The Unwilling

by KELLY BRAFFET

  Something was wrong with his voice, or possibly her ears. She licked her lips as well as she could. “What happened?”

  His unshaven face twisted into a smile. There was something wrong with that, too. “Where would you like me to start?”

  “I don’t remember,” she said.

  An empty armchair waited next to the bed; somebody had been sitting with her. He lowered himself into it. The way he moved wasn’t right, either. He was stiff. Slow. “I was on the training field, wrestling. I got thrown; hit my head on a rock and knocked myself unconscious. You, too, apparently.”

  His voice was cold. That was what was wrong with it. He sounded like Elban.

  “The head stableman ran into the House carrying you in his arms. Right through the garden into the great hall, with your hair down and your feet bare.” He smiled that ghastly smile again. “We still haven’t found your boots.”

  Carried her. Into the House. The panic came back, stronger than ever. “Darid.”

  “Was that his name?” Icy. Freezing.

  Was. “Where is he?”

  “I haven’t gotten to that part yet.” Oh, he did sound like Elban, he sounded exactly like Elban. Mocking and heartless and poisonously friendly. “Don’t you want to know why your back hurts?”

  Elly’s face. “No.”

  “You were caned,” Gavin said. “Right here, tied to the bedposts. Half-naked, with guards watching.”

  Ripping fabric. The top of her dress torn to her waist. A sea of helmets. The Seneschal, flat-eyed. Elly, crying. She did not know what she really remembered and what she could only imagine.

  Gavin’s glare was hard. “I wasn’t there, of course. I was tied to the bed in the other room, much like you are now. Would you like me to take off my shirt and show you what your back looks like?”

  She remembered that cold hard look. From when they were children, in the study. When they would not stop hurting her because she would not stop screaming and his face had hurt her, too: long past love, wanting only for her to shut up because he, too, was hurting. Blaming her, hating her. As he hated her now.

  But they were both still here and they were both still alive and once Elban returned, Gavin would have hated her anyway, she remembered.

  Was that his name?

  Was. “Darid,” she said again.

  “Was not very smart. If he’d had the sense to send a stable boy with a message, instead of making a spectacle of himself, you and I wouldn’t have spent the last week drowning in opium syrup. By the way, if you were pregnant, you aren’t now. The magus saw to that.”

  “Gavin,” she said, helpless, desperate.

  “Were you pregnant?”

  “My back hurts,” she said.

  He leaned forward. She sensed his scathing fury and for a moment was afraid he was going to hurt her. Then he spoke, and his voice was so frostbitten, so black and blistered with barely-controlled violence, that she almost wished he had. “So does mine.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t want them to spill over onto her cheeks, but they did. Gavin leaned back again, his anger touched with satisfaction, now.

  “Tell me what happened to Darid,” she said. Pleading.

  “I’m very sorry, Judah.” He didn’t sound sorry at all. “I’m sorry your life is the way it is. I’m sorry you won’t get to see everything you want to see and do everything you want to do, get married and have a sweet little cottage somewhere and lots of purple-haired babies. But it’s not my fault any more than it is yours. Fucking a courtier would have been bad enough, but at least a courtier would have been smart enough not to get caught. But staff, Jude?” A bitter laugh escaped him. “How many lectures did you give me on that very topic? Don’t fuck the serving girls, Gavin. They have too much to lose, Gavin. You’re being selfish, Gavin. Selfish!” He pointed at her. “You never get to call me selfish again. Ever.”

  She couldn’t even wipe the tears away. They ran unchecked.

  Ticking off each point on his fingers, he continued. “Elly’s upset. I’ve spent the last week in agony for something I didn’t even do—and in case you’re too selfish for that to bother you, did you miss the part where they stripped you half-naked in front of a room full of guards?”

  “Why are you being so mean?” The question came out sounding so childlike, so powerless, that it only made her weep harder.

