A Bait of Dreams (38 page)

“Looks like fun,” Gleia said.

“Mmm,” Deel said. “Hot for it, though.”

“Come for a walk. Can you?”

Deel wiped her hands down her sides. “They'd rather I didn't. Not dressed like this, even without the veil. Folk get mean.” She moved her shoulders impatiently. “I don't see the problem if we keep away from drovers and the market. Come on.”

They threaded through the trees until they were walking along the River's bank in shade thick enough to protect them from Hesh's bite. For a while Gleia said nothing. Finally, without looking at Deel, she broke her silence. “Shounach drugged Kan, made him talk about the Eyes. About who brought them to the Svingeh.” She moved out on the bank until she could stand looking down into the eddying water.

Deel came to stand beside her. “I'm not going to like the answer, am I.”

“If you think about it, you already know it.”

“Uh-huh. Sayoneh.”

“Right.”

“I wondered why Kan backed down so fast after they pulled me out of the water.” When Gleia looked at her, the buoyancy had gone out of her. “I wish I thought he'd lied,” Deel said. She brooded a while. “I wish you hadn't told me.” She bent with sudden energy, scooped up a bit of rock, flung it at the water. “They don't know. The young ones.”

“Probably not.”

“Why did you tell me? Chances are I'd never have found out and would have gone on content.” With a soft gasp she reached both hands up, cupped them over the copper and amber earrings, pressed them against her head and neck. “Juggler,” she said, her voice a sad whisper. She took the hoops from her ears and stood gazing at them. “He never gives up, does he. What do these do?”

“Maybe nothing.”

“You don't think that. Or you wouldn't be here.”

Gleia sighed. “I don't know anything, I suspect there's something in them that lets him follow you.”

Deel gazed at the earrings a bit longer then flung them far out into the River. “Aschla bite him.”

“Where it hurts most.”

After a while, Deel smiled, With a reluctant admiration she said, “Tricky bastard.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He'll be mad enough to bite nails when he finds out you told me. What's he gonna do to you?”

“Don't know. Not going to think about that if I can help it. But I couldn't.…”

“Yeah.” Deel rubbed her hand across her forehead. “They were so good to me. I thought I'd stay with them, I really did.”

“They mean hope for a lot of women. Deel?”

“Huh?”

“If you want to tell them or stay with them, don't bother about Shounach and me. You know us. One way or another, we'll get where we mean to get.”

“I like them, I really do, but.…”

“Ranga Eyes?”

“If it'd been anything else. Anything.”

“I know.”

“I can't forget Alahar. How he died.”

“Deel?”

“What?”

“You can come with us if you want. Shounach will come around, once he's thought about it some. That's no problem. You'd be better off, though, forgetting the whole thing. Madar knows what we'll run into.”

Deel brooded some more, then she shook her head. “I have to bury Alahar's ghost or he'll ruin whatever I try.” She fumbled for words, finally she shook her head. “I'm crazy, I expect, but, well, if the Juggler doesn't bite my head off.…” She tried to smile. “Anyway, I don't really think I was made to live with just women. I'd probably be climbing the walls by winter's end. Oh … come on, let's get it over with. Stay with me while I tell the Saone I've changed my mind?” She went quickly up the bank, stopped and waited for Gleia to come up with her. “I'm a bit scared.”

Gleia took the hand she held out and walked beside her. “Will they make trouble?”

“Don't ask me. I've just found out how little I really know about them.” She frowned. “Maybe you ought to wait for me somewhere.”

“No. Anyway, there's always the Juggler to pry us loose if the Sayoneh turn sticky.”

Deel made a face. “You think he'd bother?” She sighed again. “I really wish you hadn't told me all this.”

“You said that already.”

“I know.”

Shounach stopped just inside the door. Gleia was putting the last stitches into the black shawl she'd started working on in Istir. Deel had a brush and a bowl of soapy water and was working over her dancer's silks. He came across the room in a few swift strides, took hold of her chin and tilted her head. “The earrings?”

