Oh, Sweet Goodnight!

Oh, Sweet Goodnight!
Christina Briley & Walter Vance Awsten (Lawrence Watt-Evans)

Fern let the gentle rocking motion of the horse between her legs soothe her anger as she rode along-but still, how dare that farmer say such a thing? What did he know?

He probably didn't even think she'd heard him, but she had, clear as a bell. There was nothing wrong with her ears, and she'd had years of practice listening to the world through the padded steel of her helmet. When she had the helmet off, as she did now, she could hear a roadside conversation perfectly from a dozen yards away.

"You wouldn't get me in bed with a bitch like that," that farmer had said to his son as the two of them watched her ride past. "She'd probably break your ribs with those arms of hers. And think what she'd do with her legs!"

"It might be worth it," the son had replied, and the farmer had punched him on the shoulder, and they'd both laughed like fools, not realizing she'd heard every word.

"Idiots," she muttered. "I do my best to keep them safe, and this is the respect they show me? Don't they know how much padding there is in this armor? They think I'm some sort of musclebound freak?"

The farmer's comments were bad enough, but the son's reply bothered her more than she cared to admit; it was a bit too familiar. He liked the thought of broken ribs in the bedroom?

Her mount shook his head and snorted, and she reached forward to pat his neck. "At least you have the sense not to beg for the whip," she said to the ebony stallion.

There was no question that the casual exchange of remarks had touched a nerve, and brought up a well-spring of accumulated unhappiness. "How did my life get to be such a mess?" she mumbled to no one in particular as she straightened in the saddle. "I love my work, and I'm damned good at it, but my love life . . . ugh!" She grimaced.

Of course, she knew the two were connected. She was a respected guardswoman, the only such woman in Lord Worsley's employ, feared by every bandit in the North Riding, known for both her incorruptibility and her superb swordsmanship-both traits she had worked hard at for more than a decade. That was fine for her professionally, but when the time came for sweet and gentle romancing, most men saved it for something a bit more feminine.

Fern hadn't intended to become a guardswoman. She had merely wanted to learn the art of the blade.

She remembered well when the desire to do so had first gripped her. She had been fifteen, standing in the street with her friend Antonia, and struggling to see over the crowd that had gathered to watch two swordsmen spar outside The Fine Companion, the local tavern.

"Look at them move-it's as if they dance!" Fern had exclaimed. "Oh, Antonia, don't you wish you could move like that? And the swords sweeping and flashing in the air-isn't it beautiful?"

"A pox on being so short!" Antonia had said. "Fern, it's not fair! You can see and I can't!"

Just then the crowd in front of the girls had parted as the action moved toward them, and those most in danger of catching a stray swordstroke stepped back out of the way.

Fern didn't move.

"Fern, get back, you'll be hurt!" Antonia shrieked. Then she snapped, "And no, I don't see any beauty in a sword. It's but a weapon. If you're a man you use it to kill someone for some foolish reason or another, or to show off, and if you're a woman you use it because you have to, to defend yourself. Now Fern, please, get back!"

But Fern hadn't stepped back. She'd stood there, swaying to some unheard rhythm of which only she and the swordsmen were aware. It wasn't until Fern suddenly realized that she had become as much a part of the show as the fighters that she had reacted to Antonia's entreaties by looking around.

Not only had the crowd been watching to see if Fern would move out of harm's way, but the two soldiers had begun playing their act to this tall, budding young woman who gazed at them so intensely. When Fern had blushed and finally stepped back the two men had abruptly stopped their sparring and sheathed their swords. Then, each draping an arm over the other's shoulders, they had turned towards her, chuckling.

"Fern," Antonia had whispered desperately, tugging at her friend's arm, "they're coming over here. Let's hurry away!"

Fern had hesitated, torn between a desire to learn more about these men's sword skills and the wish to avoid any further embarrassment for both herself and her friend. The decision was out of her hands, though, for when she had glanced over her shoulder she saw that the crowd had not yet dispersed enough for them to make a quick getaway.

"Shhh," Fern had hissed. "We'll have to make the best of it. Anyway, they're not bad looking-better than the boys our age you go on about."

"Hallo there, girls," one of the approaching men had called out. "‘Tisn't polite to stare, you know."

"Pardon us, sir," Fern had replied, essaying a quick curtsey. "I was, perhaps, too fascinated with your skill with a blade to remember my manners."

The man who had spoken had grinned at her. "Well, in that case, we'll forgive you. My name's Ridley, and this sorry gent is Willem," he had said, indicating his comrade. "We're just passing through on our way home from Lord Balarin's war, but we'd be pleased if we might share your company for a bit."

