during Wamphyri raids — they had made harder targets than the larger, more prominent Traveller tribes.
Several of Nikha Sintana's earlier statements had more than suggested his solitary nature, which the size of his party might appear to confirm; but to Nathan it seemed more likely that he simply adhered to this old tenet, that small is synonymous with secure.
Of people, the group was made up of thirteen in all: four men, including Nikha, three women, and five children whose ages ranged from a small infant to the youth in his early teens who had gone fishing. The thirteenth… was Eleni Sintana, that sister of whom Nikha had spoken.
Nathan had caught only the briefest glimpse of Eleni in the moment he broke through the undergrowth on to the track, but in that same moment he had seen something in her eyes which had seemed to strike a resonant chord within himself… perhaps it had been her eyes, so much like Misha's. In any case, he'd been aware of her presence ever since but was careful not to look at her directly. Travellers are often fiercely protective where their women are concerned, and they don't care for forwardness in strangers. He was aware of her now to one side of the camp's central area, where she used an axe to break up dead, fallen branches into firewood.
This is Eleni,' Nikha confirmed, leading him across the clearing, 'my sister. She cuts firewood to occupy her mind.'
She looked up as they approached — looked at Nathan and smiled, however wanly — and he saw now that it was her eyes. They took him by surprise, for he'd thought that only Misha's eyes could be so warm, black and caring. Obviously he'd been wrong; or perhaps it was just that Misha had been so much on his mind lately, that…
This is Nathan Kiklu,' Nikha said, breaking into his thoughts, and possibly into hers, too. 'A man of Settlement, from Lardis Lidesci's people. He could use a wash, a place to sleep, a blanket to keep him warm. Until our meal is prepared. Will you see to it, little sister?'
She nodded and straightened up. And now that they'd been introduced, Nathan allowed himself to look at her.
Maybe twenty or twenty-one years old, she was typically Szgany. All lithe and sinuous, with movements as smooth as oil, her hair was shiny black, her skin tanned to a glow, her mouth generous and sensuous at one and the same time. And there was something wild as the woods about her — even more so than her brother — so that if Nathan didn't know better he might think there was room for only one mood in her: she should be vivacious and live life to the full, joyously, with a husky laugh that teased, taunted but never quite seduced. Because when finally Eleni did love, then her man would get all that she could give.
Mainly nai've, Nathan was wont to make judgements such as this at first sight. And sometimes he was right. Eleni shouJd be that way; perhaps she would have been and could be again, one day. But for now… she was small and sad and lonely.
As Nikha walked away, back towards his caravan and animals, Nathan began: 'Your brother has told me — ' and paused. '- I mean, I just want you to know that we're two of a kind. For just as you have lost your man, so I have lost my girl.'
She nodded seriously, and answered: 'I know how much you have lost, for it's in your eyes. I knew from the first moment I saw you. Ah, but I saw much more than that in those strange blue eyes of yours, Nathan! They are filled with all sorts of things, and you're not much given to hiding them.'
He was surprised, not quite sure of her meaning. Perhaps he looked at her too openly. He turned his eyes aside at once. 'Have I… been forward? If I've seemed so, then — '
'No, no, not that,' she cut him short. 'And if you were, what of it? Gypsies are forward. If a person is liked no one complains, and if he is not liked we say that he is forward. No, but you have been the sad one for a long, long time, and now is the worst time of all.'
He shook his head, frowned, fingered his chin. 'But… how can you know?' And now her smile was warmer.
'Oh, I read palms,' she said, tossing her ringlets back out of her eyes. 'Like my mother before me. Except, why it's easier far to read faces! And as I said, your face — especially those eyes of yours — tells a long, sad story.' She reached out and touched his brow. 'Such lines, and so very deep, in a face so young…' She shook her head, wonderingly. But before he could question her further:
'Enough of that for now,' she said. 'Come over here, to my tent. Nikha says you need a wash. We can take care of that. And then I'll get you a blanket.'
Close to her tent she set up a tripod and bowl, and brought hot water from the fire. A piece of bark provided a cleansing, milky sap, with which Nathan scoured his face and hands. But watching him, Eleni.saw him wincing whenever he stretched his arms.
He had removed his leather jacket but still wore his shirt. Take it off,' she said.
He looked at her sideways, questioningly. They were alone in the clearing now, almost. The men were off hunting; women tended their offspring or performed other duties; Nikha was seeing to his beasts. Take what off?'
'Your shirt. When you bent over it rode up your back. I have seen your bruises. Were you beaten?'
Beaten? No, merely tossed aside — but by a Thing as strong as four men! The thing that took my Misha. 'A Lord of the Wamphyri very nearly killed me,' he finally answered. 'I suppose I was lucky.'
He tried to reach over his shoulder and grasp the fabric of his shirt, but couldn't. Perhaps it was as well; Nikha had come back and was sitting on the steps of his vehicle. Seeing Nathan glancing that way, Eleni asked him: 'Are you concerned that my brother is watching us? Well, you shouldn't be.' And before he could answer she took the hem of his shirt in both hands and lifted it, and as he bent forward stripped it from his back.
'Now your brother will know I'm forward,' he groaned. 'Or that you are!'
And now for the first time she laughed, and her laugh was as husky as he had guessed it must be. 'Nathan, Nikha will be delighted!' she told him. 'Can't you see that he's still trying to marry me off?' But as she saw the extent of his bruising her laughter died away. And: 'You suppose you were lucky?' she repeated him. 'But your back should have been broken in three places! Now wait.'
She ran to Nikha and past him into the caravan, and was back in a moment with ointment wrapped in a leather pouch. 'It smells, but it's good!' she said, applying the stuff liberally to his back. 'Next sunup the sting will have gone, and by midday the bruises fading. I guarantee it. When we pass through the townships, we Gypsies guarantee all of our products!' And again she laughed.
Then she helped him on with his shirt, took him into her tent and gave him a blanket. Her bed was a huge watertight skin stuffed with down, herbs and dried ferns; more than sufficient for Nathan's needs, he made no complaint. As he lay down she threw the blanket over him, and almost before she left the tent and closed its flap he was asleep…
Numbers formed a whir/pool which sucked Nathan in, whirled him round and around, and dragged him unprotesting down the centra/ funnel of warping algebraic equations. To anyone else it would be a nightmare, but not to him. Unlike the dead, who could have talked to Nathan if they wished it but never did, the numbers were his friends. In a way, they did 'talk' to him; except he didn't have the math to understand their language. In a world largely without science, Nathan had no math at all. What would probably have been instinctive, intuitive in him from his first serious lesson, had never had the chance to develop. Not yet.
But he did understand that the numbers could sometimes carry him — his thoughts at least — to other places, other minds. It was a telepathic talent he shared with Nestor, part of which was to reach out with his mind and make a connection with that of his twin. Another part of it, which was his alone, allowed him to contact and speak with his wolves. In his waking hours this might only be accomplished by an effort of conscious will, and even then it had sometimes failed him, but when he slept it was quite beyond his control. For then his talent seemed to work on its own, or occasionally with the help of what Nathan had long since named 'the numbers vortex'.
Now he was in that vortex, but only for a moment. For in the next he felt himself expelled, hurled out and down — into water! Into the river!
And because he had searched for Nestor, now he was Nestor. He was one with his brother's mind. He knew what Nestor knew, felt what he felt, observed what he observed. Which was nothing.
Nathan knew what 'dead' minds feel like. This was it, and yet at the same time it was less than death. For the dead know many things, and this mind — Nestor's mind — knew nothing at all! And Nathan believed he knew what that meant: that his brother was freshly dead, and as yet had learned nothing from all of those others who had gone before.
