Since then, I’d not attempted to take another, yet I’d learned how to please women with my fingers and with my mouth in an attempt to recover my reputation. Which I had. Since Frella had married and left for the western lands, the women I’d been intimate with spoke only highly of their experiences. I could form stories to dispel why I never took it further than pleasuring them, why I never truly took them as a man should. It was all a show, a desperate act to conceal an internal knowledge that something was wrong with me.
Nyana pulled an empty wooden crate from beneath the counter, turned it sideways, and patted it with a flattened palm. Tensed by my thoughts, I obeyed, sitting down heavily on the splintering thing as I’d done countless times before. It groaned when it took my weight, and I let out a breath, as if expelling the air in my lungs could lighten me. With knees bent, I leaned forward and rested my head in my palms, eyes falling to my worn leather boots. I could afford nicer ones, but Nyana bought me these, and they were comfortable. Similar, in fact, to the onesI’d worn as a boy when I’d sat atop this very same crate, my legs dangling, not yet reaching the floor.
“What was it this time?” Nyana asked as she popped the cork on a bottle of cheap cooking wine and held a rag to it, tipping it to wet the cloth.
“Thieves,” I told her, sitting up straight so she could tend my wound.
“Thieves?” She pressed lightly with the rag and I winced, the alcohol stinging my agitated skin. She shot me a pointed look and I set my jaw. She didn’t have to tell me to stop fidgeting for me to know her meaning.
“Five of them,” I told her, and briefly relayed the encounter.
Nyana scrunched her nose, and remorse hit me like a wave—remorse that the life I led put me at risk, and that she was often left to see the effects of it. Remorse for the many nights of my childhood, she muffled her tears when she thought I was sleeping. Remorse for all the worry I’d brought her, all the pain. And, more than anything else, remorse for what she didn’t know. For the cause of Thatch’s death.
“Please don’t worry over me,” I coaxed, conscience heavy. I hated to see her burdened. I leaned forward to take the rag from her, but as I did, Nyana regained her composure and sniffled. With pointed purpose she pressed the soaked cloth to my ribs, a bit less careful than perhaps she could have been, and I hissed, taken by surprise.
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t fidget.”
I raised my hands in mock surrender.
When my wound was cleaned and bandaged with a long strip of white cloth wrapped about my chest and over one shoulder, I slipped my tunic back on. Nyana bent to pick up my belt, and her hand went to the small of her back as she grunted. Her hair, streaked blond and silver for as long as I could remember, was of late leaning more toward the latter.Tendrils of it fell from hercap, enough this time to cause her to huff her annoyance and pull it from her head.
As she tucked the cap into the tie of her apron, solemness weighed on me. I wanted to tell her to rest, but the words would be lost on her. As a child, I thought she was only stubborn, but life wasn’t as simple as that. She was a cook, and though she was good at what she did, she was replaceable. I had the coin to provide for her, but she insisted against it whenever I broached the subject. This kitchen was her home, the girls that worked alongside her the closest thing to family she had left, aside from myself. Her work here gave her purpose. I, of all people, could understand the need for that.
“You’ll give yourself wrinkles if you worry your brow like that,” Nyana chided as she reached her arms around my waist and drew the leather strap of my belt back through at the front.I let her mother me because I knew it brought her comfort.
“I worry about you,” I admitted.
“I know.” She pulled the strap and raised her eyes to mine. “But I’m happy here, Neirin. With my girls.” She nodded to one with a glint of affection.
“If it were up to me—”
“It’s not up to you.” She adjusted her hair and pulled it back into a tight bun. “If you want to help and have the time, wash up, and you can peel some vegetables.”
“I have the time.” I would always make time for her.
Along the side wall, a washing bucket sat atop a long counter. Fine slivers of ice floated at the top, broken up by whoever washed last, another reminder of the cold. Before me, and level with the countertop, an open stone archway looked out to the kitchen gardens. The yellow light of late dawn cast shadows between large clusters of herbs and berry brambles, alluding to the possibility of warmer weather as the day went on.
I took a bar of tallow soap from the worn stone bowl beside the washing bucket and lathered my hands. It had a slight herbal scent, though I couldn’t name the plants. Nyana made her own soaps, had been doing so since I could remember. I smiled to myself because the scent was familiar, comfortable.
“Neir!”
The bar of soap leapt from my hands and slid across the countertop. “Dammit, Harlan,” I cursed as the young prince popped his head through the archway. “What are you doing here?”
The boy beamed, even as his head dipped back out of view. The elevation outside was lower, dug out for level planting, and Harlan was too short to see through the gap without clambering his boots against the stone wall. When he rose again, pulling himself up and bracing his weight with his arms, I fought the urge to splash cold water at him. But I wasn’t a child anymore, and at four and ten, he wasn’t really either.
“You should be in your classes,” I said pointedly.
Harlan adjusted his arms and gave a little sound of frustration, his hazel eyes squinting beneath dark lashes. He dropped to the ground, and the top of his head, a mess of umber curls, disappeared around the corner.
“Harlan’s here,” I warned Nyana over my shoulder.
She came through a doorway that led up from the root cellar, huffing, as she hefted a crate of carrots. I cursed under my breath and went to her side, taking the burden from her. Though she wasn’t old, the years of hard work and dedication she had committed to the kitchen showed in her slightly crooked stance, stiff joints, and the dark shadows beneath her eyes. The job had aged her, as had my upbringing and Thatch’s death, surely. When she looked up at me, a smile beamed across her face, and my heart warmed, ebbing the ache.
The rapping of boots on stone warned me of Harlan’s approach, and I raised the crate I held just in time to be assaulted by the gangly boy. His arms wrapped around my waist, squeezing tightly. I sighed, reservations about being close to him battling with my desire to return his carefree affection.
Harlan released me, and I brought the carrots to the island counter, setting the crate beside a few others containing an assortment of root vegetables—potatoes varying in size and color, orange and violet beets, and sweet parsnips. Had Nyana brought them all up herself? A frown tugged at my lips. Hopefully, she’d asked her girls for help with the heavier items.
Beside me, Harlan backed up to the counter and hefted himself to sit atop it. “That’s a lot of carrots.” His voice hit the telltale highs and lows that prefaced the transformation out of boyhood, whether he was ready for the responsibilities of a man or not.
