Chapter Text
Once the siege and assault of the First Citadel had ceased,
With the city a smoke-heap of cinders and ash,
The monsters’ approach laced with the truest treachery on earth;
Three brothers, sainted hence, there made their stand.
Saint Aaron, with his hammer,
Saint Damien, with his spear,
Saint Ferdinand, with his slingshot.
These our heroes, esteemed above all, turned ash to fertilizer,
Turned the land lush, let it bloom with blisses and blunders
In equal measure.
So sayeth raconteurs for generations; so repeateth I.
The Second Citadel--center of more strangeness than anywhere else I know.
Small wonder that their heroes heat our hearts and move our minds!
This is a tale topsy-turvy and toothsome. Listen, if you like;
I will tell you unerringly how I heard it, from ones who were there.
A rare tale with no mirror; for as no human will tell you I lie, neither will any monster.
Listen. This is as it was, when dwelled here a knight named Arum.
⁂
Arum awoke disoriented, his mouth cotton-dry and his limbs hot. He untangled himself from the bedclothes and poured himself a drink of water from a cut-glass carafe on the nightstand. Less groggy, he took stock of his body, feeling slickness between his legs and supposing his dreams had at least been pleasant ones. There was not enough of the vision in his mind to help himself satisfy the vision in his body, so he squirmed and sighed and hauled himself to his washstand. He was a fine-looking man, Sir Arum, a knight of the crown in the full flower of youth, copper-haired, violet-eyed, with scores of freckles across his body, itself trim and tenacious and well-trained. He was cunning and courageous, more wit and swiftness than brawn, and as loved by the citizens of the Citadel as was his mother, the Queen.
He had a vague feeling there was something he’d forgotten, but there was no gain in dwelling on it, so he pressed on, dressing himself in tight black-and-blue brocade trousers, with a purple-and blue tunic of soft wool over it, and a wine-dark vest laced atop, and boots to match, for there was a bitter chill in the air. He braided his hair into a crown ‘round his head, and finished his fashion with a ring on each hand. On the left, a rosy band with the constellation of his birth picked out in seed pearls, and on the right, silver shaped into a blade-like leaf, delicate diamonds of dew to catch the light.
Our knight had been napping after a hard day, not sleeping overnight, and now it was time to descend to the hall, where the court was assembling to toast the winter solstice. The courtiers were splendid in their splashiest styles, seated before tables groaning with succulent dishes. Arum hied to the high table, kissed his mother’s cheek and settled into his seat. The Queen looked around, and when she was satisfied that all were present, she opened the feast with a musical trill of blessing and cheer, and all stomped their feet and clapped their hands, and clasped their neighbors’ hands or kissed their brows. Each person took up a dish near to them, and served themselves before passing it along. Arum piled his plate with grilled eggplant, marinated mushrooms, carrots roasted in orange juice, crispy potato hash with peppers and garlic, a sourdough roll with cheddar baked into the crust, cranberry chutney, long-grained biryani rich with almonds, and a slice of artichoke quiche. There were desserts to come, he knew, and he had his heart set on coffee-cinnamon cheesecake and a scoop of pomegranate custard alongside.
On Arum’s right was Florian the Fair, holly crowning his dreadlocks and mischief glowing in his eyes, who had been catching all his friends and gifting them sprigs of green, so when the exchange of dishes had stilled, he tapped Arum’s wrist. “You’re the last, so you’ve no choice of plant.”
Arum laughed. “Very well, deal me my fate.” Florian fixed a posy of mistletoe behind the knight’s ear, threading the branch through his braid to anchor it.
“There now, dear friend, winter has come—a time to be shared, yes?”
Sir Arum’s face heated, and he folded his hands to give both his rings a comforting tap. His mother on the other side cast her eye skyward, while her boy stammered and stumbled through a deflection. “I already have—well, no, I suppose you’re right—well, perhaps we shall see.” Florian and his husband made no attempt to hide their laughter, poor Arum’s raspy voice rapid with reluctance. The knight tried to remember his last relationship, but his mind came up blank. He was sure he’d had lovers, his skin seemed to remember what it was to be touched, but he found he could remember neither names nor faces, and puzzled over his own failing, be it carelessness or callousness. It was unnerving, to be sure, and he tried to focus on his food, to bring his merry spirit back. Florian, to his credit, looked somewhat abashed, and offered to swap his crown for the mistletoe, but Arum shrugged it off. It was more festive than suggestive, and if he caught a kiss or two, then very well—let them warm him through.
As the party progressed, Arum’s cheer returned and redoubled, and well it may; for the food was heavenly and the jokes devilish. Once the plates were empty, the Queen indicated via aria that she wanted a volunteer, someone to tell the hall a tale and give them all a pause before dessert made its debut. This was met with grand approval, friends nudging each other. Arum felt a small pang in his chest, an inexplicable certitude that his favored raconteur was not at this regalement. But before the best boaster could stand and put up their hand, the grand double-doors swung inward to unveil a fresh adventure.
