Errant, p.16
Errant, page 16
Charm had forgotten about the mercenary Aspen had fought. He’d escaped. She wasn’t the only one who looked to Aspen for answers.
“He won’t tell the magistrate,” Aspen said. She dragged a hand down her face and seemed to age ten years with the simple gesture. “I have an idea of where he’s gone. I’ll track him after we set your farm to rights. None of this will fall on you.”
It was a sign of how shaken Charm was that she didn’t protest Aspen’s plan to leave. She didn’t start thinking of how to accompany her either. After all this excitement, Charm was ready to be back with the troupe, with the comforting routines of rehearsal and performances. There, the only violence was scripted, and the only blood was fake.
“I’m sorry,” Audacity said. Some tea splashed into the grass. Her hand must be trembling. “You tried to help me and—”
“I—we—” Aspen paused. “I knew there would be consequences to intervening. I didn’t expect this, but it was a possibility.”
Charm nodded. “It wasn’t your fault.”
If Aspen was on her own, she might have ridden through the darkness a short way and camped somewhere by herself. There was enough moonlight to see the wide, flat road, at least for a brief ride. Camping by herself sounded so peaceful compared to spending the rest of this miserable night with someone who didn’t want her company.
Day after day of Charm in her space, closer than Aspen was comfortable with, and now that Aspen was getting used to it, Charm had pulled away. She had a good reason. Aspen still missed her.
Aspen hadn’t wanted anyone to touch her after she’d killed Frugality. The event itself was a rush in her memory. His tight grip around her wrist, the frightening intent in his eyes. Her fingers closing around a knife hilt. Blood. So much blood.
She’d done her best to clean up afterward. He’d always insisted on a clean house. He was worried about their image. Whenever they expected guests, she’d had to wipe down the tables, sweep the floors, and powder her face to hide any bruises.
Habit and the strange calm of a crisis had carried her through dealing with the body as best she could. She knew now that she’d done a sloppy job, but she hadn’t had those skills in her youth.
And then she’d been alone in the house and she’d fallen apart. Staying had felt impossible. She’d simply walked out of the house—it had been the second day of Rain Moon, a wet, bone-chilling cold, and she’d gone out with no cloak. That was how Integrity had found her.
If Charm was in the same place, the best thing Aspen could do was keep her distance. She couldn’t be Charm’s Integrity. It was her fault Charm was in this mess. She needed to return Charm to the troupe, where being surrounded by friends would help her process and then heal.
It would have to wait for tomorrow. Aspen wouldn’t compound today’s mistakes by making Charm leave the warmth of the house. They’d accept the Grangers’ hospitality and then be on their way in the morning.
There was only one glaring problem.
“It isn’t much, but it’s yours for the night,” Audacity said.
A large bed took up most of the room. A trundle pulled out from under it, and Constance was already under the covers on the smaller bed. Why did Aspen never protest when Charm told people they were married? Well, she knew why. She needed to be stronger. Because this—this—
“Thank you,” Aspen said after a long silence. Normally, it was Charm who filled those silences, who set everyone at ease with her manners and her voice. But she was still quiet, no doubt wrestling with what had happened. “Charm, I’ll bring your things in.”
Aspen escaped outside to buy herself some time to think. There was no way she was sharing that bed with Charm tonight. Hadn’t she just thought that Charm needed space from her? She wasn’t about to strip out of most of her clothes and sleep next to her.
She gathered Charm’s saddlebags and left her own.
“You aren’t sleeping?” Percy asked when Aspen returned to the shared bedroom.
Bluebell, who was now seated on the trundle and braiding Constance’s hair, looked up. Constance pulled the blanket up to her chin, hiding.
“I’m going to keep watch,” Aspen said.
Charm didn’t protest. She didn’t encourage Aspen either, but Aspen withdrew from the room and went back outside. She settled the horses and draped a blanket over each of them.
“It’s been a long day,” she told Mouse. Tomorrow would be even longer, especially if she stayed up most of the night.
