Shadows of Aggar (Amazons of Aggar)
Page 14
“You are not my servant.”
“At times, yes! I am,” Elana retorted. Her equilibrium was slipping beneath the stone’s feeling of taunting sweetness. “I am what is needed, Di’nay. Sometimes servant — a soldier if need be. I am whoever is needed so that we can safely be in whatever situation arises. That is what I do! By my choice, that is why I am here.”
“And I have no say at all in the matter?!”
“No — yes.” She shook her head helplessly, feeling her knees begin to melt. “Certainly you do. I didn’t mean to imply… but there are times when neither of us will have much say in — ”
“And there are times,” Diana bit out sharply, “like now, when there is no need for you to play any role!”
“Like now? When I want to do something for you only because I — care?”
“Or because the Council — Ouch!” Diana pulled back, her hand scalded. Her fingertips glowed bright pink. Argument forgotten, she looked at the pulsing, vibrant colors of the stone. “Mae n’Pour — are you all right?”
Bereft and heart in throat, Elana snatched up her leather cuffs quickly.
“Why did it do that?” Diana’s voice was suddenly gentle with her concern.
“Imprinting…” Elana faltered hoarsely — on my very soul. “As in the Keep.”
“Will it do that all the time?”
“Well,” Elana jested unconvincingly, “when you think about it, how often do you hold my uncovered wrist?” She swallowed painfully. “If there’s nothing more you need, I’ll go up. Sleep sounds like a wonderful idea just now.”
“Certainly, whatever you like.” Baffled, Diana watched Elana collect her new clothes and leave. There were still some things that were not being said.
† † †
Diana paused to stretch. She found her neck was getting stiff from hunching over as she cleaned her long sword and knife. She started, finding Elana had appeared at the clearing’s edge.
“…beg patience,” Elana murmured, but they shared a tentative smile before Elana turned to fold away her soap and comb in her pack. She was well aware of the fact that Di’nay was becoming accustomed to her silent comings and goings, and, in truth, the Amazon respected her blue-sighted stealth more than feared it. That growing, almost matter-of-fact acceptance that Di’nay held for her Sight was something that Elana found pleasantly surprising; it was not an acceptance many of Aggar extended even after tenmoons of acquaintance.
“Your eitteh,” Diana pointed at the sleek, golden creature that stretched out before the fire, “seems to have an inordinate amount of interest in our eventide.”
With a chuckle Elana settled herself next to the winged cat. “I thought you had already eaten?”
The eitteh gave a low growl as she quickly bounded onto Elana’s shoulders and wrapped herself around the woman’s neck. As Elana slumped forward beneath the sudden weight, a deep throated rumble began. Despite herself Elana was laughing.
Diana’s eyes narrowed, finding a faint stir of envy within herself as the animal rubbed against Elana’s pale cheek. The young woman’s smile grew tender and she rubbed the furry ears with a quiet murmur of something.
“It seems you have acquired a devoted friend,” Diana observed, finally able to push her selfish discomfort aside. “Will she follow you into Colmar, do you think?”
“Oh no.” Elana shook her head, carefully offering a hand for the eitteh’s inspection now that the creature had drawn back from the petting. “She might appear again when we leave it as she did this morning when we left the Crossroads, but… she is young. Her curiosity may be caught by something new, and then she’ll be gone. As I have said, eitteh are not usually fond of humans.”
“Save for the Blue-Sighted ones?”
Elana smiled at Diana then said, “Perhaps.”
The animal shook its head disdainfully, disagreeing that her taste in companions could be quite so limited. Disgruntled, it dropped from Elana’s shoulders and padded off a few steps before pausing to glance back. Its emerald eyes sought Elana’s and after the shortest of breaths, they both blinked and broke the contact. It eyed Diana for an equally brief moment and then with a ripple of its golden hide, opened its wings and leapt into the air.
“She has decided she is hungry after all,” Elana said, watching the creature disappear above the trees.
“Will she be back tonight?”
