by C A Nicks
Tig unwound the turban and shook out her hair. Darker when wet, it would dry to the pale hue of summer straw. If there existed a way to return home, he would go naked as he came. The lock of hair she’d gifted him would be lost, but he would never forget the colour, or fine-silk texture. The way it caressed his naked skin.
The meat would not be cooked for at least another hour of the clock. Plenty of time to take her upstairs and feel that hair on his skin one more time.
He squashed the feeling. This quiet intimacy, the two of them sitting on the porch in the gathering dusk, the smell of roasting meat on the air, a tankard of ale and two dogs at his feet was yet another new experience and one he wished to savour. Such moments of peaceful contentment were rare for kings and peasants alike.
“It’s strange to be in a place where I am not legend. What do you wish to know?”
She lifted a strand of her hair, inspected the ends. “So, what’s your favourite colour?”
“That’s an odd question.” He’d worn what was required of the high lord. Cloth coloured with the richest and most expensive of dyes.
“Come on,” she said poking his leg. “Everyone has a favourite colour.”
“I was required to appear in cloth of gold, but I preferred purple. Does that answer your question?”
“And food, you must have a favourite food? And you can’t say meat. Be specific.”
“There was a small bird. The ptargane, so tender you could eat them bones and all. So delicious I made them province of the High Lord.”
“Which means?”
“That only princes could eat them. They were too good for the peasantry.”
“Says who? You were a proper tyrant by the sound of things.”
“I turned tyranny into an art-form.”
No matter how frivolous the conversation, it always came back to this. The burden of his sin would never lift.
“Too serious,” she said holding up her hands. “What was the name of your favourite horse? I’m guessing you had a few.”
“In your tongue it would be something like, Keklafadies. I rode only the purest of bloods, whites and blacks, so swift I was unbeatable in the race.”
Or so he’d thought. Looking back at it now, he knew that even had he crawled at the pace of a babe he would still have been the victor. The thought embarrassed him, a feeling to which he was not at all accustomed.
Had his ego been so large he’d never noticed the sycophants?
“Want to get drunk with me?” Tig leaped to her feet, eyes shining. “Let’s get drunk and dance and sing silly songs. Forget everything just for tonight.”
He didn’t get the chance to refuse. Tig disappeared into the house, returning a few moments later with a bottle of the home-distilled grain spirit and two shot glasses.
“I should keep a clear head. I will need all my wits about me tomorrow.”
“Big guy like you should be able to handle it.” She winked and poured him out a generous shot. “Promise I won’t get you too drunk.”
“It would have taken three, maybe four bottles of that stuff to inebriate me before.” He took the glass, mirrored her salute and tossed it back. Tig coughed and screwed up her face in a manner that should have been comical had she not looked so appealing. She dropped onto the boards beside him, her head coming to rest against his thigh. She let out a deep, appreciative ahh as the alcohol found its way into her veins.
To his frail, human body the hit was almost instantaneous. The burn gave way to a warmth that spread through his torso and limbs, to his brain. Idly, he stroked her hair, accepted the second glass and dispatched it as quickly as the first. The feeling of languor increased, the porch rails, the fire, the barn beyond taking on a pleasant soft-focus.
“Sing me something,” Tig ordered in a voice worthy of a queen. For some reason her suggestion made him want to laugh, so he did. She regarded him incredulously before joining in with a series of explosive giggles that almost made her choke.
“What’s so funny about that?”
He considered her question. “I really don’t know. Only that it is.”
“Have another.” She sloshed more spirits into his glass, splashing his pant leg in her enthusiasm. “I don’t believe you can’t sing. Weren’t you taught all the social graces? Go on, sing me something in your own tongue.”
“I had the best voice in the realm, I’ll have you know. People wept when I sang.” He frowned when that comment set off another round of explosive giggles. “No bard could touch me in song.”
“Not if they valued their balls. Come on, I’m hearing a lot of big words. Make me weep.”
He had no option but to clear his throat, open his mouth and let her hear for herself how people had been driven to rapture by his unparalleled baritone.
“By the end of the first verse, one of the dogs had started howling and Tig was shaking. And not with uncontrolled emotion. With a hand slapped over her mouth, she fought to contain the laughter. Fought and lost.
“That was…wonderful.” Another choke of laughter. “No, really it was.”
“Your laughter tells me it was not.” He didn’t know whether to be angry with her for her insolence or thank her for being the first person courageous enough to tell it how it was.”
“Oh, I’m sorry Fabian.” Tig gazed up at him earnestly. “You do want me to be honest with you, don’t you?”
She had the look of a stray dog wanting to be taken home. Though the truth stung, yes, he would have her honesty.
“Your truth is more valuable than gold, Tig. I would have it always.”
“Must be difficult being a powerful man, surrounded by constant flattery. Never knowing who your friends are.”
“Powerful men do not have friends, only allies and enemies. And even then those lines are so blurred it is wise to treat everyone as a potential enemy. You will be pleased to know that I dance better than I sing.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“It could be.” He held out his hand.
Sliding her palm against his, she rose unsteadily. “Know any good war-dances?”
