Errant, p.11
Errant, page 11
Aspen was agile, but she could never make her body do that. She couldn’t suddenly command the room—not unless she unsheathed her sword. Charm could do it with her eyelashes.
Wisdom remained cool and unimpressed, which put her in the elite ranks as far as Aspen was concerned. Most people melted.
“We have constables who can intervene,” she said. “Magistrate Napier is a very busy woman. She’s fully booked for the day.”
“I’m sure she’ll see us.” Charm’s smile lit her face. The warm gold fabric of her bodice made her skin look even more glowingly brown. She was beautiful as always, but in this moment, it wasn’t a beauty for seducing or conquering. There was a sweetness and a softness to her attitude that resembled nothing in Aspen’s experience of Charm, but still rang true. The road dust in the folds of her skirt became part of her plea. Look how far I came to see you. You wouldn’t turn me away now, would you? “The Magistrate knows us, remember? We helped with those bandits last week. My friend here—” she gestured at Aspen— “risked her life to save the innocents of your district.”
“I remember,” Wisdom said. “The schedule is the schedule.”
For a woman seated at a desk with five people looming over her, she was implacable. And she had a point about the system. Aspen had been so focused on solving the problem, she hadn’t realized she’d be complicating someone else’s life. Judging from all the papers, Wisdom’s job wasn’t easy.
Charm, who had probably never waited in line in her life, pouted.
“The whole thing’s a waste of time anyway,” Rectitude said. “That woman is my wife and that farm is my farm.”
“She is not,” Rex shot back, furious. “She doesn’t belong to you.”
“Imposter.” Rectitude curled his lip. “When they sort through all these papers in here and match them up with mine, they’re gonna run you out of town, you thief. This two-timing harlot can cry all she wants, it won’t change a thing.”
“Stop it,” Audacity hissed.
“I will not let this intruder speak to you like that,” Rex said.
“You won’t do shit,” Rectitude said and charged right into Rex.
He had to dodge around Aspen to do it. She banded an arm around his waist to pull him off before his headbutt made contact. It was too late to stop a sheaf of paper from toppling off Wisdom’s desk. Sheets fluttered everywhere.
“Enough!” Wisdom shouted.
Rex, at least, had the grace to look abashed.
“I’m calling the constables. You will not fight in the magistrate’s office like this. You can spend the next couple of days awaiting your trial in separate cells.” Wisdom rang a bell on her desk and Aspen heard boots coming up the stairs.
“No,” Audacity said. “No, please.”
“Daci, I’m sorry,” Rex said. “We’ll figure this out, I swear.”
Aspen was beginning to have her doubts.
Ilgate’s less seedy tavern was called The Red Fox. Charm had been there before for a drink after a show, but even if she hadn’t, she would have known the place. A few windows in the facade lit a cozy interior in dark wood. The middle-aged person behind the sturdy bar was too busy pouring beer to eavesdrop, or at least they worked hard to give that impression. The tabletops were worn smooth from thousands of hands and dishes. The floor was a little sticky.
Charm and Aspen settled Audacity at a table and got her a cup of tea and some empty reassurances. Even Charm’s best comforting wasn’t up to the task. As soon as Audacity excused herself to the privy, Charm nudged her knee against Aspen’s.
“You’re worried, I can tell.”
“Of course I’m worried. I don’t want to condemn her to an unhappy marriage or turn her family out on the street, but our options are all bad. Magistrate Napier is scrupulously fair, but she’s bound by the law. If Rectitude is telling the truth about having matching documents to what’s on file in Wisdom’s office, it won’t go well for Audacity.”
“You know anything about forgery?” Charm asked.
Aspen frowned.
“That was what my people call ‘a joke,’” Charm said. “I know you don’t know anything about forgery. I’m a little surprised you don’t have faith in the system, though. It was your idea to come here.”
Aspen pushed her fingers into her short, dark hair. Charm caught a flash of pale scar on her scalp before she dropped her hands back to the smooth surface of the table. “I don’t want to be an executioner. I don’t want to take the law into my own hands. But this doesn’t feel right either.”
