“Nonsense,” I snap, though my tone is slightly nullified by all the bread stuffed in my mouth. “Obviously one of the reports is wrong, and it’s theirs.”
“Sure ‘bout that?”
“With my life,” I say fiercely, glaring at the lanky guard, just daring him to contradict me. Our way is right. We have the truth of things. The Claymores – they only know lies.
“If you say so,” Danny says, though I see it in his eyes that he thinks I’m ignorant. Stupid. Morgan shakes his head, tapping Danny on the shoulder to leave me to scowl and brood with my food. My day continues to endure a steady decline of joy, especially when the Graves guards take time off. Twice I’m tripped in the corridors, and presented with insincere apologies for “not seeing me” as they did their work. I refused a drink given, about ninety percent certain it had been spat in, because of the way the serving woman looked entirely too pleased to give it to me. My dinner food has too much pepper in its mixture, and when I send away for another one, the next one is completely tasteless, with no spices in it at all.
Though I experience a small amount of relief when a maid arrives for me the next day from Hartson lands, since they didn’t have the time to assign me one with the suddenness of the wedding before – she doesn’t get treated much better. Jay Rosewind has to navigate the household without protection, and she’s terrified that someone might think it a good idea to poison her.
I wish I could comfort her, and say otherwise. She’s a reminder of home, and something for me to latch onto when the hate radiates. My husband, Desmond, barely talks to me at all at night. We sleep stubbornly at the end of the bed, and I’m usually the one who retires to bed first. After our first, strange night, where maybe we shared a little more than we intended, he finds excuses to stay away. He’s busy attending to things, busy socializing with his friends, busy with everything but me. And it’s lonely, demeaning, and makes me feel like I’m nothing to him but some bug. Some thing he’s forced to share his bedcovers with.
Some husband and wife we are.
I gave up my life to save my clan. This is my choice. This is my fate. I just have to learn to deal with it.
Perhaps I could report the hostility of the household to Desmond, or to his father. Maybe they’ll do something about it. But I don’t want to give into that weakness. To go crawling to one of them, and to ask them to curb their servants. The servants will know instantly where the request comes from. They’ll find other ways to continue their passive aggression.
They always do.
Days bleed into weeks. The hostility doesn’t relent. The bed still feels cold, even sharing it with another body. The head servant in particular, Ethel Endmore, seems to absolutely loathe me. I know she’s the one responsible for my bland dinners, my suspicious drinks, and for the fact that several of my clothes, when gone for the wash, have been ruined. Leaving me with only two sets left, and a fear of being targeted if I go to a tailor, even if I might be wearing the Claymore colors. I also found one of my three Hartson sashes cut to shreds, prompting me to hide the other two, and my jacket.
“I just don’t get it,” I say to Jay, who cuddles with me on the bed, after spending five minutes sobbing into my shoulder. Ethel had screeched at her for not cleaning the toilets correctly, and made her go over them with a toothbrush, drawing the ire of the master of the house, who had been delayed in his bathroom visit. “I’m the only thing stopping these people from being murdered in their beds by the Graves. Why are they risking everything like this?”
I swallow thickly. Since they’re not overtly abusing me, to where I have physical wounds, and since the servants always act all sickly nice and innocent with the Graves, I don’t really have any solid evidence for my treatment. It probably would be a little much if I went to them and reported all the problems. I’d rather not have my family killed because I cracked over something so petty. Danny and Morgan seem a little sympathetic to it, because they know what pressure I’m under. They scowl at the servants who barely skip the line between mild aggression and outright violation of the marriage terms.
But it’s not enough.
“B-because they’re stupid, cruel, twisted monsters,” Jay whispers into my neck, clinging hard, dark hair mixing with my blonde. “I miss home, and my family. I miss people actually liking me for who I am.”
I rub the back of her head, remembering how my mother used to do this when I was young. Wondering if she learned it from her mother, and how far back it must go, to comfort another. “Me too, Jay. Me too.” I take a deep breath, not wanting to say these words, but knowing I must. “If you want to go back home, we can arrange it. I know I will miss having someone I can relate with, but it makes no sense for the both of us to suffer.”
