Year of Miracles, page 14
part #1 of Collected Stories of the Old Races Series
"We're brethren, he and I. The titles I might use for him mean nothing in a—" He hesitated, and finished carefully, a foreign accent more clearly marking his words: "In an English court. Don't be too impressed with him, Sarah. Anyone can buy fine clothes and learn a noble's accent."
"I couldn't." They were at Sarah's home by then, and Alban stopped at the threshold as he had each night before. For the first time, Sarah gestured inside. "You could come in."
"I think that would threaten your reputation. Or mine."
Sarah laughed. "Am I as dangerous as all that?"
"If you've earned Janx's attention, you are almost certainly more dangerous than you know. Beauty often is. But," the big man said more lightly, "even if you are not, my wife is."
Surprise burst in Sarah's chest. "You're married? But you're here all night every night with me!"
"She understands. We are...protective by nature, she and I. A few nights to assure a woman's safety is nothing, in the face of the years we have together."
"Be careful of that thought," Sarah whispered. "The years are always shorter than we hope."
Color came into Alban's eyes for the first time since she'd known him, yellow in their depths. "There, you see? Wisdom: and wisdom, Sarah, is as dangerous as beauty. Go now. Sleep well. I'll see you at sunset tomorrow."
"I'm to meet Lord Janx then. No one will be bold or foolish enough to come at me."
"True enough." Alban smiled, brief but not teasing. "But you may need protection from Janx."
Coldness settled on Sarah's shoulders, a cloak that pushed away springtime warmth. "Will I?"
As cold had settled on her, stillness settled on Alban. He didn't seem to so much as breathe, though finally a sigh was pulled from his lungs. "I don't know. I only met him when he hired me to protect you. He won't deliberately do you harm, but he may forget how fragile you are, and that this is your life, not a game. That's the way of his...ilk. Hajnal—my wife—would be better able to advise you."
"Perhaps she could come see me tomorrow," Sarah blurted. "Before I see Lord Janx. I would be grateful for advice, my lord."
"Alban," he said gently. "Always Alban, Sarah. I don't pretend to Janx's airs. And...I could bring you to her tonight, but she can't see you tomorrow."
"Is it far?" She hadn't been tired until he made the suggestion, but weariness rose in a sudden war with curiosity.
Alban, for some reason, looked to the sky before his face wrinkled in a frown. "Farther than I think of it as being, yes. I could hire a carriage."
A smile twitched Sarah's lips. "You're as blind as he is. No carriage would take me, Alban. My skirts would stain the seats."
His frown deepened and he examined her as if he'd never seen her before. Acceptance slowly cleared his expression, though a touch of surprise still remained. "A cart, then."
Sarah shook her head. "I'll seek your lady's advice another time, if I come to needing it. Thank you, though."
Alban nodded, then turned his attention down the alley. "Would you leave this place if you could, Sarah Hopkins?"
"Only a fool wouldn't." She spoke without thinking, but then followed his gaze along the narrow cobbled path between leaning buildings. At windows covered with cheap cloth, or more often not covered at all, and at doors hung crooked in their frames. Upward, at the strip of sky visible where ever-larger upper stories almost touched, their thatched roofs poking straws at one another. She had been born in this alley and would likely die there, having spent all the days between walking to the slaughterfields to sell the meat she bought bleating, then butchered for those who could pay. She hadn't imagined more until Janx spoke to her, and even now she knew that imagination failed her. There was no life beyond the slaughterfields that meant anything to her. So she answered again, more honestly this time: "I would like to try."
"I wish you luck." For all his size, Alban nearly disappeared when he settled into place beside her door. He would be there until dawn, or just before. She never heard him leave, but he had always been gone when the sun edged into the sky. A night-time guardian, just as Janx had promised.
For the first time, she wondered what else he might promise, and whether she had the courage to accept.
A streak of foolish hope and vanity made her look at her Sunday gown when the sun rose. Practicality defeated the thought: the larger beasts were bought, slaughtered, butchered and hung to age, but there were chickens a-plenty to prepare for Janx's table, and they would bleed on her one good dress as easily as on her slaughtering clothes. More, Janx would neither notice nor care what she wore. Her neighbors, though, would, and would rightfully mock her for wasting good clothes to catch the eye of one so far above her.