“I don’t know.” Elana looked back from the moons’ lit sky. “She must go deep into the mountains, away from the road before it will be safe for her to hunt.”
A snuffling grunt from the small stream bed reminded Diana of another animal she was concerned with. She looked across the campsite, beyond the small, worn structure of the traveler’s shelter to the dim outline of their horse. Leggings snorted, stepping away from the water as she returned to her contented munching.
Elana paused from turning their skewered dinner, following Diana’s gaze.
“In Colmar, did the Steward not say the King’s Dracoon was a Council friend?”
“Yes,” Elana said, curious.
“Perhaps he might return Leggings to the Keep for us.” Diana quietly faced Elana. “I have been thinking about what you said. It might be better if — after Colmar — we were to travel more openly as a pair without my accustomed red mount.”
Slowly Elana crumbled the leaves into the tea water, taking care as she chose her words. “I had wondered why we did not purchase another at the Crossroads.”
Diana shrugged. “I did not want to call more attention to us than necessary. Horse thieves are common, but the road between Gronday and the Crossroads is too well traveled and the route takes less than a day. The risk is too high for thieves in such a short stretch — and I’m known to handle a sword well. There would have been too many questions. Someone might have guessed that I’d not come from my usual place.”
“What will they say if you purchase two mounts while giving Leggings away?”
“Well — shall we say, she was never mine to sell, and we are simply surrendering her to the Dracoon’s care as would any honorable trader who has found an abandoned steed?”
Elana smiled at that. “I had forgotten your unblemished reputation, Di’nay.”
Diana laughed and finished with her weapons. “Certainly Maryl will not find it out-of-character… nor will half of Colmar, I’d wager.”
“Maryl? That’s the baker’s wife who we’ll stay with in Colmar?” Elana handed Di’nay some tea.
Diana grinned suddenly at an old memory. “Do you know she abhorred this drink?”
“Your tea?” Confused, Elana, sniffed at her own cup curiously. “It is a strange blend, but certainly not unpleasant.”
“You like it then?” and there was something in the stillness of Di’nay’s anticipation that caused Elana to pause. “You have never really said if you do or do not,” Diana pointed out.
“I do — very much,” she admitted, suspicious of that faint humor in her companion. “Is there a reason I should not?”
“It is not of Aggar…?”
Elana smiled quickly. “Neither are you, Di’nay. And I like you well enough. Now…,” she pulled a roasted jumier from the fire, “…see how you like my latest concoctions. There’s a different set of spices to this one — ”
Willingly Diana stabbed the crisp bird with her knife and carefully bit into it. “It’s as good as it smells.”
Delighted, Elana hugged the praise to herself, reaching for her own dinner.
For a time they each ate in silence, content with the food and the growing warmth of their company. But Di’nay’s teasing words returned, and as she chewed Elana asked curiously, “Who is this Maryl — aside from the baker’s wife?”
“She is the woman who shared my house for a tenmoon.”
“But she is not an Amazon?”
“No. Maryl is like you… a woman of Aggar.” Diana’s face was somber as she remembered Maryl’s choice. “She preferred… to marry the baker. She helps h
im run a public kitchen now. Actually, they were doing quite well, last I saw, and expecting their first born.” Diana paused in licking her fingers as she figured the monarcs. “I think she will be birthing… this monarc even.”
Elana stared across their campfire in silence. Outwardly Di’nay seemed unconcerned. Her feelings, however, were not so lukewarm.
“I wish it could have been different for you, Di’nay.”
“Hmm, no.” Diana shook off her melancholy. “Maryl’s happy and everything’s worked out for the best.”
Somehow, Elana thought as she dug the vegetable stuffing out with her fingers, Di’nay was not wholly certain of that. Hoping to turn the subject to less difficult thoughts, Elana questioned, “Do you have an Amazon such as Maryl waiting for you at home?”
“Home-home, you mean? No.” Diana chuckled. “My attraction for Maryl was mostly born of pity, I think. I would be hard pressed to find any Sister back home that I would feel that over-protective of… and have it tolerated.”
