Page 2 of Yield Under Great Persuasion

Chapter Two

T his, as with so many things involving Lyford, was an indignity.

“Matchmaking,” Tam said flatly. “I’m assigned to the matchmaking tent.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Hart. They were roughly the same age, and they’d been friends once, years ago, before she’d gotten so busy with being married and having children. She had very wide, earnest eyes, and she was deploying them at Tam, and he knew that she was, and he knew that she knew that he knew.

“Alright,” he said. “Alright. Fine. Sure. But also, may I ask: Why?”

“Well, you have the shop,” she said. “So you know a lot of the gossip, right? You know who’s been walking out with someone special. You know who’s been sighing after someone with their friends over a cup of tea. You know who’s ready for one of the gifts of Angarat.”

That was an unfortunately fair point. Tam did know all of those things. He relented. “Very well.”

“You’ve never come by the matchmaking tent, have you? Do you know how it’s supposed to work?”

“I have a general gist of the idea, yes.”

“Oh, don’t look so grim, Tam! No one’s expecting you to work miracles, you know. It’s just a bit of fun for the festival. You’ll see right quick that there’s people—mostly young people, you know, still excitable—who just want to giggle and ask for a little blessing of Angarat to give to the person they fancy, and then there’s people who are serious about finding someone they can settle down and be comfortable with. It’s terribly easy to tell the difference, trust me. With the first kind, you just give them one of the blessings”—she pointed to a little box full of folded paper hearts filled with sachets of sweet herbs and dried flowers—“and with the second kind, you can sit them down and ask them questions about what they’re looking for, and if there’s anyone they have their eye on that they’d like to be introduced to.”

“Shouldn’t Angarat handle matters like this herself?”

“She’s very busy,” Mrs Hart said, still painfully earnest. “She has a lot of things to look after. And everybody likes getting a helping hand with their to-do list, don’t they!”

He couldn’t deny that.

He let Mrs Hart give him the rest of the instructions for what he was supposed to do with the matchmaking tent, and then she flitted off to take care of the rest of the Anghenge festival committee’s contributions.

Tam sat heavily on one of the squishy chairs in the tent—doubtless borrowed from the parlor of someone on the Anghenge committee—and rubbed his hands over his face. Someone they can settle down and be comfortable with, he thought bitterly. What a joke that he of all people would be even temporarily responsible for anything vaguely adjacent to... that sort of thing. He hadn’t been in love with anyone for a long, long, long time, and any hurt in his heart about the lack of it had long since scabbed over. Now it was only once in a while that he would curl up in bed all on his own and hurt for how lonely he was, how cold and hard he could feel himself growing in the absence of warmth and softness. He didn’t think of himself as a prickly sort of person—except when it came to Lyford, who deserved it—but it just seemed to grow harder and harder every year to find anyone who even caught his eye, let alone someone who seemed like they might smile back at him.

He’d smiled so much when he was younger. He’d laughed so much then, had such a lively sense of humor. He could remember those days, though they were beginning to feel blurry and distant, as if those memories belonged to someone else.

Then all his friends had started to get married, and suddenly there were babies everywhere, and he just... kept on keeping on. Just Tam Becket, who owned the tea shop, who couldn’t manage to get anyone to fall in love with him.

Fucking Angarat. Maybe it was punishment for having asked her to make Lyford’s dick fall off. No lovers, no partner, no children—just Lyford’s dick a couple times a month, or less if he could manage to keep himself busy enough that he didn’t start thinking about it.

The tent flaps flew open with a thick whap and Lyford himself swanned in. Tam jumped to his feet with a scowl; Lyford smiled readily. “Hallo, Tam! I hear we’re going to be matchmaking together!”

This was definitely some kind of divine punishment from Angarat. “Great,” Tam said, grimacing. “So great. Good.”

One thing became immediately obvious: Tam could not risk being alone in a tent with Lyford, or he’d make some very Bad Decisions, such as ripping Lyford’s trousers open and sucking his dick.

He lasted about thirty seconds before angrily bundling up the walls of the tent to the top of the support poles and tying them there furiously.

“Good idea,” said Lyford, poking through the box of hearts. “It would have gotten stuffy in here pretty quick.”

“Why are you here?”

Lyford blinked guilelessly at him, the rake. “Because Mrs Hatter said last week that most of her usual helpers were unavailable, and she was worried Anghenge wouldn’t be able to make a good showing.”