Especially, she thought with unusual confidence, since she'd caught his eye already.
He came to the market before sundown, when she was elbow-deep in guts and feathers and blood. She wiped sweat from her forehead with a forearm, smearing blood instead, and straightened to stretch her spine and squint at the red lord. "You're early, my lord."
"I couldn't bear to see you only in dusk's faint light. What is life without the sun's gentle touch shining in your hair and bringing a blush to your fair cheeks?" Janx put a hand over his heart, eyelashes fluttering, and looked insulted when she laughed. "Do you not believe me, Sarah Hopkins?"
"How could anyone?" She directed his attention with a thumb over her shoulder. "Your chickens, my lord. The rest is hanging for inspection, and I'll have it packed in a cart and brought to your kitchens when you're satisfied."
"My dear," Janx said in pretend dismay, "do you think it's well-hung meat that satisfies me?" His dismay turned to a shout of laughter as Sarah thinned her lips at him, and he bowed, gesturing that she should lead the way. She had a step or two in which to fight down laughter of her own before he was beside her, walking as if they were equals. He should not be encouraged, she told herself fiercely, but it was hard not to fall into his catching sense of play. He asked her questions—sensible questions about the preservation of meats and about the strength and skill necessary to cut through bones and joints—as she brought him through the market to the hanging room where she most often hired hooks.
Janx's nostrils flared as they entered. The scent here was different: saltier and more intensely of meat rather than blood. There was that, too, of course, but the drying flesh had a deeper smell to it, one that lingered in the throat.
"Yes," Janx said. "This will do. Don't have it packed in salt to be delivered, slaughterfield's daughter. There's salt a-plenty already."
"You'd best hope the night is cool, then, or it'll sour. You must have very large kitchens," Sarah added, then winced. If there was a skill to smooth conversation, she lacked it.
Janx only nodded, absent answer given as he stepped closer to a hanging side of beef and sent it gently swinging. "It would take an army to cook all of this. Can you have your man deliver it before dawn, Sarah Hopkins?"
She would never see the coin, if it was paid to the man and his cart in the middle of the night. Still, two-thirds of the price she'd named for all the meat would see her through the summer. Beyond, if she was careful and lucky enough to not be robbed of it. "Sure enough. At which bell?"
Like Alban, he glanced to the sky before answering. It was darkening now, spring's late dusk coming on. Dawn would be early, too. "Three bells," he decided aloud. "No doubt it'll still be dark then."
"And do you live in Westminster, m'lord, or a country estate?"
"Oh, God, an estate. I would itch my skin off in the city's close confines. Bad enough to walk below the jetties—" He fell silent at Sarah's expression, then offered a rueful apology. "Which is of course where you live. I meant no insult, Sarah, but don't you find it...distressing? The way the houses...?" He tented his hands, echoing the dangerous lean of buildings toward one another.
"I wouldn't know anything else, my lord." She'd been easy before, but stiffness filled her now.
Janx's face fell. "I'm a poor suitor, aren't I?"
"No." Sarah shaped the words carefully. "You're a wealthy one, and that, my lord, is probably worse. I'll need to pay my man tonight, if he's to deliver the goods in the small hours," she said, feeling clever. "It'll be half of the final third, and I'll come tomorrow to collect the rest." That was spoken like the truth, though she doubted herself the moment it was said.
Janx dropped a purse of coin into her palm as carelessly as before, never counting it, and Sarah never doubting it contained at least as much as she demanded, perhaps more. But he dipped into the purse, bringing up a shining bit of metal between two fingers: the last of what she was owed, the money she claimed she would come for on the morrow. "Will you truly come?"
Sarah looked away and Janx chuckled. "I shall wait with hope regardless. What might I do or say to entice you?"
"Nothing, my lord." The money felt heavy in Sarah's hand, like she'd been bought and sold already. "I thank you for your custom."
