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Kettricken took a breath and held it, savoring the chill of the early spring air as it mixed with the deep and soothing heat of the pool. A fine mist hung above the water and lent the area a sheltered, private quality, as though a thin white veil had been drawn against the world beyond. The woods and rocky hills receded into a hazy blur. Now and then birds sang to one another in the treetops, but their voices too were distant. The profound peace and quiet of this place felt almost surreal, like an old memory or a dream. Only the lingering aches in her limbs and the stone-heavy weight of her heart told her she was awake. The road here was real. The journey was unfinished. She exhaled and let herself sink lower.
When they had first arrived, the three of them had laid out their clothes and a few blankets on a mossy swell of ground nestled between the rocks and the bases of trees above the spring. Starling had been first into the water with a joyous splash, while Kettle took her time to find the most comfortable spot. Kettricken had followed only once the others were settled. All agreed that this was precisely what they’d needed, and gave small thanks in their own ways for the turn of luck.
There being little more to say, they had soaked together in companionable silence for a time. It was no more than ten or fifteen minutes, however, before Kettle had groaned wearily and pulled herself back up onto the stony ledge. Lingering too long in a hot bath was a young woman’s game, she’d said; as good as it felt now, her frail skin would complain later. Starling had laughed and bid her stay a little longer, for who knew when they might again find such a reprieve? But Kettle was firm. “I’ve taken my bit of comfort here,” she’d replied amiably, “and don’t think I’m not grateful for it. At my age you simply know when enough is enough.” With this she gave Starling what seemed to be a meaningful look, then turned to Kettricken. “I’ll get a fire going back at the camp. You stay as long as you like.”
After she’d gone, the silence between the two younger women held, but there was a mild tension in it Kettricken found increasingly difficult to ignore. Starling appeared to have slipped back into the sulky mood that sometimes overtook her. Now she bobbed gently in the water, eyes vacant and brow slightly furrowed as if lost in thought, yet every so often Kettricken had the sense of being watched by her as well. For her own part, any lingering glances at the buoyant shape of Starling’s body—so visible in the clear, still water—Kettricken wrote off as the product of idle curiosity. True, it was hardly the first time they had seen each other naked. They’d changed clothing together in the tent, of course, and bathed quickly in cold rivers when the opportunity arose, but the quiet warmth of the pool offered a longer and closer look at the differences between them. Perhaps Starling was a little curious as well. Both took care not to meet each other’s eyes.
Eventually, Kettricken began to feel guilty. “Should we return too?” she prompted gently. “I’m sure Kettle could use the help.”
“Oh, let her be. I think she wants some time away from all of us.” Starling rolled her eyes and splashed a bit of water in the direction Kettle had gone. “As if we begged her to come along! Strange old thing.”
Kettricken smiled. “She is that. But she is wise too. Perhaps the others have gone back to camp already.”
“Fitz? I think not,” Starling replied acidly. “I’m sure she’s gone to him by now, and the two of them are well and truly occupied. We could stay here the rest of the afternoon for all they’d miss us.”
“Who—” Kettricken started, then sputtered, “Kettle?”
Starling burst into peals of bright laughter. “Oh, what an image! Eda and El. No, of course not. The Fool! I meant the Fool.”
“An image, indeed.” Kettricken shook her head to rid herself of it. “But come now, you still believe the Fool is a woman? I thought you put all that to rest the other night, when you went along on the hunt.”
“Oh, I don’t know what I believe,” Starling sighed. “And it doesn’t really matter, does it? Whatever the Fool is to Fitz,” and here she narrowed her eyes suspiciously, “it’s more than I can be. We did put that to rest, I suppose, though not before I’d made a greater fool of myself.”
Kettricken felt a pang of sympathy. “I am sorry, Starling,” she said softly. “FitzChivalry’s heart has always belonged to Molly.”
Starling snorted derisively. “I only offered him a woman’s comfort.” There was a haughty nonchalance in her voice that rang a bit hollow to Kettricken’s ears. “That was all I sought for myself as well. A little comfort, a gentle touch out here where all we have is one another.” A pause, then: “Do you think it wrong of me to want that? Or to think he might?”
Something shifted uncomfortably in Kettricken’s chest. “No,” she said after a moment. “Not wrong. It is…very difficult to be separated for so long from one you love.” Her throat tightened and she looked down. “The heart aches, but the body hungers too. Fitz endures it, as I do.”
