“The Seneschal doesn’t know?” Judah had a hard time conceiving of anything happening in the House without the Seneschal’s knowledge.
“Seneschal’s an ascetic. No wine, no women, no song. Anyway, I’m sure he knew at one point, but he seems to have forgotten. By the time he remembers, I plan to have drunk it all.” He took a second bottle out and handed them both to her; then he tossed the straw back into the box, closed it, and let it back down into the water. “I’ll show you my new favorite drinking spot. It’s hilarious.”
After they dragged the boat out of the water, he led her through the catacombs to the crypts. Each tomb was marked by a bust of its occupant. The first tombs were very old ones, before Gavin’s family had taken power. The busts were utterly unfamiliar, the clothes and hairstyles quaint. It wasn’t until the third corner that Judah began to see familiar features: Gavin’s jaw, Elban’s cheekbones, that particular mouth they all shared. Carved stone eyes, blank and dead. They passed Mad Martin the Lockmaker; Gavin’s grandfather; a few younger men that were probably second sons, the ones who didn’t live. Eventually they came to Clorin, whose stone visage was beautiful and sad. Beyond her, the ledges were empty. Elban’s corpse had been burned, eventually, the ashes tossed in the midden yard like countless staff before him.
Gavin pulled himself up to sit on one of the empty ledges and began rummaging through his pockets. Judah looked at the place he’d chosen, and back at Clorin’s tomb, and did a quick calculation. The ledge he sat on was his own. “That’s morbid,” she said.
“But funny.” He nodded at the other end of the ledge, which was wide enough to accommodate a stone sarcophagus and would be plenty comfortable for two. “Sit down.”
Reluctantly, she sat. He had a corkscrew. Where had he found a corkscrew? The wine was cool and creamy, thick as suede on her tongue. “That’s good,” she said, voluptuous warmth spreading through her.
“Yes.” Gavin took the bottle back from her. “It is.”
He sat against one end of the ledge and she sat against the other, their legs slotted next to each other like books on a shelf. The crypt wasn’t unpleasant. It was cool but not cold or damp. The presence of his mind at the edge of hers felt companionable and easy as they traded the bottle back and forth. Somewhere above them, Elly was probably stoking the fire in the stove, putting on a pot of water to boil whatever mess they were going to eat that night. It seemed irrelevant. Everything Gavin drank layered on everything Judah drank and they didn’t feel the same but they didn’t feel entirely different.
“The magus isn’t a lovesick puppy,” she said. Her tongue was thick in her mouth. So drunk, so fast. “And he doesn’t make me sad. He brings me candy.”
“Something made you sad today.”
She thought of the way the kennel had burned, the long gray column of smoke. The flames had seemed as depthless as the aquifer and they’d crackled happily as they ate the building from inside. It had collapsed with a mighty whoosh that had felt like a piece falling out of the world. The empty space felt clean, unencumbered. But that was too hard to explain. “We went to the stables.”
“Ah,” Gavin said. He moved his legs so they pressed against hers in a warm, comforting sort of way. “That seems like another lifetime, doesn’t it?”
Darid’s capable hands, thick and scarred with work but so deft at tying a knot, soothing a horse. “Not really.”
“That was back when I was going to marry Elly. I guess we’ve both lost love.”
“Yours wasn’t eviscerated,” Judah said. “Yours is upstairs cooking, and if you’d try being reasonable for once, you might still be able to fix things.”
Her tone was acid, but he only laughed. The bottle glinted in the lantern light as he took another drink. “What would be the point? The Seneschal’s not going to let us live. Elly, maybe; Theron and me, no way. Can’t have stray heirs for people to rally around.”
“Glad to hear I have such a long and healthy future ahead of me.”
She expected to feel the heat of a blush, but he only said, “If you want to duck out early, I’m game. You’re the only reason I’m still around.” His voice was offhand and terrible. “Well, you and a lack of sharp objects. I’ve never heard of anyone dying by falling on their axe, and I don’t think Elly would let me use her knife.”