There was a fellow in the doorframe of astonishing appearance; little and limber, but biceps and thighs betraying strength as well. He rode astride a reindeer with a glossy chocolate-brown coat and golden baubles in her antlers, and held a recurve bow of wood nearly as dark. And he was handsome as the day, face framed by wind-whipped, snow-kissed curls, eyelashes as long as his deer’s, an elegant set to his posture and an expressive, intelligent mouth. Oh, he was fine, I swear it, but still the hall stared in befuddlement; for the stranger was entirely green.
His skin was the color of summer leaves, and veined in the same branching pattern, and his hair and eyes held the deep gorgeousness of an emerald. He wore a knight’s sides-slit gown of green as well, embroidered in every inch with a tableau of branches intertwining, bursting with birds nesting and bugs buzzing, bark and leaves and buds picked out with particular care which beggared belief. He was cinched at the waist with a green leather belt, wrapped several times round and pinned in place with a golden ornament in the shape of an oak leaf. His legs were clad much the same, in stripy silk leggings of green contrasted with another shade of itself, and when he shifted his arms, you could see the flash of golden mail beneath. His boots were short and shiny, the darkest green of all, laced with golden ribbon almost disarming in its delicacy, and in the side of his nose and the lobes of his ears winked studs of polished jade. There was as well, Arum thought, a crown of flowers in his hair, but as the strange man’s reindeer brought him nearer, her hooves ringing surreally against the marble tile, he realized the honeysuckle blooms were sprouting from the man’s scalp and tangling in his locks; and so his scent was as special and as strange to explain as the rest of him. It was impossible to fear him, when he looked so much like a lord gentle and genteel, but only a monster could have such a bizarre body. And yet…and yet, Arum had to admit, there was something human in his eyes.
The man stopped before the high table and bowed from the saddle. “Gracious Queen,” he greeted, the first voice in the room since his entrance. “Your court is renown; in my land, they speak of your knights’ courage and courteousness as though they have no limit. I find myself in a perplexing pickle; though I am not your subject, will you be generous to a noble traveler and loan me the ears of your knights? I promise to give them back.” He winked charmingly, disarmingly, and Arum folded his arms across his chest. He found the proposition preposterous. Then he glanced to his left, at his mama the queen, her hands clasped in delight before her heart, eyes shining. She trilled her assent, signaling a squire to stable the reindeer and a second to bring the stranger a cushion. Had it been Arum’s choice, he would have let the stranger stand and be brief; but the Queen was keen to hear the broad strokes of the journey he’d braved, and begged to know the stranger’s name before he began. He bowed a second time, hand on his breastbone. “I am Lord Damien of…of the Green Keep, dear Queen, and I have roamed many lands without witnessing such a bevy of bravery and beauty as is present in your courtiers.” He seated himself on the proffered cushion and went on to describe, in lavish detail, the diverse terrains he had trekked betwixt his Keep and her court, the Queen gleeful and glowing with every word.
“And now that I have arrived, honorable Queen, I ask for the attendance of a knight to fulfill a simple favor. It is no threat to life nor limb, but I request a robust man; a lad untested by blade and blood would suit me very ill. No, let it be a seasoned man, strong and steady. It shall behoove me to bestow on your champion a trophy of unparalleled perfection, to testify their triumph and herald my heartfelt gratitude.”
Arum put his head in his hands. “For the sake of all the stars, what is it you want ?”
Lord Damien looked wounded. “I’m getting to it.”
“Slowly, honeysuckle. Like watching a lake freeze over.”
“Is that how you spend your free time? I prefer poetry.”
“Don’t be silly, I like—you’re doing it again!”
“Doing what?”
“Wasting time!
“Is your time so precious, friend knight? I thought this was a party.”
There was a startling sparkle in the lord’s eye, like he had no greater pleasure than to gently provoke Arum in particular. Said knight, frustrated and flustered, found himself pouting with a childish pique. He was conscious of every eye on him; he did not like to converse in public, so often did his words collide and convey coldness where he only wished to be quick and clear. Let Lord Damien hasten his speechifying; it was Arum’s duty to display the honor and courage of the citadel, and deliver the stranger his due. “Forgive me if I don’t find your intrusion relaxing. I’ll take your challenge, if you’ll just hurry up and tell me what it is .”
Lord Damien’s smile became oddly fixed, as if he had not believed he would get this far in a script of his own invention. “Yes, well, I find myself in need of—that is, I’d be very much obliged if—I have come to surrender myself for—oh, listen . I want you to cut off my head.”
Half the court gasped, half the court cheered, and Arum’s mouth went dry. He stood with alacrity, pressing his palms against the reassuring solidity of the old oaken dining table. “Absolutely not.”
Florian tugged at his elbow. “You can’t say no !”
“I’m a knight, not a—a people-killer!”
“Arum. Darling. Pal. That’s not a person, that’s a monster surrendering himself.”