  “Because I have spent the last twenty-two years defending you,” Gavin said, “and this is how you repay me.”

  She was stunned into silence. Even her crying stopped. She had thought of Gavin in many ways over the years: as brother and playmate, as a cad and a spoiled child and a silly boy playing soldier. Her confidant, her conspirator; a glorious hope made flesh, because someday when he was Lord of the City her life would be better and so would everyone else’s. Her love. Her burden. Her responsibility. Her friend. Never had she thought of him in terms of debt, or repayment, or owing. “You sound like Elban,” she said.

  She meant it to sting, but he didn’t even flinch. Not even inside. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe I do need to lock you up, if you’re going to keep doing such stupid things.” But then, maybe, the barb went home, because suddenly he looked exhausted. “Why did you do it, Jude? Were you that lonely? I do everything I can for you, you know that. Why?”

  Now he was the one who sounded like a child. Dry-eyed, she said, “Tell me what happened to Darid. Did they let the hounds have him?”

  She felt a sick burst of something from him. She didn’t know what it was. The sadness vanished and he went cold again. “First they castrated him. Then they cut him open. Then they cut his throat. When they were done, they threw him on the trash heap. Whatever the crows haven’t eaten is probably still there.”

  She couldn’t talk. He stood and walked to the door. Then he stopped.

  “They didn’t spike his head,” he said. “I did that much for you.”

  * * *

  She didn’t know how long she lay there after that. Darid was dead and it was her fault and Gavin hadn’t even untied her hands. When she heard the door open again she didn’t bother to lift her head. These footsteps were heavier, and the chair creaked as someone sat down. She counted her heartbeats in silence. Ten. Twenty.

  “Well,” the Seneschal said finally, “I did warn you.”

  Had it been him, and not the magus, who she’d heard speaking those words through a cloud of opium? Either way, she saw no reason to respond.

  “I hope you realize how lucky you are that this didn’t happen when Lord Elban was here. Your little arrangement with him would actually have made this worse, you know. You’re not just the disobedient foundling anymore. You’re his property, just like his horse or his soldiers or his sword. He might still have something to say about it, when he comes back.”

  No point responding to that, either. When the Seneschal spoke again, he sounded weary. “You must begin to think before you act, Judah. Elban might not be willing to kill you, but surely you realize now that killing is not the worst he can do. What happened here was the bare minimum that I could order, and still have a chance of satisfying him. I’m doing everything that I can to help you, but I can’t promise that it will be enough.”

  She opened her eyes. “This is helping me?”

  “Right now, this is the best help I can give you.”

  No point. She let her eyes close again.

  She heard the Seneschal stand. “Nathaniel Magus is here to see to your wounds. If he thinks it’s safe, he’ll untie you. The restraints aren’t a punishment. You were delirious, and we didn’t want to risk you rolling onto your back.” Apparently, she was supposed to say something to that because he paused, and after the pause he sounded stern and disappointed. “The magus has made sure you aren’t pregnant, but he’ll need to examine you again to make sure the bleeding has stopped. Do what he tells you. We won’t speak
of the stableman again. Maybe the House will forget and Elban will never hear of it.”

  Footsteps. Receding.

  Darid was dead and it was her fault.

  * * *

  As the magus untied her, he said, “I’m very sorry for everything that’s happened to you. I did what I could to help.”

  He had to help her move her arms down to her side. It hurt, a stabbing pain through the joints of her shoulders. Unlike the fire in her back it was a good pain, or would be, but she almost cried out. The shock of it opened her eyes; the magus crouched next to the bed, where he could meet her gaze with his own, which was concerned and genuinely sad. His glasses had been broken, she noticed; a thin crack marred the lens, and the frames were clumsily mended with a piece of wire.

  “Everyone keeps telling me how much they’ve done for me.” She relished the bitterness in her own voice. “And yet somehow I don’t feel helped.”