When she lifted her eyes again, Starling met them. The other woman’s gaze held a mixture of surprise and sudden intensity. “As you do?”
“Of course,” Kettricken almost laughed. “I am only human!”
“Of course,” Starling echoed with a half-smile. There was a recognition in her expression—and perhaps even some relief—that seemed to invite Kettricken to continue.
“Wants can be pushed aside, I think, for a while. But the longer you deny them…well. It’s been a terribly long time,” she admitted. “And even before my lord Verity left, he was always busy with the war. We so rarely managed to…” She trailed off, suddenly self-conscious. She had spoken once of this to Fitz, and regretted that confession. Such petty complaints ill-fit a Sacrifice.
“My queen,” Starling began, then faltered.
“Starling, please. Speak freely.” I certainly have, Kettricken chided herself.
Starling nodded. “I hesitate to ask such a personal question,” she continued carefully, “as I would never wish to offend you. But…if you will permit me, I am curious…”
“Please.”
“Have you no bed-maid, at Buckkeep?”
“Bed-maid?” There were so many servants in the royal houses of the Duchies. Their presence was less strange to Kettricken now than it had been on her arrival in Buck, but she still found it difficult to keep track of their many roles and titles. “One who changes the bedclothes? What has that to do with—”
“No, no,” Starling laughed. “One who…warms her lady’s bed, whenever her lord is unavailable.”
Kettricken gaped at her, speechless. Her pale skin was already flushed a bit pink from the heat of the spring, but not nearly enough to hide the deeper color now rising in her face. A wave of questions, buried thoughts, and long-dormant memories surged up against the sea-wall of her mind. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands reflexively, willing herself to stillness.
Whatever remained visible of her reaction, Starling mistook it for the ignorance of an innocent. “Ah. Another difference from the Mountain Kingdom, I think. In our lands, it is a queen’s right to choose a bed-maid from among her most trusted servants. Most ladies consider it an honor.”
“This is…accepted, among your—our people? For a married woman—a queen—to take another lover?” Kettricken struggled to reconcile all she had learned of her new kingdom with what Starling was describing. So permissive an attitude towards sex outside marriage, even for royalty, seemed wildly out of character.
“A lover? No, of course not. A girl.”
Another woman. This above all Kettricken could not imagine being allowed in the Duchies. Among the Chyurda, there were some who made their lives together that way—women with women, men with men—but there were other rules, and infidelity was still taboo. No, she must have misunderstood all along. “Then a bed-maid does not lie with a queen?”
Starling was openly staring at her, equally baffled. “She does. They do. But only as girls do!”
“I don’t understand,” Kettricken replied, apologetic and dismayed. “How is it different?”
“Because it’s meaningless!” Starling exclaimed. “I thought all girls—even in the Mountains—but you’ve really never done it?”
Kettricken bit her lip. She had no desire to lie to Starling, but this was not a question she could answer as easily as it had been asked.
Again, Starling mistook her silence for ignorance. “Well, it’s common enough here,” she continued. “It’s just…something we do together when we’ve newly come of age. A way to learn, to practice pleasure—what man would teach us that? Better to know before taking one of them to bed. And no girl can spoil another’s purity for a future husband. Only men have that power, to ruin us.” The bitter drop in her voice made Kettricken wince. “Or each other, if they’re so inclined.”
“I see,” Kettricken nodded thoughtfully, and felt she saw a great deal more than Starling in that moment. “You have had this experience yourself?”
“Not in a long time, of course. But yes. As a girl. And…once or twice with other fledgling bards, out on the road when the pickings were slim among handsome young men. Or we simply wished not to concern ourselves with fears of pregnancy. Now there’s the real benefit: no bastards.” She grinned, and Kettricken joined her with a short laugh, though her heart wasn’t in it.
“It was enjoyable, then.” Meaningless, her mind echoed.
Starling tossed her head, shaking out the water droplets that clung to her tight curls, and flashed a coy smile Kettricken had only seen her wear around Fitz. “It cannot truly satisfy the way a man might, but it can ease a great deal of boredom, or a bit of sorrow.” Her tone shifted subtly from casual to suggestive. “It is a queen’s right to that kind of relief, whenever she desires.”
Kettricken’s pulse leapt. The intent in those dark eyes was unmistakable. No woman had looked at her like that since—
“I would serve you that way, my lady, if you wished it.”
