by Sharon Green
"You can't possibly believe I'd stand still for all that,'' he finally got out with a laugh of incredulity, a small change from the blank disbelief he'd been showing. "Any man who did stand for it would be an idiot, and I may be a lot of things but that's not one of them."
''How would you stop me?" I asked, still smiling pleasantly. ''Blade to blade in formal challenge? I'd be a widow so fast it would make your head spin - right off your shoulders into the dirt. What's the matter? Aren't you still hot and eager to make me your wife?"
To say his expression had gone peculiar would be to understate abysmally, and I wondered why I hadn't thought of that before. Show him the Blade as well as the woman, Traixe had said, and I'd forgotten all about it. If he was the only one who could call the whole thing off, it was obviously my job to see that he did - no matter what those behind him wanted him to do instead.
''Sofaltis, I really don't know what to say," he managed after a moment, the peculiar expression still with him. "I don't know why you're so dead set against being my wife, but it must have something to do with the way all this started. Don't you see you're blaming me for something that wasn't my fault? If it had been up to me I would have told you everything, but the choice wasn't mine. Others had the final word, and you're holding it against me. You mentioned fairness before; is that what you call fair?''
Those light eyes were directly on me, open and frank and oddly vulnerable. If I hadn't known better I would have almost believed him, would have almost been ashamed of myself for not giving him any chance at all. The only thing that ruined it for him was that I knew who those "others'' were, and I have very little sympathy for people who are enemies to me and mine.
"That's funny, but I can't quite see them," I said, looking him up and down in the firelight and even trying to peer behind him. ''I wonder where they can be."
''They?" he repeated, back to looking blank as he glanced down at himself. ''What are you talking about? What is it you're looking for?''
"I’m looking for the chains and the marks of the torture 'they' used to force you into going along with them," I answered, standing still again as soon as he went for it. ''Since I can't seem to find any, I have to conclude that 'they're' very persuasive or you're awfully easy to talk into things. For your sake, I hope you're just as easy to talk out of them - and that is what I call fair, as in warning.''
''You know, I'm discovering there's a limit to any man's patience,'' he said, his skin having darkened enough to notice even in the firelight. "You're not hearing anything I say, and not because you can't but because you won't. I've tried to be understanding and reasonable, but your stubbornness goes well beyond reason. Maybe I ought to simply say you'll do as you're told, and leave it at that.''
"You can leave it anywhere you please," I said with a snort, still not terribly impressed. ''For myself, I'll be taking it - as far as I like. You can either kill me now, back out of the marriage as soon as we return, or go through with it and live a life you can't even begin to imagine. The Law says the choice is yours and I'd never break the Law, so have fun making your choice."
"Who do you think you are, Evon's twin sister?" he asked with exasperation, folding his arms as he stared down at me. "You make it sound as if you think you're the best Blade ever to have lived, and for some reason I tend to doubt that."
''I'm good enough to take you," I came back, meeting his gaze with an evil grin. ''And if you were that unsure about it, you wouldn't have been so careful to 'doubt' me while I was unarmed. How - discreet - of you."
"Why, you little twerp!" he growled, straightening as he unfolded his arms. "You'll never see the day I back down from a runt who's half mouth and all ego! Even if you had Evon to stand behind, I could - "
He broke it off abruptly, just short of the challenge I'd really been trying hard for, and put a hand to his face. He muttered something into that hand, then took it away as he shook his head.
"You almost made me do it,'' he said, this time staring at me accusingly. "All I wanted to do was settle things peaceably, and you almost pushed me into a fight. What am I going to do with you?"
"Absolutely nothing," I answered, staying with the obnoxiousness that seemed to bother him so much. "Especially once I'm armed again. By then I don't doubt you'll be even more interested in peace. Where did you say that chicken was?"
Things had begun to work out so well that my appetite had suddenly returned. The man in front of me was just short of being furious, and by the time I finished with him he'd be so ready to challenge me that nothing would stop him. I'd be sure that happened in front of enough witnesses to prove I wasn't to blame, and that would be the end of my problems.
''The chicken's over there, in the corner of the hearth,'' he said in a continuing growl, pointing behind me and to my right. ''You'll forgive me, I think, if I don't wish you a hearty appetite."
With that he turned and stomped off, and that was it for the rest of the night.
Chapter 9
By the time it was light enough out to see things easily, Kylin had sufficient chicken cooked and wrapped to last them for a short while and had made a crude pair of sandals for the girl. He had just enough leather left over for a second pair, which would hopefully, along with the first pair, get them back to her father's castle. If he had to carry her again he would, but if he had the choice it would be to leave her on her own two feet.
''To keep from getting knocked off my own feet,'' he muttered to the cat that rubbed at his ankles, then he crouched to scratch at a light gray head. The cat was gray, the new day was starting off gray, and what sleep he'd managed to get the night before had been filled with eyes of gray. He stared out the open door without really seeing the yard, patiently waiting for the swamp mist to let the girl wake up, not so patiently trying to understand why things refused to work out right between them. She had spent the night sleeping not five feet away from him, and all he'd been able to do was dream about her.