“Taking the law into your own hands only felt right when your trusted Hanging Scale leader was giving the orders,” Charm said, remembering Aspen’s confession.
“Integrity, yes. He knew right from wrong,” Aspen said. “He was murdered.”
Charm threw up her hands. “You have got to stop burying the important stuff when you tell a story!”
“At the time, I thought we knew who’d done it. Now I’m not so sure.” Aspen stared into her untouched beer. Her shadowed expression should not have set any parts of Charm tingling, because tingling was a highly inappropriate response to someone telling you their mentor had been murdered, but Charm couldn’t help it. Brooding looked good on Aspen. “I don’t know what’s right anymore. But I know it’s not trapping a woman with a man who hurts her.”
“She didn’t say that, exactly.” Audacity had said mistreated. There was the contraceptive tea to consider, though.
“Lots of people don’t,” Aspen said. “But I’ve… seen it a lot.”
Aspen taking off down the road as soon as she heard a scream. Aspen going rigid in the kitchen when she saw Audacity rubbing her wrist. Those moments started to coalesce. When Charm saw a little farmhouse where a family lived, she thought of how foreign and unlike her own life it was. When Aspen saw the same thing, she feared one of the people in that sweet little house was hurting the other one.
“Well,” Charm said brightly. “She says she doesn’t want to be married to Rectitude, and that’s good enough for me. Let’s make it happen. I have an idea.”
“A sentence that fills me with dread.”
“Hush. It’s brilliant. My last idea saved your ass, remember?”
Audacity returned to the table then. She’d been crying, but she’d patted her face dry. She pulled out her chair, picked up her tea cup, realized her tea was cold, and put it back down.
Charm waved a hand at the innkeeper to get her another. “Audacity, we are going to set things right. Rectitude might have the paperwork, but Rex has been living with you for months. Your daughters love him. The neighbors must love him. Do you have any family around? We can collect some character witnesses.”
“No family,” Audacity said. “My daughters do love him. Do you think that’s enough? We do have neighbors at the adjacent farms, but we don’t see those people much. They didn’t help me when I was alone, and afterward I was always afraid they’d ask questions. We kept to ourselves.”
Aspen peered at Charm like she was trying to see into her thoughts.
“The girls saying they love Rex will absolutely help. I’ll coach them so it plays well,” Charm said. “No neighbors is no problem. It would have been hard to square with the property deeds anyway. Passing travelers it is then!”
“What passing travelers?” Audacity asked. “We haven’t had any passing travelers.”
“And that, my friend, is where you’re wrong,” Charm said. “I’m about to find you the most convincing set of passing travelers you’ve ever seen, and they will have nothing but praise for Rex.”
“I don’t know about this,” Audacity said. “What if it doesn’t work?”
“It’ll work,” Charm said, radiating confidence.
Audacity didn’t know how practiced Charm was at deception. Aspen did, and her expression was one of mute horror, which Charm found insulting. Aspen should know better. Everything was going to be fine.
4
The theater troupe had no performance scheduled that evening, so it didn’t matter that Aspen and Charm rode back late after escorting Audacity home to her girls. The troupe had camped just off the road north of Ilgate in a clearing surrounded by tall cedars, the branches giving way to the bright ribbon of stars above. A few of the actors and crew were, as usual, carousing around a large fire they’d made in the middle of the circled wagons, its flames casting flickering shadows on their faces.
Aspen took the tack off both horses, brushed them, fed them, and left them to rest for the night with the other horses, penned into a temporary enclosure the troupe had built. She was too tired to discuss all her doubts about Charm’s plan to help Audacity. There would be time for that in the morning. So as she had every other night, she unrolled her bedroll outside the wagon where Charm slept and began to do her stretches on the flat, hard-packed dirt, well away from the fire. Aspen was accustomed to moving in darkness. Besides, she could have a little more privacy here.