"Sir!" Fern had drawn herself up to her full height and, with much more confidence than she felt in the situation, had replied firmly, "You are strangers to us and we're far too young to consort with men your age!"

"Our age!" Ridley had laughed. "Such fossils are we, eh, Willem? All right, then. But I saw how you watched us earlier-would you have a lesson in the sword, perhaps?"

Fern had caught her breath. She knew she should be wary- should just go home, should keep safe. But to learn the art of the blade! To feel for herself the flow and power of sword and body working together that she had so admired earlier! Fern had not been able to bring herself to pass up such a chance.

That first lesson, there in the street, with a bemused Willem and a horrified Antonia looking on, had merely whet her appetite. As an older and wiser Fern looked back now on the more private lessons that had followed, oh, so long ago, it was all too obvious just how right she had been to be wary. The soldier's motive for the offer had hardly been altruistic.

"Sly bastard," Fern mused to her horse. "He just wanted to teach me the use of his own ‘little sword.' And what better excuse to wrap his arms around me than to guide my hands on a blade?" She shook her fist at the empty woods around her, "But, by the gods, I took to both skills like a fish to water, didn't I? Ha! There's a flow and beauty in each of them, eh?" Fern allowed herself a tight-lipped smile at the thought.

The mastery of the sword had started as simply a personal challenge, she remembered. Her smile widened-then vanished. "I should have made disemboweling that soldier a ‘personal challenge,'" she told her mount, "to use me so and then go on his merry way!"

She hadn't, though. That wouldn't have been ladylike, and back then she had cared, at least a little, about what the neighbors thought of her behavior. She'd kept her sexual escapades to herself, and as for her fascination with the sword . . . ? Again her thoughts went back.

"Honestly, Antonia, how many times have I told you I have no desire to make trouble or spill anyone's blood?" They were out in back of the barn where Antonia, sick of Fern's fruitless efforts to turn her into a half-decent sparring partner, had thrown down her wooden practice sword in disgust and launched into another lecture about how Fern was going to be sorry about all this nonsense.

"I do it for the love of it," Fern insisted. "It's not as if I want to make a career out of swordfighting and run off to be a soldier! It's just a frivolous hobby I indulge in after all my chores are done. I want to marry someone nice, settle down, have children, just as you do. You know that."

"I still don't understand," Antonia sighed as she bent to pick up the discarded sword, "why you think all this dangerous, sweaty work is something to do for fun. But if I'm going to be your best friend I guess I'd better help, and try to protect you from yourself!"

"Think of it as exercise, and a way to work off foul tempers." Fern smiled. "Now again, like this."

At the time, it had indeed been marriage and children Fern had wanted for a career. "I hadn't the backbone to be a professional fighter back then anyway," she explained to her ever-silent mount. "If I had, I'd have never let myself be bullied into marriage by that morose cobbler!"

The stallion's only response to Fern's words was to twitch his ear, dislodging a fly.

She had never really loved Durgan, although she had convinced herself that she did; she wasn't sure she'd even liked him very much. He had been insistent, though, and her parents had thought it was a decent match. She had finally given in and married him.

At the wedding Durgan and his friends were all drunk, shouting at one another about nothing and virtually ignoring her. She still remembered sitting there in her best gown, wondering what she had gotten herself into. She had looked across the room and noticed the village smith, a young man named Jacob who was the only sober male in the place, staring at her. She had forced herself to smile brightly at him when what she had really wanted to do was to stand up and call the whole thing off.

Jacob had walked out a moment later, apparently as disgusted by Durgan and his friends as Fern had been. She really wished that she, too, had walked out. But defying her family, telling Durgan to go to hell, finding herself work-she hadn't been capable of any of that back then. And she had been downright embarrassed about her love of swordsmanship. She had gone on practicing in secret with a few trusted friends she had found who could wield a sword better than dear, now-married Antonia; she had never mentioned it to her husband, and had only practiced when he worked elsewhere.

She hadn't had the courage to speak up about anything.

Once she actually had her own children, however, three children Durgan ignored as much as possible save to complain about the cost of feeding them, she began to take note of some of her own personal strengths, and to view her abilities with a sword in a new light. Where she had always tended to be the go-along-to-get-along type before, now she had something, or rather, three someones, to fight for, and with money tight some of the openings around town for guards or soldiers skilled with a sword looked pretty tempting.

When the famine came, and the war with Karnsland, Durgan didn't work much. Fern still remembered her first open confrontation with him.

"The children haven't eaten in two days!" she had shouted, when she found him sitting outside his shop with a stoop of ale in his hand, swapping lies with Armand the tailor.

