“Why?” he breathed.
Ignoring his grasp on her wrist, Ferize slid down, stretched out full length, and settled her body very close to his. Her scent was subtle, but effective; he felt himself respond. He released her wrist, shifted, placed a hand at the back of her neck, buried beneath her hair. She was, he realized, nude.
“Why?”
Deep in her throat, she purred. He slept only in leggings; her hand found the laced flap.
He stopped her. Most pallets were empty, but several hosted sleeping couriers. He knew very well that Ferize would find this a fillip, but he wasn’t in the mood to let her dictate terms such as when, and where, and had no desire to entertain fellow couriers. Undoubtedly young Corrid would be astonished.
He rose to his feet, bringing her up with him. Her breasts against his naked chest were intensely warm. The scale-pattern, he knew, was upon her. He walked her backward, spreading his legs so that hers fell in between. At the door he released her, set hands against the wood on either side of her shoulders. Ferize lifted the latch. He pressed the door open, caught her head in his hands, and turned her, guiding her, bringing his lips to hers. Mercifully, she had not yet undone the lacing of his leggings. He walked again, taking her backward, until they reached another door. Once more she lifted the latch; once more, he pressed the door open. It gave. Brodhi closed it quietly behind them, gently setting the latch so no sound was made.
“Ferize—”
She laughed. “Pleasure before business …” She silenced him with her mouth. He bore her down to the floor, down upon the rug. He did not stay her hand as she undid the lacing and peeled the leather back. He had time only to consider that they had best finish before dawn, or the Guildmaster, coming to view his map, would be most annoyed.
BETHID, ALARMED BY the farmsteader’s message, hastened to Ilona’s wagon. There she found the hand-reader lying on her side in her cot, knees drawn up, one hand pressed against her forehead. Her color was ashen. “Ilona!” She moved in close, shifting Ilona’s hand to press her own against the brow. It was cool and clammy.
“Tea,” Ilona croaked. “A muslin bag tied with blue string, third drawer down on the left.”
Bethid knelt and opened the drawer. “I have it.”
The voice was weak, but the tone was faintly, barely, ironic. “As soon as possible, if you would, or my belly is going to be quit of every meal I’ve had for the last several days.”
Bethid grinned and pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll see to it immediately. Oh, and just in case, here’s the nightcrock.”
Outside, the cookfire was banked. Bethid uncovered the coals and prepared the tea as quickly as possible, filled the mug, and carried it back into Ilona’s wagon. The hand-reader murmured something in relief and raised herself up high enough to accept the mug and drink half the contents down. She paused, made a face of distaste, then drank the remains.
“More?” Bethid asked.
“No, not just now.” Ilona sank back against her cushions. “Bless you.”
Bethid set the mug aside and perched herself atop the trunk across the narrow aisle. “Possibly I shouldn’t ask, but do you want anything to eat?”
“No eating!” Ilona said forcefully. Then, more quietly, “Later.” She pressed the back of her hand against her forehead. “Is there word of any sickness in the settlement?”
Bethid shook her head. “Not that I’ve heard of.”
Ilona sighed. “Then I suspect this is linked to the resurgence of my gift. One can’t be ungrateful, but one might wish for things to be less … violent.”
“You can read hands again?”
“Yes. Or at least, I read a hand.” She blew out a breath. “The farmsteader’s.” She pushed herself up higher against the cushions, turning on a hip to face Bethid. “Thank the Mother—and you!—the tea is beginning to work.”
“Your color’s improving,” Bethid noted. “Was there good news in his hand, or am I not to ask?” When Ilona closed her eyes, tension tautening her face, Bethid hastened to make amends. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have asked. It just came right out of my mouth—”
“No, no, it’s all right.” Ilona rolled her head away and stared at the ceiling. “It’s difficult,” she said finally, and her tone was a mixture of so many emotions Bethid couldn’t name them all, “and painful, to arrive at the realization that someone means a great deal more to you than you thought—and that he’s lost to you. Lost to all.” She swallowed heavily. “When someone is so much a part of your life, even without intimacy, you expect him always to be in it. And when he isn’t … well, it leaves a very large hole.”
