Ch. 6 - Autumn Rains

Rula

§

Azeline’s little bird was not doing well as we traveled towards Bitter Bridge. Even with all her talents, it was growing weaker. Didn’t make her much fun to be around either, so when it started to rain, she weren’t much help. Normally we would make camp but now she just plodded grimly on looking for I don’t know what. She tried to feed it bits of meat, but it wouldn’t take them, and she grew more despondent as the rain poured down. I started to feel like there was nothing else in the world but cold and rain and gray.

Luckily Kai had been along that way before and he was familiar with an inn along the way and directed us towards it. The Spreading Oak Inn was a tremendous sprawling building built around a huge oak tree on one side, with the building flowing out from the oak in all directions. It looked nice, and prosperous, and I heard Kai muttering to Azeline about acting in a way that befit her status as we all walked in. A man who looked like an innkeeper out of a ballad, round and balding and rosy-cheeked, greeted us with a smile. The smile faded a bit when Arun shook himself, spattering Quaynlis, who was closest to the big dog, in enough water that he felt the need to take his shirt off and wring it out. Hard not to stare at that man when he does things like that.

The innkeeper’s smile returned immediately when he heard the Gardener name, and it weren’t too long before the lot of us were being shuffled further in. I rather expected to be out in the stables with the guards, but the lords and ladies seemed to think they wanted us kept close, and that’s not a thing I’ll argue with. We all settled down with soup and a cask of Arbor Red. Leastways, that’s what they called it, but soon as she sipped it, Lady Florie wrinkled up her pretty nose and said it was not an Arbor Red, it was an Old Town. The nobs started in on talking whether the innkeeper had been taken in by someone else or if he was a dishonest man, but it tasted like plenty good wine to me.

There were to be three rooms – one for the men, one for the noble ladies, and one for the… less than noble ladies, or rather lady, or rather, me. I saw Slaange and Quaynlis giving each other a significant sort of look, but I didn’t know what it was about, since they’d have to share a room with his lordship. Azeline kept running off, and I learned halfway through the night that she had determined her bird needed food what was already digested, so she was seeing to that. Seems like Kai’s reminders about ladylike behavior weren’t being taken to heart, but nobody was paying enough attention to tell her otherwise.

Turned out that the man sitting by the fire with a big leather sack was a harpist, and soon as he took his harp out to check it, folk were clamoring for a song. He began to play a song that started off sounding bawdy, then went all hauntingly tragic partway in. Kai started saying it was a new song – not one of the standard ballads, and that got Quaynlis’s attention something fierce. When

it was done, he went to talk to the man and soon they were playing and drinking together. Quaynlis made a little money off it, and learned the harpist’s song, I gather so he can steal it for himself.

As the evening wore on, Rivenka went to talk to some of the hedge knights, apparently fascinated by their profession, and Odette went up to bed as the songs Quaynlis and the harpist were playing got filthier, and I saw Kai take Florie’s arm and lead her off, saying something about a tour around the Oak. I just sat with my drink and watched.

Kai

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I showed Florie some of the winding paths through the buildings of the inn, and ended us right near the trunk of the big tree in a little sitting room where we were likely to go undisturbed. I was enchanted by the look of her, and couldn’t help but take her into my arms and kiss her. She kissed me back, although there was hesitance. But I’m used to hesitance. And I’m also used to brushing it away. I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I could get lost in your eyes,” I murmured, and kissed her. “And drunk on the taste of your lips. And I cannot resist you.” And then I kissed her harder, and drew her closer against me.

“You say such pretty things,” she whispered when our lips parted at last. “Do you mean them every time? I’ve heard you say them to others.”

I was expecting something like this. Unlike many of my ladies, Florie has always been smarter, more observant. It makes her all the more compelling too, more delightful to be with. “Have you ever seen me stay by anyone else’s side the way I’ve stayed by yours?” I asked, and this time, didn’t let her speak again before I captured her lips and slid my hands down her waist. It wasn’t until I had begun to push her skirt up that she gasped a little and pulled away again.

Her cheeks were flushed, but there was something odd in her eyes. “I suppose…” she said at last, a strange tremor in her voice, “It’s all the same… now.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. It didn’t make any sense. I just stared at her, trying to understand.

“Until the wedding,” she said. “Auntie Odette must have told you.” I was so stunned, I nearly drew away entirely, but instead I gathered her close, and murmured something about how it was a happy surprise to me. I had thought I had time. Surely Tyrys would have to be betrothed again before my marriage. Wouldn’t he? This wasn’t what I had planned, and though I should have been happy, my mind was racing. Of course I needed a wife. It made sense. But now, all I could

think was that this had not been my choice. But I am a gentleman, and I know how I ought to behave. So I smiled, and kissed her, talked of the happiness we would share.