“Yes, but why—”
“Because he’s repented of his wickedness, clearly—”
Damien nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, perfect, I couldn’t have said it better myself! I have indeed reflected on my life of—of just the most euphoric and aesthetically pleasing sinning possible—and realized I cannot stop myself! I need to be stopped by a noble human with great abs and rose-petal lips, it’s the only solution to my rampage of wickedness!” He placed a hand on his forehead and shed a single tear, pathetic and preposterous. Arum tried to pretend it didn’t enhance his prettiness as well. He opened his mouth to protest again—the lord was play-acting, surely had something secreted up his sleeve—but the Queen made a chord of finality. Arum, she indicated, was to escort Damien to the northern courtyard, to arrange for his execution. The courtiers would follow shortly.
Arum swallowed his distaste, deferring to his duty, and joined Damien’s side. As far as Arum was concerned, the terrible task could be completed without delay. Let this illustrate how little he guessed the foliate lord’s thoughts. For Damien inveigled miniscule delays—he wished to make a final prayer, he needed to powder his nose, would Arum begrudge an old man (of no more than thirty years, Arum estimated) one last coffee?
Arum was astute enough to bespy this as blustering, be it born of anxiety or attention-seeking. But he bit his tongue, playing a supporting performer in Damien’s production. His curiosity was up, and even if it was not to be satisfied with a conclusion, the lord’s charade could be extended to prevent the recitation of an already wrung-out braggadocious anecdote. Or worse—without witty entertainment on this longest winter night, the courtiers might connive to engage our knight in the other sense of charades. Or break out the Monotony board. The Exquisite Corpse was fun, but oh, the horrors of limericks were to be avoided at all costs. Participating in procrastination was a small price.
That was what he would have insisted, were he interrogated, for it was not untrue. But the more toothsome truth was that he couldn’t summon the stomach to slay what was, very nearly, a person. Arum was an honorable young man, and I believe he would have felt the same foreboding had the fellow been foul, fetid, or flip; but I have already described Damien, and Arum was far from insensate to his handsomeness, his honeyed scent, and sweeter manners. Every extending request was made with the greatest graciousness, and every thank-you came with an endearing turn of his mouth. Poor Arum was dismayed to find himself much undone.
They were, when this thunderbolt hit him, stood in the center of the Citadel’s courtyard, jolly courtiers joining to see the green man’s beheading. “Do you want anything else?” Arum asked, half-breathless.
“My good knight, you have already offered. I am quite content to proceed,” Damien told him quietly.
“That’s very reasonable!” Arum responded, far too loudly. “I’ll take you to say goodbye to your reindeer, and then I’ll deliver the axe!”
Damien gave him another of those frozen smiles, this time with real fright. “My what? I don’t know any reindeer—oh but of course you saw her, haha, my reindeer , yes, well, she’ll be quite alright, and so will I for that matter, why don’t we carry on?”
Arum gave him a sideways look and insistently looped his arm through Damien’s, pulling him through an archway and around a corner towards the stables. Damien pulled away from him outside the door, ducking his head within and calling out: “Goodbye, dear Rilla, my reindeer!” Arum pushed him inside, furtively panning his peepers to ensure their privacy.
“Listen, Damien, I’m not going to kill you, that’s not the sort of person I am. You’re going to punch me and then ride away on your reindeer, and I’ll tell everyone you were a dirty underhanded monster and escaped. I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but I don’t think you really want to die, and if you do, you should—I don’t know, do monsters have therapists?”
“Oh, I’m not going to die.”
“What?”
“I asked you to cut off my head, I never said anything about killing me.”
“ What? ”
“Does deadheading a plant kill it?”
“I—no—I—was that a pun—damn you—stop making my head spin—where is your reindeer?” The stall she’d been stashed in held her tack and ornaments, but not a shadow, not a whisper of the beast herself.
Damien grabbed Arum’s shoulders. “Don’t think about my reindeer! Think about—about me, what I’m telling you! I…need you to chop off my head because I need seeds from my blood, and it’s the fastest way to get a large quantity. I’ll reattach the head later, it’s no matter.”
“Your blood has seeds in it?! Why journey all this way to find someone to cut it off?”
“I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I’d developed a mad courtly passion for you from tales of your adventures?”
Arum raised one eyebrow. Damien broadened his smile. Arum shook his head. Damien gave his eyelashes a sad, slow bat, visibly trying not to laugh. Arum blushed and cleared his throat.
“You’re trying to distract me. Why is your pulse racing, what is making you panic, honeysuckle? Did your reindeer…go somewhere?”
Damien sobered his face. “If I promise to tell you after you behead me, will you come back to the courtyard? She’s…special, like myself, and your bigoted knights would taste her blood as soon as mine.”
“Except for me.”
“Except for you, Sir Arum.”
