by Kirby Crow
He fell into dreamless sleep, but woke later with a start, his heart leaping in his throat. It was near dark, and he reached over to feel Liall’s skin, which was warm and damp to the touch. He pressed the back of his hand to Liall’s throat to feel the rapid beat of his pulse, wondering if blood loss caused fever in these strange Rshani, or if the wound was becoming inflamed, or if he should wake the captain.
But the symptom did not seem strange, given the nature of Liall’s injury. He fell back asleep. The next dawn, he was sorry that he had not called for the captain. Liall was sweating and tossing in the bunk, his bronze skin gone gray as ash. Liall slept much, and when he did rouse to partial consciousness, it was only to slap aside the cup of water Scarlet tried to force down his throat or to cry out a name—Nadei!—in a tone so heartbroken that it wrote questions across Scarlet’s mind.
Qixa, when he came again, did not seem concerned. He made a see-saw motion with his beefy hand. “It is often so. Wait a day or three.”
Or three? Scarlet scowled, but there was little he could do. He stayed with Liall throughout the day, feeding him broth and the delicate, rose-scented che that he whispered a withy chant over, first being careful to check that Liall was sound asleep. Liall never woke fully, and the fever did not want to depart his bones. It would leave him for an hour and then flare back again. At sunset, Scarlet slept beside him, one hand on Liall’s chest to serve as an alarm should the man stir or thrash out of the bunk. At dawn, he was woken by Liall trying to get out of the bunk.
He seized hold of Liall’s arm and pulled him back. “No, you must lie down.”
“Scarlet, let me up before I piss myself,” Liall growled.
He let go. “Oh, you’ve been feverish, I thought... never mind.”
Liall wrapped a blanket around himself and stumbled out of the cabin. When he returned, he lit a candle before seating himself heavily in the chair to survey the wreck Scarlet had made of the cabin. He looked years older, sitting there with nothing but a blanket around his waist and the bandages covering his shoulder and chest.
“You stayed with me, cared for me,” he said, as if this were a puzzle he was trying to solve.
“Did you think I’d pitch you overboard?”
He gave Scarlet a weary look and rose. Scarlet moved over to make room as Liall climbed back into the bunk. “Some would.” Liall tried to peer under his bandage.
Scarlet pulled his hand away. “Leave that alone.”
Liall clasped Scarlet’s hand. He looked at the slender, pale fingers against the dark skin of his palm. It was Scarlet’s left hand, the one with only four fingers. “I owe you my thanks.”
“It was nothing.”
Liall released him. “Then it follows that my life is nothing.” He stared stonily at the ceiling. “This is the second time I have reason to be grateful to you. Your debt to me, if it ever was a debt, is paid.”
Scarlet rose up on his elbow. “That’s not for you to decide.”
“Even so,” Liall said stubbornly “I consider it paid. We are even now.”
Scarlet did not know whether to be amused or annoyed. “Because you say so?”
“I...” Liall faltered and stopped. He turned his head to look up at Scarlet. “I do not want you to be grateful to me any longer. I want nothing from you that you do not give willingly, of yourself alone, and not from gratitude or your sense of duty. Do you understand?”
Scarlet thought he might. Steeling himself, he reached over and placed his hand upon the thickened pad of bandages over Liall’s wound. “This was close, just above your heart.”
To Scarlet’s surprise, Liall suddenly shifted away from him and turned his head. “The man was not trying for my heart. He wanted my head, but he was clumsy.”
It felt like a rebuke. Scarlet withdrew his hand slowly and rolled over on his back. He watched the sway of the lantern and wondered if he should try again to reach Liall or abandon the effort. Perhaps he had made a mistake. Perhaps Liall had changed his mind about desiring him some time ago.
Liall broke the silence. “You say this was your first real battle?”
“Yes.” Then, suspiciously, “Why do you ask?”
“Not just because you are Hilurin,” Liall said, divining his thoughts. “Because you are young and you were never trained as a warrior should be, and I know how dealing death can haunt a man.”
