Chapter Nine

“Ronny. Ronny!” Dad yelled. I yelped as I stared down the ladder at the grassy ground below. He appeared from the darkness below the palisade’s stairwell, catching Lynn and I just before we could hop back onto solid ground. We’d spent the whole night in each other’s arms, somehow making my little stoop feel comfortable as my wife stroked my softening face and dozed off under the glistening stars.

“Dad,” I whispered, taking a step back. We’d already watched the Bandymen slip out into the forest as the sun peeked up over the hills to the south, right after chasing away the Ford-foxes that stalked by the barley fields in search of rabbit holes under the dew-sprinkled grass. I’d assumed he’d have gone off with them, but there he stood, fury darkening his pale face.

“It’s been three months,” Dad muttered, his beard hardly concealing his gritted teeth. “I said we’d see the Mind Healer together, and you disappeared. I’ve not seen you for ages!”

I cringed, taking another step back, and Lynn put a hand on my shoulder.

“Gredly,” she said, slipping between me and my father. “We’ve been—”

My father growled at Lynn, and she shrank back toward me. “Don’t you ‘Gredly’ me, lassie. It’s Mr. McReid to you. Don’t go pretending you’re family just because you married my son—I never blessed that arrangement of yours, and I’m not gonna tolerate you putting all these ideas in his head, dressing him up like some fuckin’ freak!”

“W-what?” I said, my legs giving out from under me.

“Don’t you play the fool with me, lad!” Dad screamed, balling up his fists, his face going red. “Did’ja think I’d just sit around and ignore what’s been going on? Forcing Miss Miller to weave a whole new wardrobe, hiding behind your curtains at all hours—and look at your skin! You look like a fuckin’ dandy. This has gone on long enough!”

“D-dad,” I sputtered, backing up into the wooden slats of the palisade, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. “I—"

“Shut up! I don’t wanna hear a word of it. We’re going to the mind healer right this instant, and I don’t care if she says she’s not open for business, I’ll knock her fuckin’ door down if I have to! You hear me?”

I nodded, blinking back tears and drooping my shoulders. But Lynn pushed herself in front of me. “No! She’s not going anywhere with you! If you think you can lay a damn finger on her, I’ll—”

“Oh, you’ll what? I’d like to see you try a damn thing, girlie. You fuckin’ pervert, foisting your fetish on my lad—I oughta wring your fuckin’ neck!”

“Fuck off!” I screamed, shocking myself as I flung myself up to Dad’s chest, staring up into his furious eyes. “I’ll teach you to threaten my wife, you f-fucking—fucking monster!”

He glared at me, eyes wide and wild. “That so?”

“Get the fuck away from her, or else!” I said.

“Mm-hmm,” Dad said, looming over me, his powerful muscles rippling under his shirt. Highest, the man must have had eight inches on me. “Yeah. Yeah, I see how it is. Big and tough now, are we? Eh, Ronnie?”

I shrank back under the fire of his gaze.

“Strong man, sproutin’ tits and wearing dresses, eh? That so?” His voice scraped and popped like a plow being dragged through a gravel road. “You’ll make me see what for if I say another word to her?”

“D-damn s-straight,” I said.

“Duel me, then,” he said.

“Stop it!” Lynn interjected. “Just stop it, Gredly!”

“You wanna show me you’re all that? You wanna see me just sit back and watch you curtsy all through town? Puttin’ little ribbons and flowers in your hair? Yeah?”

“D-Dad,” I stuttered.

“You want all that? Then fuckin’ earn it, boy. Gimme a reason to stand back. You wanna be a dainty li’l lassie? Then show me you’re the best man in town. Best me, and you’ll have my permission to choose.”

“She doesn’t need your permission!” Lynn said. “Why would she? She’s a fucking adult!”

My heart couldn’t take any of this. My chest wrenched, and I collapsed to one knee, gasping for breath. Wheezing, I clutched at my temples. I couldn’t see. Everything went fuzzy. Oh, Highest, everything hurt. Why couldn’t I breathe? The tips of my fingers had gone numb, and stabs of sheer agony slashed through my torso. Dad just kept staring down at me, glaring through my pathetic eyes and undressing me without needing to even lift a finger.

