The cells

After Esus healed the girl’s hand Miryil demanded that she be taken to the cells. He helped her to her feet and gave Miryil a scathing look.

“She stays with me, Miryil. I have a place prepared for her.” He almost pointed out that Miryil had been in such haste to find her things she had forgotten to ask the girl’s name but Miryil interrupted him before he could.

“She stays in the cells. She’s dangerous and a blasphemer. If I hadn’t promised the Keam that she would be returned safely after she delivers her message to the Holy Father I would have her head on a pike already.” The Light Bringer’s words were sharp and furious, they brooked no argument.

Esus shook his head and gently led the girl below, he took her first back to the bird cotes. At the table where he recorded the birds that had come and gone, the feeding of them and their care, he drew another pencil and offered her his careful ledger.

“They never asked your name.” He watched as she took the pencil and smiled shaking her head.

He had expected her to write in the margin, but she wrote in the proper place as if she were one of the few named birds he had listed. Charyic, thief with bad luck of late. He had to laugh.

“You were named after the falconet?” Esus asked with a crooked smile.

She nodded, her lips twisting wryly.

“It’s a good name. It suits you.”

Her smile was warm and her muddy green eyes showed genuine pleasure at his words. The thought of putting her in a cell seemed wrong.

“Miryil wanted me to make sure you understood that she gave an order. It wasn’t a suggestion, Esus.” Ivhir spoke with quiet authority.

Charyic sighed and shrugged keeping her back to Ivhir and her eyes on him. Esus fixed the man with a look of bitter resignation. “She doesn’t belong in the cells, but if that’s where she has to stay she needs blankets and bedding. Help me carry things down for her.”

“You’re going to build your new bird a nest in the cells?” Ivhir teased him.

Esus saw Charyic’s lips twist, it looked as though she was annoyed and amused.

“Her name, not that you bothered to ask her, is Charyic. You could at least call her by it.” Esus frowned at him as he watched the man’s face light up with recognition, there would be no end to the ‘your new bird’ teasing.

“Miryil was close to it then. She told the priest of Anyk she was a falconet.” Ivhir grinned broadly, “It’s no wonder you took to her so quickly. Or that-” He came to a stop as Charyic turned her head and fixed him with a murderous glare.

“Or that?” Esus asked dryly.

Ivhir looked away from Charyic’s angry eyes and half smiled, “I seem to have forgotten. Let’s get her bedding down to the cells.” After the tall man put Esus between himself and Charyic he whispered loudly, “If she keeps glaring like that you might have to keep her hooded.”

Charyic snorted and the amused annoyance was back on her face.

Esus helped Ivhir manhandle the cot he usually slept on, here by the birds, down to the cells, Charyic carried the blankets. Even after putting the cot in a cell and laying out the blankets, the sight of her standing alone in the cell was somehow painful.

“Would you,” Esus hesitated, he didn’t want her to think she was being propositioned, “would you like me to stay and keep you company?”

Charyic’s eyebrows raised and she gave him a smile that suggested she would have teased him if she could speak.

“There aren’t enough of us to keep the watch and provide you with a chaperone, Esus.” Ivhir grinned.

“It wouldn’t be required.” He frowned at the taller man.

Ivhir locked her in. “You can keep watch over her if you want to, but I don't think she’s going anywhere, Esus.” He took the key and tucked it into a pocket of his jerkin. He mounted the stairs and Esus shook his head looking back at Charyic who was smiling smugly.

“If I left you alone, you would be out of there before I reached the top of the stairs.” She grinned at his words and made a shooing gesture with her hands.

Esus’ crooked grin answered hers. He came to the bars and leaned against them. “I hadn’t meant it as a proposition. I don’t like the thought of you here alone. Not only because I think you’ll be halfway to the mountains before Miryil comes to look in on you.”

Charyic laughed. He watched as she made the figure of a bird with her hands and gestured to the bed. That might actually be permissible, but he was too large to get through the bars.

He shook his head. “I can’t fit through the bars.”

She gave him a mischievous smile and held up a finger for him to wait before wiggling it in a gesture for him to turn around.

He laughed and turned leaning back against the bars he looked up at the ceiling for a moment listening to the quiet, almost inaudible sounds, before asking. “You don’t like to be watched when you-” The sound of the door opening made him jump, and Charyic stood grinning over her shoulder tucking away something he couldn’t see.

“The lock was that easy?” Esus asked aghast.

She grinned and then bent over frowning pitifully, miming a bent old woman shuffling with an imaginary cane. He laughed and nodded.

“It’s your turn to turn around. I have to change.” He watched her straighten and turn away respectfully, before turning her head to surreptitiously peek. He grinned at her and shook his head. “No peeking, please.”

Charyic sighed and turned to face the wall again, and Esus quickly began to undress. He had a feeling that she wasn’t going to stand there without peeking for long.