Scarlet nodded. He could accept being seen as young, but not as weak simply because he was not a ten-foot-tall foreigner with pale hair. “I don’t like killing,” he said slowly, “but I won’t be killed without a fight.”
“You are a brave man,” Liall said softly, and just that quickly, he closed his eyes and was asleep again.
Scarlet felt Liall’s skin again and sagged in relief when he found it cool and dry. Shivering dully, he pulled the blankets up to Liall’s chin, too weary even to feel the cold before he drifted back into sleep. He woke perhaps an hour later and went out to fill the water skins and fetch fresh bandages from the mate who was on watch, an affable man named Ulero who was Mautan’s replacement, and—like Mautan—much less hostile than his fellows. Qixa was nowhere to be seen, and Scarlet remembered that Liall had commented that he and Mautan were close. At least Mautan would be missed by someone.
When Scarlet returned, he was afraid he would wake Liall if he got back into the bunk, so he made another pallet on the floor. When Liall woke later, he cursed Scarlet roundly for freezing himself on the floor. Scarlet was so relieved that Liall felt well enough to be angry, he didn’t even argue.
4.
Rough Seas
Liall tried to sleep. The roll and pitch of the ship soothed him, as it always did, but it also deviled his memory. Sleep, fool, he thought with his eyes closed. Some of my best and worst memories are tied up in the sway of a deck beneath me. It was on a ship that I fled from Rshan the first time, an exile, disgraced and aching and tormented by what I had done. I loved sailing as a boy, and Nadei...
He cut the thought short, knowing through long experience that it was unwise to think of that person in the aftermath of a battle. His thoughts would only become darker and fouler until the cage of his brain threatened to drag him down into darkness.
He concentrated on breathing, his eyes still shut. The timbers of the cabin creaking and the rush of the swell against the hull should have gentled him to sleep, but it did not.
Nadei was eight and Liall was seven, and they were on the water. The air was cold and Nenos was teaching the boys how to row. Liall had shouted at him, laughing: Nadei! Do not stand up in the boat, you will tip us over! Nadei was always so certain of himself, so stubborn and reckless. Liall had to watch out for him in a hundred ways, as if he were the elder and not Nadei. They were always together, day and night, sleeping in the same room, learning from the same teachers, eating from the same plate, brothers in blood and bone.
Liall gritted his teeth and rolled over in the bunk, squeezing his eyes tighter against the smarting tears that threatened. He mentally ticked off the numbers: sixty years and a handful of months since he had last seen Nadei. What had happened to Rshan in that time, to his home, his family? He flung out his arm, expecting to find warmth next to him, and touched a cold, empty space. He opened his eyes and rolled over.
Scarlet was sitting silent in the chair beneath the port hole, wide awake. It was perhaps eight days after the pirate battle.
“You have done that before,” Liall said slowly. “Watched me while I slept.” Scarlet blinked lazily and nodded.
The timbers creaked and the thin shadow of a fingernail moon flowed into view through the porthole, just over Scarlet’s head. It had waxed and waned three times since they had left Volkovoi. Liall watched the silver sickle drift in and out of the black eye as the ship rode the waves, gazing at him. It was a weightless silence with comfort in it, and words seemed an intrusion.
It was Scarlet who broke the spell. “I like to watch you sleep. You look... more like someone I’d know.”
&nb
sp; A curious thing to say, but it made sense. Since Scarlet had begun, Liall decided to forge ahead. “There is something between us, is there not? Something more than just my attraction for you and yours for me. Something we haven’t spoken of yet.”
After a long moment, Scarlet sat forward a little in the chair and folded his hands as if in prayer. “I dreamed about you last night. You were riding a gray horse with a blue banner.”
A sharp hurt struck Liall in the center of his breastbone. “Go on.”
