The Reckless Oath We Made

There was a long rolling slope down to a creek, and above the creek, three ponds stair-stepped down the hill. A big one and two small ones. Two of them were mossy-looking with lily pads and grass along the edges. The third one was lined with stones, so the water was clear.

Beyond that were hills and more hills, all the way to the interstate. From up there, it felt like I could see the whole state of Kansas.

I could also see what Gentry meant to do with the castle. There would be three towers, all connected with walls to make a courtyard in the middle. The one we were in was tallest, with the second one only about fifteen feet high, and the third one just a foundation with a couple rows of stones.

“How big is it going to be?” I said.

“Each tower shall stand five and forty feet. The curtain walls shall be eighteen feet. This be the gate tower. T’other two towers shall have no gate but to the bailey, and two chambers above the lower. Along the south shall be the scullery and the bath, for I buried the septic below.”

“Septic? Your castle’s going to have flush toilets? That’s pretty damn fancy.” For a second I was worried I’d offended him, because he frowned, but then he smiled and nodded.

“Elsewise, methinks it would like thee not,” he said.

Unless I was wrong about how Middle English worked, he was building a castle based on what he thought I would like.

“How long have you been working on it?”

“This summer shall be my fifth year.”

“How old are you?” I’d always assumed he was younger than me.

“I am four and twenty years, my lady.”

“And you own the land?” He nodded. “So you bought it when you were nineteen? And started building a castle?”

“Yea, but my debt will not be paid for nigh a score of years. And mayhap ne will my keep be built ere I have paid it.”

“But still.” It deflated my excitement, not for him, but for me, because it was a reminder that I was twenty-six years old and I had nothing to show for it, except debt. I didn’t own a house, and my car—the only real thing I owned—Gentry had paid for half of that.

We rested our elbows on top of the wall and looked down at all of his hard work, with the sun shining on us and the tarp flapping, until he yawned.

“When do you sleep?” I said, because I couldn’t figure it out.

“Now I shall sleep.” He yawned again, and after I went down the stairs, he fastened the tarp back. I figured we would go back to the tent for him to sleep, but he carried the basket around to the south side of the castle, where there were two giant oak trees at the edge of a bluff. He laid the blanket out there in the shade, but that was just for me. He stepped out into full sun and sat down in the grass to take off his boots. Then he took off his shirt, rolled it up to make himself a little pillow, laid back in the grass half naked, and fell asleep.

I sat on the blanket, knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep. My brain was too busy, and it seemed strange sleeping outside like that. Gentry was completely sacked out, though. He rolled over a few times, switching between cooking his front and his back. Once, a bee landed on his back and walked around, so I used the book to fan it away.

While he slept, I read. It was a kid’s book, but super serious. This poor kid, Stephen, was taking it on the chin from all sides. People being shitty to him, and every time he’d rise above it, the world crapped on him again. His brothers were assholes, then he had to kill his dog, and he got sent away to become a priest, even though he didn’t want to be one. So he ran away and took up with a knight, like Charlene had said Gentry tried to do, but then the knight got killed. Stephen had all these troubles, and then in the end, he went back and became a priest anyway. It was really fucking sad, especially for a kid like Gentry to have read when he was only ten.

I felt the same kind of sad when I thought about Marcus being with the Gills. They weren’t mean to him, but I never felt like they loved him for who he was. More like he was something they liked to keep around to show off. Their only grandson. They were always trying to mold him, how he talked and dressed. What bothered me most was that however they treated him was probably how they treated Loudon, and he turned out to be an epic asshole. Thinking about that made me cry, for Marcus, for the kid in the book, for Gentry, for Mom and LaReigne, for Dad. At least that dress had plenty of fabric to dry my eyes on. I was curled up sniveling like a baby when Gentry woke up and stretched.

He carried his shirt and boots over to the blanket. My little spot in the shade had shrunk so small, I’d crossed my legs to keep my toes out of the sun. While I dried my eyes, Gentry got out the bottle of water and took a long drink. Then he sat down on the blanket and offered the bottle to me. I only took a few sips, because I was nice and cool in the shade with a breeze on me. Gentry, on the other hand, had sweated so much his chest hair was wet. I could feel the heat radiating off him.

“Did you sleep okay?” I was shocked he could sleep that way at all.

“Yea. I ne’er sleep so well as I do here. How farest thou, my lady?”

“Oh, I rested and read a little. This is a sad book.”

“’Tis?” He had his head down, unrolling his shirt like he was going to put it on, but he stopped and frowned.

“A lot of sad things happen to Stephen. Did you really run away looking for a knight when you were a little boy?”

“My mother told thee?”

Instead of putting his shirt on, he flopped back on the blanket and laughed. Honestly, I didn’t mind looking at him. He wasn’t chiseled like a guy who spends hours lifting weights, but he was solid, like a guy who spends his weekends building a castle. His body hair had perfect margins. Black hair on his forearms and his knuckles, but nowhere else on his arms. Same deal with his chest: a perfect butterfly shape of hair, but none on his shoulders or back. He had a little bit of a gut—at his age, it could have been baby fat or beer—and that was where all the sweat had run off him and soaked into the waist of his pants.

I recognized the surgical scar on his right shoulder from physical therapy, but on his left forearm, he had a bunch of old puncture scars, white against his tan. An even dozen, I guessed, because scars like that come in sets of four. He had more on his left shoulder, and a set of them up high on his throat under his chin.

“Wow,” I said. “That must have been a big dog.”

“A fair-sized dog, and I was a small boy. ’Twas thus I came to live with my mother and father. The judge would not leave me return to the house where Miranda dwelt, for the dogs remained there.”

The dogs remained there. He’d gone into foster care, because his own mother wasn’t willing to get rid of her dogs after he was bitten?

“Is it okay if I touch you?” I said.