Talis still wanted to chase her and play as they had always done, but sometimes when he caught her and whirled her about in his strong arms, her heart started pounding. This feeling would make her angry, so she’d jump away from him, sometimes afraid even for him to hold her hand.
Now, everything seemed to have changed. Even sleeping. She and Talis had two separate chicken feather mattresses on the floor of the attic and that’s where they had slept since they were old enough to climb the ladder. But nearly every night, Callie had left her bed and gone to sleep with Talis. He slept so easily and she always felt better cuddled near him.
When Nigel arrived seven years ago, their sleeping together had stopped. Nigel had insisted that curtains be put between the two of them, with his mattress at the foot of the two beds.
Nigel’s arrival had changed a great deal in the Watkins’ household. Meg loved his fine manners and was a bit intimidated by him. But Will treated Nigel as though he were on probation and as though at any moment he could turn into a demon.
From the first moment of his arrival, Nigel said he thought Callie and Talis were odd. Neither Talis nor Callie liked that. No one had ever before said they thought they were strange. The village children accepted them but they saw them only on market days, and the only thing they seemed to think was odd was that Callie and Talis were not brother and sister. Whenever anyone called Callie his sister, Talis adamantly set them straight. And the same was true for Callie.
When they were ten years old, it had been Meg who had insisted that Will tell the children some of the truth of their births. When Talis was ten a prosperous farmer had made an offer of marriage for him with his only child, a daughter. He wanted Talis to come and live with him and to inherit half the farm upon marriage and the other half at his death. Since all the village assumed Callie and Talis were brother and sister, on the face of it this sounded like a good arrangement. Callie’s husband could inherit Will’s farm.
Meg could not bear the thought of the children being separated, nor could she bear for them to leave her and Will. With her mind set, Meg told Will he must tell the children that they were not brother and sister and that they were meant to stay on the farm (that being as close as she could come to saying that they were to marry). At this news, Talis merely nodded, but Callie had laughed outright. Talis never thought of a future that included marriage to anyone, but Callie thought of it often and the idea that she might have to live with anyone other than Talis had worried her.
When Nigel arrived, he changed things. He said that Callie and Talis were not as other children and he wanted to separate them. At first he wanted to give lessons only to Talis but Will wouldn’t allow that. When Nigel had pointed out that a female could not learn as well as a man, Will had laughed at him and said he was younger and dumber than he looked. After the first month with Callie as his pupil, Nigel never again mentioned dull-brained females.
Teaching them both did not keep Nigel from wanting to separate the children in other ways. He didn’t want them to sleep together, or run off for many hours alone together. “You do not know what they can get up to,” Nigel had said pompously to Meg and Will. There was a hint of mystery in his voice, as though only he knew what could happen when two healthy young people of the opposite sex were alone together.
Will didn’t tolerate Nigel’s arrogance. “Aye, lad, we bumpkins in the country know nothing as to what a lad and lassie can get up to alone all day. We cannot read books so we know nothing.”
Blushing, Nigel had shut up for the moment, but that hadn’t kept him from continuing trying to separate the children, for he seemed to see sin at every turn. At one point Will said it was like the Garden of Eden, there was no sin until Adam and Eve were told there was. “You should tell them, lad,” Will said, “what could happen when they are alone together. I don’t think they know.” To Meg, Will said, “I think that boy did some things he is ashamed of when he was younger.”
Meg hesitated. “You don’t think he’s right, do you?”
Will shook his head. “What if he is? Would you mind a hasty wedding and grandbabies to rock?”
At that Meg perked up, and since then she had amused Will greatly by shooing the “children” out of the house at every opportunity. Like Will, she knew that Talis’s body was ready and Callie’s mind was. Someday soon, the two were going to catch up with each other.
But what to Meg and Will was amusing, was to Callie infuriating. She had no idea what she was feeling, what was plaguing her night and day. At night, Talis whispered to her to come get in bed with him, saying that he was cold. Callie refused to go to him because she knew that he wanted her with him because he was cold.
Now, under the spreading tree, she was frowning ferociously at Talis. He had been playing with that blasted rusty sword—or another one—for as long as she could remember. In the village all he wanted to do was talk to the other boys about any men on horses who had ridden through the village. He wanted to know what they wore, what they said, whether they laughed or frowned. He had an extensive repertoire of knightly knowledge, saying a knight says this and a knight says that. He pestered Nigel about knights until the man was screaming with impatience.
“What’s wrong with you?” Talis asked suddenly, giving a mighty thrust at the air near her head.
“I don’t know,” she said petulantly. “It’s something. I feel strange inside. Angry. Sad. Happy. I don’t know.” She was leaning against the tree, her head to one side, looking away from him.
Talis didn’t show much concern at her words, but it annoyed him when she didn’t want to play. In the village, because he was so large, he had to pretend to the other boys that he was a man, with a man’s knowledge. But with Callie he didn’t have to pretend. Sometimes she made believe she was a lady held by a dragon and he would rescue her. But the last time they’d played that, at the end she’d acted very strange, talking about how they must now get married and make babies. It was very confusing to him and since then they hadn’t played that game or any other.
