Sophie nodded. "Here," she said, stooping over. "This is a great rock. Now I have a weapon."
"He had a crossbow." Jay stripped off her shirt and jacket and pulled on the rich green, baggy-sleeved tunic and heavy woolen pullover Lestovru had given her.
"I noticed that. Knives, too."
Jay unlaced her boots and quickly kicked them off. "Hey! He gave me a dagger!" She unrolled a belt from inside a large folded square of brown leather. Sophie saw a scabbard and the protruding hilt of a narrow, straight-bladed knife. Jayjay shook out the leather square; it turned out to be a pair of brown leather pants. She pulled them on, hopping from leg to leg to get them up. They turned out to be snug around her hips. Jay tugged her boots back on and started lacing them. "Funny. Why did he give me a knife? Did he give you one?"
Sophie untied the string that bound her pack and rummaged through the clothing, which was identical to what Jay had been given. A knife belt and knife waited for her, too. "That doesn't make sense."
Jayjay pulled the knife out of its sheath and tested its edge with a thumb, a thoughtful expression on her face. "True. But what does?" She strapped the knife around her waist, then crouched down and dug through her pack until she found her travel document case. "By the way," she added, "you need this."
She handed a small parchment square to Sophie. The parchment was covered with writing…or maybe hieroglyphics. Sophie turned it over, studying the letter forms and trying to think of anything she'd ever seen that was similar. She came up empty. "What is it?"
"According to the Glenraven Travel Commission, it's the local equivalent of a visa. We'll need it at Customs." Jayjay stuck hers in a pocket of the woolen tunic.
Sophie changed her clothes and put on her own knife belt. "You aren't as worried by all of this as you ought to be, are you?"
Jay's grin was sheepish. "No. I'm excited. I've never had the chance to do anything like this before." Jayjay sat down on the edge of a boulder and looked around, a tiny smile on her face. Sophie thought she looked ten years younger than she had when they took their flight out of Atlanta.
"In spite of everything, you look better."
"I feel better," Jay admitted. After a reflective pause, she added, "I needed to get out of Peters for a while. You won't believe what's happened."
Seven
"Yemus? It's Signi. I have both of them. They aren't what we expected."
"If they were what we expected, they'd be what the Kin expected, too. Be grateful." There was a pause, followed by a cautious "Where are you?"
"I can't tell you. I think the Kin know I'm out here. They might have Watchers posted nearby."
Softly whispered profanity preceded another, longer pause. "Are you sure?"
"I can't be sure…but I've seen signs."
"Then you know what to do."
"Yes."
"Well, then…we'll watch for them. Good-bye, Signi.
"Good…good-bye."
Eight
"—So we got into this huge discussion about whether we were ready to have children or not, because he had suddenly decided he wanted a family right that minute. And I got upset and told him that he didn't spend enough time with me and where was he going to find time for kids and…and…that's when he told me he was gay." Jayjay glanced up from staring at her hands to see that Sophie's mouth had dropped open.
"Gay? Steven?" Sophie cleared her throat. "But…but we've known him since junior high. Jesus, you two have been married for three years. Didn't you ever suspect?" She shook her head. "What am I saying? I never suspected."
"I know." Jay looked down at her hands. "He said he figured since we were friends, we could get married and have kids together. He figured since I'd been married twice already, and since I was so down on men when the two of us got together, the 'relationship' part of the relationship wouldn't matter too much to me." She shrugged. "He figured we could help each other out financially…and he had someone he loved, and he wanted kids." She closed her eyes. "But he didn't want me. He never wanted me."
Sophie shook her head. "So he had this other woman that he loved and he wanted to have kids, but he married you instead?"
Jay smiled a bitter little smile. "Other man. He had a man he loved, that he'd loved for years, but his parents being who they are…" His parents owned half of Peters, and had hooks in the other half. Steven was their only child. They expected great things from him, and so far he'd been their golden boy.
"I can see where the mighty colonel would hate having his masculinity called into question by the presence of a gay son."
"Steven told me he figured they would disinherit him, and he's willing to work hard right now, but he doesn't want that to happen. He'll come into more than a few millions when they die."
