Fractious (18 page)

I was enjoying myself and having a great time. I'd never been so brave as to stand on the
back of a moving anything. I felt like I could do anything. So I decided to try.

"Faster, Bob," I said to the horse.

Bob shook his head. He was a lot smarter than I was and knew this was a bad idea.

"Get moving, Bob. I can handle it."

Again with the head shaking.

I kicked him with one heel along his spine. "Move it or I'll send you back to Lug. Don't
embarrass me."

Bob snorted and kicked up his heels a little higher, picking up more speed.

I managed to stay on for a full turn. I went to lift my left leg, to be showy, and realized I
didn't have the best balance in the world to be going so fast while standing on horseback. My
right leg shifted. My body became off balance. Then the ground came up to smack me in the
face.

I woke in my gold linen bed with a splitting headache. Bob was leaning over me,
concern in his big brown eyes. He gave a sigh of relief when he saw my eyes open and dropped
his nose onto the unused pillow by my head. Cu was also nearby, but he wasn't leaning over me.
He was reading a book.

I groaned to get his attention.

"Are you stupid?" Cu said as he hopped up to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Perhaps," I muttered. "Sorry, Bob." I reached out and stroked his soft nose. "You knew
better than I did. Sorry I pushed you into it."

He blew breath out from between his lips.

"Yeah, I'm really sorry." I pulled his nose closer to me and gave him a little hug. "Still
buds, right?"

Bob snorted gently and accepted my apology.

I sat up and Cu handed me a glass of water, which I drank until there was no more
water. "How long was I out for?"

Cu looked at the bedside clock. "About five hours."

"Shit," I muttered. "Was Amergin mad?"

"Nope. He thought you were the greatest thing he'd ever seen. He wants you to do it
again tomorrow."

I stifled a laugh. "What? Knock myself out?"

Cu shrugged. "Maybe. I didn't ask him. Want me to go find out?" he said, indicating the
door through which he would leave should I say yes.

I didn't. Instead, I said, "How was kitchen duty?"

"Not too bad," Cu said with a minor grin. "I made a kick-ass apple cobbler. You coulda
had some but you were out cold. Weren't any peaches though. I looked. He must really hate
peaches."

"You actually
wanted
to find some?"

Cu shrugged again. "Just wanted to see. Wonder why he hates them so much?"

"I hate avocados," I said. "Some people just hate stuff. Dandelions. Bugs. Scotch tape.
Some people even hate horses."

Bob gave a snort of disbelief.

"I'm not kidding," I said to him. "People really do hate horses."

Bob shook his head and turned away, refusing to believe me.

"Anyway," I said, as I turned back to Cu. "Don't you hate something?"

"Squalling babies," he said.

"Yeah, but you don't eat them."

Cu gave me a look.

"Do you?"

He broke into laughter, which was the reaction I was looking to get. "You should see
your fucked up face."

To which I pouted. I gingerly prodded the right side of my face, which had connected
with the stone floor per the laws of gravity. They apparently still applied even though I wasn't in
my own realm anymore. My cheek was bruised and so was my eye. I didn't even want to see
what they looked like. My head was pounding like a quintet of timpani drums. What I really
wanted were some drugs. "Got an aspirin?"

"No," Cu said. "And you have a concussion. So you have to stay awake for twenty-four
hours."

"I do?" I said.

"Else you might fall asleep and die." He said it with such wickedness that I believed
him.

"You'll have to talk to me," I said. "I'm really sleepy."

"Talk about what?" he said with a grimace.

"Tell me a story."

"What are you? Five?"

I thought about it. "Nope, just twenty. But something has to keep me awake. I'll never
stay awake that long by myself. I'm not that entertaining."

Bob whinnied.

"No, you cannot lick me for the next twenty four hours," I said sternly.

He pouted, and then nickered.

"I don't care if I do taste salty. We'll order you up a salt lick." To Cu, I said, "Sure you
don't have any aspirin?"

"Positive," Cu said. "I can see what the kitchen has."

"Can you?" I said in my most pitiful voice. "I feel kinda sick."

"Concussion'll do that to you," Cu gave my shoulder a quick pat. "I'll be right back.
Bob'll keep you awake." He disappeared.

