Page 14 of Bloom

Aleric was awfully quiet when they returned to his rooms.

“What about your wife?” Jaime asked since Aleric hadn’t mentioned her, and he couldn’t figure out if she’d left because of him or other reasons.

“What about her? She’s hardly my wife at this point.”

“I want to know why she left. You’ve barely said two words about her.”

Aleric paused by the couch and glanced at the closed box of cards. “I helped her to leave so she could be with the woman she loves. We have no animosity between us, and we’re still friends.”

Jaime squinted at him. “You didn’t hold a sword to her neck or something ridiculous to scare her? Or get such an attitude that she said to herself, ‘fuck this shit.’”

Aleric scowled. “I wouldn’t do that to my best friend. She’s not interested in men. Why would I force her to stay here and in my bed? Some marriage that would be. Do you want to see a letter from her so you’re not secretly thinking I'm a bastard who abuses women? I’ve got a whole stack of them hidden in my room.”

“You both write to each other?”

“In secret, yes.”

“Does your Father know anything about this?”

Aleric shook his head. “Not entirely. Marriage and being the Countess later might be a dream come true for a woman, or she might hate the idea, especially if there’s someone else. I didn’t tell Father everything that happened because Clementine’s Father lives in C?te. He demanded my Father send out men to find his daughter. If he knew Lord Monet knew what happened and where she is, he’d blame us both for his daughter running away and say we all plotted this together behind his back. Well, he’d have to get her location out of me to find her, and I’m not saying a word, but I’d rather not be bothered by him or have him accusing Father. Clementine asked that we twist the truth, and I did.”

“Wait-what did you fib about?”

“I told Father later that she sent me a note, and I don’t know her location, but she said she’d remarried, and that’s why she ran. Lord Monet and her Father suspected she’d run away to marry another. I said she had, and while four years hadn’t passed, they didn’t want to wait. I pretended I had no idea of her intentions when we married.”

“Oh, so you said she broke custom for divorce, and you don’t know where she is, so there’s nothing anyone can do. Technically, you can get married now depending on who you ask.” It was one of those grey areas where everyone couldn’t quite get on the same side. Both parties were supposed to wait four years, but some said if one party remarried earlier anyway, the other was entirely free of the rule. Others said that didn’t matter, and someone like Aleric should wait the full time.

“Exactly. Father asked if I had any idea where she might be, and I lied. Her Father wasn’t happy with me, and he demanded to know if Clementine had ever said anything about where she might go.” Aleric rolled his eyes. “He acted all sad. Liar.”

“But you do know where she is?”

“Yes. I’m not telling you either, so don’t ask. She doesn’t want anyone letting it slip and sending someone to harass her and her wife. They will return later because after four years, nobody can say shit to either of us.”

“Who’d she marry?”

“They had a servant in the home who was the same age several years ago. They fell in love. Father sacked Belle when Clementine asked to marry her. He didn’t want his daughter to marry a servant, and since we’ve been best friends for years, he saw a way to boost her higher even though she’s not interested in men. Even though we were quite little when we became friends, I think he saw the way right then. He’d always intended for her to be Countess as soon as the opportunity was there.”

“Ohhhh.” Jaime sat on the couch. “That’s fucked up.” It was also ridiculous and cruel to force anyone to marry the sex they weren’t attracted to. If it happened, it always boiled down to money and power. “What a selfish, nasty Father to expect his daughter to lay with a man and bear his children.”

“I know. We suspected it as teenagers, and later, we thought he might let up because she was in love with Belle. He was thinking of his daughter being set for life and a grandchild inheriting a title. Not her actual happiness. He’s not a man who’d beat his child or anything, but he’s always had a money-first attitude. I told her I wouldn’t blame her if she never spoke to him again.”

“What if you hadn't married her? Would he have tried to find someone else with money or status?”

“Yes. We decided we’d get married, make it look real, have her here for a couple of nights, and I’d help her run away with her lover. Her Father thinks I married her with the intent to start a family, and she fled behind my back without mentioning that she loved another. Some of the court thinks I showed her my ‘true colors,’ beat her, and scared her off.”