"Lovely. So you were going to be his propriety shield."
"I was his cover story. He figured after Bill and Stacey, I'd be happy to have a man who left me alone."
"What the hell happened with them, anyway? You walked out and gave both of them everything you had at the time, and everyone in town figured they'd caught you cheating with somebody. You've never told anyone more than that 'things didn't work out.' Not even me, and I'm supposed to be your best friend."
"Yeah." Jay shrugged. She'd handled it in the way that seemed to make sense at the time. She'd refused to say anything bad about either one of them, figuring that the truth would come out on its own, and that when it did she wouldn't have spent years looking like some venomous bitch who'd done everything she could to ruin the reputations of two of Peters' well-liked men; and she didn't want to hear any of the catty remarks about her having been a golddigger out for their money, so she had left both marriages without anything but what she had earned and purchased herself.
Unfortunately, though, the truth didn't come out, and everyone figured she'd been a tramp who got caught sleeping around. "The truth," she murmured. "After all this time, I don't think anyone would believe me if I told it. My moment for vindication has passed."
"Try me. I know you."
Jayjay nodded. "You do. Okay. Bill drank, did drugs, dealt a little on the side. He never got caught; no one ever looked at good old Bill and said, There goes a scumbag cokehead.' He didn't look the part."
"He was an accountant, for Chrissake!" Sophie's eyes were huge.
"Yep. And he kept a very careful accounting of the money he poured up his nose. I couldn't deal with it. So I got out, and when Stacey moved into town, we liked each other and we had some fun. He was so free-spirited. After Bill…well, a free spirit was a new thing. I felt so much younger. But once we were married, he still attended his Saturday night poker games, and while he was there he drank till he floated, and if he lost much money, when the game was over he came home and beat the shit out of me."
Sophie sat there clenching and unclenching her fists. "And Steven is gay."
"I have a very special knack for picking the wrong men."
"I'd say. So what are you going to do?"
Jayjay laughed; the laugh sounded cold and hollow in her own ears. "Well, Steve told me he and Lee—that's this man he's madly in love with—wanted to share in bringing up kids. They both wanted to be parents, but Lee simply can't function with a woman at all. Steven can…but it isn't his thing. They wanted me to have the babies. Of course Steven wanted Lee to move in with us—"
"With both of you?!"
"Mmm-hmmm. So Lee wouldn't miss out on any of the wonders of parenting."
"Right." Sophie looked ready to go back to Peters and cook Steven for lunch. "What were you supposed to get out of this deal? Is he bi? Did he say he loved you, too?"
"No. He figured we were friends, and he decided since we both wanted kids and I obviously wasn't having great luck with men, he could stay married to me and all three of us could have the children we wanted. But until he started pushing hard for children, he forgot to mention that he was gay…even though he and Lee had planned this even before Steven proposed to me. I think Lee even had a hand in p
icking me out. The two of them figured I wasn't in a position to be picky, I guess. I, of course, was head over heels in love with Steven…like an idiot. When all of this came out, he said he had never loved me…but he liked me."
Sophie picked up a pine cone and started ripping it into tiny shreds. "He liked you. How special."
"Not quite the romance of the century." Jayjay shook her head ruefully.
Sophie growled, "No. Not quite. So I take it you aren't considering becoming a baby breeder for Steve and his true love."
"Ah…no." Jay didn't intend to admit to Sophie or anyone else that she had—briefly—considered it; that for one dark moment she had been desperate enough for a family, for someone to love who would love her back, that even such an empty relationship seemed possible. She wasn't the same person who felt that way anymore, so it seemed pointless to bring it up.
"Then what are you going to do?"
Jayjay grinned and spread her hands wide. "I'm doing it, Soph. I'm living. I'm moving on. I found a great travel guide, I planned a trip, I'm taking the trip. When I go back to Peters I'll file for legal separation, and when my year is up I'll get a divorce."
"And next time find the right man, I hope."
Jay took a deep breath and stared down the road toward Glenraven. Her determination to be upbeat cracked. "No. I've had my three strikes. I'm out of the game now."