“Why does Anghenge need to make a good showing?” Tam snapped. “Nobody ever makes a good showing but Talhenge and Mathenge.” And no wonder there: Talesyn was the god of performers and song and oratory and bards and fire, and Mategat was the goddess of knowledge, artisans, fate, skill and dexterity. Even now, just up the festival lane, there was a band of musicians warming up and tuning their instruments, courtesy of Talhenge, and a fortune-teller setting up across the way from the matchmaking tent, courtesy of Mathenge. Later in the day, there would be jugglers, stilt-walkers, fire-breathers, sword-swallowers, performers of all kinds—and that wasn’t even beginning to touch the lecture series that Mathenge scheduled on all variety of topics, or the massive bonfire party Talhenge had every evening of the festival, with dancing and music into the wee hours. The only other henge that came close to such glory was Idhenge, but not during the day.

“Henge pride?” Lyford said, spreading his hands in a theatrical shrug. “Bit like handball teams, isn’t it?”

“You don’t have henge pride for Angarat, though.”

Lyford looked rather taken aback. “Yes, I do. I’m very fond of Angarat. She’s been very good to me.”

Of course she had. Lyford’s mother was still alive, though after Lyford’s father had passed, she’d gone to live with her sister a few days’ ride away. Lyford had three younger siblings, who had married and dispersed around the region and started producing nieces and nephews for him. Lyford had lands that were flourishing and prosperous with all the agricultural abundance that tumbled from Angarat’s cornucopia—wheat and barley and rye and a hundred different fruits and vegetables and herbs, and sheep and cows and pigs and goats and honeybees. He might as well have been Angarat’s favorite— maybe he was, actually, with that beautiful godsdamned cock that was unfortunately attached to the rest of him. No children, not that Tam knew of, but a goddess-kissed cock that Lyford absolutely didn’t deserve.

Primly, Tam said, “Perhaps I will go ask Mrs Hatter if there are any other jobs she’d like me to do. Like the kitchen.”

“You have to do matchmaking, though, on account of you know all the gossip.”

“I also own a kitchen and know how to cook,” Tam said loudly.

“Um,” said a very small voice from behind him. He whirled around guiltily and found Ella Blackwell, who was barely thirteen and had recently become afflicted with terrible acne. She had her brassy hair done in two braided tails, one of which she was tugging anxiously, and her face was red even between the acne splotches.

“Hello, Miss Ella,” Tam said, carefully calm. “Can we help you?”

“I’d like a blessing, please,” she said in a tiny voice, scuffing her shoe on the ground.

“Of course!” Lyford said, hauling the whole box of them over to her. “Here you are, pick whichever one you like.”

She picked one hurriedly and clutched it to her chest. “Thank you, m’lord.”

“You’re very welcome. Now, a lot of people will tell you that you should give it to someone you like, but what I used to do when I was your age was to stick it under my pillow and ask our Lady of Abundance to send me a dream of love.”

Ella looked massively relieved at this suggestion. “Thank you,” she said, much more fervent than before. “Thank you, I’ll do that.”

“Good luck!” Lyford called after her as she scampered off.

Tam stared at him.

“What?” said Lyford.

“What the fuck was that?”

“It’s just what I liked to do with them when I was her age.” Lyford set the box on the table, plucked out one of the blessings, and tucked it into his coat pocket with a wink at Tam. “Maybe I’ll do it again tonight for old times’ sake.”

Tam instantly boiled into pointless rage and would have shoved Lyford onto the table and climbed on top of him if the sides of the tent hadn’t been wide open. Thank fuck he’d thought ahead. “Okay,” he said crisply, sitting in one of the chairs behind the table and folding his hands tightly on his knees. “That’s stupid.”

“What, putting it under your pillow? Well, Miss Ella is awfully young, so I don’t think she needs to be worried about actually giving it to someone she likes. Probably fine if she keeps a few blessings for herself at this age, no? And anyway, the pillow trick works a treat. I got plenty of great dreams that way.” He sat in the other chair and leaned back with a saucy grin, setting one ankle on his opposite knee. Tam did not look at his crotch and was very proud of himself for his fortitude. Perhaps he was finally becoming a Brassu boy at long last. “That’s how I, ah...”

“How you what, ” asked Tam, because he’d also always had a contentious relationship with Idunet, the Lord of Temptation.

Lyford dropped his voice very low and reached out to brush his fingers against the back of Tam’s wrist. “It’s how I knew you’d take my cock so well.”

Tam shot to his feet and stomped out of the tent.

“I can’t do it,” he said to Mrs Hatter when he finally found her. “Give me some other job.”

“Can’t do what, dear?” she said, watching with a judicial eye as a couple of her children tied up pretty paper bunting around the edges of the kitchen tent.

