George Martin - Rogues

“I can do it,” Bast said.

Rike looked at his hands for a long time. “Gone then. I’d kill him. But that sort of thing ent right. I don’t want to be that sort of man. A fellow shouldn’t ought to kill his da.”

“I could do it for you,” Bast said easily.

Rike sat for a while, then shook his head. “It’s the same thing, innit? Either way it’s me. And if it were me, it would be more honest if I did it with my hands rather than do it with my mouth.”

Bast nodded. “Right then. Gone forever.”

“And soon,” Rike said.

Bast sighed and looked up at the sun. He already had things to do today. The turning wheels of his desire did not come grinding to a halt because some farmer drank too much. Emberlee would be taking her bath soon. He was supposed to get carrots …

He didn’t owe the boy a thing, either. Quite the opposite. The boy had lied to him. Broken his promise. And while Bast had settled that account so firmly that no other child in town would ever dream of crossing him like that again … it was still galling to remember. The thought of helping him now, despite that, it was quite the opposite of his desire.

“It has to be soon,” Rike said. “He’s getting worse. I can run off, but ma can’t. And little Bip can’t neither. And …”

“Fine, fine …” Bast cut him off, waving his hands. “Soon.”

Rike swallowed. “What’s this going to cost me?” he asked, anxious.

“A lot,” Bast said grimly. “We’re not talking about ribbons and buttons here. Think how much you want this. Think how big it is.” He met the boy’s eye and didn’t look away. “Three times that is what you owe me. Plus some for soon.” He stared hard at the boy. “Think hard on that.”

Rike was a little pale now, but he nodded without looking away. “You can have what you like of mine,” he said. “But nothin’ of ma’s. She ent got much that my da hasn’t already drank away.”

“We’ll work it out,” Bast said. “But it’ll be nothing of hers. I promise.”

Rike took a deep breath, then gave a sharp nod. “Okay. Where do we start?”

Bast pointed at the stream. “Find a river stone with a hole in it and bring it to me.”

Rike gave Bast an odd look. “Yeh want a faerie stone?”

“Faerie stone,” Bast said with such scathing mockery that Rike flushed with embarrassment. “You’re too old for that nonsense.” Bast gave the boy a look. “Do you want my help or not?” he asked.

“I do,” Rike said in a small voice.

“Then I want a river stone.” Bast pointed back at the stream. “You have to be the one to find it,” he said. “It can’t be anyone else. And you need to find it dry on the shore.”

Rike nodded.

“Right then.” Bast clapped his hands twice. “Off you go.”

Rike left and Bast returned to the lightning tree. No children were waiting to talk to him, so he idled the time away. He skipped stones in the nearby stream and flipped through Celum Tinture, glancing at some of the illustrations. Calcification. Titration. Sublimation.

Brann, happily unbirched with one hand bandaged, brought him two sweet buns wrapped in a white handkerchief. Bast ate the first and set the second aside.

Viette brought armloads of flowers and a fine blue ribbon. Bast wove the daisies into a crown, threading the ribbon through the stems.

Then, looking up at the sun, he saw that it was nearly time, Bast removed his shirt and filled it with the wealth of yellow and red touch-me-nots Viette had brought him. He added the handkerchief and crown, then fetched a stick and made a bindle so he could carry the lot more easily.

He headed out past the Oldstone bridge, then up toward the hills and around a bluff until he found the place Kostrel had described. It was cleverly hidden away, and the stream curved and eddied into a lovely little pool perfect for a private bath.

Bast sat behind some bushes, and after nearly half an hour of waiting he had fallen into a doze. The sharp crackle of a twig and a scrap of an idle song roused him, and he peered down to see a young woman making her careful way down the steep hillside to the water’s edge.

Moving silently, Bast scurried upstream, carrying his bundle. Two minutes later he was kneeling on the grassy waterside with the pile of flowers beside him.

He picked up a yellow blossom and breathed on it gently. As his breath brushed the petals, its color faded and changed into a delicate blue. He dropped it and the current carried it slowly downstream.

Bast gathered up a handful of posies, red and orange, and breathed on them again. They too shifted and changed until they were a pale and vibrant blue. He scattered them onto the surface of the stream. He did this twice more until there were no flowers left.

Then, picking up the handkerchief and daisy crown, he sprinted back downstream to the cozy little hollow with the elm. He’d moved quickly enough that Emberlee was just coming to the edge of the water.

Softly, silently, he crept up to the spreading elm. Even with one hand carrying the handkerchief and crown, he went up the side as nimbly as a squirrel.

Bast lay along a low branch, sheltered by leaves, breathing fast but not hard. Emberlee was removing her stockings and setting them carefully on a nearby hedge. Her hair was a burnished golden red, falling in lazy curls. Her face was sweet and round, a lovely shade of pale and pink.

Bast grinned as he watched her look around, first left, then right. Then she began to unlace her bodice. Her dress was a pale cornflower blue, edged with yellow, and when she spread it on the hedge, it flared and splayed out like the wing of a great bird. Perhaps some fantastic combination of a finch and a jay.

Dressed only in her white shift, Emberlee looked around again: left, then right. Then she shimmied free of it, a fascinating motion. She tossed the shift aside and stood there, naked as the moon. Her creamy skin was amazing with freckle. Her hips wide and lovely. The tips of her breasts were brushed with the palest of pink.

She scampered into the water. Making a series of small, dismayed cries at the chill of it. They were, on consideration, not really similar to a raven’s at all. Though they could, perhaps, be slightly like a heron’s.

Emberlee washed herself a bit, splashing and shivering. She soaped herself, dunked her head in the river, and came up gasping. Wet, her hair became the color of ripe cherries.

It was then that the first of the blue touch-me-nots arrived, drifting on the water. She glanced at it curiously as it floated by and began to lather soap into her hair.

More flowers followed. They came downstream and made circles around her, caught in the slow eddy of the pool. She looked at them, amazed. Then sieved a double handful from the water and brought them to her face, drawing a deep breath to smell them.

She laughed delightedly and dunked under the surface, coming up in the middle of the flowers, the water sluiced her pale skin, running over her naked breasts. Blossoms clung to her, as if reluctant to let go.

That was when Bast fell out of the tree.

There was a brief, mad scrabbling of fingers against bark, a bit of a yelp, then he hit the ground like a sack of suet. He lay on his back in the grass and let out a low, miserable groan.

He heard a splashing, and then Emberlee appeared above him. She held her white shift in front of her. Bast looked up from where he lay in the tall grass.

He’d been lucky to land on that patch of springy turf, cushioned with tall, green grass. A few feet to one side, and he’d have broken himself against the rocks. Five feet the other way and he would have been wallowing in mud.

Emberlee knelt beside him, her skin pale, her hair dark. One posy clung to her neck—it was the same color as her eyes, a pale and vibrant blue.