His sigh was easily the tenth that morning. He'd never had so much trouble with a woman before, and if she kept on pushing at him the way she'd been doing he'd end up jumping into something they'd both regret. All he wanted to do was hold her in his arms and let her know she'd never be sorry she had to marry him, but all she wanted was to start a fight. He was more than half tempted to let her do just that, and then finish the matter in a way she would not soon forget. She was all but begging for it, and if he had any brains at all he’d -
No. That was one thing he refused to do. She was the woman who would become his wife, and if it made her happy to believe she could best him with swords, let her keep on believing it. She was so damned unhappy about everything else he could almost feel her pain, and if he hadn’t already given his word to go through with becoming Duke Rilfe’s heir, he would probably get her home and then go back to being a King's Fighter. She could be so bright and alive, shining with Evon's glow - until he mentioned anything at all about the marriage. If just once she would smile at him when she wasn't threatening him with something -
"Don't you have anything better to do with your time than play with a cat?" Her voice came suddenly from behind him, still sounding half asleep. ''Like waking me up to let me know the new day has started?"
"We have a lot of walking ahead of us today," he answered without turning, still stroking the cat. "We'll cover more distance if you start out well rested rather than tired. We can leave as soon as you get your new sandals on."
"Then I guess we can leave,” she said, not quite swallowing a yawn . "I found the sandals where you left them, and I suppose they'll have to do. As adequate footgear, I'll grant they're better than nothing.''
But not much beyond that, he finished for her in his mind as he straightened and turned. She stood just a few steps beyond the cabin's bedchamber, trying to stretch the sleep out of her body, the movement making the tunic ride up even higher on her thighs. It occurred to him to wonder if she were deliberately provoking him, and the hell of it was she very well could be.
She didn't seem to understand that if he wanted to, he could carry her back into the bedchamber to the abandoned grass-filled pad she'd slept on, and then take complete satisfaction from her. To her that would be attack calling for immediate and honorable challenge, an excellent reason for starting another, more deadly fight. To everyone else it would be no more than his due under betrothal rights and her duty to provide, but he had no doubt she would not be looking at it like that.
''I'll get our provisions," he said, leaving the doorway to walk to the hearth. He'd wrapped the chicken in an improvised bag made from some sacking he'd found in the barn, the ends tied in a sling that went over his left shoulder. He'd doused the fire he'd built once he was through with it and had closed the window they'd opened the day before, and that left nothing to do but shut the door behind them. The girl stepped outside ahead of him, and then the last of it was done
''At least these ‘sandals' will make walking back through the woods easier,'' the girl grudged, raising one foot to give critical inspection to what she wore. ''As long as it's only things on the ground that need to be worried about."
Kylin knew the girl meant the whole top of her foot was uncovered except for the binding thongs, but he hadn't been able to do any better than that. There had only been enough leather to make doubled pads for the bottoms of her feet, the thongs slid through slits cut in the bottom layer. The sandals would last until the slits tore themselves completely open, and after that it just might be possible to cut new slits without having to use the last of the leather now tucked into the back of his belt.
"I did the best I could,'' he said, glancing around at the grayish day to feel less like an absolute failure. ''Next time arrange to be found by a cobbler."
"Look, I didn't mean to make you feel -" she began, a blurting that had gotten away from her. She cut it off before it grew into a real, live apology, and was immediately back to the attitude that reminded him so much of the Fighter who had challenged him at the inn where he'd met his father. "There are some people who are always doing the best they can. Unfortunately for those around them, that's never quite good enough. I'm assuming I get to lead out again."
She started off in the direction they'd come from, and for an instant he was too startled to stop her. He’d had the suspicion that she was giving him a hard time on purpose rather than because she had the nature of a mountain witch, and her near slip had confirmed it. She seemed to feel she had to oppose him, and if he could just find out why, he might be able to do something about it.
''You're half right," he said in answer, catching up in two strides to take her by the shoulders and turn her. "You do get to go first, but that's the way you'll be going. See that track out there? It goes in the same direction as the road, but won't be as hard on your sandals - or as easy to watch by the people who misplaced something.''
"Or as likely to come anywhere near that inn I wanted," she said, looking up at him stubbornly. "My sandals and I are willing to take our chances on the road."
''My boots and I aren't," he came back, not far from grinning. "Since we three are bigger than you three, we'll take the track.''
The look she gave him would have put a basilisk to shame, and when she spat on the ground just in front of his feet he was surprised the ground didn't immediately dissolve. The gesture was one he'd seen before any number of times, and usually called for a very specific response to the insult. Rather than following protocol and drawing on her, though, he chose a gesture of his own that was, in that instance, a good deal more satisfying. Turning her again in the proper direction he sent her off with a smack to the backside not much more gentle than the one he'd given her the day before. He really did want to get along with her, but letting her insult him like that wasn't the way he could accept getting it done.
