Race of Scorpions - Dorothy Dunnett [229]
It seemed likely, in the extreme urgency that began to overwhelm the matter, that they would not really get out of the water. She began moving against him long before they surged to the edge of the pool and afterwards he didn’t remember whether or not they arrived separately on the hot, sunny bank. Everything else seemed blotted out by this extraordinary event, dwarfing the terror behind them in its avidity. Its summary nature, or the tension, and the release from tension hurled them both, immediately it was over, into fathomless sleep. After an uncounted passage of time Nicholas woke, leaf-shadow and sun on his back, and moved gently away from his sleeping mistress.
The glade was as it had been when they arrived there. Well, not quite the same, maybe. Beyond the dell where they lay, the trees, the boulders, the mosses slept with their moving moth-burdens, syrup-fed, drowsy in silence. Those who had pursued them and died floated transparent brown in the pool, or lay drying like leaves on the pebbles with ant trails already consuming them. Some idly moving from harvest to harvest, passed transparently over his head, or settled below, heart-shaped, brown seamed with yellow. Some, bigger and brighter, were not moths but stray and beautiful butterflies. Far away, a sleeping cinnamon carpet, lay Katelina’s veil and his shirt, where he had thrown them together.
She was going to need something to wear. So was he, apart from his boots. He began to laugh to himself, hoping they had not been an inconvenience. The moths rose when he handled the garments, but beyond brushing his skin, made no effort to settle on him. He scoured both, then hung them to dry on a twig. Though he watched, no moths rushed to alight on them. He did the same for her chemise, when he found it. Her gown was torn to shreds, by her hands or his. Much further down, to his relief, he found his own peasant-breeches, cast up on the bank and half dry. He put them on, and came back, silently, in case he frightened her.
She was sitting up, motionless, her back to him. Her hair, half dried, fell down her back like fine brown hemp of different textures. He continued to walk without sound, allowing himself the modest delight of looking at the silky knobbed tail of her spine, ending in the double whorl of white buttocks whose contours he could not remember exploring. He saw blue veins, like the veins he had glimpsed on the ripe, unfamiliar breasts pressed below him such a short time ago. Such a long time ago. Such an unspeakably long time ago. He realised with a quarter of his mind that whatever had happened was going to happen again, and he couldn’t halt it. Then he stopped still.
There was a moth near her, passing through shafted sunlight, and she was watching it. Her face was invisible. But he saw her raise her wrist slowly, and hold it. Like a courtier, the clouded thing landed on it, its orange skirts vanished, and lay, a frail umber shield veined with yellow. She remained without moving until his shadow fell at her side. Even then, she didn’t speak until, of its own accord, the moth palpitated, and went on its way.
Then she said, ‘It was a test. If I could do it, you were going to come back.’
‘You can trust me without that,’ he said. ‘They are helpless, and don’t mean any harm. And they know only one mating.’
He saw from the line of her cheek that she smiled. She looked round at him, and up and, leaning back on one elbow, let him see all he wanted to be reminded of. Then she said, as he had hoped, ‘And am I to be the same?’
Part-way through, she saw his hands and caught them saying, ‘The rocks at Lindos?’ He answered that without words, and didn’t use words, either, when later she said, ‘I adore you. I will adore you for ever.’
It was necessary afterwards not to sleep; but hard to separate limb from limb so that he could collect