The Boy Who Plaited Manes Read Free

altogether eerie and uncanny, what she was feeling. It was as if his quick fingers called to her hair in soft command and her hair obeyed just for the sake of one quick touch, all the while longing to embrace… She stayed breathlessly still for him, like the horses.
    He plaited her hair in braids as thin as bluebell stems, only a wisp of hairs to each braid, one after another with both his deft hands as if each was as easy as a caress, making them stay with merely a touch of two fingers at the end, until all her hair lay in a silky cascade of them, catching the light and glimmering and swaying like a rich drapery when he made her move her head. Some of them he gathered and looped and tied up with the ribbons that matched her gown, violet edged with gold. But most of them he left hanging to her bare back and shoulders. He surveyed his work with just a whisper of a smile when he was finished, then turned and left without waiting for the lady’s nod, and she sat as if under a spell and watched his thin back as he walked away. Then she tossed her head at his lack of deference. But the swinging of her hair pleased her.
    She had him dress her hair the next day, and the next, and the next, and many days thereafter. And so that they would not have to be always bathing him, her tiring-women found him a room within the manor-house doors, and a pallet and clean blankets, and a change of clothing, plain coarse clothing such as servants wore. They trimmed the heavy hair that shadowed his eyes, also, but he looked no less the oddling with his thin, thin face and his calm, burning glance and his mouth that seemed scarcely ever to move. He did as he was bid, whether by Wald or the lady or some kitchen maid, and every day he plaited Lady Aelynn’s hair differently. One day he shaped it all into a bright crown of braids atop her head. On other days he would plait it close to her head so that the tendrils caressed her neck, or in a haughty crest studded with jewels, or in a single soft feathered braid at one side. He always left her tower chamber at once, never looking at the lady to see whether he had pleased her, as if he knew that she would always be pleased.
    Always, she was.
    Things happened. The tiring-woman who had taken smallpox died of it, but Lady Aelynn did not care. Lord Robley went away on a journey to discipline a debtor vassal, and Lady Aelynn did not care except to be glad, for there was a sure sense growing in her of what she would do.
    When even her very tresses were enthralled by the touch of this oddling boy, longing to embrace him, could she be otherwise?
    When next he had plaited her mane of honey-colored hair and turned to leave her without a glance, she caught him by one thin arm. His eyes met hers with a steady, gathered look. She stood. She was taller than he, and larger, though she was as slender as any maiden. It did not matter. She took him by one thin hand and led him to her bed, and there he did as he was bid.
    Nor did he disappoint her. His touch—never had she been touched so softly, so gently, so deftly and with such power. Nor was he lacking in manhood, for all that he was as thin and hairless as a boy. And his lips, after all, knew how to move, and his tongue. But it was the touch of his thin hands that she hungered for, the gentle, tender, potent touch that thrilled her almost as if—she were loved…
    He smiled at her afterward, slightly, softly, a whisper of a smile in the muted half-light of her canopied bed, and his lips moved.
    “You are swine,” he said, “all of you nobles.”
    And he got up, put on his plain, coarse clothing, and left her without a backward glance.
    * * *
    It terrified Lady Aelynn that he was not truly a mute. Terrified her even more than what he had said, though she burned with mortified wrath whenever she thought of the latter. He, of all people, a mute, to speak such words to her and leave her helpless to avenge herself… Perhaps for that reason he would not betray her.