Chapter 26

The Pleiades

Port of Ravenser Odd

Y et more unveiled of the broken of her…the undesirable of her…what the superstitious made of her.

Had Amaury been here before all of her went still, she could have excused her disappearance from the present as being deep thought. However, finding him before her where she had dropped her legs over the hammock’s side following a rest, his blurred face near and hands on her shoulders, she had recoiled.

Now, gently holding to her, he said, “This is The Falling Sickness as well?” He made it a question, but it was not one.

“Aye, though this I call The Fading for my mind quietly venturing elsewhere. ’Tis strange so brief a departure lacking physical exertion tires me.”

With a nod, he released her shoulders. “I have asked that our supper be brought here. Can you stay awake long enough to eat? ”

“Supper?” She looked about the cabin belonging to the captain of The Pleiades. Though larger than that of the ship that delivered them across the estuary, neither did this one have a window by which to mark the time of day. “Is it really that late?”

“Nearly.”

Then she had slept deeply. “What of Orion’s Song?”

“Repairs were completed at dusk.”

“Then your ships will continue to Grimsby on the morrow to collect the rest of the cargo.”

“If all goes to plan.”

She set her head to the side. “Part of the plan being the king’s man and my youngest brother are near.”

“Oui, having given my word to safely return you, only when that is done will my men and I set out to deliver our cargo to Scotland.”

“Making bait of yourselves in the hope Gert comes at you again,” she said, fearing she would have to decide how much to tell Mace of the father forever lost to him.

And the man lost to me, she let in the thought ahead of the voice reminding what was not hers to be found could not be lost.

“She will come at me and mine again,” Amaury said. “The only question is when.”

Glad her aching knuckles made her aware of hands that could easily stray to him, she ventured, “As this may be the last time we are alone, will you share what prevented you from seeing your son grow into a boy and now nearly a young man?”

She felt his struggle, but he said, “I believe such talk would discomfit me greater than you would be discomfited if asked to reveal more of your affliction and its misconceptions.”

She hesitated, then thinking to expand on what he knew in exchange for him revealing his past, said, “If you…” She trailed off when footsteps made him look around.

“Our meal,” he said and ascended the steps to the door. Shortly, he returned with a tray and set it on the small table between two chairs.

Before he could help her from the hammock, Fira dropped her feet to the floor. Legs fairly steady, she crossed to the nearest chair.

As they ate and drank, she wondered if the freshly-caught fish and boiled vegetables tasted and smelled as bland to him or if her senses were blunted by The Fading. Regardless, he was hungry, continuing to eat well after she abandoned her picked over meal.

When he finished, she was ready to reveal what he believed her too uncomfortable to share. “After my sire lost his first wife,” she began, “he wed a woman he loved despite the disapproval of many who said one with The Falling Sickness was unworthy of a Wulfrith and warned she might pass the affliction to children born to them.”

Amaury set his plate and cup aside. “I listen.”

“The same as his first wife, she birthed three—my sister Ondine, brother Rémy, and me.” Fira breathed deep. “For ill that befell our family thereafter, the superstitious believed it proof the marriage was cursed. In addition to my eldest brother losing one wife after another, many family members were lost to The Pestilence, and though Ondine was a rare survivor, her beautiful face and body are scarred. Then there is Rémy whose childhood speech difficulty that had mostly resolved returned in his youth.”

“And with which he yet struggles,” Amaury said knowingly.

As much as possible, she returned him to focus. “After it seemed I was bypassed by what I do not believe a curse, I began having symptoms. Though I justified keeping them hidden by telling myself I could pray them away and my family need not worry, glimpses of The Falling Sickness’ progression made them begin restricting my movements lest I succumb to what you witnessed the day we met.”

Amaury’s lids narrowed, and she imagined he recalled her behavior on the stream’s bank that he had believed a reaction to ravishment.

She swallowed. “Resenting my family’s concern and interference, I was determined to maintain what freedom I had, certain I could care for myself. But as evidenced by what happened at the market, it was selfishness. And worse for endangering you and your men—as my menfolk and others have been endangered. These things I know, and yet ’tis hard to lose one’s freedom. You cannot understand…”

The remainder of her words slid away, but it was too late, as evidenced by his darkening eyes. He understood very well, being more intimate with the loss of freedom that, for him, numbered seven years.

Hoping her thoughtlessness would not prevent him confiding in her, she said, “Of course you understand. Forgive me.” At his nod, she continued, “Since our first meeting, I have had other seizures like the one in the wood and the market, but most occur while sleeping as I know from awakening fatigued, bedclothes terribly askew and—until I began putting cloth between my teeth ahead of sleep—a bitten tongue.”

