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When Betriz first saw Cazaril’s back, her first emotion had been horror. Not horror at him, but horror for him, which she’d swiftly hidden as best she could. The realisation had become worse when she and Iselle found out that the layer upon layer of lashings had not been delivered gradually, a few at a time over the long period of Cazaril’s slavery – though that would have been bad enough – but mostly in one single, hideously brutal day which he must have been lucky to survive. If he hadn’t been rescued so soon after it had happened, he might not have. Infection might have taken him. They would never have met.
Fast on the heels of horror was guilt. Guilt, for the day when he fell from his horse – onto his back. No wonder he’d needed both her and Iselle to help him back onto the horse. No wonder he’d moved like an old man for the rest of the day. No wonder he sometimes had difficulty with standing up or kneeling down, something pulling in his back. He’d become better at moving with the scars over time, but Betriz could still remember how stiff he’d been when he’d first arrived in Valenda.
She should have taken better care of him. She should have seen his damaged hands and suspected other, concealed injuries.
And hot on the heels of that was anger. It was just as well his captors had been dealt with, because otherwise Betriz would have had to go to the trouble of tracking them down and tearing their eyes out with her fingernails.
But later, that night, abed but not asleep, she had to admit that there was another emotion locked up with all the others.
Curiosity.
She wanted to know what the scars felt like under her palms. Under her fingertips, gently in case they were sensitive. What it would be like to slip her arms around his still-too-thin waist from behind and press her cheek against the mistreated flesh. Whether she would feel him relax against her.
In spite of hers and Iselle’s attempts to feed him up in his ill health, he was still a very thin man, but seeing him without his shirt had revealed narrow, corded muscle. He was underweight and hurt, but he wasn’t weak. What would it be like for him to hold her back? She suspected she would like that very much.
She also suspected that Cazaril liked her back, though it might just be wishful thinking on her part. This was the main reason why she had not properly attempted to flirt. She did not want to reveal her desires only for Cazaril to draw away, the ease between them turned awkward and uncomfortable.
She already knew she wanted his mind. She wanted the care he took of her and Iselle, the unceasing respect, the intelligent remarks, the occasional witty joke, the obvious contentment that radiated from him as he pored over a book.
But now that she’d seen it, she was… curious about his body, too.
*
Alone in her bedroom after finding out that Cazaril had a tumour, she had cried to herself for hours.
It wasn’t fair, made worse by the fact that unfair luck seemed to circle Cazaril like a cloud.
She’d been a happy young woman before he’d come into her life, but now that the prospect reared of him once again being absent, it was unbearable.
She was going to lose him. Not this week, not the next, but the tumour would kill him and then he would be gone from her.
*
By the morning, it occurred to her that she did not care how Cazaril looked, and probably never had.
She wanted him healthy, but if she couldn’t have him healthy then she would have him dying.
If she couldn’t have him healthy, then she would have him with circles of tiredness under his eyes and the lump of the tumour in his gut. She would have him any way he could be had. She would have him in all his forms.
Except, of course, he had made it clear there would be no repeat of the kiss. He had actually apologised for a kiss which – even with the scratch of his beard – she had thought on for many times longer than the kiss had itself lasted. During the apology, he had ducked his head and flushed rather prettily, but the sickened cast of his flesh meant that colour in his cheeks was like to become a rarity.
*
They had to be parted for Iselle, and if it had been for anyone other than Iselle, Betriz would never have been able to begrudge the absence.
In Taryoon, she thought ahead to when he would return, and decided on a few things to ease his way.
She had noted the growing and omnipresent discomfort at his… physical situation… rising up around him. He had started hunching over more and more to hide his belly. He was visibly uncomfortable whenever anyone looked at it.
So she arranged that when he did arrive, he would have the chance to wash and dress and come into Iselle’s – and Betriz’s – presence looking as presentable as possible.
She had, admittedly, fantasised about an unexpectedly healthy and inexplicably shaved Cazaril striding in through the doors, smiling confidently to present Iselle with a perfect marriage contract, before throwing himself at Betriz’s feet with an ardent declaration of his need for her to take him to husband as soon as humanly practicable.
Of course, that was not what happened. The Cazaril who came through the doors was terrifyingly gaunt and visibly exhausted. He knelt before Iselle, but needed Betriz to help him up and into a chair. Even with the archdivine helping to lift him, Cazaril felt far too light for such a tall man. She told herself that the tumour had not grown. She told herself that it was merely Cazaril losing weight which made it look larger by contrast. She was not sure if she was telling herself the truth.
