Brute (26 page)

Aric froze. “What?”

“New clothes. King gives ’em to all the guards and staff every spring. ’T’s not fair, really—yours take twice as much fabric as anyone else’s.” He shrugged. “They were delivered this afternoon.”

Aric’s heart began to beat so fast that he was sure the guard must see it hammering away in his chest, and the blood roaring in his ears was nearly loud enough to deafen him. He tried to keep his voice even. “Someone… someone brought clothes to my chambers?”

The guard laughed. “Nah. Too scared to go near the witch, she was. I put ’em right inside the door here. You’ll see ’em when you go in.”

With the rush of relief, Aric’s legs nearly gave out. “Uh, thanks,” he managed to mumble, then squeezed inside before the guard had the door fully open. Sure enough, a pile of fabric was folded on top of a large wooden chest. With some difficulty, he managed to scoop up the new clothes before proceeding down the corridor.

“You’ve been out in the c-city,” Gray said with a smile as soon as Aric entered the room. “Where did you go?” He liked to hear about Aric’s mundane daily adventures. Not much of a surprise, given his very limited life.

“I picked up a few things. Gifts.” He didn’t mention that some of the gifts were for Gray; that information could wait. “And I guess new clothes were brought for me today.” He set everything down on the bed, which he hadn’t slept in for months.

“The king is g-generous,” said Gray emotionlessly.

Aric could only sigh. “Yes, to a fortunate few.” Gray’s clothing was still wrapped and tied in a neat bundle, and Aric decided to keep it that way for now. He tucked the bundle into a dresser drawer. Then he examined the clothes he’d been brought: four new shirts and two pairs of trousers, in addition to breechclouts and socks and handkerchiefs. All as finely made as usual, and obviously sewn just for him. He thought of how he must have looked when he first appeared at the palace, with his monstrous face and oversized body and shabby clothes and bare feet. His face and body remained the same, but now at least he could cover himself well, and he was almost in love with his wonderful boots. Yes, the royal family had been very generous to him indeed.

He put his new trousers away. But as he went to do the same with the shirts, something tumbled to the floor, landing on the stone with a
clink
. He bent curiously to pick it up.

It was a small iron key.

P
LAIN
and black and insignificant, it weighed very little and looked tiny, cradled in his enormous palm.

“Aric? Aric, is something wr-wrong?”

Aric didn’t answer his lover. His throat wouldn’t work. Instead he walked slowly into the cell and stood very near to Gray, who reached for him at once. “G-gods, Aric, what is it?”

“Can I… can I see your arm? Please?” His voice sounded odd to his own ears. A little strangled and too high-pitched.

It was a mark of Gray’s trust in him that, although Gray’s face was drawn in a frown, he immediately held out his right arm. Aric just looked at it for a moment. Although Gray’s arm was steady, Aric was trembling. So it was with some difficulty that he positioned the key properly between thumb and forefinger, slipped the end of it into the tiny hole in the manacle, and twisted.

The lock opened with a click.

“A-a-a-aric?” Now Gray’s hand was shaking too. “Wh-wh-wh-wh— Fuck!”

“A key. There was a key.” He couldn’t stop staring at Gray’s wrist, where the metal cuff had opened, revealing a strip of extremely pale skin. It was odd, really. He’d become so intimate with the other man’s body, and yet there were a few small parts of it he’d not yet seen. He wanted to press his lips to that tiny span of flesh.

But Gray was stroking that strip of skin with his own fingertips, and then—ever so carefully—touching the key, which still protruded from the lock. He began to breathe very hard, noisy in the close confines of the cell. “How?” he managed to rasp without a stutter.

“I have no idea. It just…. I was putting my new clothing away, and it fell. Someone must have put it there.”

Someone. But who? Surely not the mousy little guard. The tailor wouldn’t have had access to the key, nor any reason to hand it over. Perhaps it was the person who had delivered the clothing, or maybe…. Aric’s head was whirling too much for him to think straight. He hadn’t any idea where the key came from. And he didn’t know what its appearance signified.

He was interrupted in his thoughts by the decisive snap of metal. Gray had pushed the manacle closed again and turned the key, and now was holding it out. “T-take this and throw it d-down the well,” he commanded, although his voice wavered.

“No! Gray, it’s the key!”

“It’s d-disaster waiting to happen.”

“But now we can get the chains off,” Aric protested, stating the obvious. He’d been thinking for weeks about how he was going to accomplish that. He’d envisioned all sorts of wild scenarios in which he took Captain Jaun hostage and demanded the key, or through casual conversation learned where the key was kept so he could sneak in and steal it. Even in his imagination, those scenarios had seemed more than unlikely, and he hadn’t come up with anything better. But now he didn’t have to.

“And then wh-what, Aric? It’s still impossible. We’d only g-get caught and then… gods, if I l-lost you….”

“But someone gave us this key. There must be a reason. Someone must—”

“A trap.”

Maybe. But Aric wouldn’t throw the key in the well. He would hide it instead, tucking it into that little pile of handkerchiefs left behind by a previous resident and now lying in the bottom drawer of Aric’s dresser. But gods, it pained him so much to see that narrow strip of skin obscured by iron again, to see the chains trailing from Gray’s neck and limbs as solidly as always.

Gray sat down in his corner and drew his knees to his chest. He rested his cheek on his knees and rocked himself very slightly.

