Elena was in the library again.

It was a dreadful habit of hers, sneaking out in the midnight hours, but she found that she was always caught if she tried reading in her room. Katherine would notice the wasted candles and scold about missed beauty sleep, and then fret about how any suitor would wish to marry a maid who left her bed to sleep with books-all of which was very awkward. Or else Aelf would wake and then dutifully spend the night watching her, which made her feel guilty about dragging his guardianship into places it didn't need to go.

Besides, the library was only a few doors down from her room, and if something serious happened she only had to call out. Aelf had tuned his hearing to any sign of distress from the young woman, although frankly she thought that an attack on her person was highly unlikely. She was not important enough in her brother's eyes to worry about being kidnapped for ransom, she was not an heir to the estate and had no authority over it, and whoever married her would not get land in the bargain so there was no use in forcing her that way.

The Lady gave a happy sigh and curled up beneath the one torch on the wall, tucking her legs to her chest as she opened up her new Canterbury Tales. It was hot here, and smoky, but at the same time it made it easier to imagine Chaucer's world of crowded inns and dusty roads-all of which she found thoroughly enchanting. Still, she was only a few minutes in when she frowned and shut the book thoughtfully over her thumb. It was impossible to read anything remotely concerning peasants these days without thinking of Brian, and it was irking her. Elena had tried her very hardest to put the serf out of her mind for now, considering everything else that she had to worry about-but it was proving completely impossible.

She stood with another sigh and clutched the Tales to her chest, rolling her eyes at herself. She was an idiot, a complete weakling to worry so much over something as meaningless as a serf...but on the other hand was it much better to be so heartless about something as meaningless as a serf? Confusion was twisting her insides again, and she didn't like it. Still, she resolved herself and slipped a hand down to touch the dagger at her waist. It was there and strong, and thanks to Aelf she could use it...so surely there was no danger....

It was the work of a moment to slip down to the kitchens and seize a meat pie, and the work of a few more moments to ghost her way down to the fields and to the tiny settlement that passed as home to the field workers. Elena paused for a moment, uncertain, and with one glance up at the moon wished she had stayed home. How would she even find him in all of this mess?

Brian couldn't sleep. He had trouble sleeping most nights, now. It wasn't only the pain in his hand, through it throbbed restively. It was the thoughts running through his mind. Fevered plans... hopes--above all, fear. He was terrified.

Sometimes, too, he woke from nightmares of the old Steward. The things he would say. The way he would tug at his shirt, the way he was, sometimes, violent; how he'd touch Brian's face afterwards, and taste his tears. There was nothing to be said about it, except that he felt a vague horror at the memory that, once in awhile, he had found comfort from the old man. A horror that he was just a pet and a plaything, and that's what he would always be.

Then there was hunger. Planning for a revolution was all well and good, but his plate was still half-empty and his plot of land still went chiefly to the Lord. Brian leaned his elbows on his knees and sat peering out one of the hut's 'windows,' uncovered in summer to let in fresh breeze. In winter he would stuff the wattle structure with rags--whatever he could find, to keep in the heat.

Well, this winter would be different. He stared out across the fields of waving barley, their heavy heads tilting as they swayed. It smelled of dung and sickness but also fresh breeze, better than the claustrophic, stale air inside his home. Most men his age had wives by now; he was lucky he didn't--he hadn't fathered any children, so far as he knew, so he hadn't had to. Brian wanted to stay free. To him, a wife, children, a family--all that meant only more chains holding him to the land, holding him to this life. This horrible life.

Someone was moving outside, and he bolted upright, peering out the window. He thought at first he was hallucinating, because he couldn't be--seeing the silhouette of a hope or a delirious dream--but it was Elena, the Lady Lawley, her black hair moonlit. She looked a little like an overcoated ghost, face pale in the gloom. She must be here to see him.

A toy.

"Hist!" He poked his head out the window and waved for her attention, then opened the door and made his way toward her. He wore the same clothes he always did; it got chilly at night, and it wasn't as if he could afford a nightshirt. "Lady." His voice, when he drew closer, settled from excited into ironical. "Taking a tour of how the lower classes live?"

"I...."

She was speechless. It wasn't fair for her to feel so awkward around this man; to have yet one more person she couldn't control. Darien was bad enough. Add a crazed serf into the equation and Elena could see her life spinning out of control faster than a barrel in the river. The memory of Darien's rage made her press her teeth together and straighten up, and she met Brian's eyes almost coldly. Darien refused to be a good leader and ruler over Lawley; if she couldn't stay here, then it would be her duty to train someone who could. "Would you rather I stayed nice and warm and ignorant up in yon castle? Here."

