It was well-past dark when Tam was led off to one of the huts, hastily cleared for his use. It was one of the inner-ring dwellings, with room for a bed and a small table inside, and a fire pit just outside the ill-fitting door. It had no windows, which put Tam uncomfortably in mind of a box, but he could stretch his arms out to either side without touching the walls, and the ceiling cleared his head by a good two inches. In the middle, anyways… A palace, compared to the box. In fact, compared to his room in Magistrate Higgins’ attic, the hut might actually have had a little more room, if a lower ceiling.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, pallet, really, and tugged off his boots. They were just a little too big, and he was starting to get a blister on his right heel. The evening’s conversation with Sol played itself through Tam’s head again and again.
Sol had been as charming and polite as any of the nobles or court officials Tam had encountered at Magistrate Higgins’ home, or at his own father’s house, the few times in the last couple years Tam had been there. Charming, working hard to make Tam forget the near-squalor of their surroundings, yet there was the glint in Sol’s eyes every time he’d asked Tam about his past. The same sort of glint Tam had seen in the barristers’ eyes when they’d visited his father, and the same glint he’d seen dozens of times in Higgins’ court, and at judgments.
Greed.
Identifying the emotion had been relatively simple, accomplished before they’d finished the stew. That had left the bread, meat, and fresh-cut wild apples and a spicy cheese to determine its target. It was perhaps no surprise that Sol had turned the conversation away from himself in favor of tales of Tam’s recent misadventures. After all, Tam had never rescued anyone from a box, either. Sol had wanted every detail of Tam’s torture and beating, and had expressed proper outrage at Higgins’ cruelty. So why did Tam get the feeling that Sol would have done twice as much with half the remorse? No stranger to torture, there.
He wants me to hate Higgins.
From one side, it made perfect sense. Any sane person would hate and fear the person who had done to them what had been done to Tam. And it was true, Higgins was hardly Tam’s favorite person at the moment. But in a weird way- and on some level, Tam recognized the weirdness- in a weird way, Tam could see Higgins’ point of view. He’d taken Tam in under his roof, fed and clothed him for ten years, trained him to judge the law and apportion justice. And then Tam had violated his trust by bedding his daughter. Tam had been living in Higgins’ back pocket for a decade, and had no illusions about what kind of man he was. He’d known from the first time he’d stolen a kiss from Enara what the risks would be. Later, when she’d invited/commanded Tam to attend her in her chambers, well… Thinking about consequences hadn’t been high on the list of Tam’s priorities. All in all, Tam couldn’t pretend he was surprised Higgins had reacted the way he had.
Sol had clearly picked up on this under-reaction, and taken care to try to fan the flames of Tam’s resentment. Trying to keep some sort of control over the conversation, Tam had not mentioned the Guard-Commander’s more personal reaction. How was Tam supposed to know he’d taken an interest in Enara?
From the other side, Tam could see no reason at all for Sol to have so enthusiastically empathized with him. That hadn’t been an attempt to coax Tam into emotional release and catharsis. Sol had wanted something. Still wanted something. What value could Tam have to Sol? He wasn’t a trained fighter, like the men who’d been practicing in the center of camp, and Tam was certain Sol had no concern for the technicalities of the law.
A shadow moved in front of the door, and Tam rolled off the bed, snatching up his boots and the belt knife Sol had given him after dinner. A gesture of trust, Sol had called it, though since most of the bandits carried staves and spears, Tam wasn’t sure how much good it would do him. The door creaked open, and for a moment, all Tam saw was a black figure, backlit by the low-burning cookfire behind it. The figure moved inside, closed the door, and did not move. Slowly, Tam’s eyes re-adjusted to the low light.
Winnow looked down at him, crouching in the corner with his little knife held before him.