Arum had never been an eager or easeful knight; he found it much too difficult to distance himself from the pain he dealt. He would have been happier as a tinkerer or librarian, or even a chef, but he supposed certain paths are sacrificed when you take your first breath as the son of the Queen. He had found fulfillment in nurturing his natural virtues, growing his observative mind and steady hands, his quick tongue, and his original spirit. Privately, he knew his mettle would never meet the might of most knights, for his boldness was stayed by his inglorious mercy. It was a lip-service virtue, but who cares for it when staring into the eyes of an enemy, or of a monstrous enigma?
“If you betray my trust, honeysuckle, I will find the soft parts of your body—”
“So forward!”
“—with my knife .”
“Sounds delightful, I mean frightful.” He held out a hand. “It is time, Arum.”
⁂
Damien knelt and gave Arum a wink before laying his vegetal neck on the block. Arum reached out and swept Damien’s hair to either side, so the lovely curls would not be shorn. He was comforted to find Damien’s leaf-like skin cool and waxy to the touch. If it had been warm, he would have worried the lord would bleed and die after all. Arum hefted the ax he had been brought, a big blade on a shaft half his own height. The crowd of courtiers thrilled for the kill. Arum’s pulse pounded in his ears, and his world narrowed to the scant inches of Damien’s bare neck, his body still and peaceable, and his bright promise that he would not die.
He swung the axe.
A single cut, clean and careful, powerful enough to cleave the spinal column. Damien’s head rolled across the cobbles, vessels leaking a sticky puddle of sap and seeds, like he had split the center of a poppy. The crowd cheered and jeered. The body was still and limp, slumped as though its strings had been severed. Arum wondered if there was any possible revenge to take on a man who tricked you into killing him. He lunged forward, frantically scooping Damien’s head into his arms, knee-walking to his truncated torso to test for a pulse. Before he could lay a hand to his heart, Damien’s limbs started as though shocked, and his palms pressed against the ground, pushing himself into a sitting position. Arum was dimly aware of someone fainting before the courtiers stampeded for the safety of the hall.
In the center of the chaos, he knelt by Damien’s headless form, blood-sap soaking into his trousers, mesmerized by the motion of Damien weaving his fingers together and stretching out his arms. The lord rolled his shoulders, and finally extended his hands to Arum. The knight, brain boggled, misread the gesture, meeting his hands with one of his own, tracing the odd branching veins of Damien’s left palm. Damien squeezed his hand briefly, making a coaxing gesture with his right, and the knight startled, relieved to realize they were at least alone, and sheepishly extended Damien’s head, which had been holding like bread or a baby in the crook of his arm. Damien accepted it, and held it aloft to meet Arum’s eyes, one eye winking. Arum gave a shaky, tinny laugh. Damien smiled sympathetically, and stretched his arms back into Arum’s space, bringing his head to Arum’s face and planting a small, soft kiss on the knight’s cheekbone.
Arum’s cheeks flooded with blood, and he stammered an inarticulate nonresponse. Damien stood, drawing from his garments a small supple leather bag, which he gave Arum with a gesture at its button closure. Arum, grateful for somewhere else to turn his eyes, held the bag open while Damien clicked his fingers in five quick notes. His blood-seed separated from the mess of sap, swirling into the air like a swarm of starlings, and diving into the pouch. Arum very carefully and consciously kept his composure, not dropping it, but sliding the bone button home. He returned it to Damien, who disappeared it into the folds of his clothes before catching Arum’s wrist and pulling him to his feet. The lord tugged gently, and Arum followed him to the stables without complaint.
The knight bolted the door behind them, and sought the shadows for a simple footstool, which he insistently pressed Damien to sit on. He then produced a needle and a length of golden silk from a locked cache of questing supplies. Damien lifted an eyebrow, and then his whole head, holding it steady while Arum sewed neck to neck with delicate stitches. There was, it seemed, nothing in the world save their silent surgery. You will all, I think, be glad this was not so; for now we cry--enter Rilla!
[Illustration by scintillart.]
Arum reasonably assumed the knock at the door came from a nosy courtier, and would not have opened it had Damien not tried to disrupt his handiwork by half-standing with the intent to do exactly that. The knocker was a lady he had never seen before, wrapped in a borrowed horse blanket and beaming with the air of a child who had stolen an apple without being caught. She did not look at all pleased to see Arum, but ducked her antlered head and let him close the door behind her when he bade her to enter. She bent over Damien, inspecting Arum’s stitches and giving the lord’s cheek a brief caress. “Leave it to you to get your head chopped off by the only knight friendly enough to sew it back on for you.” Arum made a dubious hum in his throat--even his friends would not call him friendly. Damien made a distressing airy sound in reply, and the deer woman gave Arum a delegative nod. “Better finish up then, so he can have his throat back.”
He resumed his work. “Are you the reindeer?”
She made a small sardonic curtsy with the edge of the horse blanket, unconsciously giving Arum a generous glimpse of her thigh at the edge of his gaze. Damien made a wheezy chuckle. Our knight nervously applied his needle.
“What’s your name?” It would not have been seemly to sigh, so Arum suppressed the urge.
