Buck saw
Myal for the first time in a week as he left Pires’s office. He desperately
wanted to go and talk to her, but as soon as she noticed him she ducked into
the nearest room along the corridor. And that was the scullery, so it was
unlikely she had urgent business to attend to. He supposed it hadn’t been very
long, so she probably hadn’t got his note yet. Or worse, she had.
He decided to retire to his treehouse. For
one thing he had to make some notes on how to go about not offending the ambassador.
So he quickly stopped by Victane’s to retrieve his bucket, and in it his
papers, then dashed back across the town square to his treehouse.
He’d taken Simone with him to Victane’s – something
about her slightly furry company had helped to quell his ever-rising nerves – so
now he had to very carefully hold her out towards the tree, shielding her from
view with his baggy sleeves. Then he checked nobody was in his immediate vicinity
and let her scurry up. A moment later the sharp scent of curry drifted town to
Buck’s nose. He scurried up the rope, then plonked down next to Simone as she snacked
on her reward.
“How about just you and me for a day, eh?”
Buck said, giving her a quick scratch on the head. “I’ve got a bit of work to
do but how about after that some relaxing?”
Simone looked up at him for a moment, then
stretched out a couple of her legs and continued eating her curry bites. Buck
smiled and sat with his back against the treehouse wall, legs straight out in
front of him. As he grabbed his papers and quill, the sun peeked out from
behind a cloud and streamed right in across his legs. He sighed contentedly,
poised his pen over his paper, and promptly fell asleep.
The next thing Buck heard was a knocking
sound. On his door? He twisted around to see out the window but it wasn’t as if
someone could have been floating in the air. Down below was Erson, and, taking
a step back from the tree to stand beside him, was Myal.
Buck tilted his head to the side. “Did you
just… knock on my tree?”
“I… uh, yes,” Myal said. She frowned up at
Buck. “Do you even have a door?”
“Sort of,” Buck said. He hadn’t bothered to
pull the rope back up so he gave it a quick shake. “You’re both welcome up if
you like.”
“I think not.” Erson scoffed, though Myal
had been looking down quizzically at her loose mid-length skirt.
She shook her head and looked back up. “Uh,
yeah, no. Could you just come down here? We want to talk to you.”
Well those were absolutely words he wanted
to hear, even if they were in a slightly exasperated tone. He swung out the window,
planting his feet against the trunk, then walked down to the ground. He considered
tying up the bottom of the rope and throwing it back up through the window, but
he wasn’t sure if they would have left by the time he had to go back up. A
magic rope falling to the ground might have raised some questions that quickly
led to Simone.
“So,” he said, straightening his tunic. “What
did you want to talk about?”
“You, mostly,” Erson said. “A little bit of
the ambassador’s visit, but mostly you.”
Buck was quite glad to have the tree trunk
at his back. Other than that he felt quite exposed by the opening of this
conversation.
“Look,” Myal said, wide eyes concentrating
hard on him. “You know you hurt us both, and we know you’re sorry for that. But
you have to understand that everything going back to normal for you… it’s like
you won. It’s like you set out on your quest to use us to get what you wanted,
and now you have it. You might regret how you did it, but ultimately our pain
still brought you back where you want to be.”
She ran out of breath as she reached the end
of what she was saying. Buck wondered how long she’d practiced that for, if she
and Erson had run through what they were going to say together just as he and Pires
would have done. Somehow he doubted the planning was quite so intense.
“So we have an offer for you,” Erson said.
Even if it wasn’t as particular a strategy as he might have concocted, that was
still a pretty smooth way to cover for Myal as she regained her composure.
“Oh, uh, what’s that?” Buck asked, forcing
himself to stay in the moment.
“We want you to leave,” Erson said, holding
his gaze with a furrowed brow.
“Leave?” Buck exclaimed, “But I just got
back!”
“No, no,” Myal said, waving her hands in
front of her. “Not leave Resador. I certainly don’t want that. We want you to
leave Pires’s service. Prove that you’re no longer a conniving puppet-master
and everything will be forgotten.”
Buck took a slight step back so that he
could properly lean against the tree. It wasn’t a start in shock though. He’d
imagined this might be the sort of thing they asked for when he said that if
there was anything he could do to make it up for them. He’d been putting off
imagining what he’d say, so he just had to wing it and see what came out of his
mouth.
“No,” he said. He blinked, more surprised by
himself than by the two of them. “I just… I can’t. Pires took me in. She
gave me a purpose, a thing that I was good at. She’s the only reason I am the
person I am today.”
“Well, exactly,” Erson said, folding his arms.
“We think she’s a bad influence on you.”
Buck
exhaled like he’d been punched in the gut. ‘The person I am today’ was meant to
have been a positive statement.
“What would I be without Pires? Without
my clothes and my paint and my bucket?” Buck groaned.
“You’d be Buttane!” Myal screamed. “Our
friend, Buttane! Is it so tortuous to imagine yourself back in that life? You
were going to help me find performers for my court barely more than a week ago!”
Buck sighed and faced roughly north, thinking
about his time in the Royal Valley. The current conversation made him think of
Hilene in particular. He wondered if he was having fun up there, moving cattle
back and forth day after day like the needle on a metronome. As nice as it had
been to meet Loilyn and Holyon and Ikilyn, he knew immediately that that was
still how he saw that place.
“I’m sorry,” Buck said, his eyes getting
hotter and starting to sting as tears appeared. “But it’s just not me. I’m
Bucket. I never really saw myself as Buttane, even when I was up there. Maybe…
maybe for a moment I thought I could be, but that’s as far as I ever
got.”
Myal was staring straight at the ground.
“Then you were never my friend,” she
mumbled. When she looked at him her eyes were screwed up but just about holding
back the tears. “I want you to leave.”
“I just can’t,” Buck said.
“No! Leave the city! That’s what I want. I clearly
don’t know who you really are but you look too much like my friend and I want
you to leave forever! I know you’re not going to but that’s just what I want.” With
that she turned and sprinted away, presumably letting the tears fall now that
he couldn’t see them.
A few people had started to turn around to
watch. Going by the pointing and muttering between several of them, the three
of them had been instantly recognised.
“This is awfully exposed,” Buck murmured.
“Yes, well. How do you think I felt?” Erson snapped.
“When I humiliated you at that feast in the
palace the first time you were down here?” Buck asked.
“I was actually thinking of when you exposed
my relationship for a lie,” Erson said. He set his jaw. “But don’t you think
that sort of proves my point?”
“I’m so sorry,” Buck said. “I should never
have hurt either of you.”
“You’re hurting us right now!” Erson
snarled.
“I know,” Buck croaked.
“Then do as we ask!”
“No!”
Erson stared at him for a few long moments,
the crowd watching on with breath as bated as Buck’s. “I have my answer then.” As
Erson turned to go he let out a small fart. He chuckled as he looked back at
Buck. “That one was an accident actually. My farts are more genuine than your
words.”
And then he walked off, leaving Buck in a
cloud of stink and shame.
Points: 83957
Reviews: 1464
Donate