A Man Rides Through (28 page)

Geraden, it's not
your fault.
None of this is
your fault.

His face was thrust close to hers, his fingers ground into her arms; but she couldn't seem to read his face. His passion was part of his skull, definitive under his features; yet the flesh over it was so tight and strict that she couldn't distinguish between them.

When he spoke, however, his voice shook her as hard as if he had shoved her against the wall. It was strong, compulsory; it had the power to command her.

"Terisa, people I have known and loved all my life are going to die because I came here."

I
swore I was never going to let anybody I loved die ever again.

But there was nothing he could do. Houseldon was already as well prepared to defend itself as possible. He was helpless to save anything or anybody. Because he needed so much from her, she didn't cry or apologize or defend herself or get angry. She faced him squarely and said, "I think I would probably feel better if you hit me."

He looked like he might hit her: He was angry or desperate enough to hit something.

"Why didn't you
tell
me?"

Slowly, she shook her head. At least he wasn't closed anymore. She had achieved that much. And even fury was preferable to his rigid isolation, his mute hurt. "That's not the point," she countered. "It doesn't matter. I just made a mistake, that's all. I didn't know how important all this is." And later on she had been so embarrassed by her submission to Master Eremis that she found it impossible to speak.

"The point is,
I
had a choice." It seemed loony to speak so calmly when he was in such distress. It seemed loony to prefer anyone's anger. "I could have gone anywhere." At the same time, her own misery inexplicably began to become something else, something that bore a crazy and astounding resemblance to joy. She could reach him—she could make him furious. Because of that, everything else was possible. "I
chose
to come here.

"Geraden, listen to me. Why do you suppose I
chose
to come here?"

He was so angry, so frightened for his home and family and friends, that he could hardly refrain from raging. Involuntarily, he bared his teeth. Yet he was still Geraden, still the man who had always done everything he could imagine for her. Panting at the effort he made to restrain himself, he said, "You tell me. Why?"

"No." Again she shook her head. "Come on, think about it. Why did I come here?"

Through his passion, he rasped, "You didn't know where else to go. To escape."

"No.
Come on,
think.
I could have gone anywhere. Prince Kragen would have been glad to have me. All I had to do was translate myself out of Orison. Anywhere outside the gates."

Now she had him. It was strange how much power she had with him. Her mistakes might result in the complete destruction of his home and family: his reasons for outrage were that good. And yet he felt compelled to try to understand her.

He didn't let go of her, but his fingers stopped grinding into her arms. With less fury, he said, "You wanted to warn me."

"Yes."
She didn't smile; yet the inexplicable joy in her started to sing. "I wanted to warn you.

"Why do you suppose I bothered? Why do you suppose I care what happens here? I didn't know your family. I'd never been here before. Why do you suppose I was willing to come here and face you when I knew it was my fault you were in danger—when I knew you had every reason in the world to be angry at me or even hate me and there was nothing I could do to change any of it?"

Oh, she had him. She wanted to shout it out: she
had
him. He wasn't iron now, closed and bitter. His fury had receded. He was scrutinizing her intently: perplexed, almost dumbfounded; fundamentally baffled by her; touched by hope.

"Think
about it," she murmured to keep herself from crowing aloud.

He opened his mouth, but no words came.

"You idiot. I did it because I love you."

Then she reached her arms around his neck and pulled herself up to kiss him.

He took a moment to recover from the shock. Fortunately, he didn't take too long. Before she could lose the elation singing through her, he clasped her to him and returned her kiss as if his answer came all the way up from the bottom of his soul.

The fabric of his sleeping trousers was so thin that she couldn't mistake the way he felt about her, in spite of her inexperience. She kissed him for a long time while his arms strained around her. Then she eased back from his embrace and began to unbutton her shirt.

His eyes darkened, as if they were on fire with shadows. A bit awkwardly, she kicked off her boots. When she slipped the shirt from her shoulders and dropped her skirt, he caught his breath. Even the hair on his head seemed to burn with desire.

Abruptly, he jerked down his pants and took her to his bed.

He was almost devout in the way he kissed and touched her; torn between wonder and alarm, as if he wanted her so much that he didn't trust himself. As a result, he was tentative when she most wished him to be sure. Master Eremis was right. During the Master's brief stay in the dungeon after the summoning of the Congery's champion, he had said to her,
Whenever you think of another man, you will remember my lips upon your breasts.
That was true: Geraden's touch reminded her of the Imager—of his assurance, his willingness to take possession of her completely.

And yet Geraden conveyed an intensity that moved her deeply. She felt that she had spent most of her life waiting for this time in bed with him. She could do without assurance. They would learn what they needed to know together.

But it went wrong, the way everything went wrong for him. He had discovered his talent for Imagery too late, when he was no longer able to do anything with it. Now he discovered her love for him too late, he held her in his arms too late: he had lost the ability to do anything with her. Maybe his own inexperience made him too anxious. Maybe he couldn't stop worrying about Houseldon and his family. She wasn't sure what the reason was—and in a sense she didn't care. She cared only that he swore under his breath and rolled away from her, lay on his back with his fists clenched at his sides and his muscles knotted, trying to withdraw into iron.

