“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” I flashed back.
We regarded each other mutely. The mist had closed in again, enveloping us in a soft, damp blanket and muffling all sound. Only Hami rhythmically munching broke the silence.
Rhys’s grip on my shoulders tightened. “I do admire your loyalty, Arisha. I just wish you would give it to me instead of your Prince Bahram.”
“You have it!” I exclaimed. “But I cannot change myself into what I am not. I’ve been born a Sikhandi mage and will not pretend to be an Aneiry noblewoman, not even for you.”
“Not even for me…” he repeated slowly, his gaze sharpening. “What if I don’t want you to change?”
“You don’t?” I stuttered.
“I don’t think of you as Sikhandi or Aneiry, you’re just yourself,” he whispered, bending closer. The feather braided into his hair tickled my shoulder. “And I know no other woman who would have the sheer guts to walk into an assembly of enemies, flaunting her beliefs in their faces like you did last night. You were magnificent.”
I felt heat spreading to my cheeks, not helped by his closeness. What had got into him all of a sudden? I looked away. “It was nothing.”
He slipped a finger under my chin and tilted up my face. “No. That took courage.”
I didn’t deserve such lavish praise, when really it had been mostly stubbornness! And we had got distracted from the main point of the conversation somehow. “So you admire me,” I replied, “but you won’t listen to me.”
He released his breath in a whoosh. “Arisha, we’re turning in circles! As I’ve said before, I’m not at war with you.” His fingers lazily traced the line of my throat. “On the contrary…”
He made it extremely difficult to reason clearly! As if reading my thoughts, he smiled. “You cannot tell me you felt nothing when we danced together last night.”
I swallowed. “I was dizzy, nothing more.”
His smile deepened to become feral. “My sweet, you’re a bad liar.”
That caused a spark of annoyance to rise within me. “And you’re a…you’re a….” With my mind thrown into confusion, I could not come up with a properly scathing epithet. “…a…a…man,” I finished weakly.
Rhys’s teeth flashed in a grin. “Very true,” he murmured. “And in fact there is one more thing this man swore to himself he’d do before he left.” He paused suggestively, daring me.
I couldn’t resist the challenge. “And what is that?”
“Kiss you.”
I took a breath to protest, but he gave me no chance. His fingers slipped round the nape of my neck, and his mouth captured mine. He flooded my senses, the hard feeling of his body armoured in cold iron pressing against mine, a warm hand wandering up my back as if it had every right to do so, the smell of the polishing oil used on his chain mail. It was all utterly alien; no man had ever touched me in such a way. Blood pounded in my ears and I clutched at him. How dare he!
But suddenly the realisation I had tried to push away all morning crashed over me: he was leaving. I might never see him again! Desperately I flung my arms around his neck and began to kiss him back.
Rhys made an inarticulate sound and responded by bearing down even harder. Pins rained down around us as he wound his fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes, wanting to impress every detail into my memory. How his arms closed round me as if I had only waited to fit in there, the unexpected softness of his hair, his taste…
A fire lit deep in the pit of my stomach, sending desire coursing through my veins, and my legs would have buckled if it hadn’t been for him holding me. I felt faint, but as if they had a will of their own my hands twined through his hair and my body pressed against him. Why was he wearing his stupid hauberk!
It was Rhys who broke off the kiss in the end. Breathing harshly, he stared down at me. “Arisha, have you any idea what you are doing to me?”
Mutely, I looked back, feeling numb and vulnerable. It was all so very new. What had happened to the calm, controlled mage in me? I drew a ragged breath and said the first thing that came to my mind. “Rhys, don’t go.”
Gently he leant his forehead against mine. “Arisha, I have to.” He sighed. “Already it’s growing late.”
His grip on me loosened and we straightened up. It was true, the first rays of the sun already lit the top of the hall’s roof, rapidly dispersing the mist. He was leaving me…
Rhys unwound the feather ornament from his hair, teased a strand of mine apart and started to braid in the eagle feather. “Listen, my heart,” he said, “when I return victorious, I will be able to do whatever I please.”
