“Jacquin,” Annalise said. “I cannot marry you.”
Chapter 2
S
triking Serpent. Biting Dog. Leaping Monki.
Cassian Toquin moved through the forms of the Art with practiced discipline and ended with his feet together, hands tight-pressed palm to palm, fingers pointing to his chin. The sun had scarcely peeped over the horizon and yet sweat trickled down the line of his spine. He tasted salt when he licked his mouth. He opened his eyes.
Above him he heard the hushed titters of his audience, which he ignored. Instead, he bent to lift his shirt from the ground where he’d tossed it. With swift fingers he smoothed his hair back from his face, grateful he’d kept it shorter than fashion dictated. It fell over his eyes but not down the back of his neck.
The creak of a window caught his attention, and he looked upward. Once a novitiate had fallen from the third story as she leaned to get a better glimpse. Fortunately she’d fallen into the cart of straw and manure Felix the gardener had parked by the flowerbeds in preparation for their fertilization. The girl had been bruised and humiliated but she’d lived.
Though he glimpsed the forms and faces of several novitiates in the shadowed rooms of the Motherhouse, none of them were hanging from the ledge. Yet. Someone had cranked open the window either to allow in a breeze or to get a better look at him as he exercised, but now had retreated. It was better that way. Cassian found it easier to teach the young women in service when he didn’t have to face them as admirers.
His other admirer was not so silent. “How long did it take you to learn the Art, Master Toquin? How long to become a master?”
“I’m not a Master of the Art, Kellen. I just practice it. I could practice it every day for the rest of my life and not master it.”
Kellen, tousle-headed and blond, frowned. “I don’t think I’d like to do something every day and know I’d never become good enough at it to be called a master.”
Cassian smiled but stopped himself from ruffling the lad’s hair. “There are many skills in life that can’t be completely mastered. One can become proficient, and that should be enough.”
Kellen followed Cassian to the pump in the yard where he ran the water, frigid from its source deep underground. Cassian splashed his face, blowing great breaths at the chill, and dripping, swiped at his face. Kellen already had Cassian’s jacket ready, held out like an offering. Cassian took it.
“You needn’t play the part of my fetchencarry, Kellen. I’m quite capable of gathering my own belongings.”
“I know,” Kellen answered cheerfully. “But I like watching you.”
It would be a number of years until the lad discovered the joys of living in a house filled almost exclusively with women. Right now, all he saw were the pains. Cassian took the jacket, hung it over his arm. He meant to return to his quarters for a bath rather more private than he had opportunity for now.
“Do you?”
“Oh, yes. The Mothers say I’m to learn what I can from you, at any rate. Not the Art,” Kellen added. “I don’t think they care much for that.”
“No, I don’t suppose they do.” The Art was a man’s domain, though Cassian had heard tell of women who practiced it. He couldn’t quite imagine what they’d ever need it for, but he’d heard stories. “Mothers don’t always understand the importance of the same things men do.”
Kellen laughed, eyes crinkling. “No!”
“I was a good deal older than you are now when I first took up the practice. I should think you’d be able to learn faster than I did.”
Kellen’s grin did its best to break Cassian’s heart, but he’d grown accustomed to making it into stone. The Art was not the only thing he’d long practiced. The lad leaped into the air in a fair impression of Striking Serpent.
“Like this?”
“Very good. Not quite.” Cassian hung his jacket on the pump handle and showed Kellen the form. “Like this.”
Kellen did it again, better this time. He stumbled a little when he came down, but his hands were in the right place. In the bright morning sun, his hair shone like gold. His eyes, though filled with merriment at the moment, were dark. Cassian didn’t like to look at Kellen’s face overlong. It reminded him too much of what he’d prefer to forget.
From inside the Motherhouse, a chime rang.
“Come. It’s time to go inside.”
Kellen nodded obediently. “Maybe tomorrow you can show me more, Master Toquin? Please?”