“I am Sir Arum, of the High Court. What is yours?”
“Secret.”
“That’s not how that works!”
“It is when only one of us is armed.”
Arum cast his eyes skyward, or rather ceilingward, and let the matter lie. He’d already heard Damien call her Rilla, after all.
The deer sat down on a sealed barrel, rustling something in her hands that she hastily hid when Arum glanced in her direction. Like the lord had earlier, she batted her eyes at him, but it ill suited her direct and imperative nature. He laughed, but his eyes held a warning. “So it is a caper your decapitation facilitated. You know I cannot look the other way.”
Damien refuted that claim by gently turning Arum’s face towards himself.
“Wait,” the lady said. “Damien, we’d better let him look, before he does something stupid.” She showed Arum a notebook, well-bound in red-dyed leather. “See, there’s an amaryllis embossed into the cover. That’s my name, it’s my property. All I did was make some notes about the gardens here.” She flipped to a drawing of a distinctive twisted oak tree.
“So I just take your word that you did nothing more?”
“Oh for--he’s impossible. You’re impossible!” She flicked the horse blanket to the floor. “Look! Where could I be hiding anything?” Arum was wildly embarrassed, but determined not to let it interfere. He would, it seemed, have to concede that she hid no stolen item, as he fought to keep his gaze from lingering overlong on any part of her. Her calves tapered to slender ankles, beneath which were pear-shaped hooves. Later, he would realize this allowed her to balance in a human fashion, but in the moment all he could think was whether she had freckles on her ass, and what a humiliating thought that was--she was too mature, and the wrong kind of deer, and he shouldn’t have been thinking about her ass anyway…
Lord Damien clapped a hand over the open side of his throat to make a seal. “Rilla,” he laughed, voice still airy and wrong, “the poor boy doesn’t know where to look.” He brushed the knuckles of his other hand over Arum’s cheek. “You could fry an egg on your face, dear heart.”
“I should finish stitching you up,” Arum replied, clumsy-tongued. Rilla handed him his fallen needle.
When he was done, they each kissed one of his hands, and Damien poured him a handful of seeds. “Plant them now,” he said, “and in the spring you’ll have St. Damien’s yarrow.” Arum knew the plant; it was rare, and highly prized for its blood-staunching properties--but it was more effective than true yarrow, and boasted delicate blooms, from which he brewed tea. He had a giddy moment in which he nearly asked if Damien was the saint, but he preferred to continue believing that was an impossibility.
And then Rilla turned into a reindeer and Arum opened the gate for them, and only when Florian ran out of a doorway to embrace him, swearing he’d feared Arum was dead, did he realize he had forgotten to make Damien punch him after all.
“My friend, you look feverish.”
“I--er--well, what happened was--was…”
Florian scowled. “You’ve been glamoured, discombobulated. How dare he! Come, we’ll go indoors and you can lie down with a restorative beverage and tell everyone you’re too overcome to play games.”
“Florian, I love you.”
“I know.”
⁂
The snows set in for the season with a brutal bent, the softness of the flakes offset by abundance, at its worst building to Arum’s hips. The thaw, when it came, turned the snow to a tide, rushing down the hills and overwhelming the river. Dams broke, mud slid, villagers retreated to high ground. Arum criss-crossed the citadel, disrupting profiteers and lending his strength to repairs. When a horse could travel, he rode, but his own legs carried him as often as not. There were days and weeks when he felt destined to never be dry again.
As winter bled painfully into a late and much-sought spring, it became apparent that the lack of sunlight on the ground, and damage to crops, had badly hindered the food supply. The people ate fewer vegetables and more meat that season, and even Arum swallowed his squeamishness and helped butcher as needed. It stung his heart, but not his conscience; he had always hated killing for sport, but he was at peace with staving off hunger. He caught a persistent nightmare, for different reasons, when a miller who had opened her home to him laid out a fresh-slain deer. The buck’s antlers were damp with rainwater, and the firelight reflected in the drops appeared golden and sparkling, and the miller spat a curse for a monster that had stolen her chickens--and so, for nights afterward, Arum dreamed of Rilla’s throat slit and her eyes glassy, and he would rise and pace until the image faded.
Herbivorous animals, without Arum’s choice to extend their diet, roamed further from their safe habitats, and predators followed them. Arum criss-crossed the citadel again, this time killing wolves and Tyrantlizards which had become a danger to human life. Once, when he came home, his mother took a long look at him, covered in rain and animal blood and looking hollow in the eyes, and she held him tight, heedless of her gown. “I cannot stop thinking that they are only hungry,” he confessed, and she stroked his back. “I do not think I was meant to be a knight. I feel as though the entire world is wrong, and that I am in the wrong place, all the time,” he finished, and she sent him to bed with a cup of soup.
