He did not quite plan to go and find her, only the sense of betrayal drove him beyond perfectly reasonable actions. A day full of too many irrational things forced him beyond clear thinking. He left the castle and the things it represented and went into the night dark city. In plain clothing and cloak, no one was the wiser that he walked among them. No one curbed their tongues in passing rumors or speculation over the events of the day. He had never in all his time sitting as lord over Sta-Veron, prowled the streets of the city. It was not in his nature to mingle with people. It was not precisely, as the rumors went, because he was cold, or thought he was above them, but more from the apprehension that he would find no acceptance among the ranks of common men. He had tasted the bitter brew of being a feared and hated outcast in his youth and fiercely strove to avoid sampling it anew.
There was a goal in it now. So he sought out the place he had taken Lily before, but found it lacking. There was no minstrel vying to be heard over the humm of conversation. He heard his own name mentioned a dozen times in the brief foray he made, looking for her. He tuned out the words that followed, not wanting to hear. He didn't know where to go after that and stood outside where the air was fresh and the noise was less, trying to decide what to do. There were dozens of taverns in the city. Where would she be? Was she even practicing her trade? How much of a fool would he make out of himself over this sense of retribution he felt he was owed?
A boy came out to dump a bucket of dirty water on the stone of the street.
"Boy." Kall-Su beckoned and the lad gave him a surly, quarrelsome look.
"What? I'm busy."
"The girl who sang here. Lily. Do you know where she is?"
"How in hell should I know? Probably with her minstrel cronies at the Crimson Stag."
"And where is that?"
The lad peered at him as if he were the veriest of idiots. "What? You think I give out directions how to get to the competition?" The boy sneered and spun and marched away, bucket bouncing against his skinny leg. One did not lower one's self to arguments on the street with bar boys, even if one was terribly offended by the attitude. But the boy had made a casual wave down the street to the west when he'd mentioned the name of the tavern.
A place to start. The sagacious part of his self had not yet managed to convince the less sensible to give up this mad pursuit. He passed a handful of taverns, none of which boasted the name of Crimson Stag. He shied from asking directions from the men on the street. Shied even more from the patrolling guards who were out in force and would have been more likely to recognize him. If rumors were flying now -- one shivered to think what would follow from this present madness of his, if it were to come to light.
He saw the wooden sign that bore the symbol of a blood red stag eventually. It swung under the awning of a tavern and inn snuggled between a stable and a leathersmith's shop. It was filled to overflowing with patrons. The men spilled out onto the sidewalk. The faint sounds of music could be heard from within. Too many people. Far too many boisterous, drunken folk for him to feel comfortable. Almost it was not worth it, to plunge into that mass of humanity. But that would be a sort of cowardice and he had too much pride to allow himself that. So he slipped in among them, a svelte and lissome intrusion, amid so many less graceful bodies.
There was a great commotion from the crowd at the back of the tavern. A swelling of men that caterwauled and stomped their feet about a clearing at the back. The sound of music, lively and spirited made a tempo that even the blare of conversation could not overcome. It was a battle to get closer and even then he refused to press in amongst the crowd to see fully what intrigued them. He saw enough in the flashes of parting bodies to know the floor had been cleared for a dance. He saw the flash of red skirt and the swirl of dark hair and know that it was her. There was no getting closer, so he retreated to wait it out. She would retire from it eventually.
A waitress came up to him, pressed against his arm and yelled over the din asking if he wanted a drink. His stare drove her away. It could not quite drive away the closeness of the others. He might have accomplished as much with a bit of subtle magic, but he did not trust that it would not be recognized by some too perceptive soul and his charade given away. Anonymity was a precious thing so seldom received. Now doubly precious considering how uncertain he was in this foray, how uncertain he felt about the sentiment of the city towards him. He should not have come. He told himself that for the umpteenth time. He had no right to censure Lily for what she did or did not do, for where she chose to go or who she chose to associate with. Shared experiences did not automatically mean shared loyalties. Almost he convinced himself out of the tavern and back to the safety and the isolation of the castle -- but the music died and the dance stopped.
