The person of whom we speak is Briony Larkin. The other person, Eldric Clayborne, merely lounges about and ruminates on the mysteries of life, and every so often, he delivers a little joke of a punch.
“I’ve never seen you so pink,” said Eldric. “Should we knock off for the evening? You’ve been going at it very hard.”
“But you haven’t,” I said. “I’ve been punching you hard as I can, but you’ve been doling out those silly butterfly punches. I’d think you were cheating, except that the members of the Fraternitus Bad-Boyificus are sworn never to cheat.”
“No, we never cheat,” said Eldric. “Which means I’m honor-bound to admit I should have given myself a handicap. I have two working hands, and you’ve just the one right now.”
This particular member of the Fraternitus had to breach the code of honor. She couldn’t admit that her left hand was very spry indeed and that her right hand had never been useful. All at once, I felt the chill sink into my bones. I wrapped my arms about my middle.
“I shouldn’t have let you stop moving,” said Eldric. “Let’s get you warm.”
“Let me?” I said. “That’s rather bossy.”
“A boxing coach is always bossy. That’s one of the sad facts of life. Now, wrap up.”
I paused. I was wearing Tiddy Rex’s peculiar shirt and beneath, a little bit of hardly anything. They were damp with sweat, horrible in the October chill.
The Strangers were lolly-bobbling all about, murmuring about stories and mushrooms and mud. Murmuring about the cemetery and the Unquiet Spirit who tosses in her winding sheet. “The cold worms lie with her and she be shrilling out a name.”
I bent over the clothes I’d shed. They too were damp.
“It be tha’ name, mistress,” said the Strangers. “It be tha’ name she be shrilling.”
“Your lips are blue,” said Eldric. “You do know the rules, don’t you? A person who doesn’t mind her coach must be expelled from the Fraternitus.”
“But these clothes are too wet.”
Eldric went all lion, pouncing at his coat and then at me, holding the coat between us as a sort of curtain. “As one member of the Fraternitus to another, it goes without saying that I will protect your privacy against any and all who might seek to invade our fightibus space.”
He meant himself, of course, but he couldn’t say so. How raw to say, I promise not to look.
It was awkward, struggling out of my wet things, feeling entirely exposed, which I was, to the whole half of the world on the east side of the curtain-coat, including the Strangers. And on the west side, to a boy-man who could peer over at any time, except that members of the Fraternitus never lied or cheated. I scrambled into my blouse, which was the only thing that wasn’t wet. It wasn’t worse than nothing, but it was not much better.
“Done?” said Eldric.
“How did you know?” I said.
“I have ears.”
How could a boy-man hear when a girl was dressed?
“Done,” I said.
He turned, wrapped the coat around me. But his fidgety fingers made sure not to touch me, not even through the thickness of the coat. It had been all ruined by Blackberry Night.
“Come along, blue lips,” he said, thinking perhaps that a bit of silliness might smooth over the awkwardness.
“If you were to write me a poem,” I said, “you could rhyme it with tulips.”
But silliness was not a smoother-over. Not for the two of us as we made our way back to the village. Not on this particular October evening, when Eldric’s long fingers had just taken such care to avoid any bit of Briony Larkin.
We walked in silence past the pumping station, toward the fields of rye. We’d had no time to revisit awkward memories on the outward journey: We’d loped and laughed through the fields to the Scars; it had been too long since our last fighting lesson. But now—well, if only the rye were already harvested and the fields looked like Tiddy Rex after a haircut. It wouldn’t be so awkward then. But we had to walk through a field of awkward memories, through the rye, tall and bronze and smelling of kisses.
Gin a body meet a body,
Comin’ thro’ the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
I could feel Eldric struggling to contain that hollow whistle of his. How stupid it was, that we couldn’t talk about this. I couldn’t bear it if we went all silent, as Father and I were. Can a lifetime of silence begin with a kiss?
I couldn’t stand it; I had to say something. “Awkwardissimus?”
“Awkwardissimus!” said Eldric.
We laughed, which broke the silence. There was a bit of me, though, that stood outside myself, listening to us: We managed an impressive imitation of the way we’d used to talk, but I thought that any expert would spot the forgery.
The river ran olive brown, like paintbrush water. As we neared the bridge, Mad Tom’s voice broke into our counterfeit conversation. “Give ’em back! I needs ’em sore, I does.”
Silence now, except for the kingfishers gossiping in the reed beds.
“I does, pretty lady. Mad Tom, he mind on you. He mind on you fine by that black hair what you got.”
We crested the rise of the bridge. Mad Tom was hiding behind the black claw of his umbrella, just his shirttail and trouser legs showing beneath. “You got you your own proper wits, pretty lady.” He turned.
Leanne! The pretty lady was Leanne. The sight of her gave me a gray, cotton-woolish sort of feeling.
“Oh, my lilied liver! Oh, my turnip toes!” Mad Tom swung the umbrella from his shoulder, stirred the tip into the pebbles at the foot of the bridge. “I knows the pretty lady’s got some wits to spare for poor Mad Tom.”
Eldric’s face went all un-electric. Heavy eyelids at halfmast, lips tight as curling lips can be.
Is that what love looks like? If you’re a twenty-two-year-old man in love with a beautiful woman, and you see her and she sees you? But perhaps Eldric wanted to hide the look of love. A boy-man might not like to expose his tender feelings, especially in front of Blackberry-Night Briony Larkin.
She had a floaty sort of walk, Leanne did, and she’d trained her cloak to float along with her. The floatiness went with the color of her cloak and skirts, blues and greens that shifted as she moved.
She slowed as she neared us, setting Mad Tom to dancing about her, blessing his liver and spying his wits with his little eye. She called out to Eldric in her dusk-lined voice, but her gaze lingered on his coat, which hung about me like a sack.
“Lovely to see you again—Briony.” The pause before my name was brief, but effective. It said, So sorry, but I don’t have the name of this lovely child quite on the tip of my—ah, here it is.
Now back to Eldric. “How sweet of your father to write. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to hear of your recovery.” Her eyes roved all over him. “Are you completely well?”
“Completely,” said Eldric.
He hadn’t seen her since he’d recovered! Ten whole days. Wasn’t that a long absence for an ardent lover?
“I wonder,” she said, “if you could rid me of poor Mad Tom.” Her smile showed her sultan’s-harem teeth—beautiful, perhaps, but excessive in number. “I confess, he frightens me.”
“Them eyes you got, lady.” Mad Tom stepped close, too close for politeness. “They been haunting me, them eyes.”
Eldric took Mad Tom’s arm. “This way,” he said. “The pretty lady needs her privacy.” But he didn’t hurry Mad Tom. He eased Mad Tom down the bridge, letting Mad Tom set the pace. Eldric was a gentleman. I’d never thought of this before.
“I suppose you’re not afraid of the poor fellow?” Leanne leaned toward me, as though we were best friends. She whiffed of scent. I could have guessed she’d never choose something fresh and flowery. Instead, she smelled the way she looked, dark and peppery, with an undercurrent of wild animal.