A crawling chill ran over Judah. “I don’t want to die.”
“Then we live,” he said simply. “As long as the Seneschal lets us.”
“He hasn’t killed us yet.”
“I’ll bet he’s got a very good and nasty reason for that.”
“The people like us. The stableman—” she couldn’t say his name to Gavin “—said his sisters had dolls of us, even.”
“Yes, I’m sure when we die of mysterious illnesses, they’ll all mourn deeply and profoundly for about a week.”
He sounded relaxed and pleasant. Posturing even now. Judah found it annoying. “Stop.”
“Stop what? I know how these things work, Judah. I’ve been reading Elban’s journals. I know how everything works. He was an obsessive journaler, did you know that? Multiple volumes, private and extra-private. The ones I’ve been reading lately are the extra-private ones.” He half laughed. “And you used to scold me for flirting with the staff girls. You want to know what Elban used to do to the staff girls? And boys, occasionally. Even a lesser courtier or two. That extra bedroom of his—you want to hear about that?”
“You’re not like him,” Judah said.
“I wasn’t going to be. I was going to be better.” He was twisting the corkscrew in his hand, pressing his thumb against the pointed tip. Judah could feel it, a tiny sting that threatened more pain than it delivered. “But maybe I wouldn’t have been. Maybe it’s too much power for one person to have and still stay...sane. Human. Maybe it’s a good thing that all of this is ending. Maybe—”
Suddenly Gavin stopped; cocked his head, listening. All at once he was crouched next to her. The sarcophagus for which the shelf had been built would have been huge, grand; there was more than enough room for him to press her back into the corner. Both of his arms were around her. It was more contact than she’d had with anyone since Darid, and more contact than she’d ever had with Gavin. His smell filled her nostrils, wood smoke and wine and the same stale smell they all had, because they could never get clean, and his slippery, treacherous despair filled her mind. It was frightening. Her spine arched against him in resistance and a gasp of horror escaped her.
Quickly, he clamped a hand over her mouth. Which was worse: bare skin. His strength was too much and the despair was too much and she went limp.
Then she heard it, as if from underwater. Footsteps. Slow, steady. There was nobody it could be, nobody it should be, down here. No light came; only the steps. The walker was passing Gavin’s grandfather’s tomb. Clorin’s. The walker was in sight: Theron. Moving through the darkness with no light of his own, he didn’t even seem to notice as he entered the wan flicker of their lantern. His eyes were fixed on the ground, his expression blank.
Gavin’s arms tightened around Judah, his hand pressed more firmly against her mouth. She could barely breathe. She could barely have breathed, anyway. As Theron passed them, he shuddered; his steps quickened; but he didn’t speak to them. In a moment he’d disappeared farther into the crypt, where nobody had bothered to carve niches yet. Maybe even down to the natural rock, the caves worn by the aquifer eons ago: before the crypt, before the House, before any of them.
When Theron was gone, Gavin’s arm around her loosened, but didn’t let go. He took his hand away from her mouth, but it was too late. She’d seen inside him. The courtiers had pretended not to care, wearing apathy like a veil to shield their private desires and agendas. Gavin truly didn’t care about anything. His inner self was a yawning pit of grief and frustration. There was a flicker of warmth for her, pangs of longing for Elly and Theron. That
was all.
“You don’t want to talk to him when he looks like that,” he said quietly. “I’ve tried. The things he says—” The words trailed away and she felt his cheek press against the top of her head. Another flood of despondency washed over her. It felt like the drug the magus had given her after she’d been caned. It dragged her down, emptied her. In desperation, she did what she had always done when he was upset, and filled her mind with water: the aquifer, with its permanence and patience. The feeling of drift on the boat. She had hated the boat but for Gavin she made it easy and restful.
The knot inside him loosened. She felt his body ease, too. He let out a long breath of air, and his arms around her went lax. “I’d forgotten how good it feels to be around you.”
