Five soldiers watched the grounds—though only Snagu and Lead were on duty now—and they did their job well. After all, it had been a horribly long time since anyone in the duke’s family had died from the myriad of dangers a nobleman faced while living on the Rock. （Those included boredom, stubbed toes, and choking on cobbler.）
She’d brought the soldiers pies, naturally. As they ate, she considered showing the two men her new cup. It was made completely of tin, stamped with letters in a language that ran top to bottom instead of left to right. But no, she didn’t want to bother them.
They let her pass, although it wasn’t her day to wash the mansion’s windows. She found Charlie around back, practicing with his fencing sword. When he saw her, he put it down and hurriedly took off his signet ring.
“Tress!” he said. “I thought you wouldn’t be by today!”
Having just turned seventeen, Charlie was two months older than she was. He had an abundance of smiles, and she had identified each one. For instance, the wide-toothed one he gave her now said he was genuinely happy to have an excuse to be done with fencing practice. He wasn’t as fond of it as his father thought he should be.
“Swordplay, Charlie?” she asked. “Is that a groundskeeper’s task?”
He picked up the thin dueling sword. “This? Oh, but it is for gardening.” He took a half-hearted swipe at one of the potted plants on the patio. The plant wasn’t quite dead yet, but the leaf Charlie split certainly wasn’t going to improve its chances.
“Gardening,” Tress said. “With a sword.”
“It’s how they do things on the king’s island,” Charlie said. He swiped again. “There is always war there, you know. So if you consider it, it’s natural the groundskeepers would learn to trim plants with a sword. Don’t want to get ambushed when you’re unarmed.”
He wasn’t a good liar, but that was part of what Tress liked about him. Charlie was genuine. He even lied in an authentic way. And seeing how bad he was at telling them, the lies couldn’t be held against him. They were so obvious, they were better than many a person’s truths.
He swiped his sword in the vague direction of the plant once more, then looked at her and cocked an eyebrow. She shook her head. So he gave her his “you’ve caught me but I can’t admit it” grin and rammed the sword into the dirt of the pot, then plopped down on the low garden wall.
The sons of dukes were not supposed to plop. One might therefore consider Charlie to have been a young man of extraordinary talents.
Tress settled in next to him, basket in her lap.
“What did you bring me?” he said.
She took out a small meat pie. “Pigeon,” she said, “and carrots. With a thyme-seasoned gravy.”
“A noble combination,” he said.
“I think the duke’s son, if he were here, would disagree.”
“The duke’s son is only allowed to eat dishes with names that have weird foreign accents over their letters,” Charlie said. “And he’s never allowed to stop sword practice to eat. So it is fortunate that I am not him.”
Charlie took a bite. She watched for the smile. And there it was: the smile of delight. She had spent an entire day in thought, contemplating what she could make with the ingredients that had been on sale in the port market, hoping to earn that particular smile.
“So, what else did you bring?” he asked.
“Charlie the groundskeeper,” she said, “you have just received a very free pie, and now you presume to ask for more?”
“Presume?” he said around a mouthful of pie. He poked her basket with his free hand. “I know there’s more. Out with it.”
She grinned. To most she wouldn’t dare impose, but Charlie was different. She revealed the tin cup.
“Aaah,” Charlie said, then put aside the pie and took the cup reverently in both hands. “Now this is special.”
“Do you know anything about that writing?” she asked, eager.
“It’s old Iriali,” he said. “They vanished, you know. The entire people: poof. There one day, gone the next, their island left uninhabited. Now, that was three hundred years ago, so no one alive has ever met one of them, but they supposedly had golden hair. Like yours, the color of sunlight.”
“My hair is not the color of sunlight, Charlie.”
“Your hair is the color of sunlight, if sunlight were light brown,” Charlie said. It might be said he had a way with words. In that his words often got away.
“I’d wager this cup has quite the history,” he said. “Forged for an Iriali nobleman the day before he—and his people—were taken by the gods. The cup was left on the table, to be collected by the poor fisherwoman who first arrived on the island and discovered the horror of an entire people gone. She passed the cup down to her grandson, who became a pirate. He eventually buried his ill-gotten treasure deep beneath the spores. Only to be recovered now, after eons in darkness, to find its way to your hands.” He held the cup up to catch the light.
Tress smiled as he spoke. While washing the mansion’s windows, she’d occasionally hear Charlie’s parents berate him for talking so much; they thought it silly and unbecoming of his station. They rarely let him finish. She found that a shame. For while yes, he did ramble sometimes, she’d come to understand it was because Charlie liked stories the way Tress liked cups.
“Thank you, Charlie,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For giving me what I want.”
He knew what she meant. It wasn’t cups or stories.
“Always,” he said, placing his hand on hers. “Always what you want, Tress. And you can always tell me what it is. I know you don’t usually do that, with others.”
“What do you want, Charlie?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Other than one thing, that is. One thing I shouldn’t want, but I do. Instead, I’m supposed to want adventure. Like in the stories. You know those stories?”
“The ones with fair maidens,” Tress said, “who always get captured and don’t get to do much besides sit there? Maybe call for help now and then?”
“I suppose that does happen,” he said.
“Why are they always fair maidens?” she said. “Are there maidens that are unfair? Perhaps they mean ‘fare,’ as in food. I could be that kind of maiden. I’m good with food.” She grimaced. “I’m glad I’m not in a story, Charlie. I’d end up captured for certain.”
“And I would probably die quickly,” he said. “I’m a coward, Tress. It’s the truth.”
“Nonsense. You’re merely an ordinary person.”
“Have you…seen how I respond around the duke?”
She grew silent. Because she had.
“If I weren’t a coward,” he said, “I’d be able to tell you things I cannot. But Tress, if you did get captured, I’d help anyway. I’d put on armor, Tress. Shining armor. Or maybe dull armor. I think if someone I knew were captured, I wouldn’t take the time to shine the armor. Do you think those heroes pause to shine it, when people are in danger? That doesn’t sound very helpful.”