Karavans (19 page)

He slung the cloak over one shoulder and reached up to still the lantern. “I’m not traveling. I’m bedding down elsewhere.”

Bethid stared at him. Then her wide mouth stretched into a knowing grin. “Ah-hah! You have an assignation.” Her pale brows arched up. “Anyone I know?”

“I do doubt it.”

Bethid didn’t give up even as he stepped to the flap, lifting her voice as he slipped out. “Male or female?”

Outside, Ferize took substance from the Grandmother’s thin moonlight, gliding from the darkness as Brodhi exited. She pulled the cloak from his shoulder and swirled it around her own until the rich blue fabric enveloped her slight, black-clad body.

“You might tell her,” Ferize suggested as they walked away from the tent.

A twig snapped under Brodhi’s boots. “Tell her what? That I have a woman—a
wife
, as they call it—and she happens to be a demon?”

“No. That I can be either human gender.” In pale light, her smile was liltingly wicked. “Or both at the same time.”

“Trust me,” he said, “of this I am certain: no human could ever possibly understand what you are, and what you can do. Part of the time I’m not certain I do.”

“And so I prefer it.” Ferize, mimicking humans, linked an arm through his as they walked. “Which would you like to sleep with this time?”

“‘This time’?” he echoed. “Is there to be another tonight? Should I reach deep inside and summon what little strength you left me the
first
time?”

Her throaty laugh stirred him, as it always did. “Oh, I do believe you will find it, should you wish to.” She lifted a fold of his mantle and smelled it, then lightly stroked the wool against her cheek. “Which would you prefer, male or female? Or both at once?”

Brodhi found within himself a laugh no human had ever heard. It was Ferize’s doing, as always, be it actual sorcery or what she provoked merely by her nearness. “All, and everything.
If
you’re up to it.”

Ferize’s response was less a human sigh than it was a feline growl, low and languorous, and infinitely pleased.

“In fact,” he began—then stopped.

Everything
stopped. The words he meant to say, the movements he intended to make, even the thoughts within his mind.

Emptiness, and a fleeting sense of loneliness.

With Ferize here? How could that be possible? She filled his soul—or whatever part of him passed for such.

He saw her face, turned up in the moonlight. Saw the questions in her eyes, the beginnings of a frown as her lips parted to speak.

Brodhi fell to his knees.

She called his name. He heard it. She knelt down beside him, placing hands on either side of his face. She turned his head and made him look at her. Sweat broke out on his face, rolled down his body beneath his clothing. Breath hissed through clenched teeth as he fought to regain self-control.

Ferize’s expression cleared even as she pressed the film of dampness from his face with a corner of his cloak. She smiled, nodding slightly. “So.”

Expelling a vicious curse, Brodhi wrenched himself to his feet. Everything ached. “Don’t,” he said through his teeth, breathing hard. “Don’t you dare.”

Ferize, rising, laughed.

Catching his breath was easier now. “Don’t you
dare
tell Rhuan.”

“My poor Brodhi, whose pride won’t let him admit to any weakness. Most especially not to his blood-kin.” She did not sound particularly sympathetic.

“To
that
blood-kin,” he elucidated. “Specifically.” He stretched his back, wincing, and felt his muscles laggardly relinquish incipient cramps.

“
Do
you have more kevi, or did you give Rhuan all of it?”

Irritation sharpened his reply. “I don’t need any kevi.”

Ferize laid a hand against her cheek, miming startled recollection. “Oh, of course not. I was forgetting. Shame on me.” She resettled his cloak around her shoulders. “Well, come along, then. Let us discover how much stamina you have left for me, after a taste of Alisanos.”

Brodhi gathered the things he had dropped when he fell, rearranging them for ease of carrying. Discomfort was dissipating, but a residue remained. “You find it humorous, do you?”

Ferize was not one to shield her words for the sake of his feelings. She offered a cheerful smile. “But of course.” Brodhi scowled at her. “You spent more concern on Rhuan.”

She laughed again, the sound rising on the cooling air. “And again, but of course. He is the baby of the family, after all.” She twined her hand into his. “Come along, my
dioscuri
. All and everything, you said. That requires time, and the night grows short.”

A
UDRUN’S SLEEP WAS filled with dreams of blood, of tears, of grief. She saw her children struck down, swept away; she saw the wagon destroyed; she smelled the odor of death. Each image carried with it the clarity of true time, not the distance of dreams. And then the faces of her children disappeared, replaced by the face of the diviner. The woman who had given them admission to the karavan by reading their hands, but who had spoken the words that now filled Audrun’s dreams.

She awoke when Davyn turned over in his sleep and accidentally jabbed her with an elbow. The dreams remained clear and vivid. From beneath the floor planks of the high, huge wagon, swathed in blankets shared with her husband, Audrun did not dream of the journey, but of the unknown danger threatening her children.

She fumbled beneath the layers of blankets and found her abdomen, shielded by the cloth of her tunic and skirts. All was stillness within. The child slept.

Audrun closed her eyes.
I could ask for another reading
. Surely the diviner would not begrudge her that. Once on the way, Ilona need examine no one concerning the safety of the karavan. She could read hands and discuss other matters.

But would she?

Audrun stroked the cloth covering her abdomen.
I was a fool. I should have done as so many others do, and asked for no images other than those connected with the karavan
. But she had asked, and now she knew. She was forewarned. Yet it gave her no guidance as to how she might halt the events that threatened her children. She felt cheated. Knowing danger existed need not always result in tragedy avoided.

Tears. Grief. Blood.

The diviner had said nothing about the importance of reaching Atalanda before the baby was born. But Audrun realized with a sense of dread that tears and grief and blood might well be her portion if they
didn’t
reach Atalanda in time.