Spring stalled, and did not progress. The fresh shoots of green that were so badly needed did not appear. Arum’s flowerbed of blood-bounty yarrow did bloom; the early flowers were ruined by frost, but he was able to harvest and preserve a goodly number. Frustration at warm weather’s lateness turned to alarm; they had reached the summer solstice with no apparent change in season since the vernal equinox. The Queen sent pigeons to the borders of her lands, and to the most gifted astronomers, until she received a reply that left her singing an agitated aleatoric cadenza. The progression of the cosmos had not halted. If the stars were to be believed, they should indeed have been in early summer, yet her clever correspondents had timed the days and found no sign of the sunlight hours lengthening. Eventually, someone had thought to try some tests, and had written to say that they had found the air so full of magic that they had been forced to conclude that their weird weather was illusory or contrived. Further, Florian arrived with great fanfare, having brought home green peas and strawberries, and yellow roses, from a scouting mission to the south. There were borders to this, then.
Arum took out a map, and poured through the Queen’s letters, and drew a circle, and marked its center. His mother bit her lip and nearly forbade him to seek the source when he showed her. Florian flung his hands into the air when the plan was unfolded to him. “You’re going to the Swamp of Titan’s Blooms? You can’t be serious. You can’t be sane!” Then, more somberly: “You’ll never survive.”
“Nonsense,” Arum countered, with a brisk click of his tongue. “So long as I keep my wits about me, I could live there quite happily for some time.” He met his friend’s eyes. “Someone has to try it, and I fear a group would only increase the odds of attracting dangerous attention. I will not be stupid, I assure you.”
“If you die, I won’t speak to you for at least a week.”
⁂
Arum outfitted himself with considerable care. Despite his daring words, he sensed in his core that this quest would change him. He dressed in durable clothing, soft and mobile fabrics with leather armor buckled on top, and judiciously supplemented with metal along his vital column: a gorget on his throat and a sleeveless mail shirt, carefully dulled to protect him from glittering inopportunely. He brought an assortment of daggers, and slung a pentagonal shield over his back, but eschewed his sword; and he packed clean socks, a blanket, fresh water, a small cooking pot, a wooden spoon, a little coin, a little food, canteens of fresh water, a small medical kit, the carefully-dried yield from his patch of St. Damien’s yarrow, and almost nothing else.
Arum rode as far as the edge of the swamp, where he set the mare loose; she knew her own way homeward. He summoned his courage and crossed the invisible line into the swamp. It greeted his senses with subtle but certain differences, the air more humid, the smell earthier, greener, and softened by lillies. He rather liked it, and some of his apprehension eased. It was a good thing he had insisted on traveling alone, for he suspected any companions would have swiftly fallen into the water. His own feet found safe ground by inexplicable instinct.
Long he wandered, the unreliability of the terrain forcing him to take roundabout arcs in his progression towards his map-mark. It was tempting to do nothing but drink in the beauty of the swamp, as he swiftly lost his heart to each plant as he laid eyes on it. He took a rest eventually, unfolding the map across his knees and humming softly as he estimated his position. The song was one the Queen had taught her son, soothing him with it in his babyhood. Even as an adult, Arum realized the song inspired sleepiness as much as contentedness, but he intended to do nothing more than rest comfortably against the stalk of a comically large swamp pink, until he had his wind back. He leaned forward to refold the map, humming all the while, but when he tried to lean back against the stem, he fell flat on his back. He rolled over and squinted suspiciously at the pink. He made a great show of turning his back on it and rearranging the weight of his pack, before springing around. “Ha! Caught you on the move!” There was a brief silence.
“No you didn’t,” said the flower. Arum strode to its side and stood on his toes. Very gently, he pushed apart segments of the flower’s tufty head to reveal a large, cow-like nose. A massive hand emerged from the stalk, parting it like the opening of a cloak. (Arum’s mind helpfully informed him that this made no physical sense, as it felt perfectly solid and fibrous moments before.) It closed around Arum’s wrist, as another hand pushed aside flower tufts to fix a giant brown eye on the knight. “I say!” said the flower, “if you’d be kind enough to stop messing up my camoflauge, we can both carry on with our days and give each other no trouble! I know you are a human, and I am a monster, and that may seem quite an absurd proposition, but you seem like a nice enough lad, so you can just enjoy your nature walk and I can go home and tell my greatest friends that you’re probably not dangerous!”
Arum, as you already know, was an honorable man. This does not mean he was a good listener, and this flaw was understandably amplified by being faced with a monster who could have snapped him in two. The knight jammed his knee in the general vicinity he thought the monster might have testicles and danced backwards, drawing his daggers and scowling defensively while the creature swore. “On your mark, beast,” Arum snarled.
The big pink heaved a resigned sigh and pulled at itself, becoming a probably-magic hat and cloak draped over the arm of a minotaur. He carefully folded them into a cloth shoulder bag and smiled his big teeth at Arum, putting his palms out calmingly. “I’m sure you don’t want to use those, my lad!” Arum curled his lip back. He wasn’t a 14-year-old waving a boning knife around in a panic. “See,” the minotaur continued, “you’re going to put them down, and I will leave my weapons sheathed, and we can shake hands like gentlemen and I’ll give you some hot chocolate from my flask!”
