by Liam Carrack
She had continued, but I couldn’t quite focus on what she was saying, so I made a guess and commented on what had been worrying me. I hoped she wouldn’t notice that I hadn’t heard her.
“You’ll have to have all this decided before you present it or it will get lost in debate for weeks, months even.” I hadn’t realized it, but I had moved forward, and we were nearly touching when it occurred to me what I had just said out loud.
She caught my hand. She was touching me, and it wasn’t the first time tonight. She had been so kind, so gentle. No wonder I found myself daydreaming about her. No other woman had come so close in these last few years, at least not women I hadn’t paid to do so.
“I know what you mean. Don’t worry. Besides, you didn’t want to get embroiled in all this unless absolutely necessary, remember?” Why was she making this so easy for me. Now I wanted to go to the Council and jump up and down and scream that they had to listen to her.
“That doesn’t leave you in the best of positions though.”
“Don’t worry about that either. What’s done is done. Perhaps this is a good thing anyway.” She continued on, I was listening, and marveling at how she thought. Damn she was quick. Her plans had a certain beauty to them. They were simple (which is important), they played on the preexisting notions of the people, and it gave everyone something they could agree with. Implementing it on the other hand was another story altogether.
“Yes, but you’re still passing over the most difficult part of the equation. Where do we propose to house these children, and where do we send Lord Fistall? Without answering those two questions, none of this will work.” She looked crestfallen for a moment. Why did I have to be so sensible damn-it. I want to assure her it will all work just the way she wants it, and see her beaming up at me. I slammed myself back into the seat at that thought, and was rewarded with a small cloud of dust. I began to cough when I heard her laughing, and began laughing myself. All you have to do is be comic relief and you get to see her smile. You didn’t even have to play a fool! And, lets face it, you don’t want to be a fool in her eyes even if it does get you smiles.
She was suddenly up, and out of her chair. “This is the office my Aunt used. All of my holdings are listed on some rosters in here… somewhere.” The neatly kept desk drawers were getting hopelessly shuffled about. “Oh, damn.” Her face fell comically. “They’re up in my offices upstairs, well most of them are anyway. Here,” She held a map of the city out toward me, and as I grasped it another larger map came swinging at me recklessly, “spread them out on the floor or something.” She whirled past me toward the door with conviction.
I could still hear her mumbling something as she moved toward the door. Then she was gone. I glanced around the room and decided that the configuration of furniture wouldn’t work for the planning session she had in mind. I moved both leather arm chairs we had been sitting in to the other side of the desk, giving us three chairs to discuss in even though I was inwardly hoping Hurn would get lost along the way. I wanted her attention all for myself again, then laid both maps out on the cleared floor space as she had suggested. Looking down at them I decided that this would be inadequate. I picked them up again. This was not the time to be crawling about on the floor like school children. Another table in the room had caught my eye. I dragged it over so it stood adjacent to the broad desktop, and spread the maps out on it. This way we could see them, and whatever other paperwork Llanalla would bring down, while seated around the desk.
The furniture shuffle hadn’t taken me that long, but I was clammy, and winded by the time I had finished. This room was not especially warm, and I wondered if the Lady of the house would mind if I set a fire in the grate just the other side of the room. I decided that it would certainly make things a bit more cheery, so I went ahead, and did so to pass the time until her return. There was kindling, and a small pile of wood standing ready by the hearth. In no time I was warming my hands.
I had half expected her to arrive back in the room before I was finished laying the fire, but when she didn’t turn up I sat myself in front of the city map, and began puzzling out where I would suggest this orphanage could be regardless of what holdings Llanalla had.
Llanalla
The rosters and things were right where I had left them, in a messy pile on my workroom bench. I collected them up and tried to neaten the pile while I headed for the library where I had left some similar information. Aunt Trefalla was nothing if not tidy, and she had filed the rosters from Papa, Garvyn, and Mama’s wills and trusts.
