“I know that wasn’t easy for you. I’m glad you didn’t lose your temper. I would have,” he says, as I feel the bed sink with his scrambling into it. “My brother is resentful. He wishes he was the older one. He hoped you’d really show me up, but you didn’t.” There’s a note of pride in his voice, which leaves me confused. Because I want the compliment, sure. But do I want it from a Claymore?
“It’s the duty of a wife to stand up for her husband’s name when needed,” I say. There’s an awkward pause, before I add, “Mostly, I was pissed that he treated you like that.” I turn around, and startle when I realize he’s inches from my own face. He’s been facing my back, positioned near the middle of the blue-blanketed bed, and I try not to exclaim.
“Yeah?” he whispers, and I’m astonished by the earnestness in his expression.
“Yeah,” I echo. “He’d – if he was the heir, we’d all be dead, wouldn’t we? He wouldn’t be able to get over the fact that I’m a Hartson.”
Desmond chuckles, and I watch his chest quiver from under his tunic. I hold my breath, cursing that he’s attractive. Attractive enough for my brain to start seeking loopholes around the Hartsons hate Claymores thing. Hating how human he is, for sparing me the duties of a wife, for accepting that being here is difficult.
“My brother’s a hothead at best. He was eager to prove himself in a raid against your people. Now with the truce, he’s angry that he’ll have to hunt something more mundane, like bandits, the Bonecleavers, or some animals.”
Bonecleavers. A vicious warrior clan on the other side of the mountains the Claymores live, that make a culture out of raiding and stealing women. They don’t raid too often, but considering their founders chose the name Bonecleaver, they built their lives by glorifying violence. They always linger in the background as a threat. A threat the Graves don’t eliminate, because the territory the Bonecleavers live in is awful to navigate. They live in black morass, with areas so swampy that many a life has been trapped within the mud, or claimed by the mosquitoes that pass on their diseases.
“I’m worried he or someone will forget the treaty all the same,” I say to Desmond, wondering how he would react if I reached out to him, to touch his hand or side. “Morgan and Danny do their best to look after me. My maidservant tries to keep me company but she gets her own fair share of trouble. The servants from other clans are the ones who treat me as normal.”
Desmond nods, contemplative as he ruffles a hand through his hair. “I know I’ve been absent a little. I’ve been… talking with friends, handling my duties. Trying to get my head around all this.”
I stare at him, and a sudden wave of sadness steals over my body. The kind of sadness that comes from loneliness, from a lack of fulfillment. “We’re never going to love each other, are we?”
He looks deeply uncomfortable at my words. “Love doesn’t come into this.”
“I know. It’s just – I always thought that when I got married, I’d be in love with my husband. I didn’t think I’d have to step around like a timid mouse for the rest of my life.”
He’s still, processing the words. He licks his lips, and my eyes follow the movement. “I can’t divorce you. But I can make things easier for you. I’ll try.”
“Even with your friends talking it up about you sleeping with a Hartson slut?”
“Even with that,” he says, though his tone is flat. “And with a person responsible for destroying a sacred relic of ours.”
Oh, I think. So he knows. I’d hoped maybe we could chalk it up to someone else, but I suppose I would be the obvious perpetrator. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“It was a foolish, childish thing to do,” he says, though there’s no hate in the tone, when I would expect it from him. “But I’ve done equally foolish things for pride before, too. Why the building, anyway? Did you know what it meant to us?”
I flush, but figure it best to stick to the truth. “Not really. I didn’t want to kill anyone.”
“Your actions caused death. My people raided yours.” He twists his mouth into a frown. “I was a part of that raiding party. I went mostly to keep a leash on my father and brother.”
“Like you wouldn’t have found an excuse anyway.” I bare my teeth in a snarl. “And you wonder why we call you murderers?”
He takes a deep, distinctive breath. “Yes. We would have found another excuse. That’s the problem, isn’t it?” He stares at me, and it feels like he’s looking into my soul. Like everything that makes up me is up for scrutiny with those black holes he has for eyes. “Wounds like ours don’t heal. The blood’s washed over us from birth.”
His words stab hard, with that awful epiphany of truth. Of cold, bottomless realization that he’s right.
Who started the feud? I think, for the first time. Dangerous thoughts. Treacherous thoughts. And at this point, does it even matter, anymore? Because we’re born into this. Born and raised with selective truths or lies. Sent out into the world hating. He’s killed, and his people love him for it. My father has killed, and mine love him for it. Desmond’s side has to be the wrong side, because if they’re not, then my side’s wrong.
We can’t be wrong.
In that moment, for the first time in my entire life – I wish I wasn’t a Hartson.
7
Desmond
I creep along the bushes, flanked by my brother and Bobby, and a handful of other men. Hunters. Warriors. The leaves have a sickly green color to them, and the land ahead is a boggy, stinking collection of vines and flies. But we have to be here. A recent Bonecleaver raid decimated a small homestead on the edges. A family murdered, a woman tortured and stolen. We will take no slights. It has always been our way.
“How many bullets do you have again?” Bobby hisses. He hates the swamp, and shuffles uncomfortably as he moves through the thick brush. Rayse clicks the safety off his own gun, already aiming.
“Twelve,” I say. Rayse has a bigger ammo clip than me, since he wields a type of sub-machine gun, whereas I have a rifle. “Which should be more than enough for four raiders. Rayse will punch a few holes in them.”
My brother grins savagely in response. He always seems to come most alive when we hunt. As if he’s dead when we’re sitting around at home, no prospect of imminent violence available. The sides of his head are slick with sweat, from the tension in his body. My legs ache from crouching, and from the six-hour ride it took with our horses to reach here. The horses are tied up in a clearing, guarded by vassals, along with our supplies and sleeping bags, in case our mission extends into the night.
“Wish I was important enough to have a gun,” Bobby grumbles, hand stroking along his dagger. It’s a sharp, wicked thing, only a few inches shorter than my belted sword. Some people think the small knives depicted upon old pictures of assassins are daggers. They’re not.
“One day,” I say, clapping him on the back. Gnawing in my mind, however, is the more recent things that have happened with my wife. Since our fake consummation, I’ve had to deal with my fair share of mutterings, too. And every night when I slip into bed, I wait until she’s asleep, and take a few moments just to look at her. Trying to acclimatize to the idea that we’re bound together. That one day, she’s to bear my children, and those children will be something people thought impossible. Claymore and Hartson blood. My mother’s just about desperate enough to want me to produce a child, even if it means being with a Hartson. She’s impatient for the “golden age” of her life. Sometimes in the dark, my thoughts chase one another, and my body wants release. So when it gets too much, I quietly masturbate to the side, or in the bathroom. I can’t do anything about the arousal, the attraction. It rises up in me like some hungry beast, in the dark, attracted by scents and sounds and haunted by visuals. But I can take the edge off, so that she doesn’t wake up to the monster she thinks I am, taking her without consent.