“I can’t work in these conditions. With his lordship. Just give me something else to do. Or him. Give him something else to do.”

“Oh, Mr Becket, dear, don’t be so stubborn! It’s been five minutes, you can’t be quarreling with him already.”

“I can and I am,” he said. “He is saying the most shocking things to me, Mrs Hatter. I won’t stand for it.”

“Oh, that boy—man. That man. He does like to flirt a bit, doesn’t he.”

“This is so far beyond flirting. This is inappropriate and—and egregiously over the line.”

“Have you told him to stop?”

“...I can’t remember,” said Tam, who knew very fucking well that he hadn’t.

She patted his arm. “When I was a lass, what I always did was to say very firmly that I wasn’t interested in being courted that way. Then if they kept on, I threw bricks and flowerpots at them. Or cowpats. I ran off many a would-be suitor by threatening him with a cowpat to the face.”

“He is not a would-be suitor, Mrs Hatter, he is a public menace.”

She finally tore her eyes away from the bunting to give him a long, dry look. “Worried that he’ll besmirch your innocence, are you?” Tam pursed his lips and said nothing. “Haven’t you been dilly-dallying with him for a good few years now?”

“My private life is none of your concern, Mrs Hatter. Give me a different job.”

“If you don’t want his lordship to flirt with you, go tell him so. If he keeps on, slap a cowpat in his face,” she said firmly.

The problem with slapping a cowpat in Lyford’s face was twofold:

First, that was probably grounds for assault and battery.

Second, Lyford might be so offended that he wouldn’t fuck Tam the next time that Tam was making poor life choices. This was the more serious consideration.

He stomped back into the tent to find Old Trac Willet sitting in Tam’s chair and saying something as Lyford nodded along with some objectionably sympathetic look on his face.

“Maybe I’m a fool for it, at my age,” Old Trac was saying. “I miss my Bessa and I don’t want to shame her memory, but it’s awful lonely in a house all by myself. And it gets terrible cold in the winter...”

“It’s nicer to sleep beside someone, isn’t it?” Lyford replied, patting the old man’s wrinkled hand with what seemed to be fucking compassion.

“So I just wanted to throw my name in the hat, as it were,” Old Trac said with a heavy sigh. “If any ladies are missing their old husbands as much as I’m missing my old wife.”

Tam sidled up suspiciously, just in case Lyford was about to say something rude and stupid. “I don’t think you’re foolish at all,” Lyford said. “Everyone wants to be loved. If we don’t find someone for you this time, I hope you’ll keep trying at future festivals, or leaving offerings at Anghenge with your prayers. If the Lady of Lambs knows you’re looking for someone to make a home with, I’m sure she’ll do her best to lead someone your way. I’ll tell her for you myself, too.”

Old Trac sighed again and nodded. “Every little bit helps, I guess,” he said, levering himself to his feet with a heavy sigh.

“Every bit!” Lyford said, likewise getting up. “Here, take a blessing with you. You never know when you might run into the right lady.”

Old Trac took the paper heart and touched it to his brow in a little salute. “Much obliged, y’lordship.”

As he tottered off, Tam reclaimed his chair and grouchily ate the fruit crepe he’d purchased on the walk—stomp—back to the tent.

“You know what,” he said. “I don’t think we’re qualified for this.”

Lyford turned to him in surprise. “How d’you mean?”

“ Consoling people. Spiritual guidance. That feels like too much. We’re just volunteers, it’s just supposed to be for fun, for the festival.”

Lyford turned away again, poking through the box of blessings, rearranging them more neatly. “Who do you think ought to do it, then?”

“Priests of Angarat?”

“They’re busy with rituals. And they already do this every other day of the year. I don’t think it takes much expertise to care about people.”

Smug, irritating bastard. Of course it didn’t take expertise to care about people, but Lyford wasn’t—he didn’t—he—

“Granny Mattie’s been wearing flowers in her bonnet lately,” Tam muttered into his crepe.

“Granny Mattie, hm?” Lyford, apparently satisfied with the state of the blessings, came to sit again. “How long has it been since her husband passed? Must be ten years, or thereabouts?”

“Eight and a half.”

“And the old bird’s wearing flowers in her bonnet again, eh? Well, that’s certainly a lead worth pursuing.”

In another hour or two, the festival got properly underway, and Tam hardly had any time at all to glare at Lyford out of the corner of his eye. When they ran out of paper hearts, Lyford nabbed a pair of young teenagers he apparently knew and all three of them sat on the ground to hurriedly fold new ones. Tam staunchly did not notice Lyford’s quick, clever fingers putting precise creases in the colored paper, or sprinkling in a pinch of the sweet herbs into the middle just before he closed it up and set it in the box.

