Page 16

Chapter Sixteen

“M orning,” Tam said briskly to Isa. He was still buttoning up the surcote he’d borrowed from Nicolau. “How is she? May I?”

“Yes, of course,” Isa said, looking at the surcote with a strange expression as she held out the baby to him.

Tam scooped Angharad up and gave Isa a haughty look. “Not a fucking word.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were looking at it.”

“It’s a nice color on you,” she said. Her cheeks had gone pink.

He bundled the baby onto his shoulder so he could give her mother a single warning finger. “I said not a fucking word. I’m embarrassed. I am humiliated. I do not want to be caught dead in Nicolau’s fucking brocade bullshit . Don’t tell anyone.”

She nodded solemnly, eyes wide. Tam ignored the fact that she was clearly fighting back laughter.

He did not want to be wearing Nicolau’s brocade bullshit surcote, but his clothes from the day before were all mud-stained and sweaty. While he didn’t mind his clothes getting grubby while he was in them, there was something unreconcilably disgusting about putting dirty clothes back on. So here he was, in a brocade bullshit surcote, colored the pale green-blue of an unripened blueberry.

Tam stomped to the door and stuck his head into the hall. Nicolau was scuttling down the stairs, tying his hair back with some kind of fucking velvet ribbon or some shit. Tam glared at him. “No, yeah, take your fucking time. Take thirty years to get dressed and get downstairs.” He jounced Angharad— Daisy, he supposed—on his shoulder and turned back to Isa. “This motherfucker tricked me into sleeping in,” he said. “After he got a prophetic fucking dream that he didn’t think was important to mention immediately. He made me kiss him for a while instead of telling me about his prophetic fucking dream the very instant he was conscious. Can you believe this shit?”

“Don’t swear in front of Daisy, goblin,” Nicolau said, sweeping into the room. “Good morning, Isa, did you sleep well?”

“Yes, my l—Nicolau. Thank you. Your housekeeper lent me this wrapper, I hope that’s alright—”

“Yes, yes, that’s fine. It suits you far better than it did my least favorite great-aunt. You should keep it.”

“You see what I mean?” Tam said to Daisy as Isa exclaimed and tried fiercely to decline the gift. “You see what I mean about the person on this team who is not pulling their weight? He’s over there talking to your mama about clothes instead of paying attention to you and that prophetic fucking dream he had. Can you believe this shit?” Daisy gurgled and—and fucking smiled at him. It took Tam out at the knees and he had to sit down immediately on the settle and clutch her to him and try not to add any more personal embarrassment to the brocade situation, such as by gasping and cooing and saying something to her that was beneath both her dignity and his. “Thanks, crabapple, I like you too,” he whispered, choked up. He cleared his throat. “Nicolau, if you’re not going to be fucking useful, go call for tea and breakfast.”

“It’s ostensibly my house, you know,” Nicolau murmured to Isa, who looked again like she was trying hard not to laugh. But he went out to the hall.

Right. Drums, and little crabapples with holes in them, as from worms. “Do you,” Tam said solemnly to Daisy, “have worms?”

“I don’t know where she would have picked up worms,” Isa said. “She’s only nursed, and she’s obviously not old enough to be wandering around and putting things in her mouth.”

“Do you,” Tam said to Isa, “have worms?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“So we’ve ruled out worms,” Tam said to Daisy. Drums. Hm. He laid Daisy on the settle beside him, untucked her swaddling, and laid his ear on her chest.

Hm.

“Hey, can I put my head on your tits for a minute?” Tam said to Isa, who raised her eyebrows and looked mildly scandalized. “Please,” he added.

She blinked at him and said, “Oh, to listen to my heartbeat? Yes, alright.”

So she untucked her wrap and opened her nightgown enough to expose her breastbone, and he tucked his ear against it.

Nicolau chose that moment to walk back in with a tea tray, of course. “Ah. Am I interrupting?”

Tam couldn’t listen to anything with Isa suddenly cackling and wheezing like she was, so he pulled away and scowled at Nicolau. “ Drums ,” he snapped. “ Hearts . I was comparing. Put that down and come here.”

“Ostensibly your house,” Isa said, still laughing as Nicolau handed her the tea tray. Tam yanked him down onto the settle and pushed his ear against Nicolau’s chest.

Isa had a strong, steady heartbeat. Nicolau had one that was much the same, though it was faster, because he was a horrible man who insisted on being in love with Tam and forgiving him for his goblinish ways, and it was evidently doing something for him to have Tam trying to listen to his organs.

Tam pulled away, gave Nicolau a reproving glare just for good measure, and put his ear back on Daisy’s tiny little chest.

There was a... a whooshing. A tiny little whoosh for a tiny little heart, fluttering like a tiny drumbeat under Tam’s cheek. And Nicolau had dreamed of crabapples, each with a tiny little hole in them...

