The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [69]
“Well, if you are, there’s a sensible way of dealing with the problem, and you’re going to do it.”
Alaena nodded dumbly.
“And you’re going to sell Rhodry back to his brother, and you’re going to do that tonight.”
“I don’t want to sell him. I’ll give him to his beastly brother. I don’t want one stupid zotar for him.”
“Very good. Rhodry, fetch Porto and tell him to bring bark-paper and ink. I’ll write out a deed of gift right now and have your mistress sign it.”
As Rhodry ran from the room, his heart was pounding in excitement, but not so much from the prospect of freedom. At last he was going to learn the truth about himself. And then, all at once, he was afraid, wondering just what that truth might be.
“It’s almost night,” Jill said. “Surely that blasted message should come soon.”
“I wouldn’t call sunset ‘almost night,’ oh fretful egret of mine, but truly, I can understand why impatience blooms within your—oho! Footsteps are also blooming in the corridor.”
Now that the crux was here Jill felt paralyzed. Moving faster than she’d ever seen him move, Salamander leapt from the divan, dashed for the door, and flung it open just as someone knocked. Rhodry stood there, a bedroll slung over his shoulder, a leather letter case in his hand. From her perch on the windowsill Jill watched, half-greedy at the sight of him, half-afraid she’d conjured up his image like one of her visualization exercises. Rhodry glanced her way, then merely looked around the room in a soul-weary bewilderment.
“She’s willing to sell you, then?” Salamander said.
“She’s not, but she’s made a gift of me.” Rhodry handed over the letter case. “It’s an odd thing, to be owned by your own brother.”
“Oh by the gods! You know, then?”
“The women spotted it, and once I had a moment to look in a mirror, I could see the same thing they did.” Rhodry smiled in a painful self-mockery. “I can’t lie and say I remember you, lad, but I’ve never been more glad to see kinfolk in my life—I guess. I couldn’t swear to that, either, not to save my life. Here, do you know what’s happened to me?”
“Probably better than you do, oh brother of mine. Ah ye gods, it gladdens my heart to see you free.”
When, half in tears, Salamander grabbed his arm and hauled him into the chamber, Rhodry tossed his bedroll onto the floor, then all at once looked up and gave Jill a smile that came from a recognizable ghost of his old self, only a shadow, perhaps, but cast by a familiar sun.
“And aren’t we supposed to be rushing into each other’s arms and babbling at each other like in a gerthddyn’s tales, my love? It seems cursed tame, to just walk in and hand over my bill of sale.”
She laughed, and with that, she felt as if a small but ugly ensorcelment had broken in her own mind. She slipped off the windowsill and ran the last few steps to his open arms. His embrace was so familiar—the way he gathered her close, the way his hands moved on her back—that she wanted to alternately shriek and howl with laughter like an hysterical child. Instead she kissed him, and again, the feel of his mouth on hers was as companionable as the voice of an old friend unheard for too long. When something wet touched her face she looked up to find him in tears.
“I remember you, Jill. I never did completely forget you, not even at my worst—I want you to know that. And now, well, I remember more about you than I do about anything else, but by every god and his horse, I don’t remember everything.” He paused, sniffing like a child, and let her go to wipe his face on his tunic sleeve. “I don’t even remember how we met.”
“Do you remember how we parted?”
“Somewhat about it. Tell me one thing—did you want to ride off with Perryn?”
“Never! I swear it on the gods of our people!”
“That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He grabbed her again and kissed her, and this time he was laughing, his old berserker’s chuckle under his breath, as if her kiss were magic enough to give him back his past. Yet all at once, when he let her go, that fragment of his old self disappeared into his bewilderment like