"What do you want me to do about it?" he had asked, once he got over his initial astonishment at her unprecedented outburst. "Times are hard. No one's buying shoes. There's no money for food."

"You have money for drink for yourself!"

"I need to keep my strength up, for when the customers come back." He looked sincerely puzzled by her anger.

She hadn't known what to say to that, hadn't been able to think of any arguments that Durgan might listen to; she had fought her temper down and gone home.

Behind her she had heard Durgan chuckle to Armand, "Must be her time." Her anger had simmered anew to be dismissed so lightly, but she had held her tongue and walked away.

That night, though, she had suggested that he try to find some other source of income until business improved.

"What do you want me to do, go for a soldier?" he asked, slapping one hand onto his potbelly and holding the other arm out to display how bony and poorly-muscled it was.

"Soldiers wear boots, don't they?" Fern had asked.

"But they don't buy them here," Durgan had said.

"Couldn't you go where they do buy them?"

"Go? But this is home. The war won't last forever, and next year's crops will surely be better-just wait, Fern."

But she had looked at little Aelf's hungry, pinched face and decided that she and the children couldn't wait. If Durgan wouldn't do anything about it, she would. She had sat down the next morning and carefully reviewed all her assets, and had come to the conclusion that applying her skill with a sword was her best chance at keeping the children fed.

She remembered wryly how frightened she had been when she walked up the hill to the manor house. She had thought that Lord Worsley might have her thrown into the dungeons for her impertinence, or might laugh at her.

Instead he had smiled wearily upon hearing her tale of woe, and had tossed her a small purse.

"The famine has been hard on us all," he had said-though he scarcely looked as if he had missed any meals. "This will feed your children for a time."

She had hesitated before picking up the purse-yes, it would feed Gord and Alis and Aelf for a time, but she wanted to be sure they would always be fed. Saying anything more, beyond a quick "thank you," had been one of the hardest things she had ever done, but she had said it all the same.

"When I said I was ready to fight for you, my lord, I meant it- have you no employment for someone skilled with a sword?"

That had startled him. He had stared at her for a moment, then sent for Ambrose, his master-at-arms, to test her. He hadn't said so, but Fern still suspected Lord Worsley had thought she had no idea how difficult it was to use a sword, that she was bluffing and would make a fool of herself in short order once the practice blades were drawn.

She hadn't. Old Ambrose had been impressed, and Fern had been employed. She had gone home dreading Durgan's reaction- wouldn't he think it a blot on his manhood to have his wife working as a manor-house guard?

Durgan had frowned, then shrugged. "Make sure they pay you in advance," he had said. "After all, it won't last long-we want to get every penny we can."

She hadn't said anything. She had been afraid he was right. And she had been relieved that his response had been so calm, when she had expected anger. Let sleeping tempers lie.

That was hardly the last unexpected response she got out of Durgan, though. She still remembered every detail of her husband's astonishing response when she had brought home her first suit of armor, courtesy of her new employers, Lord and Lady Worsley. He had stared at her wide-eyed as she held up the bundle of steel and leather, and licked his lips.

"Oooooh," he said. "Get the children to bed and model it for me . . . but skip the undergarments!"

She remembered it all too well.

"I did as he asked, too, you know," Fern informed her four-legged companion. "First work, then dinner, dishes, diapers, and bedtime stories, and then went to take care of him too! Fastening that heavy, and blasted cold, steel breastplate over my poor, bare nipples was hardly on my list of things I really wanted to do right then! What he wanted to do right then was as clear as . . . well, it was obvious."

Then Durgan had added a new twist.

"Hit me! Make me touch you! Tell me what you're going to do to me!" he had pleaded.

"I thought I'd puke!" she told the horse. "Damn it, I was exhausted! Sleep was all I wanted, and now this rot! But I knew him, gods, did I know him!" She shook her head ruefully.

What Fern knew was that if her husband didn't get his way he would yell at her, or worse, sulk, and she'd never get her longed-for sleep. And eventually she'd have to clear the air by doing what he'd asked for originally, and then some.

"It tore me up, though," she sighed. "To twist the beauty and fire of the deed like that. But the genie was out of the bottle and ‘darling dear' would never let me have him any other way after that."

Even while her home life deteriorated, though, her career had flourished. She gradually won respect among Worsley's other guards with her skill and her common-sense manner. Lady Worsley was particularly appreciative of Fern's tendency to talk first and only resort to the sword if absolutely necessary, whether handling an unwelcome intruder or a rowdy guest. "It's so much easier to keep the carpets clean with you around, Fern, dear!" she had remarked once, with her famous smile shining.