“If there’s no evidence or sign-”

“They don’t need evidence. It’s something to gossip about.”

“You must have known you’d end up looking like shit after she ran so quickly.”

“Yes, but I care more about her than my image. She’ll come back later, and she wouldn’t if I were a monster, right?”

“You really care about her, huh?”

“She’s been a constant in my life after Mother died, and the twins. She knew what it was like to grow up without a Mother, and we’ve been there for each other through a lot of things. She said later when we had children, with separate people I mean, we should raise them together so they can be close friends.”

“Does Clementine know about this other stuff?” Jaime waved a hand.

“No. I didn’t want to put this on her.”

“What if you’d died? I don’t think she’d like that news coming as a surprise slap to the face.”

Aleric rubbed his forehead. “I’m not dead, and I don’t want her worrying. She’s happy with Belle, and she deserves this. Do you know how hard it was on her when they couldn’t be together for a while, and Belle had to scramble to find new employment? It’s not her burden to bear when she’s got her whole life ahead now that they’re together, and she’s been talking about having a child with Belle too. She might have a relationship with her Father too since time has gone by. Besides an Aunt who doesn’t speak to them, she doesn’t have any other family members. I don’t like keeping secrets from her, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her this.”

Jaime could see where he was coming from. He wanted to spare his best friend from worrying over a situation she couldn’t even control, and she had her own worries and family issues too. If she was constantly afraid she’d receive news that he was dead…no wonder Aleric had spared her the knowledge.

Is that yours?” Aleric pointed at the box.

“No. Zacharie brought it up. It’s a set of cards for you.”

Aleric scowled when he opened it. “How nice. Gautier gave him these. Like I’d want them.” He left the box open and headed for the window. “What a dickhead. Giving me his lover’s presents. If he’d given me a box with his shit in it, at least that’d be more personal.”

“Give them back. I didn’t know. Er, what are you doing?”

“Getting rid of the rubbish.”

Aleric opened the window and tossed the whole box. Jaime caught a glimpse of a few thin, ivory cards as they flew out to be caught by the wind.

“Aleric!”

“What?” He closed the window.

“You could have put them in his room! He’s going to be infuriated when he finds out.”

“He’ll think twice before giving me gifts from Alex,” Aleric said in a snotty tone. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Gautier told him to give those to me because he’s a sack of shit. I don't want anything from him. I’m going to take a nap.”

With that, he went to his room, and Jaime went to peek outside. A courtier stooped, presumably to pick up a card. Little colored dots marked the lawn, and one of the gate guards was approaching. It’s not every day ivory cards fall from the sky.

***

Jaime had two hours of peace.

He almost dropped his book when Zacharie came storming in with the box and his face so red, he appeared ready to explode.

“Where is he?”

“Hey! You can’t come barging in.” Jaime better start locking the sitting room door even though Aleric was locked in his bedroom.

“Don’t tell me what to do! You let him throw these outside.”

“No!”

Zacharie jabbed a finger in his direction. “Yes, you did. They were all over the yard!”

“I didn’t know what he was going to do, and what was I supposed to do? Wrestle with him for the cards?”

“Fuck you both!”

Aleric opened his bedroom door and leaned on the doorframe. “This is how I like being woken up. By a spoiled brat’s yelling. It’s even better after I’ve been ill.”

Zacharie clutched the box. The lid was cockeyed, showing the hinges had broken. “Did you look inside before tossing them outside?”

“Yes, I looked.”

The silence stretched out for a long moment with something like shock on Zacharie’s face. Aleric gazed right back with a bland expression. Zacharie turned a whole shade darker before he flung the box. “Fuck you!”

Aleric shut the bedroom door just in time to avoid being hit by the box. Ivory cards flew out and littered the floor, and the lid came off entirely. Jaime lunged for Zacharie who tried to rush his brother and locked his arms around the man.

“That’s enough. It’s time for you to go.”

“Get your hands off of me!”

