The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [136]
‘It hurts, but not too badly.’ Laz pulled off the blood-stained shirt and tossed it onto the table. ‘Do you realize that the sun is a long way past its zenith, and I’ve not taken you back to bed yet?’
‘I don’t want—’
He caught her by the shoulders and drew her close. ‘Yes, you do,’ he said. ‘I can smell it on you.’
The horrible truth, she realized, was that he was right. She found herself remembering the silent way his men had done nothing to save Movrae. None of them had dared to cross Laz, their commander, their dominator. The memory rose of Movrae, twisting in terror, and of Laz, so quick to strike, and the blood, that flash of scarlet in the sun. Something deep in her soul had responded to the sight. Something was responding now, revelling in the memories like a dog rolling in carrion.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Alshandra help—’
Laz kissed her before she could finish the prayer. He pulled her close, kissed her again, then walked her backwards until they fell together into the tumbled blankets, soaked in their scent. The world shrank to his body and his bed, as it always did once he had his hands upon her.
As the drowsy days passed, her years in the temple began to seem like a story she’d told herself rather than memories of a time when she’d been happy. Even her worries about damnation receded into the distant mist of the future. Yet she had a new fear. How would he react when she got pregnant again? Laz had his own view of what had happened the last time, a much rosier picture than her memories of his temper tantrums and sulks. When, after an eightnight, her moon flow began, she danced around the cabin in joy.
By Gel da’ Thae custom, that flow marked her as forbidden to him. The dangerous blood reminded men that women came and went as they wished, not as the men wished, and that men must wait for what they wanted from their women. For the first four days Laz shared Faharn’s shelter, and while she was secluded, he flew. She looked out of a window on the first morning to see the raven swooping up from the clearing and heading for the open sky beyond. The dragon! What if the dragon sees him? The thought filled her with such terror that for a moment she laid a cold hand over her heart and gasped for breath. Yet he’d flown off so confidently—the fear vanished in a stab of anger. He’d lied to her, no doubt, about the silver dragon, when he was trying to persuade her to come away with him.
‘Why do I ever believe him?’ she whispered.
Laz returned safely that evening. She saw the raven land, and in a while he came to the door in his man’s shape. He brought her a carefully packed basket of food, setting it down outside, then retreated while she brought it in. From the doorway she saw Faharn, waiting some yards away and smiling as Laz walked over to join him. For these few days, at least, he would have his teacher back.
With Laz gone, the sexual scent in the cabin air slowly cleared. Sidro began to realize how much his raw smell had intoxicated her, trapped inside as she’d been. It had muddled her thoughts far worse than any ale or mead could have done. She began to remember various odd things that she’d accepted without much of a struggle. What had Pir meant, anyway, that she’d have to know sooner or later? And where had Laz found the white crystal? Where did he go when he flew as the raven? She decided that from then on she would spend part of the day outside or at the least, at the window. The stinking air of the camp seemed preferable to losing her reason for days on end. After what had happened to Movrae, none of Laz’s men would dare accost her. She could be sure of that.
To occupy her time apart, Laz had opened the locked box and given her a pair of thick books, written on pale leather. Even though she’d been born a slave, Sidro had been taught to read. In the Gel da’ Thae view, reading helped set themselves and their slaves apart from the savage tribes of the far north as well as from the farm slaves who fed the cities. During the day she sat at the table and read bits and pieces of magical