"I believe you've been dismissed, Janx." Alban spoke from the meat hall's door, startling Sarah and sending a mild look of irritation over Janx's changeable features.
There was a woman with Alban tonight, small and dark-haired, with faintly golden skin tones that made him look all the paler by comparison. His wife, Sarah guessed. Her heart clenched with pleasure and nervousness that he'd remembered.
"Master Korund." Janx bowed less deeply than he had for Sarah. "I didn't retain your services for the night, nor the lady's at all."
"You cannot imagine the coin you offer is what causes him to be here," the woman said. Her voice was deeper than Sarah expected: warmer, and marked with the same accent as Alban's. "As for myself, I'm generally wiser than to truck with the likes of you, but Mistress Hopkins asked for me, and so here I am."
"Goody Hopkins, Mistress," Sarah whispered. She would lay no claim to a gentlewoman's title, even one so modest as mistress. Not while nobility stood among them, and from Janx's naming of Alban as master, he and his wife were of gentle birth, too.
Mistress Korund, with as much regard for class as Janx showed, waved away Sarah's objection. "I don't care for the sound of that word. Mistress will do. You may go, Janx. Leave the girl alone."
To Sarah's astonishment—to Janx's, clearly—he stepped back, entirely obedient. Then a sulk pushed his lip out and he closed with Sarah again, suddenly all jade eyes and injured hope. "Would you have me go, Sarah?"
"I've told you already," she said. "I'll come tomorrow for the rest of the payment."
"That," Alban's wife offered, "means yes. Go on. I need to speak with her."
Janx's easy humor fled and he crossed to the Korunds so quickly it made Sarah's head ache. Something was wrong with the way he moved, the action more like an unbroken ripple across a pond than a man crossing space with so many steps. Softly, softly enough that Sarah thought she was not meant to hear, he said, "Watch what you say."
Hajnal Korund, who stood head and shoulders smaller than the ginger lord, showed not a whit of concern at his too-close presence. "I know what can and cannot be said, Janx. It might do you well to remember what can and cannot be done."
"Laws," Janx murmured, "are for the law-abiding." Then, more clearly, and peevishly, "Yes, yes, I've been dismissed, very well, I shall take my leave of you all." Quicksilver in temperament, he was suddenly smiles and charm as he bowed once more to Sarah. "I do await tomorrow with anticipation, my dear. Don't destroy my hopes."
He left them all behind, the Korunds at the door and Sarah standing amongst meats hanging in springtime warmth. The hall was emptier than could be accounted for by his leaving, and a chill of loss crept up Sarah's spine. "He didn't say where his estate was."
"It would never occur to him that someone might not know. I'll tell your man which streets to take," Alban offered, then hesitated. Made another offer in that hesitation, one that could be heard even if it went unspoken.
Sarah looked to his wife, to a woman she hadn't even met yet. Sympathy curved the other woman's mouth, and Sarah wondered if she had found Alban both appealing and impossible, when he'd first come courting. "When you are old," Hajnal said, "which will you regret more, the going, or the staying away?"
Sarah closed her eyes to admit the truth without facing it. "The staying away."
Hajnal's voice deepened further with understanding, if not surprise. "Then Alban will tell you which streets to take, too."
She wore her Sunday dress, of course. Even scrubbed herself in water heated over an otherwise-unnecessary fire. Scrubbed until the water was brown with old blood and her fingers wrinkled. Took her mother's bone comb to her hair, leaving tangled snarls of it on the floor. Taken from its braid and combed, though, it shone in waves. Janx, who had no evident regard for social standing, would like it down, she thought. But only children and harlots wore their hair loose, so she bound it back up again and counted having thought of what he'd like at all a mark both for and against him. She didn't want to think such things, but if it didn't matter, she would have kept to her workday clothes and not bathed at all. He had won something from her already, then, and it would be false to say she wasn't glad of it.