Jaime hauled him backward. “I think you’ve overstayed your welcome, and-”

“I’ll have you arrested!”

“-I’m not watching you two go at each other’s throats.”

“If you don’t let me go-”

“You’ll rip my head off and make me eat my intestines or whatever. Sure.” Jaime dragged him toward the door despite his kicks. It was like trying to put a cat into a bath. “You're not staying if you’re going to attack Aleric. I don’t think Lord Monet will take your side.”

“I don’t care! A couple of the cards are gone!”

“Too bad.” Jaime forced him out into the hall. “Don’t come back unless you can be polite.”

The rage on Zacharie’s face that a commoner had mouthed off and kicked him out was almost comical.

“One could technically say you're a bastard child,” Aleric shouted just before Jaime got the door shut and locked. “It’s not like I care what you think.”

“Be quiet,” snapped Jaime.

“Don’t tell me to be quiet.” Aleric was snatching up the cards.

Zacharie kicked the door before stomping off, and Jaime waited until his footsteps faded. “Did you have to call him a bastard kid? He’s not really one. You said he was planned.”

“So?” Aleric stood with a wad of cards in one hand. “Whether or not he’s trying to kill me, he’s still a piece of shit, an absolute brat, and an idiot.”

“How about if you don’t rile up the guy with the lord who definitely wants you dead?” Jaime came closer. “He’ll probably whine to Lord Monet now, and your attitude makes you look worse. ‘His big oaf of an aid manhandled me! Waaah!’”

“You try living with that and see how calm you stay.” Aleric grabbed the box and shoved the cards in. Jaime spotted one on the floor that bore a black wolf with blue eyes, and he picked it up. Fenrir, son of Loki. His sapphire-blue eyes seemed to stare right at Jaime. “You have no idea what it’s like to live in fear in your own home and know your Father isn’t safe-”

“Yes, I do! You’re not the only one who's been through shit like this.” Jaime cursed himself for spilling that, especially when Aleric’s eyes narrowed slightly. If Aunt and Uncle were alive and had heard that, they’d be smacking him upside the head.

“And just how would you know what this feels like?”

Jaime’s mind raced to make it sound reasonable with his fake story. “I watched them die. You can’t kill a fever with a sword, bargain with it, or…run away once you have it. It comes in your house, and that’s it. It doesn’t care who you are or that my parents had a little boy. It didn’t care that my Mother was pregnant either. I know what it’s like to be helpless when danger is right fucking there.”

He hadn’t quite meant to mention Mother’s pregnancy either. His words seemed to work since Aleric’s face softened, but only a little bit.

“Try living with it for longer. Do you think waiting isn’t worse when it stretches out for days and weeks? I bet your Father didn’t pretend there was no fever and call you a liar.” Aleric marched toward the window to open it once more so he could toss out the cards.

Aleric would have been right if Jaime’s parents had died from a fever. Jaime did know what it was like to live in fear that the danger was creeping closer and tightening the noose. That one night had given him nightmares for weeks. For months, he’d thought men would one day appear in the small village and kill the man and woman he called Uncle and Aunty. They’d recognize him and drive a sword through his body just like Mother or injure him so badly, all of his strength would trickle away just like Jed’s.

Except the fear had lessened, and nobody had appeared to kill him. It had taken a while before Jaime felt truly safe, but that feeling, something that many take for granted, had finally arrived. He’d stopped listening at night for strange voices, screams, and the pounding of boots coming closer.

Aleric couldn’t find that point with the danger living in his home and touching him to remind him that it was there right after a second failed attempt to claim his life.

Aleric came over to take the card from his hand. Fenrir turned into a black blur when he was flicked through the window, and the card spun away to vanish as if lost forever, never to be found. Aleric returned to his bedroom.

Jaime watched his white hair disappear and let his eyes travel back to the open window where the pale curtains fluttered with the breeze. The cards hadn’t vanished. They were below on the lawn, waiting to be found, and he’d see them if he looked down.

