by A. F. Dery
“Wouldn’t Graunt tell you everything?” she asked, trying to tamp down her own anxiety.
“Graunt would tell me everything she thinks I need to know, but whether that is the same as everything she knows is another matter entirely,” Thane said dryly.
“May I ask...my lord...” Kesara hesitated.
“Thane,” he prompted.
“Thane,” she repeated. “Thane, Thane...has anyone ever mentioned-”
“Yes,” he said, with a tightening of his mouth that she was beginning to recognize as a suppressed smile.
“So you won’t tell me?” Kesara tried to sound disinterested, but she could tell by the trembling of Thane’s mouth that he was not fooled.
“Why do people name their children any number of stupid things? My father had a point to make. I was made to serve. Ironically, he did not feel that sense of obligation for himself, but that is neither here nor there. I do not object to it.” Thane glanced at her from the corner of one eye, startling her. “What does your name mean?”
Kesara shrugged one shoulder. “I have no idea, my lor- er, Thane. It’s just a name, I suppose.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” he said firmly. “Who gave it to you? The woman who found you?”
“I don’t honestly know. I never asked, no one ever told. Is it important?”
“Naming is an important matter to Eladrians, yes. Think of where you would be in life if you had no name!”
“I should have changed it when I fled here. Maybe Master Graegun would not have found me if I’d not been so stupid as to keep the same one,” she mourned.
“Perhaps it wasn’t stupidity, only a want of imagination,” Thane consoled. She noticed he was still trying not to smile.
“Why do you do that?” she asked abruptly.
He turned his head to look at her directly. “Do what?”
Kesara suddenly wished she hadn’t said anything. It was much more intimidating to address him to his face, with him looking at her as if she were the only person of interest in the world. She supposed at the moment, she just might be.
But having started, she had no choice but to press on, even as her stomach sank. “You don’t smile...or you try not to, quite a lot of the time.”
“You can’t figure out why?” Thane’s eyebrow lifted and she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her, so cornered did she feel.
“Your deformity is obvious whether you smile or not, so why not smile?” Kesara said bluntly, then bit her lip, her face heating at the utterly unreadable look now on his face. It could have meant anything. It could have been the last thing his enemies saw before he ripped them apart with his bare hands, for all she knew- it was more of a blank than the blank look she’d seen him actually try to adopt in the past.
“Smiling is far more frightening than the alternative, to most people,” Thane said, in a tone as neutral as his expression.
Kesara swallowed hard. “It doesn’t frighten me, after the initial shock wears off.”
His look turned speculative. “What horrors have you seen, Kes?” he asked softly, echoing Graunt from days before. Was it only days?
She was tempted not to answer, but she could not bring herself to be silent when she herself had broached a subject that she was sure must be delicate with him. She could have kicked herself, but instead she said carefully, “What do you call a horror? I do not think of you as one, whether you smile or not. I do not even think of Graunt as one, even though I have no idea whatsoever just what she is. If you mean to ask me what ugliness I have seen, if that is what you think of as ‘horror,’ then I have seen ugliness you could never hope to rival merely by smiling! Pain makes people ugly in ways that have nothing to do with the shape of a mouth or the size of a skull. Master Graegun was a fine looking man by the standards of his own people, though I suppose you would have to trust me on that. But any of them would have found him repulsive if they had seen what I see. Beauty may be subjective, but ugliness of that kind is universal. It repels by the very nature of its existence, regardless of whether one thinks a fine snout pretty!”
Thane regarded her for a long moment, her pulse racing as she wondered what he was thinking. Finally he said, “You look at the world through strange eyes, Kes. I don’t know what to make of it. But I will continue to do as I see fit.”
“Of course, my lord,” Kesara murmured meekly. She was surprised by her own disappointment in his response.
“Graunt isn’t like us, it’s true,” he continued, returning his gaze to her feet. “I’m not entirely certain what her race is, if this is what puzzles you. But she has always lived in this mountain, longer than I have, longer than my parents, even.”
“She must be very old,” Kesara hazarded, her relief at the turn in subject almost as sharp as her previous disappointment had been.
“Oh, indeed, by our human reckoning, anyhow. She calls herself old as well, but she has been doing that for as long as I can remember...maybe it’s true, maybe it’s affectation, but I can hardly argue the point.”
“And she helps the rulers of this place?”
“No, she helps me. She had little do with my father, or he with her. I do not know if she was here in my grandfather’s time.”
“I think she must care for you a great deal. She seemed...protective of you, when I spoke with her.” Kesara felt him sigh as much as heard it, the bed shifting slightly with his movement.
“She does. And she is the closest person to family I have left in my life. I can’t say how much I appreciate her. I would have been dead long ago without her help.”
Kesara frowned at that. Did Graunt know more about whatever condition or conditions Thane had than she had let on when they’d talked? “Dead? You?”
Thane hesitated and said, “I was attacked, when I was yet a child. I doubt I would have lived if Graunt had not taken care of me. No one else would have.”
“No one? Not even the servants? Is that not what they are paid for?” She felt her face heat again, but for different reasons.
