“All right,” Jael said again with a sigh. “If those three are all there are, then I suppose we’d better talk to Letha.”
Listening, Jael and Tanis could easily locate the three trappers in the public room downstairs. Letha and Bergin were laughing raucously at some jest, but they stopped when Jael and Tanis approached their table. Nilde only gazed at them warily.
“We understand you’re bound for Tilwich,” Tanis said hesitantly. “We’d like to hire passage downriver with you.”
Letha leaned back in her chair and swallowed a gulp of ale.
“Well, we’re indeed bound for Tilwich,” she said sarcastically. “What else is there in this mule-humping wilderness? Passage for the two of you, eh?” She eyed Tanis and Jael critically. “Well, you don’t look too heavy. No more’n five-six bags, though.”
“What about our horses?” Jael protested.
Bergin guffawed, and Letha waved him to silence.
“No room for horses, youngling,” she said mildly. “And you can’t ferry horses down rough river on an open raft anyway. Better sell ‘em. You can buy horses aplenty in Tilwich.” She turned to Tanis. “But I haven’t heard no offer. This may be the ass-end of the world, but nobody rides my raft for nothing.”
“Wait, now,” Jael insisted. “Our horses—”
“We’ll pay twenty coppers,” Tanis told Letha. “Surely that should be enough for two extra passengers on a trip you’re making anyway, and downstream as well.”
Again Jael started to argue—they had only thirty coppers—but she was silenced by a warning look from Tanis.
Letha chuckled.
“Twenty coppers? I wouldn’t let you look at my raft for that hereabouts. Four Moons, and not a copper less.”
“Two Moons,” Tanis countered.
“Three, or find your own way to Tilwich,” Letha said, shrugging. “We’ve a full load of pelts and no need for your coin if we don’t want to take it.”
“All right,” Tanis said reluctantly. “Three Moons. But only one now, and two on arrival in Tilwich.”
Letha shrugged again.
“Good enough. We can scarce spend it on the river. But I’ll see the coin before we leave. We’ll not be cheated, boy. And be at the river and ready at dawn, or we go without you.”
“We’ll be there,” Tanis promised, then dragged Jael away quickly before she could protest further.
“Just stop there,” Jael said hotly when Tanis pulled her out the door of the inn. “What gives you the right to say we’d sell our horses without even asking me first, and to promise money we haven’t even got?”
“Jael, look,” Tanis said in answer, gesturing at the Willow River.
Jael crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly, but she looked. The light was dimming, but the Willow River looked much as it had every day since Tanis and she had arrived in Willow Bend—wide, calm in the deep parts, but white foam showing where rocks lay beneath the fast-moving water.
“So?” Jael demanded. “There’s no real ferry, true, but the man who owns that large raft would take us across.”
“Right, so we get to the other side,” Tanis said patiently. “You and me and our horses, and no supplies. We could likely make it to the next town, or the one after that, or the one after that, but what are we going to spend to buy food when we get there? Either we go south to Tilwich or we decide that we’re going to hunt and forage our own food from here until—well, until we get wherever we’re going. We’re going to lose the villages soon enough, but I’d much rather have a good store of dried meat and such when we do. We have no way to know what kind of land we’re going to cross. What if it’s desert? We need supplies, and there’s nowhere to get them but Tilwich, and there’s no way we can boat horses to Tilwich on that river.”
Jael stared at the broad expanse of the Willow River, hating it. Tanis was right and she knew it; that didn’t make the thought of selling the horses any less bitter. They were almost friends. But even if they could ride the horses all the way south to Tilwich, there was no guarantee they could get the horses across the river once they got that far. Unless there was a road approaching Tilwich from the east, there would likely be no ferry. Merchants boated their goods south from Willow Bend to Tilwich, or north from the southern cities.
Jael had one last argument to make, however.
“How do we know there’ll be horses to buy in Tilwich?” she said. “Or are you planning for us to walk west of there?”
