A Rational Arrangement, page 14
—and threw her rider clear off.
“JUSTIN!” Even as the cry left Nik’s throat, Anthser was already in motion, leaping from the beach to a ledge near the base of the cliff and surging up from there as powerfully as he could, his launch almost vertical in an effort to intercept. Justin twisted catlike in the air, curling to get his feet under him as if that might help on an eighty foot drop, and extended his arms out to Nik. Nik dropped his bow and grabbed Justin as he fell. The heavier man’s momentum nearly jerked Nik from the seat himself. By then, Anthser had reached the apogee and was falling as well, and Nik had enough leverage to pull Justin sideways onto Anthser’s back. They landed in the creek with a massive splash, the transmitted shock almost enough to knock both humans off. Nik’s thighs were locked into the seat as his arms clutched Justin to his chest, heart hammering in delayed terror. “Justin, Savior, Justin, are you hurt?”
Justin managed a shake of his head, looking more angry than frightened. Anthser waded out of the creek with flanks heaving, the two humans on his back. Nik clung to the other man, shaking from the spike of adrenaline, stroking Justin’s hair and pressing lips to the top of his head, oblivious and uncaring of how it looked, aware only of one thing: I almost lost you.
I almost lost you.
Anthser more collapsed than lay down on the shore, gasping for breath. Justin broke from Nik’s embrace to slide off and stand on unsteady legs. Southing dropped with a splash into the creek beside them, breathing almost as labored as Anthser’s after half-running and half-falling after them. “Crap, Lord Comfrey, I’m sor—”
“Wildcat bitch! Were you trying to kill me?” Justin roared, cutting her off. Southing rocked back on her haunches in the creek, ears flat back. Nik and Anthser stared at Justin. The viscount didn’t wait for her response, advancing on her with one hand raised. “Because as assassination attempts go, that was pretty fucking convincing! I thought you were a fucking professional, not some Abandoned World demoncat. Just what was bucking me off at a hundred feet supposed to accomplish?”
Southing’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “I wasn’t—”
“Don’t backtalk me you disease-ridden furball!” Justin stopped just inches from her, his head looming over the greatcat’s, though she was more than ten times his mass. His raised palm made it look as though he were about to slap her, which would perhaps rank as only the second-most suicidal thing he’d done that day. “Is this what I’m paying you for? Because I can throw myself off an abandoned cliff for free if I want!”
Nik slid off Anthser. The black greatcat rose to all fours, tense, and Nik placed a steadying hand on Anthser’s shoulder. Southing’s wet fur bristled as she rose from her seated position to a posture as menacing as Justin’s. “You told me to do it!”
“Justin…” Nik could not quite fathom that this argument was happening, much less how to derail it.
The Newlanture lord ignored him, still focused on Southing. “Is your mind made of fur? Because my friend here can fix that for you!” Justin waved a hand at Nik, who winced. “So you know, ‘give it a shot’ does not in fact mean ‘throw me off at the highest possible point’!”
“I warned you that we—”
“Hold your tongue, you insolent wildcat-brained ill-bred monstrosity! I’m not paying you for your worthless mouth, I’m paying you for your equally worthless racing—”
Southing roared, back arched and gums bared to reveal a mouth larger than Justin’s head, lined by jagged pointy teeth. “Blood and death you are! I am through!” She pivoted and stalked away.
“You can’t turn your back on me! I own you!”
She twisted her head to look over her shoulder, snarling, “No, you don’t. I quit, Lord Comfrey.” The greatcat drew out his title like an insult.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me! I’ll see you never race again, you little beast!”
“Just watch me, little man.” Southing leapt to the far side of the creek and paced away down the trail, tail lashing.
Justin sputtered, turning back to the others. “That halfwitted homicidal demonspawn – can you believe—”
“Comfrey—” Nik found his voice at last “—shut up.” Anthser’s fur bristled and his glare at Justin was full of loathing. Nik smoothed the fur beneath his hand. “Anthser, feel free to accompany her if you please.” The greatcat acknowledged with a nod and bounded after Southing.
