Hold Fast the Knight Read online

  She followed Violette to her workshop and hovered in the doorway herself, watching as Violette began, with brisk economical motions, to strip the leaves off a large branch of rosemary. These were put into a wide and shallow wooden bowl, the start of any number of potential cures. Ariel waited, and when it was clear Violette wasn't going to pick up the conversation, she asked, "Why?"

  "I am a witch, and I am allowed to do anything I please," Violette said. The words were crisp and precise, in a tone so familiar that Ariel almost smiled. It was the exact same thing Violette had said many times when they'd first come to this little hut, when Ariel had been frightened and confused, expecting at any moment to be returned to her family's dubious graces.

  "Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me? Father is never going to forgive you."

  "I'm a witch, and I am allowed to do anything I please."

  Then Violette tossed her head and turned in her chair to look at Ariel. "You like him."

  Ariel narrowed her eyes. The instant response was to deny it―I do not, I hardly know him; I like you better―but she swallowed it down. In spite of the light tone, there was something sharper and brittle in Violette's voice. She sat deceptively relaxed and heavy-eyed, her mouth twisted up into a smile. Five years had softened her in some ways, but her thorns weren't completely blunted. Every now and then she flung barbs like a challenge, and the worst part was, usually she was right.

  So instead, Ariel said, "I think he's a nice boy. I don't want to see him stuck with something he hates. And I don't want him to die." Not like the others.

  Violette sighed. She put the rosemary down and opened her arms, and Ariel took the invitation to cross the room and bend to accept the hug. Violette sighed, deep enough to rock her whole body, and she began to stroke Ariel's hair in small soothing motions.

  "I like him, too," Violette said after a long minute had passed. "If it makes you feel better to hear it."

  Ariel pressed her lips together and turned her face into Violette's neck. "Do you?"

  "He's a far better sort than the others who've come after you," Violette said. "A nice boy, yes. We could make something of him." When Ariel stiffened and started to pull back, Violette tightened her arms and lowered her voice, more soothing than before. "Darling, not like that. I've just got a good feeling about him."

  That made Ariel pause again. Once upon a time, she would have dismissed something like that as a fleeting fancy, even from a witch. She'd always preferred the practical, and she'd be the last to deny her relief that Violette was content working as a simple apothecary. While she could be grateful to magic for some things, for the most part, she was happier not to deal with it.

  But living in the Silver Forest had done wonders for Violette's innate sense of the magical. It came and went in flashes and flare-ups, and always the strongest when she was in her workroom. While she'd never been much of a seer when she'd served Ariel's father, recently... Ariel bit her lip for a moment. "Good enough to bet on?"

  Violette kissed her, quick and sweet, a smile on her lips. There was a gleam in her eyes, and Ariel found herself unable to do anything but smile back, charmed all over again. "Quite."

  *~*~*

  It took a week before Edgar could make it out of bed and limp his way down the stairs. Most of the actual pain had faded during his time resting, which he attributed mostly to the foul-tasting medicines that Violette had forced into him, but that didn't help with the stiffness; all of his muscles ached from disuse. The journey down the stairs alone had taken an embarrassing amount of time, his hand white-knuckled against the wall the whole time, but he'd managed to reach the small dining table and seat himself without incident. Ariel had smiled at him, and Violette had ruffled his hair briefly as she passed him, which was the best he could hope for.

  The meal itself passed quietly, and afterward, Ariel rose to her feet and went to fetch a couple of baskets. When she returned, she handed him the smaller one and smiled when he looked at her questioningly.

  "We'll go slowly," she said, then gestured for him to follow her. He glanced once at Violette and received a shrug and a wink instead of an answer. So he shrugged and got to his feet and followed Ariel out to her garden.

  Once he stepped outside, he had to stop and take a deep breath, smiling as something in his chest unknotted. Everything smelled green and sharp, with the beginning of late-morning heat creeping in, and it comforted him more than he expected. When he opened his eyes, Ariel was a short distance away, smiling back at him.