“Letha said we could buy horses aplenty,” Tanis told her. “Someone in the area must be raising them, or maybe merchants can get horses to Tilwich on those big boats north from the coast. But you can be sure I’ll check Letha’s word against a few other people before I’d sell our horses. It may be nobody here would buy them anyway.”
Well, there was that. Jael nodded and sighed.
“All right,” she said reluctantly. “But I’m going back to our room. I just can’t watch while you—you know.”
“It’s all right.” Tanis patted her on the shoulder. “I promise I won’t sell them to anyone who won’t treat them well.”
Tanis’s words were small reassurance as Jael trudged gloomily back to their room and curled herself into the smallest possible ball on the bed. Maybe this was why Aunt Shadow never kept a horse of her own—so she’d never come to a place where she’d have to sell it, or, worse, where the horse might be killed by wild animals or stolen by brigands. But, then, Aunt Shadow only traveled from city to city, never into the wild country where she’d have to carry quantities of supplies.
Jael grimly turned her thoughts away from the horses and back to Tanis, remembering how he’d blushed and turned away from the ample charms of the innkeeper’s daughter Illse. That worried Jael considerably; it had more than a little of the look of a child thrown from a horse and afraid to climb back on. Well, Jael could hardly push him into a brothel by force, could she? Especially in a town so small that there was none. Maybe in Tilwich, though—
Jael’s thoughts were interrupted by Tanis opening the door and stepping inside, a broad grin on his face and their two saddles in his arms. Pulling one hand out from under the saddles, he dropped two clinking pouches onto the bed before laying the saddles on the floor.
“I sold the horses,” he said. “For a good price, too—fifteen Suns for the three, all paid in silver. But better yet, you’ll call me a liar when you hear who I sold them to.”
“Who?” Jael asked dully. She didn’t really want to know.
“Dron, the merchant we came here with,” Tanis told her. “He’d been hoping to put his pots on the rafts to Tilwich, so now he’s got to wait for them to come back. He said the horses are good enough to take all the way back to Gerriden to sell. He promised he’d be choosy when he sold them.”
That cheered Jael somewhat. The short, chatty copper merchant had admired the horses several times, his hands sure and gentle when he’d stroked them or unerringly found the itchy places behind their ears.
“He said Letha’s right and there are good horses to be bought in Tilwich,” Tanis continued. “And they always have trail supplies in stock for the trappers. The inn’s always full up, though; that’s why so many of the trappers stop here before going on down the river to trade.”
“I hope you didn’t do all that bargaining in the public room,” Jael said worriedly.
“Oh, no, I talked to Dron alone in the stables,” Tanis assured her. “And I gave Letha her Moon and showed her two more, but nobody’s seen the rest. So it looks like we continue west from here, money in our pockets. How about a mug of ale to celebrate?”
“It’ll just make me sick,” Jael said with a sigh. “But why don’t you see if Illse will drink with you?”
Tanis grimaced.
“She’s probably tumbled every flea-ridden trapper who’s come through here,” he said. “I think the only reason she flirts with me is that I’ve still got all my teeth and hair. So why don’t you buy a mug of cider and at least drink that wi
th me?”
Jael took a deep breath, then reached into her pack and drew out the bottle of Bluebright.
“Better yet,” she said slowly, “we could both stay here and have some of this instead.”
Tanis drew in his breath sharply. Slowly, he sat down next to Jael on the bed.
“I thought—” He hesitated. “I thought you didn’t want to do that.”
“It wasn’t really that I didn’t want to,” Jael said, shrugging uncomfortably. “It was just—well, it’s just that now I do. All right?” It was hard to explain; Tanis probably would never understand how knowing that he himself was afraid made Jael feel a little less so. “Besides, this might be the last real bed we sleep in for a while.”
Tanis laid his hand over hers on the bottle, and Jael was surprised to feel his fingers shaking just a little. There was nothing but concern in his eyes, however, when she glanced up.
“If you’re sure it’s what you want,” he said gently.
Jael forced a grin and pulled the stopper out of the bottle. Thankfully, her own hands weren’t shaking.
“I’m going to have some,” she said. “If you don’t want to, that’s all right.”