“There is no one at home then? Or there is no one like Maryl?”
“Both.”
Was that good or bad? Elana wondered, her stomach fluttering nervously. But she was relieved to find that no one was anxiously awaiting this Amazon’s return.
“And you? Do you have anyone special?”
Elana smiled with sudden, impish honesty. “You.” Laughing at Di’nay’s surprise, she leaned near to squeeze the leather clad knee in reassurance. “Only if you want me, Di’nay. Please, do not look so thunderstruck! I do not bite!”
Disconcerted, Diana laughed, but, strangely, she found she rather liked being teased. That sort of camaraderie had been largely missing in her life on Aggar. A smile settled across her weathered features… this was not the time for debates — nor for complaints. Her stomach was full, the tea warm and she had a whole night’s sleep to look forward to; she found she did not want to spoil any of it with self-reflection. “Myself aside then, have you someone at the Keep?”
Elana shook her head. The day’s travels and the wind had loosened a few dark strands of hair and, looking to the fire, she brushed them back from her face. “Shadow trainees are generally unattached… by choice. It would make it very hard for any of us to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice if we had families.”
“Leaving friends can be just as hard,” Diana pointed out.
“But not as hard as lovers.”
“That sounds as if you’ve had the experience. “
“Me? I have not had a lover.” Elana tossed her left-over bones into the fire. “But I have watched… and felt… friends in their separations.”
Diana stared as the flames danced and crackled in the darkness. She remembered when she’d had to say good-bye to her first love. “Most of us only have to struggle through that pain when it’s our own. Must be Fates’ Jest to deal with it as often as each friend faces it.”
“Fates’ Jest — sometimes, yes.” Elana’s voice was not bitter, but it was sad. “Some say the Blue Sight is a curse of the Fates. They fear it… knowing only of our childhood accidents. To them, it seems that the Council must intervene or the Sight would be used to invade or control the unsuspecting. Too easily, they come to believe that the malice of our Fates… that the twisted games of those demi-gods must be behind the Sight’s making.”
“Yet could you not also say, it is the Mother’s Gift?”
Tenderness softened Elana’s expression. “Yes, some do. Perhaps you will?”
“Did you want more tea?”
Elana found she had been staring into her empty cup. “Is there enough?”
“Certainly, help yourself.”
Her throat tightened as Diana watched Elana lean nearer the fire, careful in pouring from the hot bowl. She possessed such a rare beauty — the strength in her hands — her body so easily showing the confidence of her movements. Diana was so tired of the Maryls — the chattel-like women of this planet who exhausted so much energy in hiding their physical prowess or in actively destroying their muscular abilities. She mourned the beauty they lost in the slackening of their body tone. It wasn’t that she couldn’t appreciate vivaciousness in soft curves and the lack of protruding, angular bones — but to see no balance of pride in those with lithe, powerful motions…?
It was perhaps what she had most missed since leaving home. On Aggar it was worse, though throughout most of the Terran Empire such denial was still there in its subtler forms. But at home a woman such as Elana was cherished — a woman of strength and power — such bewitching power. Would they think her a mystic, a witch perhaps? One of N’Shea?
Suddenly Diana saw this dark-haired shea in a different setting — amidst the white-blond wheat and the pale lavender skies. Yes, this woman moved as one of them — Diana caught herself. This line of thinking was wrong. It was not her job to recruit young women in vulnerable positions of trust to… to what? To a better way? To a gentler way? To a more self-confident, less oppressive, less hypocritical way of life? No, hypocritical was the operative word — exactly what she’d be if she took advantage of this situation. It was time to admit to herself just how attractive… yes! disarmingly, alluringly — enchantingly attractive… she found Elana to be. And anything else that was flitting through her mind stemmed from that, she told herself… so she shouldn’t get on any high-and-mighty horse about better ways of freedom or what-not!
