meant a man was going to relieve himself, or wanted a little privacy. Goat would soon learn it, she supposed. At any rate, Vandien had decided the boy was worth an effort. Leaving her with Willow.
Ki cast a sideways glance at her. Her checks still glowed. 'Well, we'd better tidy up for the night,' Ki suggested in a neutral voice. Willow met Ki's look with a sullen stare, but began gathering the dishes. She pointedly ignored Goat's bowl. With a sigh, Ki picked it up herself.
The awkward silence held as the dishes were cleaned and packed away. When Willow broke it, it was with another dilemma. 'Where am I supposed to rest tonight?' she asked coldly.
'Wherever you wish,' Ki replied politely. She would not rise to the girl's avoidance of the word 'sleep'.
'Where's Goat going to sleep?' she demanded next.
Ki sighed. 'I hadn't thought about it. By the fire, I suppose.'
'Then I'll sleep in the wagon.'
'Vandien and I usually sleep in the wagon,' Ki pointed out. She could feel her control slip and wondered with a sudden anger just where the hell Vandien was. Let him come back and manage his wonderfully charming young girl.
'I don't mind,' Willow said smoothly.
'Did you ever consider that I might?' Ki asked, dropping all pretense of civility.
'No. I didn't. You couldn't possibly expect me to sleep near Goat, even if he weren't ... what he is. Among my people that isn't done,' she added primly.
Ki closed her eyes for an instant, got a grip on her rising anger. 'I see.' She gave a sigh, tried to breathe her irritation away. 'Then why don't you sleep in the wagon, and Vandien and I will sleep outside? That should keep everyone's propriety intact.'
'Near Goat? You're going to sleep near Goat?' The distaste in the girl's voice was not feigned. For whatever reason she disliked Goat, it was not a pretense.
'Vandien will protect my virtue,' Ki assured her with heavy sarcasm, but the girl considered her words gravely. Her eyes were wide as she met Ki's gaze.
'I do not think even he could protect you from one such as Goat. Are you sure you wouldn't rather sleep in the wagon also?'
'Quite sure,' Ki assured her. Willow's eyes darted to a rustling in the thicket that presaged Vandien and Goat's return.
'I'm going to bed now. Good night. And take care!' The last she whispered as she turned and fled to the shelter of the wagon.
When Goat and Vandien appeared, their arms were laden with dead branches for firewood. Ki nodded her approval. Already the night was cool, denying the heat of the day. 'Where's Willow?' Goat demanded of her.
'Gone to bed,' Ki told him smoothly. As we all should, if we are to get an early start tomorrow.'
'Where?' he repeated.
'Where what?' she asked, feigning puzzlement.
'Where is Willow sleeping?' Goat demanded. Vandien winced at the boy's unconcealed interest.
'In the wagon.' Ki kept her voice unconcerned. 'Where the night insects will not bother her.'
'We're all going to sleep in the wagon?' Goat asked eagerly. Without waiting for an answer, he started toward the steps.
'No, it would be far too crowded and stuffy. Ki and I will sleep under the wagon, and you can sleep by the fire.'
'But...' Goat began, and then caught Vandien's look. Ki could not imagine what he had said to the boy, but Goat suddenly closed his lips. He kept his words in check, but not the sulky look that claimed his face. Snatching up a good portion of the scattered quilts and blankets, he began to make up a bed by the fire.
Vandien refused to acknowledge his pique. 'Good night, Goat,' he told the boy affably. He gathered the remaining quilts and cushions and made up their bed beneath the wagon while Ki belatedly washed the road dust from her face and smoothed her tangled hair. He was already settled when she came to join him.
'Why under the wagon instead of next to the fire?' she demanded as she crawled in beside him. She knew the answer, and he knew it, but he spoke anyway. His voice was sleepy. 'Feeling of shelter, keeps the rain off. And makes it harder for anyone to attack while we're sleeping.'
'Like sleeping in a coffin,' Ki grumbled. She dragged off her boots, blouse and trousers so that she was clad in loose cotton drawers and chemise. Shivering, she burrowed into the quilts and settled against Vandien. He was warm. She curled her body around his, her belly to his back. She could smell his hair and the warm skin of his neck.
'These children,' he said softly, 'make me feel old.'
'Um,' Ki agreed. She kissed the nape of his neck experimentally.
He sighed. 'Very old. Ki, did you hear me earlier? Dictating, chastising, directing, warning. I sounded just like my uncle when I was a child.'
'Your guardian?' she asked. With the tip of one finger, she wrote her name on the warm skin of his back. 'Yes. He was always directing me, never letting me do anything on my own. Not even choose which women I'd bed.' Vandien's voice trailed off as his mind went back to those painful times, to his futile efforts to sire an heir for his line. He moved slightly apart from Ki, and she, knowing his old pain, let him. He wouldn't want to be touched just now. Damn. Well, that's how it was, then. She closed her eyes, sought sleep. 'I'd hate to think I had grown to be just like him,' Vandien said suddenly. 'Ki, did you hear what Willow said earlier? That she didn't think any one as old as I am could understand why she'd run away to her lover? Do I look that old to you? Old enough to be her father?'
'Depends on how young you started,' Ki replied sleepily. Then, 'Sorry. Not to me, Vandien. Only to someone as young as Willow.'
He rolled onto his back and stared up at the bottom of the wagon. 'How old do I look to you?' he asked quietly.
The weariness of the day had suddenly found Ki. 'I don't know,' she sighed. She opened her eyes a slit, stared at him. He was serious. Traces of lines at the corners of his mouth. A few hints of grey in the dark curls, mostly from old scars. Weathered skin that was more the work of sun and wind than years. She thought, as she had the first time she saw him, that it was not a bad way for a man to look. She'd rather die than tell him that. 'Old enough to be smarter than you act most of the time. Young enough to worry about foolish things.'
'Mph.' He rolled to face her, dragging her covers away. 'That's not a very satisfactory answer.'
She tugged at the covers, opened her eyes. His face was inches from her own, his hand on the curve of her waist. 'Not a satisfactory answer?'
He shook his head, the curve of his smile beneath his moustache barely visible in the dwindling light from the fire.
'Then let me put it another way.' She seized the curls at the nape of his neck and pulled his face to hers.
FOUR
In the coolness before dawn, Ki's strangely vivid dreams broke and dragged against her like cobwebs. Gently she drew away from Vandien and pulled on her clothes. The camp was silent; Gotheris slumbered deeply by the dead ashes of the fire, his arms flung wide in sleep. Ki took the kettle and water bucket and headed for the spring. She considered waking Vandien to share the quiet with her but decided against it. She needed this solitude; the rest of the day would offer her little enough.
On her way back to camp she passed Vandien. His hair was tousled, his eyes vague with sleep. He greeted her silently and moved on toward the spring. In camp, she found a few embers buried in the ash and coaxed them into blossom. She set the dripping kettle atop the small fire and mounted the wagon step.
The door was jammed. She tugged at it futilely several times before she realized that Willow had latched it. Suddenly irritated that anyone could lock her out of her own wagon, she pounded on the door. Therewas no response. 'Willow!' she shouted. 'Unlock this door!' Goat rolled over and opened his eyes.