“Poisoned, no doubt. I am no sugar-starved boy, and you cannot tempt me. Fight me fairly, coward!” The minotaur lifted one hand to toss a fistful of lapis powder in the air, and Arum, alarmed, leapt at him. This was a foolish move. The minotaur had called himself a portal, and they both fell through. The minotaur landed on his back, and Arum crashed against him, the minotaur swiftly seizing Arum around the ribcage and flinging him off and away. Arum rolled clumsily, holding his blades away from his own body.
The minotaur rose to his feet and drew a sword. They were on a branch, or fallen tree--mossy and wide enough for a cart to pass--over a deep patch of brackish water. “Please be very calm and watch your footing, young man!” The knight considered this a disingenuous instruction from someone who’d just flung him like a sack of flour. He pulled himself up and surveyed the situation. If he ran downhill, he would have to fight the minotaur, who seemed increasingly more trouble than he was worth. With a roll of his eyes and a stretch of his thighs, Arum pelted up the sloped wood and found handholds in a tangle of briars blocking his path. Some longer thorns pierced his gloves, but he managed well enough. “Well, shit ,” the minotaur said, and made a peculiar noise. Arum glanced back to see a wooden whistle between his lips. He made a strange succession of notes, and something like a giant sundew tendril seized Arum by the waist and curled in on itself, dangling him indecisively in the air. He made an undignified holler.
The minotaur, below, may have been yet more alarmed. “That--that’s not what I was trying to do!” He blew on the whistle again, causing the sundew to loosen its grip, enough for Arum to yell at the minotaur to stop. The beast looked flustered, and Arum would have been sympathetic if he wasn’t so frightened. “Help! Is anyone around? I can’t work my whistle right and--oh no!” The sundew, as if spooked, lurched erratically, trying to retract, but dangling Arum over the long drop to the water. He shut his eyes and braced himself for the fall.
“Take a deep breath and hold it!” called a new voice from below. Arum did so, but when the newcomer blew his own whistle in a smooth tune, sending Arum plummeting to the swampwater, the knight lost his breath in a scream. He inhaled again too late, choking on water and weighed by his garb, his left leg shocked first by the water and again by the muddy bottom. Someone took his hands and helped him surface. He came up alongside a horse, so he put his arms around its neck while he coughed up water, an unknown hand thumping his back encouragingly. “Do you think you can ride Dampierre, Skin? If you just want to drape yourself over his back, it’ll be enough to get you up top.”
Arum flicked a lilly pad off his head. “I think I broke my leg.”
“Can’t relate! C’mon, all you have to do is swing over, Dampierre and I will do the rest.” Then, more solemnly, “I can’t promise you’ll be on our good side, but we aren’t going to let you suffer.” Arum, still blinking to clear his streaming eyes, did his best. “There you go,” his rescuer soothed. “Now scoot back and I’ll steer. Hold onto my waist if you think you need to.” There was a second in which Arum thought the man was wearing mail and sitting sidesaddle.
“You’re a mermaid. Er, merman?”
He chuckled. “Merman sounds like I’m scared of cooties. I have a fish tail, I’m a mermaid.”
Dampierre surged forward. “This isn’t precisely a horse, is it?”
“Kelpie.”
Arum kept his seat and held his tongue as the kelpie took them from water to soft earth to the bridge. It was a fallen tree, he could now see clearly. When they came alongside the minotaur, Arum realized the beast was fighting tears. “I’m so glad you were here, Marc! I should never have called on the Keep to intervene, we have established well enough that it is beyond our control.”
Marc gave the minotaur a friendly pat on his head, between the horns. “The Keep can’t control itself, either. Let’s get Skin to the infirmary, it’ll be alright.” The minotaur, still subdued, jogged alongside Dampierre. The briars Arum had climbed pulled themselves apart like gates opening, slow and hesitant like old ironwork. The Keep beyond stole his breath and broke his brain: a composite of plants, something living and changeable and incomparable; the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Doors of petals opened for them, and he tried to fill his mind with the sight of the building, even as the pain in his leg made him long for unconsciousness.
The minotaur helped him down from the kelpie’s back and onto a cushioned settle. Marc disappeared, still riding the kelpie, deeper into the Keep. The minotaur hovered anxiously. Arum shut his eyes. He came back to himself with a start when a hand touched his forehead. “It’s alright, you’re safe. I’m going to examine your leg, Sir Arum.”
“ Rilla ?”
She smiled at him. “You picked that up from Damien. It’ll do. How intense is your pain level right now?”
“Will you be very annoyed with me if I say ‘bad’?”
