“I think, Cayce, I’m going to retire soon. I appreciate all the concern you are showing , and the care.”
As she stood, so did I. “Not at all, Saph.” We hugged, she kissed on the cheek, her lips lingering warmly, light hot and moist breath against my cheek, perhaps out of drunkenness, and she left. Maybe to have a good cry. Or be alone. I could understand the feeling. It had been an awful day for her.
So of the soldiers continued their revelries. Many, I an, many and most of the soldiers continued. It was good to see the intermingling between the Barclay troops and our own. Laughing and drinking together. Perhaps because we made a point of treating them in our hospital, perhaps because Brundle had wisely seeded the great hall with soldiers from both sides who’d fought together at Dernamouth, or perhaps because they no longer needed to kill each other on a distant noble’s orders.
“You know, big guy, I’m not so sure I’m going to stay, either. You want to have a few drinks alone?”
He’d been watching the soldiers, and turned his gaze slowly my way, “That sounds like an excellent plan, Princess. I’ll bring us a platter of ats, just in case.”
“Hey, if you want to stay with the n, that’s ok, too.”
“My only worry is that so might think we are sneaking off, and that may affect your future suitors.”
“Oh, the sex thing again. Morry,” I shook my head, “I just don’t care. There’s always going to be gossip and rumors. If you want to co, co.” Out of long-lost habit, I pushed the chair back in, kind of missing Brin’s banter and presence, then made my way across the great hall and its ss of n, through a sea of my-ladies and Your Highnessing, a few claps on the back, but no one asked for a selfie.
***
“I wonder if four guards are enough for tonight.”
“You seriously think we’re vulnerable? I can magically blast anyone and you, well, you’re the scariest man alive.”
“Scariest?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t know how to take that.”
“Oh, not to , you big monster. To all the n.”
“Monster?”
“You know what my favorite part of having suitors was?”
“The attention from, how did you phrase it, cute boys?”
“No! Never that. How frightened of you they were. I wished you were there when that thirteen-year-old boy demanded I marry him. He’d have pissed himself.” Thinking of him made wonder how the little guy did today. If I rembered later, I’d have to ask.
“It seems as though my appearance is true to my intentions.” He sat down in a wide chair by the fireplace.
I pulled back a bit, wondering if that was a joke. “Huh. Well, that works.”
“You know, I am blessed,” the big man said as I poured him an ale, “to be in the presence of genius.”
I poured myself one, too. Sat down across from him in an equally large chair, wide enough for two. This day’s events weighed heavily on my mind and I wanted, I just wanted more alcohol to take the edge off. The threats to my person, my ignored pleas for peace, the n dying and dying needlessly. The goddamned birds. It was all too much.
Since I didn’t get hangovers, ale took the edge off with none of the consequences. A dangerous combination. At the tender age of fifteen, I was already at risk of becoming an underage alcoholic. Perhaps past the risk and fully committed. Though it was my second ti at fifteen. Maybe that put in the legal category.
“Morry, just whatever.”
“I think you are. You reinvented warfare. You made our army unstoppable. Princess,” he spoke with a reverence I’d never heard from him before, “nothing could touch today. Arrows, spears and swords bounced off my armor! And the stirrups and lances, I could never have imagined such improvents to riding and yet you only recently learned how to ride. You’re so young and look what you’ve done. What you’ve accomplished.”
His words bit into . I was a fraud, a thief. Not deserving of any of this – the title, the army, reverence from the commoners – all of it, I stole upon entering this body. Maybe even the body itself.
Perhaps it was the alcohol reaching deep inside or the odd entwined satisfaction of utterly defeating an enemy army and the horrors of war. Or the ravens’ strange effect on , the sudden overwhelming power and my desperate struggle, and barely achieved success, to hold it in check.
Or the deception that cos with living as who you are not. Foolish, but I had to tell him. A confession, my unreal truth, the seeking of absolution or, failing that, condemnation. But acknowledgent all the sa.
“I’m not a genius. I just,” I stood, walked over, and took his large hand in mine, sinking to my knees in front of him and, looking up, said, “I need to tell you sothing, Morry. You’ll hate .” My eyes welled up, I rested my head on his knee, preparing myself.
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He ran his large hand through my hair.
A breeze entered the room. I raised my head to look, Saph was standing by the door, holding a large jug in each hand. She flashed a naughty smile, “I brought our finest. Am I interrupting?” She tilted her head a little, just enough to get her ssage across. She’d caught us in the act.
I quickly stood, “No, no! Co in, join us.”
She walked toward , “Cayce, are you crying?”
Wiping my eyes, I decided truth was best, “Just about everything, yes! The endless wars, all the life lost . . .”
Saph set the bottles on the floor, threw her arms around my neck. I hugged her back, but I was perhaps too stiff. We’d only known each other three days, my first in this world, but nearly a year had passed, and I didn’t really know this girl. This child forced to be the head of her noble family. I squeezed a little harder.
She pulled back, her green eyes so close to mine, “Bring to your table, let catch up with the wine! Then we can have a good cry together.”
“Ale, we were drinking ale. But a little mixing never hurt anyone.”
“Speak for yourself,” said the big man.
“Well now, if you don’t mind.” Sapphire picked up my mug, brought it to her lips and chugged it back, then slamd it upside down on the table, picked up Morry’s, slamming it down when she was done. “There. I’m all caught up and we can move onto wine.”