Bethid knew whom she meant immediately, and felt a pang of sympathy. Quietly, she said, “You’re certain he’s gone?”
“Oh, yes. No one comes out of Alisanos.”
“And he’s definitely in the deepwood?”
“I saw him there, in the farmsteader’s hand. Not long, only a glimpse—but he’s there.”
“Mother,” Bethid murmured. “I’m so sorry, Ilona … but …” She recalled Jorda saying the two were not lovers. “No intimacy, you said?”
“No. We seemed never to fit in that way. I lost a lover to the Hecari just before Rhuan hired on, and for all his laughter and fecklessness, he can be very pointedly private. I never asked why not. But then, I never asked it of myself, either … until recently.” She released a long sigh and closed her eyes again. “Too late. Or not meant.”
Bethid sought for something appropriate to say, something comforting, but reflected that at this moment nothing would be comforting, except privacy. She rose. “I’ll let you rest now. I’ll come back later.”
Ilona made no reply, and Bethid quietly went down the steps.
DAVYN WAITED UNTIL he and the karavanmaster were mounted, each man leading one of the draft horses, before he broached the question. It would take several days for them to reach the wagon, time to replace the broken axle and reload the possessions taken out just prior to the storm, and then several days to return, though Jorda agreed that, in the interests of the needs of the karavaners and tent-folk, he would return more quickly with the two borrowed riding horses while Davyn drove the wagon back. It was as they rode across the river and back onto the northern road that Davyn brought it up.
“This other Shoia, Brodhi. Do you know him?”
Jorda, mounted on a stout gray horse and leading a heavy bay, glanced at him sidelong, mouth twisted. “Mostly I know of him. Brodhi isn’t one for friends or companionship, though he will visit Mikal’s from time to time. Why?”
“I know he’s gone to Cardatha to tell the warlord about what’s happened with Alisanos …”
“Yes, and if the Mother is kind, he’ll convince the warlord to leave the settlement alone.”
Davyn wished he could press a hand against the string of charms around his neck, but one hand held the reins and the other tended the halter-rope attached to the other draft horse, also a bay. “When do you expect him back?”
Jorda reined his gray gelding around a vermin hole and clucked at his draft horse to catch up. “We’re not certain. We don’t know if Alisanos has cut off the Cardatha road, nor how long the warlord may keep him. Why?”
Davyn ignored the question. “What might buy his services?”
“As a courier? Coin-rings, of course. But his fee depends on distance, and what the Guildhall sets for their share.”
“No—as something other than a courier.”
That got Jorda’s attention. “What do you mean?”
“I wish him to do me a very great service. A very dangerous service. I need him …” Davyn inhaled, then exhaled audibly. “I need him to go into Alisanos.”
“Sweet Mother!” Jorda was shocked. “Whatever for?”
Davyn said quietly, “My family.”
Jorda’s reaction was to rephrase the statement as a question. “Why would you even consider asking him to go into Alisanos for your family? It’s more than dangerous, man—it’s deadly!”
“Because he can find my family. I’ve been told so.”
The karavan-master barked a brief, disbelieving laugh. “Whoever told you that is a fool!” He paused a moment, as if aware he might have committed offense, and mellowed his tone. “I can’t imagine Brodhi would ever do such a thing. Who told you he would?”
Davyn chose his words with care. “I wasn’t told he would go. I was told he was there, with my youngest children.”
“In Alisanos?”
“The hand-reader told me so, that she saw it when she read my hand earlier this morning.”
“Ilona said that…” It trailed off before Jorda’s tone made it a question. He frowned thoughtfully for a long moment, weighing the information, then met Davyn’s eyes. “Ilona reads true.”
“Yes. She said that.” Davyn grimaced. “And it seems I have done your guide an injustice. He did not purposely send my family into the deepwood … in fact, he himself was caught in it even as they were.”
Jorda swore loudly and lengthily, reining in his horse so abruptly the one he led bumped into the gray’s rump. His expression, mostly hidden by the beard, was a mixture of shock, dismay, disappointment, and concern.