There was a certain heady power to pleasing a crowd. A certain euphoria that came when she knew she had the attention of a room full of observers, that she held sway over their emotions. That she could make them feel sad with a tragic ballad, or laugh at the whimsical rhyme of a comical song, or even lust when she performed a wild, gypsy dance like the Kaulura and every male eye in the place was glued to her avidly. Heady and intoxicating that power and she reveled in it; the only power she had ever held in all her years as a slave, the power to sway the emotions of her audience.
She bowed low at the finish of the dance, a thin sheen of moisture glittering on her skin, her hair sticking to her face in thin tendrils from the heat of the tavern and the exertion of the dance. A shower of coin hit the floor at her feet. A pittance, really. Nothing but copper and bronze, perhaps a silver or two amidst the bounty, but a great deal from a tavern full of working men. It was a success. Her first real performance with her new troop and they as well as the audience had been pleased with the results. She scooped up a handful of coins. Thizura and Allun were gathering more from the floor. Dell swept her around in one arm, the other holding his lute and laughed in her ear.
"You dance that like you were born a gypsy."
"I was owned by one, does that count?" She retorted, laughing back, giddy from the applause, from the passion of the dance. She felt so good, it seemed as if all the years of slavery could be washed away. Crayl and Thizura had began a melody, lute and flute, that required no words, giving the other's the time to catch their breaths and regain their voices. Someone thrust a mug of ale into her hand. Watered down brew, which meant it was complements of the house. She swallowed it greedily nonetheless, craving replenishment. She pushed sweat dampened hair out of her face and Dell grinned down at her.
"Why don't you do that more often. You hide your face too much."
She might have blushed at that flirtation if the performance had not imbued her with boldness.
"And have everyone flirt with me as outrageously as you do, master Dell?"
He started to answer, but his eyes fixed beyond her and widened. His mouth dropped open and she felt a moment's dread that something had come to ruin this buoyant mood of hers. To ruin this moment of absolute freedom. She almost did not turn, but Dell pushed her into it, grasping her shoulder and urging her around.
And saw him. Amidst a crowd of oblivious men, who were either to drunk or too stone headed to realize what walked among them. She picked him out easily enough, no matter that he wore plain brown cloak and simple gray tunic underneath. The clothes could not disguise the pure aesthetic aura he exuded. Or the underlying current of power he carried with him.
He did not belong in this place. He most assuredly did not and she could not for the life of her immediately imagine why he was. He stared at her, she saw his eyes flicker behind her to Dell, who had his hands still on her shoulders. His face didn't change, but something in those crystal blue eyes of his flickered. With offense maybe. Or hurt.
"By all the gods, what's he doing here?" Dell leaned over her shoulder to hiss in her ear, sounding none to pleased with the fact. And that whispered intimacy did it. Kall-Su whirled and started to weave through the crowd. She shrugged out from under Dell's hand and glared at him.
"Stop doing that!!" she accused, him having twice now driven Kall-Su away from her. She didn't spare him a moment to gape at her in bewildered and none too sincere innocence, but pushed her way through the crowd after Kall-Su. She could not very well call out his name. Not here and most certainly not this particular evening. So she plowed roughly past men half again her size and forgot all pretense of subtly or humility and snatched hold of his cloak and the arm under it to make him stop. He turned stiffly about to fix her with his ice lord stare and she almost blanched and removed her hands from his person, but the boldness of the performance was still upon her. She needed to know why he had come here. She needed to know what had prompted such an uncharacteristic act from him.
"Why are you here?" she forged past the glacial stare to implore.
"I don't know." Stiff reply, but she could still see the hint of hurt in his eyes. He tried to hide it, but it was so clear to her that he was bruised and not quite thinking reasonably, otherwise he would not be here, standing amidst the clamor and sweat of a crowded tavern with her. She thought about all the things people were saying, all the rumors and the accusations that were flying about the town. He had to have heard. How could he have not? And beyond that even, was the weight of those deaths upon his shoulders. She knew very well that guilt was a weakness with him. The Master had used it well enough against him.
