A Crown of Lilies Page 5

  The night before our dismissal was cause for great celebration. Our training was completed, and we all would be going home. In exceptional spirits, the men pined for their women and boasted of their plans for their return. Lehs drooled for his mother’s cooking, Bryce claimed to be yearning for a golden-haired barmaid named Alyssa, and Trente talked soberly of making a small fortune driving his cattle into the Bendton market for auction.

  We all boasted of our hard-won skill and many challenges were laid out and met in the dining hall that night. I turned down one such for a bare-fisted match but took on Bryce in thrown knives. He beat me, as usual, but by a closer margin than normal. James took on one of the leaner soldiers, the son of an innkeeper, and pinned him rightly after a short scuffle. He beamed at me, shirtless and bloodied, as his opponent was hauled to his feet by two others, far worse for the wear. I smiled back with pride and affection surely written on my face, less capable of concealing my feelings for him after a few mugs of mead. With a damp rag I begged off one of the kitchen hands, I cleaned the worst of the blood from his cuts.

  “Doesn’t get much better than this,” he grinned foolishly, five mugs of his own gleaming in his eyes.

  I laughed and nodded sarcastically as I dabbed at his torn knuckles. “Surely, if you enjoy the company of animals and getting bloodied up for sport.”

  He flinched and hissed through his teeth. “Watch it, would you?”

  “Don’t be such a baby,” I growled, snatching his hand back.

  I could feel his eyes on me as I held him still and continued my administrations. His breath rustled a loose strand of my hair, his face mere inches from mine. “You did it,” he finally said, voice low. I glanced at him a moment before looking away again. “You pulled through, the whole three months.”

  “Couldn’t have, without you,” I admitted.

  “You could.” He caught my hand and squeezed gently. My heart raced, the rag forgotten as I met his gaze. “But I’m glad I was here, with you.”

  Sarah watched us all with a wry smile and let us stay far later than normal that night.

  The next day, we assembled at dawn for our dismissal, our heads aching. Samson waited, mounted on his chestnut gelding. “You came here as boys.” His sweeping gaze paused on me and he favored me with the merest nod of approval. I returned it with a cocky grin of my own. “I have made you into men, the finest cavalrymen in all of Alesia. Those of you wanting to run the winter patrol, report back here in two moons. Collect your pay from Captain Reynolds on taking your leave. Dismissed.” He rode off in his usual apathetic grandeur and our attention fell on the captains at the head of the column. One held a long scroll of paper and a quill, the other a handful of purses with a bucket of more at his feet.

  Many of us mingled afterward to say our farewells. Trente, Bryce, and Lehs approached us and spoke their partings to James. Trente hugged me tightly in an unexpected show of affection. Lehs smiled tenderly and gripped my shoulder. Bryce smirked slyly, clasped my offered forearm, and then pulled me into an embrace as well. His hand struck my buttocks and I shoved him off to strike him, but James beat me to it, catching him off-guard from the left and sending him sprawling on his backside.

  “I’m sorry! I couldn’t help myself now that I could!” he exclaimed, nursing his jaw.

  I eyed my grounded companion. “What’s this all about, lecher? Admitting you’re really a buggerer after all?” I taunted.

  He stood and brushed himself off as he said, “Well if the boy was pretty enough....” Behind him, Lehs tried to contain a burst of chuckles behind a cough.

  “We’ll see you after the harvest, yes?” Trente cut in. His face was kind, but the corner of his mouth curved into a teasing smirk. “You fight well, for a girl.” The other two burst out laughing and retreated toward the stables as I blanched and James shifted closer. We both reached for our knives. Trente threw up his hands in a peaceable gesture. “Easy, they mean no harm. We’ve known for a while, love. We kept the others in the dark, for the same reasons you tried to hide it yourself.” He jutted his chin at his two companions in the distance. “Bryce nearly shot his mouth off a few times, but I set him to rights. They tease, but they’re actually quite taken with you.” He pressed his fist to his chest and bowed slightly. “As am I.” He grinned and left us to follow the others to the stables. I watched them go, frozen in place.