Justin glowered at Nik in disbelief. “Demons, Striker, you’re not taking her part?” Nik turned away, walking stiffly to a damp fallen log at the base of the cliff. Justin followed him, shaking with rage. “You bastard! She almost killed me!”
“Comfrey, you are being an ass,” Nik said. Justin seized his shoulder and jerked the slighter man around to face him. Nik regarded Justin’s livid visage with icy blue eyes before he dropped his gaze pointedly to the tan fingers digging into his shoulder. “Did you want to insult and threaten me as well, or will you skip directly to the beating?”
Jaw clenched, Justin dropped his hand as if burned. He crossed his arms over his muscular chest and turned away. Nik dropped to sit on the log and leaned back against the cliff, long legs stretched before him and eyes closed. The water of the creek lapped around the heels of his riding boots. Nik could not bring himself to care.
For a few minutes, the cliff base was still save for the rustle of leaves and the quiet babble of water flowing down the creek. Justin spoke at last. “She tried to kill me.” His voice was tight and controlled.
“She attempted a highly dangerous maneuver at your request, in contravention of her own judgement. As a result, you fell.” Nik didn’t open his eyes.
“Curse it, Striker! Are you saying I can’t tell the difference between a throw and a tumble? When it’s happening to me?”
Nik looked to Justin, the image of his strong handsome angry friend superimposed in his mind with the sight of that terrible fall. I almost lost you. He swallowed, nauseated by lingering fear. “I was watching,” he said, softly. “Feli Southing did just what every other greatcat does when clambering over an outcrop with a bad grip. Kicked off with her hindlegs to get lift and momentum.”
“Are you telling me Anthser would have done that?”
“Anthser and I used the trail on this cliff.” Nik paused a moment to let that sink in. “He would not today, not with a rider. But he has before. Five or six summers ago. Jumping from the ground to a second-floor balcony. I fell, too.” Voice low, he went on, “You do not know how grateful I am to be able to argue this point with you, here and now.”
Justin exhaled. After a moment, he sank down to sit beside Nik on the log and put an arm around the blond man’s shoulders. “Thank you for catching me,” he said, just as quietly.
Nik twisted sideways to hug Justin fiercely, hiding his face against the man’s tan neck. “You’re welcome.” Nik swallowed, closing his eyes as Justin held him in return, caressing his back and smoothing his hair. After a long silent moment, he added, “I would take it as a great kindness if you could manage not to get yourself killed, my lord.”
“Hah. I’ll do my best.” Justin bent to kiss Nik’s pale forehead. Another silence, then: “So. An ass.”
A strangled half-laugh. “Inexcusably. Saints, Justin, even if she had tried to kill you, your behavior was out of line.”
“Oh, come now,” Justin protested. “I wasn’t that bad.”
“You were abominable. ‘I’ll see you never race again’? I’ve never seen you so petty or so crude.” Even in retrospect it shocked Nik, so unlike Justin’s usual easy-going demeanor. With their heads still touching, he scanned the familiar contours of his friend’s mind for a clue to the reason. He’d always been fascinated by Justin’s mind, quite unlike those of other men and yet so sane, orderly, efficient. Long-healed traumas nestled like pearls among the different mindshapes. Most of his anger channeled into humor, where it soon dissipated, rather than into violence or outbursts. The capacity for the latter existed, but by a seldom-used connection chained alongside fear. Like Anthser’s, Justin’s sense of fear was modest; unlike Anthser’s, it had an odd shape to it, and was twined with anger. Links between fear and anger were not uncommon, but this level of intertwining not something he’d seen in anyone else. Still, much of the variance in minds was unusual or unique to Nik’s experience, without causing any apparent difficulty for the individual.
Justin had winced at Nik’s remark. “She kept provoking me.” Nik sat up to look him in the eye. “She did. If she’d shown a little humility instead of backtalking – stop looking at me like that! It’s not a servant’s place to question a lord. Even if I was a little unreasonable.”
