Page 113 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy
The torch’s light strobed between red and white and an unusual grey-violet. It stuck upon the latter.
The torch beam illuminated a distinctive splatter down the side of Fairhrim’s skirt. Her eyebrows rose.
So much for Osric’s secret.
He thought it best to disappear.
In the days that followed,Osric’s tacn was remarkably quiet on the Fairhrim front. Did she think about him as much as he thought of her?
He bloody well hoped so.
She had looked like an ice queen in that dress, beautifully adornedby the frost of the pearls. What a sight to behold. Osric’s acquisitiveness shifted into wanting more of that. To adorn beauty with more beauty. To offer tribute.
Rosefell Hall was filled with room upon room of treasures. He had so many things to give.
His heart danced.
This was bad.
“Aurienne,” he said to himself. “Aurienne.”
Aurienne. Three syllables. The shortest love song.
This was very bad.
Things were less quiet on every other front. There was a shudder of instability in the Tiendoms. Some of the Orders were making trouble. The Head of the Wardens had apparently stormed up to the Dumnonian queen’s throne with her axe bared, accusing her of being responsible for the Pox. The queen called the accusation treason. The Warden Order pulled its members from keeps throughout Dumnonia and retreated to Tintagel Castle. The neighbouring Tiendoms of Wessex and Dyfed observed with interest as the Dumnonian queen’s fortifications were suddenly manned by mere men, not Wardens.
The Kentish queen fell gravely ill. Kent housed the Hedgewitches. These two points were discussed side by side in pubs all over the Tiendoms; few were brave enough to suggest a more explicit causal link. Poor Kentish queen. It was a chest issue, apparently—a fungal infection. Osric gleaned that the Kentish queen’s letters had made their way out of Fairhrim’s satchel and into the hands of the Hedgewitch Order. He also gleaned that Hedgewitches oughtn’t be crossed.
In Kent, Dumnonia, and Mercia, ley lines grew spotty, and any engines that failed took ages to be fixed. Rumour had it that the Leyfarer and Ingenaut Orders had blacklisted those three Tiendoms, but no one knew why.
Pubs were also abuzz with a fresh tale of strife between the Agannor and Haelan Orders, who had apparently gone for each other’s throatsat the Stánrocc. A member of the Agannor Order had been found murdered in an abandoned asylum. The asylum held over fifty Pox-infected children, kidnapped Swanstone nurses, and the remains of a Dreor. The Haelan Order demanded an explanation. The Dreor Order was absent. The Agannor Order claimed ignorance, but demanded justice for their dead member. An autopsy revealed two wounds suggesting expert knife work, which in turn suggested the Fyren Order. The Fyren Order denied knowledge and asked in what possible circumstance they would murder a fellow Dusken Path walker in aid of the Haelan. All had retreated in dissatisfaction from the Stánrocc.
Sacramore—and, in the shadows behind him, Tristane—handed out job after lucrative job to Osric and his colleagues. Political instability made their Order rich. The only Fyren who wasn’t profiting from the moment was Lady Windermere, who had disappeared. Speculation ran rampant among the Fyren that she’d abandoned the Order entirely on her obsessive search for Brythe’s killer. Or that she had died of a broken heart. Osric encouraged these rumours as though he hadn’t seen Windermere’s brains froth out of her head with his own eyes.
Aurienne—Fairhrim—broke the silence between their tacn about a week before August’s full moon.
Osric and Fairhrim’s deofol exchanged their usual greetings (“Gumboil,” said Osric; “Inbred he-goat,” said the deofol).
“My mistress says she forgives you for the latest crime of passion.” Fairhrim’s deofol looked grim. “I don’t know what that means, and I don’t want to know.”
“We discovered a shared enjoyment of the opera,” said Mordaunt.
“Right,” said the genet. “For the next healing, you’re to meet her at the Rummy Thing at sundown, the day of the Thunor moon.”
“The Rummy Thing? Again? We’ve already tried the South Downs. It was one of our first attempts—and a failure.”
He expected an aggressive explanation, but the genet was more serious and subdued than usual. “It’s a launching point, actually. You’ll begoing to the Isle of Stígr. No waystones and no boats go that way. Aurienne has hired a Leyfarer for transport. He’s got his own leycraft. He’ll be picking you two up at the pub.”
“A Leyfarer with his own craft? That must’ve cost her a fortune.”
“No, he owes her. She preserved the use of his tacn after an accident. He was pleased to be called upon.”
“Ah.”
“The healing is to take place at midnight, on the island. Given the successes at the Begbéam and Hunig moons, Aurienne has high hopes. The Isle of Stígr is a potent location by all accounts. Five ley lines meet near it.” The deofol twitched its whiskers. “Aurienne is pleased with your progress. For reasons that escape me, she genuinely cares about you.”
“I’ve done her a few good turns,” said Osric. “And she’s done the same for me.”