She turned on her hip and elbow and moved closer to her husband. But even as the nearness of his body offered more warmth beneath the blankets, Audrun did not, could not, sleep.

RHUAN ROUSED TO a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, a jaw aching from clenching, and muscles that felt like water. For a long moment he lay very still with his eyes closed, evaluating his body, until he realized the scents he smelled had nothing to do with himself or his own bedroll.

Ilona? His eyes snapped open. He lay on a cot he recognized by the colorful blanket, which was rucked up around his waist, and the carved wagon ribs curving over his head, charms and talismans dangling. Beyond the glyph-painted canvas roof covering, the day was beginning as the sun crept slowly over horizon’s edge.

Rhuan sat up, suppressing a groan. Had he and Ilona—? No. He thought not. He recalled weakness, illness, Brodhi’s and Ferize’s half-carrying him to Ilona’s wagon, and Ilona herself dropping the blanket over him. He had been in no shape for intimacies.

Rhuan pushed the newly braided sidelocks out of his
face and leaned over the edge of the high cot. There she was on the floorboards of her own wagon, which chastened him; it couldn’t be terribly comfortable. But Ilona had taken the host’s part by leaving the bed to him while she slept below in a tumble of bedclothes, cushion, and sleeping mat.

He opened his mouth to speak her name, then thought better of it. Best to let her sleep as long as she could on the day of departure. He had robbed her of bed; he would not rob her of rest.

Rhuan folded the blanket aside, collected his boots, and with great care avoided stepping on Ilona as he made his way to the wagon door. He caught a glimpse of tangled dark ringlets beneath a fold of blanket, smooth olive feet, a string of brass bell-shaped charms around each ankle. Despite the bells, she slept quietly without movement or noise.

Smiling, Rhuan sketched a quick morning blessing over her, then carefully unlatched the door and climbed down the folding steps. He paused to close the door quietly, setting the latch, then turned to pull on his boots and nearly ran headlong into Darmuth. Who was, Rhuan discovered, wearing a peculiarly amused expression.

Rhuan scowled, a boot hanging from either hand. “What?”

The gemstone in Darmuth’s tooth glinted as he smiled. “Reading a hand must not be difficult when the entire body is present.”

“She read no part of me,” Rhuan retorted, bending to don boots.

Darmuth’s smile didn’t waver. “None?”

Rhuan gestured sharply for Darmuth to move on, lest the conversation outside the wagon awaken Ilona. “None. Nor ever will.” No matter how much he might wish her to. He walked with purpose away from the wagon. “And it was Brodhi and Ferize who brought me here after the ritual, so blame
them
that I ended up in Ilona’s wagon.”

Darmuth’s tone altered. “It happened again, didn’t it? Only worse this time. That’s why I smell kevi on you.”

“You smell kevi on me because Brodhi shoved it down my throat. In his zeal to help me—amazing enough in itself—he nearly choked me to death. Which, I suppose, may have been his intent.” Rhuan briefly eyed the brightening eastern horizon, estimating true sunrise. “We’d best go see what Jorda wants us to do.”

“Wait.” Darmuth’s hand on Rhuan’s upper arm stopped him. “This vow you swore about not bedding the hand-reader—”

“—remains in place,” Rhuan finished. “I do occasionally keep such vows.”

“You have just spent the night in her wagon,” Darmuth said. “And, knowing your history—and that of your sire!—I am disinclined to assume vows may not be broken no matter how sincere the maker when he swore them.”

Rhuan glared. “Leave my father out of this. As for me, my vow holds. And it was not my idea to spend the night in her wagon. Blame Brodhi for that.”

Darmuth said delicately, “It is not beyond Brodhi’s rather diabolical sense of humor to intentionally put you in position to break that vow.”

The sun passed beyond the blade of the horizon. Around them the day awoke, and with it the karavan: a multiplicity of roosters, riding in wicker crates with various harems of hens, crowed the sun into the sky.

“Of course it’s not,” Rhuan declared, “though I’m not certain he
has
a sense of humor. And he may well have done just that. But I know him, Darmuth. Brodhi may believe me incapable of keeping a vow, but that doesn’t mean it’s so. No matter how he tests me.” Behind him at the nearest wagon a particularly noisy rooster roused belatedly to join the morning chorus. Rhuan winced; the sound pierced his skull, which felt markedly fragile after the experience of the night before, and set it to aching. “Are you coming?”

Darmuth smiled. “Jorda will think you drank yourself into a stupor.”

“Not if no one tells him I did,” Rhuan declared, thinking of Brodhi’s falsehood. “Such as you.”

“I won’t have to. Your eyes are bloodshot, and along
with smelling like ritual oil and kevi, there’s the faintest wisp of baneflower. Likely he’ll think you got drunk and spent the night with a woman or three or four. Certainly such behavior is not unknown to you…or unknown
of
you. You have something of a reputation.” Darmuth paused. “And you did spend the night with a woman.”

Rhuan turned on his heel, his strides long and pronounced as he headed toward Jorda’s wagon. Darmuth, unfortunately, was very likely correct in his summing up of Jorda’s reaction. That was the problem with reputations, he reflected glumly: accurate or not, people tended to believe the worst. If they weren’t telling tales of his various conquests, they swapped stories about killings and discussed the likelihood that the latest victim was dead by his hand.

“Not fair,” Rhuan muttered.

Darmuth, laughing softly, followed.

DAVYN, TEA MUG clutched in one hand, checked the fit of the yokes across the oxen’s shoulders. “Good, good,” he murmured, testing rope loops and knots, then nodded across at Gillan on the other side of the tawny beasts. “As soon as the women are out, pull and stow the wheel chocks. We’ve no time to waste.”