“We’ll see if you’ve made it out here so early, Kellen. But . . . yes. I see no reason why you couldn’t join me.” There was no reason, which was the only reason Cassian agreed. To forbid it would only hurt the lad with no excuse, and Cassian found himself unable to be so cruel to one who didn’t deserve it.
“You’d best hurry, else you’ll be late.” Cassian waved a hand. “Go.”
Watching the boy go, Cassian mouthed the first part of the morning prayer. The second part came as he crossed the yard toward the house. The third he muttered as he quickly stripped out of his dirty clothes in his room and bathed from the basin of cold water. In moments he was dressed again in the masculine version of the Handmaidens’ high-necked, long-sleeved uniform, his a jacket instead of a gown of course, but with the same row of buttons down the front. He pulled the red of his shirt to show just below the black sleeves of his jacket.
None of the words had mattered. He said the prayers by rote and habit, and though he slid into his seat in the dining room with the final syllable still clinging to his tongue, not one part of the prayer had moved him. Nor did the words he spoke before he broke his bread, but he said them anyway, hoping to feel his maker’s touch.
“Good morn to you, Master Toquin. I see you were hard at work already.” Mother Harmony stopped by his table on the way to her own, a platter of biscuits and butter in her hands. “Such discipline is admirable, if not necessary.”
“Not necessary,” he agreed as the serving girl put a bowl of rice mush and simplebread in front of him. “But highly gratifying.”
“It does keep you rather fit,” Harmony said with a purse of her lips and a glance at her own well-rounded figure.
“I’d be happy to teach you, Mother. Any time you wish.” It was easy to make an offer he knew would be refused.
Harmony laughed at this and gestured with her knife. “Oh, my dear, no thank you. I’ve long grown past the age when a bit of extra flesh discourages me. But you keep on with it, if it brings you pleasure.”
There was more to it than that. Cassian didn’t practice the Art for the sake of fitness, or even in anticipation of needing it for defense. There seemed little enough chance for that, seeing his position as Master of the Faith here in the Order of Solace Motherhouse was fair guaranteed to never require him to fight anyone. No, Cassian kept up with the discipline because he’d already lost too many things that mattered. He couldn’t bear to let go of another, even one that taxed his aging muscles and woke him earlier than he was naturally inclined, one that took much from him and gave him little. He would practice the Art as long as he could stand upright to do so because it reminded him of his brother. Of Calvis.
“You should eat more,” Harmony continued, peering more closely at him. “You’re too thin.”
Cassian had little to say to that. To deny it would cause her to flutter and cluck; to agree was ridiculous. “I am as the Invisible Mother intends me to be.”
Harmony sighed and wagged a finger at him. “Can’t get around you, can I?”
Again, Cassian wasn’t sure what to say and only nodded, relieved when Mother Harmony waddled away to her own seat. The Order of Solace had its roots in the Temple of the Book, but it was a purely feminine domain. Cassian was one of only three men in the room. One of less than a dozen men on the grounds. After close to ten years in service here, Cassian still had little to say to the women beside whom he’d worked for so long. The Mothers and Sisters-in-Service were no more familiar to him than his own mother and sisters had ever been, or any woman, for that matter. He enjoyed their company and knew they found his at least tolerable. He knew they respected his place within their Order, even as they all knew he’d never be a part of it. But he did not understand them, and doubted he ever would.
Breakfast finished, the novitiates dismissed, Cassian had little time before he was due to address his first class of the day. He meant to use the few precious moments in preparation, setting out the copies of the texts, making sure the room had not grown too stifling, lighting the scented candles. Girding his figurative loins. A hand on his sleeve stopped him in the hall, novitiates in their colored headscarves bustling all around him.
“Master Toquin, I would have you speak to my herb preparation class this morn, if you’ve time.” The request came from Sincerity. In contrast to the novitiates in their bright headscarves, her long dark hair hung in an intricate braid to her hips. Her gown, though cut in the familiar fashion, was of lightweight and pale blue linen. “We are studying the trefoil today.”
“Mistress, my knowledge of herbs is limited,” Cassian told her, though he had a guess as to why she would request his presence. “I’m not sure what I could offer your students.”
