by Pfantazm
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The next afternoon, the two men came to their destination. Thom spotted
it first. "Is that it?"
Madoc, who was lagging behind a few paces, crested the same gentle hill and peered up the road. They could see smoke from the chimneys of the hamlet of Tartallen just ahead, and a single two-story building sitting defiantly alone on a generous parcel of land. "That's it!" Madoc told him. "I'd say it's about time for your other surprise." The dark knight heeled Fleetfire onwards, and Thom followed suit. The two knights galloped the last short stretch up to the door to the inn. As he approached it, Thom laughed. The sign proclaimed that the name of this establishment was The Thief's Ring. Melydia and Rab had named it after him. Before Thom had gained his current post with King Dunstan's knights, he had been one of the kingdom's most notorious criminals. His very last crime had been to steal a ruby bauble from Melydia's former employer, and he gave it to her to help her start a new life, all right under Madoc's nose. "It's named after the dog trainer's ring I used on you," Madoc told him. "I'm sure you're right," Thom assured him. They rode up to the stables, where a harried-looking young man with sandy blond hair greeted them. "Good day to you, sirs," he said. "I'm not sure we'll be havin' room for you for the night. There's a weddin' happ'nin' here day after tomorrow." "We're expected," Madoc told him. "There's no space," the young man tried to argue. "You find space, Peran," boomed a voice from the rear of the stable. The giant silhouette in the doorway stepped down onto the hard-packed earth. "These two fine gentlemen are our special guests." The familiar face of Rab Andrewsson became clear as he approached the sunlit end of the chamber. "Sir Madoc!" he bellowed as he shook the knight's hand. He then turned to Thom and extended his hand again. When Thom took it, Rab pulled Thom into a bear hug, picked him up and spun him around. Thom went "hurk" as their chests collided. Rab set the dazed man down again. "Sir Thom, I am so glad to see you. When last we saw your partner, the news was most dire. We weren't sure we'd get to see you again to thank you for all this." Rab, standing at 6' 6", and almost as broad at the shoulder, slapped Thom on the back with surprising gentleness and led him by the shoulders into the inn proper. Madoc followed, grinning. "Melydia, my love?" Rab called as he crossed the threshold. He started kicking off his heavy, mud-caked boots. Thom heard a faint, and annoyed, "What is it?" from somewhere within. The former thief cased the room out of habit. Five large tables, staircase to the balcony above, room doors visible, maybe more in the back. Doorway to kitchen at rear past stair, main door behind him to right, fireplace on left wall, . . . . "Thom!" the lady of the inn shrieked as she dashed across the common room toward them. "You devil! We didn't think you'd make it!" Melydia hugged Thom tight, but his feet stayed on the floor this time. "I wouldn't miss your wedding for anything, my dear lady," Thom said before kissing her hand. "Always a charmer. I'd keep an eye on this one, Sir Madoc. Such a man finds trouble almost as often as trouble finds him." She winked at him. "Oh, I know it," Madoc told her. Thom elbowed him in the ribs. "Rab, dear, I need another sack of flour from the cellar." "We could do that," Madoc offered. "Rab might need to help rearrange the stables." "Aye, two more horses," Rab said simply. "Two?!" Melydia started. "Oh, of course. Sir Thom will have one by now. Yes, that will work out fine. Since Sir Madoc has offered it will give us the chance to talk a moment before I have to go see to something else." Rab stepped back into his boots. Thom and Madoc followed Melydia back to the kitchen. "Thank Talvaed that I had the good sense to hold the wedding itself in Cairncross instead of here." She paused in the doorway and touched her fingertips to her forehead, then held them skyward in the traditional obeisance to the god of order, logic and forethought. "All our family is staying there. It's just friends here at the moment and we're fuller than full." They rounded the corner behind the staircase and down to the cellar. Thom only glanced at the kitchen itself, but he caught the layout well enough. Door to the backyard, large stove, bigger fireplace with spit. One girl mixing something in corner. Melydia had taken up a lit candle and led them down the hardpack ramp into the spacious cellar. "The flour is this way," she directed. She pointed them down one makeshift corridor between