“Alright,” he said, sitting up. He pointed at Daisy. “ You’re doing a great job.” She gurgled and smiled at him. Fucking gods, that smile. In twenty years or so, she was probably going to kill everyone in a five mile radius with that smile. He took several deep breaths so neither he nor his dignity would be the first casualty. He gathered her up, turned to Nicolau, and pushed her into his arms. “We’re going to try again,” he said firmly. “ You’re going to try again. You can see people’s clocks, so now you’re going to look at drums.”

“If she’s not in any immediate danger, perhaps we might have some tea and breakfast first,” Nicolau said pointedly. “So we don’t keel over from hunger.”

Ugh. Fuck these sensible priorities.

Tam paced back and forth with Daisy while he drank a cup of tea and then ate some scrambled eggs on a piece of buttered toast—as far as he was concerned, one of the finest breakfasts a person could have. By the time they finished, it was the middle of Angarat’s hours, a lovely, golden autumn morning with just the coolest breath of chill lingering in the air. Tam marched Daisy and Nicolau outside to the apple orchard, where the later of the two local varietals was still on the trees, a month away from harvest but already blush-pink on the tops and almost white at the bottoms. They were Tam’s favorite, crisp and tart and perfectly sweet.

Tam kicked a few fallen apples away from beneath a tree to make a spot to sit, and cozied up with Daisy, well-bundled up to keep the chill off her. “Right, sit down. This time we’re going to do it.” He pointed at Nicolau imperiously. “Put your back into it this time.”

“Love it when you say that to me, goblin,” Nicolau said with an objectionable smirk. “Nostalgic for the orchard as well as the hayloft, eh?”

There might have been a few occasions over the years—usually during the apple-picking and the cider-pressing of the harvest, when crowds of people came up from the village to help and to drink and to feast—when Tam might have been occasionally overcome with fury at Lyford looking all pink-cheeked and pink-nosed from the cold with a big basket of apples on his hip, and had jumped on him and done things to him beneath these apple trees.

Tam scowled fiercely at him. “Don’t be obnoxious when we’re doing a job . ”

“I’m not being obnoxious, I’m being ever so pious ,” Nicolau said, sitting on the ground beside him and laying one hand over his heart. “She’s the lady of both haylofts and orchards, of course. And all the things you can do in them.”

Tam grumbled under his breath and held out Daisy. “Here. You start.”

Nicolau obliged, murmuring, “Drums, eh, Daisy? A hole in your little heart? Poor mite. Most people have to wait years before they get their hearts broken.”

Tam’s heart hurt at that. Gruffly, he muttered, “Well, maybe if we fix it now, she’ll have better luck with it later on and she won’t get it again.”

“Oh, I don’t know that I’d wish that on anyone. Builds character, no? Means you’re really living . Means there’s someone or something who matters very, very much.” Tam’s throat closed up, but Nicolau didn’t seem to notice. He was just looking softly down at Daisy, gently stroking her velvet cheek with one fingertip. “Doesn’t seem to kill you, heartbreak,” he said very quietly, sounding more like he was talking to her than to Tam. “At least, the other kind doesn’t. But Little Daisies should have nicely mended hearts, shouldn’t they?”

Tam drew his knees up, wrapped his arms around them. Doesn’t seem to kill you . He wouldn’t know. He’d always run away from... all the bad things, all the hurts, all the possibility of hurts. Nicolau didn’t—Nicolau kept walking into heartbreak again and again, even when he had his eyes wide open and knew what was coming. Tam couldn’t comprehend how a person could do that.

He tried it, tentatively—just a little bit, cracking open some of the doors in his soul he’d slammed shut a long time ago. Pain and bitterness surged through him shockingly fast, so fast he nearly choked on it and scrambled to stuff it down and away again—his parents dying when he was very small, his aunt taking him in, his marrow smashing, his loneliness, how tired and sore and worn-out he’d felt for as long as he could remember.

He sniffled quickly, wiped his eyes. He’d done that to Nicolau. Again and again and again, he’d done it, and he didn’t deserve another chance, and he didn’t know where Nicolau was even getting all these second chances from, and—

“Fuck,” Nicolau said softly. “I didn’t mean it like that, goblin.”

Tam shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said gruffly. “It’s—I deserve it. I can take a few punches.”

“I don’t want to punch you. I don’t want you to punch yourself.”

Tam clenched his jaw. “Doesn’t sound like you’re trying very hard with Daisy right now.”

Nicolau sighed in that infuriating way, then said hm in a terrifyingly decisive way. The leaves crunched beneath him as he shifted closer to Tam. “Hey,” he said gently, lovingly. “Fuck off, Tam.”

A bark of spluttering laughter burst from Tam’s mouth, piercing right past all the ache and sorrow and devastating guilt. “Fuck you, I wasn’t even doing anything.”

“You were being mean to my friend. I can tell. You promised you’d try not to.” Nicolau nudged him. “I’m mad.”

“You don’t sound mad.”

“I don’t have a lot of practice. And I’ve got a baby in my arms, so I’d rather not upset her or make her witness my incompetence. Listen. I...” Nicolau cleared his throat. “I need something from you.”