I was so intent on what I needed that it didn’t occur to me that this little trek’s round trip would bring me right past Fistall, and Aahurn’s, doors on my way back. I found it odd that I heard voices coming from a room to my left. My stomach clenched, and then calmed as I remembered who was staying where.
Then I stopped again when I realized that the lights were out, and it was quiet in the room I had meant for Fistall and the conversation was coming from Aahurn’s. I was made even more curious by the fact that it was most definitely not Fistall, but a higher sleepy voice responding to Aahurn. The young boy’s? I quickened pace again so that no one would think I was eavesdropping. Even if I had been close enough to hear specific words, I was fairly certain they had been speaking Dynal and not the Phiraien tongue. I was so intent on looking innocent that when Aahurn’s door opened and he stepped out I slammed right into him. I knew it would happen just moments before it did, but Aahurn, who was reading a small square of paper, didn’t have a chance to react.
Somehow he managed to stay completely silent, and land in the offensive on top of me, all without dropping the candle he had been holding. The corridor was dark, and for a moment it felt like we were the only two people alive, or at least the only two awake. I could hear the soft sounds of sleeping nearby, and my paperwork was sprawled across the floor behind my head. The only things illuminated were our faces.
I felt rather peculiar all over as I stared up at him. I didn’t say a word and neither did he at first. I lay there and couldn’t think, of anything.
“What are you doing sneaking about in the dark, all dressed in black?” he was whispering, but he hadn’t let me go, and I’m sure that if I had tried to move I wouldn’t have been able to, but I didn’t try. Some small part of me was thrilled to be right where it was.
“I went up to my rooms to fetch some paperwork, then took the back stairs to collect some more from the library. I was taking this corridor back to the main hallway because it’s the fastest. I do it in the dark all the time. Scinna doesn’t like the hours I keep, so I try not to attract attention, as for the black, I’m in mourning, its all I ever wear.” I smiled a little at him and managed a tiny shrug of the shoulders. “I didn’t realize where I was until I heard voices, and then I sped up so that no one would think I was eavesdropping. I mean I wasn’t…”
We were kissing. His soft warm lips were touching mine, and I was kissing back. His hands moved from where they had been holding me down, to holding me to him. My hands moved up onto his back, and tangled in his hair. I didn’t know what I was doing, but my body seemed to know how to respond. The kiss lasted a few moments at best, and then he pulled away hastily. I tried to move as quickly. He sat with his back to the wall, facing the opposite wall. I put my hand up to his face, and he took it carefully way with his own. I was near panic. Had I done something wrong? Was I so unattractive that he couldn’t believe what he’d done?
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to, it’s just that you were so close, and so lovely, that I just couldn’t help myself. I know that’s …”
I could hardly believe what I’d just heard. I’d never been told I was anything other than a stringy old beanpole, and now this strong handsome man thinks I’m so beautiful he couldn’t help but kiss me? I lifted my other hand, placed it at the back of his neck, and placed my lips against his. I was moving completely on instinct. I’d never done anything like this before, but as we d
idn’t collide painfully I must have done it the right way. His arms wrapped around me again, and pulled me into his chest before he could finish whatever he had been about to say.
My mind was whirling with everything and nothing. The world and all its problems had been whisked away. No worries about where to house those poor displaced children, or where to send Fistall’s men, or even a sense of propriety. There were only his lips, his hands, and his soft hair. Then something changed. He pulled out of the kiss and whipped his head off to the right. There was the ghost of a light bobbing its way in our direction from an adjoining corridor. I jumped to my knees, and began frantically picking up my forgotten papers. Aahurn knelt next to me, and aided my clumsy attempts. For some reason I was all thumbs, and all I wanted to do was sit in the middle of the hallway and giggle like a child.
“Um, well, yes,” was all that would come out of my mouth. Some part of my brain was screaming at me, I just couldn’t figure out what it was screaming. I was still trying not to giggle. “Who is that?”
