Feast of Stephen by K. J. Charles

Feast of Stephen
    26 th December – St Stephen’s Day
    They arrived at
Rothwell after dark.
    It had been a
very long journey, made worse by their late departure. That was
thanks to Stephen’s job, of course. Mrs Baron Shaw had taken
advantage of the catastrophic events of the last few weeks to
manoeuvre Stephen’s old enemy John Slee off the Council for good.
He couldn’t regret that, but the resulting chaos had kept him
working eighteen-hour days for a week, despite his best
intentions.
    He could,
frankly, still be working: there was enough to be done, God knew.
But Esther had become vocal on the subject, Merrick had begun
giving him meaningful looks, and Stephen had finally put his foot
down before Crane did it for him.
    A little too
late. The long-threatened snow began to fall while they were still
travelling, and the roads were soon rutted and icy. They had been
forced to spend Christmas Day in an inn some miles from Crane’s
hunting box—not a great hardship, since Crane’s lavish hand could
purchase luxury under almost any circumstances, but not what any of
them had wanted—and it had taken another day of laborious
travelling to reach their destination.
    The carriage
was as well sprung as any Stephen had ridden in, but it still
jolted uncomfortably over the hard, uneven ground. Jenny Saint had
spent most of the journey outside. Stephen knew from experience
that although Dan Gold could knit a broken bone in a matter of
days, the pain lasted far longer, a dull, nagging ache that made a
carriage ride torture. She at least had the option of windwalking
when the roads were empty, running through the air alongside the
carriage, landing next to Merrick on the driver’s seat if other
vehicles approached.
    It was slightly
easier that way, too. She was still very much on edge around Crane,
and her nerves were contagious. Christmas Day had helped a little,
but her usually ebullient nature had still been subdued at the
table, and Stephen suspected it would be a long time before she was
entirely comfortable in Crane’s company, or with their
relationship.
    The house was
unlit and empty when they arrived, crunching through snow that was
now several inches deep. It was warm inside, though, as though
fires had been going all day, and smelled of something
delicious.
    “We had people
in to make ready,” Crane told him as they entered. “Enlighten us,
my sweet.”
    Stephen reached
out with his mind and ignited the lamp wicks one after another,
bringing leaping golden light to the hall. Beside him, Saint gave a
little gasp. He’d told her they were going to a hunting box, and
hadn’t elaborated on what that actually meant, since he didn’t want
report getting back to the Golds, but in truth it was a sizeable
and extremely comfortable house.
    “You said box ,” she muttered. “Thought we’d be roughing it.”
    “Well, it ain’t
bad, but not what you’d call precisely convenient,” Merrick said.
“Price you pay for a bit of peace and quiet.”
    “Why don’t you
show Miss Saint around?” Crane suggested. “We can clean up and meet
for dinner…?”
    “Call it half
seven,” Merrick said. “You want me to do the fires, Mr. Day?” That
was purely a courtesy question; Stephen held up a hand in answer.
“Come on, Jen.”
    He took the
girl upstairs, Crane following. Stephen headed for the parlour,
setting oil lamps and candles ablaze as he went. The fires had been
laid and it took only a moment to get them going, which was all he
had before he heard Crane shouting for hot water.
    “If I weren’t
here, you’d have to wash in cold,” Stephen told him once he had one
hand in the pitcher, the water warming around his tingling
fingers.
    “If you weren’t
here, nor would I be,” Crane pointed out. “I wouldn’t come to the
arse end of nowhere for anything less than—”
    “The arse end
of a short shaman?” Stephen supplied.
    “I wasn’t going
to say short ,” Crane objected. “Well, I hardly need