Storm Breaking

He ought to know, and she should have remembered. Then again, perhaps she was not at fault for forgetting; when she'd worked beside him as a scout and border-guard at k'Sheyna Vale, they'd lived in the Vale. They'd return from their shifts on patrol to an ekele in the midst of a garden spot, as warm as a midsummer day. Before that, he'd refused to live inside the Vale, and there might well have been times when he'd returned home to a chilled ekele, or might even have remained overnight camping in the wilderness. Just because she had never personally experienced such hardship, that didn't mean he hadn't.

'Let's go to bed,' Vallen said abruptly, after jerking his head up suddenly for the third time as he nodded off in spite of valiant efforts to stay awake. 'I can't keep my eyes open anymore.'

'I'll clean up; I'm good for that,' Elspeth volunteered, and smiled at the look of surprise from Vallen. What, did he think she considered herself above such chores? Or had he forgotten that at the last several stops, she'd taken her turn at gathering fodder from the ruined barns, putting together makeshift stalls for the horses and chirras, and gathering clean snow for water? 'I was a Herald-trainee once, or don't you recall? I've scrubbed my share of pots in my time, and I think I can manage without breaking anything.'

Darkwind picked up empty bowls, knives, and spoons without comment other than a wink. Sometimes they both forgot the way other people saw them. She caught Vallen staring after Darkwind with an even greater look of surprise than he'd shown when she volunteered to clean up.

Does he think Hawkbrothers magic their plates clean? Oh, well, he probably does, and it doesn't occur to him that it would be harder work to clean a pot by magic than to do it by hand.

She gathered up what Darkwind couldn't carry, and both of them went into the kitchen.

This had been a particularly fine inn once, with a pump supplying water to the kitchen; the cooking crew had left water heating on the hearth. Both the regular Guards and Kerowyn's mercenaries were used to every aspect of this kind of mission; when it came to cooking, they were nothing if not efficient. It didn't take long to clean the bowls and cutlery and the two pots they had used for heating the food.

'I keep having second thoughts about this trip,' Elspeth said quietly.

Darkwind nodded. 'I can understand why you would feel that way, but I believe we are doing one of many things that could be the right path,' he replied, carefully wiping out a pot and putting it away. It was a typically Tayledras response. 'We must remain in contact with Tremane; that much I am certain of. How we do that—well, this is one way. There would have been others, but this is the way we chose, and I do not think we have chosen amiss.'

'At least in this case, we'll have our own eyes and ears in Shonar, she sighed.

He smiled. 'And tongues as well! We can also advise, if Tremane chooses to listen to us.'

The pots, bowls, and utensils had all come with them, and she repacked them in the bags with the supplies. 'Given the way things have been going so far,' she observed, 'it's only too likely, I suppose, for something entirely unexpected to happen out here. And in that case, the Alliance had better have people in place to observe and reassure...'

Darkwind slipped his arm around her shoulders, turning his hug into a way to turn her toward the door to the common room. 'And to fix, transform, leverage, and otherwise turn things for the better. Tremane, according to Kerowyn, comes from a culture in which treachery is a commonplace,' he reminded her. 'If anything unexpected were to occur, that would be the first explanation that would come to him.'

She shook her head, and let him draw her toward the door. If she hadn't been too tired to think properly, she might have been able to make some kind of rational discussion out of this. As it was—

'You know, I almost feel sorry for Tremane,' she admitted reluctantly as they mounted the stairs to their room. Rank did have privileges, and she had laid claim to one of the rooms with a real bed and a fireplace; it had probably been one of the expensive chambers when this had still been an inn. She was looking forward to sleeping in a bed, warmed by a hot brick at its foot.

Well, maybe not sleeping, at least not for a little while. I do have Darkwind here...

'I do feel sorry for him,' Darkwind said unexpectedly, 'And I believe I know why young Karal forgave him. just because he has been forced to deal with daily treachery does not make him a treacherous individual. We do not know what he is really like, except that we may guess somewhat through his actions.'

This speech had taken them up the stairs and to the space just outside the door to their room. Elspeth opened the door, drew him inside, and stopped the rest of the speech with her lips on his.

'I have had quite enough of Tremane to last me until morning,' she said firmly, as he responded as she had hoped he would, by pulling her closer and simultaneously closing the door to their room. 'I think we can afford not to think of him, for a little while, at least.'

'Oh, at least,' he agreed, and then said nothing more with words for quite some time.