,” the lad says with a jerk of his head at my trothed. “And what need’s a note when I can speaks for meself?”
“Our doorstep,” I correct him.
“This is all yer fault,” the lad says. “If you’d stayed out on the road, if you’d never shut yourself up like a stuffy prat, the capt’n’d never had nowhere to send me. But now, she wants me to grow up a lordling.”
“I highly doubt she would have bent her rule for you if we’d stayed adventuring,” I scoff, and then I lift my hands away from my body, showing off the mud stains up my calves. “And do we look like we just shut ourselves up in the Hall?”
“Bevel, peace,” Kintyre says softly, and I realize suddenly that I’ve been shouting. That I’m . . . angry. Angry? Yes, angry, I think.
Here is the child I’ve been hoping for, but no sweet babe to smother in kisses and raise with my values. Instead, he’s a brawling, petulant, poorly spoken thug. How infuriating. How unfair.
“By the Writer’s left nutsack,” I say, after I’ve had a chance to calm down a bit. The crassness of the swear makes the lad snort, and then he covers his mouth with his hand, like he’s annoyed he caught himself laughing. “You gotta be more careful with what you wish for, Kin—I think Pip’s been Reading in. Seems our problems about a blood heir have been solved.”
Kintyre chuckles at that, and I try not to be too hurt by how pleased he looks. He never really wanted a baby, anyway. I shouldn’t be surprised.
“So, if you’re Kin’s kid, then why were you scarpering for the stables?” Pointe asks.
“Didn’t ask to be dumped here, did I?” the lad mutters mulishly.
“So, what, you were just going to steal a horse and take off into the wilds? Live off the land and your sword?”
“Worked for Kintyre Turn, didn’t it?” he says, jerking his chin at his father again. “Why not me, too?”
“First off, Kin wasn’t alone,” I say, pointing at my own nose. “Second, you’re, what . . . fourteen?”
“Fifteen!” the lad protests. “Or else I’d still be aboard ship!”
“Kin was eighteen when he left,” I say, deliberately not adding that, actually, I was just barely sixteen when I snuck away from the forge to follow the golden-haired lad who’d stopped to have his stallion shoed.
“Doesn’t matter! I can take care of—”
“What’s your name, son?” Kintyre interrupts, the question intent.
The lad gulps down the rest of whatever he was going to say and scowls. “Wyndam,” he says after a mulish silence. “Wyndam Turn.”
✍
Pointe joins us for dinner, to give the report he had been coming to deliver in the first place, and to help us settle Wyndam into the house. Perhaps to frighten the lad into staying in the house, too, for after, he tells a tale about missing sheep in the back farthings and a wildly horrific story about a monster roaming the spit between the edge of Lysse and the Sunsong. It does its job, too, if the look on Wyndam’s face is anything to go by. Like his . . . his father . . . Wyndam Turn is a shite liar.
It seems as if the new Lordling Turn has used up all his bravery—for one day, at least—which is a relief. We see the lad into the room that used to be mine, and the gossip in Turn Hall travels fast enough that by the time we’ve made our goodnights, Keriens, Velshi, and two footmen are waiting outside our room for us.
“In the morning,” I tell them. “Details in the morning.”
“Will he be here in the morning?” Keriens asks bluntly.
Kintyre and I exchange a glance, and then Velshi says: “Mr. Toflan has offered to, ah, keep an eye on the horses tonight. And Mr. Kartin”—the gardener, I know now—“has mentioned that he has quite a bit more pruning to do this evening than he thought. Might keep him up all night.”
Recce the footman clears his throat and adds: “And I’m woefully behind on my boot blacking, I’m afraid, sir. Thought I might do it in the family hallway, if you don’t mind, sir, where the lamps are brightest.”
“Oh, by all means,” Kintyre says with a smirk.
We bid our staff goodnight and head back to our room.
“So,” Kintyre says slowly as we strip down for bed. “Thoughts?”
“I don’t know, Kin,” I say, settling down under the covers. He curls against my side, head on my shoulder, and looks up at me through his lashes. “I feel sort of like we’re holding him prisoner.”
Kintyre scoffs. “I don’t think Turn Hall could hold Wyndam any more than it could hold me. If he really wants to go, he will.”
“You don’t think he wants to?”
Kintyre runs one hand over my stomach—not sexy, just comforting, his calluses catching on my hair. “He could have broken Pointe’s hold any time he wanted.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. So he wants to stay, but he doesn’t want to admit it?”
“I think he’s scared. I think he wants . . . comfort.”
“Speaking from experience?” I ask.
“Leaving was the scariest thing I ever did,” Kintyre admits. “Every night I wanted to turn around and go home. Wyndam’s everything has been taken away from him. This is the next best thing. We can make it . . .”
“Home for him.”
“Yeah. How are you feeling about all of this, Bev?” Kin asks, voice low, as if he’s afraid to ask the question too loudly, afraid of Wyndam hearing the answer.
“I don’t know,” I say, equally low, for the same reasons. “All jumbled up, I guess? I’m happy for you, that the problem of an heir has been solved, that you have a son. And a son who seems to follow in your reckless, blowhard, soldierly footsteps. But I’m also mad at Isobin for keeping this secret, for keeping him from you. From us. I’m angry that we missed his childhood. But I’m relieved, too, because fifteen years ago, I don’t think you would have . . . would have stayed. And I would have—you would have—”
Kintyre kisses that worry right out of my mouth.
“I might have stayed. You never know,” he says, and I don’t bother to tell him that the lie isn’t as comforting as he thinks it is. “I’m here now, though. We’re here now.”
<
br /> “We are.”
“And I love you,” Kin says simply, with a shrug, like it’s the most obvious fact in the known world. And I guess, in a way, it is.
Kintyre Turn loves Bevel Dom. How silly of me to have forgotten.
“And you have a son.”
Kintyre makes a noise into my armpit that I realize, after a moment, is a giggle. “I have a son,” he says.
“A fine son, I think,” I say. “Might be able to teach you a thing or two about hand-to-hand combat.”
“Handsome son,” Kintyre says. “He’ll look excellent in Turn-russet. We should have something made up right away.”
“Whoa up there, pacer. Perhaps let him get used to being here before you smother him in russet.”
“Clever son,” Kintyre challenges. “He knew to go for the horses.”
“Mulish, stubborn, pigheaded, rude son,” I counter.
“It’s almost like we raised him,” Kin teases.
“Yeah,” I agree. Almost. But not quite.
Kintyre feels me go still, and sits up so he can look me in the eye. “Are you really satisfied with this?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I am. I just . . .”
Kintyre cups my shoulder. “You wanted the baby.”
“That seems like such a womanish thing to want,” I admit. “The Lord Consort, the lady of the house, wants a baby.”
“You’re no woman,” Kin says with a wicked glint in his eyes, his hand sliding lower. I bat it away before he can use that to distract me.
“That I’m not, Master Turn, but you’re not derailing this conversation.”
“One of those nights, is it?” Kin says with a put-upon sigh.
“I don’t know,” I admit, sitting up, too. The starlight through our window gilds my trothed in silver, and an ephemeral light that makes it look like he keeps sliding in and out of a fog. “I feel . . . wriggly. Unfinished?”
“Not superfluous. Not this again,” Kin says. He picks up my hand to run his lips across my knuckles. “Because you know that you’re—”