“I called out to you, but you wouldn’t answer me, and then you left on a ship with great white sails, and I stood on the shore and called to you, but you wouldn’t come back.” Scarlet rubbed his hands together slowly. “It made me sad. Then I woke up and I was here with you, and after all these months when I thought you wanted me, now you don’t seem to. Plus, the crew...” he bit his lip and struggled with the next part of it. “These men look at me in a way I’m unused to. They don’t have any respect for me, not because I’m young or because I’m a pedlar, but just because I’m Hilurin and they assume I’m with you because you pay me to be with you, or because you own me like you would own a dog or a horse.” He looked down. “It hurts my pride to be thought of as a bought thing.”
“Thank you,” Liall answered at length, “for being so honest with me.” He began to get up.
“Whoa.” Scarlet quickly rose and pushed him back with the flat of his palm on Liall’s chest, his knee on the bunk. “Hold on. You got the truth out of me. I’ll have my measure in return.”
“Ah. Of what?”
Scarlet blew his breath out in exasperation and shook his finger in Liall’s face. “See here, if you weren’t hurt, I’d clout you one for that. I’ve about had enough of your fancy language and smart ways. Just give me plain talk for once.”
Liall raised my hands in surrender and fell back on the bunk, smirking. “Spare me, gentle lord.”
“Very funny. Now tell.”
His smile faded. There was something too honest in Scarlet’s eyes, something that looked too deep into him. It seized any words he had and held them back. “I do hold a... a certain affection for you. You already know this”
“And?”
“And I...”
“Yes?”
“Scarlet, please.” Liall averted his eyes, turning his face to the wall. “You cannot know what this is like for me.”
“I certainly can’t, if you don’t tell me.”
Damn him. “My heart,” Liall began, feeling his throat begin to close up. “Good gods, Scarlet, if you think the seas here are cold, you do not know what my heart was like before I saw you. I have not loved another in a very long time.”
Scarlet’s mouth twitched into a small, hesitant smile. “Are you saying—”
Liall pushed himself up and Scarlet away, his pulse hammering. Suddenly, the cabin felt small and airless. I am about to suffocate, he thought wildly. “Cease this questioning, can you not?” he snapped, almost gasping.
Scarlet reached out to him. “Liall.”
“I will not be badgered!” Liall shouted, and Scarlet recoiled.
“But,” Scarlet stammered. “You started this.”
Liall was frightened enough of the feelings woken inside him to lash out. “I asked if we were going to be lovers, if we were going to share our bodies. What you are asking me to share is something altogether different.”
The words took a moment to sink in, during which time Liall had serious visions about cutting his own tongue out.
Like dousing a candle flame, the warmth went out of Scarlet’s young face.
“I see.” He rose and began putting on his coat, his gaze averted.
“Scarlet.”
Scarlet busied himself with his buttons and turned away, ignoring Liall even when he stood and drew near.
“Scarlet, wait.”
“I’m going out on the deck to look at the moon,” Scarlet told him conversationally, pulling on his gloves. “If you want to stop me, you’d better hope that your stitches hold, for I’m tired of being told what to do by a man who wants nothing more of me than what’s between my legs.”
“I lied.” Liall grabbed his arm and turned him around. Scarlet hissed in pain and Liall let him go, mindful that he had wounds, too. “I lied, Scarlet. I care about you very much.” He took a deep and shaking breath, watching Scarlet. “It costs me greatly to say that, so you can believe me.”
Scarlet gazed at him with pity. “Who has done this to you, Liall? Who betrayed you so badly that even the thought of love terrifies you?”
Liall could only shake his head. “I cannot say. I cannot.”
Scarlet looked again at the door, as if trying to decide.
“Do not go,” Liall asked quietly. Then, more softly, “Forgive me, please.”
Scarlet sagged a little and gave a small laugh as he brushed his unkempt hair out of his eyes. “I’ve been thinking; when we first met, it felt like you were chasing me. I wished you’d stop and just leave me alone. Now I feel like I’m chasing you.”
Liall stared at him, then put his hand on Scarlet’s chest, just over his heart, and left it there. Scarlet’s heart beat with a slow, trusting rhythm, and his warmth seeped into Liall’s palm. Liall shook his head sadly.
“Therein is the problem, little Byzan. You have already caught me.” Scarlet began to answer him, but Liall put his fingers to Scarlet’s mouth. “No more,” he begged. “Not just yet. Can we not sit quietly together?”
