Halla insisted on looking at Sarkis’s arrow wound. It looked…worrisome. Not that there was anything wrong with the way it was healing, but the edges of the wound were silver instead of red and there were thin filaments stretched across it, like spider silk.
“That’s fascinating,” said Zale. Sarkis grunted.
They gathered up their own gear, then stood looking down at the equipment stripped from the Motherhood priests.
“Can we just leave this here?” asked Halla.
“You know, it does make things easier,” said Zale. “If it turns up, everyone will assume it was just bandits that got them.”
“Unless you decide to confess,” muttered Sarkis.
Zale shot him a glance. “If I confess, I’ll take the blame myself. It falls most squarely on me, after all.”
“A gnole hates to interrupt humans feeling guilty, but an ox could be moving now.”
Zale started guiltily. “For being a priest of the god of practical things, I am failing rather badly these days,” they said to no one in particular, and climbed up on the wagon.
“It’s been a long few days,” said Halla, patting their arm.
They did not stop until after nightfall, and only because the ox could no longer reliably see his way. Brindle pulled the wagon over by the side of the road.
Halla slid down to go relieve herself in the bushes and discovered that Sarkis was following her so closely that she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.
“Sarkis.”
“Yes?”
“I need to pee.”
“I’ll turn my back.”
“Sarkis, if you don’t step back at least a foot, your shoes are going to get wet.”
He scowled. His back was to her, but Halla could actually feel the force of his scowl radiating off him. “There may yet be bandits about. And some of them may feel vengeful.”
“Then their shoes will also get wet. Are you going to do this to Zale, too?”
“I might.”
“What about Brindle?”
“I have a certain amount of faith in Brindle’s ability to handle his own affairs.”
“And none in mine?” Halla sighed, finishing up and getting to her feet. She washed her hands in the water in the ditch by the side of the road, which had a thin skin of ice over it. “Well, I suppose I haven’t given you much reason to, have I?”
“That isn’t it,” said Sarkis. He sounded almost angry. He took a step toward her, and then another, and then they were entirely too close and she thought for a moment that he might kiss her again.
She wouldn’t have minded. She could feel the heat radiating off his body in the cold air and see the starlight outlining his face.
Instead he took a deep breath through his nose and turned away, shouting for Zale to tell them how much longer they would be on this blasted road.
I must have done something wrong again. Or failed to do something right, anyway. Halla didn’t meet his eyes as he escorted her back to the wagon.
“Someone’s in a mood,” said Zale, later that night, when they had turned in for the evening.
“He is, isn’t he?” Halla sighed. “Because he had to kill all those bandits, do you think?”
Zale, clearly attempting to be tactful, said “Ah…I don’t think he’s…err…bothered by that sort of thing, much.”
“No,” said Halla. “He’s overfond of bloodshed, and I am overfond of him and…” She put her hand over her mouth, both horrified and relieved that she’d said it out loud.
Oh god, oh god, I shouldn’t have said that, but it was right there in my mouth like I’ve been wanting to say it, oh god…
“Ah,” said Zale, when the moment became entirely too awkward and someone had to say something. “I suspected as much.”
“Don’t say anything,” said Halla. “I mean, not to him. Please.” She knew that Sarkis already had to find her weak and helpless. Pining after him would undoubtedly be the final nail in the coffin of his regard.
“I am a lawyer and a priest,” said Zale. “There is probably someone on earth more bound to confidentiality, but I have yet to meet them.”
“Right. Sorry.” She rubbed her forehead. “I know there’s no chance, you see.”
The wagon creaked as Sarkis shifted overhead.
“He cares for you,” said the priest finally. “Never doubt it.”
Halla tried not to show the bubble of warmth that rose under her breastbone at the words. “I don’t know why,” she said. “He’s a swordsman and I’m a housekeeper.”
“Far more swordsmen have need of housekeepers than housekeepers have need of swordsmen, I expect.”
Halla pushed the bubble back down. “Those swordsmen have to eat and drink and need clean beds to sleep in.” She waved her hands at Zale, feeling her own words cut deep. “I can keep house for an eccentric old man and keep a farm running on the edge of disaster. I can nurse someone dying of fever. It’s just my luck I’d end up with one that doesn’t need any of those things.”
She expected the very sensible priest of the very sensible god to agree with her. Sensibly.
Instead, Zale tilted their head, a small smile on their lips. “Perhaps that’s why you like him. It must be very dreary, being needed all the time.”
“Oh god,” Halla heard herself say. “Oh god, you have no idea.”
“I might.” The priest shook their head. “Go to sleep. He’ll calm down in a day or so, or I will lecture him about it.”
Chapter 40
Sarkis did indeed calm down after a day when, gloriously, absolutely nothing horrible happened.
The ox was set to grazing. Halla wanted to go to bathe in the stream, out of sight of the wagon, and Sarkis grudgingly allowed that she would probably not be horribly murdered.
“But you must sing,” he said.
“Sing? What?”
“I will not stand guard over you while you bathe, but if you’re singing, I will know immediately if something happens.”
“I…uh…don’t sing very well.”