Deel jerked free, set the brush aside, spread the silks on the canvas beside her. “At the bottom of the river.” She got to her feet with a graceful twist of her body, an almost-levitation, and went to stand beside Gleia. “You know why.”

Gleia tucked the needle into the soft black wool, clasped her hands so their shaking wouldn't show. “Deel's a friend, Shounach.”

“And what am I?”

“Whatever you want, as much or little as you want, but never my master.” She shivered at the fury in him; he was a skin over fire that turned to ice as she watched. She was afraid, not for now but for what his brooding would bring down on her later. “Or my conscience.”

“You make yourself mine.”

“No. I'm not telling you what to do. How could I, when nothing I say will change your mind? But grant me the right to keep my self-respect, Shounach. If your acts involve me, then I can only do what I see is right with what I know.”

“Know? What you know?” There was scorn, even contempt in his voice. She lowered her eyes without speaking when she couldn't look at him any more.

He turned on Deel. “Get out of here.”

Deel hesitated, started to speak.

Gleia touched her leg, stopped her. “For now, please? But come back later. Give us awhile to fight this out.”

Deel frowned down at her, then fixed angry eyes on him. “You hurt her, I'll carve her name on your ribs, Juggler.” She swung away from Gleia, kept wide of Shounach, and bounced out of the room, slamming the door with a crunch that sent it bounding open again.

Shounach scowled after her until the door slammed, then his shoulders seemed to soften; when he faced Gleia again, his mouth was working as he tried to hold in the laughter turning his eyes green, his anger derailed for the moment. “I think she'd do it.”

Gleia put the shawl down, got to her feet and crossed to him. She pushed his jacket aside and touched her lips to the smooth skin where his ribs met, then slid her arms around him, the feel of him so good under her hands she almost couldn't endure the wanting that burned through her. She tilted her head back and laughed up at him. “And you'd have to start wearing shirts, vain man.”

When Deel returned, looking pugnacious and wary, Shounach was stretched out on the canvas, dozing, and Gleia was back to working on the shawl. Where there'd been rage and defiance boiling in the room, there was now only contentment and amity. She looked from one to the other, sighed, went over to the bowl and brush, picked up the crumpled silks and settled on the edge of the straw to continue her cleaning.

The next several days Shounach and Deel performed at his pitch, attracting larger and larger crowds, including several bands of the Sayoneh, who watched in silence but never tried to talk to Deel or persuade her to return to them. At first the Dancer was nervous, then she put them out of her mind and just enjoyed herself. Gleia watched them now and then, not quite able to appreciate their shared performances, but reluctant to succumb to the jealous agonies of the time downriver. Most days she ranged through the Fair, bargaining for and buying the things they'd need for their journey into wild country. All but the horses. She knew too little to avoid being cheated, that was for Shounach when they were ready to leave.

Tucked away beyond the market booths and tents was another arena, much smaller than the racecourse, more private. She finished bargaining with a miller's wife for a sack of flour, winced as a roar went up from the arena and echoed back from the cliff. “Madar!” She hefted the sack, set it down on the counter of boards stretched between two barrels. “What was that?”

“Cat-pit. I tol Halk I di'un like settin up here.” The miller's wife wiped the back of her hand across her round sweaty face, tucked a straying wisp of hair under her coif. “They yell like that, some un or somefin dead. Fights.” She spat in the dust to one side. “Slavers, they go catch um some catmen. Out on the grass.” She jerked a long broad thumb at the cliff, elevated it, flattened her hand in a wide sweep that was a silent but adequate description of the high grassy plateau beyond the forest. “Set um at each other, killing. Bet on who wins. I tell Halk, I catch um going there, I snatch um balder'n he be.” She shrugged. “Men,” she said, spat again. She watched as Gleia counted out the coins, took them, looked them over with shrewd care, tucked them away in a metal cashbox sitting on a barrel at the back of the tent. Then she nodded at the sack of flour. “You need help with that, young Arv he just finishin 'is lunch.”