“That’s not how it works, miss,” Jay says. She draws back from me, wiping her eyes, looking a little stronger than before. She’s younger than me. By four years. Servants have to start young, to give them room later for marriage. “I’ve been assigned to you. It will be a great dishonor to our house if I leave you to the wolves.” She glances outside, as if frightened of being heard.
“I hope they’re paying you a decent amount of money then,” I say.
“It’s not bad,” she admits. “But I could do without the comments from the other servants. The only ones who don’t snap at a Hartson are the ones who weren’t originally from Claymore lands. The kitchen matron, she was a Tielman. There’s others like her, too, who don’t really get the hate.”
I perk up slightly at this. I admit, in my time here, I’d been so focused on the singular hatred of the Claymores, that the notion that there were people who didn’t give a shit aside from Morgan and Danny had been dim in my mind. Of course I knew there were people not embroiled in our feud, but… I’m in the middle of my enemy’s household. I walk the corridors, the red velvet carpets, the blue and white painted rooms like a ghost, trying not to draw too much ire. The cook in the kitchens didn’t seem hateful. Annoyed – but perhaps just from the annoyance of being interrupted, rather than specifically because I happened to be Hartson.
“Any change in things?” Jay asks then, after sitting up and organizing herself to look smart and collected. She stays in the rooms next to ours, in a smaller servant arrangement that keeps her away from the main, basement rooms the rest of the servants sleep in.
“No change,” I say, and she nods. She asks out of curiosity of the relationship between me and my… my husband. She wonders, like me, I suppose, when the kind facade ends and the monster underneath is revealed. Though admittedly, to be fair, I’ve not seen anything particularly monstrous from any of the Claymores so far. They seem like ordinary, spiteful people, and it disturbs me to consider that thought. They shouldn’t be ordinary. But they are. And brainwashed.
A tentative knock on the door draws me out of our conversation to see one of the kitchen servants knocking. The older matron. The Tielman? Her eyes are sunken in, pasted in droopy, bulldog features. She still wears the typical kitchen uniform, with a stained white apron. “Miss,” she says, bowing in a rather bored way, “I’ve been sent to inform you that you’re expected to dine with your husband today at four. There are some important guests coming, and it would do well to make sure you’re presented in your best form. And wearing your husband’s sash.”
A hot surge of irritation ripples through me. Wearing my husband’s sash. Wearing the wrong colors. I keep the anger in long enough to nod. “It will be done.” I’m rather proud of my restraint. Perhaps she sees something in my expression, for one of her thick eyebrows raise.
“It’s just colors, miss. It’s not the worst thing you’ll be doing in this place.” She plucks at the blue and white sash she wears, draped over one shoulder and side, rather than the belt, like others do. “If it makes you feel any better, it’s what’s in your heart that matters.”
“Mm,” I say. A deft nudge from Jay reminds me that I should probably extend additional courtesies to the matron’s friendliness. “Don’t you find i
t difficult, being here?”
“It ain’t so bad. I still get to visit home, as you will, I’m sure. Perhaps I miss some things… but I’m happy with the role I have, and the husband I have, too.” She perks up with a sly grin. “You don’t see him much about the place, because his job takes him everywhere. He’s a good man.”
I smile at nod at her, though I’m not exactly eager to hear about a Claymore being a good man. It keeps jarring in my head somehow. Ruining the narrative I’ve set for myself. I resent it greatly.
“You don’t have a centuries lasting feud against Claymores though, I presume?”
“True. But talk is that no one actually knows how the whole thing started.” Her smile turns smug, as if she contains superior knowledge to me. “With the things your families say contradicting one another. Someone’s clearly telling porkies.”
“Obviously,” I say, though Jay and the matron exchange a smile. I feel a little unsettled all the same, off kilter when the woman leaves. Jay makes her excuses as well. So, I just have to not show up my husband later. I have to wear his colors, and somehow survive all the hostility that will surely be aimed my way, and the thoughtless comments that’ll follow.