“They deferred to the rulers of their time. My father did not wish to be troubled with the matter. If I were lost to him, he would have an excuse to make another heir.” He spoke slowly now; she could tell he chose his words with care and did not miss his omission.
Kesara bit her lip, unsure of whether to ask, but having already thrown herself once into an awkward subject, she could not seem to stop the words from coming. “And your mother?”
The corners of his mouth twitched, and nothing could have prepared her for what he said next.
“Why, it was she who attacked me.”
Kesara wasn’t sure what to say to that. She tentatively put her hand over his, where it rested on his thigh. He glanced at her in surprise but she didn’t move, and neither did he.
After a moment, he said, “Aren’t you going to say how sorry you are? How dreadful the woman must have been, and so on?” One corner of his mouth curved ever so slightly.
“How can I? My own parents tried to kill me and left me for dead in a snowbank, remember? I don’t think now’s the time to get judgmental,” she said with a smile. She was treated to the unforgettable sight of Thane smirking, which somehow managed, with his disfigurement, to be sufficiently exaggerated so as to make him look every bit the diabolical villain from a play.
“You have a good point there,” he said. He gave a humorless chuckle, again looking away from her. “To be fair to her memory, she wasn’t trying to kill me. She was trying to fix me.”
“Fix?” Kesara echoed, uncertain if she really wanted him to go on. He shrugged one great shoulder.
“She fancied herself a good surgeon, I suppose,” Thane said. He turned to her and tapped the long, jagged scar that tore down the side of his mouth with two fingers.
“Oh gods,” Kesara said bluntly.
“Don’t bring them into it now, I doubt they’d appreciate it,” Thane said, flashing a brief, toothy smile before he managed to compress his lips toget
her again.
“So she wasn’t, er, quite right in the head, was she?”
To her surprise, Thane laughed. “Oh dear me, what makes you suggest such a thing? You must be spending too much time around me, if that’s the most delicate choice of words you could come up with!”
Kesara blushed vividly and fixed her gaze resolutely on her feet, since they seemed fascinating enough to the Lord Eladria. “You’re right, that was thoughtlessly spoken. Forgive me, my lord.”
“Your lord will not forgive you, but Thane? Ah, he’s heard worse.” When she said nothing to this, she felt him move his hand out from under hers and squeeze her fingers, very gingerly. “And yes, she was not right in the head. At all. She wasn’t always that way, though. Breeding is what did it to her. I wasn’t her first attempt at producing my father with a suitable heir- there were others, but they never lived to term. After the first loss or two, she started going...strange, to hear Graunt tell it. My father was a foolish man who didn’t care all that much for her in the first place. He thought another baby, a living baby, would be her cure. So they kept trying, and the babies kept dying, and she kept going madder and madder.”
“But you lived,” Kesara pointed out unnecessarily, breaking her own resolution and looking at him again.
“Yes, and I fixed nothing. She thought, with my singular appearance, that I must be a changeling, swapped for her real, and doubtlessly handsome, child. Eventually she came around to realizing that there was no unfortunate switch, I really was hers- and that was when she thought to fix me, to spit in the gods’ collective eye, so to speak, since they HAD to be punishing her through me, for wanting a child so badly when she was clearly ill suited to breeding them.” Again he squeezed her fingers, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he fixed her with a steady look. “She was kept...confined...after that. And I did survive it, as you see. So relax.”
Kesara frowned, not understanding at first, but then she realized she had indeed gone rigid, barely breathing while she watched him. She forced herself to take a deep breath and shook her head a little.
“So what happened to her? Is she still..?”
“Oh no, no. She died before my father did. Suicide, but you didn’t hear that from me,” Thane said. He didn’t sound particularly upset, but she had to wonder. She supposed, given his mother’s mental state, they could not have been close.
“How old were you, if I may ask?” she said uncertainly. Again the corner of his mouth quirked.
“I was 10 when her promising career as a surgeon fizzled, 13 when she died,” Thane released her hand. “But don’t feel badly for me on account of it. I had no opportunity to really miss her, given the circumstances.”
“Oh no, I wasn’t,” she assured him. She wasn’t sure why, but it upset her that he had taken his hand away. She felt an unaccountable chill that she tried to ignore. “I was just wondering how attached you were. Other people’s relationships with their parents interest me, as you can probably imagine, never having known my own.”
Thane chuckled at this. “Even the completely messed up ones?”
“Something I’ve learned, Thane...and you didn’t hear this from me...” She tried not to smile, and failed. “They’re all messed up. I’m not sure that a ‘normal’ parent-child relationship actually exists outside of fantasy.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” he slanted her a sideways look. “There’s no use pining after impossible ideals, is there?”
Kesara blinked, suddenly feeling like she was missing something, but he continued without waiting for her to reply, “And speaking of ideals, I am continuing the judgment days tomorrow. Too many people have come to turn them away for another month, I wouldn’t put them through the trip up this mountain twice if it can be helped.”
“Your people will be pleased, I’m sure,” she said.
“I don’t suppose you’re still interested in watching...? I mean, what are the odds that the same thing would happen twice?” Thane laughed a little, but without conviction. She frowned at him.