Involuntarily I flinched. “Return victorious!” Like a slap in the face, his words brought back the cold reality of our situation.
He wound a bit of twine round the feather’s shaft to fix it in my hair and tied off the ends, his fingers lingering. “Yes, nobody will dare gainsay me anymore,” he answered. “I want you to wait for me.” Slowly he traced the lines of my eyebrows, as if he wanted to memorise them.
Bitterness rose within me. “I suppose that’s why you made me promise not to run away?”
“It was for your own safety! There’s a war out there, Arisha.”
“I know,” I snapped. Our kiss had changed nothing…and everything.
In the house a door slammed, and we both jumped. Hami trumpeted happily, for he knew that soon Wynn and the other boys would bring his breakfast.
Rhys lowered his hand. “We’ll talk about it when I return.”
Pride demanded that I answer that. “I might not be here.”
He touched the eagle feather braided into my hair. “Yes, you will,” he said, his voice rough. “I claim this as a token of it, my sweet.” Then he turned on his heel and left the courtyard.
I stared after him. Quite irrelevantly, the thought entered my mind that he had called me his sweet three times. And I had let him get away with it.
TWENTY-THREE
I sank down on the straw at Hami’s feet and buried my head in my hands. The elephant touched me gently on the shoulder with his trunk, trying to comfort me. Rhys was leaving. I could hear the neighing of the horses and the jingling of tack from his men assembling outside the great hall, but the courtyard stayed strangely quiet. Only a couple of boys came by to bring more fodder and wheel off the night’s elephant dung. Usually they chatted brightly amongst each other, but this morning they worked in silence.
Slowly the commotion got fainter. Yet it seemed to me that I could still feel his presence, as if an invisible bond connected us, stretching between us. Was that what kissing did to you? I touched the feather he had woven into my hair. It held no magic at all. I suspected rather that it was some ability particular to Rhys and his strong personality.
With a sigh I rose and went to change into something more practical. Only when finding Cerwen in our chamber did I realise that she hadn’t been back all night. A raven’s feather shone black in her blond hair, and we looked at each other in mute recognition. To my surprise a stab of envy coursed through me. She had taken her opportunity – if Rhys never returned, I would have nothing but a kiss to remember him by.
Which was a thoroughly silly notion. He would return! Anyway, it had been nothing but a single kiss. He must have kissed many women in his life before. I bit my lip as I silently calculated how many. Hundreds? Dozens? Or just a few? Really, I was putting far too much importance on what had probably only been one of those strange, inexplicable male impulses.
But had he given those other women his feather, another part of my mind asked. Involuntarily I had a vision of a flock of eagles denuded of all their feathers in order to adorn his many loves. I grimaced. Drat the man for taking over my mind in such a manner!
So I did the only sensible thing: I decided to throw myself into work. Surely Dillan could rig me up some kind of harness for Hami to keep us busy.
To my surprise, when I headed out to the courtyard again, I found Owl waiting outside the door. “Wh
at are you doing here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be riding out with Rhys?”
She glowered at me. “New orders: I am to keep you safe here at the Eyrie. And if anything happens…take you and the other women into the mountains to hide.”
“But that’s utter madness!” I exclaimed. “Who’s going to watch his back if you’re not there?”
Owl looked as if she agreed with me, but pressed her lips together. “Eagle’s orders,” she snapped. Apparently to her that put an end to all discussion.
But not to me! I took her arm. “Look, Owl, you can still catch up with him. I gave my word not to escape.” Only for five days, but that was beside the point. “Rhys needs you!” What had got into him to leave one of his best warriors behind?
“I know!” she wailed. “But what can I do?”
“Disobey orders,” I snapped.
But obviously that wasn’t an option, for she trailed me, unhappy yet with determination, when I fetched Hami and rode up to the Eyrie. Below us we saw the camp breaking up, long lines of riders and men on foot heading out, and again I urged her to join them, but she just would not listen. You could not fault Rhys for inspiring loyalty in his people – if only he also encouraged them to develop some common sense!
