Gray stood by the window of the reception parlor outside of the king’s study and stared out the window at Sir Wesley and Lady Jennica. That, he thought, was what love was supposed to be like. The shy fluttery smiles mixed in with conversation that was never quite stilted. He clutched the window frame for a moment, his stomach a churning mess. He’d felt like that, once upon a time. Bailey’s face flickered in front of him and he blinked rapidly, the last thing that he needed right now was to get the issues confused.

“Lady Tiffany? Why do you always tell me what she said? What does she know?” Gray heard Lady Fiona’s voice rise sharply. He couldn’t hear Lock’s reply, but apparently it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “She’s an architect, that doesn’t make her all knowing about interior design.”

And he was pretty sure that that was not a way that love was supposed to be like. Lock was his king, son of his lord, and someone to whom Gray’s loyalty was settled on unwaveringly. He would have followed Lock into hell itself with hardly a thought. And certainly Gray didn’t know anything about picking a consort for a king, but so far he was not nearly as impressed with Lock’s lady as Lock seemed to be.

But that was a dangerous path, because it brough him full circle, to the young man currently laying in Gray’s guest room, probably asleep or if not floating in and out of a sedated haze. Lady Kennedy had told him that it was probably better that way.

“Your majesty.” The argument from the next room had apparently come to it’s close because the next thing that Gray heard was the door opening. “Lord Gray.” Lady Fiona said, a cool light tone, as if she hadn’t been yelling loud enough for Gray to hear her in the next room–over the king’s not unimpressive sound muffling spells–just moments before.

“Lady Fiona.” He turned from the window and bowed. She breezed past with little more than a smile. Lock stuck his head out the door after the sitting room door closed. “She’s gone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Oh–did you hear that?”

“Aye, your majesty.” Gray said. Lock sighed.

“She wants me to paint the dining hall.” Gray looked at him quizzically. “She says it’s depressing. I’ll grant it’s not a cheery room, but…”

“I thought Lady Tiffany’s thoughts on leaving it as was were quite sound.” Gray said, neutrally.

“Me too. Did you find Tate?” Lock asked, peering past the scarlet curtains at the courtyard.

“Aye, he’s–at my house–with Lady Kennedy, highness.” Gray said, surprised at the tentativeness in his own voice.

“Oh, gods! Was–was he hurt, what happened?”

“If it’s all the same to you, your majesty, for Tate’s sake, perhaps we should speak of this in private. He looked at the wall shared with the library. There was a standing invitation to all of the Crestians that they could use the library at any time. It was both too early and too late for the visitors they usually got, but still.

A stricken look shot across Lock’s face, but he turned and lead Gray to the study. Lock seated himself in the single chair on the other side of the desk and waved Gray into one of the chairs by the fireplace.

“Now, about Tate?” The king leaned forward a little, his blue eyes sparking a little with intensity.

“He was at his house when I got there, in the barn–in Dumpling’s stall actually–when I got there. Although he was quite obviously distressed, he wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.” Gray, chewed on his lip for a second.

“That’s not unlike Tate.” Lock said, scrubbing his hand across his stubble.

“No.” Gray agreed, if only he told people more, perhaps–but then again perhaps not. He couldn’t know, not any more than he could know that if he’d said something that morning half a lifetime ago, what it would have changed. “But it was obvious something was wrong. I sent him to my house and went and got Lady Kennedy. She gave him something to calm him down a little.”

“So did you find out what happened?” Lock was playing with the quill on his desk. A nervous habit that tended to get ink on him, his desk, and anything else on the desk, but Gray couldn’t find it in himself to scold about it.

“Tate’s been trying to court Lady Zahrah.” Gray said.

“I know, Master Jarrett and Wesley have both commented on it.” Lock looked thoughtful for a moment. “But Lady Fiona and Lady Jennica have both commented that she is much more interested in Alistair.”