Some soft returned to his eyes. “It must be frightening.”

“Aye, especially the loss of control as if I am possessed just as the Free Spirits—” This time, a keen severing of her words.

After some moments, Amaury said, “I know only some of what you suffered at the abbey when they tried to coax out what they believed a demon. ”

“Coax? Hardly that!”

He reached, and she jerked when his hand covered hers atop the table. “A great understatement, but if it helps to talk of it, I will listen, Fira.”

As she wavered, his thumb caressed her wrist, and she imagined were she a candle, she would need no flame to melt.

Under the spell of what he made her feel, she told him of the Free Spirits, beginning with Drumfiddle forcing her from the infirmary. When her voice became strained and tears fell, he moved his chair nearer and she did melt. Against his side.

Despite tension and muttered oaths, he was a good listener, but there was no muttering when she came to the end of what was done her at the abbey that culminated in the use of the rod that would have been worse had not the fire prevented it from being applied to her feet and more vital parts.

“Surprisingly, Edgar died trying to right the wrong of aiding with my abduction,” she said. “And then you were there.” She looked up, and for how near his face nearly retrieved her spectacles to see him clearly. “That is what I survived.”

“As you survived all that came before, which was much.”

Knowing he referred not only to their flight from Wulfenshire but her loosing an arrow that took a man’s life, she lowered her gaze.

Amaury angled toward her and raised her chin to return her eyes to his. “You are stronger for it, and that is good come of bad.”

“As good has come of your bad?” she asked, not only because it followed, but hopeful it would prompt him to confide in her.

Instead, he drew back bodily and, it felt, emotionally.

“As you know so much of me now,” Fira said, “I would know more of you—how you went from chevalier to dread pirate…from prosperous merchant to quarrier of stone…from owner of a shipping company to miner of Wulfen’s tunnels.”

Beneath the table, Amaury squeezed his hands into fists. Though he expected her to push this direction and accepted when all was done the Wulfriths would have to know some version of how a son of the De Chansons became all those things, this was not the time. And yet, if he did not survive Les Fléaux, she would never know the good of him he hoped was greater than the bad. And neither would his son.

“You will not tell me,” Fira said sadly.

He rose and, to her wide-eyed surprise, said, “I will, but not here.”

“On deck?”

Drawing her upright, he managed a smile. “As the night promises to be beautiful, and nearly all of what I tell lacks beauty, it will help.”

When she tilted her face higher, it was hard not to press his mouth to hers. “I am sorry your tale is so black, Amaury.”

“It is not without a few shades of grey and white,” he said, then drew her to the steps and ascended first to ensure her modesty though it was fairly assured with chausses beneath her gown.

It was a beautiful night, and more so for her reaction to the canvas on which diamonds formed constellations used by seafarers to navigate the deepest, darkest, wildest waters.

On the deck of The Pleiades , men of that brotherhood did their duties, though at this time of night it was mostly that of keeping watch over the water, the docked Orion’s Song , and harbor-side drinking establishments whose patrons made their drunken selves heard. Too, a lookout was kept for Georges and Raoul who, Amaury hoped, would return this eve with favorable news of the king’s man so sooner he could plan his way around Fira.

“This ship is even more grand from on high,” she said.

When he returned his attention to where she stood with him atop the sterncastle that overlooked the moon- and lantern-lit deck, once again she raised her face to the sky. “For this you love the sea. And nights more than days, aye?”

So he had and retained his passion for seafaring after wedding and becoming a landed merchant. But then came the night he was struck down and regained his senses on a ship beneath a half-moon sky.

“Am I right, Amaury?”

Recalling her last words, he said what remained true though diluted, “I am fondest of nights, especially mild ones, though the tempestuous feed the soul as well.”

Even more lovely in moonlight, she smiled, leaned into the rail beneath her hands, and said, “When you are ready to share your secrets, I am here.”

It was time, and yet he wanted to return to the silence between them for it being comfortable and restorative. As if…

We are one, he thought, then was struck by the question of whether he had been one with his wife. He had known Alainne far longer than Fira and loved her well, and yet at this moment it seemed they had stood more shoulder to shoulder than one within the other. Because so many years had passed since losing her she was more figment than the reality of this woman? Or did the damage done his mind alongside his body prevent him recalling the true depth of what he and his wife shared?

He considered this woman’s profile, then determined if there was an answer to what he had felt for Alainne compared to what he felt for Fira, it was best not known. Just as the two were different in heart, character, and appearance, the young Amaury de Chanson was different from this Amaury de Chanson.

So now to reveal who and what he had been in those bygone years. Even if it corrupted what Fira felt for him.