As for Fern's life outside of work, it just got more unbearable. Durgan had taken to wearing Fern's armor himself whenever he got the chance. The cold mail skirt slapping against his own maleness had given him some bizarre mix of pleasure and pain.

It wasn't long before Fern had had enough. Her recollection of the night she'd told him to get out was crystal clear. In his typical mature fashion he'd angrily rammed his fist through a window and then screeched in pain.

"Do something! I'm bleeding to death!" he had shrieked.

Fern's thoughts had flashed to the men she had seen die stoically in the field as she glanced at the lily-white rag Durgan had wrapped around his wrist. She sighed inwardly. He was a baby or a liar to the end. Who knew which? And who cared?

When at last he had grabbed a few of his things and stormed out she had barred the door behind him and cleaned up the broken glass, noticing wryly that there was not a drop of blood visible among the shards. She had slept, exhausted, on the floor outside the children's rooms, with her sword beside her.

"Why are you sleeping on the floor? What happened to the window? Where's Daddy?" The children's voices had awakened her.

When Fern had answered their questions with some reassuring half-truths they had calmed down somewhat. They were upset to learn that their father was gone, but not too upset. Frankly, when your father has a rotten temper, and your mother carries a sword, and they're not getting along, well, better to have your father separated from your mother than from his head.

A sudden jolt flung her from her memories back to the present day. Fern struggled to keep herself from going over her horse's head as the beast stumbled and came to an abrupt halt. Dismounting, she was dismayed to see he had thrown a shoe.

"Damn!" she said. "So much for a quick ride home. I guess we'll have to stop by Jacob's smithy."

That was not entirely an unwelcome thought. Quiet and gracious, with a pervasive sense of humor, Jacob had always seemed a bit out of place as a blacksmith. His exaggerated manners never quite seemed to fit the coarseness of his surroundings.

"Oh, well," she said. "My errand for Lord Worsley went smoothly enough-that particular bunch of troublemakers won't be back this way any time soon, so there's no great hurry about getting anywhere. And it's not as if I mind Jacob's company." She straightened up and looked thoughtfully down the trail toward the smithy.

"I can never read that man, you know." She smiled. "But it's an interesting challenge to try. All the same, I'd have preferred you'd kept on all your shoes, you dumb beast, so I could have gotten home to a hot bath and my children."

With a sigh she set off again, now on foot and leading her lame mount. Her thoughts drifted back to the path her life had taken over the years.

She'd been lucky in a lot of ways. With the end of her marriage and her fool husband gone who-knew-where, one would have expected balancing children and employment to be a problem, but Lady Worsley had leaped to her rescue.

"My dear, I have been agonizing for simply ages over how to find suitable playmates for my children and yours are such gems! I would be delighted to have them stay in the nursery with Nanny and my little ones whenever you are occupied elsewhere!"

The offer had been a godsend and Fern really did like both Nanny and Lady Worsley, if only Lady Worsley wouldn't gush quite so much.

Fern had suddenly been free to run her own life, with no short-tempered cloud sharing her bed and raining on her parade. And all those men! . . . Smiling, warm, appreciative men who'd been flirting with her for years. Surely one of them would give her the kind of affectionate, thoughtful, mature (but occasionally silly), relationship she craved! Perhaps that fellow guardsman, or maybe the grocer . . . ?

"Guess again." Fern growled, scuffing the dirt as she walked and wishing more than ever for that hot bath. Muscles stiff from the long ride now complained about walking so far, but she angrily ignored her aching thighs and strode along.

Some of the guardsmen had considered a female warrior to be an unnatural thing and had refused to associate with her when not on duty, but others had been eager to see more of her. A few townsmen had seen her in her armor and been openly admiring. She had never been left lacking male company.

Somehow, though, not one of the affairs had panned out.

"Oh, they had their moments," Fern recalled angrily, "But when the relationship made it to the bedroom every single one of the bastards was looking for this big, powerful knight-bitch to beat and humiliate him. And that last one! First the fool badgers me into fulfilling his stupid dominatrix fantasy, and then he has the gall to say he's entitled to extra kindnesses from me as I had abused him so!"

By the time Fern reached the blacksmith's place she was flushed, not only from the heat and exertion of the long walk but with anger and frustration as well. Jacob took one look at her and offered her a drink of water from the earthen jug he always kept tucked in the shade, well away from the heat of the forge.

She accepted it, still half-lost in memories, and as she drank she thought again how everyone simply assumed, because she used a sword for a living, that she wanted to spend her entire life dominating people. The men who wanted to be dominated swarmed to her, and the others, the ones who might have been worthwhile, stayed away.