“Aye.” Gray couldn’t help snarling out the word. Lock’s eyes narrowed and he abandoned the quill to lean back in his chair and steeple his fingers together. “Well, apparently ever since Lord Dolph’s wedding, the two of them have been at odds over this.”

“That long? And he never said anything?” Lock said.

“Think back to your first love affair, Lock.” Gray snorted.

“If you mean that pathetic–thing I had with Lady Emma. I wouldn’t call it a love affair.” Lock laughed.

“Still, you were at the time, quite heartbroken that she didn’t return your affections.” Gray pointed out. Lock snorted. “Would your uncle have been your first choice of confidant?”

“Uncle Phillip?” Lock asked. Gray nodded. “Okay, no, I wouldn’t have. So what did Alistair do about this?”

“His usual way of handling rivals.” They had both known Alistair growing up. He had been a bully since the first time that Kennan had brought him to court when he was hardly old enough to lace his own breeches, and a cruel one. His pattern had always been one of escalation. At first just taunts or a bit of shoving, if that didn’t work, he’d keep getting crueler, more ruthless. Lock was quiet for a minute then nodded.

“I’m guessing he tried that with Tate?” Lock said.

“Aye.”

“And he’s been sitting there suffering, right under our noses. Damn it.” Lock exhaled a long sigh. “But there’s more isn’t there?”

“Oh–aye.” Gray agreed. “Butterscotch recently had kittens, and I guess that Tate decided that he would give one of them to Lady Zahrah. And I guess that Alistair saw the two of them together.”

“Go on.”

Gray stared at the carpets on the floor. Tate’s dull, slightly slurred voice in his head, telling him of how he had been in the barn when Alistair had approached. How Alistair had told him that he wasn’t an unreasonable man, that he would even offer Tate a compromise on the subject of Lady Zahrah.

Even with the sedative in him, Tate’s voice had become near hysterical as he recounted what Alistair viewed as a compromise. Gray hadn’t thought himself a completely unworldly sort of man, but apparently he was quite provincial compared to what Alistair had been doing.

“What sort of man offers–that?!” Lock asked, his voice a shocked mix of bewilderment and growing anger. “How–how can you even–say something like ‘I’ll let you get the girl if you’ll–you’ll–go to bed with me’?”

Oh, but it got worse. Not only had Alistair said it, he then proceeded to, in stark detail, voice just exactly what he’d do to Tate. Gray’s stomach clenched and he half wondered if he’d be sick–and it hadn’t even been said to him. Just repeated by a shell-shocked voice by the boy who’d actually had to live it.

All of this had been accompanied, Tate informed he and Lady Kennedy dully, by Alistair standing too close, touching his arm, his hair, his face. He told them how he’d tried to shove Alistair away, but the former noble had simply crowded him closer to the wall, trapping him.

“Gods.” Lock hissed. “Is–is that all.”

“That’s all he said, Lock. And Lady Kennedy advised me against pushing it.” Gray admitted. “But–given the way Tate got more hysterical, the longer he talked, somehow I doubt it.” Lock nodded sharply before pushing up out of his chair.

Gray watched as the king drew his fist back and slammed it into the wall by the window.

“I’ll kill him.” The king said bowing his head “You don’t–Gray–tell me honestly–do you think Alistair–raped him?”

“No. Lady Kennedy said the physical signs of a sexual assault weren’t there. I’m not sure what signs would have been there–but she said you would have been able to tell if Alistair had–p-penetrated him. But, she did say that–he could have, with what was there, done just about everything short of–that.” Gray said. “And–she said that he definitely–mind fucked Tate.” Lock hissed a sob in between his teeth.

“How could all of those people die and he lived. Tell me, you’re the priest, Gray, how the fuck could the gods let something like that happen. All of those good people, Gray, all of them dead and some disgusting thing like him live.” Lock said.

“I don’t think that’s the Gods’ jurisdiction. I don’t think the Gods put numbers up on the tally board. We have our choices, Lock, and the Gods let us make them. Sometimes people make bad ones.” Gray said after a long minute.

