Errant, p.3
Errant, page 3
“That was different.”
“Doesn’t seem different. Seems like you misjudged that situation and got yourself in a lot of trouble, which I got you out of.”
If Aspen jumped out the window, she wouldn’t have to have this conversation. But then Charm would never give her another compliment.
She hadn’t handled the first one well because she hadn’t known it was coming. Next time she’d parry.
“How about this,” Charm said. “I’m going to excuse myself for a moment, and when I come back, you’re going to unclench and answer my questions.”
“I am not clenched,” Aspen said.
“Sure,” Charm called over her shoulder.
In Charm’s absence, Aspen was able to think again. It wasn’t safe to tell her anything, but silence obviously wasn’t an option. What would make her stop asking questions and go back to performing Calamity’s Dance with her troupe?
More importantly, why was Mort after Aspen? He’d encountered the Scale—or Pike’s new version of it, anyway, the one Aspen had run from. Was still running from.
The Hanging Scale she’d joined was about doing good. Righting wrongs. Not for money or fame, but because the scales were not balanced. There were downtrodden people in this world who had no one to fight for them. Aspen had fought procurers who were cheating their workers, scared some city elite in Harstead who were groping their servants, and forced a few landed gentry to lower rents for their tenant farmers. She was just one woman with a sword (and her fists, and a bow, and a collection of knives, and a willingness to use any nearby heavy objects if necessary), but as part of the Scale, she’d never been alone. Anyone who didn’t listen to her warnings had to take on the whole order.
You’re nothing but a thug, a rich man had once told her.
But not your thug, she’d replied.
That was the whole of it. The world was violent, and sometimes violence was required to set things right. Aspen never had to worry about money when she was with the Scale, because Integrity had housed and fed and paid everyone he’d taken in.
But someone had killed Integrity and the money had dried up. Pike, one of Aspen’s old comrades-in-arms who’d taken over the Scale, had started charging people for the Scale’s services, and then the Scale had started taking jobs because they paid well, not because they were right.
Aspen had stayed longer than she should have after Integrity died, but one day she’d protested Pike’s decisions a little too loudly, told him that Integrity wouldn’t recognize the organization he’d built. What had been righteous had become purely mercenary.
Pike had accused Aspen of murdering Integrity. An outrageous lie, but his lackeys had turned on her all the same.
So she’d broken her oath to her sworn siblings in the Scale and fled.
And now they were burning villages.
Charm swept back in through the tavern’s back door and took a meandering path through the tables, greeting people who’d seen her performance last night, accepting their compliments with a smile and sometimes a modest inclination of her head. She paused at the table with the well-dressed couple, gasped, knelt, and retrieved something from the floor.
“You must have dropped this,” she said.
“Oh, thank you, I didn’t even notice.” The two of them clasped hands.
Charm sat down across from Aspen. “So that explanation you owe me.”
“The Hanging Scale is a secret society,” Aspen said. “It used to be good. Now it’s bad. I left.”
“You’re a truly captivating storyteller,” Charm said. “Why is Mort trying to kill you, and more importantly, is he going to try to kill me?”
“Like I said, I don’t know why Mort came after me last night. I’m sorry. I don’t know if he’ll come after you again,” Aspen said. “You did loudly tell a whole tavern full of people we were married.”
“I didn’t know people were trying to murder you at the time!” Charm said. “Next time I try to rescue a good-looking woman from her own clumsy attempts at heroism, I’ll stop to ask if she’s a former member of any nefarious organizations that might be hunting her.”
“That seems like it might be difficult to work into your story about how she’s your wife.” Aspen wondered if Charm had ever claimed any other women as her fake wife, and then wished she hadn’t wondered that. The answer was probably yes. Aspen wasn’t special to her. None of this meant anything.
Charm lifted her chin. “You underestimate me.”
“Several times now,” Aspen agreed. She lowered her voice. “I wish you’d stop robbing people, though. Eventually one of them is going to catch you and kill you.”
