Lords Of The Dark Fall - Fabian (7 page)

“I thought your ex looked on you favourably?”

“Not that favourably.”

She laughed softly to herself and Fabian wondered at her ability to make light of her circumstances. A survival tactic, no doubt, to stop the weight of this miserable existence crushing her flat.

“I understand. But if you will not teach me the rules of your world, then my death will be on your hands. I will leave, regardless of what you say. I do not think you want that.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“I do believe it is,” he said, strangely uncomfortable at the reproach in her eyes and voice.

“I won’t save one man so he can kill thousands.”

Fabian almost smiled, too. Sparring with this woman stimulated him. They were like two eddying currents fighting for dominance of the seas. No, he thought. More subtle than that. He was a mountain, hard and unmoveable. Tig was the gentle wave lapping at its base. While he remained implacable and seemingly unchanging, she flowed around him, searching for cracks, constantly adjusting her approach. Silently eroding. She had learned the art of compromise. He was only now learning to fashion the word on his tongue.

Her stance was a front. A woman like her would not see a man walk to his death without trying to help him.

“Feel this,” he said and lifted one of her hands to his heart. He covered it with his own and held it there while she gazed at it, puzzled, but listening, with him, to the steady beat.

“I was an immortal. Like my brother. Do you know what that means?”

Tig swallowed. Frowned. “You live forever?”

“That’s just the beginning. It means freedom such as you could never imagine. I have never known the fear of riding into battle, wondering if it will be my last. Never had to worry about the consequences of my actions. Now I am forced to count each breath I take. To listen to the beating of this heart and wonder when it will finally stop. Have you any idea what I have lost?”

Tig seemed to have gone beyond surprise. “Have you any idea what you’ve gained?” she countered. “Everyone lives as though they’re immortal. Until that one day when life comes up and slaps you in the face and screams you most certainly aren’t. That’s the moment we actually start living. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Fabian, and start living the life you have left.”

Her hand circled slowly over his heart, soothing even as she berated him. “I don’t know how,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“I’ll teach you. It’s not easy. I’m no saint that I’m not jealous of those who have more than me, but this is what I’ve been dealt and I make the best of it. And if that sounds defeatist, then I’m sorry.” Tig shook off his hand and stepped away. “Have you any idea what
I’ve
lost? They’re all out there. My mother, what remained of my father and brothers.” No anger in her tone, only a weary patience. “I miss them with a pain you couldn’t begin to imagine, but if I spent my life reliving that pain, I’d stop right here and never move again. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

His mind clouded with confusion. She spoke truths he didn’t want to hear.

“Existence,” he said. “What you describe is existence, not life.”

“Existence with hope that it might someday get better,
is
life. I think I’ve said enough. You’ll make your own way, regardless. Men like you always do. Just remember to stop and smell the roses along the way. And yes,” she said in response to his raised eyebrows. “That was intended as a pun. Look, I need to change. Animals to feed. Pots to fire. Keep your head down, get some rest and I’ll see you later.”

The onslaught of her logic left him helpless, floundering. His purgatory was by no means over, he realised. “I should repay your hospitality,” he said. “What would you have me do?”

Tig patted his shoulder as she passed him for the stairs. “Try not to get either of us killed. That’s what I’d like you to do.”

She left him with the scent of roses.

The dogs.
The rumble of cart-wheels, excited barking. Oh hell, she’d forgotten about the dogs. Tig pushed back the curtain and caught sight of her two hounds going berserk in the courtyard while a tall, bearded man, who’d seen better days, climbed down from the cart. He glanced around the courtyard and then turned to stare directly at the bedroom window. Tig dropped the curtain and flattened herself against the wall, heart pounding.

The bedroom door flew open.

“You have a visitor.”

She didn’t miss the accusation in Fabian’s tone.

“My nearest neighbour,” she said moving swiftly to the door, fastening her shirt as she did so. “Hal’s wife looks after my dogs when I’m away. I’d forgotten they’d be bringing them back today. Get yourself into the attic. Lie down on the rafters and keep very still. Hal has seer’s blood in him. Reads auras and atmospheres. He’ll know something is different.” She stopped to scrutinise herself in the mirror. “Damn, his wife Sunas usually brings the dogs back.”