“How will I ever face Tate again? I failed him, Gray.” Lock said. And what did you say to that?

“I think, Lock, if you could never face Tate again, it’d be worse for him. He–he would probably think he disgusted you.” Gray said.

“He probably would, wouldn’t he?” Lock sighed. “And he doesn’t deserve that.” The king was silent for a long moment. “Can I at least turn Alistair into a pig?”

“And you two complain about me being a slug-a-bed.” Alistair commented with a look over his shoulder at the curtained alcove where Jarrett was asleep.

“Because you sleep in every morning.” Sawyer retorted. “Jarrett’s up before the sun most mornings, if he chooses to go to bed early, he can.” Although, Sawyer couldn’t help but look over his shoulder also, though not with disdain, with worry. The closer they got to midwinter, the worse Jarrett was doing.

—

Jarrett burrowed a little deeper into the covers on the bed, he could sort of hear the murmurs of conversation from the other room, but it faded to soft shushing like the waves against the rocks at the edge of Lake Haven. The smell of apple wood slowly morphed into the heady smell of lavender, and night became day. Jarrett was dreaming, in some vague way he knew that he was dreaming, it only remained to see what the dream would do.

The cottage had stood on a hill covered in lavender, even though the plants were no more than hillocks of snow at the moment, he knew the way they’d poke up come spring, their scent carrying on the breeze for what seemed like forever when the blooms came. He remembered the whimsical little railing, the rough stone base. The way the thatching lay on the roof. The way the wooden rails broke up the whitewashed plaster. The lace curtains as they hung in the front windows.

The smell of Ivy’s soup as he opened the front door. The familiar warmly papered hall. He could hear Rosie’s feet clattering on the wooden stairs, running down the stairs to greet him with the smell of dried petals surrounding her.

“Papa! Papa!” A whirlwind of rose pink and long, shimmering hair descended upon him.

“My Rosie-girl!” He bent to hug her.

“Papa, I taught Frankie how to build a town! Just like you taught me!” The six-year-old looked up at him with his eyes. “Do you want to see our town?”

“Surely. I’ll even bet your town is even better than my town was.” Jarrett told his daughter.

“I don’t know, your town was an awful good town.” Rosie said skeptically.

“Well, let me decide. I’ll be fair.”

“You can decide after supper,” Ivy’s voice, which sounded like honey tasted and cinnamon smelled, cut through Rosie’s excited chatter.

“Mama has spoken.” Jarrett said gesturing his daughter past with with a bow.

The kitchen, the stone walls, the hearth with it’s big iron pot. These things were so clear he thought that maybe perhaps he could reach out and touch the walls and feel the familiar smooth roughness. Maybe…

Did Ivy look more tired? He wondered when he had missed it, from the vague disconnected portion of his mind that knew that this was a dream, a memory. If he had just seen that she was sick, before–before…

It had been a very good town. That wasn’t even just a papa talking, although, perhaps there was a little bit of “papa pride” involved. He remembered standing, watching. Watching his children, watching Frankie slip the foot of one of the wooden dolls into his mouth and gnaw just a little, knowing that there’d be hell if Rosie caught him at it. But in the solidarity of little brothers who had older sisters, Jarrett wouldn’t rat Frankie out.

They’d played for a long time and Jarrett had just watched them with indulgence and fatherly pride, his lips twitching with a smile when Frankie had finally slipped up and Rosie had caught him with the toy in his mouth. But of course when Rosie looked up at him, he’d schooled his features into a solemn expression befitting the lecture.

But all to soon, both for Jarrett’s children and for the dream Jarrett, it was time for bed. First Frankie into his crib with it’s bright striped fabric and then Rosie into her bed.

Ivy had been waiting in the parlor like always, her needlework slipping into the basket beside her when he appeared in the door. Those eyes, like the leaves of her namesake, sparkled just a little as he came into the parlor.

“Do I want to know what’s out in the village today?”

“No.” Jarrett said.

“It’s bad isn’t it.”

