Page 5 of Dragon Fight

“All I wanted was to please you, Pippin. If that was done—”

“Dear god, yes,” I replied with a sigh.

“Then my duties as your husband have been fulfilled.”

He pressed a kiss to my forehead and I sighed, feeling the post coital languor settling over me, tugging me down and into sleep. But even as I fell into that, a faint moment of disquiet pricked at me.

What man would give such pleasure without taking his own?

I didn’t know how to answer that, and I fell asleep not long afterwards.

4

The next morning we breakfasted together before my steward came to appraise me of the estate’s goings on. This resulted in an inspection of the herds and the flocks and the state of the fields. Glimmer looked up as I passed, so I asked her if she wanted to come along but she just climbed on top of Glacier and settled into a comfortable spot between his spines, basking in the morning sun.

I’m quite content here with my mates, she told me,as you should be with yours.

I assured her I would return to them shortly, even though the list of things I needed to see grew ever longer. So many things. Father had told me that having staff was a bit like having children. You were in a position of authority over them and that they needed their efforts to be acknowledged if they were to keep working well, so I found myself saddled up and on horseback, inspecting the latest harvest.

Men stopped mid-way through reaping the wheat, setting their impressive scythes against the earth to wave as we went past. I sat high in the saddle and waved back to each one of them. We visited the brewery, where much of the barley we produced was made into beer, and I drank a small tankard, praising the brew master effusively as I did so. We sampled cheese from the cheese makers and they discussed with me the new varietals they were trying, adding some local botanicals to the curds, as apparently this was successful on other estates. Then mounting again, with one last stop ahead of us.

“We’ve rebuilt the pig herder’s hut, milady,” my steward said, his horse shifting under him, sending his rider’s discomfort in delivering the news. “It was the last thing I was to show you, but…”

But would going back there be too painful for me? I could tell that was what he was leaving unspoken. Could I bear to go back to where I’d suffered so much indignity? I stroked my horse’s mane, not entirely sure of the answer, but I smiled and then said, “Let’s see it.”

The horse didn’t need much direction on the way over and neither did I. The sunlight became dappled the moment the horses stepped under the oak trees, picking their way between them as we rode along the dirt track. The crunch of leaves, the scent they released when crushed, the soft whisper of breeze, it was all the same, yet different. But any points of similarity were quickly dispelled when we reached the piggery.

A young man and his wife came out of the newly constructed stone hut, the smell of the pig sties still bloody pungent, but further away from the house, thankfully, though it was the couple that had my attention. Like many of my workers, they wore plain clothes, but well-made and from a sturdy cloth, and they were clean and well-presented. They dropped me a bow and a curtsey, respectively, but I was slow to respond, and my steward looked over at me in some concern as I just sat there, my eyes flitting around the once familiar scene.

Everything I was, everything I had been, it’d been cleared away along with the hut, something Father should’ve done back in the days of Old Bay. But it was done now and… I slipped off my horse and smiled, hoping to allay the couple’s concerns at my initial failure to acknowledge them.

“Good morning,” I said, then offered my hand. “I’m—”

“Lady Pippa.” The man bowed again. “I’m Philip and this is my wife, Gemma. We’ve taken over the role of raising swine for you. We sent quite a few over to the main estate when we heard there were dragons here again,” the young man stammered out.

I smiled at that.

“The dragons will be very pleased for such a feast. So, Philip, Gemma, how are you finding the new cottage?”

“Oh it’s fair lovely, it is,” Gemma said in a rapid flurry, putting her hands to her lips as if to try to keep the words back. “My apologies, milady, but it's far nicer than anything my family has ever had. My sisters have been green with envy when they’ve come by, both because I have a place of my own and because I have Philip.”

As she looked up at her husband with naked adoration, he flushed at the attention, but even if he felt he should be engaging with me, he couldn’t, not for long. His eyes were drawn back to her seemingly without conscious thought, over and over, showing that he saw something in her face that went far beyond the fact she was quite pretty.

Love, I realised belatedly: something I recognised from the way my parents had stared at each other. I had to admit I stared at this young couple in a way that was probably quite intrusive, because I wanted to store this memory away, to bring it out and inspect it later, to try and understand it. Did I look at Ged, at Brom, at all of my men like this? Did they look at me…? I took a deep breath then shook my head, not willing to dwell on that thought. Instead, I thanked the couple for their time and got back on my horse. The inspection over, we rode back to the manor house and I left the steward behind at the stables on our arrival. As I walked up the stairs towards my father’s bedroom—what I needed to become comfortable calling my bedroom—I was distracted again by thoughts of love and how it was shown. Would we ever be able to stand before a group of strangers and declare our bond to the world? Would we—?

“There you are.” An arm wrapped around my waist, jerking me backwards against a hard body, as a hand slapped over my mouth to stop my cries. “You’ll need to be very quiet.”

No, I wouldn’t. The instincts I’d started to develop under Soren’s tutelage kicked in. My elbow went up and then I slammed it back into my attacker, forcing a muffled groan from him in response, but that barely seemed to stop him. It wasn’t until I’d been pulled into my mother’s old bedroom, turned and shoved against the door, a hand still over my mouth, that I caught sight of my attacker. Flynn grinned down at me rakishly.

“Well, that didn’t quite go to plan. Who taught you the elbow strike? Draven or Soren?”

He pulled his hand away so I could answer.

“Soren.” I said, even though, when I thought about it, it had probably been Draven. That kind of sneaky tactic had his name written all over it.

“Then I’ll have to buy him a beer,” he said, moving closer, grabbing my wrists and holding them above my head, keeping them pinned on the door. “Later. Much later.” His brow creased slightly as he looked me over closely. “You’ve been gone most of the morning.”

There was something slightly accusatory about his statement.

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