"You're going to be celibate?"
Jayjay glanced sidelong at Sophie. She couldn't help smiling a little. "Well…I'm going to be single."
Sophie chuckled. "So you aren't actually out of the game. You simply intend to pinch-hit."
Jayjay laughed, and this time her laughter sounded happier. "Not at all. I intend to be what you could call an Interested spectator. Nothing else."
Sophie chuckled, then glanced at her watch and frowned. "Damn…look at the time. Lestovru has been gone a lot longer than a couple of minutes."
She was right. The two of them had been sitting and talking so long the shadows of the trees had stretched across the road, and the air had gone from warm to chilly.
Jayjay stood and slung her pack onto her back. "He said he was going to be right around the bend."
Sophie stood, too. "He also said he'd be back in a minute. Let's go. I don't feel like sitting on a rock waiting while he's chatting on the phone with his girlfriend for hours."
Side by side, they pedaled down the slight grade and around the bend. The road could not have been emptier. Neither Lestovru nor his bike nor the phone kiosk Jayjay had been expecting waited for them. The road curved away again.
"Keep going?" Sophie asked.
Jay raised an eyebrow. "What are our choices?"
"Keep going, I guess. I sure as hell don't want to try going back the way we came."
Jay thought about that. "No. Besides, we have a great room at a terrific place waiting for us."
"But did our guide really ditch us?" Sophie was looking from side to side, from the ancient, gnarled trees to the rolling meadows to the ring of jagged mountains that bordered their horizons on every side.
"He decided we were more trouble than we were worth," she said, trying to make light of it. Jay suspected that Lestovru had run off to call a couple of disreputable friends, and that somewhere ahead, robbers lay in wait.
They kept riding, nervous as foxes who heard the hounds. Around the next bend, they didn't find Lestovru. They did find a gatehouse: an ancient sag-roofed stone shed. In front of it sat a man who looked like he might have been present when it was built. He glanced up as the two women rode up to him and squinted and spit on the ground beside him. He didn't bother to stand.
Jayjay swung off her bike and parked it. Once again she felt dizzy and light-headed, as if she were standing on the deck of a small boat in high seas and the deck was tossing. She held her breath until the feeling passed and somehow refrained from throwing up. I like that, she decided. "Refrained from throwing up." It sounded so in control.
As soon as she felt better, she rummaged through her pack for her guidebook. The old man watched her but didn't move. She said "hello"; he didn't move. She thumbed to the back, to the Galti Vocabulary section. The first phrase in the Useful Phrases section was "Do you speak English?"
She thought that seemed pretty useful. "Gesopodi ennlitch gwera?" she asked, hoping the pronunciation was close enough that she hadn't inadvertently told him his mother sucked rocks.
He shrugged and said nothing.
Jay glanced at Sophie. "Get out your visa…you know, the gate validation pass. Maybe he never talks."
She pulled the parchment square out of her pocket and started to hand it to the man, but halfway to him, it crumbled into dust and the dust, sparkling, blew away on the breeze. Beside her, Sophie muttered, "Omi-gawd." Jay turned to see the wind carrying off the last fragments of her visa, too.
The old man finally stood up. He held out his hand and pointed at her book. Puzzled, she handed it to him.
He held the book for a moment, then nodded. He squinted up at her and smiled. His teeth, she thought, were what Lestovru's were going to look like in a hundred and fifty years. It wasn't a pretty sight. "You verry late." He rolled his rs so hard Jay almost expected him to cut his tongue on those teeth.
"We lost our guide," Jay told him, pronouncing each word distinctly so that he would understand her. "Signi Tavisti Lestovru. Have you seen him?"
"Signi you guide? No Signi here." He spat again. "Horses waiting, I waiting, and you late, late, late!"
Jayjay frowned. "We got here as fast as we could, but without a guide—"
"Horses?" Sophie asked.
"We were going to bike," Jay told the man. She patted the saddle of her bicycle.
He shook his head vehemently. "No. No bike. No bike in Glenraven. You take horses."
"Bikes," Sophie insisted.
