Fallen (18 page)

While Rhiana went to work on Ramus's wound, Beko stood and came to Nomi. He touched her shoulder, hesitated, then pulled her close, pressing his cheek against hers. “Perhaps it was a mistake,” he said.

“No!” Nomi said.

“You young lovers piss off and take it somewhere else,” Rhiana said. “Whatever happened here, I don't want him waking back into it. It's a light faint. He'll come around soon.”

Nomi half expected Beko to berate Rhiana for talking to him like that, but he grabbed Nomi by the arm and guided her away.

They emerged back into the camp, to find the other Serians sitting around the fire, brewing red root tea and obviously doing their best to come around.

“There's no problem,” Beko said. “But that tea's a good idea.” None of them asked any questions, and for that Nomi was glad.

“Beko . . .” she said.
Can we talk?
she wanted to ask. And she wanted to tell him about her and Ramus, how their friendship was fraught with complications, how there had never been anything more serious between them. Not physically, and not in her mind. What went on in Ramus's head had always been a mystery to her, and now rather than being enlightened, she was more confused than ever.

But Beko looked at her and shook his head slightly, then went back to his saddle. He sat and stared into the fire, accepting a mug of red root tea from Noon, and by the time Rhiana helped Ramus back into the camp they had been sitting in silence for some time.

RAMUS, COWED AND
in pain, still uncertain on his feet, still trying to shake the sway from his system, allowed Rhiana to help him settle beside his saddle. He leaned against the smooth leather and rested his wounded arm across his lap. The burn scorched a path of pain all through his arm and seemingly down to the bone, but the Serian had told him it would heal well. The paste she had chewed and then smeared against the wound was dark in the moonlight, but better that than the sight of his own blackened skin. He was grateful to her, and he told her so.

“Just rest,” she said. “I'll redress it in the morning.”

Ramus nodded and looked down at his arm. If he looked up he'd be with everyone else; at least if he could not see them he could pretend he was on his own.
Hiding,
he thought, and the shame warmed his skin as well as the fire did. Someone had piled more wood and firestones into the blaze, and now it threw sparks skyward and lit the entire camp. Sway rapidly fading, it seemed that events had brought an end to sleep.

What was I thinking?
The memory came back to him, Beko and Nomi entangled in the moonlight, skin pale with a silvery sheen, gasps like wraiths in the night.
What a fool,
he thought.
That's what they'll think of me. A fool who gets swayed and loses control.

He glanced across at Nomi. She was sitting on her saddle, elbows on knees, leaning forward and staring into the flames. Over the years, the more he considered they could be together as more than friends, the less likely that scenario seemed. And they were
good
friends, the
best.
If only he could have been content with that.

Ramus rose, standing still for a moment to make sure he had his balance. Then he walked a dozen steps to where Nomi sat, knelt down and waited for her to look at him.

She knew he was there, but her gaze never left the flames.

“Nomi,” Ramus began, but he got no further.

“You've always been jealous of me,” Nomi said. Her voice was low but filled with bitterness. Still she stared into the flames. “My money, my lovers, my friends. They always make you feel low and sad, and pathetic.”

“No,” Ramus said, shaking his head.

“Yes. And my voyages.”

“Your
voyages
?” He laughed, and it sounded more mocking than he'd intended. “Why would I be jealous of them? You've been out twice, and you came back with nothing but meaningless maps and fruit.”

“And what's wrong with that?” She had turned from the flames to stare at him now, and fire still seemed to dance in her eyes.

“It's hardly pushing the boundaries of discovery,” Ramus said. He was aware of heads turning as he and Nomi raised their voices.

“And that's another reason you resent me,” she said. “You go out and strive to be famous—discover things, write books, bring back news of places and people and things never seen or known before. But what do you have? Piss all. You walk around a mountain range for a year and return with news of rock and snow.”

“I don't resent you for being a wine trader,” he said.

“And why
shouldn't
I benefit from my voyages? You have this belief, Ramus, that true explorers need to suffer for their calling.”

“Not suffer. It's about purity of purpose.”

“My purposes
are
pure. I go out and discover, and if something I find can make me some money, I see nothing wrong in that.”

Ramus stood and turned away. “I only came to apologize.”

“Then say it. Say you're sorry.”

The Serians were watching them, and to Ramus their faces all suddenly seemed the same.

“Tell me you're sorry for interrupting me and Beko while we humped, Ramus!”

He shook his head. “Not when you're like this.”

“Like what? Angry because you act like some spurned lover? If you think like that sometimes, then I'm sorry, but it's only you. We're friends, that's all. And sometimes barely that.”

“Maybe you're right,” he said.

“Of course I am.” But he heard hesitation in Nomi's voice, and that allowed him to defeat his self-doubt.

Ramus turned back to face Nomi. “But maybe not. Because I think the truth is, it's you who are jealous of me.”

ME, JEALOUS OF
him
? Does he really mean that? Does he really believe . . . ?
Nomi laughed and shook her head, but the uncertainty lingered. There was his illness, after all.

“Don't be a fool,” she said.

“It's you!” Ramus said, voice louder now. “I came here to apologize, because I was wrong. Who you fuck is up to you, not me, and you're right, it really is none of my business. But don't accuse me of being jealous of you . . . your safe little voyages . . . your fancy wine and nice home and mindless friends. What could I possibly want with any of that, Nomi? Your life is a blank, and you're barely a shade across it.”

“I like my life,” she said, and she told the truth. She
did
like her life. What was there to not like?