Up at the castle Dillan greeted me with delight, for he had lost all but a few very young workmen, and we spent the day fashioning a harness from ropes padded with old blankets. By late afternoon Hami pulled out the first boulder and we kept going until sunset, when I called a halt to let him wander about the grassy area inside the castle walls for a bit.
Satisfied that he was quite happy, I cast a quick circle of confinement around him and then clambered up the rocks to the spot that I had shared with Rhys a few days ago. Owl followed me like a silent shadow, but did not try to stop me. Below me spread the field that had held the camp, empty now. The only traces left were the brown trails crisscrossing it and a pattern of light green squares where the grass had been bleached of its colour inside the tents.
I sat down cross-legged and looked west. How far had they got? It would be slow travelling with a whole army. I tried to calculate how many days it would take Rhys to reach Bahram’s camp. Four? Five? And would Bahram try to sit out the siege or risk open battle? Either way his chances were bleak; the question was what price in blood he would extract from his enemy.
I smoothed down the feather in my hair for maybe the hundredth time that day. It was fast becoming an irritating habit! But when I touched it, I also seemed to touch a bit of Rhys, as if by wearing it he had imbued it with a part of himself. Which was completely impossible in magical terms! How had I ended up tied to him in this ridiculous fashion?
Maybe I should just throw the feather away to break his hold on me? A gust of wind ruffled the high grass, and I pictured the eagle feather floating and twisting over the precipice to come to rest on the hard ground somewhere. An icy hand of dread closed around my heart. No, I had to keep it safe!
For a moment I was convinced I would kill him that way. A notion that made no sense at all, especially as I was supposed to be the mage here, not him! And I had been perfectly happy for twenty years living without him, so why should I suddenly yearn for the man’s company?
Around me lay the net of life, strong with spring, all that a Wood mage was supposed to need for happiness. Yet it failed to fill a space deep inside me that gaped empty without Rhys there. I was even missing our verbal sparring, that prickly feeling of being alive that exchanging words with him gave me.
My gaze wandered farther away to where I fancied a faint cloud of dust showed the army’s position. What was he doing right now? Was he thinking of me? The next moment I could have kicked myself for such an inane question. I was acting like a foolish, lovesick girl! How, oh how, had he got me into such a state?
“Curse the man and his wretched kisses,” I muttered, forgetting about Owl’s presence.
“My lady?” she asked.
“Oh nothing.” I stretched and rose. “Let’s go back.”
* * *
The evening meal that night was a dismal affair, with the hall almost empty except for us few women. At least Lord Pellyn had taken his family along, so I did not have to endure more heckling by Lady Enit. He did not seem to have the same scruples as Rhys about keeping his loved ones safe from danger. Of course rumour had it that Pellyn still hoped for Owena to catch Rhys’s eye, but that was surely ridiculous when Rhys would be busy getting ready for battle. Or was it?
Cerwen and I sat at the high table, both of us silent and distracted, and from the red rims around her eyes I guessed that she had been crying. The only cheerful being was Duach, who seemed convinced that if only he followed my every step, I would eventually lead him to his master. We retired early, but I caught little sleep, tossing and turning in my bed. Cerwen fared little better I suspected.
The next two days followed the same pattern: working with Hami up at the Eyrie to tire myself out too much for thinking, then an early night, and always Owl shadowing me. But on the third evening Lady Luned asked Cerwen and me to dine with her. After the meal that we picked at with little enthusiasm, I sat on the floor and tuned my lute, while Cerwen settled the old lady in her chair by the fire. Lady Luned looked drawn, her chiselled features haggard, as if she hadn’t slept much either.
Her gaze had sharpened on the eagle feather in my hair the moment we entered the room, but she had said nothing. I had noticed the last few days that although nobody said anything, the household had started to treat me differently, even though I couldn’t really put my finger on it. A subtle shift from being a guest to being one of them?
