Unmaking Percy

Part I - II, continued (The Sleeping Castle)

Percy could not say why he unfolded himself out of the comfort of his bedroll; would not say it if he knew why. Not even if he was pressed paper-thin by Mr Henning's inquisitorial enthusiasm whenever he decided to examine Percy on his lessons. But the doing of something did not depend on it being understood by the one doing it, and so he stood up and touched his feet to the humid, dense grass.

He followed Evans' trail, barely trying to be quiet or go by unperceived. He almost longed to be caught, to be forced to think about why he was moving towards the copse of elms and the stream beyond it.

But he was not caught. Evans ignored the water gurgling nearby, and stopped instead in a stream of moonlight. Percy stood behind a tree and watched as Evans pulled his tunic over his head with a feverish hurry. The white light sifted through the leaves scattered over his bare shoulders and chest. He raised his hands, palms up, as though washing them in the moonlight, before running them over his torso, back, neck, with the methodical, detached attentiveness of beach-combing, picking mushrooms, threshing wheat. But these Percy found pleasant and restful; what he saw now in Evans' gestures had the sickly taint of obsessiveness, and it disturbed him. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was staring at a man staring at his demons, picking at them like Percy's housemaid would sometimes pick out the lice in his hair, back when he was smaller than he was now.

Evans kept running his hands over his body in a calm frenzy, checking inches of his skin before returning to them a minute later to check again, and again. Percy squinted in the moon-tinged darkness. He could see nothing in Evans' hands, nothing he might be applying or using. His fingers, which earlier had looked so handsome by the firelight, now seemed disfigured by a compulsion. Their repetitive motions imprisoned him in a moment that could last for as long as torture lasted.

Percy suddenly became aware of how uneasy he felt to be witnessing it, and he pressed his back against the tree hiding him. He drew a breath and quietly walked back to their camp, ignoring the urge clawing at him to turn around and keep watching. He remembered Evans' face, closed off and expressionless in resigned misery. A part of Percy knew he was leaving Evans behind to putrefy in a suffering he didn't understand. He was glad he didn't; it made it easier to walk away, and the night was getting cold.

The words that roused him the following morning made him groan before he was fully awake.

"Chamomile or lemon verbena?"

He sat up. He presented a glorious head of dark and dishevelled hair, and an even more dishevelled mind to match it, creased and crumpled by a cold night spent on the ground.

"Is there nothing else?" he asked Valeria with what he hoped was clear scorn.

"You must be mad if you think you've earned the privilege of being offered peppermint. I've only known you for two days."

Somehow, Valeria looked even fresher and crisper than the morning air, standing in her impeccable blue tabard with her short blond hair gathered in a braid. Evans, however, looked a little mussed up by a restless night, which gave Percy immense satisfaction. He chose to ignore the fact that Evans still looked horribly handsome.

Breakfast was a quick, cold affair. They readied their departure so swiftly that Percy still felt limp from sleep when they mounted their horses. He hadn't even named his yet, or asked if it had a name already. And to think he had cared enough to name trees, once.

"Are we going to do much riding today?" he asked.

"Are you going to ask that every day, son?" Valeria countered, taking her reins.

"If we're going to ride every day, yes."

"We're only two days away from the castle" Evans replied, a grin tugging at his lips.