  "Come on," she said, and he followed. For the first half hour he was content to just follow around after her, listening to her soft voice as she pointed out individual plants. Calendula, for cleaning wounds. Lemon balm, for stomachs. Lavender for the mind.

  "Did it take long to learn?" he asked, as she broke a peppermint leaf in two and handed one half to him to chew. "It doesn't seem like a princess kind of thing."

  "Several months," she admitted. She brushed her hair back with the back of her wrist and left a faint smudge of dirt behind, dark against her olive skin. When she smiled, it was bright and unselfconscious as anything he'd ever seen. It felt like being home in a way, more comfortable than he could remember being in a long time. "I'm still learning. It was all completely new. But I was an eager student."

  "Seems fun," he said.

  "It is. But a quiet fun." She hesitated for a beat, as if unsure, then added, "Not the sort of dramatic adventures a knight would have."

  "That's okay, too." He crouched down now, ignoring the faint twinge in his back, and watched as she pulled a squat trailing weed out of the ground. It came free in a shower of rich dirt and the sudden, bright smell of bruised vegetation. This, too, was familiar. "If you didn't have things like this, then you'd never know what you were fighting for. Perspective."

  She shot him a quick look and then chuckled. The sound was low and warm. When she shifted her weight, it was to move closer to him, so that their arms brushed together. The contact sent a pleasant tingle through him, and he found himself smiling back, pleased as anything by the look on her face.

  "You're a very strange man," she said. The warmth in her voice lingered, even when she turned back to weeding. "None of my father's men ever talked about things like that."

  Edgar hesitated, curling his fingers deep around the base of a trailing weed. He tugged gently, feeling the resistance of the roots in the earth. "No?"

  "No." Ariel ducked her head further for a moment, then peered back up at him through her lashes. "Not at all. I wish they had, though. Maybe it would have been easier."

  It was on the tip of his tongue to say something more to that. I'm glad they didn't, or else we wouldn't be here. Does this make me a poor candidate after all? Where would we be otherwise? But he swallowed the words, unwilling to ruin the moment with doubts. Instead, he shook his head briefly, meeting her smile with one of his own, and turned his attention back to the garden work.

  The rest of the morning passed quietly, the heaviest of the conversation pushed to the side in favor of instruction. Pull these, save those. We're collecting the smallest of leaves, see how they curl? See how they're so pale compared to the larger leaves? These are what we need.

  When they came in to rest, though, Violette pounced. As soon as the door swung shut, she was there, snatching the basket from Ariel's arms and nodding at Edgar. "You, follow me," she said, and swept off. Though she was still dressed plainly, she still managed it with dramatic flair, as if she expected to be trailed by stardust and sparks. He exchanged a brief look of amused confusion with Ariel, then limped obediently after Violette, his own basket still in his arms. For how fast she walked, though, she never seemed to go so fast he lost sight of her.

  "You'll be with me this afternoon," she called to him over her shoulder as she led him into a scaled-down version of the kitchen. It had its own small fireplace and cauldron set up, already bubbling over a low flame. The whole room smelled so intensely green―even stronger than in the garden�
��that Edgar sneezed and fumbled with his burden. It was high and short and sharp, like a kitten's sneeze. Violette looked oddly delighted by that.

  "Just set it down there," she said. "There's a place for you to sit, I need you to be nearby, but not in the way. There's a love."

  The last came out distracted as Edgar set his basket down on an already-crowded table and went to sit as directed. She was already moving, collecting her a large flat pan and an intimidatingly large knife from where they hung against the wall. He watched in fascination as she bustled back and forth, a sudden barely controlled whirlwind of motion.

  Unlike Ariel, with her quiet, measured explanations when they were needed, Violette chattered nonstop, peppering her words with questions―so how old are you, Sir Would-Be Knight? you lived on a farm? what did you say your father's name was? oh, him, I remember him, he had quite the nasty temper sometimes, go boil some water for me, won't you? and bring me the dried calendula, the orange ones, good boy―and if it sometimes took Edgar a few seconds to parse through her wall of words and answer, she never seemed to mind.