Tam had never heard him say that before, certainly not in that tone of voice, like a man bravely facing down an army. It terrified him. He watched his feet very carefully so he wouldn’t step on Nicolau’s toes, and he said, “Yeah?”

“Tell me a happy memory you have about me.”

Tam barely managed to bite back a hiss of betrayal and horror.

“Nice job,” Nicolau said seriously. “You barely winced, that was great.”

Tam slapped down another reflexive cringe. Take the compliment, he thought fiercely at himself. He meant it. “Thanks. Trying.”

“I know. I see it.”

There had to be a happy memory, didn’t there? Somewhere in all of the melodrama and Tam’s own stupid bullshit?

“The,” he said. “The time when.” He cast about in a panic. “The first time I sucked your dick was pretty great.”

“I’ll say,” Nicolau said, so straightfaced that Tam spluttered with another surprised laugh. “Tell me about it?”

“Why? You were there.”

“Debatable. Once you got your mouth on me, I was arguably not there at all. My consciousness was off, oh, drifting somewhere around one of the moons, I think.”

Alright, flattering. Tam hadn’t even been any good at it back then. “It was, uh, I think the fourth or fifth time we jumped on each other. It was over by the creek, in the woods. You came really fast and nearly fell over and—and you called me a genius and asked if thought of that all on my own.”

Nicolau laughed aloud. “Did I? I have no recollection whatsoever.”

Oh, the laugh was heartening. The laugh was very heartening. “Well, who’s surprised about that, considering the state you were in.” Tam dug the toes of his shoes into the ground. “I felt really good about myself,” he said in a small voice. “Felt like I won a prize or something. Felt like I beat you at your own game.”

“Mm. Did you think of it all on your own? In hindsight, that would have been fairly genius of you.”

“No. No, I heard someone making a joke—Lys Notter, I think. He said something about sucking dicks, and I thought about yours and decided it was a really good idea. And it was.”

“One of your top five best ideas ever,” Nicolau agreed. A moment passed. “Did I reciprocate on that occasion? I genuinely can’t recall.”

“No, I came in my pants and lied when you offered.”

“Mm. So I owe you one, then.”

Tam’s stupid body prickled with alertness. Now? it asked. No, obviously not now, they were busy. Busy not focusing on Daisy at all. Busy... mending some hearts.

So maybe it had everything to do with Daisy, actually.

“How do you remember it?” Tam said, horribly awkward—but Nicolau had laughed a minute ago, he had, he liked that memory too.

“Mm, I remember you were wearing that green tunic that looked so good with your hair and your eyes. I remember you caught me fishing and threw my fishing pole in the creek before you shoved me up against a tree. I remember being mad for about two seconds before I realized that you wanted to fool around, and then I very much did not give a shit about the pole at all. And then the rest of that memory is just one long line of italicized exclamation points.” Tam snorted. “And how soft your hair was in my hands,” Nicolau added, all dreamy and nostalgic. “And how good you looked afterward when you were so smug and superior about it, and how pink and wet your mouth was. And how I thought—ah. Maybe that’s too much.”

Tam squinted at him. “What did you think?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“What did you think?”

“Just the foolish, idealistic nonsense of a sixteen year old.”

“Yeah, like what, though?”

Nicolau bit his lip and looked down at Daisy. He huffed a laugh and said ruefully, “I remember lying in the leaves and the mud trying to gather my wits as you walked off. And I remember I thought, ‘Seven gods, I’m going to marry him.’”

Tam’s stomach lurched. “Oh.” Oh. Well. Fuck, Kel Gauda had said...

Nicolau cleared his throat and said lightly, “What about one that doesn’t involve my dick, then?”

Tam seized upon the change of subject like a drowning man to a spar. “There was once when we were, um, five or six, I think, and we were out playing with the other children, and—whatshisname, Nye Cooper, he was bigger than all of us, and he came along and pushed me into that mud puddle. And you shouted at him so loud that your governess came running, and he got in awful trouble. And you tried to wipe the mud off my clothes with some clean grass. And then I remember you caught me a frog or something so I’d stop crying.”

“I brought you a few different things, trying to get you to stop crying,” Nicolau said softly. “A newt, and a minnow, and a beetle. A daisy. A leaf that had been chewed up by grubs so it was only the veins and it looked like lace.” Tam... vaguely recalled that: Master Nicolau saying, Tam, Tam, here, and putting something pointless in his hands without any explanation. “All the best treasures a five-year-old can conceive of. I thought you were the most marvelous of all our playmates, you know. You came up with better games than anyone else.”

Tam hadn’t known that, in fact. “Just stupid kid games. Nothing special about them.”

“I liked them. Isa and Lys and Madda always wanted to play knights-and-monsters or the Battle of the Bridge.”

“Yes, and those are objectively better games than playing house , which was the only one I was ever interested in.”

“I mean, same for me. But there were more of them than there were of us, and Father had told me I wasn’t allowed to insist on playing my own games all the time,” Nicolau said philosophically, half-laughing. Favored of Angarat, maybe, even back then. “Do you remember the time we were about eight and Garrat Wright—”

“Fuck him, I hated him.”