Gleia shook her head, winced as another roar went up, swung the floursack onto her shoulder and went back to the room where the pile of supplies kept growing as her supply of coins diminished. She wasn't over-worried about that, Shounach and the Dancer were shaking coin out of the crowd like rain from a stormcloud and Zidras' clever fingers harvested more each night. She set the floursack down, shook white dust off her shoulders and thought about Zidras.

The man had worked loose from his Players and attached himself to the three of them. He was useful, but far too sensitive to nuance for Gleia's comfort, and aware that there was something none of the three spoke of around him. He was more complex than shed first thought, with many rituals which he hid from casual observation, but he rode his compulsions so lightly and unobtrusively he seemed a loose and easy man, a waterweed bending with the current. At first she saw him as lazy and unambitious, content to keep himself with a minimum of effort, but as the days passed she began to understand that was all surface and beneath the surface was something much darker and more threatening. Shounach seemed unaware of these depths, but lately she knew nothing about what he was thinking; he spent little time with her after that one spate of passion when Deel moved in with them. Such a brief happiness, ghosts of it left when he forgot and smiled at her, when he brushed his hand along her arm or touched her face. Ghosts only, though. Her confidence began draining away and she withdrew into herself more each day. She knew it only made things worse between them, but she didn't know how to change, and having Deel there inhibited her until she was ready to scream—and instead went quieter, more remote. And saw Shounach reacting to this by leaving her more and more alone. Days passed, each one a slipping away from intimacy and joy. By the time she climbed into the saddle before dawn and got ready to leave Jokinhiir, she clung to a single hope. He hadn't left. He hadn't shrugged them off. He was irritable and secretive, but he still came back to her. She watched him as he stood talking to Zidras, tried willing him to look back and smile at her. He didn't. He mounted, checked the leadrein of the packer, then kneed his horse into a walk toward the skim of trees hugging the base of the cliff. She nodded encouragement to Deel and started after him.

Zidras was gazing at Shounach's back, his surface thinned until hints of pain and hunger crept out. He heard her horse's hooves and turned to her, his fingers flicking through a calming ritual, his surface intact again. He waved his delicate hand as she rode past, called a fluting farewell to Deel. Before the trees quite closed on her, she looked back. He was still gazing after them.

forest idyll

Morning was reddening the sky when they reached the top of the cliff. A horde of ragged hungry boys ran out from hovels clustered about the base of the massive walls of the Svingeh's Keep and swarmed around the riders, tugging at legs, reins, anything they could get hold of, demanding to be hired as guides through the forest, shouting their skills, begging coins, roaring threats and all the while busy fingers were getting off with anything they could pry loose. It was like being attacked by roaches, none individually dangerous but the horde capable of nibbling them to death.

Shounach thrust an arm into his bag. “Cover your ears,” he shouted. He started playing a thin bone-white pipe, producing sounds that ate through their hands and into their heads. The horses bolted, but ran in step like a trained team, leaving the beggars rolling in agony on the stony ground. Gleia lay with her face in the horse's mane, holding on with her teeth, sparing a second's attention to wonder at Shounach's control of the beasts. They blundered blindly into the tangled forest until they stumbled onto a winding track and slowed to a walk, then stopped, heads down, breathing hard.

She twitched as a hand touched her leg, opened one eye a crack, relaxed with a sigh as Shounach eased her from the saddle and carried her to the side of the track, settling her with her back against the trunk of a stunted bydarrakh. She looked up into his anxious face and smiled at him, shocked out of her retreat and reservations; she reached up and touched his face, her fingers trembling. He pulled her to him, held her gentled against him until she stopped shaking.

When he heard her breathing change, felt the stiffness come back into her body, he let her go; without a word he left her and went to tend to Deel.

Gleia was both angry and jealous, furious at her own stupidity, furious with Deel for being there, raging at Shounach for being what he was—and at herself for being what she was.

Later, as she rode through the reddish half-light of the forest, she began to understand that this was how it would always be with them, even after Deel was longtime gone, even when nothing blocked them. Moments of closeness so intense it seemed they wore each other's skins. Longer times of quiet amity. And times of coldness when anything either did was wrong.