Mrs Hart came by around noon to bring them food. Anghenge was so short-staffed this year that there was no one to give them a relief shift, so Tam skulked off behind the tent to eat while Lyford watched the tent. Mrs Hart, who was expecting again, sat down to catch her breath with Tam before she rushed off again to whatever else the committee was trying to run. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” he said, diving face-first into the sandwich she’d brought him.

“Mrs Hatter said you wanted a different job.”

He perked up, a bit of lettuce hanging from the corner of his mouth. “Is there one?”

“Well, no. But she said his lordship was being rude to you?”

“He’s a cad,” Tam muttered.

“Oh, no he’s not! He’s a good man. He has a good heart. He’s quite a good lord too, isn’t he! You hear about some who charge awful rent and do the most dreadful things to their tenants.”

He does dreadful things to me, Tam did not say. He spreads his legs so I can see the bulge of his cock in his trousers and just sits there making innocent conversation on purpose and being intentionally handsome until I can’t stand it anymore and I throw myself at his crotch. He’s a rake, that is rake behavior, he is Idunet’s own scion—

“Hm,” said Tam. “He flirts with me.”

“Do you want me to tell him to stop?”

“No, I can handle it,” Tam muttered at his sandwich.

She nudged her shoulder against his. “Are you still mad about him knocking over your marrow when you were nine?”

“ No, ” said Tam. “He’s just an awful person and he doesn’t seem to understand that I don’t like him.”

“Oh,” said Mrs Hart. “I thought you did, at least a little.”

“Of course I don’t,” Tam said haughtily. “I have never liked him. I was born disliking him. He is the worst person alive.” If Lyford really respected Tam, then he’d stop pretending he was a considerate lover or whatever his game was. Tam could see through him. Tam could see right fucking through him. Tam did not know what Lyford’s game was, but also he could see right through him. It would have been more honest if Lyford just stuck his cock in and came quick and didn’t bother with Tam’s pleasure, but noooo. No, Lyford always had to make a fucking production out of it and waste Tam’s time whispering to him and kissing him and fingering him for ages and—and Tam was sick of it, that’s what! The dishonesty of it all!

“So let me make sure I understand—you don’t like him because he flirts with you—”

“I don’t like him because he’s an insufferable ass. ”

“Aha! Well, is there anything he could change or do differently that would be more... er... sufferable?”

“No.”

Mrs Hart squinted at him. “If there’s nothing for him to change, then... Honestly, Tam, it sounds a bit like you decided not to like him.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She shrugged. “You could try making a different decision.”

He crumpled up the butcher’s paper she’d brought the sandwich in, crushing it into the smallest possible ball that he could. “I don’t recall asking your opinion, Mrs Hart. Thank you for your concern, but I have my affairs perfectly well in hand.”

“Gods, I don’t know if I can do that three days in a row,” Lyford said that evening, stretching hugely. It was an hour or two after sunset and most of the henges had closed up shop for the night. Tam stuffed the box of heart-blessings under the table and let down the sides of the tent in stony silence. “Early day tomorrow, eh? Dawn to, what, nine in the evening? We can’t do that on our own—I’ll ask the Anghenge committee to scrounge up someone to watch the tent for an hour or two at midday so we can at least take a break—”

The heavy canvas unrolled from the eaves, enveloping them in near-darkness, softened only by the light filtering through the fabric from the tall flaming torches scattered across the festival grounds—the responsibility of the Talhenge committee, of course. They never closed up shop; they’d be awake at all hours, keeping the fires lit and singing through the night with the Nevhenge and Idhenge followers. The greatest part of the crowds had gone from the festival, and the only sounds were the distant music and drums of the followers of Talesyn, Idunet, and Nevainy?—and of course Lyford running his mouth.

“Shut the fuck up,” Tam muttered, striding across the tent. He seized Lyford by the front of his shirt and (Idunet, you unmerciful bastard) kissed him wildly.

“ Mmm, ” said Lyford, surprised and then appreciative. His arm came around Tam’s waist, his hand cupping Tam’s arse, firm and warm. His mouth opened, slow and luxurious and so fucking good, and he pulled Tam tight against him. “Need it again already, do you?”

“Just shut up,” Tam said, yanking Lyford’s shirt out of his pants.

Lyford laughed and did the same to him, sliding his hands up Tam’s back and spreading his fingers against Tam’s bare skin with a stupid sigh as he kissed Tam’s neck and nibbled Tam’s collarbone like a complete prick who had no regard for the steadiness of Tam’s knees. “Mm, love it when you melt against me like that. Hands or mouths?”