Scarlet nodded, though Liall saw it was an effort for him. How this Hilurin hated to let go of an argument! They sat together until the moon drifted under the sea and the colorless dawn slipped in, thin and sibilant as a whisper in the dark. Soon, there would be no more dawns, for in less than twenty days they would cross into the Seas of Night and the sun would become a memory.
And he is not ready for it, Liall worried, taking Scarlet’s hand. Scarlet allowed it and even slid closer to rest his head on Liall’s shoulder.
He is not ready and you are not ready, Liall mused. And the past will not heal. It draws nearer.
Liall’s wound healed well over the next week and was nearly closed when Qixa requested that Liall and Scarlet stay off the main deck as much as possible. Once they crossed into the Norl Ūhn, the great North Sea, there was little to do, and the hazards of ice and heavy winds made it more sensible for the passengers to stay below, he explained.
After the pirate raid, Qixa seemed to think it was his personal responsibility to deliver Liall to Rshan in one piece. It was also true that the closer they came to Rshan, the more likely another attack would be.
So here we are, Liall thought as another long afternoon with Scarlet droned by. Just the two of us penned together in a small space. You would think that would make me happy.
Instead, Liall found he was growing increasingly morose and ill-tempered. He talked no more of love with Scarlet, and after three days the monotony of listening to the sea batten against the hull and the wind whistle through the cracks of the porthole began to weigh heavy on him. He taught Scarlet to speak a little Sinha to pass the hours, teaching him the nuances of certain words, how to say simple greetings and the names of everyday things. Scarlet was a quick study and forgot nothing, and Liall was amazed at his memory. Then, he recalled that a pedlar who could not read or keep books would have need of a sharp memory. Scarlet’s pronunciation was so far off that Liall despaired of him ever making himself understood once they reached Rshan, but the pedlar never gave up trying, even when it was painfully obvious that a lifetime of speaking Bizye had left him unable to curl his tongue around the more complex Sinha consonant blends.
“Hunge sinir ch’th sun rl’er’r.”
Liall smiled, which made Scarlet scowl and purse his mouth to try again. It still sounded like toddler speech. If Scarlet spoke to anyone in Rshan with that abominable accent, they would laugh at him.
“Try blowing your breath out a bit more when you say the words, Scarlet. You will never ma
ke yourself understood if you do not speak with more strength.”
“If I speak with any more strength, I’m going to be spitting.”
Liall shrugged. “At least you will be saying good morning when you spit, not ‘where is the bear buried’?”
“You just made that up,” Scarlet accused.
“Nothing of the sort. Here, try again; hunge sinir ch’th—”
When Scarlet tired of learning and Liall wearied of teaching, tedium returned and Liall settled for watching Scarlet as a pastime: the way the candlelight shaded the hollows of his cheeks, the way he combed his black hair in the morning, how softly he slept at night, on his back with his very slender left hand curled on his chest.
After a day or two, when the initial flattery wore off, the attention naturally began to wear thin. Scarlet caught Liall watching him mend a shirt as he sat on the floor under the porthole. It was perhaps the tenth time that day he had seen Liall’s eyes fixed on him, and he blew out a short sigh and looked away.
“Liall,” he said, then nothing more.
Liall let a minute pass but kept watching. He was enjoying the shape of Scarlet’s body, how he so effortlessly reclined on the hard surface, the torn shirt in his lap and one leg folded under him.
“What?” Liall asked easily.
“Would you please stop that?”
“Stop what?”
“Watching me.”
Liall was lying on the bunk on the other side of the cabin, his palm resting against his cheek. He sat up and shrugged. “There is nothing else to watch.”
“Well, find something,” Scarlet snapped. He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Come over here and kiss me,” Liall found himself saying. He was determined to bury his fear and continue on the path he had chosen.
Scarlet looked up quickly, his eyebrows climbing high.
“We can at least kiss, can we not? Or are we to be forever chaste lovers, like the pale, doomed sots in fairytales?”