The place was a dozen times the breadth of The Pale Horse. It was packed with men all talking, laughing, playing cards. There were a handful of women in the midst too. I stood in the doorway feeling out of place when I was jostled by more patrons entering behind me. When I straightened, I saw Jade and Keir sitting at a table that was cast in more shadow than most as the lit sconces were not nearby. They were kissing softly, Keir’s thumb and forefinger tipping her chin closer to him.
I felt tremendous guilt. It really was none of my business. And now I was stuck there, afraid to walk home on my own. And I had no coin with me to buy drink.
“Midwife!” came a shout from the crowded counter.
Dermid, Evangeline, and Reed were standing watching me, cups in hands, Dermid and Evangeline with open faces. Reed wore his usual shuttered look.
The big Helmsman and the lady warrior were exuberant in their greeting when I joined them. Reed gave me a nod.
“He’s drunk,” Dermid said, bringing his tin cup crashing into Reed’s. “Too drunk to risk greeting you properly.”
“I am not drunk,” Reed said.
He did not sound drunk, but I did detect a measure to his words, as if he was drunk and might be trying to cover it with his enunciation.
“He is an all-at-once drunk,” Evangeline said to me. “He can hold his liquor, always. No matter the drink. But every so often, maybe once a winter or so, it will all hit him at once and he gets emotional and tells us all how much he loves us. It is precious, I tell you.”
“And hilarious,” added Dermid.
“Why,” Reed said, again using that practiced voice, “is it funny for a man to tell his brothers he loves them?”
Evangeline snorted. “Because you are so effusive.”
“So insistent,” agreed Dermid, nodding at me. “So much cupping of the face, the backs of our necks, so many promises. Once he kissed me on the forehead like a mother putting a child to bed.”
Reed shrugged. “Again, I don’t see how that is funny. What you describe is a man devoted to his family. Where is the joke?”
“Nothing beats his tattooing my name on his stomach,” chortled Evangeline. “Nothing can beat that one.”
Dermid slammed his mug down on the counter and roared laughing. “Except he wasn’t very successful, because you’ve a long name. Show her!”
Reed shook his head.
“Oh come on,” Evangeline cajoled. “It was your finest hour. You called me your true sister and lay down on your back with Dermid’s needle?—”
“Which he bloody lost doing it, by the way,” Dermid complained to me. “I’m who repairs our clothes, and I only had the one.”
Evangeline’s face was red from laughing. “Anyway, he gets a pot of ink from the gods know where and lies down on the floor—I think we were staying in someone’s house? Does that sound right?”
“I think so,” agreed Dermid. “But whose house?”
“It was my house,” Reed interjected. “You had come to Vyggia with me and Keir?—”
“No.” Dermid was shaking his head. “It was in Pikestully, I’m sure of it.”
“It doesn’t matter! You’re ruining the story,” Evangelineinterrupted. “Alright, so he’s lying on the floor, propping himself up on his elbows, and then he starts tattooing my name on his?—”
“Fine,” sighed Reed and lifted up both his hooded leather jerkin and the short-sleeved tunic to reveal a jagged scrawl of the first few letters of Evangeline’s name, upside down on the skin of his hip and stomach. He looked at me and then, expressionless, said, “I think I fell asleep by the fourth letter.”
I burst out laughing and blushed at seeing that strip of his flesh.
Dermid and Evangeline laughed at my own laughter.
Reed smiled slowly at me.
“I am going,” I said when I had finished laughing. “I am so tired I can barely stand, truly. I confess, I came here because I was worried about Jade. Not that you four have not been kind to?—”
“Oh, Keir is a randy bastard and desperate to bed her,” Dermid said, cutting me off. “But his heart rules his prick this time. He already asked her what she looks for in a husband. Then he asked her if she cared for poetry.Poetry!”
