[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (63 page)

And so it was that our first days in the land of
the Gedri were spent in flight.

Lanen

I still regret there was nothing I could do for
Rella, not even wait for her to be healed, but I
knew where she was going. And she was
alive. That would have to do for now.

On our journey it occurred to me that those who
tried to kill her may have expected me to
wait for her to recover, to stand
useless vigil by her side. To this day I do not understand why
so many
people think that a kind heart is an indication of a weak mind.

Varien and I bought the first decent horses we
found—not as good as Hadron’s, of course—and rode out of Corli barely two hours
after we had arrived. We journeyed north overland,
keeping to the main highways, staying
at crowded inns along the way, travelling as long as
the sun was in the sky and keeping
watch turn and turn about at night in our room. The lateautumn
days were
closing in, so we made the best of the shrinking daylight hours, riding until
the last drop
of daylight was wrung from the sky, rising well before first light to break our
fast
and
be on our way.

We passed through the great plains of southern
Ilsa. The ploughed fields were shorn now of
their burden of grain and lay around
us in untamed stretches, brown with winter’s approach.

I found great beauty in the land, perhaps because
I was given to see it with another’s eyes.

Varien

Once I had learned to stop falling off my
horse—and I had an excellent teacher—I began to
enjoy the stark beauty of the plains
through which we rode. I missed the mountains and
forests of my home, but the rising
sun shone red-gold and kindly on fields where the Gedri
had toiled, and I was content.

With the land, at least.

I found as we journeyed together, learning more
of each other at night and morning in those
few moments we had in peace, I could
let sorrow and amazement and fear each have their
place and yet have room for one
feeling more. I would not have thought it possible, but my
love for my dearling
grew with each passing day. Everything I learned about her I cherished,
her high
heart and brave soul proved as true in everyday life as it had been on the
Dragon Isle
in
the midst of high matters and great changes. I have found over the years that,
as with my
own
people, the true test of character is to deal with others kindly from one day
to the next. It
is
not so difficult to rise to the best of one’s being when matters of great
moment are at stake.

It is very difficult indeed to rise each morning
with a kind heart.

As we travelled north, I found that other things
were rising as well. The incredible sensitivity
of my skin was gradually wearing
off—clothing was no longer uncomfortable to wear, I had
to think about it to notice the wind
on my hand—but other things were happening that
concerned me. The Kantri mate perhaps
a dozen times in a lifetime spanning many
centuries. It is a response to the
urge to procreate, and though the joining of souls is a
wonder, the act itself is difficult
and,
 
understand, more than a little
painful. Certainly there is
no great pleasure in it.

When first I noticed something unusual happening
to my body—we were some four weeks
out of Corli—I innocently asked Lanen about it. Then I
had to ask why her face had turned
red. At that time, she mumbled something incoherent
and swiftly changed the subject. The
next evening, however, she seemed to have come to
terms with the idea. She sat me down and
explained the technical details of
human mating. It sounded dreadfully awkward at best. She
laughed at my
puzzled expression and put her arms about me—I had learned what “hug”
was, and
returned it gladly—and said we should discover more about it later.

Lanen

Dear Goddess, it was hard. At first I never
mentioned the subject of sex, for we were still
learning about each other, and Varien
was busily coming to terms with a new life and a new
form.

The problem was that his new form was to me the
most alluring I had ever known. And I slept
near him, and longed for him as a
drowning man longs for air, and had not yet allowed myself
so much as a
lingering kiss.

It was not that I was, as the foolish maidens in
Ilsa put it, “saving myself” until we were wed.

The thought never crossed my mind to do any such
thing. But for all his length of days,
Varien was yet but a month or so old as a human, and
in honour and simple respect I made
myself wait until he had grown into his new body
before I did anything about my own desires.

Typical, of course. When he finally asked me
about “mating” (as he called it), I was in the
blood of my moon-cycle. I tried to
keep a straight face about explaining the details, but when
he looked so
skeptical-—and at one point absolutely disbelieving—I laughed and held him
tight and
said we’d work on it later.

Goddess, it was hard to let him out of my arms. I
longed for him more each day, and we had
never yet truly kissed. He was still
learning how, though his pecks on the cheek were rapidly
progressing
from the buss of a toddler to something more interesting.

I am not by nature a patient soul. Thank the Lady
we were working so hard to put distance
between us and Corli, and were
keeping watch over each other through the nights. It meant
we were
seldom in bed (when we slept in a bed) at the same time.

Damn, damn, damn.

Varien

Lanen said we were making for her old home,
Hadrons-stead. She had told me about the
Gedri custom of “wedding,”
and when I asked if we might not be wed on the morrow, she
laughed
kindly and explained that the whole idea was to have friends and family to
witness
the
formal joining, and we would need to wait until we reached her home.

It made perfect sense. There is a formality of
roughly the same kind among the Kindred, in
which the two who wish to be joined
go together to their families and announce their intent.

