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i.
He is the assassin, but she is more dangerous than he.
She keeps the gates locked, the doors bolted, and the windows open.
She keeps the poisons in the cabinet next to the spices, and always has a crock of stew on the fire.
She washes, bakes, sweeps, scrubs, plants, weeds, harvests, tidies.
She interacts with the tanners, the weavers, the swordmakers, the market, the spinners, the farriers, the smiths.
She replenishes the bandages, the tinctures.
She mends the tears and patches the holes.
She doesn’t ask where or who or why.
ii.
It wasn’t the training with the guild that made him take his shoes off when he reached the front door of the small house at the end of the road. She never fussed at him when he tracked in mud, just raised an eyebrow and gave him a pointed look. Still, the slate was cool against his hot feet, tired after a long day in the town.
“Good e’en,” she greeted him, biscuits and stew steaming on a bowl at his spot at the small table. She poured cold cider from the earthenware pitcher for both of them, and sat herself to eat. The wooden table and bench were against a wall, looking out the one window on that side of the house, and the front door. That habit she had picked up from him.
She always sat and had a bite with him, regardless how late his activities kept him from the house, said it kept him civilized. It did, in a way, let him collect and store his thoughts and analyses for a while, to come back to center with the simple act of refueling his body and mind.
“You’ve torn the seam in your breeches again,” she commented with a critical eye, her Highland Scots accent pulling the vowels long. “I’ll be making a new pair, and those will have to be moved to rags.” She nodded to herself, adding to her mental list.
He nodded, and thanked her. “I have a few things you might pick up at the market, should you have the chance.”
He never wrote anything down. He could both read and write, as could she, but her memory was sharp, and it was a game they played, sometimes.
They settled into the late evening. Summer in the higher latitudes of Boston meant that the sun didn’t set ‘til near 10 at night, and they both took advantage of the evening light, her with her needles and yarn, he with the whetstone and his blades.
iii.
He never figured out how she knew before he even made it down the lane that he was injured.
Tonight he swung himself in the top window from the roof, landing softly in his boots, rain dripping off of his hood. He was fairly certain that his ribs were cracked, and the littlest finger on his left hand stuck out at an odd angle.
Her homespun skirts swished in the doorway, and she didn’t bother knocking before she came into the room.
“Weel, off with those soaking clothes, and we’ll see what you’ve done to yerself this time,” she gestured with her free hand to the steaming sitting tub, and the laundry basket next to it.
He held his hand up to her, and she pulled him toward the table, pulling boneset and linen bandages out of the basket she carried over her arm. It was quick work; she had fine and capable hands, and had set more of his fingers than he could count.
“I dinna think it’s broken,” she assessed as she wrapped the finger to the next, and over the palm. “Keep it dry, mind you.”
She didn’t handle his weapons, though something told him that she could if she desired. He knew she kept a dirk in her bodice and in her stocking and knew how to use them both. Her hair pins were wicked sharp, and he’d seen strength in her arms as she kneaded bread, or churned butter. She’d pulled the knife on him the first night in the house, and she had almost managed to startle him. Metal hit battered wood as he stripped.
She looked at each piece of clothing before it went into the basket, tsking at rends and blood stains.
“I’ll wrap your ribs once you’re clean,” she commented, leaving him to bathe.
iv.
He wasn’t ill. He never caught ill. There was just a tickle in his throat.
A Scottish noise came from the hallway.
“I can hear you coughing from downstairs, mon,” she said, voice rough with sleep. Even though it was bitterly cold, she didn’t have a cap on over her hair. She kept it in a single thick braid at night. Her concession to the cold was a wool shawl wrapped around her shoulders over her nightdress, and wool stockings and moccasins on her feet.
“Sit up then, and let me feel your head,” came the command, along with a cool hand on his forehead. “Not too bad then, just a bit of the ague.”
His cough rattled then. He still wasn’t quite convinced that he was ill.
She was humming under her breath as she built up the fire, and pulled the quilt she had made higher up on his chest.
“I’ll be back with some tea and honey, you just rest now, lad.”
He fell asleep before she was even down the hall.
v.
It was the late afternoon autumn light that caught in her dark hair, the sweep of brow, the tip of her nose. He moved behind her, placing a kiss on her neck just below her ear. His hands swept from shoulder to wrist as she sighed, leaning back into his chest.
Neither of them said anything; she allowed herself to be pulled down on the bed, watched with hooded eyes as he undid her laces, then his own. Her hand tangled in his hair as she nipped at his lips, heat pooling between them.
His pupils are wide as he watches her above him, hands grabbing at hips, leaving marks that will still be there the next day. She’ll smile when her skirts brush against them, later, a blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks.
He pulls her to him, after, nuzzling into the soft hair at her neck, smelling of them, and the herbs that always cling to her skin, and sinks into dreamless sleep.