“All we can do, love, is hope. Hope the gods haven’t forgotten us.” He pulled her into his shoulder and smiled as she smiled.

The dream-memory melted into another, laying on the bed, Ivy’s head against his shoulder, the smell of her hair thick in his lungs. His lips brushed across her temple and he held her closer. He knew that he needed to get out of bed, knew that he had work, chores, the shop to tend. But the dream Jarrett, the one who knew that he would not have too many more mornings like that urged him to stay in bed that morning, to hold her as long as he could.

Then it melted again, to his Rosie-girl, just she and he in the kitchen, Rosie’s chatter more subdued than usual, neither of them looking at the empty chair, but so hyper-aware of it that it might as well have loomed ten foot tall.

“Papa, after breakfast, can I visit mama? I wanna give her my new drawing.” Rosie asked.

“Aye. She’ll like that.” Jarrett remembered agreeing, anything that would bring Ivy some sunlight. She seemed so much weaker these days, the heart half out of her as it had been since little Frankie had gone off to the priests. He worried for his son, but he worried for his Ivy too.

“Mama?”

“Aye, Rosie-girl?” The smile Ivy gave her was almost her old one. It was the almost that broke Jarrett’s heart. As if he knew then that her smile would never again be quite as it had once been.

“Are–are you?” Suddenly the little girl pulled her hand out of her mother’s grasp and ran for the door. Jarrett followed her into the upstairs hall, a tiny little pocket of a room with room for absolutely nothing in it besides the stairwell and a few pictures. Rosie was sobbing into her hands and Jarrett knelt beside her.

“Rosie, my Rosie girl.” He murmured to her.

“Mama’s sick. Mama’s sick, like Frankie’s sick! Like everybody’s sick! Is Mama gonna go to the priests too? Cause the people in the village, they say once you go to the priests you never come home.”

“Oh, your mama is stronger than that. And Frankie–well, I wish, baby I could tell you that Frankie’ll be okay too, but if the Gods want Frankie with the angels…”How could you explain this to a child. He couldn’t explain this to himself.

“I hate the Gods, Papa! What kind of Gods take everybody away?” She interrupted with a wail as he smoothed her hair, her mouth spewing out what Jarrett hadn’t even been allowing himself to think.

His heart was breaking for her and he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t say that some days he hated the Gods too. Well, not hate, he didn’t understand them. What did this plague even prove? What had it done? What had caused it–why?

He waited for words to come, the desperate need for Papa to fix. But they didn’t come, they never came.

She had eventually pulled away, leaving Jarrett to stare after her as she disappeared down the stairs. He started to go back to talk to Ivy who called for him.

No, he struggled and fought, don’t let me remember that. The dreaming Jarrett thought tossing on the narrow bed. No! He wouldn’t remember Rosie’s crumpled form, his sister’s voice telling her that they’d had to send Rosie, his beautiful Rosie girl to the priests. No!

He wouldn’t remember breaking down when they told him that Frankie was gone. He wouldn’t remember Ivy, nearly to weak to feed herself climbing out of bed, using every ounce of strength to make it to the hall where he stood sobbing, to comfort him.

He wouldn’t remember her asking him to fight this, to stay, to live.

Jarrett could fight off those memories. He could and he would, even in the dreams. He woke then, woke to the sound of Alistair’s snoring, to the sound of the cattle lowing softly in the barn below.

He pulled himself out of bed and dressed, then stumbled down to the water bowl to splash some water on his face. And there, with the water in the bowl acting like a mirror, he saw one last memory.

The house had been eerily silent. Only the soft crackle of fire and hiss of snow to off-set his heavy footsteps. He opened the door to the nursery, pausing for a moment to look at the town that they had built the day Frankie had passed. Then he closed it once more and headed for the kitchen. There was a single bowl on the table. His, from that morning.

It was almost like a geas that he’d clean it up, wash the counter. Take one last deep breath and wrap himself in the warm memories of the house. Not the sad ones. He’d take the good ones.

Just the good ones.