a wine rack and a foundation wall. They each reached for a sack, then looked at each other. "Take them both, goodknights. It'll save a trip later on." Madoc hefted his easily, but Thom appeared to struggle. "Can you handle that?" he asked. "I'll be fine. It's just awkward." Madoc nodded and headed back out of the cellar. Thom soon followed, carrying his sack easily enough. He gestured Melydia ahead with his chin. As they walked back to the ramp, out of earshot of Madoc, Thom whispered, "I would have bet my life it was a bracelet I fetched from Tybalt's place that night." "Maybe so," Melydia whispered back, "but the Thief's Bracelet doesn't have the same . . . ring to it." She giggled. "Besides, it wouldn't do to be too obvious about it, would it now?" Thom chuckled. When they got upstairs, Madoc had already set his sack down, leaning up against a bare patch of wall. Melydia stopped short. "Why, Sir Madoc, how did you know that that was where it belonged?" "It was obvious. I--" "Where?" Thom grunted behind her. "Oh!" Melydia stepped out of the doorway. "Just there in front of Sir Madoc's." Thom laid the sack down and said, "Well, it's really the only unused spot. It's out of the way." "That's not all," Madoc tried to continue. At that moment, a heavy-set woman with doughy arms came in through the back. "`As that `usband-da-be got `ere wi'that flour yet? I `ave--" She saw the two knights. "You!" "You!" Thom returned. "Thom, you remember Randa? Sorry, Sir Thom," Melydia corrected herself. "That's going to take some getting used to. Randa has followed us here and cooks for the Ring now. She's been an immense help in the preparations." Randa straightened her kerchief on her head and dusted off her hands before shaking Thom's. "And you're Sir . . ., `Adrian, yes?" she said, turning to the other knight. "Sir Madoc, actually." Randa paused a beat. "Sir Madoc it is, then." They shook hands. "Pleased to see yeh. Now, if you don't mind, get out o' my kitchen. I've got bread teh bake." She ushered the three of them back into the common room quite firmly with a final, "Shoo, now!" and went back to work. "She hasn't changed much," Thom observed. "Neither have you," Melydia said wryly. "I'm being a dreadful hostess, putting you two to work like that. I think it's time I showed you to your room," She stood on the first stair and looked back at them. "We're quite full up. You don't mind if you share, do you?" "If we must," Thom sighed. Thom and Madoc's bedchamber was right next to Melydia and Rab's. The room itself wasn't especially large, but the bed was. In Madoc's estimation, it was equal in size (and above all, sturdiness) to the one he had shared with Rab. "We decided that if you two were going to be frequent guests here," Melydia told them, opening the shutters, "that we had better be prepared for you. After all, we can't have you stealing our bed all the time." "That's very thoughtful of you, m'lady," said Madoc. Melydia reached out and took the knight's hand. "Please, Sir Madoc, call me by name. I would hope that after all we've been through together, you would call me by name." "I'll try to remember, Melydia." "Good. Now why don't you two rest, I'll have Peran bring up your horses' packs, and you can settle in." Melydia swept out of the door to their room on her way to some other detail to tend to. Sir Thom closed the door and smiled at Madoc, who had sat down on the bed. "How is it?" he asked. "It's nice. Feathers, not straw." Thom sat next to his love and lay back. Madoc copied him. "I could get used to this," the blond sighed. "I wouldn't," Madoc warned him. "This is going to be a rare thing once we're on the road for real." "Oh, stop," Thom chuckled. "At least allow me to enjoy it now. Besides, we're supposed to be resting." "Alright. Then why don't we lie on the bed properly." Madoc sat up and started unbuckling his armour and kicking off his boots. Thom did the same. Peran came and went, delivering the knights' large saddlebags. Madoc was finished sooner and lay on his side facing into the centre of the soft bed. Thom joined him and backed into his chest. The dark knight slipped a hand under his lover's arm and across his chest. They snuggled together, and Madoc kissed Thom's neck. Thom hugged his partner's muscular arm to his chest. Madoc brought his leg up and onto Thom's thigh. He could feel the rougher material of Thom's trousers through his hose. Thom swung his leg back, pressing against his partner's crotch. The dark knight gripped the proffered leg between his own. They lay like that for some time, doing nothing more than enjoying being in each other's company. Madoc