“You wouldn’t have to do all those stretches if you slept somewhere better for your back. Not that I’m complaining.” Charm leaned against the wagon and made no effort to hide her ogling. She called to Flickering, who was ambling in their direction. “Neither is Flick. Isn’t that right, Flick?”
So much for privacy, thought Aspen, but she didn’t truly mind.
Flickering, whose shoulder scales were green in the firelight, laughed and said, “No complaints here.”
Flickering had flirted with Aspen that first night at the Full Flagon, so it wasn’t like her interest was a secret. She joined Charm at the wagon. Her yellow eyes glowed.
In their days together, Flickering’s scales had been green—indicating “she”—about half the time and blue—indicating “he”—the rest. The shifts in color followed no discernible pattern, only her state of mind. Aspen hadn’t met many People of the Sun with this particular ability.
Flickering wasn’t the only Sun part of the troupe. The wandering band of actors attracted all kinds. There were People of the Sun, like Flickering and Essiyo Vozheh, known to most as Essi. There were People of the Wood, of the Sea, and even one of the Rain. As they were a Falland-based troupe, most of the actors were Earth, but there was enough diversity that Aspen didn’t stand out.
Aspen touched the top of her head where her hair hid two faint scars. She covered for the action by wiping her sleeve across her face. “I don’t stretch because of current back pain, which I’ve explained several times already.”
“Flick agrees with me,” Charm said.
“It pains me deeply that you’d choose this strumpet over my earnest affections,” Flickering said, putting the back of her hand to her forehead as she leaned against the brightly painted wagon. “But what I want most in the world is for you to be happy, Aspen, so I do agree that you could sleep in one of the wagons tonight instead of on the ground.”
Normally, Aspen would move into her bodyweight exercises, push-ups and sit-ups, some lunges and even squats, but she wasn’t up to performing for an audience. She wasn’t an actor. She was just a swordswoman surrounded by people she didn’t understand.
“You’re all very dramatic,” Aspen said. She wasn’t sure she’d seen a proportionate, normal response from a single member of the troupe. Just last night, someone had spilled a bit of beer, and two different actors gasped and clutched their chests as if they’d been stabbed.
Aspen, who had been stabbed more times than she’d care to count, didn’t have the heart to tell them that wasn’t the appropriate reaction to being stabbed.
“Aspen. Darling.” Charm spoke slowly, as if Aspen was particularly dim. “We’re actors.”
“I had noticed, yes.”
“The offer for you to sleep in a wagon is sincere, though,” Flickering said.
“My wagon, specifically,” Charm said.
Flickering said, “It’s the troupe’s, you diva. Two other people regularly sleep there, including me.”
“Not when you’re off on one of your adventures.” Charm’s tone—and the way Flickering had approached Aspen in the tavern that first night—left no doubt what kind of adventures. The two of them elbowed each other playfully.
Aspen was not interested in adventures. Or she was trying not to be interested. Adventures were not her style.
Her resolve had held strong over the past few days. Well, nights, really. That was when the temptation was greatest. Despite the offers she received, she didn’t bunk with anyone. She had a perfectly serviceable bedroll. If the need arose, she knew how to build a shelter that would keep the rain off her face.
“I don’t know why you insist on punishing yourself like this.” Charm made a gesture with both hands that encompassed Aspen, the bedroll, and the ground. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Silver rings on Charm’s fingers caught the firelight. Were they gifts from wealthy audience members? Bonuses slipped from the hands of unsuspecting marks? Did those people, when they realized, think a kiss was worth whatever Charm had taken in return?
Did Aspen?
“Alas, I am not having an adventure tonight,” Flickering said. “Nor am I sleeping on the ground. I’ll go bother Amity in his wagon. Goodnight.”
In Flickering’s absence, Aspen found the courage to ask about something that had been on her mind. “You and Flickering—”
“She’s my sister,” Charm said. “Well, some days, my brother. You know.”