The old man turned and shouted a string of gibberish, and two dark-haired peasant boys stepped through the door. One ambled up to Jay, smiled, removed her packs from the bike, smiled, lifted her bike in one massive fist, smiled, bowed, and walked away with her bike.
"Hey!" she yelled, and Sophie yelled something at the same time. The other peasant had made off with her bike.
"Horses," the old man said with conviction.
"Horses, hell! I want my bike back," Jay yelled.
The old man shook his head. "They waiting when you back here. Nobody take. Nobody want."
"I don't—" Care, Jay had intended to say, before starting a tirade, but the same urgency that had dragged her across the world to Glenraven tugged at her again. Take the horses, it insisted. You don't want the bikes. Not here. Not now. She froze, bewildered, then glanced at Sophie. She, too, looked puzzled.
A moment later, the peasant boys came back leading a string of four good-looking horses. Two were already saddled for riding; the other two wore pack saddles. The horses were good, solid animals, straight-legged, straight-backed, and muscular. All of them bore a brand on the right flank: a sweeping curlicue with an inverted V slashed through the center and two dots below the point of the V.
"Rikes Gate close at sunset. After that—" The old man glared at both of them. "—you sitting in forest until morning; you still alive tomorrow, maybe someone let you in. Now—" He pointed a finger at Jayjay. "Horses there. You take."
Jay began trying to find her document case in her pack. "Do you need to see our passports? We had gate validation passes, but they—well, you saw what happened to them."
He stared at her blankly. Jayjay found his lack of official presence worrisome.
"I have a receipt proving that I paid for the passes. You'll at least need to see that, won't you?" She thought, Don't you need to see some proof of something, you bizarre little man?
He shook his head with an almost frantic vehemence.
"You not the right people, you not be here. Take horses and go. Go. You must hurry."
Jayjay stared at him. The fear he exuded when he talked about hurrying bothered her. "Why m
ust we hurry?"
From the look in the old man's eyes, Jayjay wished she didn't need to know.
"Night coming," he told her as if that explained everything.
She waited, watching him. Surely that couldn't be the whole reason for the big rush. Night was, after all, something that happened every day.
He turned, found her still standing there, and his expression became purest exasperation. "City gates close at night, you. If you not to gates before dark, you sleeping in forest."
"Oh." Jayjay turned to Sophie. "I guess we'd better hurry."
Jay picked two horses, a dappled gray mare and a rangy bay gelding, and stowed her gear on the pack saddle of the mare, then mounted the gelding. Uneasiness twisted at her gut. Where the hell had Lestovru gone? The old guy hadn't seen him, or wasn't admitting it. Jay hadn't seen any phones—or phone lines, or power lines, or anything that smacked of the potential for rapid communication. Not even smoke signals, come to think of it. If Lestovru had called ahead to friends, how had he done it?
What was the deal with the horses?
What about their bikes?
And why was the old man so afraid of nightfall?
Sophie finished checking the horse supplies: grain, hoof picks, rope and other necessary paraphernalia. She frowned over at Jay. "Whoever outfitted us did a good job. Why couldn't we take bikes, though?" She didn't look at all happy about having to ride. Jay didn't blame her. She doubted Sophie had been on horseback since the accident.
"I don't know." She sighed. "I don't know anything."
Sophie mounted smoothly. "I feel like we need to be going," she told Jay.
"I know. I have the same feeling. Like we're racing a clock." Jayjay led off, unhappy about the uncanniness of the events that had transpired, and about her uncharacteristic acquiescence. They'd walked off with her bike, dammit; and she couldn't even find it in herself to feel upset about that.
What was the matter with her?
She and Sophie trotted out of sight of the kiosk and down the road, into a large clearing. The last of the day's sunlight sparkled in the meadow grasses to either side of the narrow paved path that served as a road, and birds flitted past. The castle behind the forest that lay to the left was invisible except for the spire with the golden ball on top. The gleaming stone walls of the castle that lay to the right had taken on a warm, amber glow in the lengthening light of day. It beckoned temptingly.
Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle - [Glenraven 01] Page 5