Rula

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Quaynlis was looking at my brother the way a wolf looks at a baby rabbit. “Have you ever been in love, Slaanginus?” He drawled. Nicknames, I thought. Someone save me now. My brother stammered that he hadn’t really, and Quaynlis responded that he was always falling in love. Then, thankfully, Azeline was back from spooning vomit into her bird, and the conversation turned towards how Quaynlis had known his cousin Rivenka when they were both children, so he didn’t see himself falling in love with her. He talked about how he had seen her put sap in her hair. Because he told her that it would make her more beautiful.

Azeline’s eyes widened. “Does it?”

“I was lying, Azeline,” he told her gently. “Because I wanted to see her put sap in her hair.”

She laughed, but then scooted in closer to him. “You said you’re always in love. Are you in love with someone right now?”

“Maybe,” Quaynlis said, and his eyes darted to Slaange as a secret sort of smile touched the corners of his lips. “It may be getting there. It’s usually love.”

I sighed, not really liking this whole conversation, and perhaps a little bitter on the subject of love myself. That’s why I wasn’t thinking and when Azeline tried to flirt with the gangly innkeeper’s son, who had taken over when it got late, I accidentally called attention to her status. He got flustered and left, and she glared at me, and I started thinking I should just go up to bed before I damaged anyone else’s fun.

Then Kai and Florie came in, and announced their betrothal. Florie was radiant, and Kai… well, if you ask me, he looked a little ill. They ordered a new round of drinks, and as they toasted, Azeline gulped her drink and quickly excused herself to bed. I saw the tears in her eyes and I followed her straightaway, letting her into my room so Odette wouldn’t wake. Rivenka wasn’t long after me, and sat and stroked Azeline’s hair, and told her she just needed more practice talking to men, and then she would meet someone else. I wanted to say it was probably just as well not to be around Kai, as I gather that charm of his doesn’t go unused around a number of ladies. But I didn’t think it would help, so I held my tongue and murmured soothing things to the crying girl.

Kai

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Florie at last went up to bed, looking so happy. And I felt so… doomed. I saw Slaange and Quaynlis draw away, and when they went up to bed, something about the way they did it made me hesitate to follow any time soon. I gambled a bit with the harper, who was still awake, and lost a bit, and found myself a little drunker than I intended. So when he started talking about all the beautiful women here who were not Florie Martell, so help me, I listened. He said a farmer had come in earlier with three daughters, two of them very pretty, and he knew where they were staying.

I agreed to sneak in with him. I thought that if I could spirit one away for a while, I might feel better about life, and surely she would see that I wouldn’t harm her, and we could have a pleasant night. These were my thoughts as I followed him up to a room. He opened the door like a thief, and I nearly turned back when I saw that the farmer had laid himself across the bed at his daughters’ feet. But it didn’t seem to disturb the harper, so I followed him in. It was then that I saw he meant to get his work done right there, to have already compromised the girl before she woke so that she would know better than to scream.

That seemed inelegant to me. I do have standards, after all, so I went to the far edge of the bed to gently pick the other lovely girl up. Unfortunately, her foot caught on her father’s arm, and soon both were awake and screaming. The farmer demanded to know who I was, and as I fetched a dragon from my purse to pay him for his silence, I told him I was Dynzyl Baratheon. Surely a little extra tarnish to their name couldn’t hurt, and Dynzyl is tall and fair like I am. Then I left in a hurry. The harper was long gone already.

Quaynlis met me half naked at the door, making it clear that my suspicions about what he got up to with Slaange were correct. I heard crying from somewhere nearby, but I was too exhausted to wonder at it. I fell into bed and slept fitfully.

I awoke to a splitting headache, and didn’t go down for breakfast. There was a hesitant knock at my door a little later, and Florie was there, wondering if I was all right. I opened my mouth to speak when Odette came thundering down the hallway, looking ready to kill. “I hear you announced your engagement?” She said, her eyes settling icily onto Florie.

I wasn’t going to let my cousin take all the blame for this, not when she was staring at me so imploringly. So I said “It was me. I was… overcome, and I proposed to her.”

“And that,” Odette said, looking at me with the dark glare that told me she wasn’t remotely fooled, “Is exactly what you will keep telling everyone. I had better send a raven to your father.” She left, and there was silence between us for a few moments. There was a little tremor in Florie’s hands, a little wetness in her eyes that made me certain she had seen my hesitance.

I did the only thing I could think that would make me look like a young lord should. “I suppose I should do it right,” I said, and took her hands, waiting for her to lift her face. “Florie Martell, would you be my bride?”

“Oh yes,” she said, her face suffused with happiness. “Yes.” She threw her arms around me and I held her close.