knew, and Thom was beginning to suspect, that this was a rare moment of tranquility, not to be wasted on quickly getting off before someone came across them or before sleep. They were together. And for now, that was enough. Madoc peered down over the balcony at the common room below. There were a lot more people milling about before the meal was served. While it wasn't obvious before how full Rab and Melydia's inn was, it was quite apparent now. Melydia herself was directing the troops setting the table, and about a dozen other guests were waiting nearby to take their seats. It looked like some were even more recent arrivals than he and Thom were. Folks were hugging like old friends who hadn't seen each other in a while. Thom came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "What smells so good?" Madoc inhaled deeply. "A nice, big roast by the smell. I'd forgotten what a good cook Randa was. The dinner she prepared that night at Tybalt's was the only good point of the evening." "Hmm. I never got to know what a good cook she is. That same evening, I was sick to my stomach, and I got gruel. Hadrian." Madoc nudged Thom in the ribs with his elbow. "Then you're in for a treat. Come, go downstairs and join everyone else." As Madoc approached the foot of the stairs, he heard a high shriek. "That's them! There he is!" A trio of girls, led by Melydia's sister, Tilda, clutching her baby to her bosom, swarmed the knights before Madoc could set foot on the floor. "That's Sir Madoc, the brave knight who saved my darling little Wynn!" And suddenly all three of them were talking at once. Thom, watching all of this over Madoc's shoulder, caught both of Tilda's friends doing what he knew in his old line of work as a pickpocket's peek. In his experience, though, it was the presence of a ring on the mark's finger that should have gotten them excited. The two chattering girls were gushing all over Sir Madoc, and generally behaving as though he were all set to be the ninth god in the pantheon. One of them would ask Madoc a question, but three words into his answer her starry-eyed companion would ask another, cutting him off. "I have to tell you that I couldn't have done any of it without the help of my partner, Sir Thom," he heard Madoc say. Thom blinked in surprise. Tilda's girlfriends had been ignoring him up to then, but they turned as one to appraise him as well. Thom shot a dagger into the back of Madoc's skull with his eyes, then stepped down level with him. He offered his right hand to shake, but kept his left resolutely behind his back. At least now they were only outnumbered three-to-two. "Madoc! Thom! There you are!" came a booming voice from behind the girls. "I was wondering when you two were going to show yourselves. I had something I wanted to ask you. Excuse us, ladies." Rab's massive body divided the women, creating safe passage for the knights away from the stairs. "It's out in the stalls," he said, then launched into some nonsense about the way the law applied to horses. Rab's muddy stable was a place where the dainty females were afraid to follow. "Bless you, Rab," Thom said once out of earshot of Tilda and her friends. "Who were those two?" "Tamra and Velda, both unwed and truly feeling it these days. I suppose you don't know many of the guests here. Most of them were off to see the fields above Tartallen today." Rab started pointing people out. "In that small cluster over there are Jian, Liana and Rina, who were all maids and servers from the house of Tybalt. Melydia and I invited more from that lot, but since he was arrested - since you two had him arrested, really, - most of them have landed on their feet elsewhere and couldn't come or couldn't be found. "Most of the rest of the guests are childhood friends of Melydia's, many still unmarried." Thom looked around the room and realized that most of the people in the room were women. "And family?" Madoc asked. "Melydia's family are back at the farm, preparing for the wedding." "What about yours?" "They're, uh, not coming," he said a little sadly. Thom urged Rab down the short hall to the doorway leading into the stable itself. "What happened?" Rab had changed his sandals for boots out of habit and went and sat on a stool in the corner that was far too low for such a tall man. Madoc crouched by his side and Thom sat on the steps into the inn. "My father worked in the countinghouse at Lord Norfald's castle. My older brother Vid was going to join the Navy. As the only other son, I was supposed to take Da's place when he passed away. "I couldn't do it. The numbers, they crawled all over the page like ants. When Da finally