“I wish you weren’t entangled in this secret-society-burned-village business, and that you hadn’t dragged me into it, but I suppose we can’t always get what we want.” Charm tapped her chin. “I usually do, though. And I never get caught, so don’t worry about me.”
Aspen objected to that characterization of events, as well as Charm’s blithe disregard for ethics and her own safety, but they’d finished eating and had been sitting at their table a long time. She stood. “Let me walk you back to the wagons. I can travel with the troupe another couple of days to make sure nothing happens, just until you get to the next town.”
Charm walked ahead of her toward the tavern’s main door. “Please. You’re the one who attracts violence everywhere you go. You should draw Mort and whoever he might be bringing with him away from us. We’ll be fine without you. If worst comes to worst, I know the whole final monologue from Tact and Reverence. It’ll bore anyone to sleep.”
“You won’t be safe.”
“You can’t ever be safe, Aspen,” Charm said. “There’s no such thing.”
There would be if you let me protect you, Aspen thought, which was an absurd thing to think. She couldn’t guarantee anyone’s safety. Besides, she and Charm had done nothing but get into trouble and bicker since they’d met.
And kiss.
Charm’s dark brown hair shone glossy as a swift-running brook in the afternoon sunlight. She smiled at Aspen. “Anyway, your explanation was terrible and you’re very judgmental, but I like you. Try not to die out there—it would be a waste of perfectly good shoulders. Thank you for breakfast.”
She gathered the sweep of her skirts and did a delicate little curtsey. That was when Aspen saw the gold bracelet glinting on her wrist. It hadn’t been there before.
“Where did you get that?” Aspen asked.
“Oh, this? It was under my sleeve.”
“It wasn’t,” Aspen said. Charm had gestured her way through their breakfast and Aspen had pretended, mostly unsuccessfully, not to be studying her elegant, hypnotic hands and wrists. Aspen had spent too much time thinking about how pretty Charm was and not enough time thinking about her perusal of the tavern. She’d stopped at every table. She’d lingered at one table in particular. “You stole it. That well-dressed woman in there—it’s hers.”
“Their coach is long gone and she can buy ten more of these. She probably hasn’t even noticed it’s missing. I told you, I don’t get caught.”
Aspen stepped forward and took her by the wrist. The bracelet was only a thin chain, but it was real gold. Discreet, but valuable. Charm had her thinking like a thief, damn it. “I’m catching you right now. Theft is a crime.”
Charm laughed like Aspen’s touch was a flirtation. “Oh, you care a lot about laws, do you?”
“I do,” Aspen said. Without Integrity’s guidance, she’d needed some other authority.
“Well, I don’t, so don’t worry about me.”
“Too late,” Aspen said. “I just figured out how to keep you safe until I deal with Mort. We’re going to see the magistrate in Ilgate. You’re going to jail.”
3
“Here you go again, trying to rescue me when I don’t want or need rescuing,” Charm said.
Her body was warm against Aspen’s front as they rode Mouse. Charm had a death grip on the saddle. Aspen held the reins loosely in her right hand and kept her left free in case she needed to draw the sword from its shoulder harness.
It was better to think about Mort, the Hanging Scale, and possible bandit attacks than Charm’s backside.
No matter how much Aspen yearned to protect Charm, trust was out of the question. Even if Charm did prove trustworthy—a laughably unlikely prospect—Aspen lived on the road. Her closest relationship was with Mouse. Not counting her horse, the person she saw most often was a cranky elderly Rain woman named Tescui with a talent for healing broken bones. Aspen hadn’t even seen Ayzeh or Strength in years, and they were—or had been—her friends. There was no room in her life for any more people.
Not even people who kissed like the world was ending.
They would go to Ilgate, Charm would be safe in a cell for a few days, and Aspen would take care of this problem.
Aspen had a sort of one-sided professional relationship with Prudence Cade Napier, the woman who kept Ilgate and its surrounding farms in order. She was a good sort, tough but fair. Aspen had once dropped a tied-up wealthy landowner on the courthouse steps, and Napier had investigated the claims that he’d been cruelly overtaxing his tenants and then forced him to pay them back, despite his offered bribes and connections to other wealthy people in the area.