“—stole my slate on the way to school—”

“And I shot after him and threw rocks at him all the way to the schoolyard, yes,” Tam said. “And he was crying and bleeding and telling everyone that I was trying to kill him, and then I got in trouble for some fucking reason.”

“Gallantry,” Nicolau said. “Valiant heroism.”

“Fuck off.”

“I mean it. Took my breath away.”

Tam didn’t have any reply to that—at least no reply that was civil and kept his promises not to be so mean to either of them. But to sit here and allow the compliment felt like pouring boiling oil over his skin. Hateful, painful, exhausting.

Slowly, he tipped to the side, bumping his arm against Nicolau’s and just... letting it stay there. He couldn’t bear to glance at Nicolau. He’d have some soppy expression on his face, and Tam couldn’t take it.

“The time when,” Tam rasped. “The time when you came back from university.”

“Coming back was good. Being away was awful. I was so homesick I made myself actually sick, you know—that’s why I only lasted one term. But coming back was good.” Then, quieter, “You came to see me right away. I’d barely been home two hours. I was thrilled. Extra thrilled when you jumped on me and kissed me, but... just seeing your face, the fact that you were there so fast—I thought you must have started for my house the instant you heard I was back.”

He had. He had. “Well, I was fucking mad at you. I was going to give you a piece of my mind about... I don’t know. Some flavor of how dare you. ” Nicolau’s arm and shoulder was so warm against his. Tam couldn’t look at him. He wanted to be brave and say something true enough to be frightening. He wanted to be a valiant hero, at least in ways that were more suited for Angarat’s work than Brassu’s. Nicolau liked it when Tam was brave and valiant. With his heart in his throat, he said: “I thought it was ‘how dare you be back already’, but I—I think it was actually more like ‘how dare you leave for so long.’”

“I do not recall that you said anything at all,” Nicolau said. He was smiling, the bastard. Tam could hear it in his voice.

“I said, ‘Hi, dickhead.’ And then I was otherwise occupied.”

“Ah yes, of course.” He was a smug, insufferable dickhead, though, because he added, “I did come back with a few new tricks, though.”

Damn fucking right, he had. One term at university and he’d come back all worldly and sophisticated— at least in Tam’s opinion as an adolescent country bumpkin for whom the idea of going away in the first place had seemed utterly alien, something only rich people like the lords of the manor did. Every bit of the new, sophisticated Lyford had made Tam hopping mad, from the improved elegance of his elocution, to the little booklet of erotic woodcuts he’d taken out of its surreptitious hiding place in his luggage to show Tam, to the way he’d gotten between Tam’s legs and purred, Want to see something neat I learned at school? and sucked one long finger and slid it inside ...

“Like fingering,” Nicolau added dreamily. “And how to fuck you. Imagine if we’d never figured that out. University is good for some things, actually.”

“Like ruining my goddamn life,” Tam muttered.

“Mm, of course, giving you my cock definitely ruined your life. What a tragedy. That’s why you came back four days later, dragged me to the hayloft, and yelled at me for wasting your time on purpose when all we ended up doing was rubbing off against each other. And why every other time for the next couple months, all you wanted to do was shove me onto my back in the hay and ride me like a demon. Yes, I’ve done so many terrible, terrible crimes. I am filled with repentance.”

Worst person alive. Worst person Tam had ever met besides himself. “Rake.”

Nicolau laughed aloud. “Right, yes, and that’s why nine times out of ten, you’re the one showing up out of nowhere and snapping at me to take my clothes off. Because I’m the local rake despoiling innocent and blameless small-business owners.”

Well, it was funny, and the punitive nudge Tam gave him was fairly half-hearted. He didn’t know how to feel. He was irritated, but that seemed mostly habit. He was tired of being irritated and tired of himself. He... liked the teasing. And his heart was still sore.

He could have had this at any point. It had only been Tam shutting himself away and letting his irritation and resentment rule him and overshadow everything else he might... feel.

“Are you in love with me?” He seized up in horror. Fuck. Goblin, he was a goblin, he wasn’t fit for polite company—

“Yes,” Nicolau said softly, immediately, as if it were as ordinary and unremarkable as a daisy by the side of the road.

Tam shook. There was just... too much. He had never been so scared in all his life. “Okay,” he said, and hated how his voice shook. “Okay.” Run, his inner goblin suggested. Run. Maybe leave the country. He didn’t want to leave the country. Even going to the Highlands for two months had been wretched. He couldn’t leave. He had to get away. “I’m not running away,” he said aloud, because if he said it aloud, it was a promise he’d have to keep. “I do need to get up and take a minute.”

“Alright,” Nicolau said, still very soft. Crestfallen. Dammit, Tam always made him so sad—

“I am coming back,” he said firmly. “I’m just. Trying to—I’m just trying, alright, just give me a minute.”

Nicolau took a deep breath and seemed to push away his wistfulness. “Of course. That’s fine.”