Fabian was at the window, scrutinising the visitor. “Invite him into the house,” he said without emotion. “I will kill him for you.”

Tig flew across the room and yanked back the curtain. “You do exactly as I say, or we’re both dead. His wife, we can trust. But Hal? See the brand new wagon, the pure-bred horse. The doeskin boots. You don’t buy those on what their farm makes. He finds out you’re here, he’ll want his cut.”

Fabian appeared unmoved. He shot another, disdainful glance at the figure now standing in the centre of the courtyard, hands on hips, head cocked as if listening.

“I refuse to hide like a coward.”

“Go to the attic. And that’s not a request. We’ve got to do something to confuse his senses.” She pointed to her chin. “Hit me. I’ll tell him I fell. That should throw him off.”

She’d asked, but the blow still took her by surprise. Fabian’s fist bounced off her chin, so fast she didn’t have time to cry out. Blood trickled, unhindered, from her split lip to splash onto her shirt. Already, her cheek was swelling. Fabian studied her, his face inscrutable. A drop of her blood stained his knuckles and Tig blessed his decisiveness.

“Thank you,” she said with more than a hint of irony in her voice. “Now hide.”

He went without protest, for which she was thankful, but the mutinous glint in his eyes told her there would be an inquest, later.

In the kitchen, she grabbed a drying cloth to dab at her thickening lip, while in the yard Hal called the dogs to heel. She’d stalled him for long enough. He knew better than to come into her house uninvited, but he wouldn’t leave until he’d seen her. Hal liked to keep a finger on everyone’s pulse.

“Hal,” she said, extending her arms wide to exchange a mutual hug. She pulled out of his too-familiar embrace and bent to acknowledge the over-excited dogs, now threatening to knock her flat with their enthusiasm.

“Tig.” Hal stepped back, studying her closely, as always. Her spine crawled. “I knew there was something wrong. Minute I drove into the yard. What happened?”

“Tripped over my own feet. Fell against the dresser in the bedroom. Where’s Sunas?”

“Leg trouble. She asked me to bring the dogs back on my way to the Settlement.”

“New wagon?” Tig placed herself between Hal and the open kitchen doorway. Any moment now, he would make his usual request for a drink to see him on his way. She would have no option but to comply. Humouring Hal was a delicate but necessary business. A man on the make was more of a danger than a man on the run.

“Oh, this old thing?” Hal waved a dismissive hand. “Lucky buy at a farm sale.”

“Give Sunas my love.” Keeping her mind neutral was impossible, given what she had hidden in the attic. Tig smiled widely, deliberately splitting her lip further. Immediately her thoughts re-focused on the pain. Hal frowned with concern.

“You took a nasty knock. Come with me to the Settlement. Get it stitched up.”

“It’s really not that bad. Do you have my flour and oil?”

“Oh, yes.” Hal turned for the wagon. “Price has gone up again,” he said with mock regret. “Ten kadoums a bag, would you believe?”

Thief
. But still, buying from Hal was safer than taking her own wagon into town and attempting to haul the goods home without being robbed on the way.

“Ten plates, ten mugs and a vase. Best quality.” She waited for his counter-offer. Hal took his time hauling down the oil-jar and two small flour sacks. He stacked them pointedly at the closed kitchen door, brushing close as he passed her. She felt the jolt of his aura probing hers and had she imagined him glancing up towards the attic window?

Hal returned to his wagon and made a show of tightening the straps. “Price of everything is increasing. You know how it is?”

“Twenty plates,” she countered. No time for bargaining today. If she went straight in with the best offer, Hal would be on his way before Fabian took it into his head to soothe his bruised ego with a confrontation.

“Ten plates will be sufficient.” Hal’s right eye twitched. “I know you don’t have much, Tig. Happy, as always, to take payment in kind.”

“Not today.” Tig pointed vaguely to her split lip. A taste of sour disgust in her throat at the memory of the last time. To her dismay, Hal was already throwing off his jacket.

“When are you going to let me in?” he said walking deliberately towards her. “Give a little, and you’ll find me most generous. Been meaning to take another wife since Alie died.” He leered down at her, drenching her with the smell of perfume and sweat.