Their conversation the next day in the garden proved no more productive. He viewed himself with a horror, and did not seem to understand that she didn’t care how haunted he was.
He did not understand that she wanted to have him for however long he had left. They could marry. He would grow sicker. She would keep him comfortable in well-cushioned chairs or in bed. She would consult with doctors to see if there existed a medicine which could dull his pain without dulling his mind. She would keep him supplied with books and conversation. If she could not have him cured, then she wanted to have him like that.
After the wedding, after Iselle and Bergon retired, she entertained a quiet, sensual, ridiculous little fantasy of sneaking into Cazaril’s room to do what Iselle and Bergon were certainly doing. It was quiet because she could tell no-one what she was thinking of, sensual because even halfway considering it made her feel very hot under the skin, and it was ridiculous because Cazaril would never agree. He’d order her away. He would not let her have him, in spite of how desperately he clearly wanted her.
*
Lying in the sickbed was a new version of Cazaril again.
This version of Cazaril was still pale, but less greyish in the face, and… happy. Truly and deeply relieved. It made him look younger. The nightgown sat far too loosely upon his body, and with the absence of the tumour in his gut, his hipbones jutted up prominently under the counterpane.
The man she loved looked like a recumbent skeleton. He had a gut wound. He might be dead in three days.
But this version of Cazaril… this version of Cazaril told her hoarsely but pointedly that that he was no longer haunted, a felt free, and this version of Cazaril wanted to hold her hand. This version of Cazaril was concerningly feverish, but lighter and happier without his burdens.
This version of Cazaril was someone she had to leave behind before those dangerous three days were up.
*
Ensconced in her new apartments in Zangre, Iselle asked Betriz what she wanted, and Betriz, who knew she could have asked for almost anything, could have asked for lands and castles and towns and titles and jewels, said, “I want to marry Cazaril. I want that more than anything.”
A week ago, he didn’t look as if he would live to see thirty-seven. But the three days had passed, and reports from the physician said that he was healing very well, and…
She wanted every version of Cazaril that was ever going to exist, for the rest of his life. She wanted to see him at forty, at sixty. She wanted to know what he’d be like with a child or two on his lap. She wanted the version of him that was strong. She wanted the version of him that was sick. She wanted the version of him that would be stressed with the strain of his future work as chancellor, and she wanted the version of him that relaxed into an afternoon nap. She wanted him for every moment up to the death that he’d joked he wanted, in bed with his wife in extreme old age. She wanted him to shave off that irritating beard.
Amidst Iselle’s enthusiastic approval, Betriz added, “But I’d like for him to shave first.”
*
Looking in on Cazaril’s room before the feast, Betriz saw that he had obeyed Iselle’s order to dress appropriately for investiture as chancellor. The tailoring of the tunic had been a little over-hopeful about the extent of his recovery, and so it was looser than it should be.
He smiled when he saw her. The lines of pain and worry were still written on his face, but without the beard, and without a daily agony curling itself in his gut, he looked younger. Betriz decided that happiness suited him very well.
“You look very fine,” she told him, and he blushed. The degree to which she could fluster him was a new and delicious discovery, all the more obvious for him lacking a beard.
“You, ah… you don’t have to – flatter me. Gods know I’m not handsome, I’m just doing my best.”
“Ah, ah,” Betriz took a mock-scolding tone and cupped his face in her hand. “Are you accusing me of poor taste in men?”
“I am saying,” replied Cazaril, trying and utterly failing to pretend that he was not leaning his cheek into Betriz’s touch, “That your decision to marry me is certainly not based upon my looks. I’ve been too ill for too long for that.”
“Well, I like your looks. Especially now that I can properly see your face without the beard. I intend to enjoy the view.”
He might not be classed as the very handsomest of men, but in Betriz’s wise and cultured opinion, that did not mean he was unhandsome, either. Even with cheeks hollowed by illness, there was an intelligence and an alertness to his face which rendered his looks very pleasing to her indeed. And his lips… well, she intended to enjoy his lips for many years to come.
She suspected that his consistent claims to non-handsomeness were a byproduct of the galleys and the demon. His body had been a trial to him for too long to really like the look of it. Perhaps what he needed was time to grow used to a body which was not continually abused, in order to agree with her that he was worth looking at. And when he did, there would be yet another version of Cazaril who would, like the one with her right now, be hers.