Cerwen straightened up from arranging a cushion behind Lady Luned’s back and inadvertently knocked against the chair.
“Oh do pay attention, you clumsy girl!” the old lady snapped.
I looked up in surprise at this uncharacteristic display of temper with her granddaughter. But everybody’s nerves had got strained lately.
“I’m sorry, Grandmother,” Cerwen said. A hint of moisture glistened in the corners of her eyes.
“Speak up!” Lady Luned shot back. “You’ve got feathers in your hair, girl, not in your brain.”
Ready to intervene I straightened up, but that moment Cerwen burst into tears. “Oh, Grandmother, I’m so afraid!” she sobbed. “Taren has asked me to marry him, but he’ll be in the thick of the fighting. What if he never comes back?”
My throat tightened at her words. What held true for Taren applied even more so to Rhys. He would not direct the battle from a safe place in the rear.
Lady Luned held out her arms and Cerwen buried her head in her grandmother’s lap. “I’m sorry, child,” Lady Luned said. “We are all helpless. It has always been a woman’s lot to be able to do nothing except wait and pray to the Lady to send her man back safely.” She looked old and shrunken in her chair.
Briefly I closed my eyes. If something happened to Rhys…the light would go out of my world. I put my lute down. No! I would not lose him. “We need to do something,” I declared. “I refuse to stand by while these stupid men kill each other!”
“That’s all very well,” Lady Luned replied tartly, “but how? You can’t even leave the village.”
As usual she had put her finger right on the problem. My promise not to escape would actually run out the next day, but I had no chance to get away anyway. The guards had orders to not let me pass the gate – as I had discovered when I had wanted to go for a stroll outside the walls the day before. Rhys had certainly meant it when he had said I would be here for his return!
Besides, where could I go? Trying to find another mountain pass into Sikhand seemed pretty pointless. Also there was Owl, who trailed me everywhere and probably stood guard outside the door that very moment. No, I needed to talk to Rhys again, convince him to find a peaceful end to the conflict. But how could I do that shut away in the Eyrie?
I surged to my feet and began to pace the room. “Rastam tal Nasar says that when faced with a
difficult problem, you must first break it into smaller parts and solve those,” I thought aloud.
Cerwen looked at me hopefully, as if she expected me to present her with a solution to all our difficulties, but I felt rather cornered. What could I do? Simply ride up to the gate on Hami? I actually doubted that the guards would shoot me, but the elephant was another matter. They might simply decide to wound him. And even if I somehow got out, they could just trail me and wait for me to take a break. I might wear Rhys’s feather, but his men would not obey me if I sent them back. For that I would need somebody with real authority.
My eyes fell on Lady Luned, who was regarding me with a sceptical expression, tapping a foot impatiently. A smile spread across my face.
“What’s so funny, girl?” she snapped.
Amusement bubbled up inside me. “I think I might just have solved the first part of our problem. Fancy taking a ride on an elephant?”
Her mouth dropped open. “What?”
“How do you think the guards would react if you turned up riding Hami? Would they dare to stop you?”
When she grasped my idea, a wicked smile slowly dawned on her face. She cackled. “We shall see…”
Picturing Lady Luned on Hami, I grinned. Surely an unstoppable combination! But soon my smile faded. The main dilemma still remained. I tried to calculate how long it would take Hami to catch up with the army. The men might be slow moving, but even so it would take several days. And what if the fighting had commenced already?
I bit my lip. “But what do I say to Rhys? He wants the Sikhandi gone from his lands, but Prince Bahram cannot leave without losing face.”
“Men!” Lady Luned spat. “Sometimes I ask myself why we women bother to raise children, comfort them when they fall over and hurt themselves, care for them and nurse them when they’re sick.” Old pain rang in her voice. “And then they just end up killing each other when they’re grown!”
Impulsively I knelt by her chair and took her hands in mine. “I’m so sorry.”
She touched the feather in my hair. “For a while I had hoped that you and Rhys might weave a peace between our people, that I might see my great-grandchildren before I die.”
Elephant Thief Page 23