Davyn, halting his mount as well and sorting out reins and lead-rope, sought a way to amend the baldness of his statement. “Perhaps Brodhi could find Rhuan as well as my family.”
Jorda stared at him, brows knitted. His tone was hopeful. “Ilona saw Brodhi there—she didn’t mistake Rhuan for him? That happens often enough.”
“She seemed certain. She said Brodhi, more than once.” That he is the key.
The karavan-master shook his head. “I just can’t imagine Brodhi volunteering to enter Alisanos.”
“Neither can I,” Davyn admitted. “But she saw it in my hand, that Brodhi is in the company of my two youngest.” And that, too, he amended in his head: In the company of two of my youngest… Now that the new child was born, Megritte and Torvic were no longer the babies of the family. “She swore it.”
Jorda chewed absently at the tuft of beard jutting out just below the center of his bottom lip. “That may be the only way that Brodhi’s willing to do such a thing; that he has no choice, since Ilona’s seen it in your hand. Though I believe he will refuse, at least initially. Maybe what happens is that he is also taken.” He grimaced. “I suppose it’s possible Brodhi’s in the deepwood even as we speak, which means both Shoia are trapped.”
That awoke a surge of hope in Davyn’s body. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to hire Brodhi’s service at all; perhaps what the hand-reader saw was the natural result of the Shoia being swallowed as well. He was ashamed to admit he hoped that was so, but he did.
Jorda read his face. “It would save you trouble.”
“Oh, indeed!” Davyn, hands full of reins and leadrope, rubbed an ear against a lifted shoulder to rid himself of an insect buzzing near it. “And it may also mean that he has already found Torvic and Megritte.” He sent a quick, hopeful prayer skyward, toward the pale Mother Moon that waited in the heavens for night to fall. Hope tranformed itself to excitement. “O Mother, let them be brought safely out of the deepwood and back to me!”
Jorda joined him in that. “May it be so. But you do realize we will have no way of knowing what may have happened, or what will happen, until Brodhi either returns—”
“—or doesn’t.” Davyn nodded. “We can only wait. But I believe it will be an easier task for me now, the waiting.” Hope bubbled up again, strong as a tankard of raw spirits. “And if I am very fortunate, he will find more than just Torvic and Megritte.” He smiled at Jorda. “The hand-reader only saw a few images. Perhaps if I visit her again, she’ll see others.”
Jorda frowned. Reluctantly, he said, “We can hope so, but I have not seen it happen that way with Ilona.”
Davyn crowed a laugh. “But you’re not a diviner, karavan-master … should you see it that way?”
Jorda opened his mouth to answer, thought visibly, then murmured, “We’ll know in time.”
“Less time,” Davyn averred. “Let it be less time!”
But in that, the karavan-master didn’t join him. He held doubts, Davyn knew. But now it no longer mattered. The Shoia courier will bring my family out…
AUDRUN LOST TRACK of time. She had not counted the nights they spent beside the dreya ring, or upon the journey. But she could roughly count the number of times she thought of her children, saw the faces of her children, of her husband, in her mind. Hundreds. Hundreds of times. She never once forgot them. Always, always they claimed her mind, and her prayers.
Few rests were allowed, and none of them was of sufficient length. But Rhuan insisted, and each time he urged her to her feet she answered the request. She grew accustomed to seeing the back of him: broad shoulders, narrow hips, tied-back rippled hair hanging to his waist. It was longer than her own.
When he turned to mark where she was, Audrun saw his face in place of his back, and the strain in flesh and features. Each time, with nothing said, she pushed herself the harder to catch up, to keep up, to follow his track.
So many days uncounted. So many days lost.
So many children taken.
SITTING ON THE guildmaster’s rug, Brodhi laced up his leggings. “Now that the pleasure appears to be finished, tell me your business.”
Ferize, still naked, still sheathed in her opalescent scale pattern, stretched languorously, arching her back as she lay on the rug. “Some choices are more difficult than others.”
