Page 48 of Thief of Roses
XX.
Despite the cold, Rivanidid not feel appreciative for the strain in her arms and shoulders or the trickling of sweat down her face.She did not appreciate the soreness in her hands and fingers.She especially did not appreciate how little work she had accomplished in the last couple of hours while she and Baró tackled the collapsed masonry in the blocked corridor off the great hall.If they could clear it, she could gain access to the rooms beyond and put the now useless stonework to better purpose outside in the bailey as a makeshift smokehouse.She had spent her life accustomed to hard work, backbreaking chores, and unsavory tasks in unpleasant environments, so much so that she estimated that this would be nothing.She feared, without verbalizing it as if the enunciation of her fear would make it true, that she had grown soft in the last months being so pampered with clean linens and easy access to food, a solid, stable roof over her head, and a companion who could lift at least twenty times what she could.
She found great appreciation for that companion though.Baró performed the lion’s share of work but made no complaint or protest.He spoke little while he extracted the more cumbersome pieces from the collapsed archway.His silence concerned her.Perhaps the genuine display of feeling and disclosure upon his return embarrassed him.Society discouraged most men — most people — from ever being so plain.And though animals had their own methods of communication, Baró still retained speech enough to make the honest declarations animals could not.Though he had not avoided her, he had kept his gaze and attention directed at everything but her since.
She had not quite come to terms with all that he had confessed and with all that she had discovered within herself.Baró in the midst of his labors offered a tempting vision.Broad-shouldered and sculpted, the muscles of his back contracted and released with every new effort as he transported stones out to the bailey.She marveled that this well-made monster of fantasy, a god of her people, had knelt at her feet and honored her.It left her breathless and elated.It made her feel cruel and imperious.And she loved the way nothing existed in his eyes or on his face but respect and admiration and affection.He had undone her.Who did such a thing, ever?And who did that to a Rivani?Not even her husbands in courtship made a pretense of, let alone authentic, heartfelt gestures.Baró made her heart swell.She desired nothing more than to have him with her all the rest of her days, to look into that strange, ugly face each day and each night and find something new and beautiful about it.Such a wish could never come to pass so long as he remained ignorant of what his sheer presence did to her.She longed to touch him, to be sweaty with him for a whole different reason than the labor of fortress maintenance.
In his silence and in her frustration, both mental and sexual, she opted to fetch water for them.Since they had dispensed with the casual use of magic, the goblet remained prominently, but permanently, settled in a cabinet in the kitchen.Like Baró, Rivani never touched it now.She pumped out a bucket of water.Then she thought better of it, untied the scarf around her hair, and drenched that as well so that she could give herself a brief, cold scrub-down.
In her absence, he had taken the opportunity for a rest also, settling himself upon the floor of the great hall, his legs sprawled out in front of him.She took a drink from the bucket and then offered it to him, turning her attention away so that he would not feel self-conscious when he stuck his face into it to drink.She contemplated returning to work for half a heartbeat before deciding to enjoy his break with him.
Having toiled at clearing the doorway for most of the day, Rivani regretted the ambitious undertaking.If they could get it cleared, they would both benefit — the stones would provide the material for the smokehouse she intended to construct and the cleared corridor led to the book repository.But so much still remained.
Rivani plopped beside him.She wanted to touch him, ached to touch him, and scooted over where she could better appreciate the object of her daydreams.She wanted the feeling of his fur against her face again but contented herself with putting her hand on his shoulder.
“I know you have been doing the majority of the work, Baró, but may I rest against you?”
When he nodded assent, she put her head and shoulder against him and sighed, running her finger down his arm.
“I am sorry,” she said at last.“Since the other day, you’ve been a bit distant.I do not know what I’ve done — or haven’t done.”
“Not at all.”He shifted his shoulders and directed his attention at her.“I thought perhaps that I said too much.”
“Oh gods, did the Magic hurt you because of it?Are you keeping it from me?”
“Oh, no!”He shook his head.“I worried that my actions or words made you feel as if I had expectations of you.”He took another drink from the bucket, more careful knowing she watched him.“I know what I am.”
“And what is that?”She tried not to give into the inclination to roll her eyes as she took the bucket back to take another sip before setting it aside.
“An abomination.An outcast even among the animals, although I am more animal than anything else.”He turned his face away from her again.“I know you are fond of me and can appreciate my capabilities, but I could never expect you to — never expect you to do anything or think of me as...as a....”
She fought the urge to remind him that humans were animals too.Doubtless it was his upbringing as a follower of the Great Holy which drew such a hard division between humanity and animalism.She put her hand on his chest.
“You are no animal, Baró.Yes, you have animal features, primalness, and inclinations.”He kept his face averted.“But you have too much memory of who you were even if you lose yourself sometimes.What animal has ever been ashamed of their tails or paws or snouts?For an animal, those things just are.And no animal is afraid of being seen as what they are.And you are afraid, aren’t you, Baró?Afraid that I will see you as an animal and nothing else.”
“I see you have acquired the ability to smell fear as well.”
“I do not know that I smell any better than I ever did.But I do know you, Baró, and I will not have you calling my dearest friend an abomination.He may be large and furry, and there may be no other like him in the world, and perhaps, once, he did not think much of others, but I have never met a gentler being.”She laughed with her next recollection.“Even your intimidation tactics at our first meeting consisted of you trying not to scare me and bargaining for my comfort.”
He laughed at her description of their first introduction to each other.He covered his face with his hands, or at least most of it around the snout, rubbing his eyes.“If only you knew who I was!”
“Then tell me.”
“No,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.“You will have a name then and I have no desire to own it.”
She paused, piecing the components together.“You were cold and beautiful.And isolated, I think.Or you would never have been so cold.”
“I had many people around me,” he corrected her.
“But none close and too few good ones who had authority over you or you may have had better guidance.”She tried to put a mental picture together of a human Baró, with the mass of curling hair he had possessed when she had first met him, sharp intelligent features, that slight cleft in his chin, the barest trace of dimples when he smiled.Deep-set eyes that could look innocent and yet see through you by turns.A body not unlike the one he already had with a significant shoulder span and a physique that all kinds of people could have admired, shorter than now but still tall, and devoid of scars.He would have still had bronzed skin, perhaps not as dark a brown as her, but enough to suggest a Rivani bloodline somewhere.His hands would have been large still, but softer, with calluses, but not with quite so many.But she could not place a nose or the shape of his lips.