She squirmed away from him, suddenly angry. “Because I make you feel good, you idiot.” He’d grabbed her, held her, covered her mouth so she couldn’t even object. She was angry about that, but she was also angry about the despair. Who was he to despair at the loss of his future when she’d never had a future at all?
“What?” He sounded puzzled, and she realized: they never talked about the bond. Even the scratch code had evolved without an actual conversation. The only time they’d ever discussed the bond had been in the study, when they’d been forced to.
Tell me when you feel the knife. Tell me when it begins to hurt. Do you feel the warmth of the coal, or just the burn?
“When you’re angry, or upset, I—touch you and I think about water.” She felt exposed, vulnerable. “To calm you down. Just now it was the aquifer.”
“I was thinking about the aquifer,” he said, wondering. “I didn’t even realize. Do you always use that?”
“No. It could be a puddle, or the reflecting pool. Anywhere calm. It’s as much for me as you,” she added. “Your head’s not exactly a pleasure garden, you know.”
“Like you’re any better.” He took her hand. “Do it again.”
Appalled, she pulled away. “No.”
“Just for a minute. So I can see what it’s like, now that I know you’re doing it.”
She hesitated, reluctant—but her reluctance didn’t make any sense, did it? She’d done the water thing hundreds of times, thousands even. She didn’t know why it should feel different now, but it did. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“It doesn’t feel right.” He leaned back against the ledge, his voice cold. “So it’s fine for you to play around in my head as long as I don’t know about it, is that how it works? What else have you been doing in there all these years?”
“Gavin,” she said, exasperated.
“Can you make me do things? Pull my strings like a little puppet?”
“Our lives would be a hell of a lot easier if I could,” she snapped. The anger she felt in him was petulant, manipulative and—unlike the despair—entirely for show. “Oh, for gods’ sake. You impossible, whining child. Sit down, give me your stupid hands. I’ll show you.”
She sat on the ledge next to him and took his hands. The petulance, as she’d expected, vanished instantly now that he had what he wanted; his fingers curled eagerly around hers, his face interested and expectant. For a moment, through all of her exasperation with him, she felt a twinge of pleasure, of comfort. He needed her. So much had changed, but this one thing hadn’t.
She thought about water. Not the aquifer; the crypts were cold and the despair in him was cold, too, frustrated and impotent. So she gave him the baths. At evening, the best time, when the light was soft and the bathing rooms quiet. The smells of herbs and wet wood. The water itself, steaming and fragrant, surrounding cold toes, legs, everything, soothing away the chill like an embrace. The gentle motion of the ripples from the pumps that kept the water clean, the soft laps like kisses at the edges of the pool. Movements slow and languid. Gentle resistance on fingers. She had done this so many times. She could do it without trying.
Slowly, she became aware that something was different: a sense of unfamiliarity that swelled into unease, and then ripened into fear. Something new was happening. The water was the same, and the sense of being doubled, herself and not-herself. But there was also...something... She felt like she was slipping away. Being drained. He was reaching into her, she realized; reaching into her and taking.
She yanked her hands back. Curled them protectively against her. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” His voice was thick, his words almost slurred. In the dim light from the lantern he gave her a dazed, delighted grin. “Judah,” he said, and put his hands on her knees. “That was amazing. You’ve been doing that for me? All this time?”
Not like that, she wanted to say.
“It’s wonderful.” For the first time since the coup he seemed quick and lively and full of happiness. “How did I not know? No wonder the world’s felt so bleak lately.” Before she could speak he grabbed her head in his hands and kissed her on the forehead. “Oh, Judah, I love you. You beautiful, devious sorceress, you. I love you more than anything. You’re my life, you know that? You’re my entire life.”
And because his hands were still on her, because he was pressing his forehead to hers, she could feel that it was true. His love for her was as strong as his depression had been, warmer than the water in her imagination, softer and more fragrant. The last time she’d felt so unequivocally, comfortably loved, she had been lying in a sunny field with Darid as he unlaced her boots and peeled down her leggings. But she’d had to judge Darid by his words and aspect; Gavin, she could feel.
