Herb-Wife (Lord Alchemist Duology) (27 page)

She
flinched before he'd gotten past her ribs. "No."

He
stopped at her waist. Trying to gentle his frustration, he said, "If
you're intent on planting a seed tonight, I can't do it by kissing
alone."

"Don't
need hands." With a less panicked note, she added, "Or
there'd be no calves nor piglets."

"True,"
he said, laying his cheek against her hair. "Kessa, what did
they do with their hands?"

"Nothing,
hardly. Just pawing." She took a shuddering breath. "Just
finish this, Kymus."

He
growled, "I don't want to hurt you, blight it."

She
was silent a moment, then, icily . . . "You would
make me beg, m'lord, rather than grant this favor?"

He
hissed, angry with the men who'd attacked her, angry with himself for
not convincing her, angry with her for her stubborn insistence on
being
hurt – and for her bonesetter's precision in
cutting at his heart as well. "A bargain," he said, more
harshly than he wanted. "This night, as
you
demand. But I
want a second time, to
my
tastes. Agreed?"

"Yes,"
she said, voice tight. "Get this over with."

"Very
well." He stepped back to shed his robe and pull his tunic over
his head, then leaned against the foot of the bed to strip off his
hose, awkward and upset and very much not aroused.

When
he looked back, Kessa was sitting on the edge of the bed, knees
together and shoulders hunched. Her arms covered her tiny breasts,
and save for the sweeps of hair, she might've been a boy indeed. The
androgynous illusion deepened as she reached out to slide the lamp's
layers of colored glass over the Incandescens Stone, dimming its
light.

As
the last, opaque, metal layer moved over the Stone, Iathor said,
"Wait." She did, and he pulled open the table's single
drawer, taking out two vials.

Kessa
pulled her legs up onto the bed as he opened each, laying the
stoppers on the tabletop. It was dim enough, now, that her eyes were
just oddly dark-irised, the whites unsettlingly pale; her body was a
dark shape against the sheets, with her arms drawn in and up against
her chest. The ribbon around her neck was barely visible.

He
sat on the bed as well, her slightly flexed knees against his back,
and took the vial that smelled of bitter sugar and cinnamon. The
mental effects would be purged within heartbeats. The physical ones
would last a few minutes, at best. He sighed and tipped it into his
mouth, holding the brew there as he put back the empty vial and took
the other, which wouldn't smell of alchemy at all, being a simple oil
for massages – or other things. He poured the oil into the
palm of one hand and swallowed down the potion, gritting his teeth
after.

It
was a spreading, hot wave down his throat, up his spine, and he found
he'd begun to reach for the woman on his bed before the brain-heat
faded, even as he'd grabbed himself with the oiled hand and stroked.
The fever in his groin was purely physical, stretching tension that
threatened to become an ache or even true pain.

More
gently, he shifted her knees apart so he could move, on hands and
knees, between her legs. He made himself pause there, torn between
hoping she'd change her mind and needing something quite different.

She
was silent; eyes closed, hands drawn up against her collarbone. Her
breath seemed as rapid as bird's wings.

He
shifted position enough to put the heel of one hand on her belly,
fingers curled in, and was rewarded with only a twitch and not a
terrified flinch. He slowly moved his loose fist down, to the soft
patch of hair between her legs, and used his thumb to guide himself
against her.

Then
he pressed forward.

Though
she didn't move, her body fought his. Despite the slick oil, there
was resistance and a crushing tightness.
"Just finish this,
Kymus."
He shifted his legs, and his weight was behind the
next stroke. She made tiny noises in her throat, strangled whimpers,
and he cupped her shoulders in his palms.

Her
body still resisted, but movement turned his near-pain into
near-pleasure, until everything was just sensation and tension that
poured out of him until any touch at all
hurt
, sharp and raw.
He hissed, trying to hold still until the last shudders of his climax
had passed, but even her body's heat was too much for the
aphrodisiac-heightened sensitivity.

He
had, at least, the sense to hold her shoulders even as he pulled
himself from her. And though she was tense, she didn't draw away; she
might even have begun to relax.

I've
done as you bid,
he didn't say, through tiredness and awareness
that he couldn't have made it un-accusing. Instead, when she shifted
her legs and flinched, he asked, "Shall I get a healing
ointment?"

"I'm
fine," she said tightly. "It might . . .
heal too much."

Her
voice was nearly cracked, and though she lay against him, he wasn't
sure if it was with trust or resignation.

For
a moment, he wished he held the Kellisan of night patrols, a
companion and equal – and in that moment, realized . . .
"Get it over with."
At times a patroller's broken
bone had needed straightening and splinting; the man would be given
something to bite, and grunt
do it
through his teeth, knowing
a healing draught too early would make it heal wrong, and have to be
broken all over again.

Necessary
pain, endured in as much silence and stillness as possible. Even as a
child, Iathor'd done it himself, drinking vile-tasting cures for
sickness. And when Kessa'd faced pain and the memory of fear . . .

"Get
it over with." It seems I've a boy in my bed after all, no
matter the body.
He pulled her closer and chuckled, soft and sad.
"Kellisan." She made a questioning noise, but he could only
shake his head. "My lady Kellisan."

Her
sigh against his neck was exasperated, but she put her weight against
him and started to relax.

Mind-tired,
body-tired, Iathor drifted, rousing at Kessa's soft, "My
teacher's name was Maila. She was poisoned."

By
the time he recovered from his own shock . . . her
breathing was that of a sleeping woman's, and he couldn't tell if it
was feigned.

Chapter
XV

K
essa
was warm when she woke. Not just the comfort of the house, nor the
sweltering heat of summer, but the secure warmth of someone's back
against her cheek and chest, and a blanket over them both. From
sleepy contentment, she slipped into puzzlement. It was a fine bed;
that meant the Kymus house, and none of her siblings would've needed
to bundle together for warmth here. She shifted and pain twinged
between her legs.