Now he was trying to interest her in what he was doing. Thrusting hard, he jammed the sword into the tree by her ear. “Now you are my prisoner, princess.”
She knocked the sword away. “You’re such a baby,” she said with great contempt.
“Me?” He was incredulous. “You’re no bigger than a baby,” he said, starting to grab her.
This physical teasing was normal for both of them, something they had always done. In public they kept their hands off each other but in private they loved to touch. When they escaped Nigel’s watchfulness, they did their lessons, studied their Greek and Latin, their astronomy and mathematics, while sitting close together, one whole side of their bodies touching.
But today Callie angrily moved away from him. Having never before experienced her not wanting to touch him, Talis didn’t have any idea that she was serious. He grabbed her again and even when she started twisting away from him, he still thought she was teasing.
When Talis did at last understand that she was genuinely fighting him, he thought she was afraid of something. This pleased him, as he liked to think of himself as a great, strong knight. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said in his deepest voice. “I will protect you.”
“And who will protect me from you?” she snapped back at him with great sarcasm.
“From me?” Talis was shocked. How could she think that he would hurt her? She had done horrible things to him, such as embarrass him in front of the entire village, yet he had never harmed her in any way. “I would never hurt you,” he said softly, then turned away from her. Callie had hurt his pride at times, but she had never insinuated that his honor was such that he could think of hurting something as small and weak as she was. Is this what she thought of him?
Right away Callie knew how much she had injured his pride. She always knew just how far she could go in her teasing of him. But now she had done something to bruise that ridiculous sense of honor that was so important to him. A
nd she knew that he’d starve rather than betray what he thought was his honor.
She ran to him, moving to stand in front of him, her hands on his forearms, gripping him hard. For all that he bent she could have been holding on to a piece of rock. His back was rigid, his head held high above hers, his eyes looking over her head.
“Talis, I’m sorry. So sorry. Of course you wouldn’t hurt me.”
All her feelings of restlessness were gone, all her sense of pride. She could bear most anything in life except that Talis was unhappy with her. It didn’t happen very often, but when it did, it was the most miserable feeling in the world.
Standing on tiptoes, then having to lean against him for support, she started to kiss his face, all of it that she could reach.
“Tally?” she said, whispering. “Tally, honey, my love, I’m sorry.” He didn’t respond in any way so she tried harder, kissing him more and more, putting her arms around his neck, then, because he was so rigid, she lifted herself off the ground, her full weight suspended by her arms around him.
“You would never harm me, I know that. I know I’ve been awful lately and you’ve been a saint to me, and I apologize. I really don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
After several minutes of groveling, she pulled back and looked at him. He was still standing rigid, still looking at something far away from her, but she knew that his hurt was gone. So why wasn’t he doing what he usually did when he forgave her? Usually he took full advantage of her contrition to get her to play some game where she was a helpless female rescued by the big, strong male.
But now he was still standing there, his arms at his side. And he wasn’t pushing her away and telling her to stop getting his face wet, as he usually did on the rare occasions when she kissed him.
With her toes barely touching the ground, her arms tight around his neck, her body pressed full against his, she looked at him. Had his eyes always been this dark? she wondered. Had his hair always been this black, his skin this exquisite color? Her heart was pounding in her throat. This was Talis, a boy she had shared her whole life with. He was as familiar to her as the sun, as the air, but at this moment he seemed to be the most glorious, the most unfamiliar thing on earth.
“You missed a spot,” Talis said, and Callie could feel his voice against her chest.
“Missed?” she said, her voice catching in her throat. She had no idea what he was talking about.
“You did not kiss all of my face,” he said quite seriously, then bent his head so she could kiss him more.
A moment ago her kisses had been quick, the way she had always kissed him, little girl kisses that she’d given him when he’d killed a spider for her, or once when he’d hit a big boy who was teasing her in a nasty way. Then, in happiness, she’d kissed his cheek several times. Then the only indication Talis had given that he was even aware she was kissing him was that he had bent just slightly so she could reach his cheek.
He had never kissed her, even after Callie had done very nice things for him, such as doing his chores because he’d fallen asleep under a tree. Talis said that knights didn’t kiss girls. “What do they kiss? Their horses?” she’d asked mockingly. At that retort, Meg, in one of her rare witticisms, had said, “Knights kiss their mothers,” then had lowered her cheek to receive Talis’s kiss. Talis had left the house whistling in triumph.
So now Talis was almost asking Callie to kiss him. And kiss him she did. Never in her life had she wanted to do something as much as she wanted to kiss Talis this moment. It was as though the whole world had disappeared; nothing else existed but the two of them under this tree.
She kissed his chin, long, slow, lingering kisses, then moved upward, and as she did so, he lowered his head just slightly.
When Callie placed her lips on his, it was not the hard, puckered kiss of a child, but her lips were soft and a tiny bit parted. For weeks now Talis’s lips had fascinated her. They were full and soft-looking and she liked the way they moved when he talked. In fact, lately she had not been able to hear him for watching his lips curl about the words. Sometimes she had angered him by looking away when he was telling her something, but she had needed to break the connection between her eyes and his mouth.