did pass, everybody knew I couldn't do it. I was a complete failure. "But Vid could add. He really helped me. When the taxmen came, they'd try to trick me, but Vid would catch them. They tried to get Vid to leave, you know, to go off to sea. Vid knew if he left I'd catch seven kinds of shit when Norfald found out how easy I was to fool, and how close I'd come to losing his money. "We had to tell Lord Norfald's chancellor what was going on. I couldn't do the job. So they made Vid do it. "He hated that place. It's why he wanted to leave so badly. He resents me leaving and he resents me for getting him stuck there." "Is he the only family you have now?" Thom asked. Still more bitterness crept into Rab's voice. "There's Ma, but she's gotten funny in the head. She's happy just letting Vid take care of her." Madoc laid a hand on the groom's shoulder. "You know that we'll stand for you, if you need to fill out your half of the chapel some. We'll be behind you." "Absolutely," Thom said, as he got closer. "And perhaps tonight we can be behind you, and beside you, and on top of you . . ." Rab raised his eyebrow. "Oh?" "Madoc and I thought that we'd give you a bit of a bachelor's night. I think it would help you take your mind off your family." The ostler smiled shyly. "I'd like that. Thank you both." Thom went down on one knee before Rab and swooped in for a kiss. Rab pulled him in with a groan and their tongues met. Thom clutched Rab's shoulder; Rab held Thom's head steady. Rab's kiss was insistent, urgent. It was a strong, masculine expression of affection, exactly as one would expect from a man Rab's size. The kiss ended with a soft smack of their lips. Rab's eyes shone, and his paw moved down to the small of Thom's back to hold him close. He turned to Madoc beside him, and they shared an equally passionate kiss. Madoc drew closer, straddling Rab's thick thigh. The horse handler pulled them both close until their sides touched. "This is nice," Madoc said, "but Melydia will be wondering where we've gotten to." He stood up and plucked some stubborn bits of hay from the knees of his hose. They trudged up the stairs and looked around to see what was happening. Melydia sailed in. "What were you doing in the stables, Sir Madoc?" "Me?" he asked. "Why are you asking me? We were all three together." Melydia just cocked an eyebrow and pointed at the floor. Rab had changed back into his indoor sandals. Madoc's boots were leaving brown footprints behind them. Thom, who had stayed mainly on the stairs, still had clean feet. "Off with them, Sir Madoc," she ordered, "until dinner is over with, at least." "Yes, m'lady." He skulked back towards the corridor and left his boots there. Thom grinned at him sympathetically. Shortly thereafter, dinner was served, and once again it seemed as though the two knights were surrounded by moon-eyed girls. Rab couldn't save them this time, as he was seated at the head of the table several chairs away. Peran, the stable boy, took the last chair at the end of the table. Fortunately, since Jian was next to them on one side the hazard was minimal. He seemed quite happy to absorb some of the attentions of the young ladies beyond him. Since it appeared that Madoc was having the worse day, Thom nobly allowed him to sit in-between the men. Dinner was a brace of roasted quail, a ham and assorted vegetables. They ate well that night, and Randa got a well-earned round of applause from the guests. During the feast itself, Madoc couldn't help but notice how Jian and the lucky girl beside him were getting along. Jian was chatting amiably with her, and doing most of the talking, while the girl whose name he'd since forgotten - if this was one of the ones Rab had even introduced before he stopped - was mostly giggling along. And all it seemed he was doing was talking about himself and telling some stories. And it seemed to be working quite well. When he instead decided to listen to Thom for a while, not much sounded that different. Again, Thom was doing most of the talking, but the woman beside him seemed . . . well, not bored exactly, but the next thing to it. But he knew Thom, and as he listened, he knew Thom was a much better storyteller than this. He supposed Thom was just better at handling people than he was. A slippered toe started creeping up Madoc's calf. The knight jumped, hitting his knee against the underside of the table and sending unused tableware clattering. Both he and the young girl across from him blushed. Several others tittered down the table and started whispering. Thom acted like he hadn't noticed. | ||
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