A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [73]
When Jill got back to the camp, she found it silent, with no one up but Keeta, sitting yawning by a dying fire.
“I moved your gear and blankets and things over to our tent. Better let Salamander and Marka have one to themselves. Thought I’d better wait up and tell you.”
“Ah, I see,” Jill said. “Thank you.”
On the morrow, when the troupe marched off into town to register the wedding officially at the archon’s palace, Jill stayed in camp, but she came to greet them when they paraded back again. At the head of the line, sitting sidesaddle on Salamander’s dapple-gray horse, rode Marka, flushed and smiling, with her new husband walking beside her. In full costume the acrobats followed, singing, laughing, doing a bit of juggling or a dance here and there. A crowd of children and citizens brought up the rear, treating the acrobats’ wedding as just another show, although, in all fairness, Salamander and Marka seemed delighted to provide them with it. When they reached camp, he swept her out of the saddle and kissed her soundly. To the cheering of the crowd they held hands and bowed, while the rest of the troupe scurried round collecting the small coins that rained down upon the pair. Jill could only think that indeed, Salamander had found himself a perfect wife.
Toward evening, however, Jill dragged him away from the dancing and music. In the lengthening shadows they walked together among the palms at the edge of the campground. A sunset wind was springing up, sending drifts of dusts across the dead-flat plains.
“Somewhat I wanted to ask you,” Jill said in Deverrian. “When you agreed to come to Bardek with me, was it mostly on the hope of finding Alaena again?”
“I cannot tell a lie. Indeed it was.”
Jill snorted profoundly, realizing even as she did it that she sounded just like Nevyn.
“But, Jill, it ail worked out for the best, didn’t it now? Have I not been your guide, your escort, your loyal companion and faithful dog, even, while at the same time rescuing my beloved from a life of virtual slavery to her bestial father?”
“It was Keeta who did the rescuing. You were just the bait.”
“Imph, well, I suppose so, but how crudely you put things sometimes.”
“My heart bleeds. On the morrow we’re going to find a ship for Anmurdio and get on with our search and that’s that.”
“I’ve already found the ship.” He favored her with a brilliant grin. “We had to wait a fair bit down at the archon’s palace, and there was a ship’s captain waiting there as well to register his last cargo, and so lo and behold! A deal was struck.”
And that was the worst of Salamander, Jill reflected. Just when you were about to allow yourself the pleasure of berating him, he went and did something right.
Evandar lounged upon a hilltop that overlooked the remains of a formal garden, roses gone wild and tangled, hedges sending long green fingers into the air, muddy walks cracking. The plan of squares and half circles stretched out skewed, as well, as if the right half had shrunk and the left grown along the diagonal.
“It looks squashed,” he remarked to Dallandra. “As if a giant had fallen against it.”
“I see what you mean. Is this the garden you showed me when first I came here?”
“It is, yes, but now it’s spoilt. And the house, the splendid rooms I made for you—they’ve all gone away, too, turned into air and blown far, far away. It always happens. I try to build as once your people built, but never does a stone or stick last me out.”
“This world was meant for flux,