  After about half an hour, she poured a strong-smelling watery paste into the pan and set it on a clever little shelf fitted over the steaming mouth of the cauldron. It was mostly dark green, broken up by the occasional flash of orange and yellow. She lingered, passing her hand over the mix, and Edgar saw something white flash between her fingers. When she looked up and caught him watching, she grinned at him, a flash of even white teeth.

  "Magic," she told him, in answer to the question he hadn't yet voiced. "A little, just enough to make sure things work like they should." She made a brief return to her workspace, then crossed the room back to him, shoving a mortar and pestle into his hands. The former was already full of a mess of seeds and bruised leaves, glowing with a faint violet light. Obediently, he took it up and began to grind, the way he'd seen his mother do. Violette crossed her arms and hitched her hip against the table, watching him.

  "Not bad," she said after a minute. "Tell me, did you have hedge-witches where you grew up?"

  "A couple," Edgar said. The concoction was beginning to smell cloyingly sweet; he could taste it in the back of his throat with every breath. "They'd never show me any magic, even when I asked. Said it was too important to waste on kids."

  Violette snorted. She paced a wide half circle around him a couple of times before she stopped where she started, arms folded. "They probably didn't know real magic," she said. "You'd be surprised at how many don't. But now you're with a true master."

  "I know," he said, and he managed not to smile at the brief moment of surprise on Violette's face, and the way the tip of her nose went pink. "Ariel's said some nice things about what you do."

  "Ariel is biased," Violette huffed, then ducked her head to look at him up through her lashes. "What do you think?"

  "I think all of this is kind of magic, really," he said. "It's nice."

  "Nice?" She narrowed her eyes and set her jaw. Part of him was surprised she didn't puff her cheeks and kick her feet. He had to bite the inside of his cheek before his expression gave anything away. "Just nice?"

  "Very nice," he added, and this time he did smile to see her huff and strut before she whirled back to some other project on her worktable. The strange thought struck him that, for all that she had dressed down and severe in comparison to her more flamboyant, revealing clothes, she was much more compelling to watch like this, in a beloved element and working hard.

  It was nice. Comfortable. He could be happy like this.

  *~*~*

  Two weeks passed in that easy schedule: mornings with Ariel in the garden, afternoons with Violette in her workshop. Meals were shared, even when it was nothing more than bread and cheese eaten standing up in the crowded, controlled chaos of Violette's workroom. Edgar's legs and back still ached occasionally, especially whenever he moved too fast, but those instances were growing fewer and farther between.

  Once, and only once, he ventured out by himself, to the little copse of trees in the backyard. There were three white trees again, as before, but the bones were gone. The relief was strong enough to make his knees weak, and he leaned up against a tree to catch his breath. As he stood there, his head tipped back, he heard another low murmuring whisper, but when he looked around, there was no sign of anything, anywhere.

  While he never mentioned it to either Ariel or Violette, he did his best to remember those who came before me in his nightly prayers. Just in case.

  And in the evenings, after dinner, he followed Ariel and Violette out to sit on the porch in green-scented dimness following sunset. Ariel would sit by patiently as he pulled his shirt off―there had been a couple of points where she'd just tried to take it off for him, and that had been too embarrassing to think on too closely―and sit patiently as she rubbed an herbal, bitter-smelling salve into his back, along the knots of his spine. Sometimes they were silent as she worked; others had conversation, and Edgar could not honestly say when he'd last felt so comfortable with anyone, or anything.

  But when the end of the month arrived, Violette declared that Edgar wasn't fit enough to uphold his part of their agreement, and he couldn't help the flare of indignant reaction.

  "I feel fine," he protested, which was mostly true. Whatever was in the salves that Ariel rubbed into his back seemed to work real magic on his abused body. It still hurt if he moved too suddenly, but otherwise, he felt more mobile than he had before his tumble. "How hard can a patrol be?"