Tanis was silent a moment longer, staring at her. Then he dug in his pack and drew out his cup, grinning.
“You pour,” he said.
Jael looked at the cup and laughed.
“That much would probably kill us,” she said. “All it takes is a drop or two. Urien put it on lumps of sugar.”
“Well, we don’t have any.” Tanis reached for the Bluebright. “I’ll take just a taste.”
Jael watched as he put the bottle to his lips and took a tiny sip, his eyes widening as he handed the bottle back to her.
“By Baaros,” he muttered. “That’s quite a sensation.”
Jael took a deep breath, then sipped from the bottle herself. The sudden burst of heat inside her mouth, quickly followed by a delicious fresh coolness, was as delightful as she remembered. She carefully placed the stopper back in the bottle and tucked it back into the pack. When she turned back to Tanis, however, he had lain back on the bed, his eyes half closed.
“How odd,” he murmured. “I feel like I’m drifting on water.”
A warm wave of relaxation washed through Jael’s limbs, and she lay down beside him, propping her head up on one hand.
“Is that good?” she asked.
“Mmmm. Yes.” Tanis rolled over to face her. He raised one hand lazily to comb his fingers through Jael’s shoulder-length curls. “Do you know your hair is just the color of new bronze, and your eyes, too. It’s lovely. But do you know what I’ve always liked best?”
“What?” Jael couldn’t imagine Tanis finding anything about her lovely. She was as knobby and gangly as a half-grown fawn and just about as graceful.
“Your hands.” Tanis took Jael’s hand and held it up, tracing it with his fingertips. “You don’t have the hands of a noblewoman or a warrior or even a thief. You have hands like a mage—hands that look like they’ll make something marvelous happen.” His voice became wistful. “I wish you could run like the wind over water. You were made to do something special, something magical.”
Tanis’s words made a tiny glow of pride in Jael’s heart, and she smiled.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll do something marvelous and magical just for you. Watch.” She reached for the purses Tanis had set aside and drew a copper out of the pouch.
Cupping the copper in her palm, Jael stared at it a little dubiously. It’d been more than a year since she’d tried this, and even then she hadn’t been sure what she was doing. How did she even start? Maybe . ..
The copper felt solid and comfortable in her hand, and deep within it Jael felt a memory of fire burning deep in the earth, fire that melted rock, that turned copper into spattering liquid formless as water, flowing smoothly between her fingers—
“Woops!” Jael laughed, catching the dripping copper in her other hand, her concentration broken. The copper coalesced into a formless blob. “Well, I meant to make a T, for Tanis. But it is something, isn’t it, something marvelous?”
Tanis touched the blob hesitantly, as if afraid it might burn him, then picked it up, gazing at it wonderingly.
“It certainly is, marvelous and magical,” he agreed. Then he turned to gaze at Jael warmly, dropping the piece of copper to clasp her fingers. “And so are you.”
Jael let Tanis pull her lips down to his, relief eclipsing even the wonderful warm desire that his words, his touch, brought. Yes, she wanted him, very much indeed, and she was glad to want him, glad to be able to want him. But even better was the ability to want Tanis, her wonderful friend who couldn’t shoot an arrow straight and who complained too much and sulked when he didn’t get what he wanted. And it was she, Jaellyn the Unlucky, all clumsy elbows and knees and elven ears and Kresh eyes, who wanted him. And maybe this sudden bright warmth in her heart was love, and maybe it wasn’t, but it was real, a part of herself, not something that flowed from a bottle. And maybe when the Bluebright wore off, she wouldn’t feel these feelings again for a while, but that was only because they were hiding in a place inside herself where she couldn’t reach, waiting for Jael to find them again. And one day, please, gods, one day she would never need Bluebright to find those feelings again.
Tanis pulled away from her, and Jael knew a moment of fear—whatever was the matter? To her relief, however, he only grinned sheepishly and stumbled rather clumsily to the door, setting the heavy wooden latch in place. He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled off one boot, then the other, pulling off Jael’s boots as well. He stared blankly at her feet.
“Did you know,” he said slowly, “that you have six toes on your left foot?”
