Clinging

I MET DENNA OUTSIDE HER inn on Chalker’s Lane, a little place called the Four Tapers. As I turned the corner and saw her standing in the light cast by a lantern hanging above the front door, I felt an upwelling of joy at the simple pleasure of being able to find her when I went looking.

“I got your note,” I said. “Imagine my delight.”

Denna smiled and made a one-handed curtsey. She was wearing a skirt, not a complicated dress of the sort a noblewoman would wear, but a simple sweep of fabric you could wear while bucking hay or going to a barn dance. “I wasn’t sure you would be able to make it,” she said. “It being past the hour most civilized folk have taken to their beds.”

“I’ll admit I was surprised,” I said. “If I was the sort of man to pry, I would wonder what kept you occupied until this most unseemly hour.”

“Business,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “A meeting with my patron.”

“He’s in town again?” I asked.

She nodded.

“And he wanted to meet you at midnight?” I asked. “That’s . . . odd.”

Denna stepped out from under the inn’s sign and we began to walk down the street together. “The hand that holds the purse . . .” she said, giving a helpless shrug. “Odd times and inconvenient places are the rule with Master Ash. Some part of me suspects he might simply be some lonely noble, bored with ordinary patronage. I wonder if it adds some spice for him, pretending he’s meshed in some dark intrigue instead of just commissioning some songs from me.”

“So what do you have planned for tonight?” I asked.

“Only to pass time in your lovely company,” Denna said, reaching out and linking her arm with mine.

“In that case,” I said, “I have something to show you. It’s a surprise. You’ll have to trust me.”

“I’ve heard each of those a dozen times.” Denna’s dark eyes glittered wickedly. “But never all together, and never from you.” She smiled. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and save my world-weary gibes for later. Take me where you will.”

So we made our way to Severen-High by way of the horse lifts, where we both gawked at the lights of the nighttime city below like the lowborn cretins we were. I took her on a long stroll through cobblestone streets, past shops and small gardens. Then we left the buildings behind, climbed over a low wooden fence, and moved toward the dark shape of an empty barn.

At this, Denna was no longer able to keep quiet. “Well, you’ve done it,” she said. “You’ve surprised me.”

I grinned at her and continued to lead the way into the dark of the barn. It was full of the smell of hay and absent animals. I led her to a ladder that disappeared into the dark above our heads.

“A hayloft?” she demanded, her voice incredulous. She stopped walking and gave me an odd, curious look. “You obviously have me mistaken for a fourteen-year-old farm girl named . . .” Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. “Something rustic.”

“Gretta,” I suggested.

“Yes,” she said. “You obviously have me mistaken for a low-bodiced farm girl named Gretta.”

“Rest assured,” I said. “If I were going to try to seduce you, this isn’t the way I would go about it.”

“Is that so?” she said, running her hand through her hair. Her fingers began to idly twine her hair into a braid, then she stopped and brushed it out. “In that case, what are we doing here?”

“You mentioned how much you enjoyed gardens,” I said. “And Alveron’s gardens are particularly fine. I thought you might enjoy a turn about the place.”

“In the middle of the night,” Denna said.

“A charming moonlit stroll,” I corrected.

“There’s no moon tonight,” she pointed out. “Or if there is, it’s barely a slender sliver.”

“Be that as it may,” I said, refusing to be daunted. “How much moonlight does one actually need to enjoy the smell of gently blooming jasmine?”

“In the hayloft,” Denna said, her voice thick with disbelief.

“The hayloft is the easiest way onto the roof,” I said. “Thence into the Maer’s estates. Thence to the garden.”

“If you’re in the Maer’s employ,” she said, “why not simply ask him to let you in?”

“Ah,” I said dramatically, holding up a finger. “Therein lies the adventure. There are a hundred men who could simply take you strolling in the Maer’s the gardens. But there is only one who can sneak you in.” I smiled at her. “What I’m offering you, Denna, is a singular opportunity.”

She grinned at me. “You know my secret heart so well.”

I extended my hand as if I were about to assist her into a carriage. “M’lady.”

Denna took my hand, then stopped as soon as she put her foot onto the first rung of the ladder. “Hold on, you aren’t being genteel. You’re trying to get a look up my dress.”

I gave her my best offended look, pressing my hand to my chest. “Lady, as a gentleman I assure you—”

She swatted at me. “You’ve already told me you’re not a gentleman,” she said. “You’re a thief, and you’re trying to steal a look.” She stepped back and made a parody of my courtly gesture of a moment before. “M’lord . . .”

We made our way through the hayloft, onto the roof, and into the garden. The sharp sliver of moon above us was thin as a whisper, so pale that it did nothing to dim the light of the stars.