“But Flickering is Sun and you’re…” Aspen wasn’t sure. Charm didn’t have any obvious animal attributes, but she could still be Earth or Rain. And looks weren’t a trustworthy indication. There were People of the Wood with no hooves or tails or antlers—and People of the Wood who’d gone to see a Moon witch to get those things changed. Charm could be anything, though Aspen was pretty sure she didn’t have fire magic in her heritage. “...not Sun?”
“No, silly. I mean Flick’s my sister because we grew up together.”
“In Harstead?”
“In the troupe.”
Charm had hinted at being an orphan before. Growing up in the troupe confirmed it. Aspen didn’t want to ask about what was likely a painful subject. She said, “So you and Flickering aren’t…”
“Fucking?” Charm was enjoying this conversation far too much. “In case you haven’t noticed, my sweet little muscular knife-hedgehog, I am not Flick’s type. You are her type.”
Aspen knew two-and-a-half languages, but zero words.
“Flick and I are not fucking,” Charm said firmly. Then she grinned. “But you’re my type, too. And I don’t like to share.”
Aspen deliberately misinterpreted that statement. “You and Flickering share the mirror-shard necklaces, though.”
Charm touched the silver pendant. “It’s good to have someone who can always find you.”
“It is.” Aspen hadn’t had anybody like that in a long time. “Sometimes I have trouble figuring out whether people in the troupe are in relationships. You’re all so affectionate.”
“We are,” Charm agreed. “As for the relationships, it’s not that hard. Flick and I are siblings. She mostly looks outside the troupe for sex. Amity and Pulchritude are in a committed relationship, but they both also sometimes sleep with Tamarind, together and separately, and Tamarind is also fucking Essi and Sorrel, usually together since Essi and Sorrel are basically married, and Tam’s in love with Liberty, who doesn’t sleep with anyone but who’s probably in love with Tam and not ready to admit it. Pine and Sorrel cuddle a lot, but don’t fuck each other as far as I know, since I’m pretty sure Pine and Honesty are, well, pining exclusively for each other. There have been a couple of late nights after we closed a show where everyone sort of ended up in a pile, so that complicates things slightly.”
“Yes, slightly,” Aspen said.
“I’ll make you a diagram,” Charm said. “Are you coming to bed?”
“Charm,” Aspen said as gently as possible. She had to put a stop to this. Even so, she was curiously reluctant. She didn’t want Charm to quit propositioning her. “I don’t do that. Not with people I’ve just met.”
“We’ve known each other for almost two weeks!”
“That’s not long enough for me,” Aspen said. “I need… trust. Love, even. Some kind of commitment.”
Charm’s beautiful lips formed a perfect O. Then she scoffed. “That sounds like a life of never getting laid or always getting your heart broken.”
Aspen was relieved when Charm bid her goodnight and climbed into the wagon in a sweep of skirts. It saved her from having to admit that Charm was right.
In the morning, Aspen kept to her usual routine, and then she took Mouse out beyond the troupe’s encampment. There was no one riding beside her, no troublemakers she was escorting. She finally had a moment to herself, and the quiet was like a balm on sunburned skin.
She left Mouse to graze as she explored the thatch of woods for something to eat. She was careful, as she gathered, not to take more than the area could handle. It was a lesson from childhood. Sustaining the forest, taking and giving in equal measure, these were Wood virtues. She’d never met an Earth person named Sustainability.
It spoke to their priorities, or lack thereof. She should have kept that initial mistrust. If she had…
Well. Her life would be different. All she could do now was learn from that mistake.
No doubt Charm never brooded on her past. She saw something she wanted, a shiny bracelet, a full coinpurse, an attractive person, and she pursued it doggedly. She was free with her affection and her body. She lived like she had no regrets.
There were people in love with her in Harstead and every surrounding town. She must have slept with lots of them. She certainly didn’t understand why Aspen hadn’t said yes yet.
That confusion could turn to bitterness and anger. Aspen needed to leave before she overstayed her welcome. Once the situation with Audacity and her husband was resolved, Aspen wouldn’t be persuaded to stay for another performance. She wouldn’t allow Charm to accompany her on any more investigations.
