The Untold Tale

Nine

A fortnight later, when the moon is full and all the right aspects are aligned, Pip and I steal out of Turn Hall on horseback. No one is to know that the lordling and his guest are absent, and so we ride into the forest instead of down the path through the village. We have even arranged with Pointe that he will continue to visit Turn Hall for our sparring matches, so that, for all outward observers, it appears as if we are still in residence.

We have packed bedrolls and first-aid salves, dried rations, water skins, fire-making supplies, and a scroll onto which I have copied all of our necessary information and directions. Pip has the Excel, folded carefully like a map so we can unfold it to specific sections when necessary, and her leather-bound notation book. And, for reasons that I cannot fathom but find eminently practical, Pip has also insisted that we do not forget our pocket handkerchiefs.

We also each have a sword, and now that Pip's back is healed, I have promised her that we will be stretching her skin in sword practice, keeping her scar-knitted muscles limber as I teach her how to defend herself with a blade. If she is going to dress like a young man, I am determined that she will be able to defend herself like one as well.

Our comfortable relationship hovers somewhere between very affectionate siblings—or, rather, what I imagine an affectionate sibling relationship would resemble—and chaste lovers. We have lain together in bed as I read aloud to Pip, her fingers threaded between mine; there have often been affectionate touches, cuddles in the library, muddled limbs and reaching around while packing, knees bumping and pressing together under the breakfast table, but there have been no exchanged kisses, no promises beyond the one to try.

I find this slow courtship remarkably calming. It is rare and odd, and I am enjoying it immensely. There is no pressure to jump into carnality, with which I have no direct experience outside of witnessing the trysts required for Shadow Hand work. Though, thankfully, Pip has—or so she has hinted—enough to make up for my lack of knowledge. And I don't have to deal with any of that "at first sight" fairy tale twaddle. I am able to be just me, and it is... a relief.

All the same, I find myself looking forward to sharing a campfire tonight and, I assume, having our bedrolls side by side next to it. Kissing may be in the hazy, unpredictable future, but holding Pip close and knowing that I may... that is more immediate and will be just, I think, as satisfying.

We make camp a day's ride out from Kingskeep. We stop, right around dawn, in a clearing used often by my Men. The starflowers glowing in the night-darkened meadow are pinpricks of pearlescent luminescence still. No larger than my fingernail, they reflect in the boggy ponds that fill the lowlands, looking like nothing more than a reflection of their heavenly counterparts. The clearing is thick with starflowers, and as dawn approaches, they wink closed, one by one, like shy clams.

As I had hoped, Pip lays her bedroll directly next to mine. I expect the usual "just for body heat" objections that maidens claim in the epic tales, but she makes no such excuses. Pip never makes the usual maidenly excuses for taking what she wants from me, and it is shockingly attractive. I observe from this that Pip wishes merely to be close to me, unashamedly, and take comfort from it.

The rising sun masks our campfire smoke as I spread flat-bread dough from Cook on one of the stones in the embers. This will be our only chance for fresh-baked bread on the road, unless we buy more uncooked dough when we leave Kingskeep. It cannot last more than a day wrapped in damp cheesecloth before it becomes dry and useless. I could have used the room in our packs for something that travels better—dried apple chips, or hard cheese—but I know how much Pip considers fresh bread a delicacy. She says the bread in her world never comes fresh-baked; it is too much hassle. They buy it days old and wrapped to keep from going stale, and never warm.