"Will you talk with me?" she asked, pleaded, trying to sound calm and rational when her heart was pumping so fast it felt as if would come right up her throat. He stared at her, the coldness threatened by just a little bit of uncertainty. "Please?" she added, pulling gently at his arm.
She felt him give in. A fractional loosening of his muscles as he let her pull him through the crowd, past Dell and Allun, who were staring in unabashed shock, towards the only quiet place she could think of. The loft, a part of which had become hers.
There was a lantern still burning on a peg by the door. It cast the slope ceilinged room in a dim circle of light. He took a few steps into the loft and just stood there. She pressed her back against the door, not knowing what to do now that she had him here.
"Why did you come here?" she repeated softly.
He wouldn't turn to look at her. "You lied to me."
She blinked, dumbfounded. "I did?"
"You said you weren't afraid and yet you ran away."
She caught her breath, some small glimmer of understanding seeping past the turmoil of emotion. He was so determined to believe everyone thought the worst of him. And he was not entirely wrong about her exodus. She had fled from a sort of fear. But it was not what he thought.
"I couldn't live the life of a laundry girl, when one of minstrelsy offered itself." Half truths.
"No." He agreed. "But the blood helped make the decision."
The blood? Who's? She licked her lips, surmising that the ground this conversation was taking was unstable at best. There was a haunted tone to his voice.
"What blood?"
He turned to look at her, holding his hands forward as if to display them. It was not just his voice, but his eyes that were ghostly and miserable. "Theirs. I tried to wash it off, but ---" he faltered, looking away, drawing a tremulous breath. " -- the stain is still there. I wanted to find you -- but you were gone."
"Find me? Why?"
"Because no one else --- I needed -- something --"
Panic. She saw it building, bringing confusion with it. It made her suddenly angry that all those wizardly friends of his were so oblivious as to let him reach this state, for it was no sudden thing. What in hells were they doing that they couldn't see? Were they so wrapped up in their own selves that they couldn't recognize how badly he needed support. Did they expect what the Master had done to just evaporate like it never happened?
"My Lord---"
He balled his hands into fists, squeezed his eyes shut and growled. "I'm not! I don't deserve it."
"Because of today?" She took a tentative step forward, touched his clenched fists. He flinched from her. It was not her, she thought, but himself that he feared. "It was an accident. You didn't know. You'd been shot, for the gods sake. You struck out in response. People will always take up the worst things to gossip about. It's the nature of humanity, but it will pass. They'll find something new next week and forget about it."
"How? Its just one more thing. Do you have any idea how much blood I've spilled. You're right to be afraid. If you're not, you're a fool."
He hated himself so very much. An old, old hate that he did not know how to let go of. Fool, she thought, this is a trap that won't be easy to get out of. But she was still heady from the dance, still brazen with her own sense of power. She stepped forward and kissed him. Felt his shock through the tenuous connection, but he did not flinch away. Merely stood there numbly and stared down at her when she broke it. Flushed. Breathing a little hard. If he hadn't she would have felt more the fool and would not have reached up and touched the smooth skin of his face.
"I'm not. I swear." Then she smiled at him, a little gypsy slyness entering her tone. "It's better if you help."
She wrapped her arms around his neck and tried it again. He loosened, she felt his hands almost hesitantly reach around her back. There was an urgent, untrained honesty in his kiss that made her think he had not allowed himself passion enough in the past to be adept at it now. Gods knew that she was. She had been taught all the things a proper, pretty little slave ought to know to please a man. She had never actually wanted to, of her own free will, until now. It was patently unbelievable that it was happening at all.
She pulled back a little, arms still around him, to look at him. To gauge what was in his eyes. She felt vaguely amoral, seducing him into something he might or might not have come here for. She hadn't decided yet whether she was taking advantage of the vulnerability she felt in him, or helping to soothe it. She laid her head against his shoulder and stood there. He seemed content with that.
She didn't know what to call him. Honorariums made it seem as if she were being paid for a service. Not fair to him or her, considering.
"Kall-Su," she said softly, against the material of his cloak. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was leaving. I owed you that."