“Give me your cock,” Tam snapped.

“Oh—did you bring any oil? I didn’t.”

Tam pulled back, affronted to the roots of his soul.

Lyford blinked at him, then smiled and reeled him back into another series of shallow, fleeting kisses. “There’s oil back at the manor. We could decamp there and make an evening of it... Have something to eat first, maybe. Or pass by whatever Talhenge and Idhenge have going on. Listen to the music for a little while, maybe have a dance—”

Tam wriggled mightily to free himself from their clinch. “Goodnight, your lordship,” he said firmly.

“Tam—”

Tam whirled around and jabbed a finger at Lyford. “Not today, Idunet. ” And with that, he left.

Thank the gods (Brassu, probably) for small mercies. That had been a close one.

Dawn came horribly early, and it was chilly despite being late summer. Tam got the largest teapot he could find, filled it with tea, wrapped it in a wool scarf, and blearily carried it over to the village festival grounds, sprawled in the great wide common between the seven henges for the seven gods.

Lyford was late, because of course he was. Unreliable, smug, pompous prick.

Tam rolled up the sides of the tent and blearily squinted at the box of blessings. Half-empty. Again. The Anghenge committee had supplied them with a great stack of colored paper and an enormous jar of sweet herbs, so he sat down with his tea and started to fold, stopping every now and then to sip directly out of the teapot. Not like he was trying to impress anyone, after all.

Lyford showed up about twenty minutes later, in the company of several of the ladies from the Anghenge committee who were patting his arms and looking soppy. The whole gaggle of them stopped when they saw Tam in the tent. He wasn’t awake enough yet to parse exactly why, but they looked surprised—even Lyford.

“Hi,” he said, possibly a bit more bitchy than any of them (bar Lyford) deserved. He held up his teapot, presumably the thing they were so surprised about, and said, “What? It seemed silly to bring a mug when one piece of crockery is as good as another.”

Mrs Hatter patted Lyford on the arm and muttered something to him, and they all swept off—except Lyford himself, who stuck his hands in his coat pockets and slunk into the tent. “Good morning.”

Tam grunted at him and paused in his blessing-folding for a long slurp from his teapot.

Lyford said nothing. After a moment, he sat down in the other chair, took a new stack of paper out of his coat pocket, and began folding his own blessings.

Tam squinted at them. “Those are bad hearts.”

“They’re not hearts.”

Something was wrong with Lyford. Maybe he’d finally come down with a tragic case of raisin-dick, and as soon as it withered up into nothing and blew away on the wind, Tam’s troubles and bad choices would be over. “Why?”

Lyford shrugged. “She’s not just the goddess of love. Maybe there are people who want some other kind of blessing.”

Tam’s squint grew squintier and he took another long sip from his teapot. “Okay,” he said suspiciously. “What is it, then?”

“A leaf,” Lyford said, holding it up. “To bless a garden or a field. I tried to figure out how to fold animals, but they didn’t come out very well. I might try drawing some on, so that people can bless their livestock.”

“You can’t just make things up like that,” Tam said peevishly. “It’s not real if you just make it up. ”

“Alright,” said Lyford, but he just kept folding paper leaves.

Pissed Tam right off, that it did. “Who gave you permission to just make things up?”

“She did.”

“Who?”

“Angarat.”

Tam frowned at him. He frowned at his tea—he had put tea in it, hadn’t he? Not whiskey? “What?”

“I asked her if it was alright, and she said it was.”

“What?”

“Angarat said it was alright,” Lyford said.

It was sinking in, but very, very slowly, like a piece of wool cloth laid on the surface of the water, gradually absorbing it and growing heavier... “Angarat.”

“Yes.”

“Angarat, Her Abundance, the Lady of Lambs, the Seed-sower, the Mother of Morning.” Tam squinted off to the pink and gold eastern horizon, as if that would do any good. “ That Angarat.”

“Yes,” Lyford said calmly, tonelessly.

“I don’t believe you.”

Lyford sighed a tiny sigh. “I know.”

“What do you mean, you know ?”

Lyford sighed again. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’ve just always known that you wouldn’t believe me. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“Didn’t tell me what ?”

“That I talk to her. That I have her favor.”

Tam felt as though he’d been slapped across the face with an open palm. He was utterly speechless—shocked—disbelieving— angry. All he could think to say was, “I don’t believe you.”

Lyford smiled the saddest smile Tam had ever seen on anyone’s face. “I know.”