“How should I know? It’s your house.” His hoarse reply sounded near panic.
“It is isn’t it.” I nearly lost control of my giggles that time.
“Are you alright?” I was really trying to get control of myself, and then reality crashed down on me like a shelf full of books.
“Oh damn. It must be Scinna.” With that thought all the ramifications of what I’d just done hit me full force. I resolved right then and there not to regret those kisses, but not to repeat them either. I had the paperwork in what looked like a manageable bundle, and was standing just in time for Scinna to come into view. “Follow please. It will look better if you’re aiding me, she’ll never believe we ran into one another in the hallway, and she’ll start looking for something we’re hiding. I don’t want that kind of scrutiny, do you?” I hoped not, and since we were both already moving quickly but calmly down the corridor, or at least I hoped it looked calm, I had to believe he felt the same. I didn’t feel calm at all. I felt like, like, well I didn’t know what I felt like, but I couldn’t get a hold of it either so I was running with it. Was the rush worth the risk?
Somehow we avoided Scinna almost altogether. She said nothing, and we sailed on past toward the front office. I turned to him after glancing back, and seeing that she’d turned to go up the stairs. “Wait.”
He stopped and faced me. “What?” It wasn’t an unhappy ‘what’ or even an impatient ‘what’ it was a conspiratorial ‘what’, and that made me grin stupidly up at him.
“It’s just… I mean… I’ve never had anybody tell me I’m lovely. Thank you. I’ve never had anybody kiss me either, for that matter, so I guess I ought to thank you for that too.” I was still beaming wildly, but I was staring at the toes of my slippers, they were the lumps of dusky pink poking out of the black of my dress.
“What do you mean no one has ever told you you’re beautiful?” There was disbelief in his voice, and I got the courage up to look into his eyes. They were a delightful shade of sea green. I could tell because he was holding the candle close to my face, and was so near. So near, my mind wandered back to those kisses on the floor. “Vyn said you were tall and thin, but I always took that for marks of beauty. You have to know you are breathtaking.”
His eyes held honesty, but I think it was whatever was in the air tonight that had him talking such obvious nonsense. “Garvy’s the one who called me beanpole. He used to shout it every time he saw me.”
“Well, Vyn was a fool then. I wouldn’t have believed it if anyone else had told me, but he must have been an utter fool.”
“Thank you, I think, but Tobbyrn is still in there waiting for me… er, us.”
“Shit!… I apologize. I will try not to use such coarse language.” I did laugh at that, and it sounded so loud in that quiet hallway that I stopped immediately, and covered my mouth.
“I can curse along with the rest of you, I’m sure. Don’t give it a thought. You haven’t offended me.”
“What do we say? What has kept us so long?” He whispered as we began moving down the hall again.
“The truth.” I looked at him squarely then continued through the shock that was evident on his face. “I went to the library to fetch the rest of the papers we needed, and ran into you on the way back. We stopped to pick up the dropped paperwork, and walked in together.”
It was his turn to laugh, though he did it much more quietly. “I see you are more skilled at duplicity than one might believe of an honest Phiraien maid. I like that quality in you.” He was smiling. I stopped just before the door and he swooped in and kissed me again before my resolution of earlier could even cross my mind. I think I was getting better at this. He pulled out of the kiss, and he leaned farther in. I could feel his warm breath on my ear. I had never even come close to fainting from grief at any of the funerals I’d attended, but as his rich deep voice began I nearly did so here and now. “I see you agree this should remain our little secret. I don’t believe the players on either side of this would appreciate… this.”
I thought perhaps he might kiss my neck, or my ear, but he did not, and it was a good thing as I was sure I would not have been able to keep my feet. He took the papers from my numbed hands.
I tried to clear my head and gain my composure again as he reached for the door of the office. Suddenly Aahurn’s voice was booming loud in my ear, and it nearly knocked me over.