The gardens were surprisingly quiet for such a warm and lovely night. Ordinarily even at this late hour couples would be strolling the paths, or murmuring to each other on the bower benches. I wondered if some ball or courtly function had pulled them all away.

The Maer’s gardens were vast, with curving paths and cunningly placed hedges making them seem larger still. Denna and I walked side by side, listening to the sigh of the wind through the leaves. It was like we were the only people in the world.

“I don’t know if you remember,” I said softly, not wanting to intrude upon the silence. “A conversation we had some time ago. We talked of flowers.”

“I remember,” she said just as softly.

“You said you thought all men had got their lessons in courting from the same worn book.”

Denna laughed quietly, more a motion than a sound. She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh. I’d forgotten. I did say that, didn’t I? ”

I nodded. “You said they all brought you roses.”

“They still do,” she said. “I wish they would find a new book.”

“You made me pick a flower that would suit you better,” I said.

She smiled up at me shyly. “I remember, I was testing you.” Then she frowned. “But you got the better of me by picking one I’d never heard of, let alone seen.”

We turned a corner and the path led toward the dark green tunnel of an arching bower. “I don’t know if you’ve seen them yet,” I said. “But here is your selas flower.”

There were only stars lighting our way. The moon so slender it was almost no moon at all. Under the trellis it was dark as Denna’s hair.

Our eyes were wide and stretching to the dark, and where the starlight slanted through the leaves, they showed hundreds of selas blossoms yawning open in the night. If the scent of selas were not so delicate, it would have been overpowering.

“Oh,” Denna sighed, looking around with wide eyes. Under the bower, her skin was brighter than the moon. She reached out her hands to both sides. “They’re so soft!”

We walked in silence. All around us selas vines wove themselves around the trellis, clinging to the wood and wire, hiding their faces from the nighttime sky. When eventually we came out the other side, it seemed as bright as daylight.

The silence stretched until I started to grow uncomfortable. “So now you know your flower,” I said. “It seemed a shame you’d never seen one. They’re rather difficult to cultivate, from what I’ve heard.”

“Perhaps they do suit me then,” Denna said softly, looking down. “I don’t take root easily.”

We continued walking until the path turned and hid the bower behind us.

“You treat me better than I deserve,” Denna said at last.

I laughed at the ridiculousness of that. Only respect for the silence of the garden kept it from rolling out of me in a great booming laugh. Instead I stifled it as much as possible, though the effort threw me off my stride and made me stumble.

Denna watched me from a step away, a smile spreading across her mouth.

Eventually I caught my breath. “You who sang with me the night I won my pipes. You who have given me the finest gift I ever did receive.” A thought occurred to me. “Did you know,” I said, “that your lute case saved my life?”

The smile spread and grew, wide as a flower. “Did it now?”

“It did,” I said. “I cannot ever hope to treat you as well as you deserve. Given what I owe you, this is but the smallest payment.”

“Well, I think it is a lovely start.” She looked up at the sky and drew a long, deep breath. “I’ve always liked moonless nights best. It’s easier to say things in the dark. It’s easier to be yourself.”

She began walking again and I fell into step beside her. We passed a fountain, a pool, a wall of pale jasmine open to the night. We crossed a small stone bridge that led us back among the shelter of the hedges.

“You could put your arm around me, you know,” she said matter-of-factly. “We are walking in the gardens, alone. In the moonlight, such as it is.” Denna looked sideways at me, the side of her mouth quirking upward. “Such things are permitted, you realize.”

Her sudden change in manner caught me off my guard. Since we had met in Severen I had courted her with wild, hopeless pageantry, and she had matched me without missing a beat. Each flattery, each witticism, each piece of playful banter she returned to me, not in an echo but a harmony. Our back-and-forth had been like a duet.

But this was different. Her tone was less playful and more plain. It was so sudden a change that I was at a loss for words.

“Four days ago I turned my foot on that loose flagstone,” she said softly. “Remember? We were walking on Mincet Lane. My foot slipped and you caught me almost before I knew that I was stumbling. It made me wonder how closely you must be watching me to see something like that.”

We turned a corner in the path, and Denna continued to speak without looking up at me. Her voice was soft and musing, almost as if she were talking to herself. “You had your hands on me then, sure as anything, steadying me. You almost had your arm around me. It would have been so easy for you then. A matter of inches. But when I got my feet beneath me, you took your hands away. No hesitation. No lingering. Nothing I might take amiss.”

She started to turn her face to me, then stopped and looked down again. “It’s quite a thing,” she said. “There are so many men, all endlessly attempting to sweep me off my feet. And there is one of you, trying just the opposite. Making sure my feet are firm beneath me, lest I fall.”

