Monsters, p.5
Monsters, page 5
part #2 of Gwen Farris Series
“I… Well, it’s up to James of course… and with the children… but if it’s alright, I think it sounds like a wonderful adventure.”
“Brilliant. Let’s do it then? We can’t wait for you all to get here.”
Especially since the stable boy hadn’t realized he was supposed to do the dishes too, meaning that they all had to go in and clean the kitchen before bed. Probably fair enough, since he’d done all the cooking, but still a pain in the rear.
It really would be nice to see them all though. Gwen wasn’t lonely, not with Beth and Heather there, but it would be really good to see some other familiar faces too.
Chapter three
The glow lamp on the wall of the tiny sleeping chamber turned on without warning. Gwen couldn’t see who was there, but started swinging anyway. Whoever it was jumped back, no more than a painful white blur. Their body made a thunk against the far wall, which was followed by a low chuckle.
“Easy there, it’s just me, Heather. Sorry about the rude awakening, but it’s time for our morning training session.” This got followed by a yawn.
Gwen squinted up at the women, waking up completely to find she’d already sat up and had a foot on the floor. Instead of explaining her reaction, she just finished getting up, trying to pretend it was just the way she did things. It was better than admitting she’d had a flashback to when she was almost murdered. Not much, true, and it probably didn’t fool the woman since she knew the whole story, but it was enough for the moment to let her get moving, as tired as she was.
“One moment. I need to change. Just into the base garments?” She had two pair, but one was still damp from sweat. It was gross, but they couldn’t afford to do laundry every day, it took too much time… Sucking it up, she put the damp and slightly ripe pair back on.
Heather gave her a funny look and sniffed, which was a thing people here did to show disapproval, Gwen understood now, but didn’t comment. Gwen shrugged, not caring if the woman got it or not. The move that was. She explained the decision to dress in disgusting clothes after they got out of the building and started over to the armor shed. There were crickets chirping and night sounds all around, with only the light of the moon to show them what was in front of them.
“I’m supposed to be doing my second training session in the morning, I can’t show up already soaking, which means I have to suffer now and scrub out the armor when I’m done. It probably needs it anyway. I’ll just have to get used to doing it twice a day I guess.”
The woman just kept walking, and didn’t hiss back. It was a good point, since this was all supposed to be secret, but she didn’t chastise her for having whispered either. For all the guards that worked the compound, no one seemed to be around watching them. Probably just some men walking the perimeter at random intervals, once an hour or so. It didn’t take a genius to know not to have a set schedule for things like that. If someone could see a pattern, they could practically walk right in.
Or out.
The reason she had for thinking that last thought was simple enough, off in the distance, behind the Special Service barracks section, which was blocked off from the main house by a nice section of evergreen trees, a person was going over the wall. Gwen’s hand hit Heather’s shoulder as she started to jog towards the form, trying to get a better look at them in case they got away, pointing as she did. The Westmorland operative followed perfectly, not even asking a question. Just as the shape got to the top of the wall Heather ran up the ten foot high structure and grabbed a leg.
Gwen felt a touch of envy at the move. It wasn’t superhuman, but it was so smooth and graceful she almost managed to flow. With only two steps up the wall the other woman, who was only about as tall as Katherine’s body, so about five-seven, or maybe a little taller, easily caught the man and pulled him back down, letting her weight drag the form back with her. The man screamed.
More of a gasp really, until he hit the solid earth below with a dull and meaty sound.
“Ow!” The form didn’t spring to his feet or anything, and the dark hid his face well enough so that Gwen didn’t recognize him. Not that she would have. She hadn’t had time to get to know a lot of people here yet. No one new at all to tell the truth.
Heather was applying a decent looking rear choke, but wasn’t locking it off properly when the man started patting at her arm. It wasn’t hitting, or even struggling. After a second Gwen got it, the fellow couldn’t really speak, lacking air, but he was tapping out. Surrendering. Without fighting though, so probably not anyone all that hostile, even if the move itself spoke of some familiarity with at least the grappling arts.
Provided that translated to this world. He might have been doing something else, that she just didn’t understand. Still, he wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, it didn’t seem, so it might be safe enough to risk letting him go for a moment.
“Ah. Heather, I believe our new friend here is surrendering? Maybe you could let him have a little air? He can explain why he was going over the wall perhaps?” She tried to make her voice sound pleasant, figuring that Heather knew enough to be the bad cop, if it came to that.
She’d already volunteered for the position after all. Once you start choking people, it was hard to seem all friendly.
The hold got released, which got the man to gasp for a while.
“Sor… sor… sorry.” He pronounced the word with a long “o” sound, making him sound a little Canadian. That wasn’t a thing here though, Canada, so it was probably just the local accent.
