Radiance (Wraith Kings Book 1)(47)
Brishen placed a hand over hers on the door latch. “You’ll not get rid of me that quickly, wife. My cousin said you dove into a dye vat. I’ll be on my way once you satisfy my curiosity.”
Resolved to the inevitable, she motioned him inside. Sinhue was elsewhere, probably getting an earful from another servant or soldier about how Brishen’s homely wife tried to make herself more pleasing to the eye by dying herself pink. If horses traveled as fast as gossip, they’d blow their riders clear off their backs.
Brishen laughed only a little when Ildiko removed her cloak, shrugged off her ruined tunic and revealed her arms, neck and shift dappled in varying shades of the summer rose.
“I look ridiculous,” she huffed.
“You look pink,” he replied. He circled her slowly. “And you chose to bathe in amaranthine why?”
Ildiko told him the story of her necklace. “I didn’t want to lose it. I know someone could have fished it out of the vat for me, but I panicked.” She lifted the necklace from where it nestled under her bodice laces and handed it to Brishen. “I think it’s worth very little in coin but is precious to me. The clasp broke as I leaned over to get a closer look at the cold dye.”
Brishen raised the chain for a better look. “It’s a good piece. Remember the constable from Halmatus?” Ildiko nodded. “A jeweler resides there. He can repair the clasp or fashion a new chain for your necklace.”
Ildiko eyed the necklace longingly. Her hand itched to snatch it out of Brishen’s grasp, but she squelched the urge. He deserved her trust, even with those things precious and irreplaceable to her. She clasped her hands behind her back. “Would it take long to fix the clasp?”
He must have heard something in her voice, something hesitant and fearful. “Not long. I can deliver it myself if you like.”
Ildiko clapped her hands. “Oh yes, please, would you?” Mortification rushed in hard on the heels of euphoria. “I’m sorry, Brishen,” she said. “You’re not a messenger boy. Someone else can go.”
Brishen offered the necklace to her, his head cocked in a way that Ildiko was fast recognizing as a sign of his amusement. “You misunderstand me, Ildiko. I’m not going alone. You’ll go with me. I’ve no eye for the delicacies of a woman’s trinkets. You can deal with the jeweler. I’ll just be there to keep you company and cross the man’s palm with the coin he demands for his work.”
She scooped the necklace out of his palm and held it close. “That is a wonderful idea. I know you’re worried about the dangers of Beladine raiders, but I’d love to visit more of the towns and villages under Saggara’s protection.”
He’d been reluctant to let her venture to Lakeside, convinced only by Anhuset’s promise to bring a small army as escort and the fact the town was within walking distance of the estate and redoubt.
Brishen lifted her hand, turning it one way and then the other. “At least it wasn’t nettle dye,” he said and kissed her knuckles before leaving her for a much-needed bath.
He was right. Nettle dye was green. There were worse colors to sport than pink.
They met again for their supper in the great hall and afterwards in his chamber for another game of Butcher’s Covenant in which Brishen out-maneuvered her and slaughtered every man on her side of the board without losing more than three on his side.
“You’re getting better,” he said as she lay the intricately carved pieces into a silk lined boxed and closed the lid.
Ildiko snorted. “That’s a lie and you know it. Just when I think I’ve outsmarted you, you kill off one of my men.”
Brishen poured them both a goblet of wine from a nearby pitcher. “You’ve outsmarted me on several occasions in the game. Your weakness is you over-think your strategy and question yourself until you react instead of plan.” He handed her one of the goblets along with a comb. “You are, however, far better with a comb than you are with Butcher’s Covenant.”
Ildiko took the comb. “That doesn’t comfort me. One is an exercise in strategy, the other carding wool.”
He dropped down onto his haunches in front of her chair and tilted his head back to gaze at her. “I am no sheep.”
She gathered his hair into a waterfall that spilled down his back and set to combing out the dark strands. “Trust me, Brishen, no one with eyes will ever mistake you, or any Kai for that matter, for sheep. More like wolves.”
Brishen sat passive before her, his wide shoulders slumped, his breathing slow as Ildiko glided the comb through his hair in long strokes.
“Tell me a tale,” she said.
It was their bargain. She groomed his hair, and he told her stories of his childhood in Haradis. Some were funny, others grim, though he told them in a matter-of-fact voice as if it was quite commonplace for mothers to lash their children with a horsewhip because they had a slight lisp and couldn’t quite master one of the simple spells all Kai children learned.
Ildiko guessed Brishen had been rambunctious, resourceful and clever. And he’d been born with a compassion and nobility of character neither of his parents possessed.
“What would you like to hear?” he asked.
She thought about it for a moment. Her request was more for an answer to a question than a story of the past. “Why are you nothing like the man who sired you and the woman who bore you?”