Elena shoved the pie at him. "I brought food." Too late she remembered his kiss, and thought of how this visit might look to him, and unfortunately blushed to see his hair turn silver in the moonlight. Undoubtably he would think that she was here out of infatuation, or a few more orders involving kisses...kisses that went too far. It was troublesome that her body couldn't control itself around him.

The Lady lifted her chin and willed herself to ignore the strangeness and cold and poverty of her surroundings, hoping to remedy the weakness of her position by speaking archly. "I thought you might like it-although I see that starvation has not encumbered your talent for cheek. You, sir, will watch your tongue around me."

The sentence had a double meaning, and she wondered if he would prove intelligent enough to catch it.

Brian watched her warily, and took the pie in one hand. It was cold, but smelled delicious. Still, pride didn't permit him to devour it, as much as he wanted to.

Oh, what the Hell, he decided, and gulped down the whole thing in six bites while she talked. Food was food, and just because she gave it to him--like Egon--suddenly it felt hard to swallow, and he worked his throat convulsively. A whore--that's what he was. A male whore. He got food and special breaks because he was bloody pretty. Brian hawked and spat, and would have thrown up if his body hadn't held tenaciously to any nourishment.

She was blushing at him. Brian could have had his pick of serf girls, but he was tired; tired of it all. Elena might have come here to flirt, but he'd see if he couldn't get her to change her tune.

"You, sir, will watch your tongue around me."

"Watch yours first." He met her eyes. Remember who asked for a kiss, he didn't say. "Talking of cheek. Just because you brandish your rank--when you talk--just 'cause it's gold-plated don't mean it ain't a weapon." He raised his eyebrows. "'Sides. This is my turf. It belongs to you but you're alone now, it's late at night, and natural freedom is I think what we've got here--so you didn't just come to feed me, did you? Be honest--like your brother never can be." He'd heard enough tales from those who worked with the boy.

"I'm not interested in that."

Her chin was even higher, now, and quivering slightly-whether with anger or tears it was impossible to say. But Elena's eyes met his squarely, and she practically spat at him. "I am not my brother. He might be a whore, but I am not-I have better things to do than toy with every person that comes my way, and even if I was cursed with Darien's personality I would not be able to share in his pleasures since I am a woman and I must remain innocent." She was glaring. "You are a handsome young man. Yes. But I asked for a kiss on the cheek; a very chaste and innocent kiss. You're the one who turned it into something more, and I will say this, handsome faces come at a dime a dozen. I could care less about that. One accident or thirty years; one way or another, handsome fades."

The Lady took a step closer. "What I'm interested in is intelligence. How does a serf find fire and purpose noblemen never have? How can he use it if he is uneducated? What are his designs with my manor? That's what I want to know. That's what I want. Let me teach you."

It was almost surprising to learn that that was what she wanted. And then there was the burden of watching him eat-it was pitiful to see an entire pie vanishing in six bites. Painful, almost. "Everyone misjudges me."

For once, she sounded sullen. But Elena did not expound on her moment of self-pity; she simply held out an arm to gesture to the rest of the compound. "You all live like this? What can I do? Enough teasing. Enough."

"What can you do?" Brian's expression softened, and he watched her, now, almost lazily. He had no idea what he could ask of her. "You're a woman. A lady, but a woman. You command no troops. Your brother or your mother control your money, yeah?" He shook his head. "You can help us get our hands on some weapons. You can try to get rid of the steward we got now, but I have to tell you--it's the whole damn system. It's a mess. I know it. We don't have freedom. You can give us that? Freedom? To own ourselves and our land? It'd ruin you and your fiefdom."

Egon Botolph had told him as much, when, as an eight-year-old boy, he had asked what he and his family were working for and why they were always hungry.

"I think the only way's our way and what you can do is keep out of it--out of our way--'cause what we're tryin' to do--you can say 'oh, he's smart for a serf' but God damn it, I'm a person too. Just as much as your brother. More. More than the damned Botolphs. More than the knights. Struggle--what it's--what it's about, is trying hard." Striving; that was the word the priest had used. But he could never recall the words, just the tone, the vibrancy.

"You're the educated one--what can you do, do you think--what do you think teachin' me's gonna do?" His tone was still faintly accusatory, but it mellowed a little when he saw the expression on her face. "Look. I'm just doin' what I can. I thank you for your offer. But you're young, you're a Lady; there's more you don't know than I don't know, and I don't mean lessons you can learn from listening to stories... we do all live like this, all of us. And you can't imagine... sometimes, in winter, someone vanishes. Eaten. We never ask by who. Or hangings. No flesh goes waste. Not even ours. I don't know any way out of this than a way as will get in your way, and maybe I mean killing and maybe I don't--you figure it out."

