Fire - Kristin Cashore [81]
One August night during a frantic whispered battle under a tree outside her house, he kissed her. She stiffened, startled, and then knew, as his hands reached for her and he kissed her again, that she wanted this, she needed Archer, her body needed this wildness that was also comfort. She burrowed herself against him; she brought him inside and upstairs. And that was that; child companions became lovers. They found a place where they could agree, a release from the anxiety and unhappiness that threatened to overwhelm them. After making love with her friend, Fire often found herself wanting to eat. Kissing her and laughing, Archer would feed her in her own bed with food he carried in through the window.
Cansrel knew, of course, but where her gentle love of Liddy had been intolerable to him, her need for Archer roused nothing stronger than an amused acceptance of the inevitable. He didn’t care, as long as she took the herbs when she needed to. ‘Two of us is enough, Fire,’ he’d say smoothly. She heard the threat in his words toward the baby she wasn’t going to have. She took the herbs.
Archer did not act jealous in those days, or domineering. That came later.
Fire knew too well that things didn’t ever stay the same. Natural beginnings came to natural or unnatural ends. She was eager to see Archer, more than eager, but she knew what he would come to King’s City hoping for. She wasn’t looking forward to putting this end into words for him.
FIRE HAD TAKEN to describing the foggy archer to everyone she questioned, very briefly at the end of each interview. So far it was to no avail.
‘Lady,’ Brigan said to her today in Garan’s bedroom. ‘Have you learned anything yet about that archer?’
‘No, Lord Prince. No one seems to recognise his description.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I hope you’ll keep asking.’
Garan’s health had had a setback, but he refused to go into the infirmary or stop working, which meant that in recent days his bedchamber had become quite a hub of activity. Breathing was a difficulty and he had no strength to sit up. Despite this, he remained more than capable of holding his side of an argument.
‘Forget the archer,’ he said now. ‘We have more important matters to discuss, such as the exorbitant cost of your army.’ He glared at Brigan, who’d propped himself against the wardrobe, too directly in Fire’s line of vision to ignore, tossing a ball back and forth in his hands that she recognised as a toy she’d seen Blotchy and Hanna fighting over on occasion. ‘It’s far too expensive,’ Garan continued, still glaring from his bed. ‘You pay them too much, and then when they’re injured or dead and no use to us you continue to pay them.’
Brigan shrugged. ‘And?’
‘You think we’re made of money.’
‘I will not cut their pay.’
‘Brigan,’ Garan said wearily. ‘We cannot afford it.’
‘We must afford it. The eve of a war is not the time to start cutting an army’s pay. How do you think I’ve managed to recruit so many? Do you really think them so shot through with loyalty for the bloodline of Nax that they wouldn’t turn to Mydogg if he offered more?’
‘As I understood it,’ Garan said, ‘the lot of them would pay for the privilege of dying in defence of none other than you.’
Nash spoke from his seat in the window, where he was a dark shape outlined in the light of a blue sky. He’d been sitting there for some time. Fire knew he was watching her. ‘And that’s because he always sticks up for them, Garan, when brutes like you try to take their money away. I wish you would rest. You look like you’re about to pass out.’
‘Don’t patronise me,’ Garan said; and then dissolved into a fit of coughing that had the sound of a saw blade tearing through wood.
Fire leaned forward in her chair and touched Garan’s damp face. She’d come to an understanding with him regarding this bout of illness. He insisted on working, and so she agreed to bring him her reports from the questioning rooms; but only if he allowed her into his mind, to ease