By happy chance I heard a ballad one night as we
supped in the common room of that night’s
inn. It was a tale of two lovers, and
though it ended badly—very badly—I suspected that I
could do worse than follow the hero’s
early example.

Accordingly, a week after she had explained
things to me, I judged that the time was ripe.

When we returned from our supper,

“I went and took her hand in mine,

and down upon one knee

I begged my true love me to
wed,

and gave her kisses three.”

Of course, I kissed her thrice on the cheek,
though my rising blood told me that something
else entirely was called for.

Lanen raised me up and took my face in her hands,
smoothing back my hair, and said in
truespeech,
”Of
course I will wed with you, Varien Kantriakor, did you think otherwise?”

”Never, dearling, since the Flight of the
Devoted. We became one that night”—and with
great satisfaction I leant down, such
a little way, and kissed her on the lips, full and long and
deep. It
thrilled me, a simple kiss shivering down my spine, and I said in a voice now
grown
rough
with longing—“and now we are of one kind and Kindred, and a true joining
is
possible.
Come, my beloved, Kadreshi naVarien, join with me in love.”

“Varien.
Akor. Kadreshi naLanen.”

Lanen

I have tried to write of that night, the first of
our loving, a hundred times, and each time it
sounds worse—full of gushing
sentiment, the words of a green girl with her first true lover.

But despite our lack of experience we were
neither of us children, and after the first
fumbling starts we laughed, kissed
again deeply, and went about it with light hearts and
urgent bodies.

It was wonderful. I suspect I did more than my
fair share of laughing at Varien’s astonishment
at finding things so pleasurable, but
my love laughed with me, and it was good.

We had seen no sign of pursuit in all this time
and dared to hope ourselves safe, at least for
the moment. I had asked the
hostellers along the way, and we were no more than halfway, if
that, when we
began our loving. The days sped past as we rode swiftly, still with the thought
of escaping a
threat, but also trying to outpace the onset of deep winter; and the
nights were
spent in love and delight as we learned each other’s bodies and rejoiced in
their
blending.

We were blessed in the weather as well—at least,
when I remember those times, the sun is
always bright with the edged golden
light of late autumn, the sky is blue and only spotted with
clouds enough
to make a goodly show. There again, if we had ridden through another such
tempest as
had tossed the Harvest ship on the way to the Dragon Isle, I don’t think either
of us
would
have noticed.

I do remember, though, that it was on such a day
that we came to Hadronsstead at last. It was
only two hours after
noon
and already
the sun was falling in the West, but we saw the stead
first in daylight as we came over the
rise. I could hardly bear the joy that possessed me—for
not only was I come home, I saw in a
field not fifty paces distant the face of all my kindred.

“Jamie!” I cried, and in the instant I
was off my horse and running.

Varien

If there had been a hundred men in that field, I
would have known Jamie among them. His
face gleamed like a sunrise when he saw her—and when I
touched my hand to my soul-gem (I
carried the circlet under my coat), I could feel his
joy and his deep rejoicing.

He held her tight, the embrace of a father and
daughter, and over her shoulder he looked into
my eyes. I dismounted and strode over
to them, stood waiting while yet they communed in
silence.

When at last he could bear to let her go, she
stood back and would have spoken (to give us
each other’s usenames, I learned
later—a curious but useful habit when there are so many to
know), but
Jamie silenced her with a gesture. He gazed deep into my eyes. I smiled, for he
stood in what
was unmistakably Protection of a Youngling, as I had when first I met Lanen. I
met his gaze
in quiet rejoicing, for Lanen had told me so much of this man who stood father
to her.

Suddenly he grinned, and his first words to me
were “Yes, you do love her truly, don’t you?”

“More than I have words to say,” I told
him.

“Come away in, my children,” he said,
taking an arm each of ours in his own and leading us
towards the building. “We have
much to do in little time, if there is to be a wedding at
midwinter.”

Lanen could not speak for joy, and I would not
interrupt their communion, so in the silence of
kinship we came to Hadronsstead and
in at the kitchen door.

It was late that night when at last all tales
were told in full. I could not read Jamie’s expression
as he glanced from Lanen to me and
back again, but it was certain he could not be mistaken
in our regard for one another.

Lanen retired first, pleading weariness, but we
all three knew well enough why she left Jamie
and me alone. He gazed at me in
silence for some time. I returned his gaze openly, though I
found it hard
not to laugh.

“I’m glad I amuse you, at least,” he
said gruffly. “What’s so funny?”

”Forgive me, Master Jameth. I wondered if you
thought to outwait me in silence, as we do
with the younglings of our Kindred
when they have some minor disobedience to admit to their
elders.”

“I am not as gullible as Lanen,” he
replied. “I don’t believe in wonders. Where had you been
hiding in
that cave, and for how long?”