When Cu came back a few minutes later, I was reluctantly allowing Bob to lick my face
in order to keep me awake. He wasn't doing it for my benefit. He was just enjoying the taste of
me. And I was just lying there taking it, spittle dripping down my cheeks and onto the bed
sheets. Bob was enjoying himself, making happy horse noises all along the way.

Cu shooed him away and gave me a warm and wet towel to clean off the wet horse
saliva. When my face felt less spit-covered, he handed me a dry towel to dry off with. He had set
down a large silver tray, one that was almost as big as he was, on the bedside table. He handed
me a mug off of said silver tray. "Drink it all."

I sniffed. "What is it?"

"I don't know," he said. "I told one of the girls down there that you had a headache and
that's what she gave me. Just drink it."

"What if it's poisoned?"

Cu snorted, and, to my great surprise, he took the cup from my hand, took a quick
swallow and handed it back. "See? No poison. Drink, Fractious."

I drank it. It tasted more like tea than anything I'd had to drink in this world yet. I wasn't
quite sure what kind of tea it was, if it even
was
tea, but it was warm and friendly. I
liked it and downed the entire cup in a few seconds. It didn't get rid of my headache completely,
but it certainly relieved it. I handed Cu back the mug. "Thanks, buddy."

"Don't mention it." He set the mug back on the silver platter. "Feeling any better?"

"A little, yeah." I gave him a smile. "Thanks. Really. You don't have to fuss over me or
anything."

"I ain't fussing." Cu said, a tinge of his old wiry self in his tone.

I wasn't sure which I liked better though; the fussy Cu or the loud, cussy Cu. "I won't
tell."

"Better not, boy." He aimed a finger at my face. After that he went to the foot of the bed
and settled there. He tucked his little legs beneath him. "So, you wanted a story. What do you
want to hear?"

"How did you get to be a king's guard?"

Cu rolled his eyes. "That's not a story. I thought you wanted to hear Goldilocks, or
something."

"Come on, Cu," I begged.

"You're born into it," he said. "My pap was a guard. My grandpap was a guard. So was
his pap and grandpap before him. We've been guards for generations."

"Can girls be guards?"

"Why, you interested?"

I rolled my eyes.

Cu grinned. "Girls can be guards, but there are very few. If the family of a guard doesn't
have a son then they send a daughter. Every guard family sends one child to be trained."

"What about you? You don't have any kids. Who will you send to train as a guard?"

"Who says I don't have kids?"

"Well, do you?"

"No," he admitted. "Never been married."

"You're, like, two hundred years old."

"One hundred and seventy-eight," he corrected. "I got plenty of time."

"How long do the Tuatha Dé usually live for?"

"Three, four hundred years. Give or take a hundred years."

I marveled. "Wow."

"Time moves differently here," he said. "Not like your world. You'll see. You might live
to be a hundred and fifty. You never know. I knew a guy once who lived to be two twenty-two.
No shit. He was human, just like you. Well, not just like you."

I didn't bother responding. "But you want to have kids, right?"

He shrugged his right shoulder. "I guess. I'm not partial to kids much. Squalling brats,
remember? But to continue on the tradition of being a king's guard? Yeah. I guess so. What
about you?"

"Me? I'm only twenty. I can't even drink in my world. "

"Seriously?" Cu said. "How old do you have to be?"

"Twenty-one. For all I know, I turned twenty-one in my world already. You did say time
moves differently here. Crista said that too."

"What about her?" he said. "You wanna have babies with her?"

I wrinkled my nose. "She hates me. Besides, I barely know her."

"Could be a prospect. You don't have to know a girl to have babies with her." He
clucked his tongue at me and winked a blue eye.

I sighed. "Whatever. Can I go to sleep now?"

"It's only been half an hour. Sleep now, die now. Get it?"

I got it. I didn't want to. But I got it. "I'm so tired."

"Let's go do something," he said.

"Like what?"

"Go find some fucking peaches!"

"Stop being obsessed with peaches," I told him. "Amergin hates them. If you give him
peaches, he'll probably get so upset he'll kill you. Where would that leave me?"

"Probably just as dead," he said.

"Let's go for a walk," I suggested. "Get a good look at this place we're stuck in."

"As long as you don't make me hold your hand."

I snorted, Bob style, spraying a little snot for emphasis. "Now why would I do
that?"