“This is not a test of your musical ability.”
“It’s your funeral,” she muttered, picking up the soap, and went toward the stream. A moment later, her voice raised into a song about bringing in the harvest. It might have been pleasant if she had been anywhere in the vicinity of a note, never mind the tune.
Sarkis winced, but at least he had no doubts about where she was.
“Zale, I must ask you a question in private,” he said, as soon as she was out of earshot.
The priest looked up, their expression quizzical. “Oh?”
He took a deep breath. This was going to be awkward, but there was nothing else for it. “Is your order sworn to celibacy?”
“Oh dear sweet Rat,” said Zale. “Are you propositioning me?”
“No!” And then, because his haste might have been a trifle insulting, “Err, not that you’re not a fine figure of a priest, but…no. That is not where I’m going.”
“Oh thank heavens.” Zale rubbed their face. “Not that you’re not a…fine figure of a sword…but no. I prefer my men somewhat less cursed to inhabit magical steel for eternity. And also a bit more intellectual and a bit less likely to break people in half.”
Brindle looked at them both, rolled his eyes, and went to go sit with the ox.
Sarkis nodded. “So—ah—may I guess that you are not interested in Halla?”
“Halla is lovely, and we are far too much alike. If it was left to us, we would still be sitting tied up under a tree discussing whether it would be too unforgivably rude to escape, and possibly what species the tree is.” Zale raised an eyebrow. “Also, she’s been mooning after you since before we met, so even if I were so inclined, I would be wasting my time.”
Satisfaction warred with alarm. Halla? Mooning after him? Had she told the priest something?
It doesn’t matter! You have to tell her what the sword says! You can’t let her go around thinking you’re a hero.
<
br /> …but after she gets her inheritance back. Because if she took it badly (and how could she not take it badly?) Sarkis wanted to be damn sure that she was well set up first. If she decided to throw him out on his ear after that, she’d be able to do it safely.
“I was afraid of that,” he muttered.
“You don’t want her to be interested in you?” said Zale. Over by the stream, the singing was punctuated with splashing and occasional swearing.
“I do. Very much. That’s the problem.”
Zale steepled their fingers. “Do you want to talk about that?”
“Not particularly.”
“All right. But you know, I am a priest. It’s sort of what we do. Talk to people. Take confessions. That sort of thing.”
“I thought you were more concerned with legal matters.”
“The law is only talking and confession writ large. With occasional fines and time spent in the stocks.”
Halla went for a high note, and Sarkis listened to make sure the song was the only thing being murdered.
“I gather it’s at least a mutual attraction, then?” said Zale. “Because I must warn you, I do quite like her and I will be more than a little disappointed if you plan to marry her for her money and then abandon her.”
Sarkis blinked at him in astonishment. “What?”
“I mean, you don’t seem like the type….”
“I’m immortal and live in a sword. What am I going to do with money?”
Zale had to stop and think about that for a few minutes. “Well…hmm, I suppose metal polish isn’t that expensive, is it? Err…a nice whetstone, maybe?”
Sarkis stared at him until the priest threw their hands in the air. “Fine, all right, I accept you’re not interested in her money.”
“I most certainly am not.”
“It’s just…sheltered widow from the south…um…immortal warrior from the Weeping Lands…” Zale made vague hand gestures. “I grant you, they say that opposites attract…”
Sarkis rubbed his forehead. “She is lovely and kind and generous of spirit and someone has to keep her from walking off a cliff.”
“And they say romance is dead.”
Sarkis snorted.
“Do you often fall in love with your wielders?” asked Zale.
“Never. Hell, most times I don’t even respect them very much.”
“Ah, but do you respect this one?”
“…not her singing voice, certainly,” said Sarkis, as Halla attacked a chorus as if it had personally offended her.
“You brought that on yourself.”
“Indeed I did. Well. At first…no, I did not. I thought her another decadent native of this weak, decadent land. Ah…no offense intended, of course.”
“I have added it to all the other offenses I am not taking, given that you are a barbaric northerner and cannot be expected to understand civilized behavior.”
Sarkis inclined his head to the priest.
“Later, though?” said Zale, who sometimes reminded Sarkis more of a terrier than a rat.
“Later…” Sarkis spread his hands. “Well. Yes. I have begun to. She is not a warrior, but…I don’t know. Sometimes I simply want to see what ridiculous question she will ask next.”
“Ah, the questions…” Zale laughed. “I admit, I find that delightful. It is so rare that I meet someone who asks questions because they want to know the answers.”
Sarkis frowned at him. “What? Why else do people ask questions?”
Zale began ticking off possibilities on their fingers. “To be seen asking the question as if they do not know…to get a specific answer which they desire…to force someone to answer the question publicly…to be given a chance to lecture on the subject…to—”
“I yield, I yield!” Sarkis held up both hands, laughing. “Yes, I know the sorts of questions of what you speak.” He had a memory of the Leopard holding a knife to a rival’s throat, saying, “If I search this house, will I find something that makes me angry?” (The man had said, “No.” He had been wrong about that, and had not lived to answer any more questions.)