“I…I…I…” He shook his head and stopped trying to speak.
Heather started to hurry him along with a cuff to the back of the head, but Gwen stepped in and let it hit her arm instead. The woman didn’t glare or anything, she just stood back a step instead and waited, following her colleague’s lead.
The boy tried again though, still stuttering pretty badly, but not so much that it kept him from being understood.
“I’m… Christophe. Christophe Phillips.”
Ah. Well, then. Gwen nodded to the boy and then Heather, who looked a bit shocked. Her body had stiffened at least. It was too dark to really see her expression. The moon showed her white clothing well enough. She took the lack of speaking to mean she was supposed to be up as the Special Service liaison. No time to start working on that better than the present, Gwen decided.
“Well, nice to meet you Christophe. I’m Katherine and this is my friend Heather. We were just going to go and see about some training when we saw someone going over the wall. Kind of our job to stop intruders and all that, so, you get the idea… We didn’t foil your secret escape plan, did we?” She meant it as a joke but the young man nodded. It was subdued and sad seeming, bitterly so somehow, even in the dim moonlight.
It would have taken a lot longer for everything to work itself out, most of the time, but Christophe told them that he’d thrown a bag over the wall, which got Heather to scramble over the thing faster than Gwen would have thought possible and toss it back with a thump. If the whole thing, including her coming back, took a minute, it would have been a surprise. She was hustling hard suddenly, now that Christophe had given his name. The target, as it were, being that they were supposed to make friends with him. Definitely not someone they wanted to antagonize overly. Gwen handed the bag to the man and smiled, not certain if he’d see it, since the guy wasn’t making eye contact.
“Why don’t we go into the practice area? We have light in there and no one will see us. Even the guards here will be around eventually, I think.” Gwen didn’t know if that was the right answer, but it really would be less easily observed than standing under the moon dressed all in white was. Why no one had come to see what the heck they were up to or what all the noise was about, she didn’t know. They hadn’t been exactly silent. It probably showed that the guards really needed some work. That or things were generally so safe that even someone climbing over the wall in the middle of the night wasn’t a serious threat. Since that was true in this case, maybe it was all of them?
“Al…right.” The stuttering was a lot lighter this time and the man stood straight, showing that he wasn’t exactly short. Thin and lightly muscled, but at least six-four. He followed along meekly though, as if expecting them to punish him, or at least scold him for trying to leave.
As far as Gwen knew he wasn’t a prisoner and if he wanted to work out by climbing a wall in the middle of the night, who was she to argue with the idea? They were there to get exercise too, weren’t they? In secret and everything.
Of course what she knew about this situation was so little that assuming anything was close to being moronic. If it were a television show, the boy would have been sneaking out to see his girlfriend who lived in town. Or at least nearby, since as far as she knew there wasn’t a town close enough to just walk to and get back before daylight. It wasn’t a fictional program however, so she’d have to ask what the real situation was. That would work better under interior lighting. Heather could read his expression and tell her what it meant later, if she couldn’t do it herself.
The building was ugly on the outside, like a barn, painted white, but not professionally. Like a very old building that someone had recently slapped some coloring on to try and pretty up, but just enough to keep anyone from claiming having to use it was an insult. It probably looked fine at a distance, but close up it had an air of shoddiness that one wouldn’t have expected from a noble family. The boy didn’t blink about going in, just sighing a bit dramatically when the lights got turned on in the entryway.
After the second sigh, he started speaking, not waiting for anyone to ask a question. He took in Heather and Gwen and nodded firmly, the gesture speaking of understanding.
“Both Westmorlands then? Good. I… don’t suppose you could just fail to mention this to my father, could you? At least unless asked directly? I don’t want to force anyone to lie for me, but not saying anything isn’t an untruth, is it?” His stutter was gone. Nearly at least. The first word was drawn out, but even in a tense situation he was mastering it pretty well now that he understood what was going on.
So much for him needing help with it then. Gwen smiled and shook her head.
“Why don’t you tell us why you were leaving, and we’ll see? It’s probably none of our business, but strange things do make a person curious, don’t they?” The man was looking at her more intensely, staring a bit, making her very aware that her clothing was still damp and a little ripe. A great way to make a first impression, wasn’t it?
“I… I’m supposed to meet a woman, my father ordered me to woo her and not mess up another potential marriage like I have all the others. I get so nervous though, and, really, the last three he’s sent at me have been… Less than pretty. I guess that’s about as kind as I can be on that score. There isn’t exactly a lot of competition for me, so it’s the bottom of the barrel for all of us, I guess. To make it worse they keep rejecting me, not the other way around. Think I’m an imbecile because of my poor use of words. Hard to explain that the two things, intelligence and clear speaking, aren’t the same thing. Especially when you stutter as you do it.” He flipped his left hand up, the right holding the leather handle of the soft canvas bag he held. It was tan and brown, a popular color combination for men in this world.
