Page 43 of Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

“Baby?” Gabriel gently pushed the dog away and went to her at once. Gwen made a noise of warning as he opened the bag, but as he peered inside nothing leaped at him claws-first. Bridget supposed it had exhausted itself in there. After all, it had probably had quite a difficult day.

“What is it?” said Arthur, going to look for himself. His face lit up as Gabriel carefully closed the bag. “That’s a kitten!”

“It’s a wildcat,” said Gabriel. “They like to hunt in woodlands. Full-grown, they’d be a good match for a boar, although the boar would have the advantage of weight. Especiallythatone.”

John was bristling again, so Gwen quickly suggested, “We think it’s not quite an ordinary cat. Perhaps the Beast mated with a local wildcat, and produced this offspring?”

“Mmm,” John said, mollified. “Yes. I reckon that’s exactly it.”

“I’m keeping it,” Arthur said happily. “A friend for Merlin Lucifer.”

“Arthur, it’s a wild animal,” Gabriel said, shaking his head. “It’ll grow to be as big as a deerhound. It’ll kill you.”

“It’s akitten,” Arthur said, aghast. “Ababy. Its mother is dead, we can’t leave it here. I’m having it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous. Some nobles keep tigers. And lions. This is only going to be about half as big as a lion. It’s a very reasonable pet, in the grand scheme of things.”

“Think of how much meat you’ll need to feed it.”

“My meat budget will stretch. And she’ll probably catch her own meat. Mice. Rats.”

“Small dogs,” added Gwen. “And perhaps children.” She was watching them argue back and forth with a half smile on her face, and with a start Bridget realized how unusual it was now to see the two of them bickering familiarly together like this. Last Yuletide it had been commonplace; Arthur and Gabriel sharing a blanket by the fire in Gwen’s chambers, sitting knee to knee at breakfast, riding two astride as they struck out across the frosty countryside.

“Leclair,” Arthur said imperiously. “Please give me some rope.”

“I don’t have any rope.”

He looked deflated. “Well… why not?”

“I’ve got rope,” said John. He pulled it out of his bag and unspooled it. Arthur took it, and he and Gabriel went back to bickering as he laid out a plan to create a makeshift collar and lead, which seemed to involve one person gently pinning the kitten down while the other did some rapid knotting.

John joined them, so that he might put his hands on his hips and give instruction, and Bridget took the opportunity to dismount, walk to the stream, and pull off her gauntlets, squatting to splash some water on her face. She could feel strands of hair sticking to her neck and forehead, thick with blood and sweat, and thought, not for the first time, about cutting it all off entirely. Adah did it. Buddhist bhikshunis did it. Why couldn’t she? The sort of people who would point and jeer at her were the ones who already thought she was a freak anyway.

“Hello,” Gwen said, sitting down on a rock, pulling her dress up slightly at the knees so it wouldn’t trail in the water. “That was quite horrible.”

“Yep.” Bridget unclipped her vambraces too, dropped them in the clear water and let the dark blood bloom. Neil would have to oil them again later, and he would not be gracious about it. “I, uh, I don’t know… where that came from. Sorry.”

“Where what came from?”

Bridget cringed—or, she let her nose wrinkle for just a moment, before her face became smooth and impassive again. It still felt like she’d given far too much away. “The… I was shouting.”

“Theshouting? I didn’t even know youwereshouting. I think I was screaming at a pitch that would have deafened the dog. I meant what you just had to do. When the pig almost gored you to death? Because you’dthrown yourself bodilyin front of me?”

Bridget shrugged, and picked up one vambrace, letting it drip pinkly onto the muddy bank. “It’s what I’m here for, so…”

“It was incredibly brave.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big—?”

“It’s my job. I’m a knight. Any one of this party would havedone the same.” She went to pick up her other vambrace, and was baffled when Gwen snatched it from her and threw it into the stream, water arcing after it. She stared at it for a moment before saying, “Why?”

“Because you’re annoying me,” said Gwen. “Can we just agree that you did something very dangerous and heroic? None of this ‘Oh, just another day on the job, m’lady’ bullshit? It was terrifying. I was terrified. Can weacknowledgethis, instead of just adding it to the frankly enormous pile of terrifying things that have happened to you recently and moving on?”

Bridget got up from her squat, feeling slightly creaky, and went to fetch her vambrace. “There haven’t been that many terrifying things.”