“Which is not to say that Halla does not sometimes ask questions to throw people off. But she is, I think, like many children born in poverty. Intelligent…curious…but never given beyond the most basic education. In boys, that sort of thing is valued, in girls…” Zale shook their head. “Had she come to the attention of the Rat, we might have made a scholar of her. As it is, she has learned to be quiet and agreeable and to appear quite stupid when it is convenient. But the curiosity still comes through.”
“That’s part of it,” said Sarkis. “Despite everything, it seems the world has not broken her. We hid bodies, for the great god’s sake, and still she is…I don’t know how else to explain.”
Zale smiled. “The world tries to break everyone,” they said gently. “But sometimes when it fails, it fails spectacularly. Why do you not say something to her?”
Sarkis groaned. “Because I have too much power over her fate right now.”
Zale raised an eyebrow. “You’ll have to explain that one for me.”
“For a number of years, I was a mercenary captain. And there were jobs where I could say yes, and jobs where I could say no. And then there were jobs where, if I said no, I made sure that we were on the way out of the country when I said it.”
The priest had never been slow on the uptake. “You don’t think she’ll feel safe saying no to you?”
“I am not willing to risk it.” He poked the fire, raising a flare of sparks. “A few more days, and she is safe in her own home, and a wealthy woman. Then I’ll know that she is not weighing whether I will still get her home safely if she rejects me.”
Zale nodded slowly. “It would be the same for me, I admit. A breach of professionalism, until the job is done.”
Sarkis let out his breath in a gusty sigh. “I hope this job is done quickly,” he admitted. “Because I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
Halla finished wading in the stream and emerged, clean but freezing. The water was cold. It wasn’t quite as bad as fresh snowmelt, in that her bones did not ache, but it wasn’t pleasant.
She’d run out of most of the ordinary songs she knew and had started in on hymns. The Four-faced God had excellent hymns about the harvest and the planting and so forth. She wished she knew some hymns to the White Rat, for Zale, but then again, she was also aware that her singing wasn’t the sort of thing any god would desire. Anyway, the Rat never seemed to go in much for hymns.
Halla wondered vaguely if Sarkis’s great god liked hymns. He didn’t seem like the type, but that might have more to do with Sarkis than with the god.
She toweled off, trying to use the rough cloth to rub warmth back into her skin. It wasn’t entirely successful. She realized she’d stopped singing and started up again, before her watchdog could come running.
Not that I don’t want to see him, but I’d prefer to be dressed.
I think.
Halla stifled a sigh. She had very little to offer anyone in that department, she knew…or rather, she had entirely too much of it, in all directions. Men were only interested in hips like hers if they wanted heirs, and she was fairly sure that Sarkis didn’t.
He’d said some very kind things, but presumably he was being just that—kind.
And I must be practical. I must always be practical.
When he’d had his arms around her earlier, she had not felt particularly practical. He was as solid as a stone wall and he radiated heat and he had held her so tightly that she could hardly breathe.
It felt wonderful.
She had to tell herself that Sarkis was her guard, nothing more.
Probably nothing more.
The kiss in the marketplace had felt like a great deal more, but he hadn’t repeated it.
Which is for the best, Halla told herself grimly. She had nothing to offer except kisses and men generally wanted a bit more than that. Or they were like her late hu
sband and didn’t even want that much.
God, why couldn’t she have met Sarkis fifteen years earlier?
Well. Might as well ask why the sun couldn’t rise later in the day so we could all sleep in.
She was getting an inheritance she had never expected. She could provide for her family, what little was left of it, and if she did not do anything completely ridiculous, she would be able to live comfortably on what remained. She should be grateful for that much. She was grateful for that much.
Her dreams of running her hands down Sarkis’s muscled arms, tracing the path of each silver scar…well, they were dreams, that was all. You had them and you enjoyed them and then you got on with life.
She’d already seen what happened when you gave yourself to unsuitable men. Her mother had been a walking object lesson in loving unwisely. Even her mother would probably have balked at loving an enchanted sword.
Assuming that love is the correct word, thought Halla, a bit dryly. Love might well make your heart race and your pulse pound in your ears, but the one pounding a good deal lower was lust, plain and simple.
Which was…well, not helpful. Hell, Halla didn’t even know if she liked lovemaking. She didn’t think she hated it. Plenty of people enjoyed it. It seemed like it had a lot of potential. She’d have liked the chance to find out with a man who was actually interested, but given the risks, it hadn’t been worth it to find out after her husband died.
Well. Maybe when she was past the point of child-bearing, someone would come along who wanted to spend time with a good-natured widow.
I don’t want someone, though. I want Sarkis.
No. She had to be practical. Other women got to be impractical—young ones, beautiful ones, ones with well-off families to catch them when they did something foolish. Halla was no longer young and had never been beautiful. So, she had to be one of the practical ones.
Sarkis did not make her feel the least bit practical.
All those years of thinking that foolish girls in ballads were simply too dumb to know better, she thought, slogging up the cold riverbank toward the wagon. And it turns out that you’re no better, when it comes down to it.
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