"I dunno." Cu hopped down from the bed. "You're acting kinda funny. I thought you
might start acting funnier."

"I have a concussion." I pointed at my achy head. "I have a right to act funny."

Cu rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Come on."

I went.

There was a garden in the middle of Amergin's mountain fortress. A random Anu
showed us the way when we asked if there was some place nice to take a walk. The garden
opened up to the sky, showing blueness, and clouds that floated by like little bits of cotton candy.
I suddenly wanted a snack and, to my luck, growing in the middle of the garden was a big apple
tree with bright, red apples hanging ripe from the vine.

"It's like the garden of Eden," I said as I plucked an apple. I shined it on my shirt, as I
had seen done in many a cartoon, and examined it closely, looking for worms. "Think I'll gain
knowledge if I take a bite?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Cu had his nose buried in a barrel of potted
basil.

"You never heard of the garden of Eden?" I was shocked.

"What is that? Some kind of human fairy tale?"

"Exactly." I said. "See, there's this thing call God."

"I've heard about that," Cu said.

I continued, "And God made this man and this woman, from... His flesh or something. I
dunno. But these two dudes, well, dude and dudette anyway, they lived in a garden in harmony
with all the animals. Then the devil came and told them to eat the forbidden fruit from this apple
tree of knowledge. See?"

"No," Cu said.

I ignored him. "Then Adam, that's the dude, and Eve ate an apple because the devil
made them do it, and that's when they realized they were naked."

Cu was obviously waiting for me to continue but I just stood there, waiting for him to
revel in my story.

He obviously didn't. "So-o-o-o... They were naked the whole time and didn't know
it?"

I nodded vigorously.

"Are you feeling all right?" Cu said.

"No," I said. "But I'm sure I told the story right." I pulled at my chin. "Maybe I didn't tell
it right. Let's see, there's the Adam and Eve bit. And the devil made them eat the apple. Then
they were naked. No, they were naked all along. They just realized that they were naked. And
that made it a bad thing... Hhm."

"Whatever," Cu waved a hand in my general direction as he moved off to inspect
another plant. "Eat your apple. Realize you're naked. Maybe it's a bad thing or maybe it isn't.
Whatever. Just don't fall asleep."

"I won't." I took a bite of the apple.

Nothing happened.

I didn't realize I was naked or begin to think nudity was a bad thing. I didn't fall asleep
either. I don't know why I expected to fall asleep; this wasn't the tree of narcolepsy. And it
obviously wasn't a tree of knowledge either. I was disappointed, but then I hadn't really expected
much. So I just continued to walk in the garden, munching on my apple and listening intently as
Cu tried to teach me about spices and herbs. He apparently really did know how to cook.

"How'd you learn all this crap about cooking? And how come you were always just
giving me bread? How come I didn't get to taste any of your roasted hares or pigeons or
whatever you were eating on our little journey?"

"First off," Cu said, "I hated you for most of our journey. Why would I let you share my
food? Second off, I went to culinary school."

"Huh?" was all I could think to say.

"Yeah," he said. "See, I wasn't the first born son. My pap had another son before me. My
brother, Bu."

I snickered. "Bu?"

"Yeah, Bu. What's so funny about that?"

"Was the third son's name Du?"

"She's a girl. And yes, her name is Du."

"How come the first son wasn't named Au?"

"What the hell is an Au?"

"I dunno," I said. "What's a Cu? Or a Bu? What the hell is a Du, for that matter?"

He ignored me. "Anyway, my older brother was killed in a tragic accident when he was
eighty. Hit by a bicycle courier in New York. Dude never knew what he ran over because he
couldn't see us."

"Hadn't been hit on the head, eh?"

"Yeah. The courier flipped over the front of bike and came down in the middle of the
road. My brother never had a chance. I was there. I tried to get to him, but I was too late. Bus.
Wham!" He slapped his hands together and shuddered.

"So, naturally I became the first son and took on his duties as a king's guard." Cu looked
away from me. "We were in New York for fun, you know? It's a fun place to be. We were
raiding bars, getting piss assed drunk. It's fun to fuck with people who can't see you. We got lots
of ghost stories started about haunted bars, haunted hotels. That kind of stuff. Bu was a good
guy."