  They had known. They had known and kept it to themselves. They had protected me.

  James nudged my arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

  As we crossed the vast pastures and fields on our way back toward my father’s manor, James gave voice to my own thoughts. “Others likely found out too. Trente must have been very convincing.” I thought on it for the rest of our ride back. We let our mounts stretch their legs for a while, and my mind wandered. They knew I was a woman, yes, but there was really no way for them to know who I was. I had never been to any of the villages in our province, though my father visited regularly to meet with the local elders and hear any grievances. Even if they discovered James’ true appointment at the manor, no noblewoman would disgrace herself by joining the ranks of common soldiers. I wondered how much Samson had done to alleviate the threat - how much James had done. I eyed him but decided not to ask. I doubted I would ever know the whole truth. It was enough, to be humbled by it.

  An outrider announced our approach and the household was waiting in the courtyard when we arrived near dusk. James stepped gladly into his mother’s embrace and his father’s reserved pride. His brothers jostled him good-naturedly, his eldest brother Seth having already completed his own training years ago. I left him to it and turned to meet my parents. My mother looked relieved beyond words at the sight of me living, though after a moment, she seemed taken aback at my appearance. I embraced her and turned to face my father.

  His back rigid, those deep forest eyes sized me up. A distant part of me wanted to shrink beneath his regard, but I had spent the last three months drenched in mud, sweat, and blood among men. I felt the weight of my knife and sword on my hips, the quiet jangle of my hard-won coin, the softened leather of my boots. I stood tall and watched his solemn face break into a father’s proud grin.

  “Welcome home.”

  Chapter 3

  The days that followed were awkward. I related the tales of the last few months to my parents, Shera, and even some of the house guard, who I found myself taking more of a liking to than previously. Some of it, I left out. I made no mention of the mead-filled nights of lewd boasting and said nothing of James’ overture.

  I missed him. I’d hardly had time to see Valor, let alone catch James between his daily duties. We’d been together every waking moment for months, and his absence felt like a wound. I thought of him at night and imagined him lying in his bunk only feet from me, his gentle breathing lulling me to sleep. I missed them all: Bryce’s boasting, Lehs’ gentle nature, Trente’s rumbling snores. The life I’d returned to didn’t seem to fit me. I replaced my stained tunics and breeches for gowns once again. The corsets didn’t bother me terribly since their restriction reminded me of the muslin bindings I had used for months, but the skirts were cumbersome and unfamiliar.

  It initially took Shera nearly two hours to scour me to her satisfaction. Nearly an hour of that was spent solely on my hair. A brush would have given me away in the barracks, and my fingers didn’t do as well to comb out knots. Shera insisted on painfully thorough baths each day for the next week after my return, determined to draw every crumb of dirt from my pores. With nothing else to do, I told her of James’ affections when she pried. In the near-isolation of early adulthood, Shera had been the closest thing to a female friend I’d known. She grinned from ear to ear and sighed with a girl’s wistful romanticism.

  “And you feel the same for him, yes?” she asked excitedly.

  “I suppose. I think about him quite often. I... notice things I didn’t before.”

  She let out a squeal of pleasure. “Oh, you must go to him, miss!”


  “Go to him?” I inquired.

  “You know,” she murmured, blushing. “A lovers’ tryst.” I blushed as well and said no more on the topic.

  The notion hounded me for the rest of the day and into the night. I dreamed of it, then, slipping a secret message into his hand, returning late that night to find him there in my room. I dreamed of him taking me into his arms, his lips meeting mine, a rush of heat flowing through my body, settling in my loins. I woke abruptly in the morning, aching. Fine, I thought with a glance out my window at the twilight. Rising, I went to my desk, pulling out a piece of parchment and scrawling a brief message onto it. Meet me in the stables tonight. I tore it as small as possible, folded it, and tucked it into my palm. Whatever happened, I missed him and just to see him would bring me some measure of ease.

