Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [53]
She sighed. She really didn’t want to get back to the inn. She didn’t want to go back under the sea and be parted from him. But he was continuing. “I will bespeak the bigger room. There is no reason why we cannot share it, is there?” Now he looked anxiously at her. “You don’t need to be immersed in water every day do you? Or have to put on a fish skin?”
He wanted her with him! More, he wanted her with him in public! Her heart bubbled over with happiness. “No, and I only need go down to the shore to make sure my father hasn’t sent any messages,” she assured him. “There is no reason why—” she blushed, and stammered out the last “—why we cannot be together.”
But that was skirting perilously close to the subject that they had both agreed to avoid for a little, so she said nothing more, and he did not ask or comment.
They packed up the pannier, saddled the horse, and he lifted her up onto the pillion. After a rueful look at the now-stained blanket, he folded it up so that the blood didn’t show, and tucked it in the top of the basket.
“I can fix that,” she said quietly. For of course, she could. She need but leave it in the ocean for a little, and at her direction, almost invisible sea creatures would pick it clean.
“Oh, I was just thinking that when my brother weds, they will display his sheets like a banner in the morning,” he replied, making a face. “A barbaric custom—”
“And rather difficult to manage in the sea,” she pointed out wryly. “Which may be why we set little store on that.”
He had to laugh as he mounted the horse. “Then that is wise,” he replied. “Very wise. You will have to excuse our barbaric ways.”
“Oh, we have barbaric ways enough of our own,” she replied, making a face. But she didn’t elaborate. Time enough later to warn him that he would have to fight a token battle to prove he was worthy of her hand. He was clever; he would find a way to do so even though he was no warrior. That came under the heading of all the things they would talk about on some other day.
During the ride back to the inn, she kept her arms clasped about his waist and her cheek pillowed on his shoulder, reveling in the warmth and the scent of him. He was a very cleanly man. She had been around any number of unwashed Drylanders, and she was glad she had not fallen in love with one who scorned bathing.
They reached the Inn of the Jolly Sturgeon at dusk, and he lifted her down from the saddle while the hostler came to take the horse. She had never actually been here before, although in the course of her duties, she had seen the insides of many taverns, inns, and the like. The outside was in fine repair, if a bit weather-beaten, made of wood that she suspected had to have been scavenged from shipwrecks. But that was to be expected in a place so near the sea. The Jolly Sturgeon herself was painted on either side of the door, and she did look very jolly indeed, which was odd considering how many of her kin must have been brought here, split open for their eggs, and then made into soups and stews.
Sasha led Katya by the hand straight up to a woman who was tidying the tables in an otherwise empty common room. She was a sturdy, though not at all stout, woman of middle age. A bit of dark blond hair peeked out from under her kerchief, and her cheeks were pink from the heat of the kitchen. “If it is not inconvenient, good hostess,” he said without any preamble, “I should like to bespeak a larger room.”
The innkeeper’s wife eyed both of them with a frown. “I do not run a bawdy house, sir—” she began.
“And I would not frequent one,” he replied. “This is my betrothed.”
Her frown deepened, and Katya felt suddenly uneasy. “Prince,” the woman said, “for Prince we know you are—do you know what it is you hold by the hand and call your betrothed? It would not be wise to betray her.”
At that moment, a chill seemed to fill the air, and Katya shivered. She could feel the magic of The Tradition suddenly looming over them like a wave about to break. And she felt her mouth go dry and her heart start to race. And she begged, silently, Oh don’t