He did not respond. She sighed and shifted to push a little bit away from him. She kept her fingers wrapped in the edge of his cloak. He was so distressingly beautiful and those soulful, tragic eyes just ate into her soul. All the time she'd spent mooning over him in the Place Without Windows and she'd never, ever expected this. But he stymied her, for she was not quite certain what he wanted of her. He was too uncertain himself. So it was left to her to edge around the question clumsily.
"Do you want to ---" she bit her lip, blushing a little. She had certainly never in her life asked a man if he wanted to lie with her. This one was making her work, even if she personally thought he needed it a great deal more than she did.
Then she looked about the loft and realized it was not the most comfortable of places. He was used to much better. She was embarrassed then and lowered her head to let some of her hair slid over her face and cover it.
"What am I thinking? This place is ---"
"Yes."
He drew her back towards him. Gentle hands. Very careful hands. Okay, she thought. Okay. Don't think about the trap or the threat to freedom. Hesitate now and there might never be another chance and she wanted him too badly to risk loosing it. The minstrels would not come up here, no matter how disquieted Dell and Allun had looked, they would not pass that door if they had to sleep in the stables tonight. An unspoken courtesy among traveling troupes, who found comfort where and with whomever they could.
So it was hard floor covered by blankets, which neither was of a mind to notice. She was better at the coordination of it than he was, having, she was certain beyond a doubt, more experience by far. Clothes went. He banged his head on the low slanted ceiling. She drew him down to kiss it away. He was the most wonderful thing she'd ever had. And the most dangerous because he was addictive and persuasive without even realizing it.
And afterwards, when they lay, limbs intertwined he reminded her that he was, despite all his other winsome qualities, still a man. "Come back to the castle with me."
She didn't answer. She couldn't. How did she say she'd just escaped those walls and given herself a freedom that she had always dreamed of, but never known? How did she say she did not want to be trapped within walls of any type just yet, without offending him? Gods, she did not want to bruise his feelings. So she avoided the issue by distracting him and used skills she had not practiced the first time, when it had been the pure passion of discovery, to unsure that the answer to that question was the farthest thing from his mind. He was easy enough to manipulate. She might even have felt a little guilty, if she had not enjoyed it so much herself.
But in the back of her mind, she knew he would ask it again. But not until morning. And then she stirred before he did, used to rising early to start her chores and lay propped on an elbow staring at him, wondering what she was going to do. Nothing cold, or powerful, or frightening about him when he slept. He just looked young, which he wasn't, and innocent, which he could also not lay a claim to. A dilemma. A very attractive dilemma, which she had not been prepared to deal with.
Kall-Su woke up with the feeling that he was being watched. Came instantly awake and aware in a place other than his bed. For one brief moment disorientation set in and his mind flashed back to other dark, terrible places. No small bit of reflexive, defensive energy swirled in the eather around him, attracted by his panic, then he saw Lily looking down at him, felt the silky length of her leg touching his and memory flooded back. Pale light crept in from the cracks in the shutters. The morning air had a bite. He blinked up at her. She smiled. One side of her hair was tucked behind an ear, the other fell down around her face, half hiding her features.
"Good morning." She said, and there was just a hint of uncertainty in her voice. And it was. He had whiled the night away here, devoid of any nightmares save the brief waking one. Had come here last night looking for maybe this very thing -- maybe something entirely else that he still had not figured out and ended up on the hard floor of a tavern loft with Lily. Not an unappealing situation, but a curious one. Not one he would have predicted for himself. Not one he completely pretended to understand. He would have found more confidence in it, had she not looked quite so uncertain herself.
He sat up, careful of the low ceiling. He'd already banged his head more than once and stared back at her, trying to gauge what was behind her dark eyes. He was out of his depth in so personal a situation. He did not know how to ask the questions that needed asking. Why was there the hint of distress in her eyes? Did she regret it had happened? He felt a little alarmed at such a thought.
"How old are you?" She asked. Not what he was expecting. He thought about it, and thought she might not like the answer, but she was sure to have heard tales. One could not escape the tales.