Aleric and Jaime couldn’t see a way out, but there was one. They just had to find it. Lord Monet couldn’t see the truth and wouldn’t look out and in the right direction. Someone needed to force him.

“Hey.” Jaime knocked on the bedroom door. “Aleric.”

“For Elira’s sake. I just got back into bed.”

“It’s important, and I’d rather not shout it to you.”

Aleric opened his door, and his eyes immediately darted to the one leading into the hall like he thought Zacharie was about to come in again. “What?”

“You were right,” started Jaime.

“Wow, thanks. You dragged me up for that?”

“I also had an idea. Your Father won’t believe you, and if I go to talk to him, he’ll think you filled my head with shit. He won't trust me.”

Aleric squinted. “Yes?”

“I’m sure Zacharie’s whining to him right now, or he will be. That won’t make you look good. I live in your rooms, so you could be feeding me lies all damn day. We need to show your Father proof and make it somehow entirely separate from you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m guessing my food is safe?”

“Yes. It comes from what the servants eat, and they simply make whatever they want big enough for several to eat from. Scrambled eggs, stew, whatever…I’m not too keen on my food being brought up in case it passes through someone’s hands before. I’m target number one.”

Lord Gautier might find a way to add “special” seasoning or a few drops of poison to his soup or anything he was given.

“If I’m helping you, won’t I be a target?”

“Not for a while. You’ve spoken to Gautier?”

“Yeah.”

Aleric sneered. “I'm sure he’ll be trying to get into your good graces later to see if you’ll be a tool. You're in my rooms. You’ve got time, and in a bit, I’ll tell Father you can eat at the High Table with me since you’re my aid and not a real slave. Gautier won’t have the platters poisoned because his ticket to being a lord might die too.”

“All right, that works.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about with proof.”

“How about if I get medicine and have it examined at one of the local apothecaries?”

“Olivier likely won’t attempt to kill you now. You may be useful to Gautier.”

“And when they realize I’m not, they’ll try to off me because I’m in the way. Why not take advantage and possibly make me look a bit sickly? Upset stomach, strange pains…whatever. Olivier would surely think of that, except I won’t take the medicine, and if it’s examined, someone could tell if it’s poisonous.”

“Father will think I put you up to this.”

“We don’t have to tell him right now. It’s a piece of evidence to tuck away for the moment. I also know what kind of medicine I could ask for.”

***

Aleric had locked his sitting room once Jaime left, so he didn’t feel too nervous when he knocked on Olivier’s door. Gautier couldn’t get to Aleric at the moment.

The physician’s eyes widened when he saw Jaime. “Is Aleric feeling worse?”

“No, he’s just tired. Your medicine fixed him right up for the most part.”

Olivier’s smile was a bit stiff. “You can come in. Do you feel like you’re catching something? One of the courtiers was a bit sniffly the other day.”

“Not exactly.” Jaime shoved his hands in his coat pocket and made himself look away as he stepped in and glanced at the herbs hanging from the ceiling. A bright orange plant by the window that hadn’t been there before had creepers clinging to the glass. “What is that?”

“A nolos. Mixed with other things, it can help with certain female troubles.”

“Ah.” Jaime pretended it was hard to meet the physician’s eyes. “Er, once in a while, if I feel a bit stressed and down, and if I can afford it, I go get a tincture or herbs to drink in the morning. A few haven’t done anything, but some have helped a little. The ones you make tea from seem to work a lot better for me.”

“Ah, I know what you mean.” Olivier headed for the cabinet that didn’t have glass doors. “Certain events can weigh quite heavily even later in life. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you to get over it just because your life seems fine now. Have a seat. Men get melancholy and anxiety too, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Also, I imagine the past couple of days were stressful with Aleric’s attack and being so ill.”

“Uh-huh.” Jaime sat in the chair by the door. He’d expected the physician to act like he was being silly.

Then again, while Olivier was a piece of shit, he did have physician training, and from whatever he’d seen in his life, men developing melancholy might have made sense to him.