“Relax, Tam,” she said. Her voice was low and had the same husky edge that had so heated his blood a few hours ago. “I don’t bite… much…” For all of its sultry edge, her tone was more clipped, business-like. The juxtaposition made Tam’s head spin. Winnow sat on the edge of Tam’s bed, where he’d been a moment before. Carefully, he pulled on his boots, and sat next to her, keeping the knife on the side away from her. Just in case. “You’re awful jumpy,” she noted, amused. “Don’t tell me this is your first time in bed with a woman.”
“Last time I was in bed with a woman,” last time he’d been in any sort of bed, with or without company, for that matter, “I got stuffed in a box. I’m a bit off beds, at the moment.” Actually, he was desperate for a bed, and some proper sleep. “I was giving some serious thought to sleeping on the floor. This blanket should be fine.” He tugged at the dirt-brown blanket, and heard something rip. “Well, what’s left of it…”
Winnow flashed him an appreciative grin, and seemed to be about to say something, then stopped, and the closed, business-like look possessed her face again. “How much did Sol tell you over dinner?”
Lost in her smile, it took Tam a moment to track the change in conversation. “Not much that I couldn’t figure out for myself. Practically nothing about himself, a little about the band. I think… I think he plans to try to use me to break into Higgins’ manor.”
Winnow eyed him in surprise. “He told you that?”
Tam shook his head. “No, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Why else try to impress me with how strong his raiders are? He raved about how skilled they are. Why else try to dig as much out of me about Higgins’ manor and its valuables as possible? He kept comparing what he’d seen of other manors to the King’s palace. As if he’d ever been there… A common bandit? And…” Tam hesitated. Saying it out loud didn’t make nearly as much sense as thinking it in his head. “He really wants me to be mad at Higgins. I think he wants me to lead a raid for revenge.”
Winnow blew out her breath. “Well, you’re half-right. He plans on getting you to help him plan a raid on Higgins’ over the next week. He’ll probably pull off the raid, but it’s really just a cover to sell you back to Higgins.”
“No offense to Sol and his masterminding, but I really can’t imagine that Higgins wants to see me again.” Winnow started to say something, and Tam rode right over it. “Ever. Literally, those were pretty much his last words to me. ‘I hope you live long, and suffer greatly, betrayer of my trust.’ Actually, he used the Scholar’s tongue; I think he was quoting from a play by Theodus. It’s about this guy… Never mind. But you get the idea.”
Tam thought Winnow rolled her eyes at him. It was hard to tell, in the dark. “I doubt Sol intends you to go back to dusting the book-shelf, or whatever. Of course Sol wants to sell you. He figures to sell you to be tortured again, and me to heal you. Sol reckons that Higgins is pissed enough to be interested in working you over again and again.”
Winnow’s words chilled Tam. Yes, Higgins was sadistic enough to take a personal grudge to such great lengths. And Guard-Captain Chubain woudn’t mind the chance, either. Tam tucked the knife into his belt. “How many guards does Sol have on this hut?”
“Only the one right out front, that I saw. He thinks I’m here for more… personal reasons. I will distract him, and you can go around back of the hut. Wait for me there.”
“Personal reasons, eh?” Tam glanced over at her, and grinned. What he could see of her face seemed… sad?
“We can discuss that later.” Winnow hesitated. “I expect… we will have much to discuss, later. For now, we must escape.”
The playful grin slid off of Tam’s face at her tone. “I see.”
“Not yet,” she said with a sigh, “But you will. Are you ready?”