"Over a century." Quietly said. She tilted her head, pushing back the other half of hair.
"How much over?"
He calculated, having lost interest in trivial things like birth dates, years ago. "Twenty - three, maybe."
"Oh. I don't know how old I am. No one ever told me when I was born."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'm not. Is it true? What they say about you? What the Master said about you?"
He drew back. Not wanting, oh god, not wanting to tread on that ground. He did not want to see disgust and fear enter her eyes. Could not bear it.
"Which thing? There are so many."
She sighed. "About your father - - - "
"Being a demon?" he finished bleakly, bitterly. "Probably. I don't know. I never met him."
"Is that why you think you're so tainted? Is that why you were so willing to believe all the terrible things the Master told you?"
He drew breath, offended by that calm spoken attack. She had no idea. No notion what she spoke of. A shield of defensive coldness began to seep over him. Familiar ice that had always faithfully protected him against hurtful emotions. But she leaned forward, all silken skin and limpid dark eyes and pressed her lips against his forehead.
"It doesn't matter. None of it does. I believe in you."
He was shocked. Profoundly shocked. At the touch. At the words. At the expression of utter -- trust -- in her eyes. No one had ever looked at him like that before. No one that hadn't had some trace of fear or some hope of gain behind it. It splintered the ice.
"How much -- did you hear?" He could recall only a pittance of it himself. It blurred into one lurid, inescapable nightmare. She invited herself next to him against the wall, dragging the blankets with her.
"Enough. You were a passion of mine. I lurked about in the shadows constantly. He was a madman. You know that, don't you? I've never wished anyone dead before -- but I hope he's buried under that horrible place. I hope he rots in hell."
There was such vehemence in her voice, such poignant hate that he was taken aback. He did not expect it of her, who believed any sin could be redeemable.
"Did he --- hurt you?" It was a hard question to ask, bringing to mind all the ways the Prophet had to destroy a person.
"No. Not like he did you. But, I was always the good slave. I always knew my place. I tried to tell you, remember?"
"Yes. I don't think it would have made a difference. That wasn't what he wanted of me."
She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder. Her weight was nice. It was comfortable and comforting. No had made him feel that way in a very long time. Had she answered his question last night? About coming back with him? He could not recall.
He started to ask her again, but a sharp rapping on the loft door interrupted the peace. "Hello? Hello? Everyone alive in there? We'd like a change of clothes if that's not too much to ask."
Lily laughed, amused.. Kall-Su drew his brows, not quite so. One imagined the offensive, red-haired minstrel behind the tart request. He had managed to acquire a distaste for the man in the brief moments he had seen him.
Lily reached for a handful of discarded clothing, sorted it, tossed him his tunic while she slipped her blouse over her head. She leaned forward and impulsively kissed him while he was staring at it, for the second time this morning thinking how improbable a situation this was. There were so many facets to her that continually amazed him.
"You should probably get back." She suggested. "They'll be worried about you."
As if he were on a curfew. She must have seen his affronted expression, for she tempered the statement.
"After yesterday, everyone is bound to be a little uptight."
"Will you come with me?"
She froze in wrapping the sash of the skirt. He saw it the moment her eyes became shuttered. She looked down to see the knot she was tying, letting her hair fall to cover her eyes. "What would they say? A serving girl? You don't want that kind of talk."
He let out a breath of indignation. A breath of anger. But his anger was always the cold kind.
"If I wish to bring a servant or a slave to my castle, it is mine to do so. If they talk, I assure you they will not do it within my hearing."
She lifted her head, bitten by the cold. "But they'll do it within mine. And you do care what they say, whether you admit it or not. Don't make it a fight, my lord. I'm not a thing to be conquered. And I'm not a slave anymore or a servant. I'm a minstrel. A free minstrel. Grant me that, will you? Let us deal with the rest later."
He didn't want to. He did not like to leave things unsettled. He also did not like stalemates. But she was right, he was on the verge of making a battle out of it for the mere reason that he was not used to being denied. He nodded his head, acceding to her. For now.