Oh.

And
that meant the warm back next to her . . .

My
husband.

The
pain was bearable. She rolled onto her back and looked up at the
bed's canopy. Faded blue, in the dawning light seeping around the
window-curtains. The bed-curtains were tied back, as they'd been last
night. The room's walls were faded gray and brown wall fabric above
wood paneling. Wardrobe, two chairs, table, mirror . . .

She
felt distantly sad, as if far away from the emotion.

Perhaps
she ought to be angry with Kymus. Iathor. (
Husband.
) Except
she'd won the argument, and gotten her way. Mostly her way, at least;
she didn't know how to feel about his bargain.

It
was too much thinking. Despite emptiness in her stomach, she closed
her eyes again.

Kessa
woke later to more light and a cold draft on her arm. She made a
grouchy noise, curling away from it.

"Ah?"
Iathor dropped the blanket and put his arm around her shoulders
instead, while she blinked at his chest. Scanty, thin hairs were
scattered on it, rather like Tag's bare skin, and unlike Burk's furry
hide. His white ribbon hung sideways around his neck, its wedding
earring peeking from between his right arm and the pillow.

"Cold,"
she complained, and wriggled closer. Moving her legs at all hurt.
"Ow."

"You're . . .
still pained?" The guilt in his voice was either well acted, or
sincere enough to melt a little of the numbness.

"I'll
live." She wriggled a hand free of the sheets between them so
she could pat him lightly on the chest. She left her hand on his skin
for a moment, till his paleness beneath her darkness brought only
foul similes to mind.

But
he didn't shove her away, as some part of her expected, so perhaps
her pain'd bought something after all. Instead, he settled back onto
the bed, arm still over her shoulder. "The blood is alarming."

"Laita
said she hardly bled at all." The man who'd bought her first
time had been upset, Laita'd said after, demanding to know if she'd
really been a maiden until she burst into tears, wailing that she'd
thought
so, and couldn't remember otherwise, and now she
didn't know who'd robbed the man. So he'd wound up giving another
copper leaf to cheer her, instead of taking his coin back and beating
her besides.

"Then
I must assume it's different for different women. I hope these
weren't sheets Loria intended to last."

Kessa
glared at his collarbones, and the dip beneath his throat. "It
can't be that bad."

Iathor
pulled at the blanket. "Look, then."

Trying
not to move her lower body, Kessa looked over her shoulder. The
brownish-red spot was . . . rather large, she
supposed. "It can't be moon-flows," she said, faintly. "I
already triggered those with Purgatorie, couple fivedays ago."

He
started pulling the covers up between them. "If you're bleeding
more than your moon-flows, I'm going to get a healing ointment . . ."

She
twitched to cover herself and tilt her hip against the bed,
reflexively, then paused, leaving her arms half against her chest
because putting them anywhere else was even more awkward. Meanwhile,
Iathor ran his hand between them, too focused on the bedding to make
her flinch, and probably too polite to overtly notice her reaction.
He muttered, "It doesn't seem to be soaked here, at least.
Though, mm, Kessa, your leg?" He tapped her, lightly and high on
her hip.

She
was slow both from soreness and tangled, wary embarrassment, twisting
so she could look down at her legs. More blood was smeared on her
thighs, drying around the edges, as if she'd started her moon-flows.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know I'd ruin the sheets. I'd have asked
for an old towel . . ."

"Shh."
He kissed her head and gathered her close again. "If Loria
complains, I'll brew something to take the blood out."

"I've
a recipe that should work." It'd worked to get the mold off the
fabric walls in the lady's bedroom, anyway, and Kessa'd learned the
recipe when she'd needed to clean up blood in a room – an
execution or brew gone messy. Maila'd said the former. Kessa thought
the latter more likely.

"One
from the hospice, or Herbsman Chiftia?" Iathor asked. "Or . . ."

She
remembered what she'd almost forgotten, as if it'd been a dream. She
wanted to take the words back, and drown the pathetic impulse that'd
made her speak. But if he hadn't shaken her awake then, to demand
answers, perhaps it was no irrevocable misstep. She whispered,
"Maila."

He
toyed with her own wedding earring, where it'd slithered around
behind her neck. She felt the ribbon stirring on her skin, and his
thumb sliding by her hair. "Shadow Guild herb-witch?"

"Mostly,"
she said, trying to figure the cost of telling him. "Some
alchemy. Healing ointments."

"Hele's
ointment. You helped Nicia prepare it once, at the hospice."

"Yes.
And . . . the dyes, for hair. And eyes. That's
how . . ." She wanted to burrow against him, but
trying would make it so much worse if he shoved her away.

"She
knew you were immune." His voice was level, without clues to his
mood.

Kessa
nodded, wretchedly. "She never told me what it meant. I knew it
was unusual, but not how much." She didn't cover her face with
her hands. "I'd have shown up on your doorstep, if I'd known.
Laita was so sick . . ."

He
cuddled her, as if one of her family. It was too good to be true, and
she worried he'd pull her away by her hair at any moment. Even when
she told herself he'd never played such games before, she still
worried.

Yet
all he said was, "But you didn't need to buy my help now.
Kessa." He paused, and took a breath as if he were the nervous
one. "Why did you agree to marry me?"

"It
was . . ."

"Becoming
inevitable. You've said that. Like a theater script. Won't you tell
me the real reason?"

"It's
true enough," she whispered.

"The
other reasons, then."

Shock.
Foolishness.
Neither seemed believable. It was burned into her
mind, the need to hurt Iasen as deeply as he'd sought to hurt her.
She didn't think Iathor'd accept
can't I think of new ones?
"I
don't remember."