I occurred to Gwen that he hadn’t put together the idea of her, or even Heather, being the girl he was supposed to meet yet. It was tempting to pull some kind of trick on him, hiding who she was, but since it wasn’t a television program and the mission actually required her to get close to him, that probably wasn’t the best plan ever. It never really worked out on the shows back home either, not without a lot of playing around and unlikely matchmaking.
Besides, he was kind of cute, in a slightly goofy looking way. He had dark blond hair and a nose that reminded her of someone from ancient Rome, but it kind of worked for him, over all. After a few seconds she realized she was staring at him, and he was looking back directly, still seeming kind of nervous. Heather was looking back and forth between them, smiling hesitantly though. No one spoke for a long while, so Gwen decided it was up to her, wondering how she’d managed to get herself into something like this. Pretending to be a super-spy from a movie? It didn’t make sense, and her in the roll of grand seductress was freaking hilarious. She chuckled a little and shook her head.
“Not exactly what I had in mind for our first meeting myself, but I’m Katherine Vernor. Not a Westmorland, though right now I am with the Special Service. Not doing all that well at it either, I’m afraid.” She didn’t know if she should hold her hand out, but decided against it.
“Hopefully not too hideous for you? I expect you to magically look past the work out clothing and the fact that it’s the middle of the night, meaning I have no make-up on. I’ve heard a rumor to the effect that I clean up fairly well, so maybe you could use your imagination for that part?” She grinned at the man and touched his arm gently, trying to be a little flirtatious. Heather gave her a look that said she was pushing too hard, since a touch like that, any contact at all really, was pretty close to offering to do the man right then and there. It was kind of what she wanted to hint at, since it would get his attention… as long as she didn’t have to actually do it.
She didn’t really know what to do and the idea was nerve wracking to even think about. If he wanted to wrestle she could hold her own, but anything past holding hands would be uncharted territory for her, meaning using that kind of thing as a means to woo him would be right out.
“If I’m too ugly… well, consider lowering your standards? Though really, no one has mentioned my looks being too bad lately, though I have a horrible reputation, so I suppose if you don’t want to marry me, we could use that as an excuse. I’m definitely not worth going over the wall to get away from though. Why, I hardly ever even hit people anymore. Haven’t for months now.” She took his hand, feeling awkward at the contact, and looking him straight in the eye.
It didn’t matter if she felt odd about it, as long as it didn’t show. Since that was half of everything she did here, it wasn’t that hard to pull off. Just another day, she reminded herself, feeling like her face was about to burst into flame from all the blood rushing to it. In front of her, under the too white light of the glow lamp, Christophe blushed too.
“I… I… I…” He looked down and shook his head. Apparently girls he might have to marry made him a little nervous. Go figure?
Gwen patted his arm again.
“Just like you did before. Draw out the first word and use the same technique. That’s a pretty good trick really. Helps to relax the muscles in the throat. We have until daylight, so it’s not a problem for you to take the time you need.” Then, trying to make a point, Gwen took a deep breath, let it out slowly and relaxed, letting her face move into a smile. It felt odd still, smiling, but most people seemed to like it when she did. Well, as long as she wasn’t hitting them at the same time.
He did it as well, following along as if trained for it, and after about half a minute spoke very well again, sounding much more calm.
“Thank you. Not a wonderful first impression, you having to pull me down from a wall to prevent me from running away like that. I… You’re very beautiful, actually. Forgive me for ruining everything already. Still, best to get it out of the way early on, don’t you think? This way you won’t have to pretend to actually be considering me to please father.” He sounded firm and a little cold suddenly, but not tense.
Resigned.
Gwen shook her head and smiled again.
“Hardly. First, I’m not here because of your father. You were recommended to me by the King himself, as a personal favor to my parents, so put that idea out of your head completely. This is between you and I, not anyone else. As for the escape attempt… Well, I’m not certain that given the same situation I wouldn’t have tried to do the same thing. What did you plan to do? Once you got away I mean?”
It was a good point, and even Heather looked at him with interest. It took a bit for the meaning to sink in, not getting the rules of the place instantly yet, but finally Gwen thought she understood. If he was a low magic user, then most jobs would be right out for him. It pretty much left physical labor and a kid that was raised to be a noble probably wasn’t exactly ready for that kind of thing, was he?
“I… Don’t know. Find work I suppose, doing something. I just can’t bare more rejection. That sounds weak, doesn’t it? A few dozen women turn me down and I go around acting like this?” Hanging his head he moved to leave without warning, which almost seemed out of place, like he was trying to get her to stop him.