“You can be mad at me,” Tam said desperately.

“I’m not going to be mad at you for trying, goblin.”

“Great. Thanks. I’m, uh. I’m going to walk around a bit. And then come back. And not be an awful goblin. I’m trying.”

“You are trying. Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome,” Tam said, scrambling to his feet. “Uh. Okay. Back in a minute. I’ll just be. Around.”

He let himself dart off into the trees, not quite running—but it did help to feel like he was running away, like there was a window to open even if he wasn’t going to throw himself out of it. Just an open window, just some fresh air, just a little distance from... everything .

When he reached the fence of the orchard, he took a sharp left turn and went nearly all the way to the corner. Left again, then to a point markedly short of the adjacent corner. Left again. Left again.

In panicked strides, he inscribed a spiral through the apple trees.

It was different hearing Nicolau say it, that was all. He’d known already—Kel Gauda had said it, and Tam had sort of known it even then. Of course he’d known. There was no other reason for Lyford to have put up with his bullshit. He didn’t have to ask since when?, because he knew Nicolau’s answer to that already— since we were boys , or as long as I can remember. The difference between the two was negligible.

“Angarat,” he said, stopping for a moment to lean heavily on a tree. “Angarat, how the fuck am I supposed to do this?”

He might have imagined the merry shrug. He might not have. Bitch.

He spiraled through the trees, closer and closer back to where Nicolau sat near the center with poor Daisy, who didn’t deserve any of this bullshit.

Some of the oldest henges were built in spirals rather than concentric circles. During the festivals and holidays, some of the circular henges—like Idunet’s—put up temporary walls or fabric panels between the stones so that you had to spiral through the henge to reach the center. Some of the oldest standing stones had spirals carved on them, and those were said to be older than the gods themselves. It was a pattern of power, a drawing-in, a gathering-together like sheaves of wheat, like stirring a pot of stew to feed a family, like the turn of the dough in kneading. Like what he had been doing with Nicolau for twenty fucking years.

And now he was this close to the center, and he didn’t know what to do with bloody Nicolau—but he knew what he had to do for Daisy. Fix her, help her, cure her, heal her, do anything to prove (if only to himself) that being favored of Angarat was good for something. Half-delirious, he pictured himself gathering the orchard as he spiraled, plucking an imaginary apple or a leaf or a flower from each tree or weed or tuft of grass and tucking it into an invisible basket on his hip.

He felt as if he was about to vibrate out of his skin.

When he finally reached Nicolau and Daisy again, he couldn’t make himself stop walking, so he just kept going, spiraling around and around that tree in frantic little circles. He allocated nine-tenths of his mind to thinking of that imaginary basket of the orchard on his hip; he mentally closed his eyes and turned away from the last tenth so that it could say whatever it fucking wanted to.

“I knew that,” he said as he passed Nicolau on one orbit.

On the next: “I mean, of course I knew that, I’m not stupid.”

On the next pass, “Kel Gauda also told me.”

On the next: “A lot of other people sort of hinted about it.”

On the next: “You know, Mrs Hatter and everyone, and Isa. And Angarat.”

On the next: “You want to know a secret? You remember a couple years after the incident with your school slate when Garrat Wright broke his leg and came down with fever and nearly died?”

The next: “I was so fucking pleased about it, I was praying the whole time for him to die.”

The next: “Isn’t that terrible? We were, what, twelve? Yet I had so much spite about the slate incident that I gleefully prayed for his death. ”

The next: “But then he recovered and I was pissed. Actually, I’m still pissed at him. I give him withering looks when I see him around the village.”

The next: “He doesn’t make eye contact with me anymore. He’s never even set foot on my street. I would throw rocks at him again if he did. And he knows it, because I have watched him take the long way just to avoid my street.”

The next: “Now I know what you’re wondering: ‘Brassu’s balls, what sort of atrocities must Tam have prayed to fall on me?’ ”

The next: “No death, just dick leprosy! As it turns out! Just dick leprosy or flesh-eating spiders! That’s it!”

The next: “Make of that what you will, I guess, I suppose it says something.”

The next, quite suddenly and violently: “ Marrying me , though, what the fuck. What the fuck, Nicolau.”

The next, while yanking at great fistfuls of his own hair: “We can’t, of course, I don’t think I need to tell you that we can’t possibly, for a number of reasons.”

The next: “For one thing, everyone would laugh at me for being twenty-nine years old and still wanting to play house. I wouldn’t be able to show my face in the village. No, no, no, it’s not possible.”

The next: “It’s an insane sort of thought to have. You know it’s insane. We both know it’s insane. We’re in agreement that it’s insane.”

The next: “And anyway, how dare you? How dare you with your ‘what about a happy memory that doesn’t involve my cock’ bullshit, when you were trying to make major life decisions just because I blew you.”

The next: “Textbook hypocrisy. Textbook.”

The next: “You did stop thinking about it, right? You weren’t thinking about that every other time I blew you? No, of course you weren’t. I don’t need to ask, I know you didn’t think about it very much.”

