A Different Life

I have a thousand things to dream away. That I’d fought, that I’d persuaded my neighbours to fight and that my mother, my brother Toris, had not died because of my cowardice. That I was not stuck forever in a place which made me think of death.

Lyceus held me together after that time. He let me fight him, again and again, training as though the skill I developed could change what I’d been unable to do in the past. He let me hurt him, even, and because of that I slowly learned that I was not the only one mourning in my small town. Still, I wished I’d fought. Even if I’d had to die instead of them.

So it was strange that I managed to hurt Lyceus when a hand stretched out to me, as though from a dream, from a different life. His eyes searched for me. I saw the army riding up towards us, and knew that my people would bow, would give up whatever it was asked of them. How could it be that all he wanted was me?

I refused to meet those searching eyes. When he lifted me up onto his horse, I looked at no one, not even at Lyceus, not even to reply to his furious words to me. I hated to hurt him. But I would give no one else up, if I could not give up myself.

I half expected to see him front up at the camp after that; I wondered dully whether I would see his broken body outside the walls. But later I heard that the men had been ordered not to touch him. As though his value was known; or at least, his value to me.

It wasn’t until the next day that I looked him full in the face. I had woken long before he; I was angry, and I could not keep still. Then he spoke to me, and I jumped a little. I turned, and I stared at him, lying half-naked on his low bed. I refused to lower my gaze; I refused to change my speech for him. Not for him, not for those like him. Why should I show any deference to someone who took, and took, and spared no thought for the value of such treasure? But he did not think to discipline me, as I had expected. He moved towards me, from the bed, and then slipped out of the tent. But first he laughed.

The cook had come in with breakfast – a hunk of bread, cheese – and had slipped out just as quickly, without a word, without even looking at my face. So that was who I was to become; someone even the servants were ashamed to see. I had not thought; but even then I wasn’t afraid, just angry. At myself, because when I had finally looked at him I had thought his eyes had not been cruel.

I was still there with my breakfast when he returned. He flung a bundle at my feet, still looking amused as I refused to rise. Clothe yourself, he said; and he turned immediately and left. I waited a moment and watched him move out to the centre of the camp, and call his men to him. They began their drills; and I watched, pleased that their movements were ones which I myself had practised. Then I looked down at the clothing on the floor.

I had never seen such things before. I knelt and looked with wonder at the tooled leather, the brass workings, the stiff boots which fitted perfectly; the armour which settled on my body as though it had been made as a gift for a warrior. As though it had been designed for me . . . then I saw a dagger fall to the floor, and I stooped to fit it into my hand.

When I got up he was behind me, telling me to loosen my hair. Once more I was furious; I turned, and threw the dagger at him. He caught it.

It was then I knew that I could take as easily as he could give. Teach me, I asked. Teach me how to do that. So he threw it back at me, and I caught it, fumbling; but he pretended not to see.

The next day I tried him again, thrusting my sword towards him moments after he placed it in my hand. He deflected the blow easily.

He took me into the training circle and fought me as hard as any of his men. He looked me in the eye. He kicked at my legs, threw me to the ground, put his blade to my throat. I saw that my anger pleased him and I was confused. But I knew the moves of his soldiers, and I advanced against him. He routed me at every turn; he fought hard, and not once did he hold back. I was tired and aching, and he taunted me – but his face never changed from its amused wariness, and so I answered his questions, although even I had no true answers. My mother had died because I was a coward; my brother had died because I was a coward; but I would not die the same way.

I watched him, then, and I leapt at him, kicking him. I could have killed them all, I said. My blade hesitated at his throat. But he flipped me over his body, leaping over and behind me, and I watched him. Teach me, I asked. And so he taught me.

He spent every day with me. Not once did he ask me to bring him food, clean his clothes, or tidy his tent. He only ever asked me to fight. And so I did, watching as he sparred with the soldiers each morning, and learning as he fought with me every afternoon. He never grew tired. He never jeered at me when I fell, or when I dropped my sword. He only fought me, and sometimes laughed. Sometimes he would describe a move, then tell me where he had seen it. As though I had seen it, too; as though I had fought by his side in some great battle, long ago.

Once he told me I need not fear his men. I could not understand what he meant; I never thought of his men, only of him.

Once he told me to capture his kestrel, when all he found was its broken jesses; but amongst all the birds I knew his, and so when I ran through the forest, moving amongst the trees like a preying animal, the creature came to me. It flew at me, then landed on my wrist, as though it knew me. When I came back proudly, bearing the great bird on my wrist like a queen, he looked at me strangely, and spoke as though testing my heart.

So, will you ride my horse also?

I clutched his hand then. I remembered how the great dark horse had come into camp, and all the people had moved frightened away from it. I remembered its wild fierceness and then I remembered how it felt to remove those coarse woven cloths from my body. I could not speak, to ask him for more.

But he gave more, without my asking. The next day he took me out in the morning, dismissing his men. He lifted me up onto the horse as he had at the very first, my head at his breast, his arm firm around my waist. Then we rode together to the plains, and he dismounted, and looked at me.

Ride, he said. I looked at him, wondering. Did he realise I could go away, far away then, with this great horse, and never return? Was that what he was asking? I turned away from him and rode towards the hills. I was not sure until then whether I would turn back; but when I turned back I was sure.

I cried out loud, loud, the voice coming from somewhere within me, the cry tearing me with joy. Then I looked for him on the plains, his straight figure, tall, watching out for me. I could not think except to see him again. And then he was on the horse behind me, riding wild with me until the horse’s sides were slick with sweat. He turned the beast towards home, then; and as we arrived at camp, cast me off, his eyes hard.

I waited for him but he did not come. At last the flaps of the tent were moved aside, and I came to him; but he did not look at me, and then he pushed me to the floor.

When he spoke I remembered I had been meant as a slave. My anger grew and grew until I could not see. When he reached down to me I kicked him aside; I scratched at him and then I grasped his hands and pulled him down.

He was like me, then, in the dirt, his eyes trapped into mine. I could only tell him that he had given and given, and he could not take away; he had freed me and I had not even known I was caged.

I tried to pull away, then, but he enclosed me – my eyes, my wrist, and finally my mouth. His lips were so soft, then hungry, until I was wild again, but not with anger, not with fury. His mouth on my throat made me cry out with joy.

He lifted me up and laid me down on his bed, with tender hands running over my body until my face lifted up to his, soft, hopeful. His mouth moved over mine until I was sick with desire, and begged him to join me.

My involuntary cry made him hesitate. He watched my eyes, and then he smiled. My heart turned over; I was filled with joy. I wanted to utter my cry to the stars, but he moved against me and I had no breath even to sigh.

He sleeps. I lie here over him and watch. I hear his heart beat steadily beneath my own. He reached out to me and I took his hand; I pulled him to me when his fears drove me away. I will love him, I will always love him, and I will never forget.

...h.o.m.e...
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