“Aren’t I, um, supposed to stay in bed?” She gestured to her feet. “Ouch,” she added, for emphasis.
Thane’s mouth twitched and he said, “You say that exactly like a child parroting her tutor’s words without comprehension. ‘Ouch,’ indeed. If you could make it to that doorway without passing out, I think you’ll probably be fine.”
“Oh, it takes more than a couple of missing toes to slow me down,” Kesara said, “but still...”
“Kes, I would so like for you to see it,” Thane said earnestly. “It is Eladrian justice at its finest, when not hindered by untimely abductions. And believe you me, there’s no chance of that happening again. I am ashamed this happened to you under my roof and within my walls, I never would have guessed it...but it is a mistake that will never be repeated, I assure you.”
“It’s not your fault, my lord. Or even your men’s, I daresay. You knew nothing of Master Graegun and even I had no idea that he was interested in hand missiles like that...” She frowned, remembering the fog that had allowed his escape before she had passed out. It was like something she would read in a book; she’d never suspected such things were real.
Thane stood abruptly, almost knocking her over with the lurch this gave to the bed. “I doubt he was until someone interested him. But I’m getting to the bottom of it, Kes. You need not fear for that.” His hands were clenched tightly at his sides, his knuckles white, his shoulders stiff. He turned to the door. “Though I can hardly blame you for not trusting my protection when that protection has already failed you once.”
“You did not fail me, Thane,” Kesara said quietly. “And I will come, if you will allow my release.”
He turned back to her at that, clearly puzzled. “Release?”
“’The Ytaren female is to stay in bed,’ remember?”
“I never did call you that,” he protested, and she suppressed a relieved sigh as she saw his shoulders relax, his hands unclench.
“You might take it up with Fred,” Kesara suggested innocently.
“Fred? Who the hell is Fred?”
“The soldier from the hallway.”
Thane frowned. “His name isn’t Fred.”
“Oh.” Kesara gave a little shrug. Thane watched her expectantly for a moment, and when nothing else was forthcoming, he sighed.
“I am going to bring Graunt to have another look at you, now that you’ve woken up. I do not send servants to her if I can help it.”
I wonder why. Maybe she eats them, Kesara thought uncharitably. But she said, “No, really, my lord, it’s hardly needful. Why, I can practically feel my toes regrowing!” She wiggled the remaining ones in their bandages as if offering proof.
“You shouldn’t be this glib about it, you know,” Thane said tightly. She saw him fighting back another smile as he opened the door.
Thane’s mind raced as he strode down the corridors and descended the stairwell. He had installed Kesara in one of the rooms in his tower, hastily converted from use as a storage room. In the worst of her recovery, she could not seem to bear to be very far from him, and if he were honest, he had to admit to himself that even now, it was hard for him to go very far from her, either.
And it had nothing to do with the way all the ailments he had possessed for years- some since childhood- seemed to disappear without a trace in her proximity. It had not been like that, before he’d brought her back; it raised nagging questions in his mind that he couldn’t quite bear to face. Not yet. For now, he would satisfy himself with making sure she recovered, and with avenging what had happened to her. He told himself he would have done the same for anyone who had been snatched out from under his roof like that and treated so abominably, and certainly, he would have. But would he have felt this terrible anxiety, this inexplicable restlessness when parted from the subject of his rescue?
More questions he preferred not to contemplate. His mind kept returning against his will to what she had said. What do you call a horror?
I do not think of you as one.... It had been hard to even focus on what else she had to say, his heart had beat so loudly in his chest. He had thought for a terrible moment that perhaps its noise would drown out her words and leave him unable to reply coherently, but thankfully, she had not seemed to take notice. How pathetic she would no doubt think him if she knew, how pathetic he found himself when he thought of how he’d had to force himself to finally release her hand!
He could have gone on berating himself, but he forced those thoughts to the back of his mind as he made his way into Graunt’s cave. She was waiting for him by the entrance, holding her bag of ‘remedies.’
He suppressed a shudder at the memory of some of those ‘remedies.’
“Greetings, old mother,” he said with a respectful bow. “You anticipated I would come for you now, I see.”
“I’m a little surprised it took you this long, though I suppose I shouldn’t be.” Graunt eyed him slyly. “It is plain to see you are growing attached to her, my boy. Did you not hear me when I told you Mirrors are not for marrying? Though of course, not all lords bother with marriage. The gods know your father would not have, if your grandfather had not lived so long.”
Thane’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I do not take mistresses, as you well know,” he said flatly. “I don’t intend to start now. And I certainly don’t recall mentioning marriage.”
“Now simmer down, boy. You’re the marrying kind of man, I know it, the bloody servants know it. It doesn’t take some great sage to figure out your interest in her. Sooner or later, you’ll get to the idea, and she’ll be forced to say no, and what good will it do you?” Graunt’s small dark eyes were surprisingly kind and Thane looked away, inexplicably embarrassed.
“Why would she have to?” he asked quietly, hating himself for succumbing to his curiosity on the point. It was, after all, irrelevant.
“She is a Mirror,” Graunt said simply. “The bond is all that matters to them. They do not marry because they can’t, of their very natures, honor any commitment that takes precedence over it.”