“Uh-huh.” Jael laughed. “And you knew it, too. I showed you once before.”
“You did? You did,” Tanis admitted after a moment’s thought. He gazed at Jael with sudden seriousness. “Jaellyn, I feel so strange. Am I going to remember this tomorrow?”
“Uh-huh.” Jael nodded. “So you’d best not do anything you’d rather forget.”
“Better yet,” he said softly, “I’d best do something worth remembering.”
Jael had a fair secondhand knowledge of coupling; the elves in the Heartwood were not much concerned with privacy or modesty, and when Jael had fostered with Mist she imagined she’d seen probably all there was to see. It had always looked like a rather awkward business to her—how did they ever know where to put their elbows to get them out of the way, or which way to tilt their heads so their noses didn’t collide when they kissed? And didn’t all that long hair fall in each other’s faces, or get painfully pinned underneath someone’s shoulder? Still, despite all the bother, they seemed to enjoy it immensely; certainly theyspent a goodly amount of time doing it, and Jael didn’t believe all that was just practice in the hope of finally getting it right.
Jael had been prepared, therefore, for the awkwardness, for Tanis’s Bluebright-fogged clumsiness and her own fumbling inexperience. She wasn’t too unprepared, either, for the pleasure Tanis’s lips or fingers could find in the most surprising places—in the tender bend of her elbow or under her ear, behind her knee or at the nape of her neck. She was a little surprised by the hairiness of Tanis’s skin against hers, but she had scarcely time to notice before Tanis found another of those wonderful places to touch.
Even better than the pleasure, though, and utterly surprising to Jael, was the wonderful feelings of all there and not-alone, the marvelous knowledge that for this one brief time, every part of Jaellyn was there in that bed, all working properly. And Tanis was there with her and wanting to be there with her, and they were hardly two separate people anymore, joining their bodies together as closely as they could, as if the warmth between them could melt them together as Jael had melted the copper.
At last, lying comfortably tangled together (except that Jael had nowhere to put her left arm, and Tanis’s damp hair was tickling her nose), th
e sweat cooling on their skin in the darkness, Tanis sleepily stroked Jael’s cheek.
“Was it worth remembering?” he asked drowsily.
“Uh-huh.” Jael grinned in the darkness. “I wonder how long the Bluebright will last.”
Tanis chuckled, too.
“If I were a real friend, I’d warn you to use caution with that stuff,” he murmured. “But that’s asking more of my sense of duty than I can reasonably expect of myself.”
“And more caution than I’ve ever had a right to claim,” Jael said, yawning. “Gods, why didn’t we do this sooner?”
“You’re asking me?” Tanis shook his head. “Go to sleep, Jaellyn.”
“Well, I would, only—”
“Only what?”
Jael giggled.
“You’re lying on my hair.”
“Jael, wake up.”
“Uhhhh.” Jael’s nose was icy cold. She rolled over and burrowed deeper into the covers, but Tanis shook her shoulder insistently.
“Come on, Jael.” Warm arms slipped around her, and Tanis’s bare chest was hairy against her back. Then Jael remembered foggily why her back and Tanis’s chest were bare, and she rolled over in his arms to look at him.
Tanis smiled, his eyes as bleary as Jael’s, and kissed her chastely on the forehead.
“We’d better get dressed or Letha will leave without us.”
Jael sighed, but she sat up, shivering in the predawn cold. Tanis jumped out of bed and hurriedly pulled on his clothes, his teeth chattering. He picked up Jael’s clothes and tossed them to her so she could dress under the covers.
Jael dressed as quickly as she could, then left the warm comfort of the blankets to help Tanis bundle their bags together. It was unseasonably cold; Jael could see her breath steaming thickly in the air. It took three trips to carry all the bags down to the river’s edge, but Jael and Tanis had no way to distinguish Letha’s raft from the half-dozen drawn up on the sand and tied to stakes deeply anchored farther up the bank. They laid their bags on the bank and sat down, shivering in the cold mist.
Dagger's Point (Shadow series) Page 13