The light of mischief was never far from her eyes. “Teach me one they do before sporting encounters. You know, when each team makes all macho to the other. Do they do that where you come from?”
“You wish to learn the Pikara? That is no dance for mere women.”
“But then, I’m not mere women.” Tig ran down the steps to the centre of the yard. Arms wide, she dared him to join her.
“You would paint your face,” he said. “And adorn yourself with armour and plumed helmet. The more exotic the feathers, the more exalted the warrior.”
“Best I can do is chicken feathers.”
She was swaying, but for him the alcohol had merely rubbed away the edges of his inhibition and loosened his limbs. He must guard his tongue. Any more and he would be spouting words best left unsaid.
“I have a better idea.” He descended the steps and stood before her as contenders would in a face-off. “Show me how it goes in your world. Teach me the rituals involved in man to man combat.”
“I’m not exactly the expert.”
“But you must have been privy to confrontations when in Carson’s camp? I would learn how to read my opponent and for that I must know everything.”
“And I would rather forget all about that.” She shrugged. “But what the hell. First comes the name-calling where each side describes in obscene detail what they’re about to do to the other. The more gruesome the better. It’s not that ritualised, we’re far too much of a rabble for that. There’s some roaring, a lot of chest beating and tongue waggling and muscle flexing. None of which would sound very impressive coming from me so it would be pretty useless me demonstrating. I would have liked to, you know, just danced with you.”
He couldn’t argue with that and berated himself silently for bringing the subject back to the one she was trying so desperately to avoid. With her shoulders slumped and mouth downturned she
cut a forlorn figure. Poor Tig, when did she ever get to dance?
“Come,” he said, extending a hand. “I will show you how we dance at court. Clasp your fingers in mine.”
She cheered immediately, joining hands with him, waiting for him to take the lead.
“As a man I would bow. You, the woman would bob.”
“You mean curtsey?”
“Yes, like that.” She caught on quickly, following his lead as he walked her through the intricate steps. Light and nimble on her feet, she soared during the lifts, smiled sweetly for the head to head and coyly lowered her eyes during the atriche, the point where the dancers completed the pattern and thanked each other for the dance.
She stepped away, curtseying again, a rosy tint to her cheeks. “Thank you, sir. May I ask what this dance is called?”
“You may, my lady. This is known as the love-knot.” He could play the courtier as well as the warrior. That mischievous smile reappeared at the mention of love-knots, but she made no comment. He ought to make up for his earlier spoiling of the mood.
“Now teach me a dance from your world.”
She stared at him for a moment, laughing quietly to herself at some visual. She shook her head to clear the image. “Our dancing is nowhere near as refined. I think we danced like that way back in history. Now everyone just kind of lets loose or it’s a slow clinch.”
“Lets loose?”
“Like this.” She began to shake, eyes closed, arms at her side. Then she raised them in the air, her head whipping from side to side, body pulsing to some imaginary beat.
“It’s hard without music, but that’s the current thing. Try it.”
“That is how primitives dance.”
She continued the rhythm, now stamping her feet in time to the sway of her hips. “Come on. Don’t be such a stuffed shirt, get with the beat.”
Beside her, the dogs were going wild, jumping and barking. He wanted to continue watching her, hair flying, a look of uninhibited joy on her face. This was also how the prostitutes danced when they disrobed for a man’s pleasure, the abandon meant to represent total surrender to a man’s will. He raised his arms and did an experimental stamp. Not unlike the war dance ritual undertaken before battle.
“Now you’re getting it.” She let out a yell, twirled and almost lost her footing. Righted herself and carried on dancing without missing a beat.
“Let go, Fabian. Close your eyes and let go.”
More enjoyable than he cared to admit. The grain spirit threaded itself through his veins, taking with it the dignified mask he’d pasted to his face and tried desperately to keep in place since his arrival. His dance formed a knot that could not be untied. Tig’s freed him in a way even the war dance had not. She was belting out a lusty tune now, her voice surprisingly robust for one so small. And, thankfully, better than his.
When she called a halt they were both glowing. She collapsed, panting against him, content to rest after the frenzy.
“And now this,” she said and hooked her arms about his neck. “This is when the evening winds down and everyone is feeling mellow and a little bit sentimental.”
“And how do we do this?” Instinctively, he circled her with his arms, resting one hand on her back, the other on her slight buttocks, pressing her into him.
“Just sway. Think of a sad song and move to its beat. We call this the last dance.”
He liked this even better. She had no need to tell him what happened after the last dance. He glanced at the meat, sniffing the melting aroma. “We have time to go upstairs. The meat is not yet cooked.”
She giggled against his chest. “I’d be poor competition for that roast. It’s okay, let’s sit down. My head is spinning after all that jumping about.”
He led her from their impromptu dance floor, wondering if he could ever play the courtier again. The ruthless and rugged warrior, he recognised when he looked in the mirror. Try as hard as he might, he could not see that refined man in golden cloak and fine-weave shirt, hair glossy as polished ebony, his fingers adorned with jewelled rings. The man who could step so effortlessly from the salon to the battlefield.