Delightful.
I’ve had banquets here before, but this is the first time that I’m presenting myself in front of “important” guests. The kind my father would invite around and feast with, in order to procure advantages and elevate his position further. It’s the kind of thing I itch to sabotage, because I don’t want the Claymores to gain any kind of advantage.
My shield is my husband, who sits next to me almost as stiff as I feel. Both of us try to put on a united front, but it’s difficult when we’re not united in any shape and form aside from our desire to not be killed. I smile demurely and greet each of the eight guests who have come from Tielman and Graves lands, six men and two women, all proudly wearing their own colors – brown, black and white, gray and black. I’m sat near the head of the table, where the master and his wife occupies. My father’s nemesis, Rysin. Next to me is Desmond, and opposite is Desmond’s brother, with a vassal, rather than a wife. The brother’s younger, and is more square-jawed and sullen looking than Desmond. He also prefers to have his dark hair in a tight bun, compared to Desmond’s untouched curls.
Twenty for the feast in total. Around a table, which I grudgingly observe is larger than the one in our family estates. The Claymores have better connections. Perhaps more wealth than the Hartsons. Dotted among the guests are relatives and vassals of the Claymores, including two sets of grandparents, a couple of twitchy children, and the eight guests strategically placed next to people prepared to converse with them, and strike deals. Servants scurry about like mice, delivering the starters, which consists of a kind of boiled fish chunks in a yellow and green sauce. I’m sat here in a simple blue dress, hair tucked behind so I can handle the food without eating any strands by accident.
“You’re doing good,” Desmond whispers to me, when there’s been a round of conversation, and I didn’t join in with any of it. “You look good, too.”
I examine the taller man, into those eyes I once lost myself in. He scratches at his slightly crooked nose. Probably punched there and broken it at some point in his life. I really wish he wasn’t a Claymore…
“Easy when you don’t say anything,” I whisper back, trying the food, nodding from the taste. “I don’t want to show us up.”
He gives me a wan smile, and it almost passes for genuine. I smile back. No. We don’t like each other. But we can at least deal with each other on a respectful level.
I turn away from him, shutting my eyes and remembering for a brief, tantalizing moment, the yearning I once had. His friendliness, and the pang of disappointment when we were both drunk, sloppy. I further sour my desire by remembering how my parents wanted me to have children. How I’ve heard Desmond’s father press him towards children.
Halfway through our main course, which seems to be some kind of meat (lamb?) in a chunky stew, a loud, obnoxious voice cuts over the babble of voices. “Never thought I’d see the day, a Claymore fucking a Hartson.”
Some of the other conversation quiets down, and I look up to see a ruby faced Tielman, clearly a few too many cups in his drinks, grinning lecherously at us.
“No true Claymore would,” comes the reply. Desmond’s brother, Rayse. “We’re mostly here to fix up my brother’s costly mistake.”
My eyes widen, and I see a new dynamic into the household. Desmond, the heir. Rayse, his jealous younger sibling. A note of discord.
“Is that what you think?” The Tielman guest smiles boisterously, while his wife tugs at his sleeve.
“It’s what we all think,” Rayse spits. “Bad enough we have to put up with this farce and act like we want one of them here. Worse that my brother sullied our name.”
“Rayse!” his father thunders, just as I stand up, hands on the table, glaring. I can barely contain the scratching, clawing anger.
“I’ll thank you not to talk about me or my husband like that. Desmond at least cares about his clan. He wouldn’t have married me if he didn’t.”
The brother’s eyes pop, probably from the audacity of being spoken to by a Hartson. God, I know how all these people see me, and it makes me want to squirm uncomfortably, knowing they want to squash me underfoot, that I’m little better than a talking dog in their world views. I hate it. I hate my family name being uttered as a curse. My fingers dig into the white cloth of the table.
“Now the Hartson whore is yapping at me,” Rayse says, which causes the room to go completely silent, and Desmond scrapes his chair to stand up. I glance at my husband, who is tight lipped in rage. His anger hits me like a furnace, even though his body is perfectly still and poised.