“Do it again,” he said. “Gods, let’s never stop.”
“Just—easy, okay?” Feeling like she needed to say something, not sure what words she should use. “Be patient. Just let me do it.”
“I will let you do whatever you want,” he said, and took her hands again.
Oh, Gavin. Her Gavin. He was dying inside, and she was the only one who could help him. She steeled herself, because she knew that he would not be patient; steeled herself, and thought of water.
* * *
After, he held her hand all the way upstairs. It no longer seemed to matter. He felt placid and smooth, all his thorns pulled. If something still flowed through their clasped hands, she was numb to it. She was more exhausted than she had ever been. She could not have pointed to the place where she hurt but she felt scraped raw. If he dropped her hand she knew her arm would fall like a dead thing, and in fact there was a good chance that all of her would fall like a dead thing, so perhaps it was good he kept her hand in his until they reached the parlor door. When he did let go—reluctantly? Was it her imagination? He gave her a wry, almost secretive smile, and kissed her forehead again. She accepted the kiss as she would a passing moth. Then he pushed the door open.
The parlor smelled blandly of whatever was in the porridge Elly had simmering on the stove. Theron was already eating, bent low over a bowl. Whatever state he’d been in down in the catacombs, he was back now; when Judah and Gavin entered he frowned, but kept eating. Judah was too tired to worry much about the frown.
On the settee, Elly focused on her own bowl of sludge as if she could will it into being something more palatable. She looked up, saw Judah and Gavin, and said, “Hello,” with only the vaguest interest.
Gavin held out the bag the magus had brought; Judah herself had almost forgotten it. “Look what we have,” he said, and dropped the bag into Elly’s lap. Then he leaned down and kissed her lightly on the cheek, which made her jaw drop; took a bowl, filled it, and began to eat.
Chapter Fifteen
After that, wherever Judah was, Gavin was never far. At night she went to tend the sheep—Elly was trying to make bread, some process involving a frothy bowl of flour and water that smelled musty and alcoholic—and Gavin came along. Walking to the stable with him, working together to separate the lamb from the ewe and filling the mangers with whatever fodder they had to offer, Judah found herself reminded of a
ll the reasons she loved Gavin. His sense of humor bit and surprised, and it was fun to bat words back and forth with him. What she didn’t like was what inevitably came after the night’s chores, when the bucket of milk was secured in the wagon Theron had built and Gavin reached expectantly for her hands. He made her feel emptied out, like a discarded wine bottle. And she couldn’t say exactly what he took from her, but she knew what she got in return: anger, depression, hurt. When Gavin was in her head, Judah herself seemed trivial and unimportant, nothing worth bothering with. She tried to hold on as long as she could, but there always came a moment when she could feel nothing that wasn’t him and think nothing that wasn’t him and know nothing that wasn’t him. A part of her liked the oblivion, even craved it: the absence of that tangled snarly thing she felt herself to be, neither here nor there, neither this nor that. Her Judah-ness was sand in the water that was Gavin, ashes swirling in his wind. Every time, it was easier to disappear into him. Every time, it was harder to find herself again.
One morning, when she met the magus in the courtyard, she was feeling particularly lethargic, particularly not-herself. As she took the bag from him, she said, “I don’t suppose you brought any coffee, did you?”
He shook his head. “There’s no coffee to bring. Coffee comes from the Southern Kingdom, along with green dye, oranges and about half a dozen herbs I’d love to get my hands on before people start dying this winter. Even the black market hasn’t been able to get coffee through yet.”
“There’s a black market?”
“Of course. You don’t expect the factory managers to live on the same overpriced trash they sell to the rest of the city, do you?” His tone was caustic, needle-sharp. Then he smiled a tense, weary smile. “I’m sorry. Things are difficult in the city right now. Yes, there’s a black market. The courtiers who stayed—all they have to sell are their contacts.”
The Unwilling Page 42