  I caught him in the courtyard that day, hauling a sack of oats from the cellars toward the barn. Cats danced around his ankles, barely avoiding tripping him. He spotted me and stopped, dropping the burlap bag at my feet. “Eli,” he teased in greeting, looking me over with a hint of disbelief. I couldn’t blame him. The last time he had seen me, I hadn’t brushed my hair in months, was dressed as a man, and still had practice wounds on the mend. Now, I stood before him, looking as if none of it had ever happened, though inside I felt wholly out of place in my delicately embroidered gown.

  “James. I haven’t seen you,” I stumbled foolishly.

  He fidgeted. “Sorry, Father has me making up for my absence.” An awkward pause filled the space between us. “You’ve been well?”

  “Yes,” I answered hastily. I noticed others in the courtyard were starting to stare, which only increased my discomfort. All of my mother’s training evaporated and there was little subtlety or finesse in the way I pressed the note into his hand. “It was good to see you.” I took my leave in a hurry. I could pretend to be a man and boast of lewd acts before strangers, but I couldn’t deliver a note to my oldest friend? There was an invisible string tied between us, and it pulled on me the rest of the day. Shera saw me in the afternoon and knew right away by the nervous look my face. She broke into a wide grin and I shooed her and bid her keep quiet.

  That night, when the moon was high and the house still, I slipped out the servants’ entrance and around the side of the manor to the back of the barn. Hushing the horses as they whinnied groggily at my entrance, I closed the creaky door behind me and followed my lantern into the darkness. James waited, pressing one finger to his lips and beckoning me away from the stalls, past the tack room, and up into the hayloft above. We set our lanterns carefully aside, cautious of knocking them over on accident.

  He sprawled out and stretched his legs before him, leaning back on his hands. I knelt nearby, tucking my cursed skirts around my knees. He eyed me. “So what is this all about?”

  I shrugged. “I missed you, I guess. It’s strange, being back.”

  He glanced at me sidelong, a sly grin on his face. “You missed me, eh?”

  I met his gaze in earnest. “Yes.” Silence stretched between us, the cord pulling tight. I wanted so desperately to touch him, but I didn’t dare.

  His smile faded at the look on my face and he dropped his eyes. I heard bitterness creep into his voice for the first time. “What are you doing, Elivya?”

  I flushed, ducking my head and rubbing my sweating palms on my skirts. “I don’t honestly know, I just wanted to see you. After what you said, I thought….”

  “It doesn’t matter how I feel about you,” he countered firmly. “You’re a noble, and I’m not. Nothing I say will ever change that.” He stood, taking his lantern and leaving me there in the loft.

  His anger hurt, unfamiliar in the long years we’d known one another. My heart ached. I couldn’t breathe. What he said was merely the brutal truth. No matter how much my childish romanticism denied it, I could never escape my rank, and there was certainly no way I could escape my duties as heir to my House.

  I brewed for weeks, overcome with the intense sorrow and bitterness that only first love can provide. I didn’t see James and barely spoke to anyone for days. Eventually, I began to attempt some semblance of civility, but couldn’t bring myself to be cheerful. The easiest times were those when I took Valor out into the fields of Laezon. There, I could give him his head, and feel all my youthful frustration and hurt slowly drain from me.

  Always, I feared running into him, and yet I always looked for him on my return, but one of the other boys would take Valor from me instead. One day, I returned to my quarters to find a note on my bed. The loft. Tonight. My heart leapt into my throat and my chest ached anew as the ever-present cord tied to my gut gave a tug. I realized how badly I had wanted a chance to rescue our friendship. Shera entered, smiling sheepishly, carrying a basin of clean water.

  “I thought you might want to freshen up,” she offered, looking at me from under her lashes.

  That night couldn’t come soon enough. The moon dragged her feet as she climbed in the sky. Dinner was an excruciating test of my composure. Long after I’d retired, once the house had fallen silent, I slipped out the service door and back into the stables. Climbing the ladder to the loft, I set my lantern aside and approached James, his back to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I began, folding my hands carefully before me. He turned at the sound of my voice, and the pained look in his eyes gave me pause. “I know what you said is true,” I forged onward through my apology as he began to move my way. “I should have just left it alone.”