  “I don’t blame you. I need to see your back. I’m sorry, I can’t give you any more opium syrup. But I’ll be as gentle as I can.” She closed her eyes. A stretchy pain was added to the burning one. “The bandages stick a little. I have a salve that will help, but in a few days, it would be good if we left the bandages off and let the wounds air. There are some stitches here that have to come out. It might pinch.” Whatever the magus was doing now hurt, but not unbearably. He took a bandage from the table. “You’ll have some scars, but I’ve seen worse. And you have some scars already, I see.”

  “They told you about Gavin and me.”

  “They did. It’s very interesting. Lord Gavin really has healed quite a bit faster than you have. He woke up earlier, too, by several hours.” There was an audible snip, and a tiny, almost insulting pinch. “What caused the scars on your feet?”

  “Different things. Nobody ever sees feet.” Darid had seen her feet. The last day had not been the first time. He had never said a word about her scars.

  Pinch. “Lord Gavin said you were taught not to scream.”

  Darid was dead and it was her fault. Through gritted teeth: “Couldn’t have me saying ouch when he stubbed his royal toe.”

  The magus’s scissors snipped, snipped. “Whatever the source of the bond between you, I don’t think it was intended to be used that way. To hurt you.”

  She opened her eyes. “Oh? Then how do you think it was intended to be used?”

  Either missing her sarcasm or ignoring it, he said, “Maybe someone was trying to protect you.” He put the scissors on the table next to the bed, and then laid something across her back, something cool and damp that quenched the fire.

  “Then someone underestimated Lord Elban,” she said. “Someone underestimated this whole horrible place.”

  “Perhaps they had a reason.”

  “Perhaps they had a sick sense of humor.”

  The cool damp thing came away. “Have you ever been out in the city?”

  “No.”

  “Lord Elban is not beloved there,” he said. “You are.”

  “Until they come inside, and everyone tells them I’m a witch.”

  “Well,” he said, and then again. “Well. You’re not like them. They sense that. This is just salve. It shouldn’t hurt.” His fingers moved across her back in long straight lines. The touch only stung a little. “The Seneschal said I don’t need to explain this, but I’m going to anyway. While you were unconscious, I gave you an elixir that would end a pregnancy, if one existed. It...did what it was supposed to do.”

  Darid was dead. It was her fault.

  “If you were pregnant, it was too early to tell. But you bled more than I liked, and you had a seizure. Only a small one.” As if that helped. “I’m sorry. I wanted to wait, and see if it was even necessary, but the Seneschal—wouldn’t wait.” He sounded pained, almost embarrassed. “You can still have children. I’m as sure as I can be about that.”

  “I don’t want children.”

  “You might change your mind.”

  “No. I was born, once, and look how I ended up. Look how—” Her mouth snapped shut. She had been about to say, Look how my mother ended up, and it was the first time she’d thought of her mother since awakening, and the anger and grief slid back onto her with the weight of the entire House.

  “I think the bleeding has stopped,” he said very gently. “But I need to check again.”

  Again. He had done this before, while she was unconscious. The idea disturbed her, but what was the point of arguing? What was the point of anything?

  “Roll onto your side, please,” he said. “I will be as quick as I can.”

  He was true to his word. Where Arkady had been crude and gleeful, this magus was quiet and efficient. She even thought his hands might be shaking, but she felt so thoroughly dulled that she trusted nothing her body told her except the pain in her back. When he was done he said everything seemed fine and he would check on her back again soon. Then he left. As soon as he opened the door Elly burst through it, hurried to Judah’s side and kissed her forehead.

  “I wanted to come in with the magus, but the Seneschal wouldn’t let me. I thought it would be okay, anyway. He’s not like Arkady.” Her voice was low, but her words tumbled all over each other on their way out of her mouth. Her blue eyes were wide and anxious. “It was okay, wasn’t it?”

  Judah wanted to reassure her, but she could not seem to do it. “I’m not pregnant.”