Serenity smiled. “The trefoil’s properties are threefold, and many believe they’re tied to the blessings of the Holy Family. If you would be so kind as to come and speak to my class—they’re all first seasons, by the way, I’ve traded with Patience—about the comparisons between the story and the flower. I think they would find it most enlightening.”
Cassian gave a quick look around the hall and found it empty, then allowed his gaze to slide over Serenity’s familiar features. He liked her. Had known her for longer than he’d been here at the Order. An accident had left her right leg scarred and stiff; her limp had made it unlikely she’d ever be sent to serve a patron. Most patrons were men, after all, and no matter what any might say, men were all too often first concerned with appearance.
“And you would have me speak to your students on the lessons they’ll eventually learn in my own class if they’re unfamiliar with it already?”
Serenity ducked her head with a laugh. “I must confess my patience with these first-season novitiates is wearing thin, unlike that of my Sister.”
“She is aptly named,” Cassian said.
“She is, indeed. And perhaps they will attend to the lesson better should it come from your lips than mine. At least in this instance. And I grow weary of them, I admit that as well. I could use a bit of a break from attempting to force knowledge into their heads.”
Cassian tried not to laugh, but Serenity knew him too well to believe his frown. “Why did you trade?”
“Because after five years of teaching the same lessons without cease, my Sister and I have both grown . . . overaccustomed to our roles. We thought a trade of duties might enliven our circumstances.”
It was the first time Cassian had ever heard Serenity even hint at dismay over her role as constant teacher instead of being sent out to serve patrons.
“And you’ve not found it to be so?”
“Indeed,” Serenity said, “I have not. Please, Cassian. Come speak to my class and tell them the story, that I might have a rest from their constant prattling.”
“And you believe they’ll hold their tongues for my instruction?” Cassian shook his head. “Am I so formidable?”
“I have witnessed for myself your ability to strike women into dumbness.” Serenity raised a brow. “And it is not always because of your temper.”
Cassian’s smile faded. He put a hand over his heart, made a formal half bow. “I regret I am unable to attend your class this morn, mistress.”
“Cassian—”
But he was already stepping back, his back turned. His boots thudded on the wooden planks as he went down the hall toward the stairs. He did not look back.
Once in his own classroom, he closed the door and leaned against it, head bowed. Serenity, of all the Sisters-in-Service, might possibly be considered more than a colleague, but a friend. She, of all of them, knew the depth and breadth of his tale, for she’d been there for its entirety.
She wasn’t wrong about his temper, which was both formidable and famous. That she could tease him about it said much of her fondness for him. He had behaved badly.
But he must. Respect, mutual kindness, even fear he could tolerate. Perhaps fear he would even encourage. But fondness and compassion he could not abide.
They were dangerous to him, and would remain ever so.
J
acquin. Enough.” Annalise pushed him from her.
“I swear to you, I can make this work.”
“I want you to stop.”
Jacquin retreated, frowning, his mouth wet and swollen from kisses. Her own mouth felt swollen, too. Sore, in fact.
She sighed. Jacquin, who had spent the better part of the past two chimes attempting to convince her there should be no obstacle to their marriage, echoed the sigh. Over her head he drew in a breath of herb from the bowl she’d declined moments before. The fragrant smoke tickled her nostrils, and Annalise shifted on the settee to lean against its opposite arm. Watching him, she put her feet up and into his lap.
“They ache,” she explained. “Pinch-toed slippers.”
“Ah.” Jacquin set the bowl onto the side table and worked her toes with his strong fingers.
She winced when he rubbed the soles. “My sister’s doing. I told her my feet are too broad for pointed toes, but she insisted.”
“Your sister is such a fancy slut.”
Annalise barked laughter and nudged him with her foot. “Hush, Jacquin. My father would have you slaughtered if he knew you were here in my bedchamber sampling my sweets before the wedding.”
“He would not, and you know it. You’re far past the age anyone could expect an intact virtue.”
Annalise nudged him again, though what he said was true and she’d certainly dispensed with her virtue a long time past. “Sirrah!”