“‘A little’? I’m not even willing to repeat the things you called that poor greatcat. And she wasn’t your servant, for pity’s sake. You can’t expect a greatcat to show the deference of a scullery maid.”
“Why not? She works for me. Worked.”
“Well you can, but you’ll be disappointed. Saints, I hope you don’t treat your human servants that way.” Nik drew away, leaning against the cliff instead.
“Only when they try to kill me.” At Nik’s sharp look, Justin added, “It’s never come up before, all right? Believe it or not this is the first time in thirty years that one of my servants has tried to kill me. Employee. Accidentally almost killed me. You get the idea. It’s a new experience for me.”
“…have people who don’t work for you tried to kill you before?” Nik asked, frowning, wondering again about the Justin’s intertwined mindshapes for fear and anger.
“I have fought duels,” Justin pointed out, then sighed. “I suppose I did handle this badly.” Nik looked at him without comment. “Very badly.” Nik kept looking. Justin put his face in one hand. “I should apologize, shouldn’t I.” It wasn’t a question.
“Oh saints yes.”
“Curse it. I hate apologizing to an inferior.”
One corner of Nik’s mouth twitched up in a smile. “It’s turned out well for you in the past.” At Justin’s sour look, he added, “Remember when we met?”
Justin shuddered. “Show some mercy, boy. I’ve made enough mistakes today that you needn’t dredge up the ones from six years ago to throw at me.”
Nik pulled Justin into his embrace again. “Sorry.”
Justin closed his eyes, resting his head against Nik’s chest. “Forgiven.” A distant querulous ‘hallo’ caught their attention, and the two men straightened into more dignified positions. “Curst attendants.” Justin climbed to his feet.
“It’s not their fault either,” Nik said. “At least this way you won’t have to walk back to the clubhouse.”
“I think I’d rather walk back.” Justin called out a hallo in response anyway.
The Markavian had a felishome near the clubhouse: an oversized building with extra-large doors and windows, its amenities tailored for use by paws or mouths rather than hands. The interior was plain, as the space was designed to be used by employees and not members – the membership was exclusively male humans. The front room had hardwood floors and whitewashed walls, and was furnished with several wide low couch-beds. When Justin opened the door, he found the front room empty save for Fel Fireholt and Feli Southing. The two greatcats were sprawled together over one of the couch-beds. Their heads raised at his entrance, ears flattening as they identified him. Fel Fireholt’s lip curled back in a half-snarl that surprised Justin: Nik’s liegecat had always been an amiable individual. Feli Southing’s flat-eared, flat-whiskered look was merely cold. Fel Fireholt gave the bare minimum of courtesy in a growled, “My lord?”
Justin decided his impulse to withdraw was more cowardice than prudence and stood his ground. In as deferential and inoffensive a tone as he could manage, he said, “Feli Southing, might I have a word with you, please?”
“No,” she said flatly.
That was final. He bowed. “I apologize. You may collect your severance pay from Mr. Black at your leisure.” Justin withdrew, resigned to writing out his apology instead. Ethan could give it to her with the severance.
He was halfway to the clubhouse when Southing’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Wait.”
Justin bridled at the imperious command from a commoner, but at this point he owed it to her to oblige. He turned around on the marble path. “Yes, feli?”
The gray-and-white striped greatcat stood between evergreen hedges that lined either side of the path. Her tailtip twitched and her ears remained canted backwards. Justin braced himself against getting angry again because she was. But all she said was, “I quit.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t get severance for quitting.”
“I think, under the circumstances, you’re entitled. Don’t you?”
Southing lashed her tail, making branches of the adjacent bush sway. “I think I’m entitled to a lot more than that.” Justin inclined his head to acknowledge the truth in this. The tension in her whiskers eased. “…did you really come to apologize?”
“I did, feli. I intended considerably more humiliating detail than the mere two words, but as you were understandably not in the mood to listen I thought I’d just write it.”