“I do know that. What’s the business about?”
“That.”
“What, that?”
“That some choices are more difficult than others.” She sat up, wriggled close to him, perched herself in his lap, and wrapped her arms around his neck. This time, her hair was silvery-white, eyes quite black. “That is the business, Brodhi.”
He detested it when she was coy and cryptic. He set her aside and rose. “I haven’t time for word games, Ferize. I’m expecting Hecari warriors to come for me at dawn. It’s nearly that now. I have a long ride ahead of me.”
She shook back her wealth of hair and rose as well, somehow in the transition gaining a white silk robe that would have been perfectly modest had the neckline not plunged to her navel. “And it will be longer yet, depending on your choice.”
He faced her with hands on hips. “Ferize—”
“Your road may fork,” she said, “or it may not. Is that so difficult to understand? The words are plain, yes?”
“The words are plain, yes, but—”
“Then what more should I say? What occurs when you arrive at a crossroads?”
He bit back a retort. She was not, after all, being cryptic or coy. “You choose which way to go.”
Ferize smiled. “So you do.”
The door latch rattled. Brodhi swore. Ferize just grinned at him, and when a moment later the Guildmaster opened the door to his map chamber, he stopped short in startlement. “Where did that cat come from?”
Brodhi said smoothly, “She must have gotten in yesterday and hidden herself. I heard her calling, and found her here.” He bent, scooped up the silvery-gray cat, tucked it under one arm. “I’ll send her on her way out of doors.”
“Do that.” The Guildmaster made a gesture of dismissal and rounded his table. “Hecari are in the courtyard waiting for you. They are not, as a rule, patient.”
“Then I’ll collect my belongings and take my leave.” Brodhi walked out of the chamber, but paused as the Guildmaster said something more.
“Be careful, Brodhi. You’ve two enemies, now, on this ride: Hecari, and Alisanos.”
Brodhi smiled thinly. “Pleasure before business.”
Chapter 27
THE TEA, THANK the Mother, was effective. Ilona breathed a sigh of extreme relief, gently patting a hand against her formerly upset belly, and sat up in bed, legs dangling over the side. Jorda had come not long after Bethid’s departure and fitted a replacement canopy over the roof-ribs, lacing
the oilcloth through holes and tying rope around various davits. Once again she had privacy, with heavy wooden walls providing shelter at either end, and the oilcloth pulled down low on the sides, weighted with lengths of wood to keep the wind from lifting it. Well, normal wind, she reflected; the storm had found easy purchase. Ilona felt at ease again now that she had a choice of raw daylight or privacy and shelter beneath the oilcloth. The Mother Rib still lacked the string of protective charms normally attached to it, but they would be replaced in time. In the meantime, she could send prayers to the Mother of Moons as well as to Sibetha, god of hand-readers, for her survival.
The closed door rattled. Ilona looked up, feeling the wagon shift beneath someone’s weight on the steps. She expected to hear a knock, or a voice calling her name, but neither occured. Just as she was rising to go to the door, it was pulled open. A man upon the bottom step filled the doorway.
Her knees faltered. She sat down very hard upon the edge of her cot.
He was as she remembered. Tall, broad, mature, incandescent with something inside that overwhelmed all. Coppery hair, arranged in complex braid patterns, glinted with glass and gold. His clothing, as she remembered all too well, was supple, scaled, russet hide, with a wide, gold-bossed belt riding his hips. His eyes were Rhuan’s; his face was not, despite similarities. And as he smiled, she saw there were no dimples.
What shot through her mind were any number of opening comments, none of them particularly effective at underscoring her intelligence. Ilona shut her mouth and stared at him. Just that. It was not wise, she realized instinctively, to let him know she was confused and concerned. Best to show strength, or nothing at all. He was a man who would use any hesitation or momentary lapse as a weapon. She was neither a fool nor a coward, but there was no question she felt the power at his call. As a diviner, she was open to such things, more sensitive to power. He made her senses tingle, but it wasn’t desire. It was the simple awareness of threat, and of danger.
Deepwood: Karavans # 2 Page 24