Snow (10 page)

"Hell," Alec said and took a step back. "Don't. Don't do that."

"Why?" David said. "I liked it. You--you liked it. I can tell. Your eyes, they--"

"Just don't," Alec said, closing his eyes momentarily. "You can, god help me, stay with me.

Come by tomorrow. Tan door, third street past the farmer's stalls at the far edge of the square. I have to leave at sunrise so be there a little before that so I can let you in. But you--you can't do what you just did again, okay? No touching."

"I'm sorry," David said, shamed, remembering his nurse, pain on her face and ice around her. "I forgot about--the cold will go away. I just--you looked--I just had to touch you and-- "

"Cold?" Alec said and his voice had gone agitated, not with anger but with something else that sounded almost like fear but sweeter, sharper. "Oh. Right. The cold. Yes. Very cold. So no more touching. In fact, no talking about it either. You got it?"

David nodded.

"Okay," Alec said. "Tomorrow, then. Before sunrise."

David nodded again.

Alec sighed. "You do have somewhere to sleep tonight, right?"

"No."

"That's what I get for asking," Alec muttered. "Why can't you just lie like a normal person?"

"But I want to stay with you."

"That's too bad because--" Alec said, and shook his head. "Fine. I don't have any extra pillows or blankets so it's the floor, okay? The bare cold floor." He started walking down the street. "You'll probably like that," he muttered to himself.

David watched him walk, smiling at the sound of his voice.

"You do realize I'm going to take my offer back in about five seconds, right?" Alec called back to him. "So you might want to hurry up."

David caught up to him easily. "I'm going to make you breakfast," he said happily.

"Well, that would be a miracle," Alec said, "as all I have is a bottle of ale and a bunch of grapes."

He paused for a moment. "You do realize by miracle I mean 'please don't cook me a dish with those two ingredients in it,' right?"

"Of course," David said. "You probably drank the ale already anyway."

"You know," Alec said, "sometimes I think you're much smarter than you let on."

***

On the third street past the farmer's stalls at the far edge of the square a tan door rested in the middle of a long wall. David smiled when he saw it and pictured a house like the ones his nurse had told him about, small and snug with a roof of straw that dripped down sweet smelling onto the floor.

It wasn't like that.

Behind the door was a long hallway dotted with doors and capped with a set of stairs at the far end, the roof dizzyingly far away and not made of straw at all. Up the stairs was another hallway and more doors. Alec lived up the stairs and behind the eighth door, at the very end of the hallway. And his house wasn't a house at all. It was a room, airy and wide with high ceilings and a large window high up on the wall, a bed bracketed to the left of it, tucked up and into a sort of loft. There was a fireplace set into the right wall and a long empty shelf running along the wall next to it, a cabinet tucked beneath it at the far end. The room was empty except for a table, a chair, a tin tub resting on its side, the bottom coated with fine black dust, and a basket that held a snarl of clothes.

"Well?" Alec said, his voice edged sharp. When David looked at him, he gestured around the room like a challenge.

"Can I sleep under the window?" David said, walking over and looking up at it. "You can see the stars!" He looked around the room again. There was a ladder built into the wall.

"What's that for?" he asked.

"Climbing." Alec's voice was, if possible, even sharper but when David looked at him his eyes weren't angry but confused, like what David was saying was what he hadn't expected to hear.

"Oh." David looked at the ladder again. "I've never seen a ladder inside a wall before. How does it work?"

Alec didn't move for a moment but then he grabbed the ladder. It slid right out of the wall and he propped it up against the edge of the loft. "There," he said, and his voice was back to normal again, light and wry. "Takes you right up to what the landlord calls 'the second room'."

"What do you call it?"

"A fancy way of overcharging for a bed."

David laughed. Alec grinned at him and the confusion in his eyes had melted into something warm.

"I can't believe I get to stay here," David said happily, caught up in Alec's smile, in knowing he was exactly where he wanted to be.