"What makes men such idiots, anyway?" Fern burst out after wiping the water from the corners of her mouth with the back of her sleeve. She reached up again, this time to brush away a mix of sweat and tears from her eyes.

"Excuse me?" Jacob asked. "Is the water not to your liking, perhaps? Or perhaps you're miffed with the four-hoofed male behind you who has forced this detour?" He smiled at her, slightly bemused but with concern in his eyes all the same.

Oh, Sweet Goodnight

She blinked at him, then blushed. He hadn't done anything wrong. "By the gods, I'm sorry, Jacob," she said. "Thank you for the drink. It's not you, and it's not the horse either. It's . . . well, it's a long story."

"Rest your feet while I take care of the beast's shoe, and if you care to complain to me about the gods' whims in the process, I've a sympathetic ear. I promise to ‘tsk, tsk,' in all the right spots."

Much of Fern's anger had burnt itself out by now, and she'd no desire to rekindle it by another mental review of her personal life. Once in an afternoon was quite enough! But perhaps, she mused, she might share some of her problems and at the same time find that chink in Jacob's emotional armor that she sought.

"Do you find people mix up who you are with what you do?" she asked. "I may have a job as a knight, but that's not who I am! Or is this a man's way of thinking, that you are what you do?"

"I don't know about it being ‘a man's way of thinking,' " Jacob said. "I've always seen a more vulnerable side to you than your armor would imply, but I'd say that many folks of either sex miss such things. After all, ask yourself, do you see me as just a smith?" He smiled at her briefly, but then turned his attention to the stallion's hoof.

She stared at him, caught off-guard by the question. Actually, up until that moment, she had indeed thought of him just as a smith-a rather unusual smith, but too aloof, too closed off, to think of in a more personal way. She suddenly found herself staring at the firm line of his shoulders and back at the same time she noticed how gently he handled her horse, running his hand tenderly down the leg.

"Well, I . . ." She hesitated, suddenly at a loss for words-facing down bandits and negotiating with brigands she could handle, but this sudden change in an old relationship had her baffled. She chose her words carefully. "I've always thought you were a good looking man, Jacob, and polite, but well, distant." She tried to find some way to phrase what she wanted to say without admitting the truth, but then gave up.

"Gods, you're right, Jacob. I saw you as a smith and nothing more. I guess I've never thought of you outside your professional role because, in all the years that I've known you, you never seemed to invite any relationship beyond a professional one."

"I might point out that you were married for virtually all those years-happily married, I thought."

"Little did you know!" The barrier had broken, and she poured out her frustrations and fury over Durgan's failures as a husband.

After that the conversation drifted on to other matters-nothing of great moment, but an exchange of thoughts that left her feeling warm and satisfied. By the time Jacob was satisfied that the horse was fit to ride, Fern was grateful for that thrown shoe-and after the goodbye hug Jacob gave her she thought that perhaps he might need a cold shower even more that she had wanted a hot bath. They exchanged promises of dinner together two days hence, and Fern rode away from the smithy towards home in a markedly different humor from the one in which she'd arrived.

She found, at dinner and in the days that followed, that his graciousness was more than skin deep and his gentle touch was not reserved solely for his four-legged clients. Much to her delight, it seemed that Fern had finally found someone who believed in "Do unto others . . ." It amused her to describe to him some unreasonable, but all too common, bit of behavior that she had encountered from some man in the past and watch Jacob get this wonderful, genuinely bewildered expression on his face as he responded:

"Why? That doesn't make sense." Or, "That's ridiculous." Or, "Why would he expect that? That's not fair to you!"

"I know that, and you know that, but he did it just the same," she'd reply with a chuckle, at last finding some humor in her previous misadventures.

Eventually, late one evening, when the children had decided to spend the night in the nursery, a long intimate talk with Jacob turned into long intimate caresses. The couple retired to Fern's room.

"You know," Jacob warned, "I'm really nothing special in bed. Open-minded about things, and affectionate, yes . . . but really, well, boring."

"Ye gods, man! I deal with crisis for a living!" she shouted. "I subdue giants, battle two, three men at a time! Hell, my contract includes fighting dragons if need be! Do you think I need high drama in the bedroom as well? Affection is wonderful! Boring is good! Bore me!"

They burst into laughter and he hugged her tightly. She reveled in the shared humor and in his touch. Finally she pulled back to gaze into his eyes; those deep, gorgeous, tender, blue eyes she had overlooked for so long. "And now, sirrah," she sighed in a voice soft and husky, "Please, if thou wouldst . . ."

"Yes, darling?"

"Go you gently into this sweet, good knight!"