Chapter 16

As it turned out, the earl of Grand-Tamme wasn't in fact very irate at what happened in the tavern, and wasn't blaming Thomas for much. At most, he was a bit chagrined that his son didn't have the upper hand over a bunch of lowly common people. But on the whole, he seemed to be secretly glad of this display of "manliness" and had a hard time concealing it for his reprimand to sound harsh enough to the two youngsters' ears.

Relief flowed over Cyril as to her friend's fate and near future, so contrary to what Marie had predicted. This danger now warded off, Cyril looked back on the previous night's events; now that she thought of it, aside from the punches that her sore muscles and bruises were vividly reminding her of, she mainly remembered the smell. This mix of alcohol, sweat, cold tobacco and… vomit? And blood, too. Acrid and heady and persistent. Granted she was wearing clean (and too large) clothes, but she felt dirty, because under these clean suit and shirt and stockings, she knew her skin was covered with that thin layer of dried sweat and alcohol and other substances that permeated through her uniform to cling to her damp skin. And anyway, she did not need remembering that, in fact she could actually smell it: in addition to her body, even her hair was reeking of it.

More than anything else at the current moment, she wanted a bath. She dreamed of immersing her body up to the neck in her huge bathtub filled with warm scented water, luxuriating and unwinding in it, soothing her aching muscles and washing all this grime off of her, without a care in the world.

Ringing a servant, she ordered for a bath to be prepared. It felt so good, this warm, clean and caressing water enfolding her, like a fluffy and cosy eiderdown wrapping itself around her, washing away the filth as well as some of the soreness… When she was done, not wanting Miss Hugues to fuss about her many bruises and telling her off about acting like a featherbrain or lamenting about "leading a life like this one, honestly!" she didn't call for anyone to help her out of her bath and dried her body and hair all by herself.

So. Thomas was the one who took care of her the night before. Thank God! But she knew it was not only sheer luck that her secret was not discovered: she supposed he had a hard time fighting her corner against her sister and cousin. Dear Thomas…

But somehow and without really being able to put her finger on why, she didn't feel totally at ease with the idea of him dressing and undressing her body. It did not seem as neutral as it should, and she couldn't really find a reasonable explanation to that sensation.

Well of course she knew why, she reminded herself: she didn't like her body, she spent most of her time concealing it, even to herself, as much as possible.

At this very same instant, he was probably doing the same as she was: washing away the night's and the fight's remnants, and changing into clean clothes.

She had to admit that their opponents didn't pull any punches on him, and she remembered him crashing against a real giant, a mass of muscles who seemed quite hot-headed. Poor Thomas…

But would they have fought sword against sword, she thought, he would have had more than his chance… Yes, he was getting very good at it. When they were training, fencing against each other, people might wonder if he had not held back his attacks so far, merely parrying hers. But no, she remained better a fencer than him. Cold comfort, because as for the rest nature had done its work and Thomas had more strength than her. Running, boxing, even wrestling... he has been outmatching her in all these areas for many years.

Brrrr! Cyril got this unpleasant idea out of her head. Yes, even if her conscious mind refused to admit it she was envious of Thomas. He managed to lift loads twice as heavy as she could, by putting in half as much efforts. He ran faster and without getting as much out of breath as she did. Granted, he did not need to enclose his chest in a bandage so tightly wrapped that it restricted his respiratory movements.

Unlike her, he had a flat bust, hence no dead weight to haul around... Quite engrossed in her bitter and jealous reflections, she had reached her bedroom and then got to make herself presentable.

Once she had – with some difficulties due to lack of practise – brushed and tied her tangled hair back, she disrobed from her dressing gown as she headed to her bed.

No useless dead weight to haul along, a flat chest, and a shoulder breadth much wider than hers, she thought bitterly as she caught a glimpse of her thin reflection in the cheval glass. Against her better judgment, she observed with a displeased look the naked body of the strange being facing her in the mirror.

Without the uniform's epaulettes, the shoulders did not look square anymore but were sloping. The silhouette was frail and unimposing. The too thin stature and not salient enough muscles barely wrapped or coated the bones underneath the skin. Likewise, the legs were skinny now that they were out of those breeches and stockings. Nothing to do with the men she rubbed shoulders with on a daily basis. Even her height failed her, as she was rather on the short side – for a man. She had not inherited her father's manly features, she did not possess the same strength as Bellasis or Grès nor the power Thomas had his arms, and she did not have their broad shoulders either...

From her own frail shoulders, she brought her gaze down to her chest and forced herself to look, albeit reluctantly so. God she hated it! The best evidence that whatever she did, whatever she thought, she would never have man's body. These… monstrosities, with no muscle, no support whatsoever... these ungraceful deformities were an insult to her chest, where there should have been only flat and firm muscles! Oh, there were some muscles, but they were hidden under... under these...

Clenching her fists, pursing her lips in disgust, she looked away from the mirror. And to think that there was nothing to do against it! Oh, of course she had read ancient stories evoking the mythical warriors who severed a breast in order to be better archers, but firstly it was just ancient mythology, and secondly the mere idea of it seemed... dreadfully barbaric; and on another note, unfortunate women whose health condition was so critical that they had to resort to perilous surgery to fight the disease eating away at their breast usually died even faster from the intervention's sequelae than from the disease gnawing them from inside.