“I really am sorry about that.” I looked at him shocked, and then laughter escaped my lips again. I couldn’t help myself. It seemed to be what he expected anyway, so I didn’t try too hard to stifle it. “I knocked her over in the hallway out there. She came rushing headlong down the corridor without a candle or anything. It was uncanny.” He was laughing a little too.
Tobbyrn got up and nearly knocked over a table in his haste to reach my side. “Are you all right?” There was real concern there. I looked from one to the other of them in sheer amazement. Two men fawning over me in one night was a little much, as I’d never so much as had one man do anything in any way resembling fawning before, except perhaps the Weasel, but the Weasel was awful. These two were each wonderful in their own ways. Then I realized they were both waiting for me to talk. I’d stopped laughing, probably caused by my thoughts of the Weasel.
“Oh… I’m fine. The paperwork probably isn’t, though. Besides, it was I who collided with you. You can hardly be blamed for getting run over by a madwoman dressed in black not carrying a candle after dark in an unlit corridor, now can you?” I looked from one to the other of them then nodded once, and stole the papers from Aahurn’s grasp.
“Here, we should each take a section of this mess, and at least group it into piles from each of the different wills they belong to, right?” Without waiting for an answer I handed them each a section, and walked over to the desk where I began sorting through my pile which was mostly from Garvyn’s will, oddly enough. I looked up, and decided I must be acting oddly because they were both staring at me from the same positions they’d held several minutes ago. “Well?”
“Yes of course. What was I thinking?” Tobbyrn was in motion immediately. Aahurn on the other hand stood where he was for a moment, and winked at me with a little half smile on his face. He paced up to the desk a little more slowly, then furrowed his brow when he saw the maps neatly laid out on the smaller table Tobbyrn must have brought over for that purpose.
“What is all this about?” He nodded his head toward the maps, and I remembered that I hadn’t divulged my ideas to him yet.
Aahurn
I’m not used to being taken unawares, so when I was hit from the side and bowled over all my training kicked in before I could stop what was going on. I kept hold of the candle, thank the Gods, or I might have harmed her. As it was, she just stared up at me like some kind of angel. Everything else in the world slipped away and her face was all that remained. Her skin was flawless, her long satiny red hair was spread out over the floor like it would on a down pillow, her eyes sh
one with their clear blue intelligence, and her lips looked so soft. Reality checked back in then, and I asked her what she was doing. Fine ladies didn’t sneak about their own homes in the dark without a candle. Something was fishy here.
She stared straight up at me, and gave me a longwinded answer that had to be true. The odd thing was she wasn’t even squirming. She just lay there underneath me. I could feel her chest rise and fall against me, and her eyes never left mine. I wasn’t even listening anymore. My mouth went to hers, and we exchanged a moment of passion before I remembered where we were, and who she was. I backed away shamed by my own inability to control myself.
“I’m so sorry!” It was all I could get out. This woman was offering my people help and a hand up, and here I was falling all over her like a mad dog. What must she think of me? “I didn’t mean to,” oh yeah that sounds like an explanation from a grown man, “it’s just that you were so close, and so lovely that I just couldn’t help myself.” Are you even listening to yourself? “I know that’s…” I can’t even bear to hear myself say this what must she think of me?
Wuh?
It was her soft warm fingertips first, then her hesitant breath near my face. She kissed me. I mean, I kissed back of course, but she kissed me. I wouldn’t have kissed me after what just happened. I’d have kicked me back out into the street! Now with her soft lips against mine again it was all I could do to keep from crushing her. I held her up against me, and I never wanted to let go. Her hand had traveled, palm down, up my chest and was entangled in my hair along with its twin, and then out of the corner of my eye I saw it. A glow of light getting stronger off to my left from an adjoining passageway, it would be upon us soon. I pulled out of the kiss, and turned my head in that direction. What are you doing? Use your brain Hurn. This little rendezvous could get you in some very deep water and you’re sitting in an open hallway without a care in the world.