He looked away, trusting in the gloom to cover his agonized expression. Brian didn't want to be like his brother, who even he could tell was a murderer. He wasn't a killer. But the boiling anger inside of him demanded it--it demanded blood.

The Lady's eyebrows rose, but she waited in silence for Brian to finish speaking. Idly Elena recalled tales of nobility who fell in love with peasants, and she couldn't help but wonder if story-peasants were as rough and vulgar as real ones were proving to be. And then Farraday was done, and she folded her arms across her chest. Elena's tone was one of exaggerated patience. "Yes, Farraday. I am a woman. You're a serf. What was your point?"

She let that sink in. "I have a secret for you. Father wanted me to inherit Lawley. Not Darien." The girl peered at him, closely. "Meaning that I am not an idiot, and I am not an ordinary female. We had best get that straight right now. Say it to yourself: 'Lady Elena is not an ordinary female.'"

In the blink of an eye she had her dagger out and ready in her hand, and was facing him off. "In fact, I'm not ordinary. An ordinary lady would have had you killed by now. You have taken advantage of me, mouthed off to me, threated my life and my virtue, and-worst of all- you are going to destroy Lawley."

She took a step forward, firm despite her slightness. "Here's the thing. I agree. You are a person. You deserve better than what you have; all of you do-and I won't have my own people living more disgracefully than the barbarians." The girl thought of these serfs eating human flesh and tasted bile. It was too horrifying. "Worse than dogs. I can change that . I have the money and jewels and power to make homes warm and find a kind overseer. The problem is that whatever system you think of-well, it won't work."

This was true. She couldn't imagine how on earth it would; it never had in centuries of human history. "Don't you see? There is always a leader, and then those who follow. You could kill every noble right this minute and be free. But ten years later someone would have gotten greedy, or shown brilliance, or simply stepped forward in a crisis....and it would be no different. There will always be masters. There will always be servants. That is the way of things."

Perhaps it was a cold truth, but didn't he know it as well as she? She, who might live in a grander cage but who was every bit the chattel he was. Looking at him, Elena softened. "Brian, I can't even set myself free."

She touched his cheek once, moved by impulse and childish compassion. "But I see in you an int elligence and passion more worthy of my father's lands than my brother. I will be wedded soon, and sent away...but when my lord father died I swore that I would not marry until beautiful Lawley was in safe hands. I will not be here to stop you or sway you or aid you, and such a beautiful.." She wasn't sure how to phrase it. Physically he was attractive, but that was not what she was thinking of at the moment. She tried again. "Such a beautiful, fiery soul makes it impossible for me to order what I know I ought. It feels lik sacrilege. The destruction of an artist." Her hand fell to her side. "I would teach you, then, responsibility. Organization. Letters...you could spout your grand ideas with the eloquence of a poet." Not that he didnt' already. "If you were high you could easily descend to reach the low, but as you are..." Elena shook her head. "You can only keep my attention, and that is mostly because I am shamefully sentimental about my first kiss."

"People who are high up can always descend," Brian said. "They usually do."

He stuck his hands under his underarms, hugging his body, and shifted his weight uncomfortably. What she said might make sense--to her. But all the talk of souls and nobility gave him a bad feeling. People always felt the need to make everything sound more important than it was. More important, more holy--any mandate that wasn't of this earth, of the labor of someone's hand and the integrity of his word--gave Brian the shivers. He knew Elena was trying not to speak of his physical beauty, and that, well, with a lamed hand and the perpetual dirt that was his second skin...

Beauty didn't last. It was specious. What he wanted wasn't an exaltation of the spirit. He wanted a reward for merit, but that, these days, could only be won at the point of a sword.

Brian knew naught of history, and couldn't have known if there had ever been a land where people were exalted when they deserved it; he wasn't even sure how it was possible. Preachers said it awaited in the Kingdom of Heaven. Well, what about the Kingdom of Earth?

Maybe there was some way learning could help him. He drew back a little stiffly when she reached out one hand to touch his cheek; her fingertips were warm. The place where his weren't tingled. "All right. You wanna teach me to read, you can. Nights, when there's naught else for me to do." Impulsively, he reached forward--stiffness gone, breaking barriers consciously--and took her hand in turn, catching its softness in the hard callouses of his uninjured palm. "Your mother finds out, I'll tell you--I'm the one gets punished. You've got virtue to lose but all I got's life. So be bloody careful--all right?" He pulled her with him back into the shadow of his wattle hut.

"And that first kiss--I ain't taking more--or giving more. Something happens to you and like I said--it's my neck." Or so it was while her family reigned. Afterwards... "For now." He had that 'Conn' look in his eyes again; it wasn't entirely he who spoke. It was some mixture of all the strong rogues he'd ever met.

Brian wasn't sure he liked it, but he didn't look away from her.