  "I am not sending you out to get your legs chewed off by angry ghosts," Violette snapped. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him, unblinking and intent. "You need at least another month."

  "I'm fine," he said, with more exasperation than he meant to show. "Actually, I feel pretty fantastic. And I promised you, at the end of the month―"

  "It doesn't have to be this month," Violette said. "Just the end of a month. We did not patch you up just to send you back to the lions, Edgar; come on!"

  Edgar nearly snapped back when a realization struck him. "Edgar?"

  "Yes?" Violette's scowl deepened. "That's your name. What about it?"

  It was amazing how quickly his anger drained at that; he saw the realization on Ariel's face, though she bit her lip to keep herself quiet. "You just called me by my name."

  "I did not," Violette said, as if the blatant contradiction would make the statement true. Her eyes went wide and she made a few sharp vague gestures with both hands. "Why would I―why are you smiling like that?"

  Edgar held up both hands, still grinning helplessly. "You called me Edgar," he said, savoring it, and he couldn't keep the warmth from his voice. Violette's eyes went even wider before she made a strangled noise of sheer frustration and spun on her heel, storming off. He caught a brief glimpse of her face going bright pink, and he could only grin wider as he listened to her footsteps fade.

  When she was gone, Ariel laughed.

  "I did the same thing, when she slipped for me," she confided, and they shared a conspiratorial grin. "She pouted for nearly a week."

  "It's cute," he said, almost marveling. "She doesn't even notice, does she?"

  "She doesn't, and don't you dare tell her," Ariel said. She made a move toward him, paused, then finished it, reaching to take his hand and swinging it gently. "That's part of her charm." Her fingers pressed against his, almost a caress. "It's a good sign, though. It took her a lot longer to start using mine. I'm a little jealous."

  It wasn't quite what he expected, and it didn't feel particularly right. When he frowned, though, Ariel just smiled back, something hooded and knowing in her eyes. She leaned forward to kiss his cheek, a light and lingering touch, and finally Edgar nodded and squeezed her hand. The contact helped, embarrassing as it was to admit that even in his own head.

  "Sorry," he said, blurting the word out before he could quite stop it. "I never meant, I didn't want to actually make trouble or anything, I haven't―"

  "Edgar," Ariel said firmly, a
nd she took his face in both hands, squeezing. She leaned forward until their foreheads touched, close and warm. When Edgar took his next breath, it tasted like soap and the summer greenery of Ariel's garden. "It's fine. It's fine. Violette will be fine, and I am fine, and you don't need to worry. Understand?"

  Edgar swallowed. A moment later, he nodded. He touched one of the hands on his face with his fingertips, and finally managed a smile of his own. "All right."

  "Good," she said, and she kissed his cheek before slipping away, down the hallway after Violette. Edgar touched his forehead and felt his smile grow wider. All of his irritation had melted away again. It amazed him, a little, how easily that had happened.

  "All right," he mumbled again to the empty room. "All right."

  *~*~*

  "You're coming with me," Violette said the next morning, as she swept into the room for breakfast. "Both of you."

  Edgar startled, but managed not to drop his mug. "What?"

  "You heard me," Violette said. She'd traded her practical work clothes for something closer to what she'd worn, the day he'd arrived: a dress with a sweeping train and a neckline that dipped low enough to show off the top curves of her breasts, though thankfully no lower than that. Even so, Edgar had to avert his eyes for a moment, blushing. "We've got enough for a trip, and we're running low on things we need. It'll be good to have another set of hands. Eat, and we're going."

  She was gone again before Edgar could say any more to that. He looked at Ariel, who was smiling down at her plate.

  "Really?" he asked.

  "It won't be so bad," she said. "We like to make a day of it when we go. You'll like it, I think." She looked up at him and then paused, cocking her head. "Edgar?"

  "It is safe, right?" he asked, hesitant and embarrassed both. "They don't know about Violette being a witch, or you?"