The next: “Which is good because it would be just a terrible idea, and you’d—well, you’d regret it immediately, let’s be realistic about this. You’d be sick of me after a week. Maybe less.”

The next: “Actually, I’d give it three days tops, and that’s if I were on my best behavior, which—let’s be very realistic about this—I wouldn’t be, because I’m a goblin , Nicolau, you know this.”

The next: “Wait, how many days has it been since I got back? I arrived in the evening and slept at yours, and then the next day you slept at mine, and then I slept at yours again and that was last night. . .”

He walked several times around the tree in urgent silence. (With the other nine-tenths of his mind, he gathered, gathered, gathered the orchard, shaking with adrenaline.)

Then: “Well! You still have about six hours to get sick of me before it’s technically been three days, so there you have it. There you have it.”

Then: “What would even be the point of it, anyway? What would I even do? What, run the tea shop a couple days a week as a hobby, and make you do the bookkeeping for it, and let everybody else pitch in like they’ve been doing when it suits them?

Then: “Except I wouldn’t need the income then, because I’d have yours. So I could just hire someone outright, maybe.”

The next: “And then I’d come back to your house and—and eat all your food and drink all your wine and bitch about your décor and maintain a tyrannical monopoly over your bathtub. You’d get sick of it.”

The next: “Angarat’s ass, and I’d be expected to have opinions about how you do your job, wouldn’t I! I’d have to make decisions about—about land management and crops and livestock and things.”

The next: “I mean, I do have opinions about those things already. I can’t believe you haven’t gone out to your fields to try messing with stuff there—it’s a lot easier than babies, trust me—at least in summer—”

“This is a pointless line of discussion anyway, Nicolau, because I’m not going to marry you, it’s absolutely unthinkable. I can’t believe you even brought it up.

“ Gods, people would have to call me some absurd title like Lord Tam , wouldn’t they? Once they stopped laughing. Maybe during the laughter. I cannot emphasize enough how much I would not be able to show my face in the village.

“And before you say anything, I know this sounds like all of the times I told you that we were never going to have sex again, but let me assure you, this is different.

“Why would you even want to do that? Not have sex, I know why you want to have sex, we’re actually very good at it, I have grown as a person to the point that I can say that. I meant getting married.

“There is no earthly reason for you to want that. You shouldn’t want that. You’re a rake and a scoundrel and—and I’m surprised you haven’t gotten married five or six times already if it’s that much of a fetish for you.

“ Is it some kind of fetish? Is this a sex thing? Well, even if it is, I’m not going to participate in that kind of perversion and debauchery.

“What could possibly be your motive for having such an insane thought, anyway? It can’t have just been the blowjob. I wasn’t even that good at it, I remember that I wasn’t, I just sort of stuffed your cock in my mouth and—well, whatever, that’s not a reason.

“It’s to do with you being in love with me, isn’t it. And all those fucking comments about me being funny and exciting and harrowing and things.

“I need to be very clear and really emphasize that I am not going to marry you. At all.

“This week.

“ Or next week, for that matter.

“Look, I just don’t understand what could possibly be motivating this insane impulse, but—but it’s good to get it out in the air, isn’t it! Because now you can snap out of it and come to your senses and realize that it is a bad idea for all the reasons I mentioned.

“Is it because I haven’t sucked you off for a while? Look, if it’s that, you can just say so and I’ll do it. I’d much rather suck your cock than have you get yourself into some awful mess that you can’t get yourself out of. You have to be reasonable about this.

“Another reason I am absolutely not going to marry you at all is because I don’t think Tam Lyford sounds like a real person’s name. And obviously you can’t be Nicolau Becket—that’s absurd. And maybe illegal.

“So everyone will just be very reasonable and sensible about this, and there won’t be any more insane blowjob thoughts, and we’ll all keep our own names.

“And look, if you want me to have opinions about your land management, you know you can just provoke me and I’ll give you a piece of my fucking mind for free. You know that’s on the table.

“So what would getting married even do? Not that we’re going to, because we’re certainly not. But how would it be any different than now, other than people having a good reason to laugh at me?

“They wouldn’t laugh at you , of course, they’d just feel very sorry that you married a goblin who is a horrific tyrant about your bathtub and land management.

“I guess if we were married, we wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone else—but gods, that’s barely different than now, anyway. Who has the energy to go out seducing people? There’s no one else around the damn place who’s worth the effort. Even bloody Kel Gauda—anyway, he’s a twit and his cock probably isn’t as nice as yours.

“I mean, other than whatshisname at the festival, I can’t even remember the last time I kissed somebody other than you—must be five, six years at least.

“So there, there you have it. There you have it. There’s basically nothing different. So there’s no reason to do something as daft as getting married, because it wouldn’t be different. I wouldn’t be different, I would still be a horrible goblin.

“And you wouldn’t be different, you’d just—go around—”

The imaginary basket of the orchard slipped from his hip, and Tam stumbled to a stop, glaring in stern bewilderment at the grass for a long moment. He shook his head violently, mentally hitched up his imaginary basket, and kept walking. “You’d just go around being in love with me, I guess. But then of course you would realize your error; you’d get sick of me and you’d tell me to go back to the tea shop, and then I’d also have to go back to hating you.

