A Lesson for the Cyclops Read Online Free

she sought.
    She withdrew the small mirror she had buried at the bottom of the trunk, and looked at her reflection for the first time in recent memory.
    She was hideous, as always. The small nick Alfredo had taken out of her cheek did nothing to worsen her already appalling ugliness. Her stringy white hair was useless to conceal the ghastly pallor of her skin, the obvious absence of a nose and second eye, but she tried her best. She arranged her hair this way and that, but it was to no avail. She was the most hideous thing on two legs, and no amount of primping could change that.
    She returned the mirror to her trunk and headed for the opening in the tent. She stopped before exiting it, however.
    She fished her hand up under her skirt and retrieved the burlap sack from around her waist: D’Arbignal’s bag. She reached into that bag and withdrew D’Arbignal’s rapier.
    Alfredo had been half-right: she certainly wasn’t pretty enough to play coy with him. She was, however, smart enough. She had known that the one place no sane man would ever search had been beneath her clothes.

Chapter 8
    “… so all I could do was roll.” D’Arbignal’s voice filled the campsite as the Cyclops approached Marco’s tent. It sent a pleasant chill through her, and she shivered with excitement. “So I rolled to the left and I rolled to the right, keeping them off-guard and unable to land a single true blow. I snatched my rapier from the brigand holding it captive, and rolled my way to victory!”
    The Cyclops heard Conchinara’s laughter, like the tinkling of musical bells, and her heart sunk. Conchinara was still with him?
    The Cyclops despaired at the unfairness of the situation. Conchinara already had a man, and now she had two, while the Cyclops went to sleep at night with nothing but her now-shredded pillow to give her comfort. She knew it was too much to ever again hope that a man as worldly and handsome as D’Arbignal could ever desire someone as hideous as herself, but was it too much to hope for a male friend, one who could somehow tolerate being in her presence without first extinguishing all the lights?
    Oh, wait. Of course it was too much to hope for, or hope to deserve.
    “Now I know that story can’t be true, Mister D’Arbignal,” Conchinara mock-chided him. “I think you think me naïve.”
    “Not at all,” D’Arbignal was saying as the Cyclops entered the tent. “I swear the entire story is true! Indeed, you must have an ill impression of my character, if you think—ah, my rapier! And my bag!”
    He looked like he was recovering nicely, though he was still pale, and his forehead was dotted with perspiration. His shirt was still off, and the Cyclops caught herself marveling at his muscled and nearly hairless chest. And oh, he was lean! Just beautiful, functional muscle everywhere and not a bit of fat anywhere to be seen.
    She entertained a brief fantasy. She would like to fall asleep with her head resting on that chest. Oh, to feel his heart beating beneath her head, to be lulled to pleasant dreams by the rhythmic rising and falling accompanying his breath.
    D’Arbignal coughed.
    “Ah, my rapier!” he repeated, only louder. “And my bag!”
    Conchinara laughed, and the Cyclops blushed, realizing she had been caught daydreaming.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “What?”
    “Ah, my rapier?” D’Arbignal said. “And my bag?”
    “What? Oh!” The Cyclops realized she was holding D’Arbignal’s gear. Idiotically, she extended them towards him as an offer.
    “I guess it’s time to get up,” D’Arbignal said, moving to sit up in his cot.
    Conchinara placed a gentle hand against his bare chest, and left it there. “No, Mister D’Arbignal. No, no, no. You need to keep resting.”
    She pointed at the rapier and the bag.
    “Cyclops—” she started to say.
    “Maria,” D’Arbignal said.
    “Pardon?”
    “I believe the lady said her name was Maria.”
    “What? You mean—Oh, of course.” Conchinara