“Sunas is my friend.” Tig backed farther into the doorway, noticing this close, the neatly trimmed beard, the braided hair-ribbon, the Sunday best clothes. “It wouldn’t feel right.”

Hal pulled off his gloves and threw them down. They’d been playing this game for a while now. He pushed, she tolerated, longing to slap the arrogant smile from his face. She gave a lop-sided smile instead and removed the hand he’d placed so casually on her breast.

“I’ll think about your offer. Right now, I’m in pain and I need to work. The pottery’s stacked in the workshop. I’ll fetch it for you.”

Hal held up his hands in a gesture of peace, stepping away to allow her to wriggle past him. She made a mental note to talk to Carson, her ex, about Hal’s little business side-lines. Gain a little leverage to get his slimy ass off her back. Hal sauntered after her, leaning on the door-frame as she stacked a week’s worth of hard work into a wooden crate.

“Talking of Carson. You knew he’d been killed?”

Tig almost dropped the mug she’d been wrapping. A pang of genuine regret gripped her, both for the man and for what he represented to her life. “No. I hadn’t heard. How?”

“A leadership challenge, what else? Everyone knew he was going soft. Can’t say I was surprised to hear the news myself. Tig, something’s troubling you. You know I can feel it. I’m in with the new leader, a man of influence now and if you make it worth my while, I can cut you a deal on the protection.”

“Your payment. Hal, my head is bursting. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” Tig pushed the crate at him. Hal took it, his expression resigned, for now. Not yet a man of so much influence that he could impose further on her. But he would be one day, she could see that.

“Come on.” Hal remained, blocking the doorway. “Don’t you want to know who’ll be collecting the tribute from now on?”

“Warrington,” she said wearily. “Who else but Warrington? I bet he didn’t even issue a formal challenge.”

“And didn’t I tell you?” For a moment Hal sounded angry. He checked himself quickly and nodded her to walk ahead of him. “Didn’t need to be a seer to know it was on the cards. I’ve been his man since last winter. He’s already given me permission for the marriage.”

“What marriage.”

“Ours, Tig.” He threw the crate onto the cart. The sharp crack of pottery breaking told her that payment was irrelevant. He only wanted one thing.

“I told you I’d think about it.”

“You’re a bad liar. Your tribute’s doubling this summer. And again come winter. And no more inside deals on the markets now Carson’s gone. How will you survive?” Briefly, Hal looked genuinely concerned. “Tig, I was proud to call your father friend, fool though he was. He asked me to watch out for you, and that’s what I’m doing.” He touched a finger to her cut lip. Gazed at the blood spotting his finger. “We all have to survive this world in the best way we can. You’re not a stupid woman and believe it or not, it’s more than lust. I’ve always cared for you.”

Survival. That’s what everything came down to in the end. How could she judge Hal for drawing his moral lines in a slightly different place to her own? Refusing his marriage offer would buy her time, for now.

“I don’t deserve your kindness, Hal. Let me think about this.” She raised her face to his. “You know I’ll do the right thing. Just give me time.”

Hal stooped for his gloves. Donned them with careful deliberation. “One month,” he said and reached out to touch her hair. Another jolt of awareness. Tig frantically filled her mind with images of a prize pig her father had once walked all the way to the market at Arminet. Hal let out a burst of laughter.

“And after all that effort, it was stolen from under his nose.” Hal shook his head and hauled himself up onto the wagon. “Don’t be the fool your father was,” he said by way of a parting shot. “We’re survivors, me and you. That’s why we’re still alive. And why we’ll still be alive when the others are dead. In a month, then.” He touched two fingers to his head in salute. An astute man who knew when to push, when to withdraw and regroup.

Tig watched the cart trundle across the yard and out onto the dirt road. The dogs nudged her impatiently for attention, and food. In the sky, clouds darkened, ready to unleash another spring deluge onto the winter-hard earth. A week’s worth of work for a jar of oil and two bags of flour? Existence didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Shit!” she muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.” What the hell to do now?

One of the dogs had her shirt-tail firmly gripped in its jaws, tugging her towards the shed where the dog-biscuits were stored. “Sorry,” she said, pushing it away. “Got to make them last. Go hunt!” she ordered, followed by two clicks of her tongue. “Go catch yourselves something.”