I laughed, she laughed, I went and found so glasses, picked the wine jugs off the ground, then we sat around the table and I said, “Honestly, I’m done with crying. Let’s go with laughter and stories and booze.”
“Booze?”
“The wine!”
“Oh, yes. Here,” she grabbed a jug and tore the cork out with her mouth, spit it off to the side, poured a full glass, then Morry and herself.
“To peace and stability,” I said, raising mine up before bringing the red liquid to my lips. “Hmm, it’s better than that stuff we had at the encampnt.”
“Oh, yes. Military wine. Probably the lowest of rations, save those given to the poor on harvest day.”
“Makes sense.”
“Of course, it makes sense! I’m surprised Brin hasn’t gotten that through to you. Do you rember, Cayce, when we doled out that ale to the troops? And you decided to give them as much as they wanted.”
“Yeah, the dowager pitched a fit. It was, uh, my brother who suggested the idea.”
Saph held her glass up high, and somberly said, “To lost brothers.” We all cheered, though Morry looked not pleased at all, but that was normal for him.
“And your brother, Morrentz?”
“Gone. Long gone.”
“It’s ‘Sir,’ now, actually,” I said. “Sir Morry. I created a class of nobility called ‘knights’ and ‘sir’ is their title.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
I did as she requested, and she laughed where appropriate – at the earls and their frustrations – then asked, “This new armor of yours, it seems impervious to most weaponry.”
“I wouldn’t say that. But it’s very strong.” Just wait till you learn about the mighty arquebus, I thought to myself.
“Still, amazing that you worked that out.”
“I wouldn’t be, I an, it’s not a difficult concept. Just a sheet of tal.”
“Probably,” she leaned forward, “you thought it up after giving up lead sugar. Bad for the mind, you said.”
“Yeah. You know, I kind of think you’re right.” I took perhaps too large a sip from the wine. Maybe it was the lead sugar holding the adults here back. Less ability to think, to be creative. That and magic. The artillery of this world, so powerful it held technological improvents back. Armor? Magic wins. Better armor? Magic still wins.
“I have to say, and I hope this is ok now, nearly a year later, but it did take everyone by surprise that you suddenly simply disliked sweet wine.”
That brought my attention back into sharp focus. “What do you an, people were surprised?”
“You were acting so differently. Not yourself, even.”
“I think, I think it was waking up in that camp. The enemy camp. Getting captured, I an. I just, I don’t know, Saph, I didn’t want to be a child any longer.”
“You said it was poisonous.”
“What?”
“Lead-sugar.”
“It is. Lead is not sothing you want in your body.”
“People drink it all the ti.”
“Yeah.
“Won like sweet wine.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t.”
She nodded, “Maybe they shouldn’t.”
Holding up my glass, “I like this wine. You can taste the vintage. It’s clearer, more tart, hints of chocolate. Why ruin that with lead sugar?”
“Well, Cayce, we weren’t drinking this vintage back then. It was,” she held up her glass, staring into it, “more akin to dishwater.”
***
“Escorting back to my room?”
“Well, you are drunk, Saph.”
“No more than you!” She smiled at , taking my hand in hers. The guards’ steps went out of rhythm with ours as they slowed, giving us space.
“I just want to make sure you get back unmolested.”
“Yes, with all your soldiers in the castle, that is a real problem, isn’t it?” She suddenly stopped, pulling to face her, the guards stopping so distance behind us and trying their best to look like they weren’t staring. “You rember when we used to race through the halls at your castle? Sotis we’d lose the guards!”
“Not now, ok? Let’s just get you to bed.”
“You don’t rember.” We started walking again.
“It’s not that. I’ve got a lot of my mind, Saph.”
“You should have married my brother. Why didn’t you?”
“You know why.”
“No man shall have you and you want to rule the kingdom forever a spinster!”
“I also just don’t like being forced into relationships.”
“He’d have treated you gently. A kind man, my brother. Too gentle.” Saph abruptly stopped. “Here, my rooms. Co in.”
“I’m going to go-” Saph threw her arms around my neck, half lidded eyes in my face as her lips t mine, soft, long and full, and I fell into it, returning the touch of her lips, surprised and familiar when her tongue found mine, until I managed to push her back a bit, taking a step away. “Hey!”
“Spend the night with . Co in. We’ll drink and talk and . . .”
“No, I, Saph,” my mind was racing and, annoyingly, my heartbeat, “tonight of all nights.”
Her face was pouty, freckles trailing to her green eyes, and they looked deep into mine, searching, “Ever since the encampnt, Cayce. What happened?”
“After,” I managed to get out, “after you’re the duke, after I get my kingdom back, after-”
“It was never your kingdom.”
“We’ll talk then, seriously, ok?”
“You’re not retaking it. You’re conquering it.”
“I’m not, I don’t want to do it that way! Why couldn’t your brother simply take an oath?”
“That you don’t . . .”
“What, Saph? Look, I’m trying here. To be as moral as I can.”
“Moral!” She placed her palm on my chest, grabbing hold of the leather gambeson, bunching it up, then letting it go and smoothing it out, “There’s no moral. You’re just winning. Ok, ok, I’ve had too much. I’m going. Ti to sleep.”
“Good night.” She unattached herself from , opened the door and got halfway before I suddenly said, “Listen! Tomorrow, you’ll be running things. You’ll be the duchess!”
“Thank you.” A small smile on her lips, a tiny curl, but her eyelids were heavy, “Sleep well.” And she shut the door.
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