  “No,” he said, stopping me short, taking my face in his hands. His callused palms held me and his eyes betrayed a buried hunger, as desperate as a starving man. “Never leave me alone.” He lowered his lips to mine. Gods, but they were soft. I melted beneath them. A wave of heat washed over me as the scent of lilies surrounded us. James freed his lips and pressed his forehead to mine. Words failed me, but my heart was singing in my chest. “I can’t be without you,” he said plainly, and I heard his soul bared in that simple phrase.

  He was exceedingly tender with me that night. At eighteen, I was surely not his first, but he was mine, and to this day, I am glad for it. In the aftermath of our fumbling youthful passion, he twisted a lock of my hair around one finger as I rested in his arms amid the straw. I inhaled the night air and his scent: leather and oats, signatures of his trade.

  “I love you, horse thief,” he breathed.

  “And I, you.”

  The weeks that followed were a mix of joy and responsibility. I had resumed daily studies with my mother upon returning from my foray in the cavalry. She caught me off-guard at one of our first sessions shortly after the impassioned night in the loft. I had just finished reciting some romantic drivel by the Elan poet Ephelius when I noticed her eyeing me as I awaited her next recitation challenge.

  “Very good. Unusually musical, for you.” I couldn’t keep the heat from my face. Even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered. She could read anyone. Shifting in her chair, she set aside her embroidery. “You must be careful, Elivya.” I opened my mouth to pretend ignorance, but she raised her hand to forestall me. “Whether you like it or not, the purest Lazerin bloodline lives or dies with you. Some men dislike the prospect of a bride who has been…spoiled.” She said the word with distaste.

  I stiffened but held my tongue. My mother’s eyes met mine with a mix of caution and compassion. “Court is a fickle companion and one that you must always beware. Gossip is the most powerful form of currency in the White City, and one scandal could ruin your chances. If you are to do this thing, you must exercise the utmost caution.” She fetched a violet pouch from a small coffer on the shelf. I set aside my book to accept it, loosening the drawstring to peer inside. “Silphium, or silverleaf. Steep it in your tea within the same day, and you will not conceive.” I blushed, but thanked her and was dismissed for the day.

  James and I took up practicing our martial skills each morning, just as the sun was rising over the hay fields. I had never liked waking early, but this ne
w ritual brought me enthusiastically to the dawn hours. He practiced with sword and shield, while I often discarded my own cumbersome counterweight in favor of my father’s dagger. We frequently grappled, though doing so regularly brought an end to our training, as we tumbled in a heated heap of passion upon the grass. Conscious of my mother’s warning, I made sure we met well out of sight of the manor.

  The year following my training held the last unspoiled moments of my youth. Those days radiated ease and happiness, accompanied by a sense of place I had never felt before. I was confident, strong, and young. I had proven myself alongside men, obtained a respectable grasp of many things academic and social, and found love in my oldest friend. It was a carefree, joyous time the likes of which I would never know again.

  The winter after our return from the garrison, my father invited me to join him and several of the men of the household on a hunt. The wolves had grown bolder in the winter, as they often did, and two of our valuable new foals had been lost in as many weeks. It was an unprecedented invitation, and my heart raced with excitement.

  “It’s not the same, you know,” James forewarned me when I told him. “Shooting a straw target is much easier than killing a live animal.”

  “You’re just jealous,” I turned my nose up at him indignantly.

  He raised his brow at me. “Oh, I’m going with you.”

  I should have guessed as much. Our household was not extensive.

  So it was that I set out at dawn the next morning with a handful of able-bodied men. Seated atop Valor in my thick wool breeches and cloak, I felt terribly small and out of place among the seasoned hunters of our estate. A bow and freshly filled quiver strapped to my saddle, I followed them into the snowy wilderness. I was soon thankful Shera had pilfered an extra woolen tunic from one of the kitchen boys. It fit well enough and added an extra layer of insulation to my motley garb.