“And it’d be the marrow all over again, wouldn’t it. Smashed on the floor. And everyone would gasp and coo over poor little you, and nobody would bother with how I felt, and I’d have to sit there all alone in my tea shop and fucking cry about it for another twenty goddamn years — ”

He stopped again and glared harder at the ground. “Wait, hang on.”

Silence.

“I seem to have just inadvertently equated marrying you to my marrows.”

Silence.

Tam put his fingers to his mouth in profound consternation. “And said I’d be sad if it was smashed.”

Silence.

“Well!” he said brightly, starting forth on another frantic circle around the tree. The imaginary weight of the basket was growing strangely heavy and full, as if he had to lean away to counterbalance it . “That’s all the more reason not to do it in the first place, isn’t it. We’re all on the same page about this. About not getting married and—look, I know it sounds like I’m basically saying that you shouldn’t grow any marrows because there’s a chance someone might come along and smash them, but that is a gross oversimplification of my point.

“Obviously when marrows get smashed, it’s due to freak accidents or possibly a bitch of a goddess sticking her nose in. So it would be absurd to suggest that all marrow-growing is pointless and doomed just because there’s an incredibly small possibility of that one weird outcome. But marriage is on a whole other scale.

“It’s like the difference between messing about with wheat fields and messing about with a baby. One of them is far more hard and complicated than the other. So. That’s why we’re not going to be married.

“And! And in any case, even if we were, which we’re not, it’s far too late in the year. You understand what I mean. You’re following.”

The basket was very heavy, even only in imagination. He cast mental handfuls of it on the ground, tipped out all the gathered wealth of the orchard little by little as he circled. It kept nine-tenths of his mind occupied, if nothing else. “I mean, can you imagine? Fuck’s sake, we’re favored of Angarat, of course it would have to be a spring wedding if we were going to have one, which we’re not, because, as previously mentioned, it is an insane idea, and people would laugh at me and call me absurd names, and there really isn’t a point because it wouldn’t make any difference.

“I don’t think I want kids. Do you want kids? I don’t think you need any kids, you already have a pile of niblings. And also, so do I. I already have several people calling me Uncle Tam, which is a far less nauseating name than Lord Tam, eugh.

“Though come to think of it, Angarat said that puppies and kittens and lambs and things could be babies figuratively. Do you want a dog? I think you should get a dog. I can see you with a dog. That’s what you need in your life more than a marriage to the most inconvenient person you’ve ever met. You can just make do with a dog and a few more blowjobs, and that’ll settle you right down from this mad start you’re on.

“ Were on, I mean. Were on, ten-odd years ago, and are no longer on. I don’t think you should allow your dog on the bed, though. And maybe not even in the bedroom. I don’t want it watching us fuck, that’s the only thing. But you should get a dog and not marry me, for all of the reasons I said.”

There was an irritating shimmer in the corner of his eye which he had been ignoring for the past dozen spirals around the tree and Nicolau and Daisy. It was much like the shimmer that had marked out Kel Gauda’s mark of favor from Idunet, but that had twinkled silvery and iridescent wine-purple, and this was green as spring and gold as wheat and berry-rich—

He couldn’t help but look, and then his heart stopped with a sickening lurch and a hard thrill passed over him.

The day’s light was blunted by a haze of autumn clouds that had gathered since morning, but Nicolau’s wheat-gold hair shone as if he were sitting in full sunshine. Everything around him shone, all the colors richer and bolder and brimming with life—his skin and clothes, and Daisy and her swaddling in the crook of one elbow, and the garnet ring on his other hand which was laid gently on her tiny chest, and his grey eyes, and the grass and fallen leaves all around them, and the tree behind and above them, its boughs heavy with... not just apples. Apples and oranges and lemons, pomegranates and cherries and olives, pears and plums and apricots, and a dozen fruits Tam had never seen before in his life. And Nicolau was just sitting there silently and looking at him, his eyes dancing with the light and life and abundance of their lady, and biting his lip on some kind of objectionable expression.

“Hm,” said Tam, staring up at the tree so he didn’t have to figure out what that expression was. He felt oddly rebuked. Angarat was chortling to herself in the back of his mind. He cleared his throat. “How’s Daisy doing?”

“Strong as an ox,” Nicolau said, his voice all low and... and something. “Hale and thriving.”

“Ah. Good. That’s good.” Tam cleared his throat again. “Well, see, I told you it wasn’t that fucking hard, didn’t I.”

Daisy stirred, yawned hugely—which nearly took Tam out at the knees for sweetness—and made an ominous sound.

“Good timing, she’ll want to eat now!” Tam said quickly. “Let’s take her back to Isa, and then we’ll all, ah, get out of your hair.” He darted forward, scooped Daisy out of Nicolau’s arms, and bundled her up on his shoulder. She made another ominous sound.