But she could look — and the image of Elana’s beauty from the baths last night drifted through her mind. A dull ache rose in her womb, and regretfully, Diana let go of her thoughts, unknotting a leg from its scissor-like crisscross.
It was then that she found Elana’s pale eyes were resting squarely on her chin. Diana tossed the last of her jumier bones into the fire, wrestling with chagrin. The woman was probably attuned to every sexual nuance in this poor old body! And then she wondered just how old — no, ancient! fourteen — or was it fifteen? — years difference made her seem to this young woman of Aggar. By ages and planets — such worlds apart! Diana sighed, swirling the last of her tea around in her cup, and reluctantly she rose to her feet. “I think it is a good time for bed.”
“Certainly.” Elana reflected the tentative smile with a warm, full one of her own. But inside her heart was pounding. She was acutely aware of Di’nay’s attraction — and to her own stirring responses.
“I don’t think I ever asked you,” Diana paused, turning back, “do you mind my habit of using my saddle for a headrest? No objections to the horsy smell?”
“None… but tonight… would you not find my shoulder a softer pillow, Di’nay?”
Air was sucked sharply through her teeth, then, abruptly Diana grinned. She had that coming. It served her right for dwelling on those feelings. “Thanks anyway, but you are a little short.”
What did that have to do with it? Elana wondered, remembering the way Di’nay slept — so still and curled tight. She followed the woman quickly.
“Is it your custom,” Elana probed curiously and Di’nay stopped in lifting her saddle, “that the taller may not lay her head on the smaller woman’s breast?”
This was not teasing, Diana realized. She was serious… tenderly serious. Maybe I should kiss her and be done with it. Probably scare her to death. Disgusted with herself, she heaved up her saddle and moved for the shelter, saying, “Sometimes.”
“There are occasions when it is appropriate then?”
Mae n’Pour, this was exactly why she’d been glad to be rid of Maryl. This unquestioning acceptance of the way things ought to be! And this woman is a Council’s Shadow, prepared to be companion and even bedfellow to her assigned person… her own feelings in the matter dutifully thrust aside!
“Di’nay — ” Anger smacked her between the eyes and Elana half-stumbled back a step, stunned. She blinked at the almost physical pain and gasped as if the wind had been knocked from her lungs. The words barely managed to come. “What have I done?”
“Nothing,” Diana assured her wearily.
“It is just…, ” Diana’s voice grew even gentler, “…we are not lovers.”
“We are as…,” Elana choked the words silent. She had been so certain. It had not been possible to mistake Di’nay’s intentions. Or had this all been some odd product of lifebonding within an alien biology?
“Have I… misunderstood your amarin?” Elana whispered, seeking that small piece of gentleness amidst the stormy rage that hung about Di’nay. “I had thought…?”
“Wanting is not the same thing as loving,” Diana said slowly. But inwardly she was cursing; sexuality was so hard in and of itself without imposed directives from some formidable Council member!
“For you, wanting is not enough?” Elana dared, her whisper growing more faint. Somewhat guiltily, Diana’s thoughts were abruptly brought back to her own transgressions. She swallowed hard. “I try not to let it be. Sometimes I do not succeed.”
“Those times… you find them regrettable?”
Diana frowned grimly — especially those since leaving home. “Very regrettable.”
Elana retreated. The fire needed tending, her rational mind directed. Thankfully her hands took up the task of banking the glowing embers for morning.
The Council had been wrong this time. Perhaps they had not known enough of the off-worlder customs or biology — their decisions had been based primarily on their knowledge of Aggar’s needs — too narrow a foundation, Elana thought, suddenly bitter. Lifebonding had tied this woman to her — a woman whose physical feelings did not match her personal ethics or her emotional reluctance. Only now did Elana begin to understand the difficulties. Yet how could the lifebonding have awakened Di’nay’s desire but not her heart? Elana struggled to comprehend. In one breath Di’nay wanted her, in the next moment rejected her for that same attraction. The Council should have sent a man so that there would not have been this question of attractions — or there should not have been a lifestone. It was going to threaten the very fiber of their working relationship.