She arranged her bedroll and then her weapons. She could hear faint voices from inside the house, and there was still the flickering light from a few candles as the occupants prepared to sleep.
Aspen stretched out on her bedroll. She’d always loved the night sky. While the open fields around Harstead were disconcerting during the day, the stars were glorious. Back in the Silverglade, she used to climb trees to peek at them. Sometimes, she would even lash herself to a thick branch and stare until she fell asleep.
It was Ayzeh who could name them. The Sun religion was tied to the sky, and the two of them spent countless nights passing the time by talking about constellations. She remembered the first time he directed her attention to a cluster of stars and how they made a shape. And then he shared the story that went with it.
On her own, the stars looked like flour spilled across the table. She missed the warmth of Ayzeh’s body next to hers and the deep timbre of his voice as he told her about the days when dragons were as common to see in the sky as hawks.
She would visit him soon. After she tracked down Kindness and made sure the mercenary wouldn’t cause any more trouble for the Grangers.
A noise alerted her that she wasn’t alone. It came from behind her, and she recognized the opening and then closing of a door so she didn’t react other than to make some space on her bedroll.
She was surprised it was Bluebell who joined her. The moonlight provided just enough visibility for Aspen to see the heavy cloak Bluebell wore. The girl also had two blankets in her arms, and she offered one to Aspen. She wrapped herself in the second one and made herself comfortable next to Aspen’s makeshift camp.
“Shouldn’t you be with your family?” Aspen asked.
“My family will be here in the morning,” Bluebell answered. “And the morning after and the one after and—you get the picture.”
“I do.”
“Besides, Mother and Father are in their room for the night. Percy and Connie are too. Charm is telling them a story.”
Aspen was glad for the dark so her relief wasn’t quite so obvious. If Charm was well enough to tell stories, there was hope. Aspen brushed aside the hurt that it was her presence that had bothered Charm earlier. She’d had her suspicions—she’d removed herself, after all.
“I’m not ready to sleep,” Bluebell admitted. “But if you’d rather not have company, I can go back inside.”
“I don’t mind company,” Aspen said. Bluebell laughed quietly, and Aspen couldn’t help but laugh along. It was a bit silly to exile herself and then invite someone to sit with her. “If you’re worried, you don’t need to be. I don’t expect trouble.”
“That isn’t why I can’t sleep.” Bluebell sat beside Aspen, and she pulled her knees up to her chest. She wrapped her arms tightly around them, hugging herself. “Mother never talked about him. Not directly, at least. When I first came here, Percy and Connie were already settled in. Percy told me not to ask about a husband so I didn’t. With the four of us, we managed the farm. And then one day Rex arrived.”
It was true testimony, not the show they’d put on at the courthouse. Bluebell rested her chin on her knees as she continued to speak. “I knew he wasn’t Mother’s husband. We all did, even Connie. She was wary of him at first, and so we were too. But then they fell in love. He became our father. We have a good family. Percy and Connie, the plague took their first parents. I left mine. There were eight of us kids. Too many. There’s space for me here.”
“Eight?” Aspen asked before she could help it. People of the Wood weren’t known for their large families. One child was common, three tended to be the upper limit. Their families were large because each unit was part of a whole. Aspen didn’t have any siblings, but she had two dozen cousins, in the Wood way, not the Earth way. In Falland and Rispland, family was determined by blood, not choice.
Well, she amended, thinking of Audacity Granger and her second husband and three children. Sometimes it was by choice.
Bluebell laughed. “It turns out contraceptive tea didn’t work for her. My family wasn’t bad. Not like Rectitude. And they’re still alive. I visit them sometimes. But I wanted something different. You left too.” Bluebell shifted uncomfortably. “You look at my tail sometimes. Not like most Earth people, who laugh behind their hands or say rude things about what my dad must have been. You look at me like you’re sad.”