Ranfir. The girl’s name had been Ranfir, and they had both been seventeen summers old. She was the daughter of a shepherd who had brought his flock to pasture near Jhaampe the year before. The friendship had deepened and then turned one night after a festival. They had lain hidden together out in a field until morning, laughing and kissing and holding each other close. Kettricken had never been in love before. It was sweet and painfully short. As a Sacrifice, her life and its course belonged to her people: the strategic betrothal to Lord Verity of the Six Duchies was already in the early stages of being arranged, and Kettricken knew that even if no specific mate had been selected for her, she would never be permitted to choose a union that would not produce an heir. When it came time for the girl’s father to move the herd again six months later, they said their goodbyes. No one but the two of them had ever known.
“Starling, I—” Her breath caught. This was too much to feel at once, the surprise along with so many regrets and urges and fears. She had allowed some part of her to go with Ranfir, all those years ago. She had never expected to let herself feel that kind of desire again, much less to be tempted by it. How could she even think of it now, when all her thoughts should be of Verity?
On the day of her wedding, she had put the past behind her and vowed to love only her king. Fate had been kind: that love had bloomed in earnest in the halls of Buckkeep, so fully that the raw edges of his absence in her life now were as painful as an open wound. If she still felt another, duller ache—one she had nursed for far longer—then that was something she would take to her grave.
The comfort Starling offered would not be meaningless, not to her. She could not take it. “I thank you, truly,” she said solemnly, “but it would be wrong for me to use you that way. And my lord—”
“—would never have to know,” Starling finished for her, a little desperately. “I promise you, I can be discreet. It can be just this once. Just…to help each other feel less alone.”
The amount of strength it took Kettricken to deny that quiet ache was frightening. “No, my friend. I cannot.”
Starling blinked a few times and then forced a smile that did not reach her eyes. “Of course,” she said stiffly. “I apologize. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll leave you in peace.” She turned quickly and made for the edge of the pool, but Kettricken had already seen the cracks forming in her composure. Pain and shame radiated from them.
“Wait,” Kettricken called after her. “There is no need—I took no offense—” Starling was already halfway out of the water. Kettricken splashed after her, reaching the rocky ledge and hauling herself up just as Starling took a few unsteady steps and stopped with her face in her hands.
“Please, don’t.” Her voice was muffled behind her palms, but she sounded close to tears. As Kettricken approached she could see Starling’s shoulders shaking slightly.
“Starling, I’m so sor—”
“No! Don’t apologize to me!” Starling whirled around, her eyes shining. “After I’ve made such an ass of myself! First with Fitz, now with you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I thought—maybe you would understand—” Her words choked off in a stifled sob as Kettricken pulled her into a firm embrace.
“I do understand.” She guided Starling’s head to rest on her shoulder, stroking her damp tresses, trying hard not to focus on the thrill of wet bare skin against her own. “I do. It’s alright.”
“You don’t. You can’t. I’m alone,” Starling cried. “And I must disgust you. Offering a queen what a bastard refused—how wretched—”
“Stop.” Kettricken pulled back and took Starling’s face in her hands. “Look at me. You are a steady companion, a minstrel of great skill, and a beauty rarer than rare. Your worth is not in question.” She brushed a tear away with her thumb, and her eyes drifted down to Starling’s pursed lips. “Nor was your offer unappealing.”
Starling shook her head, one corner of her mouth quirking in a bitter half-smile. “You are kind, but you need not lie.” She put her hands on Kettricken’s wrists tentatively, neither pushing nor pulling. “Let me go and salvage what is left of my foolish pride. We won’t speak of it again.”
It hurt Kettricken’s heart terribly to see her friend so wounded by rejection, so ashamed of her own needs. She thought she knew a little of that shame herself. There was nothing she could say to ease her pain, no way to convey sincerity in words Starling would believe, and so she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Starling’s forehead.
At the same time, she reached inside herself to find the comfort and assurance she wanted to give, and pushed it towards Starling in a way that she had never truly questioned. It was simply something she could do, this wordless sharing of emotion with another living thing. What she felt, Starling would begin to feel. Together their breathing slowed. Kettricken released Starling’s face from her hands, but Starling did not break away; instead she drew closer to Kettricken and nestled into her arms with a sigh. Kettricken welcomed her with relief, wrapping her tightly.