He could see. That I really was just a boy who hated himself so much that his only escape was to pretend to be a girl. Nothing but a child. A failure. The most pathetic man who ever lived in this village—hardly worthy of even the slightest favor of the Rural Guild. I might as well have been stillborn for all the good I’d done this town. The most I’d ever helped my fellows was to save a few chickens from forest pests. That was all. Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, and a low whine breached my lips.

Was I dying? Would anyone care if I did?

“Breathe,” Lynn said, dragging her finger ever so lightly across my back, tracing out a few numbers. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. I took deep breaths. Ten… Twenty… Fifty…

By the time she reached a hundred, my sight returned, and I leaned into her touch.

“It’s okay,” Lynn said. “You don’t have to fight him. I’m here. It’s okay.”

I wept.

Even as Dad stood there, leaning defiantly against the palisade, waiting for my episode to abate, I let myself cry in my wife’s arms. She pressed her cheek to mine. Highest, her skin felt so soft. Smooth. Gentle.

Dad snorted. “What a—”

“Leave us alone, Gredly,” Lynn said. “Don’t talk to us again.”

“You think I’m gonna—”

“I’m not asking,” Lynn said, voice as icy as a winter storm. “If I see you around her ever again, I’m going to the Small Court and getting a restraining order.”

He froze. “Like they’d let you—fuckin’—do you know who I am?”

“A Bandyman,” she said as she stroked my back. “Just another huntsman. Nothing more than either of us. Or do I need to tell the Small Court that you’ve been threatening duels?”

“Boy,” he called. I stiffened, desperate not to look my father in the eye. “You think you’re brave, hiding behind your woman?”

“S-shut up,” I muttered.

Snorting, Dad turned to face the main gate. “Fine. We’ll just see what the town thinks about a young man who pretends he’s a lass.”

With that, he stalked off, heading to the west, to the place I used to call home.

We just sat there, stunned, for a few minutes. The fear that had pinned me down under his gaze soured, and my balled-up fists shook, my knuckles going white.

“He’s gonna tell everyone,” I growled, mortified by the manly voice that escaped my lips.

“No one cares,” Lynn reminded me. “Half the town knows anyway.”

“He’s not gonna leave me alone.”

“No.”

“The Bandymen stick together,” I said. “Even if the Small Court gets involved, he’ll keep coming, and he’ll have them at his back.”

“We could call for a tribunal,” Lynn said, shifting on the grass.

I considered that for a moment. The Small Court couldn’t do all that much in most cases—they were a group of fifteen citizens who were elected on a bimonthly basis to handle local disputes, with the caveat that courtiers couldn’t be elected more than once per year, and that they could serve no more than three times overall. Right now, the Small Court was diverse enough that I didn’t worry about them favoring my father, but they didn’t have much power. The harshest punishment they ever doled out was to sentence people to community service. Mostly in mucking out the sewage lines. But if things kept coming up, a tribunal might work. In that case, I’d be issued a public prosecutor, and my father a public defender. Forty people who were unfamiliar with either of us would then be selected at random to preside over our case and decide on our fates. But tribunals almost never happened, and they carried a definite risk.

A tribunal could sentence offenders to jail time.

The thought made me shudder. Maybe once in a decade was anyone ever given jail time, but when it happened, it was a serious matter. Murderers and rapists got jail time. The worst of the worst. The militia ran the town jail, which wasn’t really that bad of a place, on the surface. A nice little house with all the amenities of Rural Guild living.

But you couldn’t leave. Once they sentenced you to jail time, you were not allowed to leave that house or its surrounding property for as long as they sentenced you. Which could be up to a year.

Sure, anyone could visit you whenever they liked, and sure, you could go out in the yard whenever you asked the guards, but… an entire year. An entire year stuck in one house, with only ten acres of land to wander through. An entire year of therapy and guided meditation and arts and crafts classes.

Okay, so it wasn’t that bad.

But still, I couldn’t imagine taking such a drastic move on my own father—especially after just one confrontation. No, I had another authority to appeal to. One with power greater and more horrifying than anything the Rural Guild could summon.

“I think we should talk to Mama.”

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!! Yes, it is I, Ellie, returning after a long hiatus of self-loathing and depression, to regale my audience with tales of fantasy and trans people. Also, I have a Patreon or something. But anywho, I'm gonna try to not be so insane with my release schedule, because that was absolutely murdering me for a while lol. I'll try to be a bit more consistent though.