“I did leave,” Aspen admitted. No more candlelight spilled from the house behind her, and when she paused, she couldn’t hear a single sound. “I met a man.”
“Ugh,” Bluebell said and then, with embarrassment coloring her tone, “I’m sorry. That was rude. But those stories don’t usually end well.”
“No, they don’t. Audacity and Rex, they’re a happy story.”
“Yours wasn’t.”
“You’ve very astute,” Aspen said. “I like to think I’m working toward happiness.”
“Have you gone back home?”
Aspen shook her head and then realized Bluebell probably couldn't see the motion. “I’m afraid to.”
“You? Afraid? I saw you with your sword. You’re so strong.”
“That isn’t what I’m afraid of. You grew up Wood. You know the saying, right? No matter how far we go, our feet always know the path home?”
“Oh,” Bluebell said softly. “You’re afraid you won’t know it.”
“And if I never try, I’ll never have to know.” And wasn’t that a depressing summation of her life. It was her approach to Charm as well. There was something between them, a possibility that could have any number of pleasant endings. But there was enough doubt, enough potential for an unpleasant ending that Aspen preferred inaction.
Isn’t that what she learned with Frugality? The dream of a husband and shared life was far better than the reality of it. She would keep her dreams in her head where she could sigh at them and enjoy them and never be disappointed.
Bluebell shifted until she was stretched out on her side. “I miss my hammock. Did you ever sleep in one?”
“Yes. I still do sometimes. Not as often, because there aren’t usually enough trees for it, but I have what I need to rig one up.”
Bluebell curled toward Aspen but never close enough to touch. “Wake me up when it’s my turn to keep watch.”
“You know I won’t,” Aspen said.
“I know. But saying it makes me feel less guilty.”
Aspen laughed softly and resumed her contemplation of the sky. “In that case, I’ll wake you up when it’s your turn.”
8
Charm hummed to herself as she made tea in Audacity’s kitchen. Aspen walked into the house—she’d stayed up all night outside—and leaned against the kitchen doorway, one long, lithe stretch of muscle from head to toe. A lock of short dark hair fell forward, just brushing the scarred bridge of her nose, and she dismissed it behind her ear with a casual sweep of her fingers.
It was enough to make a girl forget how to boil water.
Aspen raised her eyebrows at Charm, who’d been doing her best to bustle before Aspen had so rudely been attractive and interrupted her train of thought. “You were humming.”
Right. It had been the Willow song. Charm only said, as airily as possible, “I have decided to be fine.”
“Let me know how that works out for you,” Aspen said. “By the way, that’s not breakfast tea you’re holding, it’s medicine. Check the other jars.”
“How do you know so much about Audacity’s kitchen already?”
“It’s contraceptive tea,” Aspen said. “I recognize the smell. Used to take it.”
Charm liked to take things in stride, and she had supreme control over her face, but sometimes surprise got the better of her. “You what?”
“I thought I told you, I was married once.”
“You are impossible,” Charm said. “You told a cryptic, elliptical little anecdote about a house in Harstead. That’s it! How was I supposed to divine that you know the smell of contraceptive tea? You were married to a man, I suppose?”
“Yes, a man,” Aspen said. “And there was another one after him. Haven’t you had contraceptive tea before?”
“Never needed it,” Charm said. She filed away Aspen’s uncharacteristic confession that there had been two men for later interrogation. “My interest in men extends to their coin purses. The literal kind. I only go to bed with women. Of course, a couple of times I did have lovers who could have gotten me pregnant, but I just asked them to use their—”
Aspen held up her hands in surrender. “It’s too early for this, Charm.”
“As if there is any time of day that you would ever let me tell you what I like in bed.”
“As if there is any time of day that you would ever stop telling me what you like in bed.”
“Are you memorizing it all, my lovely keeper of the night watch? Did it keep you awake for the long cold night you spent outside?” Charm asked.
“Actually,” Aspen said, “Bluebell came to visit me. We talked.”