As a perk, Napier was exclusively attracted to men and might have some defense against Charm’s… well, charms.
Aspen’s ears burned. Over and over, she’d made a fool of herself.
But Charm was a master of deception, an actor trained to be whatever was needed in the moment. Aspen had mistaken her for someone who needed help—someone like young Aspen, before she’d picked up the kitchen knife that had ended her marriage. Instead, it was pretend. Charm had never been in trouble from Mort. She’d twisted it into a prop for her one-woman show.
Aspen gripped the reins tighter. With Charm, it was easy to forget she was dangerous.
Aspen wasn’t eager to spend the rest of the ride to Ilgate alone with her own thoughts, but she didn’t particularly want to talk either. Charm wasn’t a Moon witch, but she could weave spells with words. Aspen already liked her too much.
“You know, sometimes stealing is fair,” Charm said conversationally. “Mort pulled me onto his lap, and I wanted payment for the liberties he took. Maybe for you, payment is blood spilled or a finger severed, but I prefer something shiny.”
“Clearly, I value currency. Or was the purse you took from me full of body parts?”
“That purse was hardly recompense for all the trouble you’ve caused me,” Charm said, and Aspen had to agree.
“And that woman’s bracelet in the tavern?”
“Oh, that was just for fun.”
Aspen’s training, in the years she’d spent with the Hanging Scale, was in weapons and tactics. One-handed swords, two-handed swords, daggers, throwing knives, muskets, bows, crossbows, spears, anything. She knew how to use her hands, her feet, her head when she had no other weapons but herself. She could evaluate a room for threats, escape routes, and potential allies.
She did not know how to deal with Charm.
“Mort’s purse wasn’t fair recompense, either,” Charm said. “There was hardly anything in it.”
“I suppose that makes sense if he really did lose his farm,” Aspen said. “He didn’t mention anything else to you?”
Charm huffed, a shadow of a laugh. “Oh, you pure-hearted thing, he wasn’t thinking about his past with my ass snug against his crotch.”
It was a very nice ass. With her legs bracketing Charm, Aspen wasn’t feeling especially pure-hearted. She could understand Mort’s distraction.
Aspen didn’t have another horse, so they had to ride like this. That was the only reason. Well, that and also the warmth. It was not an excuse to be close to Charm.
“You’re thinking about it too.” Charm was smug and Aspen was tempted to haul her off Mouse and make her walk the rest of the way to Ilgate. But one, slowing their progress would leave them open to attack. Two, Charm would probably fall dramatically to the ground and refuse to budge. And three, Charm was only wearing slippers because Aspen had abducted her—Charm’s word—without giving her a chance to pack, and if Aspen made her walk, she’d shred her shoes and get blisters and Aspen would feel guilty. So they had to ride together.
“So is my horse,” Aspen said. “But she’s grumpy about carrying two humans instead of one.”
“You could let me go,” Charm suggested but without the honeyed tone Aspen associated with her more persuasive methods. “Since this whole plan is silly and unnecessary.”
“As soon as I’ve dealt with Mort, you’ll be free to go wherever you like,” Aspen said.
They couldn’t make the trip to Ilgate all in one day. They rode past the road to Taghton, crossed a wide stream running high with water from the autumn rains, and trudged through the marsh to the east of Sottville. At the stream, a farmhouse stood empty, its door hanging open, its fields overgrown. Aspen wondered who’d lived there, and where they’d gone. If she hadn’t had a prisoner, she might have investigated. As it was, she didn’t want to stray from her mission, and it wasn’t as if anyone in the house needed her help.
When the sun began to dip, Aspen took them off the road. There was old-growth forest here, thick trees spaced far enough apart to ride through with ease—red oaks, valley pines, and cedars a century old or more. Out of respect, she laid a hand on an ancient, gnarled oak. Its rough bark under her palm felt like home.
