The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [127]
Erecting three buildings, trying to grow a few crops, and encouraging a few old orchards are taking most of Creslin’s time, time that isn’t spent in trying to get back into shape and in talking with Shierra, Hyel, Megaera, Lydya, and Klerris in figuring out what else he should be doing.
With a deep breath, he steps out into the shadows and starts uphill toward the cool, black-stone house of the co-regents. He thinks again about the short note from Llyse, the note whose words could mean anything . . . or nothing. The words he has shared with no one are burned into his thoughts:
Creslin—
Some things cannot be won with cold steel or black storms. This might prove helpful. We are well, but I still listen in the night for the words you are not here to sing. If the angels are merciful, we will send another shipment in the fall, after the winter stores are reckoned.
—Llyse
“Some things cannot be won with cold steel . . .” he murmurs. “Like Megaera?”
Now that he thinks about it, he has never even mentioned to Megaera that he plays the guitar and sings. But . . .he really has never played, except in the privacy of his room at Westwind. And for Lorcas, the trader’s daughter, who insisted that a princess was waiting for him. His lips twist. Waiting, yes, but not exactly as Lorcas pictured.
A time will come when he needs the guitar. He has needed every other skill or understanding he has obtained. Why should music, no matter how private, be any different?
Something deep-toned sounds in the darkness by the road, then falls silent as his footsteps echo.
In the near hush of twilight, the murmur of the surf drifts up the cliffs’ facade from the narrow beaches under the black-rock walls of the eastern side of Recluce. Creslin stops and listens, but there is only the sound of the waves on the sand.
Ahead he sees the glimmer of a lamp, perhaps of two lamps. Megaera is in the house. He takes a deep breath and strides forward until his boots scrape in the darkness on the black stone of the terrace.
“Megaera?” He opens the main door into the roofed, but otherwise unfinished Great Room. There is no answer as he eases the door back into place behind him. Crossing the unlighted room, he steps onto the stones of the corridor leading to their bedrooms. He stops at her door.
“Megaera?”
“Come on in.”
The redhead sits cross-legged on the quilt covering her pallet. Also in her room are a small stool and a narrow, ladder-backed chair. A single bronze lamp, cleaned and polished, throws light across the spotless stone tiles and the woven grass rug that covers the space between the chair and the pallet.
Creslin eases onto the small but sturdy stool. “How was your day?”
“A bit wearying.” She wears a robe that he has not seen before; it is buttoned to her neck and has voluminous sleeves that cover her arms, even down to her wrists. “When you have to make charcoal before you can even start—”
“For the glass?”
Megaera nods. “It works, but it’s slow. Once we get the furnace working, some of the guards can take over. What about you?”
“We could use the glass. The public room’s done, and most of the kitchen. Not the lodgings or the entry hall.” Even as he responds to her question, he wonders what she is hiding. “What else have you been working on with Shierra?”
“Not much. I’m trying to learn how the guards operate, how I can help.”
Creslin grins. “What are you hiding?”
“Damn you! Damn your puking guts, and damn your order-infested honesty! I hate you! Get out of here!”
“What did I do?”
“It’s not what you did. It’s what you are, sitting there and looking so smug. You’re so twisted that you don’t even know you’re dishonest. Now get out of my sight.”
The silver-haired man retreats, closing the door behind him. He hears the bolt shoot into place as he enters his own room, empty except for the unlit lamp and the pallet with the plain quilt.
In the darkness, he stands by the window for a long time, listening to the sound of the surf and the whisper of