Although it wasn’t the sort of thing most would admit anyway, Jaime didn’t feel like he had it. He’d decided it was a safe thing to use since he wouldn’t have to provide evidence of an injury or make up a lie about strange pains and symptoms.

Many of the jars and bottles in the cabinet had no labels. “How do you know what’s what?”

Olivier took a few jars to his worktable. “Good memory. When you’ve been doing it this long, most things are easy to recognize at a glance. I could do this with my eyes closed.”

Jaime didn’t like the idea of a physician who didn’t label his concoctions. Without planning to kill a courtier, what if he grabbed the wrong thing by mistake? A tiny slip-up could have dire consequences. “Please don’t do it with your eyes closed.”

Olivier laughed as he pulled dried, chopped leaves from a jar to dump into a mortar. “Don’t worry, I’m not.”

How did a man get in with another who was plotting? Olivier must have been a young man once with proper morals, right? He didn’t get physician training so he could poison a patient one day.

“I thought a court physician would have a work area separate from where he sleeps. Don’t you feel like you never get away from your job?”

Olivier worked the leaves with the pestle. “No, and it’s easier if I work and stay in one room in case I’m needed. Less running around to find me.”

Jaime tried to remember the things that went into the jar, and he recognized nothing except for mint.

Give it a good shake and put three spoonfuls in hot water every morning,” said Olivier. “Let it steep for a good five minutes before you drink. Stir it well. Have one or two in the afternoon if you feel you need it.”

“All right.”

“You can put honey or sugar in the tea if you want. It won’t affect it. If it doesn’t work, come see me, and I’ll tweak the combination. The same thing doesn’t work for everyone.”

Jaime thanked him and took the large jar upstairs to knock on the sitting room door. Aleric let him in and took the proffered jar.

Jaime locked the door. “Do you recognize anything bad?”

“I’m no expert in herbs.” Aleric peered through the glass.

“He has a lot of unlabeled jars and bottles.”

“I know. I never liked that.”

Jaime squinted at him. “Who took care of your Mother?”

“He wasn’t here,” Aleric said shortly as he removed the lid to take a whiff. “It smells quite minty.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s to cover up the taste of poison.”

Aleric rolled his eyes. “Come here. We need to take out the mint.”

Jaime followed him. “Why?”

“I have a feeling the wise woman can deal with it, but the smell is quite strong, and it might soak into everything and make it harder if she wants to taste a speck or smell something in particular.”

“I don’t think I’d want to put things in my mouth to see if it’s dangerous.”

“She’ll be careful. A speck likely won’t do a thing, and she’ll spit it out anyway.”

Aleric fetched a glass tray to set on the table in front of the couch so they could pour out the jar and dig through the contents. The little pile of broken mint leaves grew bigger as they worked while sitting on the floor opposite each other. It was almost relaxing since Aleric was focused and not snapping at anyone.

“I meant what I said earlier about you not getting riled up,” Jaime said once they were nearly finished. “It makes you look bad.”

“I'm aware.”

“And maybe trying to keep everyone at arm’s length isn’t the best.”

“Keeping the knife away from my back is best,” Aleric snapped as he smelled a torn piece of leaf and tossed it in the mint pile.

“Yeah, but you can do that without being…bitter. I know you’re still tired and worn out, but-”

“Don’t tell me what to be.”

Jaime raised an eyebrow. “I’m not trying to tell you what to be. It’d be better if you didn’t seem so angry. Can't you pretend for a little while that you don’t care what Zacharie does since it seems to be him that makes you more inclined to yell or do shit? If he gives you anything, put it away and pretend like you forgot about it.”

“I don’t want anything from his lover in my rooms,” snarled Aleric.

“Pretend. If you seem more level, it might help later. The meaner you are to Zacharie, the worse you look to Father even if he still loves you. Lord Gautier knows you and your brother haven’t been the best of friends for the majority of your lives. You handed him a weapon without meaning too long before anything happened. You might not be able to quite take it back. You can dull it a little.”

Aleric watched him across the table. “The village boy isn’t the village idiot.”

Some compliment.