“I’ll go fetch dinner,” Aric said softly. “But Gray? It’s not impossible.”

A
LYS
smiled at him as she handed him dinner. “Are you all right, Brute? You look a little… worried.”

“I think I just have a lot on my mind.”

Her smile disappeared, and her gaze strayed in the direction of the Brown Tower. “Is he…. Is there a problem? Brute, I told you to be careful.”

“I am careful and there’s no problem.” He tried to look untroubled. “I got my new clothes today.”

She blinked at him a few times before nodding. “Oh! Yes, I guess it’s that time of year again, isn’t it? Now, you won’t get anything else until next year, so don’t give them away.” She gave no sign that there was anything special about this particular delivery of clothing, or that the subject held any special meaning to her.

“It was a surprise,” he replied carefully. “They were waiting for me at the tower today.”

“I should have mentioned it to you, but didn’t think of it. I got mine last week.” She smoothed at her skirt, which he supposed might have been a new one. He never paid much attention to what she wore. “It’s nice that they included me, even though they know I’ll be leaving soon. Or maybe they just forgot that part!” She giggled.

“So… this happens every year? The tailor makes new clothes, and he brings them right to me?”

Alys shrugged. “I think his daughters actually do the delivery. I’ve never seen him outside his workshop, actually. Almost any time of day or night you can see him there, sewing away. His daughters bring him his meals as well, and they tell me they have to force him to eat. He enjoys his work, I guess.”

Aric exchanged a few small pleasantries with her and then left the kitchens. He detoured past the tailor, and as Alys had said, the open windows revealed the man bent over lengths of fabric. Three girls who looked very much alike sat at a table, eating and chatting with one another. Aric had seen them about the palace now and then, but hadn’t realized who they were, and he’d never exchanged so much as a word with any of them. Surely none of them could be responsible for bringing him the key.

And that still left the question of who did, but it seemed as if it was a mystery that would remain unsolved for now. He didn’t want to arouse suspicion by asking too many questions.

Gray didn’t want to eat. Didn’t want to do anything, in fact, but huddle in his corner with his face buried in his arms. Aric poked and prodded at him, trying to persuade him to at least down some of his mush, until finally Gray snapped his head up and growled, “L-leave me alone!”

Aric took the words literally. He finished his meal at the table and then left the chamber. But he didn’t leave the tower itself. Instead, fat candle in hand, he continued the exploration he’d begun before in fits and starts. Really, there wasn’t much to see inside the tower. The few things that were stored there clearly hadn’t been touched in generations and were more thoroughly forgotten than Gray Leynham. Aric wondered whether the tower had been abandoned before Gray was incarcerated there, and if so, why. Space wasn’t exactly tight within the palace grounds, but it wasn’t generally wasted either. As far as he had seen, everything in the palace had some purpose, even if that purpose was only to amuse the nobles. The Brown Tower seemed to be nothing except a prison for a single man—and home for his keeper.

On the ground floor of the tower, a narrow hallway branched off the main one. He’d been down it once before but found nothing of interest—just a few empty, doorless chambers, a stack of moldering cloth that was almost as tall as he was, and a lot of mouse droppings. But there was also a small window, down at the very end. It was an odd window, placed only a few inches from the floor and covered with thin metal bars. Wooden shutters shielded the window as well, and were bolted on the inside. Perhaps the opening had originally been intended for deliveries into the building, or perhaps the ground floor had once been lower than it was now. Certainly the window seemed as old as the tower itself, and that was very, very old.

Which meant the iron bars were ancient as well, and rusted due to the constant damp.

Aric carefully set the candle on the floor, wrapped his hand around one of the bars, and gave an experimental tug. The metal crumbled almost as easily as if it were a twig.

Humming thoughtfully to himself, Aric picked up the candle again and retraced his steps to his chamber. 

B
Y
THE
afternoon of her wedding, Alys had worked herself into a nervous frenzy. Aric was pretty sure it wasn’t the wedding itself that was making her so anxious, but rather her impending departure from the palace. She’d lived her entire life inside the palace walls, venturing out into Tellomer itself only rarely. Her parents had lived at the palace, and theirs before them. Her new home wasn’t too far away, and she’d doubtless be visiting the palace often, but still, the change must be feeling monumental to her. She’d no longer be the girl who worked in the palace kitchens. Instead, she would be the wife of Cearl Oken,
mistress of a house of her own, and co-proprietor of a carting enterprise.

Therefore, she could be forgiven for snapping at Warin and Aric and Cearl and everyone else who came within range. But wisely, the men in her life did the best they could to stay as far from her as possible all day. It was Cearl who had the brilliant idea that he, Aric, and Warin could spend the afternoon carrying her belongings from the palace to their new home. Her things could have easily fit on one of his larger wagons, but he claimed that those wagons were all in use, and that the only conveyance available was a single wheelbarrow. He also said that the wheelbarrow had a bad axel and could carry only light loads. The axel felt fine to Aric, but he didn’t say so, because it provided the perfect excuse for the three men to make numerous trips—keeping them far away from Alys and her sharp tongue.

But as much as they tried to stretch the task out, eventually every single item Alys owned had been carried over, and Aric, Cearl, and Warin stood mournfully around the empty barrow in the palace courtyard. “Maybe we could sneak some of her stuff back and then take it away again?” Warin said hopefully, but Cearl shook his head.