A Promise of Iron by Brandon McCoy (the reading list .txt) 📕

shoulder. “Rukborn, aren’t you? And an officer no less.”

“Half-Ruk,” I corrected. “And only first sword. I just earned my stars a few days back.”

“I didn’t know Lord Monroe much, got to know his wife though, bless her quin. Didn’t think he was the kind of man to go around making bastards with the natives.”

Sam grunted.

“What?” she said, turning towards him. “You think he doesn’t know he’s a bastard or a Ruk? Sass and bother, Sam, that’s what you’re good for; now save us all your spite and go unload the cart.”

Lira stepped out from the hallway, wearing the green dress she used to cover herself.

Tabitha’s wrinkled face flushed with a wide grin. “Well, aren’t you just the prettiest...? Sam get a look at… SAM!”

She turned to yell at him, but he was already halfway to the cart. She waved her hand dismissively. “Never mind him, dear. My, oh my, that dress on you, child. You remind me of… Oh, listen to me prattle. Why don’t you two get cleaned up while I get supper started? There will be plenty of time to chit chat when the guests arrive.

“Guests?” I asked. “Sorry but we…”

“Oh, of course, dear, the whole town is coming. It’s tradition to hold a feast for your new lord now, isn’t it? Not a word about it, you’ll have a proper Rukish welcome.”

I turned to Lira. She grinned.

Chapter Thirty and Nine

Summer 1272, Cyllian Imperial Count

“How is the water, my lord?” Lira asked from the other side of the wicker screen.

“Delightful, my lady,” I said. “And yours?”

“Oh, splendid, splendid,” she said as she splashed around in her tub. “I may never leave this place.”

I took the bucket into my bath, filled it halfway, then dumped it over my head. “Certainly beats the shop, no more lugging water in from the fountain.”

I unwrapped the bandage on my hand and leg. My hand was nearly healed, so was my leg, thanks to Quin’s alchemical ministrations. I lathered the soap in my hands and cleaned both thoroughly.

“Pray, my lord,” Lira said. “Are you naked over there?”

“No,” I replied. “I figured I would wash my clothes at the same time.”

“A perfectly Rukish thing to do,” she called back. “How very practical.”

“See, that is where you are wrong,” I said in a professorial tone. “We Ruks take our baths quite seriously, it’s a very social thing. We would never sully that with laundry or do something so prim as to install a privacy screen between them.”

“It’s a pity it’s here too,” she said. “I’m quite naked in this luxurious one-person tub.” I could see her stretch her leg, peeking out over the edge of the screen. She wiggled her toes.

“We would never have built something so foolish as a one-person tub either,” I said. “Takes all the fun out of it.”

“Is that so? And what sort of fun would a charming lord as yourself be planning in a tub meant for two?”

“Who said I would stop at two?” I teased.

Water sailed over the screen, splashing all around me.

“I hope I doused that fat head of yours,” she said.

I sighed and let the warm water soak into my body. Calm silence settled in between our tubs.

“I’m scared,” she said as if admitting it to herself for the first time. “I haven’t the slightest idea of what to do next. Do I stay and face him? Do I run and hope he never finds me?”

“Running doesn’t work,” I said. “Somehow, they always catch up to you.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Gods, I wish he could just see…”

“Some people are blind by choice,” I said. “They see only what they want to see.”

She grew quiet. I did my best to respect the silence.

“Do you ever miss the ocean?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“When you were in Cyllia. Do you miss it? The sound of the waves crashing, the fresh air as it blew in from the sea?”

“There isn’t much I miss from that place,” I said.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “His house was in Gardenhill, north of the city. I didn’t get to see the ocean much.”

“I miss it,” she said. “This place reminds me of it for some reason. When we lived in Cyllia, we had a little house on the beach we would stay at during the summer. It was small and only had one bedroom, but we would all crawl into bed together and listen to the waves crash at night. He was different then, my father; he wasn’t this man; he was just…” She trailed off. “He sold it after my mother died. He said there was no use holding onto old things. She was gone, and there was nothing we could do about it.”

“How old were you?”

“I was eight. He was right, though. The next summer, I went to Venticle while Father’s work moved him all around the Empire. We never went back to that beech.”

“What made you think of that? I mean, it was so long ago.”

“It was the last place that felt like home,” she said.

I considered her words. “I’ve called many places home, a street, a field, a shop. I’m not sure any of them ever were. Home, a real home, became something of a promise.”

“Like chasing iron?”

I smiled. “Something like that.”

“What about Ada Cole? Didn’t he..?”

“I loved Ada,” I said. “But he wasn’t a father…. He wasn’t a mother.”

“People are home,” she said, standing up from the bath. “Not bricks or boards or silly shops.”

She stepped across the screen, water dripping from her hair, her legs, her breasts. “Is there room in there for two?”

Chapter Forty

Summer 1272, Cyllian Imperial Count

As it turns out, the town of Alerhold consisted of eight people, Lira and I included, as well as a gaggle of geese, two old goats, and a dusty grey dog named Oats. “Most of the town had moved off over the years,” Tab had said. Died off was the more apt term.

Sam worked a stone-lined pit off the side of the house. Tab shared