The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [191]
“Sooner or later he’ll have to know,” Dallandra said.
“True spoken. I’ll tell him this very night, after we do make camp.”
Yet Sidro found one excuse after another to put off telling him that night, and the next as well, until she dreamt of Laz again. She woke to gray light and the sound of rain on the tent roof. Beside her in their blankets Pir lay asleep, one arm thrown over his face. Cautiously she sat up without waking him. She took her tunic from the ground and pulled it on. Over the winter she’d sewn them both Westfolk clothing with the help of the other women in the alar. Although her embroidery still looked clumsy to her, compared to the beautiful craft of the others, she’d grown used to the comfort of the loose linen as opposed to her old heavy leather dress.
We’re happy here, she thought, Pir and I. Another thought sounded in her mind like the clang of a brass bell, loud and threatening—Laz, riding closer every day. She realized that she was thinking of Laz as a storm cloud, sweeping into view on a sunny day.
“What’s wrong?” Pir yawned and sat up. “You look frightened.”
“Do I?”
He cocked his head to one side and considered her. “I can smell fear on you,” he said.
Sidro took a deep breath, then decided to just blurt the truth. “It’s because Laz is on his way here.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. The bond between us, the magic we shared—of course I’m certain.”
“Ah.”
She waited, but he said nothing more, his face abruptly masked, distant from her. The distance wrung her heart.
“I don’t know what to do,” Sidro said.
“Don’t you want him back?” Pir said.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s something, more than I thought I’d ever get.”
“Don’t say that! You deserve more. You’ve been so good to me, I—I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do. Will you go off with Laz and the rest of the men if he doesn’t want to stay here?”
“No. You asked me once if I was happy here. Well, I’ve made up my mind about it. I have my horses, and for the first time in my life, I have friends. I won’t be leaving.”
“Well, I don’t want to lose you, and now I’m studying with Val, too, but you know that Laz won’t want to stay with the Westfolk. He’s not going to ride at the prince’s orders just so he can be my First Man.”
“Laz will never ride at anyone’s orders. He’ll want you to go away with him.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And most likely you’ll go.”
“I don’t know that.” But when he touches me, she thought, can I really say him nay?
Pir smiled, a brief flicker of a smile, then reached over and caught her hand. “Well, then, we’ll see when he gets here. That’s all we can do, wait and see what happens then.”
He was right, she supposed. Bitterly, bitterly right—she felt as cold as if a sorcerous snowfall had fallen from the clear summer sky. What was Laz going to say when he found her with the horse mage instead of staying faithful to him like a patient slave? It’s my right to have a Second Man, she told herself. She knew, as well, that she wasn’t afraid of Laz, that it was herself, her own weakness for him, that frightened her. Every time he touched her, she felt her sense of self melting away.
But thinking of the ancient laws of the Gel da’Thae reminded her of something important. I still have one weapon, she realized. Laz was as Gel da’Thae as she was. Some things they would share forever, no matter how far from home they were. One weapon, if she could bring herself to use it—and she’d not have to say a word.
With a dragon for an escort, what was left of Aethel’s caravan met no more trouble as it made its way south. Every morning Rori would fly ahead, then return to tell Richt and Laz the best route to take while he circled above, on guard against enemies. They picked their way through tangled primeval forest, dismounted to lead the horses and remaining mules along the narrow paths beside streams, luxuriated in the few patches of meadow they came upon, and finally rode down one last canyon to see the open grasslands stretching out before them in the golden light of late afternoon.
As she looked out across