Alec stared at him for a moment, his grin fading. "Lucky you," he finally said, and his voice was flat. "You do realize this is it, right? One room, no servants, no fancy whatevers. And you really do have to sleep on the floor."

"I know," David said, and sat down under the window. "Here is okay, right?"

"Sure," Alec said slowly. "One night on the floor, probably an adventure for you."

"I slept on the floor when my nurse died," David said, staring up at the stars. "She was sick for a long time. If I lay just right on the stones I could reach up and hold her hand. I had to stop when-

-when it got too cold. It--I was hurting her. I just wanted to be near her."

Alec didn't say anything for a while and then he cleared his throat and said, "I'll get you a blanket."

He climbed up into the loft and tossed down one blanket, then two. Then he muttered under his breath for a moment and threw down a pillow.

"Thank you," David called out, but Alec didn't reply.

The pillow smelled like Alec. David slept with his face turned toward the window and one arm under the pillow, curling his fingers into it and holding it close. He woke up when it was barely light and saw Alec moving around. He was rubbing the back of his neck.

"Are you hurt?" David asked, sitting up with his hand still holding the pillow tight, smoothing over it.

Alec shook his head. He wasn't looking at him exactly, his gaze trained on David's hand moving over the pillow. "I have to go," he said abruptly. He rocked back on his heels for a moment and then said, "See you around."

"I know," David said. "Tonight."

"Sure," Alec said and there was something in his voice, almost like laughter but so bleak David knew whatever he was thinking about wasn't amusing at all. When he left he closed the door quietly behind him.

After the sun came up David cleaned. Or rather he tried, but Alec didn't even own a broom. He ended up borrowing one from the woman who lived two doors down. She was red-haired and red-eyed and coughed constantly, fingers coming away dripping a darker red than her hair. She said her name was Gladys and stared at him warily as he talked.

"A broom," she said. "That's really all you want?"

He nodded.

She squinted at him for a moment and then coughed again, a deep racking sound. When she was done she said, "What do you want it for?"

"I'm cleaning," he said.

"Cleaning."

He nodded. "I'm--" he pointed to Alec's door, "right there. I'll bring it back as soon as I'm done."

She narrowed her eyes at him for a second but then shrugged, passed him the broom, and shut her door.

He took it back when he was done and said, "Thank you for letting me borrow this. It was very nice of you."

She looked startled and then laughed. "I think that's the first time I've ever been called that. You want a cup of tea?"

"Yes, please," he said. His stomach was growling.

He ended up staying with Gladys for most of the day, listening to her talk and watching her heat water over a rigged up flame, the tea leaves she had so well-used all they produced were cups of water colored the faintest brown. She'd lived in the house for a long time--with her father before she was married and then once she had, in a room of her own. Her husband died in a cave-in before they'd been married a year and then she'd gone to work in the mines. "Till last winter," she said, "when I got the sickness. Now I stay here, earn coins where I can." She jerked her head in the direction of the bed. David looked but just saw rumpled sheets that were much mended and stained in places. When he looked back at her she was sitting stiffly watching him, eyes wary and calculating all at once.

"I'm sorry you're sick," he said.

She relaxed, took another sip of tea. "You been with Alec long?"

He shook his head.

"Everyone said he'd be back," she said, "but I thought--well, I thought he might make it. I used to hear him singing while we worked--it passes the time, makes the dark less dark--and oh, such a lovely voice he has. And he was sure that if he could just get away from the mines--I've never seen anyone believe like he could." She lowered her voice. "Of course, with all the talk he almost had to leave, but you know all about that."

David didn't know and he wasn't sure Alec believed in anything but he nodded and asked about the fireplace. He needed to make dinner. She told him where to get wood and when he filled the room with smoke came and showed him how to open the damper.

"Where on earth did Alec find you?" she said.

"In the snow."

She laughed and then coughed. "You are a strange one, aren't you? No matter. It's about time he had someone who appreciated him and I think--no, I can tell you do. Go do your marketing and I'll watch the fire for you."