“Surely I didn’t just hear you insult my wife,” Desmond says. “Right in front of esteemed guests. Surely you wouldn’t risk everything we’ve built. Because by my honor, I will have to fight you.”
The brothers stare at one another, bristling like wolves, before Rayse wilts slightly. “I… misspoke. Please accept my apologies, brother.”
Yeah. Misspoke, my ass. But just like that, the tension in the room evaporates. I see their mother breathe out a small sigh of relief, and their father nod curtly. The abrasive Tielman, however, laughs like this is all a joke.
“Oh ho! So all is not so happy in your world, I see!”
I lock eyes with my husband. Go for it, he seems to say. As the only Hartson at the table in a sea of Claymores, it would be better for me to speak over my husband, who could place words into my mouth, ignoring my true feelings. The two Graves guests peer at us in great interest. As if sniffing for blood. Waiting to pounce. I use the sight of them as a reminder of why I’m here.
“It’s not easy,” I agree. “We have a lot of issues to get over. But my husband is a good man.” In that moment, I’m convinced he is.
Later, I know I’ll doubt. I’ll want to retract my words, because calling a Claymore a good man is tantamount to calling a mass murderer one. But right now, we share this burden together. The burden of our houses, and their lives.
Desmond gives a taut nod, and he reaches a tentative hand to touch my shoulder. A jolt of something goes through me, mixing with the nerves and adrenaline. Though the dinner progresses to safer territory, and Rayse merely sits in his puddle and scowls, Desmond takes the time after it to thank me before we go to sleep. I have my back turned to him as usual, when the words tumble out.
“I know that wasn’t easy for you. I’m glad you didn’t lose your temper. I would have,” he says, as I feel the bed sink with his scrambling into it. “My brother is resentful. He wishes he was the older one. He hoped you’d really show me up, but you didn’t.” There’s a note of pride in his voice, which leaves me confused. Because I want the compliment, sure. But do I want it from a Claymore?
“It’s the duty of a wife to stand up for her husband’s name when needed,” I say. There’s an awkward pause, before I add,
“Mostly, I was pissed that he treated you like that.” I turn around, and startle when I realize he’s inches from my own face. He’s been facing my back, positioned near the middle of the blue-blanketed bed, and I try not to exclaim.
“Yeah?” he whispers, and I’m astonished by the earnestness in his expression.
“Yeah,” I echo. “He’d – if he was the heir, we’d all be dead, wouldn’t we? He wouldn’t be able to get over the fact that I’m a Hartson.”
Desmond chuckles, and I watch his chest quiver from under his tunic. I hold my breath, cursing that he’s attractive. Attractive enough for my brain to start seeking loopholes around the Hartsons hate Claymores thing. Hating how human he is, for sparing me the duties of a wife, for accepting that being here is difficult.
“My brother’s a hothead at best. He was eager to prove himself in a raid against your people. Now with the truce, he’s angry that he’ll have to hunt something more mundane, like bandits, the Bonecleavers, or some animals.”
Bonecleavers. A vicious warrior clan on the other side of the mountains the Claymores live, that make a culture out of raiding and stealing women. They don’t raid too often, but considering their founders chose the name Bonecleaver, they built their lives by glorifying violence. They always linger in the background as a threat. A threat the Graves don’t eliminate, because the territory the Bonecleavers live in is awful to navigate. They live in black morass, with areas so swampy that many a life has been trapped within the mud, or claimed by the mosquitoes that pass on their diseases.
“I’m worried he or someone will forget the treaty all the same,” I say to Desmond, wondering how he would react if I reached out to him, to touch his hand or side. “Morgan and Danny do their best to look after me. My maidservant tries to keep me company but she gets her own fair share of trouble. The servants from other clans are the ones who treat me as normal.”
Desmond nods, contemplative as he ruffles a hand through his hair. “I know I’ve been absent a little. I’ve been… talking with friends, handling my duties. Trying to get my head around all this.”
Bullied Bride Page 5