Tam nodded, and lay on the bed, blanked draped artistically across his body. Winnow waited a moment to be sure he was in place, then rose, and tip-toed carefully out. She left the door half-open, the firelight outlining her form as she approached the guard. She trailed one hand slowly across the back of his shoulders, circling around him. The guard turned, slowly, following her movement, and she ended facing him, the firelight making the skin of her shoulders glow. “Asleep,” she said, and her voice was its warm, intimate drawl again. “Such a pity…”
Tam was frozen in place momentarily, struck by pure aesthetic appreciation. Winnow moved closer to the guard, slipping one hand around his back. Her finger pointed sharply to the side before beginning a slow trail up the guard’s spine. Tam struggled to make his brain work. He rolled soundlessly off the bed, bundling the blanket with him. Two soft steps had him at the door, and he paused to make sure Winnow still had the guard distracted. She was up on tip-toe, whispering in his ear, but Tam could see her eyes, sharp on the hut’s entrance. Carefully, Tam eased around the door, and pulled it to. Tam froze, and nearly peed himself when the guard shifted in his stance, but it was only to put a thick, hairy arm around Winnow’s waist. Tam regained his breath, ducked around the back of the hut, and crouched in the triangle of pitch black shadow. He pulled the blanket over himself, and settled in against the wall.
Tam forced himself to breathe slowly. He could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips, his feet, even his teeth. A warm night breeze stirred the leaves on the ground. Tam silently cursed the cover they gave to anyone else moving in the camp. The minutes crept by with agonizing slowness. One minute. Two.
Through the small holes in the blanket, Tam could just make out the shapes of the other huts. The moon was half-full, casting shadows more than providing illumination. Tam squinted through the veil of the blanket. Off to the left, a light bobbed through the trees, flickering. Was that Winnow? He started to rise, then hesitated. Winnow hardly seemed the candle-in-the-window sort of girl. And why would she tell him to wait for her in the dark, then light a torch to draw him out?
The light bobbed closer, and Tam could make out the absurd orange shirt of Diggs. The man strolled casually along the outer perimeter of the camp, whistling softly. Tam watched him pass, holding as still as he could. The light of Diggs’s torch was just passing behind the next hut when a cloaked and hooded figure slipped into the shadows beside him. It took Tam a moment to recognize it as Winnow. As it was, he choked on his whispered greeting.
Winnow tsk’d softly. “What an idiot… how does he expect to see anything like that?” She started to rise. “C’mon. Let’s get-”
Tam’s hand snaked out from under the blanket to catch her arm, and pulled her back down. She started to hiss something at him, but Tam laid a finger across her lips. “Where’s Carter?” He breathed the words, barely audible to his own ears, then carefully withdrew his hand, tucking it back under the blanket. Diggs’ light was maybe a quarter of the way around the ring, now; just at the edge of what Tam could see from his hiding place. A cloud rolled across the moon, and the night was inky blackness. Tam held very still, and breathed as softly as he could. On the other side of the hut, Tam heard the guard curse, then a thump and crackle as he added a log to the dying fire. The breeze stirred, and the fire’s light roared to life as the cloud passed from in front of the moon. After the pitch-darkness, the night seemed as bright as early morning. Tam felt Winnow stiffen beside him, going statue-still and marble-rigid.
Carter stood not three feet in front of them.
Lit clearly by booth moon and fire, Tam could see that Carter had one eye squeezed shut. The other squinted so only a faint glint told Tam the eye was open at all. Carter’s head was moving slowly from side to side, and twice Tam was sure Carter was looking right at him.
A small vexed hiss escaped Carter’s teeth, and the big man padded silently down the track between the rings of huts.
Tam realized that he’d been holding his breath, and let it out slowly. Beside him, he could feel Winnow doing the same. Tam pulled the blanket down off his head. He could see Winnow’s eyes, deep in the shadow of her hood. They were wide, shining in fear, or excitement, or both. Tam expected his were much the same. He nodded once, slowly, and she returned the gesture. They rose together to a crouch, and Tam pulled the blanket around himself for a makeshift cloak. The nights were not yet cool enough to make the warmth needful, but it had served him well as camouflage once already, and Tam was loathe to part with the sole scrap of comfort left him, holey and torn though it might be.
Keeping low, they moved together to the outer ring of huts, and ducked into the covering shadows. Tam poked his head around, looking for Diggs’ torch. After a moment, Tam spotted it, clear on the other side of camp. That should put Carter about a quarter of the way around, if he was pacing Diggs. Of course, if Carter was just circling Tam’s hut…
Tam reached out, and found Winnow’s hand in the dark. He gave it a squeeze, and after a moment, she squeezed back. Not letting go of his hand, Winnow led him off into the darkness.