Now she felt his intake of breath when her lips touched his, felt his body soften, then his strong arms tighten around her. He was always showing off his newly discovered strength and picking her up and twirling her around. He delighted even in turning her upside down, or tossing her in the air. So feeling Talis’s arms around her, feeling his body close to hers was nothing new, but today this was somehow different. Today she could feel his strength, feel his big body, feel the power of him in a way she’d never felt before.
Callie wondered at his touch, wondered at the feel of her lips on his. Her inexperience, her awe, made her hesitant, but Talis did not seem to be hesitant about what to do.
For just a second, at first, he pulled away from her, looked at her, his eyes wide, then, with great assurance, he put his hand to the back of her head, turned her head to one side (she’d always puzzled over what to do with the noses in a kiss, but obviously the question had not plagued Talis. He just, somehow, knew what went where), and kissed her hard.
She was awfully glad for his strength because her knees gave way under her and Talis had to support her body fully against his. He did so easily, without seeming to notice that she had melted into the consistency of butter left in the sun.
For just a second, Callie’s eyes opened wide as he somehow managed to support her weight with his upper arms, leaving both his hands free to roam unobstructed and firmly over all of her body that he could reach. Callie had nearly despaired because she had not curves in the front of her body, but it had never occurred to her that her backside was very curvaceous and that that curve had caused no little interest in most of the boys in the village. She didn’t know that Talis had once shoved a boy three years older than himself into the mud for making a remark as Callie bent over a barrel of pickled turnips.
Now Talis cupped her buttocks as he kissed her sweet mouth in a way that made Callie nearly faint. She felt some timidity, but he didn’t. He had always been the aggressor between them, the one who walked into a cave without any thought of caution. He was the brave one, is what Meg said. And now, he was the adventurous one when it came to kissing.
He thrust his tongue into her mouth, hard and firm.
Startled, Callie pulled away from him, looked at him in surprise. Had he done something like this a few months ago, she would have thought it was disgusting, but now…now, she liked it.
One minute they were standing in the open air and the next Talis had shoved her against the tree, and it seemed that he was taking her clothes off. Callie could not think. It seemed that everything in her mind had fled and she was just one mass of feeling. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from Talis and she didn’t know if he knew what he wanted from her, but she was certain that she wanted to find out.
She was never to find out what would have happened because suddenly the cacophony surrounding them was deafening. Men thundered by on horses; men were shouting; armor clanking; chaos; confusion.
Talis was the first to hear it. Horses and men, with or without armor, were of no interest to Callie. Her one and only interest in life was Talis.
But not so him. Pulling himself away from her, his hand still on her bare thigh as it rested on his hip, he cocked his head to one side and listened.
Callie, impatient, tried to pull his face back to hers. They were safe and secret under the tree; no one would see them, no matter what they were doing.
“Something has happened,” Talis said.
“Yes,” she answered, meaning something totally different. In the last moments everything in her life had changed: The way she looked and thought about life had changed.
As though what was going on between them was no longer of interest to him, he dropped her leg, then took off running toward the house. After allowing herself a brief luxury of
cursing him, she began running after him. How could what had just happened between them affect him so little that he could just leave her like that?
But by now her brain had recovered enough to think that perhaps something horrible had happened to Meg or Will. It did not occur to her that, horrible as that may be to her and Talis, the mishaps of two peasant farmers was hardly cause for an alarm raised that involved shouting knights on horseback.
Lifting her skirts, she took off running, as close to Talis’s heels as she could manage.
24
There was no way that Callie’s legs could keep up with Talis’s long legs as the two of them ran back to the farmhouse. She half ran out of one shoe, and her hair came untied from its neat braid as she leaped over hedges, dodged three bleating sheep, and tried to follow Talis.
What she saw when she arrived made her halt. The yard was full of big men, richly dressed, their horses’ great hooves trampling Meg’s flowers. The men were all staring down at a man on the ground; Callie could only see his legs, but from the stillness of them, he looked to be dead. Standing to one side, Meg and Will clung to each other and there was fear on Meg’s face.
Callie may have hesitated to run into the midst of the dozen or so men standing about, but not so Talis. He plunged into the midst of them, and in spite of his rough clothes, he looked as though he were one of the noblemen.
Callie didn’t think of hesitating when it came to following Talis. Within a breath, she was behind him, taking advantage of the space he made for himself between the silent, staring men.
Peeping out around him, Callie saw a man on the ground, a handsome man with steel gray hair, but now his once-handsome face was blue from lack of air. On the lower half of his face, around his mouth and down his throat, were bloody scratches from where he and others had clawed at him. It didn’t take a great deal of intelligence to figure out what had happened, since a half-eaten apple lay near the man’s head. He had taken too big a bite, a piece of apple had lodged in his throat and he had choked to death. All attempts to save him had failed, and now all the stunned people could do was look down at this man as he lay dead.