“Thank you, my lady. You dance on gossamer wing-tips.”
She dropped him a gracious curtsey. “Then thank you, my lord. You do me great honour.”
As they settled once more to await the roast, he realised she would never know how much honour his mere presence bestowed. Nothing he could tell her would prepare her for the reality of what he’d once been. Of what he would be again, when he left all this behind.
One of the dogs crept to his side and laid its head on his knee. Tig recharged their drinks but neither of them drank. The future was inescapable and no amount of pretending would stop Hal arriving tomorrow morning. A twig popped with a loud snap in the fire-pit, cutting through the quiet of the evening. The drip of the meat-juices caused the fire to flare and fizz.
Fabian closed his eyes and tensed every muscle in his body. This homely relaxation was too seductive, disconnecting him from his goal. A knight spent his vigil in prayer and on his knees, not comfortably reclining on an old wooden chair with an adoring dog and a beguiling woman at his feet.
This did not prepare him for the task of taking Warrington’s head. The dog drooled onto his pant leg and raised hopeful eyes. Tig started to sing, a ballad of some battle in her world’s history. She read him so well. With her at his side how could he fail?
She was fast becoming his talisman and so much more. Yet, all too soon they would turn and walk away from each other never to return.
And he thought finding his way home would be the hard part.
Chapter 13
The sun had barely risen above the horizon when Hal rolled into the yard. Eagerness to capitalise on Fabian’s potential, or was he hoping to wrong-foot them by finding them together? Tig rubbed her eyes and sat up, careful not to wake Fabian. A quick peek through the curtains showed Hal leaning casually against his wagon, eyes trained on her bedroom window. Since he must have seen her, she gave him a quick wave and reached for her crumpled clothing.
Good thing they’d stopped drinking when they did. Last night this meeting had been a distant thing. Now she was glad to be able to go down with a clear head, even if she hadn’t yet decided the best course of action. Go? Or stay for a while and risk falling into Hal’s clutches. If Fabian lost his challenge, or won and managed to find a way to return home, that would be her fate. If he prevailed and stayed he said she would be his queen, and she so desperately wanted to believe that.
Dressed, she shook Fabian, jumping back when he leaped into a sitting position, a feral snarl on his lips.
“Fabian, it’s me. Hal’s here.”
He glanced around, confused. Rubbed his face and threw back the quilt. Naked seemed as natural a state as clothed to him. He sat on the edge of the bed, throwing off the last wisps of sleep and shook his head.
“I was dreaming. Do you have any better clothes I might wear? I do not wish to appear as a peasant before Hal.”
“My father had a formal ensemble that might fit you. Wash, I’ll go fetch it.”
She left Fabian pouring water from the pitcher on the dresser into the bowl that served as washbasin. Last night he had bemoaned his lack of finery until she’d pointed out that a stranger appearing in cloth of gold and fine jewels might invite more questions than they could answer. In her world status came from bearing, not from a show of wealth. Warrington, for all his power still looked like the rough-hewn, bare-knuckle fighter who had risen through the ranks to become warlord of the region.
She picked out a white shirt and her father’s dark jacket and pants. Shiny from wear, but the nearest to Sunday best they were going to get. Fabian eyed them dubiously.
“These will make me look like a money-lender.”
“You’ll look good in black.” She handed him the shirt. “You go striding into camp all decked out in leather armour and war-paint, Warrington will get your measure in a heartbeat. And so will
Hal. The suit will make you look plain, keep them guessing.”
He accepted the shirt, still obviously not convinced. “A show of wealth is the best way to intimidate. I will scare no one dressed in this.”
“Stand up and look Warrington in the eye, and you’ll do just fine. Warlords are equal opportunity employers so the field is wide open to rich and poor alike.”
“What are his origins?”
Fabian threw the shirt onto the bed and indicated his underwear. She dutifully retrieved and handed it to him, happy to play body-servant if it got him into the suit. He might complain about losing muscle, but he still had a dream of a body, hard in all the right places, a fascinating landscape of dips and hollows she was beginning to know rather well.
“Not sure where he came from, born in one of the camps most probably. Word has it he learned to fight in the club circuits in the new towns and then came out east when they started cracking down on the more extreme bare-knuckle stuff. He literally fought his way to the top.”
“What position did he hold when you were in camp?”
“One of Carson’s elite body-guard. The challenges usually come from someone near to the top. It’s rarely a surprise. You, on the other hand…”
The transformation made him look anything but plain. Worn though it was, the suit lent him an air of quiet menace, hinting at a tightly controlled power without putting all the goods on display. A pity there were no shoes left in the house to go with the suit. Her mother always said you could tell the quality of a man by the polish on his shoes.
She stepped forward to straighten the lapels, wondering if they should go the whole way and find a neck-tie to complete the ensemble. She decided against it. Who wore those these days anyway?
Fabian stood for inspection and she nodded her approval, feeling suddenly a little in awe of him. He oozed sophistication and confidence in a way she hadn’t noticed when he’d worn the shabby old work clothes. Dressed as a king, he would be breathtaking and so completely out of her league she’d go blind looking at him.