And so he got to see her laugh. “Which sounds worse: taking off your leggings, or letting me cut them off?” If he had not left his gear behind, he would have agreed to cut them, but as it was, he gritted his teeth and hauled them off, with her help. She elevated the injured leg, donned a pair of strange spectacles, and said “hmm.” Arum watched her face and hands and tried to answer her questions accurately. Her focus and sureness were more appealing than he liked to admit. “Alright,” Rilla said at last, “your leg isn’t broken. It will bruise horribly, and you need to be very gentle with your hip, knee, and ankle. In a few days, I should be able to tell you whether we need to treat you for ligament hyperextension or anything like that.”
“A few days ? You want me to stay here!?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Marc said you could barely ride Dampierre, and Angelo said you didn’t have a horse of your own. I’m going to have to put you on a crutch as it is--you can’t go anywhere like this!”
“I--it just--it seems most inappropriate that I accept your hospitality.”
Rilla had just finished washing her hands in a basin, and turned to shrug at him, still drying her hands. “Last week, Angelo came up behind me in the garden, and I didn’t hear him, and when I turned around I threw a crocus bulb at his head. He forgave me; he’s already forgiven you.” Arum gathered that Angelo was the minotaur’s name. His hesitation was more related to “staying in a den of monsters instead of furthering his quest to restore the passage of seasons” than to “accepting hospitality from a household containing a person he had tried to stab despite, he was now pretty sure, being given clear notice that he was in no danger.” He did not think it would be politic to admit this to Rilla, whom he gave a weak smile.
⁂
The deer healer let him sleep the rest of the afternoon away, the pain numbed with medicinal syrup. He dreamed pleasantly of plaiting a pile of wildflowers into a crown, twisting trios of stems together with patient hands until they locked together securely. Nothing like the danger-edged haziness he associated with a healer’s drugs. When next he woke, the figure seated by his side was not the lady but the lord, as green and comely as at their last meeting. “Lord Damien,” Arum said softly, and Damien set his book aside.
“How are you feeling, friend knight?”
“A little like a Tyrantlizard stepped on me.”
“Lady Amaryllis,” Damien replied, with a subtext Arum couldn’t identify, “gave me permission to give you more painkiller, if you want it.”
Arum stretched his limbs tentatively. “Not as much as I want food, I think.”
“Fair enough. The household will gather shortly, should you feel up to joining us.”
“I wish to try moving about, yes.”
Damien gave him an encouraging smile. “Alright. Sit upright for a minute and I’ll help you when you’re ready.”
Arum sat up, but fixed Damien with a serious face. “Whom should I address about the terms of my stay here?”
Damien tilted his head. “Let us assume I am more or less authoritative, as a lord who lives in this Keep. But I’m afraid I do not catch your meaning.”
“I cannot accept medical care and eat your food without offering something in return.”
“But of course you can! Or does the humans’ unwritten law of hospitality differ so greatly from that of monsters?” Damien was teasing, mostly.
Arum twisted his lips ruefully in response. “I wouldn’t know. Which is part of the problem.” Damien’s brow furrowed. “My lord,” Arum continued, “I did not come to the swamp idly, and I cannot accept your hospitality without being certain I am not an enemy to the household.”
Damien gave him a strange look. “How singular that a knight should even deem it up for consideration. But then, Rilla and I learned that part of your nature at the winter solstice.”
“ What part of my nature?” Arum snapped back.
Damien badly smothered a laugh. “Mercifulness, dearest. Did you expect me to call you a secret monster-lover?”
“I should call that hypocritical of you, given that you are the fourth monster today to decline playing my opposite number.”
Damien made a small sound of amusement in his throat. “Well, I wouldn’t give up hope quite yet.” Arum blushed scarlet, rethinking his choice of words and distrusting himself to reply. “Come, knight,” Damien said gently. “I’ll help you stand.”
Arum had a crutch, but appreciated that the lord encouraged him to lean against Damien, letting him support some of Arum’s weight. It helped, even if it brought their cheeks dangerously close. “Now,” Damien said thoughtfully, “in answer to your concerns, I suspect I can lay them to rest if you tell me what did bring you to Titan’s Blooms.”
“You would not believe me if I told you.”
Damien opened his mouth, poised to protest, and thought better of it. “Fair enough. I thought the same when Amaryllis and I came to your home on a hunch.” Arum chuckled drily. “Why don’t we make a deal, as we did then? A trade. You will receive everything you need to recover, and in exchange--”
“I have nothing to give you, Lord Damien.”
“In exchange,” Damien said firmly, “you will repay any extraneous gifts in kind.”
“What on earth do you imagine that to entail, honeysuckle?” It was embarrassing how unsarcastic the nickname sounded.
“Say one of us tells you a story--you will tell us a story, or you’ll sing a song, or play a second round of dominoes. Things will come up.”
“I don’t think you’re getting a valuable end of this deal.”
“It is valuable, sir knight, to offer company and break up the routine of days. We will sustain your body, and you shall sustain our spirits. Fair’s fair.”
“And I suppose you’ll keep a tidy accounting column of how convivial I have been?”
It was a joke, but Damien took it seriously. “Speak to me in the evenings. I’ll make sure your account has been settled and your honor satisfied.”