“But I'm a real Voyager,” Ramus said. “And you're jealous of that. You covet my knowledge, my intelligence, my ability to read, the places I've been and the things I've seen.”

“And your humility?” But this was ice that could not be broken.

Ramus shook his head sadly. “I'm just saying what I see, and what I know you feel. You want to be a Voyager who'll be remembered, but I've given more back to the Guild than you'll ever attain.”

“And now we're out here without the Guild,” she said. “Explain that.”

“We both know this is beyond even them. We talked about it, and agreed. And you wouldn't have a clue about where we're going if it weren't for me.”

“Ha! Don't give yourself all the credit,
Voyager.
Ten brought the pages to
me,
not you, so—”

“And you
still
don't have a clue. Not an inkling. This is just another little adventure for you, and you'll be looking with money eyes. The importance of what we may find is
nothing
to you, so long as you can still have your wine, and your humps, and as long as your safe rich friends are ready to congratulate you if we ever get home.”

“Of course we'll get home,” she said, nervous at where this was going. Two days out from Long Marrakash and already Ramus was announcing their possible doom. Surely he could not mean that. He was angry and confused, and probably embarrassed.

“Maybe,” he said, and looked into the fire. She did not like his expression when he did that. He looked like a man with secrets.

Nomi stood and approached Ramus, and though she felt Serian eyes upon her, this was about the two of them. “Ramus? Don't you dare go quiet on me now, not with what you've said.” She reached out—to shove or to touch, she was not sure—but he looked at her hand with contempt.

“Admit it,” he said.

“Admit what?” Through the flames she saw Beko watching them, his face quivering and melting in the heat. She wished she could see his eyes properly, take strength from them.

“Admit you want to be a little like me.”

Nomi smiled. Grinned. Laughed out loud. And with every heartbeat she saw the bitterness in Ramus's expression increasing.
If I keep laughing,
she thought,
it won't be long until he hates me.
The idea was ridiculous and absurd, and it made her laugh some more.

“I know about Marquella of the Guild,” Ramus said.

His voice, so quiet that the crackle of flames almost swallowed it, cut into her laughter and killed it at the source.

“Marquella?” she said. But there was no way she could deny her treachery. Not with Ramus, because he was too sharp for her to win such an argument. And not in front of these Serians—and Beko—because to do so would make it all seem worse.

“Marquella!” Ramus said, turning to the Serians and acknowledging their attention for the first time. “Very high up in the Guild echelons. He was a Voyager himself, many years ago, and a great one too.”

“Ramus, don't do this,” Nomi said, trying to remain as dignified as she could. “Please?”

“Please?” he repeated, glancing at her only once. “Piss on you, Nomi. Piss on you and your pathetic jealousy. You can't undo your wrongs with ‘please.’ ”

“Can we at least talk about this?”

Ramus nodded. “We are! We're talking about Marquella, and how you persuaded him to refuse a voyage plan I had submitted. It would have been my
greatest
! Once I heard whispers of what had happened, I tried to find out exactly
how
you persuaded him, but it wasn't as if I could ask Marquella himself. By then he would barely acknowledge me in the Guild buildings. Looked at me as though I was something he stepped in at the markets.”

“It wasn't like that,” Nomi said.

“Then what was it like? Tell me the reason you had to destroy my plans.”

Nomi shook her head, and she realized that she could not tell. Because there was no reason.

“Envy?” Ramus said. “I
told
you I was planning a voyage to the Poison Forests, and over the weeks you got wind of the fact that the Guild was about to sanction it, with a full complement of Serian guards and porters. And that was more than they ever gave you, so . . . ?”

“I was worried for you,” Nomi said, and every time she had thought of her betrayal since it happened, that was what she tried to tell herself. The Poison Forests were a dangerous place, barely traveled and mysterious. Of the people who had gone in there, more had gone missing than returned.

But it was also one of the great prizes of voyaging. And Ramus's take on such a journey—a mapping of the outskirts, classification of plants and animals into differing poison strengths, the collection of samples that could allow potential cures to be created—had won the Guild over.

Her reaction to that, thought but never spoken, had been,
It should have been me.

“I thank you for your concern,
friend,
” Ramus said, and never had that word been spoken with such venom. “So how did you persuade Marquella to embargo the plan? A word in his ear, a promise of a lifetime's supply of Ventgorian wine? Or did you just suck his cock?”

Nomi lashed out. She missed, her hand skimming Ramus's shoulder, and it was only then that she realized she was crying. The tears caught light from the fire and fractured her vision, and she turned away from Ramus and faced out into the night.

“How pissing
dare
you even suggest that,” she said. “I never laid a finger on Marquella, and he never touched me.” She wiped the tears from her face and spun around to face Ramus again. Her voice was low, and it came from somewhere deeper and darker than normal. “You piece of shit, Ramus. How fucking
dare
you?”

“How dare
I
?” His face changed a little when he saw her tears, and she was certain there was a hint of regret. But regret can only go so far. And once some things are said, there is no unsaying them.

“You're right,” Nomi said. “I didn't want you to go on that voyage. What we're doing here, now, is what I've wanted for a long time. To share in discovery. Why do you think I came to you with Ten's parchment, and not the Guild? I know I can learn from you, and I was hoping . . . hoping that you could learn from me.”

“What could I
ever
learn from you?”

“I know I don't read books or understand the old languages, but at least I live a little.”

“
Live
a little?”

“Yes! And there's nothing wrong with that, either. I don't bury myself away in Long Marrakash between voyages, sulking in my rooms, wishing I were greater than I really am. I
enjoy
myself, Ramus. You should try it one day. You're
pathetic!
”