But the heat of Starling’s body, the pressure of her breasts and belly on Kettricken’s torso—the pleasure of these sensations soon began to eclipse all else. The compassion that Kettricken had intended to share with her friend was still there, but all around it desire simmered and thickened. She stroked Starling’s back, her fingers straying lower to the broad curve of a hip. Though not yet as developed a woman as Starling, Ranfir had been soft and firm like this. Kettricken remembered the delight of resting her hands and face on Ranfir’s sturdy hips—and the delicious softness of her skin, high up on the inside of those thighs. Her pulse began to throb between her own thighs with the memory.
Starling inhaled shakily and Kettricken snapped back to the present, suddenly aware of just how much longing she was pouring into their connection. She broke the embrace to look down into Starling’s eyes: her pupils were wide and black, and she was gazing up at Kettricken with a mixture of confusion and eager hope. What she had unwittingly given was what Starling had sought all along: the affirmation of being wanted, lust stripped of all pretense or denial.
Just this once. To help each other feel less alone. Could Kettricken really refuse that respite, to Starling or to herself?
Verity, forgive me, she thought, and leaned in to gently kiss Starling’s mouth. Starling responded at first with a gasp, then a harder, hungrier kiss, her hands twining into Kettricken’s still-dripping hair. They drank each other in, slow and deliberate, dizzy with the exhilaration of a long thirst slaked.
In a pause for breath, Kettricken felt she owed Starling the truth. “I did have a…friend,” she admitted, her voice low, as Starling’s lips moved across her cheek and down into the hollow of her jaw. “In the Mountain Kingdom, before my betrothal.”
“Is that so?” She could feel Starling’s smile against the side of her neck.
“She was a bit like you. Very beautiful. I…still miss her.”
“Then let me remind you of her,” Starling murmured, and took her hands to pull her towards the shelter of the trees and the blankets they had laid there.
They knelt together at first, exploratory caresses and lingering kisses building in urgency until Starling laid back and pulled Kettricken down on top of her, positioning their legs so that Kettricken rode the thick curve of her thigh. Her hands smoothed down the small of Kettricken’s back to cup her buttocks. When she pulled and lifted her knee, Kettricken ground against her with a startled moan. Water droplets from the pool still clung to them both, causing skin to glide over skin with sensuous ease.
Kettricken laid her cheek against the pillow of Starling’s bosom and rocked her hips forwards a few times, shuddering. Then Starling was turning, rolling her over onto her back and leaning over her, kissing her deeply before moving down to her chest. She took one of Kettricken’s small breasts in her mouth, her tongue flicking across the hard nipple. Kettricken clutched at her back, writhing as Starling pushed her legs apart and brushed her hand up the inside of Kettricken’s thigh. She stopped there, as if waiting for permission.
“Please,” Kettricken gasped, but Starling only smirked down at her.
“Don’t beg,” she whispered by Kettricken’s ear. “Command me, as a queen should.”
Kettricken flushed, aching. “Touch me,” she ordered, and Starling obeyed. Her fingertips were warm and gentle, dancing over her, teasing and toying until Kettricken dug her nails into the flesh of Starling’s upper arms. She uttered a curse in Chyurdan, arching up against Starling’s palm. Starling silenced her with a kiss and slipped a finger inside her, curling it maddeningly. With her thumb she stroked above in slick circles. Kettricken threw her head back against the ground and cried out as Starling thrust deeper, two fingers twisting deftly.
“That’s—oh—yes—” she panted. “Starling, you’re—”
“Good with my hands?” Starling answered playfully. “I’ve been told I have a minstrel’s aptitude.”
Kettricken’s laugh deepened into a satisfied groan as Starling picked up her pace. Soon the heat inside her began to build towards a climax, but Kettricken fought it. “Wait,” she gasped, “stop. Not yet.”
Starling frowned, withdrawing as Kettricken sat up. “What is it?” she asked, searching Kettricken’s face. What she found there was a look of hungry determination.
“Lie down,” Kettricken told her thickly. Starling’s eyes widened but she obliged, watching with increasing astonishment as Kettricken lowered herself between her legs. Her breathing went ragged when Kettricken kissed and then nuzzled into the soft flesh of her thigh.
“You—you’ve no need to—” Starling protested weakly, but an assertive glance up from Kettricken confirmed that this was no act of obligation. “I’ve never actually—mmhhh!” She clapped one hand over her own mouth to muffle her cry.