*******
Joss was watching Diggs and his shirt make a circuit around the camp when his replacement arrived. Beadle reeked of wine, as usual, but he managed a tolerable semblance of competence. At this point, Joss wouldn’t have cared if Beadle passed out and drowned in his own vomit. For the last three hours, all Joss had been able to think about were the words the Darkblood had whispered in his ear. A fine looking woman, no matter what Kendrick claimed about her drinking the blood of the dead. True, she could be damnably cold and distant, but what woman wasn’t hard to read? And how many times had a woman promised to-
“Anything to report?” Beadle’s voice was gravel, a slow slurred drawl. Yep. Drunk as a councilman in deep winter.
“Naw. Sleeping like a baby.” Joss was turned around and three steps off before Beadle had his next question out.
“When’d you last check?”
Check? Why bother checking on a man too unconscious to bed a woman like Winnow? “Maybe a quarter-, half-hour ago,” he lied without hesitation. “Look, Bead, I gotta pee. Anything else?”
Beadle grunted and waved him off, and Joss lit out towards the river to wash.
Coming back, now with a relatively clean face and chewing a sprig of mint, he noticed a small patch of moon blossoms.
This was going to be a night to remember.
Joss spat out the mint as he approached his hut. It was one of the few outer-ring shelters to have a door, and he had it all to himself ever since Liam had bit it dueling a merchant’s guard. Joss eased the door open, put on his best smile, and led with the flowers. “Pretty flowers for my pretty lady?”
The hut was empty. Maybe she’d meant him to go to her hut? Winnow’s cabin was on the other side of camp, in the inner ring. Swallowing his growing apprehension, Joss crossed the training area where Rushleigh had had them putting on a show to impress the boy.
Winnow’s cabin had more of a curtain than a door, an odd, layered thing of beads and silk. Joss hesitated. How did you knock on beads? He rattled a few strings together, then tried his line. Again.
“Pretty flowers for my-”
Joss swore. The cabin was clearly empty. He sat on the pallet, and tried to think of what to do. Clearly, she’d chosen tonight to run off.
Joss’s brain hung, paralyzed, for a moment on that thought. The soak had split. It must have been right after she’d visited the boy, because then she’d talked to him.
Oh.
Shit.
Joss knew if Sol found out he’d been the one to let the two escape, nobody would ever find Joss’s body. Beadle was a drunk, but he’d been a bandit longer than Joss had been alive. Unless he passed out, Beadle would be checking on the boy in no more than half an hour. Joss hurried back to his own hut, leaving the flowers on the floor.
Sixty seconds later, Joss was deep in the woods, running for his life.
********
The sky to the east was beginning to lighten, the first pink haze of sunrise glowing behind the trees. Tam staggered to a halt, hands on his knees, and panted. His throat burned with every breath.
“Gotta… Stop… For a minute,” he managed to gasp out.
Winnow’s stride had lost its flowing grace some hours ago, but she wasn’t gasping for air the same way Tam was, either. She breathed deep, slow and steady. In the dress she wore beneath her cloak, it was attention-riveting. “Catch your breath while we walk, then,” she said.
Tam forced himself upright, then took a step. His heel burned from the blister that had formed, broken and bled. When had Tam ever thought these boots were loose? They pinched his toes, his whole foot, in fact. Far too small. He’d have done better to strap rasps to his feet and run across a bed to nails. Hot nails. Hot nails and sand.
Tam looked up, and saw that Winnow was a good ten paces ahead of him, walking slowly down the road they’d been on for the last couple eternities.
He took another step. It hurt worse than before.
He took another step.
Another.
Another.
Another.
Tam looked up, and didn’t see Winnow. No, there she was, behind him, and odd look in her eyes. “Well,” he choked out. “You coming?”
