Part 20 (1/2)
As Ulrich's soft snores segued to a somnambulant rhythm, Gossamyr rested her head against the boulder and closed her eyes. The sun warmed her face and made her smile. This Otherside was made even more beguiling by the flaws or differences from perfection. Even the dangers appealed. For when, in Faery, had she been so thoroughly challenged?
Smiling again, she realized she increasingly found favor with the Otherside. Her side, for the time.
Better here. The thought, unbidden, flashed in her mind.
To stay would be to embrace Disenchantment. Unthinkable. Glamoursiege needed her. just beyond the fortressed walls lay Paris. Lure for the Disenchanted, and home of the Red Lady. Soon her adventure would prove itself and she would finally realize her worth.
Gossamyr skimmed her hand over Ulrich's scalp, mowing her fingers through the strands of tangled hair. Heavy and dirty, the texture intrigued. And there, she traced the curve of his ear, small and close to his head. Her fingertips moved down and across the hard line of his jaw until sharp bristles of beard set her senses to a fine alert. She toggled the pads of her fingers back and forth over the bristles, thinking their texture so much rougher than the hair on Ulrich's head. How be it not the same?
A strange murmur, like supreme satisfaction, drew Gossamyr's attention. She flashed her eyes open and looked into Ulrich's upside-down gaze. Awake? She jerked her fingers from his face.
”I thought I dreamed,” he said with a sleepy smile. ”Don't pull away. That felt good. First tender touch I've had in a long time. Or has it been mere weeks? Ah! Almost makes me...” He closed his eyes and turned his head to the side.
”Makes you what?”
”N'importe.” He rolled onto his side and tucked his hands up by his chest, moving his head farther toward her knees. ”You have no idea what you just did, eh, Faery Not?”
”I...well...” Gossamyr could but stare at the fingers that had moments ago been tracing the man's face, feeling his features as if she were blind. What had she been doing? Following her lover's abrupt banishment she had stashed away any feelings of desire or need. And yet, they strived for release with every moment she spent with Ulrich.
”So lacking in emotion, these faeries,” Ulrich murmured, his words drifting to a sigh, and then to a snore.
”I...” Gossamyr crossed her arms and tilted a snarl at the sleeping soul shepherd.
I do have emotions, she thought as gruffly as she could. I just... Well, she wasn't sure what to do with them, so they were quickly pushed back. Left to wither.
Why punish yourself for your father's cruelty? Is it not your right to seek another lover? Before you tie yourself to one man? This world is bursting with men. Look at them!
She looked at her fingertips. One hand bracketed the side of Ulrich's face; a finger strayed down to the dark beard. Contact. And...connection. Of a sort that intrigued. Mortal touched, and happy to do so.
Ulrich's eyes opened to look right at her. ”No time to consider romance, Faery Not?”
”Romance? You are begroggled. I am just-”
”l.u.s.ting?”
Had she been l.u.s.ting over a mortal? A man who could not care if she was half-blooded. But would he think her exotic? ”That would please you?”
”Surely.”
”What of the damsel?”
”You think I have a romantic connection to her?”
Gossamyr nodded.
”I no longer have connections to any, be they woman, child or lover.”
The sadness in his voice clued Gossamyr he had lost a great piece of his heart. Had he loved and given so much?
A finger to the circle of violet and green that stained Ulrich's right cheek intrigued. He winced at Gossamyr's touch. ”I'm sorry. Does it hurt verily?”
”It aches-” he placed a hand over his heart ”-in more places than my face.”
Gossamyr wasn't sure what that meant. She saw no other bruises. ”How did you come by such a bruise? It looks a few days old-”
”A week, to be exact.”
”And?”
A heavy sigh puffed up his relaxed gut. ”You really need to know?”
”If you wish to tell.”
”I received this bruise from a stone. A good-size stone that easily fitted into a woman's palm.”
”A woman did this to you?”
”Indeed. My wife.”
It never took longer than a day for the Red Lady's taint to extinguish her victims. Atimes but an hour pa.s.sed; other times the sun would rise and set before the tainted fee would stumble and finally collapse. The pin man preferred the event happened in privacy. The disgust or sudden shock of the public never aided his retrieval. The essence he claimed yesterday behind the stable in Juvisy had almost been witnessed.
Why did they not keel head to ground immediately? He would never understand the working of his mistress's deadly kiss. Nor must he care. Maybe? No. No reason to.
This day, the sun sat high and bright; one could not determine where the ball of light ended and where the crystal sky began. A tug to the leather brigandine he wore s.h.i.+fted the amigaut between his shoulders blades. One of the bone splints sewn into the doublet had poked through and irritated the base of his wings something horrific. He gave ichor daily for the success of his mission. Did the red b.i.t.c.h appreciate the sacrifice?
How she wounded with her indifference.
The streets bustled with midday marketers en route to purchase the rotting remains of fish from the skiffs moored on the Seine. Precious few boats tied up for no longer than it took to pillage their stores and burn the boat, but this day the English patrolled the riverbank with a keen eye to marauders. Cobbles beaten smooth by the centuries echoed with the clop of horse hooves, the call of fishmongers, and the scrambling feet of those who literally starved inside this great city of riches. For the gates were a risky leave to purchase flour for bread from the millers who would rather shelter away from the attacks.
a.s.suming a straight-shouldered pose-tall and fine-the pin man scanned the bleary day, tainted with a fine mist. The succubus's mark had meandered from her embrace early this day and had been wandering the narrow streets in a thrall. Clothed in simple black wool, the barest of lace crept out from the mark's doublet sleeves. The fee must have fallen on hard times since the Disenchantment.
The pin man shrugged at the irritation scratching his back. Hard times, indeed.
Fine rain slickened his face. He lashed out his tongue to drink in the minute liquid and tasted the sooty air and briny muck of the Seine.
Now the victim began to slow. The pin man scampered to within a leap of the Disenchanted. As the fee stumbled, a palm catching against a wall for surety, lithe shoulders swayed in an attempt to find that easy balance. He turned his head to scan whence he had dallied; red-glossed eyes sought nothing, only squinted at a bleary crimson sky.
The pin man cringed when the fee started down the ma.s.sive stone steps to the Seine. Would he attempt to drown his agony? It would make retrieval difficult, if not impossible. Even in the miserable weather so many bustled about. The silver glinting river h.o.a.rded dozens of slender boats and skiffs. The bridge, pressed with houses and humanity, verily oozed an awareness of the river so close. Someone would witness.
Tugging his hood securely upon his head, he stealthily descended behind the victim. To reveal his strange hair coloring amongst the crowd would elicit stares. It had not always been such a color- he sensed as much-but he could not recall a time when it had simply been black, as remained the lower half of his tresses. There had been a time-that time- when...
Brows furrowing and his entire face squinting, he sought the origin of...of...
Ah!
Lost the notion.