Almost shyly, she reached out. “When I move to take your arm, you accept it easily. You even lay your hand on mine, as if to keep it there.” She explained my movement exactly as I was making it, and I fought to keep the gesture from becoming suddenly awkward. “But that’s all. You never presume. You never push. Do you know how strange that is to me?”

We looked at each other for a moment, there, in the silent moonlight garden. I could feel the heat of her standing close to me, her hand clinging to my arm.

Inexperienced as I was with women, even I could read this cue. I tried to think of what to say, but I could only wonder at her lips. How could they be so red as this? Even the selas was dark in the faint moonlight. How were her lips so red?

Then Denna froze. Not that we were moving much, but in a moment she went from motionless to still, cocking her head like a deer straining to catch a half-heard sound. “Someone’s coming,” she said. “Come on .” Clinging to my arm, she pulled me off the path, over a stone bench, and through a low, narrow gap in the hedges.

We finally came to rest in the center of some thick bushes. There was a convenient hollow where we both had room to crouch. Thanks to the work of the gardeners there was no undergrowth to speak of, no dry leaves or twigs to crackle or snap under our hands and knees. In fact, the grass in this sheltered place was thick and soft as any lawn.

“There are a thousand girls who could walk with you along the moonlit garden paths,” Denna said breathlessly. “But there’s only one who’ll hide in the shrubbery with you.” She grinned at me, her voice bubbling with amusement.

Denna peered out of the hedge toward the path, and I looked at her. Her hair fell like a curtain down the side of her head, and the tip of her ear was peeking out through it. It was, at that moment, the most lovely thing that I had ever seen.

Then I heard the faint grit of footsteps on the path. The soft sound of voices came sifting through the hedge, a man and a woman. After a moment they came walking around the corner, arm in arm. I recognized them immediately.

I turned and leaned close, breathing softly into Denna’s ear. “That’s the Maer,” I said. “And his young ladylove.”

Denna shivered, and I shrugged out of my burgundy cloak, draping it over her shoulders.

I peered back out at the two of them. As I watched, Meluan laughed at something he said and rested her hand atop his on her arm. I doubted he’d have much more need of my services if they were already on such familiar terms as that.

“Not for you, my dear,” I heard the Maer say clearly as they passed near us. “You shall have nothing but roses.”

Denna turned to look at me, her eyes wide. She pressed both her hands against her mouth to stifle her laugher.

In another moment they were past us, strolling slowly along, walking in step. Denna removed her hands and took several deep, shuddering breaths. “He has a copy of the same worn book,” she said, her eyes dancing.

I couldn’t help but smile. “Apparently.”

“So that’s the Maer,” she said quietly, her dark eyes peering between the leaves. “He’s shorter than I imagined.”

“Would you like to meet him?” I asked. “I could introduce you.”

“Oh that would be lovely,” she said with a gentle edge of mockery. She chuckled, but when I didn’t join her laughter, she looked up at me and stopped. “You’re serious?” She cocked her head to one side, her expression trapped between amusement and confusion.

“We probably shouldn’t burst out of the hedge at him,” I admitted. “But we could come out on the other side and loop around to meet him.” I gestured with my hand at the route we could take. “I’m not saying he’ll invite us to dinner or anything. But we can make a polite nod as we pass him on the path.”

Denna continued to stare at me, her eyebrows furrowing in the faint beginning of a frown. “You’re serious,” she repeated.

“What do you . . .” I stopped as I realized what her expression meant. “You thought I was lying about working for the Maer,” I said. “You thought I was lying about being able to invite you in here.”

“Men tell stories,” she said dismissively. “They like to brag a bit. I didn’t think any less of you for telling me a bit of a tall tale.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said, then reconsidered. “No, that’s not the truth. I would. You’re worth lying for. But I wasn’t. You’re worth telling the truth for too.”

Denna gave me fond smile. “That’s harder to come by anyway.”

“So would you like to?” I asked. “Meet him, I mean?”

She looked out of the hedge toward the path. “No.” When she shook her head her hair moved like drifting shadows. “I believe you. There’s no need.” She looked down. “Besides, I’ve got grass stains on my dress. What would he think?”

“I’ve got leaves in my hair,” I admitted. “I know exactly what he would think.”

We stepped out from the hedge. I picked the leaves out of my hair and Denna brushed her hands down the front of her skirt, wincing a bit as she moved over the grass stains.

We made our way back onto the path and started walking again. I thought of putting my arm around her, but didn’t. I was no good judge of these things, but it seemed the moment had passed.

Denna looked up as we passed a statue of a woman picking a flower. She sighed. “It was more exciting when I didn’t know I had permission,” she admitted with a little regret in her voice.

“It always is,” I agreed.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 836