“Oh?” Aspen was clearly in a revealing, conciliatory mood. She’d told Charm three whole things. Prying would ruin it, so Charm busied herself finding the usual breakfast tea. The Grangers’ kitchen was small, but organized, everything in its place, neat and bright in the morning sun. The right tea sat by the stove, on a shelf stacked with jars of herbs, labeled in clear, swooping handwriting. Charm pulled the tea down and put her full repertoire of culinary skill to use by making it, and Aspen came closer to take the proffered tea cup. They sat at the table.
“Bluebell wanted to talk to someone else from the Wood. I suppose I did, too. She went back to bed just after dawn. Come to think of it, you’re up early.”
Well, yes, I accidentally killed a man yesterday and couldn’t sleep. No. She had decided to be fine. Charm committed to her roles. She pressed her lips to the rim of the tea cup, then lowered it. “There was nobody to entertain me in my bed.”
“You were there, weren’t you?”
“Aspen Silverglade, did you just make a dirty joke? I’m so proud.” Charm touched her sternum, then dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “And in answer to your question, I do my best work with an audience.”
“I’m sure you do,” Aspen said, no longer in a teasing mood. She wrapped both hands around her tea cup like she wanted to protect it, or maybe like she wanted it to protect her. In her grip, it was tiny. “I’d like to leave as soon as we say goodbye to Audacity and her family.”
“Me too,” Charm said. “When you say leave…”
“I’ll escort you back to the troupe in Ilgate. After that, I need to find Kindness—the man who attacked me yesterday. He’ll be easy to ask about, at least. He’s got a very distinctive face.”
“Mm,” Charm said. It had taken her two weeks to get Aspen to tease her back for one single sentence, and now they had mere hours before it was goodbye forever. All Charm had to show for their time together was an unsettled stomach from killing a man.
“Rectitude was able to hire him so quickly,” Aspen said. “Kindness must already have been in the area. That suggests the Hanging Scale has a strong presence here, even though I interrupted that protection racket.”
Charm did not have to say are you going to kill him when you find him because Audacity and Rex came into the kitchen, followed soon after by Percy, Connie, and a very sleepy Bluebell. There was breakfast—eggs from the farm with good brown bread—and, after much pleading from the girls, another brief lesson from Aspen on how to inflict pain or cause chaos or whatever it was she was teaching them.
And then it was time to go.
“I can’t say how much I appreciate everything you two have done to preserve our life here,” Audacity said. “You risked your lives for strangers. I’ll never forget that. I know the past few days haven’t been easy. You could have just ridden past us that first day, or abandoned us at any point, but you didn’t. I’m grateful. If there’s ever anything any of us can do for either of you, please let us know.”
“We will,” Aspen said. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
She knelt down and let Charm step on her hands to mount Ruby, and then they were back on the road.
Aspen had come to enjoy the theater troupe. She could never have imagined herself saying the words “I like that there are always people around,” but it was an easy, fluid companionship. People gathered and dispersed and gathered and dispersed. There were lively moments of shouting and dancing, but there were also quiet moments.
Charm had let her have a quiet moment on their ride home, and then Aspen had lingered with the troupe that afternoon on the flimsiest of excuses. Amity had asked her to review some of the blocking for duels in an upcoming play, so she’d spent a few hours correcting stances and demonstrating parries. Even if the swords were wood, it made her nostalgic.
Then, of course, the sun had gone down and it had been inadvisable to leave for her travel. And she wasn’t entirely sure which direction to go, besides. She ought to go skulk at The Hearth Fire to do some reconnaissance, but instead she was sitting a dozen paces away from the fire pit, next to Charm.
Next to, not underneath, sadly. Aspen wouldn’t have minded having Charm in her lap again, but she wasn’t going to ask for it.
She wasn’t sure Charm would say yes.
They’d had one or two nice moments this morning, but last night had been catastrophic. Aspen had no idea where they stood.
Naturally, she said the least appealing sentence in existence.