The road there was long enough, and then some, to strip away her rabbit-heart excitement and cold nervous hands. A ha'penny bought her a cart ride down the longest stretch, and she left it behind with straw stuck in her skirt as a reminder. She shook it free before reaching wrought-iron gates with a monstrous dragon worked in the metal. They stood open, perhaps awaiting her, and she crossed through wondering how Janx had ever come so far afield as to even see, never mind speak to her. He was landed, not just a lord in name with no property or money: she couldn't yet see the house, though she'd passed by a gatehouse already. Unmanned, that, which was strange, from what little she knew of the wealthy.
"You came." Janx, impossibly, crested the low rise in the road in front of her. A very low rise: she could see over it, see the path beyond. He had not come up it. Sarah gaped, and he spread his fingers, dismissing the oddness in favor of a brilliant smile for her. "You came," he said again. "I thought you wouldn't. Especially after Hajnal had a word with you. What did she say?" He all but pranced forward, offering her an arm.
She was astonished enough to take it. Janx's smile, already broad, widened further. He squeezed her hand against his ribs, murmured, "You look lovely, my dear. For me?" and gestured down the drive. "We have a carriage coming. Would you prefer to sit and wait, or walk to meet it?"
"How did you get here before the carriage? I didn't...see you." Sarah let go his arm to climb the rise, satisfying herself that there were no hollows or depressions large enough to hide him at the roadside. She turned back to face him and caught thoughtfulness in his eyes before he gave a tiny shrug.
"I couldn't wait on something so slow as a carriage and four. The wind carried me, Sarah Hopkins. What do you think of that?"
"I think you're mad." More, she thought she should be angry at his playfulness, but it pulled a smile to her lips instead. "Is there really a carriage coming?"
"Of course."
"Then we'll wait." Bold decision, but he'd asked and seemed determined to treat her as an equal. She would likely never see such regard again, and Mistress Korund's words lingered in her mind: which would she regret more? Surely anyone would regret not taking the mad and wonderful moments as they were given, that those memories might linger on cold nights in the future. Sarah sat on the ground, tucking her skirts around her ankles, and Janx clapped his hands with childish delight.
"I should have brought a picnic."
"Is the wind kind enough to carry that, too? But your cook would be furious, my lord. She must be working her fingers to the bone preparing a feast from the meat. Will there be a...a ball?"
Janx sat beside her, arms looped over his knees and bemusement on his face. "No, I'm afraid not. Not tonight. Would you like one? I could host one for you."
Sarah laughed. "I wouldn't know how to dance at a ball, my lord, even if I should be allowed to attend such a thing. What, then, with so much food? Oh." The last was spoken to the distance as the promised carriage and four appeared. Matched horses, all bays with white stockings, and stars on their foreheads when they were close enough to see. The carriage itself gleamed, black wood and shining trim, and a liveried footman leapt down to offer her a hand to rise from her seat in the dirt.
She only stared at it. At his tidy fingernails and clean hands, much cleaner than hers had come, even with scrubbing. At the cuff of cloth beyond the hand, no doubt more costly than what she might earn in a year. It wasn't Janx who was mad, after all: it was herself, for having come here.
Janx brushed the footman away, standing and taking Sarah's hand himself. He was finer by far than the footman, of course, but she expected that. Knew her place in comparison to that. It was easier to have courage facing the ridiculous than facing a servant who would only see her as getting above herself.
"Trust me, if not yourself, Sarah." Janx kept her hand in his, steady and soothing, but made no effort to tug her toward the carriage.
She wavered and finally whispered, "This is not my life, my lord. This is not who I am."
"No," he said just as quietly. "But it could be."
"Because I'm beautiful?" She still didn't believe that, but it was easier to accept he saw beauty in her than any other possible explanation for the madness that had entered her life.
"Yes, but more because you're brave. A beauty drowned in cow's blood has done you very little good so far—"
"It caught your eye," Sarah said a little dryly. "I don't understand how, as certainly your like was never seen in the slaughterfields—"
"Not mine, no," Janx said as if surprised, "but servants. I listen to servants, Sarah. They have a great deal that is interesting to say, and I had heard tale of the beautiful butcher from more than one source. And beauty may have brought you to my attention, but it's your bold spirit that brought you here today. That makes far more difference than mere loveliness. One catches the eye. The other—" He broke off and Sarah's eyebrows rose.