She watched him lock himself away from her, and her joy began to crumble. For a moment, she thought about weeping.

Then she got an idea.

With the tip of one finger, she stroked the hard line of his jaw. "Guess what," she said as if they were engaged in a casual and even bantering conversation. "I've just thought of a reason to believe I'm really real."

"I already believe it," he muttered from the opposite side of the world. "You know that."

"But you don't know why," she returned playfully. "That's the trouble with you. You don't have enough reasons. You just have your 'strongest feelings'—you do everything on faith.

"I'll give you a reason.

"People like Eremis say I was created by Imagery. I came out of you and your talent when you made that mirror. But if that's true, don't you think you would have created a woman you could have an easier time making love with?"

She took him so entirely by surprise that he couldn't stop himself. As unexpectedly as a shout, he burst out laughing.

And once he started to laugh he lost control.

"That's perfect," he gasped between gales of mirth. "I'm so confused I can't figure out my own talent. I can't help my family. Or my King. Or the woman I love. But that's not enough for me. I'm not satisfied with just that."

Briefly, she heard a note of hysteria in his laughter, and she nearly panicked. But the simple act of laughing seemed to clean the sorrow and self-pity out of him; the more he laughed, the more he relaxed.

"No, I'm so confused that when I create a woman to love I make her so perverse she accidentally betrays my whole life. Then she wants to bed me when I'm so scared I can hardly think.

"I don't need enemies. As soon as I stop laughing, I'm going to kill myself.

"Oh, Terisa."

He said her name as if it made him ache. Rolling back to her, he put his hands on the sides of her face to hold her and began kissing her again.

Unquestionably, his kisses lacked Master Eremis' assured passion. But they were sweet and compelling, like the remembered call of horns. And when she remembered horns, the music came back into her.

This time, it went right.

It went right nearly until dawn. When she finally slept, she still clung to him like a promise that she was never going to let him go.

At dawn, the house stirred around them; but she and Geraden continued sleeping.

Fortunately, Houseldon wasn't relying on Terisa and Geraden for vigilance. When the attack came, the men on watch spotted it immediately and raised the alarm.

Shouts echoed like wails among the houses and taverns, the livery stables and granaries. As fast as they could get out of bed, men spilled from their homes, clutching pitchforks and scythes, axes, shepherd's crooks sharpened to resemble pikes, sledgehammers, knives and bucksaws, ordinary clubs, an occasional sword, and more than a few hunting bows. The Domne's six trained bowmen took their command positions around the stockade almost instantly. Shouting for his canes, the Domne himself thrashed out of his twisted bedclothes.

Tholden was ahead of his father. The truth was that he had been too worried for sleep. After trying uselessly to rest until after midnight, he had gotten up, put on his clothes. If Quiss hadn't restrained him, he would have gone to wear himself out pacing around the stockade to no purpose. But she had compelled him—almost by force—to sit down and drink a flagon of wine; she had kneaded the knots in his neck and shoulders and back until her hands ached; she had made love to him. After that, he pretended to sleep until she let down her guard. Then he got out of bed again.

He was in the front room stirring up the fire when he heard the alarm. Roaring in a voice that wasn't made to convey anger or violence, he left the house. For a second, he wheeled, trying to find which direction the alarm came from. Then he set off at a run, his beard lifting in the dawn breeze.

Terisa groped awake, roused more by the way Geraden exploded out of bed than by the shouts. He seemed to jump unerringly into his clothes while she fumbled to follow him, catch up with him; he flung the door open before she had begun to button her shirt.

Nevertheless she did catch up with him. Out in the hall, he collided with Stead and had to stop to lift his injured brother off the floor. Stead clung to him for a moment. "Get me a knife," he panted. "I can't run anywhere. But I can fight here if I have to."

"I'll tell Quiss," Geraden replied as he pulled away.

With Terisa beside him now, he reached the front room, shouted Stead's message to Quiss, then dashed out of the house.

"Where?" he demanded of the first man he met.

The man looked too frightened to have any idea what he was doing. "West."

"West," Geraden muttered, thinking hard. "So it isn't soldiers. Soldiers would come from the north. The northeast."

Terisa saw what he was getting at; but her heart was pounding in her throat, and she couldn't speak.

"Eremis is sending Imagery against us."

She nodded. They ran west among the buildings.

Everyone was running west. Tholden's instructions to Houseldon had been explicit: women and children, stay at home; anyone who was too young or too frail or too sick to fight, stay at home. Unfortunately, the people of Domne had lost the habit of taking orders. The streets were crowded with people who shouldn't have been there. Some of the men who were prepared or equipped or at least determined to fight had difficulty working their way through the throng.