The girl snarled and grumbled, muttering things under her breath, but the track was what she followed. Kylin had been disgusted with himself for letting the horse get taken, but the extra time walking would give him with Sofaltis just might turn out to be the best of it. She wasn't likely to tell him what was bothering her if he came right out and asked, so he was going to have to try coaxing it out of her in bits and pieces. So far he knew she was completely against marrying him, but would do it for her father's sake just the way he'd been assured she would. What he needed to know was why she was so solidly against him, and what he could do to change her mind.
The track ran mostly in the open, around trees rather than through stands of them, and seemed to have been made by a wagon or wagons taking thc same route a number of times. Kylin stayed alert for any sign of the bandits they’d had trouble with the day before, but the hours passed and there was no sign of them. There was also no sign of the sun, which couldn't seem to break through the thickening gray piled low in the skies. It wasn't quite as hot as it had been but the air was heavy with a threat of rain.
They stopped at what felt like noon to eat the chicken he was carrying, but there hadn't been any way to bring water. They would either have to find a brook or take advantage of the rain when it finally came down, but that still left them with a rather dry meal. The girl sat in the grass looking at everything but him, her long legs bent to the left, the food he'd given her accepted silently and reluctantly. She was making it plain she had nothing to say to him, and that that turn of events was entirely his fault. For his own part Kylin had never realized before how good women were at doing things like that, and discovered he was enjoying himself despite the heavy quiet.
After the meal they continued on, and the clear space around the track began to grow narrower. The woods to either side were also beginning to be more tangled, as though no one had ever forced a way deeper through them. Kylin found himself watching even more carefully for what might come out of those woods, and when a wide gap appeared to the left he discovered he wasn't the only one alert and watching. The breeze had grown strong enough to let him know what lay through the gap, and just as he said, "Water," and pointed, the girl half turned to do exactly the same.
For an instant they were smiling at each other sheepishly, amused that they'd said the same thing at the same time, but then that old curtain came down over the girl, separating her from Kylin more completely than a stone wall would have done. She turned without another word and started for the gap, and he had no choice but to follow the same way, wishing it was no more than a stone wall between them. The way he felt right now, he could have torn it down with his bare hands.
The gap in the woods was less obvious from the inside, but the faint trail was clear enough to follow and led to a swiftly running spring. Whoever had made the wagon track had probably made the gap as well, to mark out the place where water might be found. The girl glanced around before going to her knees near the water, and once she had drunk her fill Kylin knelt in the dimness to do the same. He was just rising from the clear, cold water when a sound came from the brush to his right. It was no more than a brief, frantic rustle that stopped almost as quickly as it had started, but Kylin's sword whispered from its scabbard even as the girl froze.
''Move slowly back behind me,'' Kylin said softly without taking his eyes from the place the sound had come, at the same time going toward it. He didn't know Sofaltis hadn't obeyed him until he moved a section of the brush aside with his blade, and heard the sound of softly indrawn breath.
"It's a fawn," she said in what was nearly a whisper, no more than a foot away on his right. ''Its hind leg is caught, and it can't get loose."
Which, of course, was something he'd already been able to see for himself. The fawn had probably been drinking at the spring with its mother, and when he and the girl had startled them with their approach, the little thing, in its haste to get away, had gotten tangled.
"Don't touch it, or its mother might not take it back," Kylin said, and not until the words were out did he realize that Sofaltis had again said the same thing at the same time as he. This time they laughed straight out, softly so as not to startle the fawn, but heartily eno
ugh to cheer Kylin considerably. Things seemed to be looking up, and since he had the small, trapped animal to thank for that, it was only fair that he return the favor.
Moving carefully closer and crouching, the big Fighter could see that it was a rope of thorns keeping the fawn where it trembled in fear. He reached forward slowly with his sword, holding the point well down against the possibility of sudden, frantic struggle, and severed the vine to the right of the small leg with a quick stroke. Logically that should have freed the leg and the fawn with it, but logic had chosen that time to spread its hands in mystified loss.
''Why isn't the stupid thing letting go?" Sofaltis asked in a murmur of annoyance, leaning nearer over his right shoulder. ''I can't see - Oh, now I can. The vine is wrapped around itself right above the hoof, hanging on with teeth. If you cut the other side that loop will still be on the fawn, but at least the little beast will be free."
Kylin knew it was possible to handle the matter that way, freeing the fawn while leaving the loop of thorns around its leg, but he didn't care for the solution. If the fawn couldn’t work the loop off before its leg began to grow, the thorns would bury themselves deeper and deeper, causing constant pain, probable crippling, and eventually a death not quick enough to be kind. No, he couldn't very well let that happen, so that left only one other option.
Instead of answering the girl, Kylin rested his sword on the ground and leaned forward slowly and carefully with his left hand. The thorns on the vine were very much like the teeth Sofaltis had named them, and their short but very sharp points helped to keep the tangled vine wrapped tight. Kylin edged two fingers inside the loop where the thorns seemed smaller and tried to coax the cut end loose, but although some of the thorns disengaged and the vine slid a little, it still refused to come free. He tugged again, trying to move nothing but his fingers - and inadvertently tightened the loop around the slender leg it held captive.