Daisy’s crying had been fairly loud before, but now she was deafening . Tam took that as a good sign, though his eardrums were ringing by the time he made it back to the house, scuttled into the library, and deposited her in Isa’s astonished arms. “There you are, one very fixed baby,” he said nervously. “I’m sorry in advance about what has happened to her lung capacity, but on the upside, I’m not sure that it’s even possible for her to get colic now, or a cold, or—maybe anything else? Haha. Also, if she ends up growing to seven feet tall, that’s not our fault.”

“Yes, it is,” Nicolau said, striding in right behind Tam as Isa opened her shirt and bundled Daisy to her breast. The relief of that wall of sound cutting off so abruptly nearly made Tam stagger. “And since we can arguably be considered her godfathers, please do let us know if it gets to the point where she’s eating you out of house and home—we’ll be more than happy to help with the costs.”

Isa was looking up at them both with wide eyes as Daisy nursed. “Seven gods,” she whispered. “Ah... Do you know you’re sort of... twinkling?”

“Yes,” Nicolau said as Tam looked down at himself in horror. Fuck. He was twinkling. Gods, and he’d run past all the servants like this—everyone in the village was going to be talking about it by dinnertime. “After-effects, that’s all.”

“Oh. I see.” Then: “Thank you,” she said softly. “And thanks to the Lady of Lambs, of course. But you both looked so tired last night, I was worried you’d wear yourselves out—I hope it wasn’t too much of a strain, whatever you’ve done now. Are you well?”

“Yes, very well,” Nicolau said. “Also ambiguously engaged, so that’s nice.”

Tam seized up in alarm. “No, you’re not. No, we’re not. We’re not. Isa. He’s lying. We’re not. He’s not anything. I’m not anything. We’re not getting married—”

“We’ll give you some privacy,” Nicolau said politely as Isa gaped at them in shock and mounting delight. He took Tam by the arm and pulled him out of the room.

“Isa, he’s not and I’m not and we’re not.” Tam clung to the doorframe, digging his nails in so hard he tore a gouge in the wallpaper. “Don’t listen to him, we’re not anything. We’re not doing anything, everything is completely normal and usual just as it has always been. Don’t laugh .”

Isa was fucking laughing, no matter that it was silent and she was covering her mouth with her free hand. All the fight went out of Tam all at once. Nicolau gently pried his hands off the doorframe as he said, “Yes, I’ve been reliably informed that we are not getting married this week or next week, because only a spring wedding would be appropriate for our station—”

The fight came right back into Tam. “That was hypothetical !” he screeched, flailing and scrabbling for the doorframe again as Nicolau drew him away. “He’s getting a dog! I told him to get a dog instead!”

Nicolau shut the door. “I’m more of a cat person, actually. Take a deep breath and stop wriggling for a moment.” He cupped Tam’s face in his hands and fucking twinkled at him. “Now, do you want to go sit in my study and have a serious conversation, or shall I take you to bed and help you work off some of these jitters first?”

“Fine, cats, fine, you can have all the cats you want, I don’t care—”

“I already have one I like,” Nicolau said. “I’m going to see whether I can lure him into living in my house and eating all my food and drinking all my wine and being a tyrant about the bath and my land management.”

“No. That’s awful, you don’t want any part of that.”

“I want every part of that. I think it sounds marvelous. I don’t see a downside.”

Tam despaired of him. See, this was what he had always objected to. This bullshit right here. This was Nicolau’s whole problem. He was a rake and a scoundrel and a prick.

Nicolau was gently herding him towards the stairs, backing him up step by step, only holding onto Tam softly by his face. “Sex or a serious conversation?”

Tam made an incoherent, goblinish noise and said, “Fuck. Sex, fine, yes, let’s do that—but don’t make it weird , understand? None of your pervert nonsense.”

“None whatsoever,” said Nicolau easily— too easily. Suspiciously easily. Tam gave him a squinty glare as Nicolau let his face go and hitched Tam into his arms to carry him up the stairs; Tam wound his legs around Nicolau’s hips. “Only all your favorite things.”

“This is a con. This is a scam. This is sneaky and underhanded. I’m not marrying you.”

“Alright.”

Tam squinted harder at him. “Don’t say that like you’re lying. We aren’t engaged and I’m not marrying you.”

“And we’re never going to have sex ever again,” Nicolau agreed mildly. He spared one hand to open his bedroom door. “Apropos of nothing, do you like apple blossoms or roses better?”

“ We’re not getting married. Apple blossoms. Not that it’s relevant.”

“No, of course not.” Nicolau set him down by the bed, kissed him soundly, and started on Tam’s buttons. “I was just thinking that I might bring you flowers later this week.”

Tam spluttered in outrage for long enough that Nicolau got most of their clothes off and tipped him back into bed. “I beg your pardon! You can’t just—and where do you think you’re going to get apple blossoms in autumn?”

“Angarat provides,” Nicolau murmured, crawling over him. “And she owes me a couple favors,” he added, half-laughing, and kissed him.