Call Me a Dog
Robyn leaned against the trunk of an old elm, arms and ankles crossed, watching Fiora rip fistfuls of grass and wildflowers from the ground. They squealed and snapped like sinew, and his nose twitched at the bittersweet scent of whatever substance stained her hands yellow-green. Her dark brow was set in a hard line. Many times, he'd accompanied Her Highness to the meadow behind the keep to collect flowers for her paints. Never had he seen her chuck them into the basket as if she were trying to punish them.
Fiora gripped another handful of assorted foliage—that time, at the base of a tall, lanky stem with a broad-petaled flower, yellow as sulfur, at its end. He saw the muscles of her forearm bulge and quiver even under the black brocade of her sleeves. When she tried to jerk it, roots and all, from the dirt, her hand slipped, and she recoiled with a gasp. He pushed away from the tree and hurried to her side, peering over her shoulder.
“What happened?”
She huffed. “I'm fine.”
Even as she dismissed it, Fiora raised her hand, and Robyn took a knee beside her.
“It's nothing. Just a little cut.”
He grunted, cradling her hand in his. In the crux of her thumb was a thin, red line. It flooded the folds of her palm, charting a map of bloody rivers through the grassy smudges and flecks of dirt besmirching her pale skin. In the center of it all was his blunt, callused thumb, cutting through the red like the bow of an old ship. Clicking his tongue, he reached for the tattered cheesecloth lining the flower basket, smudging it with the half-print of his bloodied thumb. Ripping off a long strip, he brought it under her hand, wrapping both ends around it and testing its snugness before he tied a careful knot.
“You've got to be more careful.”
She shot him a flaccid glare, her bottom lip protruding in a way that caught his eyes for longer than intended.
“Don't speak to me like I'm a child.”
“I'm not. I don't want to see you hurt, is all.”
Her brown eyes, so warm in the sun that they looked red, twitched between his, one to the other. He'd forgotten her hand in his, but even as he helped her to her feet, Robyn didn't let go, not right away. He lingered as long as he could before each shady crenel of the castle battlements on the hill drew his painstaking attention.
His heart sank into the soles of his feet when he brought his eyes back to hers. She was crying. There was a glimmer of scrutiny that made his pulse quicken, as if he’d been caught picking her pocket. If she knew his mind, she didn’t say. Instead, she sniveled and dropped her head.
“What am I going to do, Ser Robyn? Father wants to marry me off to some vile old man.”
A lump formed in his throat. He set his hand on her shoulder. “Your father wants peace,” he said, stern, feeling he'd shrunk to her hip and was growing smaller still.
She laughed. “And I'm a bargaining chip, I suppose.”
“No.”
What are you doing?
He lifted his other hand beneath her chin until she was staring into him with eyes which made him want to melt and dribble into the earth. She hadn’t flinched. It was as if his tender touch was as natural a duty as any of his others. Fiora studied him through her dewy lashes, lingering on his lips, and he felt a spark in his jaw. He swallowed. It was painfully loud. Her lips quivered, pursed, and frowned before she jerked her eyes away again. Her hand found purchase on his wrist, clinging as if for dear life.
“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered, choked to little more than a shrill crackle.
“You won’t,” he insisted, knowing he had no say in the matter. His hands remembered neither etiquette nor the standing of the man attached to them. He caressed her cheek, smooth as porcelain and soft as down, and tucked a lock of black hair behind her ear. She lingered but for a purpose he couldn’t discern. Without his knowing, he’d drifted closer to her, just by an inch, and their breath mingled, hot, in the shameful gap between them. The cruel pain in his craned neck reminded him of the years that set them apart. Her lips parted, and his heart fluttered with such force that every inch of him ached. His blood was heavy with something, but whether it was sadness or longing, he didn’t know. It froze the moment her rosy lips drew into a line, and she gave him a withering look. Her lips curled like a hissing cat's with each pointed word.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Ser Robyn.”
Fiora tore herself away, gathering her skirts in her balled fists, and marched along the path of downtrodden meadowflowers they’d carved in their arrival. There was a swelling in the hollow of his neck that burned like bile. Robyn swallowed whatever wanted to come up—or out—and grabbed the flower basket before jogging after her. His eyes scoured the landscape for anything to distract from the leaden ache in his gut.
What would a princess want with a knight—one twice her age, to boot? You’re no better than a dog.