Aspen found a clearing close enough to a little branch of the stream that she could still hear the rush of water, but uphill, and set up camp. She unsaddled Mouse, brushed her, checked her hooves, and fed her some oats since the forest floor offered no grazing. Then she arranged a circle of stones, gathered sticks and brush, and started a fire, conscious that Charm had only her short quilted jacket and was beginning to shiver.
Aspen brought her the extra cloak and Charm took it and wrapped it around her shoulders. Despite the tangled, sweaty mess of her hair, and the dust on her face and her clothes, Charm still managed a regal air. She had not offered any help.
“You know how to cook?” Aspen asked.
“Not at all.”
“I’ll find us something to eat, then. Mouse, you’re in charge.”
Aspen went down to the stream and came back with walnuts, broadleaf seeds, dandelions, alsan nuts, and cattail roots. They were all edible raw, except for the cattails, but she wasn’t sure Charm would like that, so she used her purification charm on some water from the stream and put together a soup with one of the spice sachets she kept in her saddlebag. Aspen didn’t often bother with any comforts when she was alone. With the sharp, rich scents of the spices layered over the smoke, and the burbling stream and the crackling fire, it was almost a cozy, peaceful evening.
Almost.
“If you want to rinse off in the stream, it’s just down the hill,” Aspen said.
“It’s freezing,” Charm replied. “I’ll pass. You really live like this all the time? I know this isn’t a Wood thing. We performed in Greendell once and everyone there was living comfortably. It’s a you thing.”
“If I have the money, sometimes I stop at an inn for a warm bath,” Aspen said, slightly embarrassed by this admission. “I do bathe the rest of the time! Just… outdoors.”
“You gonna brave the stream?”
Aspen should not have brought up bathing. Charm sounded far too interested. “Um. In the morning.”
“When it will be even colder?” Charm shivered. “Still, let me know when that happens. I’ll keep watch.”
The only way to deal with that comment, short of walking into the woods and disappearing, was to ignore it. Aspen passed her a metal cup of soup and she ate her whole portion eagerly. When they were finished, Aspen tended to the fire and then stood to stretch her muscles, which ached from a long day on the road. Then she drew her sword and began the set of exercises she did every morning and evening.
Charm’s gaze lingered as Aspen moved from one position into another. “Maybe life in the woods isn’t so bad.”
Aspen was not going to survive this trip.
After she was done, Aspen dipped a cloth in the water she kept near the fire and wiped away the worst of the sweat. She dug through her bag for a second one, wet it, and offered it to Charm, who took it gratefully and patted her face and neck. The last of the firelight bathed her skin and Aspen had to look away from how lovely she was.
At least now it was time to sleep.
Aspen only had one bedroll, but she had an extra blanket in addition to the thick cloak she’d given Charm. She arranged the bedroll and the blanket close to the embers of the fire and gestured for Charm to lie down. Aspen laid her own cloak, a thinner one she used for warm weather, on the ground a short distance away.
“No tent? What if it rains?” Charm asked.
“It won’t.” Aspen would have found them a roof or made a shelter if there was impending rain. The scent and weight of the air weren’t right for it. “We’ll be a bit damp in the morning, but the sun will dry us out before midday.”
Charm raised her face to the night sky, exasperated. “If you wanted to sleep with me this badly, we could have done it in a bed back in Cheyford.”
“I am sleeping over there,” Aspen said.
“Your loss.”
Charm settled into the bedroll. Aspen lay down on her cloak and prayed for sleep. She did not think about beds back in Cheyford, or the curve of Charm’s ass, or the warmth between them when they’d ridden together.
“I think this is the weirdest first date I’ve ever been on,” Charm said into the darkness. “And I once went out with an Earth woman who gave me a luck charm she’d made, but she wasn’t a trained chanter so it was a bad luck charm. I spent the whole night tripping and having things spilled on me.”
Aspen pulled a fold of her cloak over her face and shut her eyes. “This isn’t a date.”
“You cooked for me,” Charm pointed out. “And now we’re going to bed under the stars. It’s misguided romance, certainly, and if you knew me, this wouldn’t be the right approach, but it’s definitely a date.”