She didn't like it. That was plain enough to see the moment he looked back up at her; not only did she look frightened she twisted her hand to pull it out of his fingers. Elena straightened her shoulders nervously and wondered what sort of villain she had fallen in with. "Stop it. I've never done anything to you. Not intentionally. And I'm not asking more. Get it out of your head already."

The Lady brushed her hand off on her skirt as if to cleanse it from his touch, but she moved briskly inside and crouched down to place her finger in the dust. It was dark here, and cold, and she did not like having him at her back. "And don't worry. I'll be careful-but if you are not more so, who knows what I might let slip to my guard in a moment of distress."

The girl doubted the threat would work until she actually made good on it, something that she was beginning to be convinced would be the wisest thing to do. Still she shook it out of her mind, and traced the finger swiftly through the earthen floor of the hut. In a blink there stood the letter A, and she stood back up. "There. The first letter of the alphabet. A. A has many sounds. All these words start with A. Apple. Alfred. Angel. Amen. At first it's hard to know what sound you're supposed to use, but for now just try writing it, there. Your name has an A in it, too."

Brian's face smoothed out and he crouched beside her. It wasn't immediately evident to him what A could be, but when he thought of it... sounds, strings of sounds. It wasn't quite a sound.

"Bri-ay-nuh." He frowned, tracing the shape of the letter with one finger. "The sound changes in different words, then. It's sometimes 'ah' and sometimes 'ay' and sometimes... 'aah' like in 'apple.'" He tipped his head back, mulling this over. "I've heard of letters before. I don't know 'em all. But I get the way it works. You couldn't have one for every sound we make, it don't make sense. I know bee." He looked up at her briefly.

She looked frightened, or severe, and he felt a flash of embarrassment; he also felt shame and fear. He'd scared her. But he'd had to. He couldn't be a harmless puppet or a toy. Never again would he play that role, and if it meant saying some stupid things or doing some stupid things, so be it. Elena was entirely too comfortable with him. She needed to know what he was: a man. Neither trustworthy nor easy to understand.

Sometimes Brian felt he was all too easy to understand.

"Bee--does it make other sounds, or is it more or less always the same? It's the first letter in my name--I know that. How do you draw it?"

Elena was pleasantly surprised at her pupil's progress, and was also pleased to note that a Brian Farraday absorbed in studies was not half as frightening as one allowed to ramble on about revolutions and taking virtue and killing people. Maybe she was crazy but it also seemed more like...well, him, and that in itself was relieving. But she did not let herself lose track of time either, and in precisely two hours she was yawning.

The lady straightened from her place crouched in the dirt and hugged her coat closer to her body, hating the midnight chill in the little cottage. She turned and looked at him, feeling suddenly that she ought to whisper. "I think that's enough for tonight. I need my sleep, and if I stay much longer we'll both get caught. But you did very well."

She did not try to touch him again. "Tomorrow I'll do something about...this." There was no specifying what exactly 'this' was, but a gesture around the cottage conveyed her meaning well enough. "I will talk to Darien. If he won't listen, I'll talk to Aelf...and he will have something done. You will have a new steward by the end of the week." Elena looked shy, then, and rubbed her hands together a little nervously. "And food. I will start rations of food. Or something. I promise."

Brian straightened up a little stiffly, and shut his eyes for just a moment, trying to imprint the alphabet he'd just learned somewhere in his mind, behind his eyes, where it could stick. It wasn't so very hard; he spent all day in the fields thinking of more complex systems than an alphabet, playing with what was apparently called geometry. Shapes, anyway. Plans for structures. Ways things fit together. The alphabet fit together, and it gave him a strange, burning pleasure to learn it.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that Elena looked pale with cold, and he thought that if he were a Lord he ought to offer her a jacket. He wasn't, and he didn't have a jacket anyway.

She spoke diffidently, pausing between words, and he looked away, embarrassed for her, running his good hand through the spikes of his unkempt hair. She wanted to fix things on her own; and perhaps she wasn't misguided. Brian was, however, unshakably convinced that no real change could come about thanks only to the kindness of a single noblewoman. Deep in his gut, he had a hatred of all favors handed to one in exchange for... not sex; this wasn't sex. But romanticism--that thing she'd talked about earlier. Dear God, it made him sick to his stomach with hatred for--not her--but the world.

"Thank you," he said at last, briefly. "You've been kind. That's--rare." He held out his good hand, though he didn't move to take hers, in a gesture of farewell. Kindness was rare--when it asked nothing in return. But Brian knew no one asked for nothing in return for what the gave, and yet they expected as much of he and his...

At the horizon, the faint glow of sunrise had begun to tinge the sky bruise-purple.

"Come again in two days--all right?"