Winnow shook her head, then jogged a couple of steps to catch up. “You constantly amaze me, city boy. I certainly never expected to find the likes of you in Sol’s camp.”
Tam didn’t feel particularly amazing at the moment, but he put on the cheekiest grin he could manage with his lungs gripped in a giant’s fist and his throat aflame. “Well, I can’t help being what I am.” He glanced over, and caught the twitch at the corner of Winnow’s mouth. Encouraged, he went on. “I have to admit, I didn’t really have being locked in a box and being shipped off to my death on my social calendar, but it seems to have worked out well enough. After all, I did get to meet,” looking over at Winnow, he caught the expectant look in her eyes, and read behind it her preparing herself to reject him. Without pausing he changed what he’s been about to say to, “Diggs and Carter. What a pair! Do you think even half of what he says is true?”
Winnow snorted. “If it were, Diggs’d be one of the greatest heroes of all time. I think he really has been around, some, but lava-proof? Really?”
Tam laughed. “Yeah, I somehow doubt that, but what do I know? Not very many water nymphs in Moldell.”
“Is that were you’re from?”
“Mm, lately. I was actually born in Riverford, but my father arranged for me to apprentice to Magistrate Higgins when I was seven. I haven’t seen my own family but twice a year- Beltane and Samhain- for the last ten years. What about you?”
Winnow looked off into the forest for a long, silent moment. Finally, in a soft voice that seemed to come from far away, she said, “Guilford.”
Tam whistled soundlessly. “You’re a long way from the capital, my lady.” He hesitated. “At least, I think you are. Where are we, anyways?”
“About three, four days north and west of Moldell. If Sol doesn’t catch up to us first, we should be able to make it to Oakford by this afternoon.” She whirled on him, suddenly fierce. “And if you ever tell anyone where I’m from, I’ll make you wish for Higgins’ torture, rack, understand?”
Tam put both hands up, palms out, and tried for soothing. “Hey, my lips are sealed.” He smirked. “Would you like to seal them with your own?”
Winnow glared at him a moment, then turned, and continued stalking down the road.
This time, it was Tam’s turn to jog a few steps to catch up. His heel still burned, and his entire body ached from sore muscles and exhaustion, but his heart no longer felt like it was trying to beat a hole through his ribcage.
They walked alongside each other for a time, Tam with his hands clasped atop his head, Winnow with her hands buried in the sleeves of her cloak and head down. Every few steps, Tam would glance over at her steadily-pacing figure. It was easy to joke and flirt with Winnow in the moment, playing off of the momentum in her words, but trying to start a serious conversation from scratch, a dead stop, with no opening for him to work from put a cold feeling in his stomach. He kept trying to think of ways to work around to the subject, working around from an oblique angle, but nothing seemed to put the right spin on what he wanted to say. Then he tried to think of a way to simply start her talking, and drew an equally frustrating blank. Nothing seemed right. Finally, he tried, “It’s very subtle, the stitching on your dress. I hardly noticed, before.”
Winnow said nothing, simply continuing to walk down the road. Somewhere, deep in Tam’s brain, somebody was shouting at him to shut up and leave it, but he pushed on. “At first, I thought it was just all black, flat and plain. But it’s not- there’s all these little patterns all over it, black on black on black. And on your bodice and sleeves- the same patterns. But there’s purple and blue and green mixed in, some of it.” Still nothing. He should really shut up not. He was making a mess of this. Dammit, why had Tam gone and opened his mouth? Enara had loved nothing more than discussing her wardrobe. Everything Tam knew about women’s fashion, he’d learned from Enara. Idiot. In what way was this woman like Enara? He should stop talking now. His foot was squishing in his boot, and he realized it was filling with blood. He should probably stop and do something about that blister.
“Did you do all that yourself?” Tam’s brain was screaming at him to shut up now, and his stomach felt like he’d just swallowed an entire bale of wool. Moron. “The stitching, I mean?” Tam buried his face in his hands, and tried to hold his mouth shut by the sheer strength of his fingers.