“Huh.” The greatcat’s tail stilled, the muscles beneath her fur rippling as she paced closer. “Well. If that’s what you wanted to say, I’ll listen.”
Justin tried not to smile and did not quite succeed. “Thank you, Feli Southing.” She kept moving, slowing to a human’s pace, so he fell in step beside her as he continued, “I wish to apologize for my actions today, to wit: instructing you to take a risky route, falling off when you complied, faulting you for my own error, insulting your person, threatening your career, and in general acting the complete twit.” Beside him, Southing’s whiskers twitched up in a slight greatcat smile. She turned down one of the side paths, past dormant flower beds bordered by ankle-height picket fences intended to discourage walkers from trodding on the plants. The viscount continued, “My behavior was inexcusable. I regret my tone and inflammatory words in particular extremely. I bear you no animosity and, obviously, do not intend to carry through on my ill-conceived and idiotic threats. I will be happy to provide you with a favorable letter of recommendation when you seek your next patron.”
Southing and Justin took several steps in silence. Finally, she asked, “Do you lose your temper like that a lot?”
He gave a dry laugh. “Thankfully, no.”
“So…why?”
Justin didn’t want to answer this question for Southing any more than he had for Nikola, and knew he’d put himself in a position where he had no right to refuse. “At one juncture in my youth, I trained myself to redirect fear into anger. As a reflex, the same way one uses a certain stance in fencing or a particular approach for climbing. There have been occasions where this reflex was useful. Today was not one of them.”
Southing dipped her head in a nod. The two of them came to an open space in the dormant garden, where the stone path wound in a circle about a patch of grass. The striped greatcat strode in front and turned to drop to the grass before Justin, laying her head against her forelegs in a startlingly submissive gesture. “I didn’t mean to throw you.”
“I know. Now.” A self-deprecating smile. “I regret that I am not at my most perceptive when angry, either.”
The massive feline head turned to one side, gaze on the silhouette of a stand of barren cherry trees in the near distance. “Anthser told me there’s a…kind of trick, to how you can move in that position so you don’t shake off a rider by accident. He said there’s basically no way a man can stay on if you do it normally.”
“I should not have told you to attempt the climb,” Justin said. “My error regardless.”
Southing nodded more emphatically than Justin thought necessary, but then added, “Still. I did…I mean, I had meant to say I was sorry. I was going to when you started yelling at me.” She glowered at him, and he schooled himself to limit his response to an acknowledging nod. The greatcat sighed, looking away again. “And I think I still should. Even though it was an accident and sort of your idea. So. I’m sorry.” She paused. “That was a pretty terrible apology, wasn’t it?” Justin stifled a laugh. She continued, “I really am sorry. And I’m glad Anthser and Lord Nik caught you and you’re all right. Um, you are all right, aren’t you, m’lord?” The feline peered up at him anxiously.
“My pride may be crippled for life, but the rest of me is fine,” Justin assured her.
“Bet Lord Nik can fix that for you.”
He chuckled, then sobered to say, “I’m not sure I’d want him to. It deserves the abuse. And I accept your apology, Feli Southing.”
“Thanks.” Southing climbed to her feet and shook out her fur. She’d traded her narrow racing cloak for a wider one in plain red; it flared before settling against her flanks again. She swiped a paw over her face, then raised her head high, until her eyes were level with his. “Um. I accept yours, too, Lord Comfrey.”
Justin raised an eyebrow. “Good manners and my failing require me to apologize,” he said, in mild, neutral tones. “Neither requires you to accept it.”
“No, I do. I mean, I want to. I know I don’t have to.” She turned to sit on her haunches beside him, massive form in profile. “Sorry, I’m not good at gracious.”
“It’s fine. Thank you.” He offered a short bow, which she returned awkwardly. They remained in silence for a few moments, the breeze ruffling through the end of Justin’s ponytail and stirring the edge of Southing’s cloak. “I should be on my way. Take care, Feli Southing.”