"You don't mind?"

She looked at him for a moment. "I haven't been near a fireplace for more than a moment or two all season and you know what it's like out. And with my cough--"

He pulled the chair over to the fire. "Sit down and rest," he said. "Can I get you anything?

She shook her head. "You really are a strange one," she said. "Go on now, before there's nothing left but potatoes and salt fish."

She was asleep when he got back and he didn't wake her, just put more wood on the fire and then looked around for something to cook with. She woke up coughing as the sun was setting and stared at him when he gave her a small packet of tea.

"You want a go," she said, narrow-eyed and a disappointed look on her face. "In the future, spare me the gesture and just give me coins." She stood up and started unlacing her shirt.

"Gesture?" David said as she walked toward him. "It's not really that. That's more--" He moved his hands around to show her but she didn't seem to notice, kept unlacing her shirt. Whatever was making her sick was eating her from the outside in; he could see it in the stark line of her ribs, the bony ridge running down the center of her chest. She took one of his hands and put it against her skin. It was paper thin and hot under his fingers. "Look, I could just keep it here," he said.

"And you could use it whenever you wanted. Or not. I, um, didn't mean to upset you. Can I move my hand now?"

"You don't want a go," she said, surprise in her voice, and held up the tea. "Then what's this for?"

"Drinking."

"Drinking," she said slowly.

"You know, it's tea. I just -- the leaves you have are old and I thought you might like some new ones. What did you think it was?"

"Tea."

"Oh. Then why did you --?"

She shook her head, started lacing her shirt back up. "Honey," she said. "I'm starting to think what you said about Alec finding you in the snow is true. You're like a just hatched chick.

Buying me tea for no reason!"

"You could share it with me."

She grinned. "Not so wet behind the ears after all. Come over tomorrow and we'll have a cup."

"Okay," he said and smiled at her. "Tomorrow."

She stared at him for a moment. "Saints," she said a shade breathlessly. "Alec is a lucky one, even with you being as strange as you are. I bet the first time you met you snagged him with that smile."

David shook his head. "He kicked me."

Gladys laughed. "Why on earth did he do that?"

"He thought I was dead."

Gladys laughed again, then coughed once more. "Hell," she said when she was done, wheezing loudly. "You really are something."

Alec returned when it was dark, his face drawn and his hands caked with dark sparkling dust, one arm dangling strangely by his side. He looked surprised to see David, started to smile and then said, "You're still here," surprise in his voice and a strange look on his face.

"I made dinner," David said.

"You made dinner." Now Alec sounded nervous.

David served gingerbread. Gingerbread and potatoes. Alec grinned at the potatoes--David had baked them, then split them open and filled them with tiny salted fish--and laughed when David told him about what Gladys had said before he left to go to the square. He'd laughed more when David told him about the tea, said, "She hasn't changed a bit," and then, more quietly, "It was nice, what you did for her. She deserves more kindness than most show her." And then he ate most of the gingerbread.

"So how did you get all this?" he asked.

"I went to the square."

"I know that," he said with a smile. "What I mean is how did you pay for it? Did you borrow money from Gladys?"

"No."

"Then how did you buy--?" Alec swept an arm over the table, his smile fading. His other arm was still dangling by his side, strangely motionless, and David realized he hadn't moved it once.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

Alec's mouth tightened. "How did you buy all this?" he said again.

"I had money."

"The money you made singing?"

David nodded.

"How much did you spend?" Alec's voice was clipped, curt.

David told him and Alec got up and disappeared up into the loft, returned carrying a small leather pouch. He opened it and pulled a handful of coins out, put them on the table. "This is for what you spent today." He pulled out another handful and put them next to the first pile. "And this should last you for the rest of the week."

David pushed the first pile of coins back across the table. "I don't need this."

"Take it."

"Why?"

Alec's face tightened. "I don't want anything from you. Not now, not ever. Got it?"

"No."

Alec stared at him. "You shouldn't have spent your money on me," he finally said.

"Why not?"