“Some of it.” When Winnow started to speak, her voice was soft, gaining slowly in strength. “Most of it was done by… a seamstress. I had to show her the patterns, and she couldn’t understand why I would want it in a manner almost nobody would ever see. I finally had to tell her it was a costume, for Samhain. I don’t know if she believed me. I do know she told my father.”
“I take it he wasn’t too thrilled?” Yes, Tam knew all about repressive fathers.
“Not so much. It was… part of why I left. He said he couldn’t have a daughter in his household who couldn’t uphold the honor and dignity of-” she stopped suddenly, coming back from whatever past to which her memories had taken her with an almost audible snap. “I seem to be telling you a lot of things I’ve never told anyone before, Tam Foltz.” She paused, then in a still-lower voice, said, “Ask me what you wish to know, Tam. I will answer your question.” She still had not looked at him. Her head was still down, shrouded by the deep well of the hood. No cue of expression there to guide Tam. She seemed folded in on herself, physically, but she was opening up to him in a way far more intimate than the way she’d kissed him… only yesterday? It seemed he’d lived a lifetime since Higgins had put him tin the box. And he still hadn’t gotten to sleep in a bed since he’d slipped out of Enara’s.
“Are you in pain?” The question just popped out, not tracking any internal train of thought Tam could follow. It seemed to surprise Winnow, as well, for she stopped in the middle of the road and looked at him, her expression unreadable except for the strength of the emotions behind it. Her face was pale.
“What do you know of Paintakers, Tam?”
“Not much,” He admitted. “Mostly, just what I’ve seen first hand. Beyond that, just the same dark tales all mothers tell their children to keep them in line. The two… don’t seem to have much in common.”
“I see.” Winnow seemed to digest this, then turned and continued walking.
“Hey, wait!” Tam called, and staggered after her. “I don’t think so, Blue-Eyes. You promised me an answer. You don’t just get to walk off and leave me twisting for it.
She spun to face him, eyes blazing. “What do you know? What do you know about pain?”
“I know that at least I have stones enough to face the things that scare me, instead of just running and hiding from them,” Tam snapped.
He knew he’d gone too far, but was too angry to care. Winnow’s pale face grew dark, and her hands shot out to seize either side of her head. Her eyes locked on to his, then he screamed, back arching, hands thrown wide. The agony seemed to go on and on. His heart was beating its way out of his chest, his legs were afire, his throat had been ripped out. Somewhere, far away, someone else was screaming too. Finally, the pain subsided, and he felt as though he’d just woken from an afternoon nap. His knees buckled, and Tam clung to Winnow. She clung to him just as desperately.
Winnow looked up at him and whispered hoarsely. “They’re not just a ritual formula. Pain is my life.” Her lips glistened when she licked them, deep red and inviting. Somehow, Tam’s hand had started stroking her hair. He cupped the back of her neck, and kissed her.
The kiss was long, and deep, and this time they had no audience. Winnow’s body pressed against him, and Tam could feel her low moan, deep in her throat.
They broke for breath, and Winnow leaned her cheek against his chest. “Well, you certainly didn’t think of me as your mother that time.” With a sigh, she pushed away from him, face drawn. “The more pain I take in, the more filled I am with life. But both pain and life are passing things, and as one fades, so does the other. I don’t enjoy pain. I need it.”
Tam’s grin slipped sideways as he took this in. “Wow. You sure know how to show a guy a good time, don’t you?” The words were out of his mouth before he had time to think. Tam could see from the way she drew back that he’d hurt her feelings. Crap, that hadn’t been what he wanted to do. He really needed a filter between his brain and his mouth. “Aah, so… are you hungry?”
She looked at him, and evidently saw something in his eyes, for she hooked her arm through his, and resumed walking down the road for all the world as if they were on a stroll through the country instead of running for their lives. “Starving.”
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