The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [132]
Hyel raises his eyebrows at the comment about male brashness, then takes a long pull from his earthen mug.
At the other tables, both men and women are clapping in time to the driving beat of a marching song.
LXXXV
CRESLIN STANDS UP. His fingers still hurt, and his muscles ache. He forces a smile. “I’m going to get some sleep.”
A glance passes between Lydya and Klerris, but Hyel begins to talk.
“. . . hope you’ll play again for us. That really was a treat, and just about everyone liked it.”
Creslin picks up the guitar case and shrugs his shoulders in an effort to relax them. As he checks the fastenings before lifting the case, the tenderness of his fingers reminds him again of how little he has played recently.
While the Westwind guards and the Montgren troopers are not sitting at the same tables, neither are they glaring at each other and muttering. Creslin hopes that in time some of the consorts and the attached guards will join the singles.
“I do hope you will play again,” seconds Shierra.
“I need to talk to you.” Megaera’s words are low and tired.
“Now?”
“When you get to the house will be fine. I won’t be long.” She remains pallid. Creslin notes her color and cannot help but worry that she is pushing herself too hard.
“Stop it. Please . . .”
He stops. She starts toward him, but Klerris steps up to her. “A moment, lady?”
“Oh . . . can it wait until tomorrow?”
“I think not.”
Creslin sighs as he steps away, glad to let Klerris take the brunt of Megaera’s sharp words but feeling guilty all the same. As he makes his way out of the public room and past the two outside lamps, he is conscious of Lydya moving toward him.
“Creslin . . .”
“Yes?”
“Would you mind if I walked with you for part of the way? There are a few things I think you ought to know.”
He does not like the sound of Lydya’s words, but he shrugs and is reminded of how sore his shoulders are. Farmwork has been even harder than stonework was. “No. Come along. Where else have I failed?”
“Failed?”
“You and Klerris talk to me these days only to point out where I’ve made another mistake.”
“Unless it’s serious, you don’t really take time to listen.” Her voice is half-humorous, half-chiding, as she matches her steps with his and they start up the hill road.
“I guess I deserve that. What now?”
“Megaera,” the healer states. “You really upset her tonight. Again.”
“Again? Everything I do upsets her! If I talk to her, it upsets her. If I don’t, it upsets her.”
“Creslin.”
The soft tone chills him, and he answers warily. “Yes?”
“Megaera is your wife.”
“In name, perhaps. Not in much else.”
“Have you ever really asked why?”
“No, because that’s clearly the way she wants it.”
“Have you ever told her that you love her?”
“Do I?”
Lydya snorts.
“All right. But it’s hopeless. I look at her and I can’t help wanting her. She senses that as soon as I look, and she slices me apart.”
“That’s right. Do you remember how you felt every time you had to walk down the Great Hall at Westwind?”
Creslin swallows.
“Now . . . you didn’t even know what the guards were feeling. You just heard the words. How would you have felt if you could have known every thought behind those words?”
The healer’s tone is as cold as the northern stars, and as distant, yet as close as a blade in his guts. He can say nothing, for his eyes begin to burn, although his feet do not stumble.
“Your wife, and she is your wife in the unfortunate and old sense of the word because of Ryessa’s meddling, has heard only a few warm words from you. You have never courted her, and you lust after her all the time. That’s going to make her feel close to you? That’s going to show her you love her?”
Creslin winces, but the healer’s words continue, like the ice-winds that he has called before from the Roof of the World.
“. . . every chance you get, you show yet another skill. Tonight was especially painful. You sang love songs and hate songs, funny songs and war songs, and your soul was out there, open and exposed. You risked your soul for people you scarcely know