  “I know. Thank the gods, neither am I.” Elly stood up and began poking through the wardrobe. Finally, she held up a white cotton nightgown. “This is loose. It shouldn’t hurt you. Lords, Jude, what did I say?” Because Judah’s eyes were filling with tears again. Judah could see Elly, eyes wide and startled, running through the past few seconds in her mind. Then her face crumpled. “Oh, no. I’m so stupid. I’m sorry. They’ve just been—well, never mind. I’m sorry, that’s all. Please forgive me.”

  Judah nodded. She swiped angrily at the tears, tried to sit up and failed. The motion made her sick to her stomach and her back howled.

  “Let me help you,” Elly said, and she did. Neither of them spoke. The dressing process drained what little energy Judah had and her back protested every movement, no matter how small. When she finally lay down on her stomach again, queasy and damp with sweat, Elly crawled into bed next to her and took her hand.

  “Jude.” Her voice was gentle, almost a whisper. “Did Gavin tell you about—the person we’re not supposed to mention?”

  Judah nodded. Relief filled Elly’s face, but only for an instant, because Judah was crying again. She didn’t seem to be able to control it.

  “Oh,” Elly said. “Judah, my love, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for all of this.”

  “You were there,” Judah said. “You were with me.”

  “I will always be there.” Elly was crying, too. Her words were choked but fierce. “I will always be with you.”

  * * *

  After another day in bed Judah was able to stand up and hobble around the room; the day after that she made it out into the parlor, and sat gingerly in her chair. By the time she could twist her head enough to see her back in the mirror, the shallowest welts were well on their way to healing. There were four wounds that would scar: three across her upper back, in an X with one double bar, and one lower down. She did not spend long looking at them.

  Gavin was still furious with her. When she entered the parlor, he left it. His healing was further along than hers, and he was back to training; she even saw the sweat marks on his shirt that meant he’d been able to wear his cuirass. Judah wore one of his other shirts—Elly brought it to her—that flowed loose over her back, and her lightest skirt. The others, in their boots and tunics and summer coats, came in like creatures from a different world, smelling of other rooms, of outside. Guards stood watch over the parlor door in the corridor. They allowed Gavin and Elly and Theron to pass, but Judah knew they wou
ldn’t do the same for her. Not by the Seneschal’s orders; by Gavin’s.

  “I obviously can’t trust you,” he said in the only conversation they’d had since she left her bed.

  Elly, scarlet, with clenched fists, told him, “You’re being a petulant child.”

  “You’re not the one who suffers for what she does,” he said, stern. This new Gavin, the one who made firm decisions about everyone else’s lives, seemed to have replaced the old one entirely. Maybe the cane had stripped away the last of the person, and left only the lord.

  Elly wasn’t cowed. “She didn’t do anything you haven’t done a dozen times over. And don’t even try to tell me that’s not true.”

  “It’s different and you know it,” Gavin argued.

  Elly drew herself up and seemed about to say something else, but Judah said, “Let it go, Elly. It doesn’t matter. I don’t mind.”

  She didn’t. She had nowhere to go anyway, and no boots to wear there. The dull feeling that had come over her when she’d heard Darid was dead had not left her. She suffered physical pain and the occasional burst of weeping, but both felt disconnected from the core of her. Everything important inside her was dead. She was like an unlit stove, except that she wasn’t even engaged enough to be cold. She was just—there. Inert.

  Theron sat with her sometimes. Which she knew would have warmed her, if she’d been able to feel warmth: the new Theron came and went like weather, with little notice of those around him. But when he came into the parlor and found Judah sitting alone, he would stop and sit, too. He still didn’t speak much. But he only sat in the parlor when she was there. Something in him seemed to think she needed company. She didn’t think she did.

  Once she asked him how things were in the House. He pondered for several seconds before answering: “There are more guards than usual. The ones with white badges.”

  “Really,” Judah said, unsurprised. The Lord’s Guard, with their red badges, had all marched with Elban.