Read Online Firethorn by Sarah Micklem - Free Book Online

taste was salty. “I’m not too skinny for you?”
    He laughed again and replied with another kiss. He took my hand and we ran, far from the other lights. Behind a hawthorn hedge he drove the butt of the torch into the ground.
    I asked, “Why don’t you put it out?”
    â€œBecause I want to see you,” he said.
    We lay on earth turned and softened by the plow. He pushed up my dress, unlaced his hose, and I took the weight of a man willingly for the first time. There was not much pain, or pleasure either. I don’t know why he wanted the torch. He kept his eyes shut most of the time.
    When he was done he rolled off and lay on his side with his head propped on his hand, looking at me. The torch wavered and smoked as it burned low, casting shadows under his brow and cheekbones.
    He asked my name.
    â€œI’m called Firethorn.”
    He smiled and rubbed his lip where I’d bitten him. “I daresay you earned your name by being prickly,” he said.
    â€œIt seems to me you have the prick,” I retorted. He lay on his back and laughed. He had heavy eyelids, drooping at the outer edges. I began to like the shadow left by his shaven beard. I pushed my dress down around my legs and turned to look at him.
    â€œWhat is your name, Sire?”
    â€œGalan.”
    â€œAnd your mother’s house?”
    â€œCapella.”
    â€œGods! Are you Sire Pava’s kinsman, then?”
    â€œOur mothers are sisters.” He looked at me under his lids.
    â€œGive me the rest, then—your father’s house?”
    â€œFalco.” This time he laughed at me, because my jaw hung open. He took a lock of hair that had fallen over my face and tucked it behind my ear.
    â€œThe First’s son?”
    â€œNo, his nephew. Aren’t you pleased? They’ll make much of you in the village.”
    â€œWhy should they? You’ll be gone soon enough. Besides, what’s done on the UpsideDown Days must not be mentioned.” Now this Sire Galan dam Capella by Falco of Crux put me too much in mind of Sire Pava. The Blood think we should be honored by their touch, as they were honored when the gods mated with their ancestors. They don’t imagine we might disagree.
    The torch guttered out. I could see the bright road across the sky and the twelve godsigns in the stars. In the sky each sign writes a god’s name. But arranged one after another, in dots of ink on sized linen, with marks above, right, or below to indicate the avatars, the signs can be made to mean almost anything. So the Dame had taught me, when she’d taught me to read.
    I didn’t need to wonder what she’d say if she saw me lying with a man in a field. Perhaps she did see me.
    â€œLook, there’s Crux,” I said, pointing. I was glad of the dark, for blood had risen to my face.
    â€œI’m surprised you know the stars,” he murmured.
    I bit back a short reply.
    He said, “I saw you at the gate the other day. When your red hair got loose it was hard to miss. And I thought to myself: that one’s mine, come Carnal Night.” He put his hand between my thighs and I felt a pulse start under his touch. “I see you’re red here too.” His voice was not as sleepy.
    There was balm in this. I was glad to be sought after. Better that than to think I was all he could catch. I pulled my dress over my head and persuaded his shirt to come off, and then his hose. I wanted the heat of his skin on my whole body.
    The second time, I touched him wherever I pleased, wherever he pleased, and I marveled that we each had ceded to the other the right to wander freely in so much new territory. I found him embellished with scars: a long, thin line under his jawbone; a weal on his shin; a crescent-shaped ridge on his back; nicks and scratches everywhere. They were pale against his skin in the dark, and they gave my fingers something rough over which to linger. I said, this one? and he