The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [186]
‘I knew you’d come,’ she kept saying, ‘I knew you’d come for me.’
All Tarro could do was stroke her cropped-off hair as he wept with her. Minaz was watching the pair with a puzzled frown.
‘His sister,’ Indar said with some asperity. ‘Do such kin ties matter among you?’
‘They do, and most deeply.’ Minaz paused to clear his throat. ‘Did you think perhaps they did not? I merely wondered what relation the lass might be to him.’
Indar and his Gel da’ Thae counterpart looked at each other for a long stony moment. The thin web of civility among heralds stretched close to breaking; then Minaz turned away with a shrug. ‘These are all the women in the dun who would leave,’ he said. ‘Have you any messages for my rakzanir?’
By then the crowd of rescued women had hurried on past. Salamander spun around with Minaz’s words burning in his soul: all the women who would leave. He saw no sign of Rocca anywhere he looked. He desperately wanted to run after them, to find Lakanza and beg her to tell him where Rocca might be, but he still had a role to play in the complex exchanges between the heralds. Although Zakh Gral’s women might be safe, the lives of the men in both armies still stood at the edge of death’s cliff. Honour demanded that terms be discussed, and threats exchanged, and more terms offered, even though every man there knew that words would never turn aside the battle.
By the time they’d finished, the sun hung just above the horizon. Salamander and the heralds hurried back to their lines to find the men still fully armed and ready, sitting on the ground beside their horses. While the heralds rushed off to talk with the commanders, Salamander lagged behind, wondering if he’d be required to stay. Wearing his mail shirt and sword belt, but carrying his helm, Gerran came to meet him.
‘Go back to camp,’ he said. ‘I already sent Clae back. Take care of him if I fall, will you?’
‘I will, but I’ll pray you don’t.’
They clasped hands for what might have been the last time. When a servant brought his horse, Salamander mounted up and rode off. A hundred yards or so away he turned in the saddle and looked back to see Gerran standing in the road, one hand upraised in farewell, his red hair like a beacon in the sunset.
Salamander reached the camp just as twilight was thickening into a hot summer night. Midges swarmed as he turned his horse over to servants and strode among the clusters of tents. Here and there little fires bloomed, and by their light he could see people eating or talking in low voices. Salamander searched until he found Clae, sitting by a fire with Grallezar.
‘Ah, there you be!’ Grallezar said. ‘Come eat.’
‘I need to go talk with the high priestess first.’ Salamander’s stomach growled audibly. ‘Save me some bread, will you?’
‘I will,’ Clae said. ‘They put the holy women in that big tent over there. I can tell the guards to let you in.’
‘Better yet, ask one to come in with me,’ Salamander said. ‘These women have reason to hate me, after all.’
Inside the tent a cluster of candles stood on the hearthstone underneath the smokehole. Among their little heaps of belongings, the priestesses and their maidservants sat huddled on the floor cloth, except for Lakanza. Someone had brought a wooden crate for the high priestess, who perched on top of a folded blanket placed on the crate to pad it. Near her feet sat a tall, rangy Deverry woman with dirty red hair. At the sight of Salamander and the guard, the Deverry woman rose to her knees and scowled. The rest of the priestesses got up and made a show of turning their backs on Salamander before they sat down again, as far away as possible. Lakanza leaned forward and laid a gentle hand on the red-haired woman’s arm.
‘It be all right, Mauva,’ Lakanza said. ‘I fain would speak with Evan.’
‘Mauva?’ Salamander said. ‘Are you Neb’s aunt?’
‘Not any more. I was his uncle’s wife, sure enough,’ the red-haired woman said. ‘Now I’ve got me a better life.’ She glanced at Lakanza in wet-eyed adoration. ‘Her holiness showed me the way.’
Lakanza leaned forward and murmured a few words