Kettricken lost herself for a time in the simple joy of being surrounded by soft, wet warmth, in the taste of Starling’s arousal and the way her other hand clutched fistfuls of Kettricken’s hair every time she moved her tongue just so. She persisted until both of Starling’s hands were on her head and shameless, full-throated howls of pleasure filled the air. Finally Starling bucked beneath her, squeezing her thighs together over Kettricken’s ears, and came in a hot damp rush against her mouth.
Kettricken propped herself up on her elbows, wiping her face with the back of her hand and taking in the view of Starling, sprawled and spent. After a moment she got to her knees, slipping a hand under Starling’s leg and pushing one thigh up and back. She had learned a number of things from Ranfir, who had once or twice lain with a woman several years older and much more experienced. This position had always been Kettricken’s favorite way to finish. She knelt over Starling, one leg over her hip and the other beneath the thigh she held up. She angled her hips in and down, using her free hand to spread herself open.
When she made contact, Starling yelped, seemingly as much in bewilderment as stimulation. “What in El’s name—” she swore, but as Kettricken ground down into the slick mess she had made, Starling’s eyelids fluttered shut and her hands came up to grip Kettricken’s sides. “Oh… that feels—so good—”
With a little guidance, Starling discovered how to move in time with the working of Kettricken’s hips and increase their friction. Once they had established a rhythm, Kettricken rode her with a force that surprised them both. Her hands kneaded Starling’s breasts, and she could hear herself grunting with effort; this was how she remembered being with Ranfir, rough and a little frantic, relishing the animal impulse. She had rarely shown this side of herself to Verity, sweet as their lovemaking had been—but it felt wrong to think of him now, and guiltily she pushed his memory aside. Ranfir she exiled from her mind as well. It was Starling who looked up at her now with eyes full of wonder, Starling who had offered her body up to ease both Kettricken’s loneliness and her own. They did not share each other’s hearts as lovers might, but they had shared pain, pleasure and trust; that was enough. Kettricken leaned forward, her brows drawn in concentration as she raked herself again and again over her friend. Starling reached up to caress her cheek.
“That’s it,” Starling whispered. “Let it go. Let go.” Kettricken made a strangled sound and shook apart while Starling held her, her eyes never leaving Kettricken’s face. Afterwards she pulled Kettricken down against her body and continued to speak softly to her, faint words of praise and reassurance, as if Kettricken were some wild thing she had tamed.
On the contrary, Kettricken felt more like a long-caged animal newly released into an unfamiliar wilderness. It frightened her. What had she done? What she feared most was not a change in her relationship with Starling, but some unnameable change inside herself. Would Verity see it in her, if she did succeed in finding him? Could he love her still? She rolled onto her back and lay quietly next to Starling, her body sated but her heart and mind shaken.
After a few moments Starling took her hand and caught her eye. “I see I was very wrong about Mountain girls,” she said with amusement, winning a bashful smile from Kettricken. “Thank you for…educating me.”
Kettricken laid her head on Starling’s shoulder and draped an arm over her. “Sweet Starling,” she said with a sigh. “You have been a great comfort to me.” It was not a lie, but it was not the whole truth.
“And you to me,” Starling answered warmly. “Are you comfortable?”
“I’ve no wish to move,” Kettricken replied, and Starling laughed. “Can I ask a favor of you?”
“Anything, my queen.” There was a new hint of mischief in Starling’s use of her title, and Kettricken found she enjoyed it.
“I know you’ve no instrument here, but…would you sing something for me? Before we go back?”
“With pleasure.” She gave Kettricken a playful smile. “I think I know just the thing. Tell me, have you ever heard of Queen Caution? Mother of the infamous Piebald Prince?”
“The prince’s story I have sometimes heard…though not, I think, in full. Of his mother I know nothing.”
“Few minstrels know this particular song, and fewer dare to sing it,” Starling continued, obviously enjoying the opportunity to boast. “It concerns the queen and her maid, Felicity. What kind of maid she was, I think you may be able to guess.”
Without further ado, Starling launched into one of the bawdiest ballads Kettricken had ever heard in her life. The song—not simply its lyrics, but its very existence, and the fact of its secret transmission down through generations in Buck—made a deep impression on the queen, and stayed with her many long years after.
illustrations by Cornichonrond