She forced her eyes to look up again at these flabby lumps taunting her. Did women really put up with seeing it in the mirror? But how could they? And was it possible that men cherished that? She, for her part, felt only revulsion toward it. Was this another sign that she could never be entirely and wholeheartedly a man, even in sense, in mind, in spirit?

All she dreamed about was flat chests, broad shoulders, lean torsos such as probably was–

Whoa, whoa, hey now, what was that?

And yet, against her better judgment, she couldn't help but wonder... What did he like? Opulent bosoms, revealed and enhanced by the tight bodices of latest fashion's dresses? Most probably. Well, funny enough, that was exactly what the Dauphine, whose taste for expensive new clothes he so strongly disapproved of, was wearing on a daily (or rather several times a day) basis. But after all, was she not known for the grace and perfection of her… err… charms?

Images of the future queen, so feminine and full of curves in her court dresses fleetingly crossed Oscar's mind... who looked again at her cheval mirror. No, really, nobody could ever be attracted to what she saw there. The biceps and slightly visible abdominal muscles… the tanned skin marked with many and varied bruises and cuts of all shape, size and stage of healing… There was not an ounce of femininity in this body, too brawny and too rough to attract the eye of a man, let alone his caress. This body, too square too rough and too muscular to be a woman's one, but not enough to be a man's...

Bony, angular, dusky-skinned and marred with healed sword-cuts... No, there was nothing feminine about her, but even worse, there was nothing manly about this body either.

Suddenly, she felt something… unpleasantly familiar, by now. A warm little outflow in her private parts, down to her intimate lips and soon out of it.

She hurriedly dashed to an inlaid three-drawers commode and hastily took a handful of clean white linen stripes of clothe and cotton rags. She then proceeded to make herself presentable and quickly put on a clean uniform, careful to make sure that her breeches wouldn't be stained by the oozing blood and thankful – not for the first time – that the Bodyguards' uniform was dark red from the waist down.

Pfff… she hated that. Didn't see the point in it. But most of all, she hated that it tauntingly reminded her of her physical nature, mocking her best efforts to be a man like any other, the true son her father deserved and wanted, expected her to be. She loathed this roughly monthly reminder that her body was so much at odds with herself, with her thoughts. With her mind.

And the soul? A very small voice seemed to timidly utter inside her skull. Cyril ignored it. She was a boy. A man! she hastily corrected herself. A man.

Who had just experienced his first hangover. A very manly thing, after a very manly fight. Even her father thought the same. Well, about the fight that is, not about the hangover part that she did her best to conceal to his not-so-observant eyes anyway.

She felt again a few drips of warm blood flowing down her crotch. She sighed.

She remembered the first time. It was roughly two years before. An unpleasant memory in itself, but to make things worse, it was also right at the time when she was secretly resenting Thomas and even hating him for… well, for just being what he was. For being so obviously a boy. So much more obviously than herself.

Of course it was still the case now, and even more so evidently enough – particularly on days like this one, duh! – but well, now she had grown older and things were appease on her part regarding Thomas.

But back then… She roughly knew what this was about, so she was not scared to discover blood, but… yes, strongly displeased. And that was an understatement. Furious was more like it. Furious against Fate, against her own body, against Nature, against the injustice of her condition, against everything and everyone. Even against Thomas, for no real reason, for the only reason that he was there, that he was not going through this.

It didn't hurt, though. Physically, that is. Strange how someone could loose so much blood and not feel much, just a slight and vaguely located discomfort in the first hours, either in the lower back or lower abdomen.

But the hurt it did to her spirit, morale, soul, and to her whole being was immeasurable. And more than anything, she had then felt… angry. Angrier than she had ever been before, and than she had ever felt since. Mad with anger and wrath.

She remembered… running away from Miss Hugues's too obvious delight and excitement on hearing what Cyril had just very reluctantly informed her of, she had hurtled down the stairs, shoved aside a very puzzled Thomas who had came from the kitchen to see what this ruckus was about – he was really the last person on Earth she wanted to see at that very instant – bolted out through the front door and run, run, run until she was out of breath, until she reached a desert stable where she would hide out from the world and conceal her pain and distress.

She refused it. She strongly refused it! How dared nature do as it pleased with her body? Getting her breath back, she had caught sight of a gunnysack of oat seeds hanging from a crossbeam and had immediately felt drawn to take out her bile on it. She had slowly walked to it and punched it. And again. And again. Hit it. And hit, and hit, and punched again and again, not paying attention to how much it made her fists hurt. She had punched and hit and punched again, and soon her fist too were bleeding, scratched and scraped by the rough material and the violence of the impacts, the strength and fury she had put in those.

And here, two years later, she still couldn't prevent nature from acting, from working against her, from playing with her. Taking its loathsome course. She looked at the back of her hands: the scrapes there have long disappeared leaving no scar to testify of Cyril's wrath and refusal of what was still happening against her will, but time an nature and the course of things didn't care for Cyril Crolet's will or wishes.

And in the two decades to come, she would learn how vain and pointless it was to stubbornly refuse the progress of time and of the world.