'Wait!' The Duke's voice rang out over the assemblage, breaking the silence that had held so many so long. He was on his feet, standing at the edge of the dais. His face was flushed, his eyes wide in his face. His mouth was slightly ajar still. He looked, Vandien thought, for all the world like a child who had been delighted by the seemingly impossible antics of a hedge-wizard.
Farrick halted, turned to the Duke. 'I concede the match.'
'As is right.' The Duke looked down at a red-sashed man who waited before the dais. 'To that one, the purse.' He lifted his eyes then, and they pierced Vandien with their anticipation and dread. 'To the other, the medallion. And bring him to my chambers this evening. We dine together.'
Vandien lifted his rapier in a slow salute that marked the second phase of their bout.
SEVENTEEN
They put Goat on Dellin's mule. Even after the boy awoke he seemed dazed, and sat blinking stupidly as a half-wit at anything that was said to him. His eyes didn't open all the way. His mouth hung slightly ajar and he stared at Ki's moving lips when she spoke to him, asking him if he felt all right.
'I ... think so. I am not sure.'
Even his words came slowly. Ki turned to Dellin. 'Did I hurt him that badly?' she asked anxiously.
'No. What you see is not the result of what you did, but the result of what his parents did to him. He isn't accustomed to having to listen to words and sort out their meanings. He's grown up listening to feelings and responding to what people felt toward him rather than what they said. Now, he has to learn. And more than that, he has to learn to feel his own feelings about things, without leeching the feelings of those around him.' The mule clopped steadily along between them, with Goat making no response to Dellin'scomments about him. 'Blinding him would have been a gentler thing for me to do to him,' Dellin commented sourly.
Silence spun out between them as Ki tried to comprehend the emptiness that must surround Goat now. The boy was alone inside his skull for the first time in his life. She glanced up at him; his eyes were fixed on the far horizon, and they were as empty and placid as an infant's. She found herself going back in her mind, trying to remember not what she had said, but all that she had felt toward Goat in the time they had been together. She winced. And how had it been for him those days in the wagon when she had despised him and Vandien had wanted to kill him? The sudden shame she felt weighted her lungs.
'Useless to regret it,' Dellin observed. 'Better to forget it. I will never understand the penchant Humans have for dwelling on past unpleasantness, and letting it shape the course of their future lives.'
'Do you always listen in on what people are feeling?' Ki asked, trying to keep annoyance out of her voice. Not that it would keep him from knowing she felt it.
'Only on those I regard as my patients,' Dellin replied calmly.
'I don't regard myself as needing healing, of Jore or any other kind,' Ki observed, and this time she let her voice carry her irritation. 'The only thing I need from you is your help in finding Vandien.'
'You don't wish to resolve this mixture of feelings you have for him, before you rejoin him? Don't you think you should examine why you feel so much anger with someone you care about so deeply? And what about the self-anger and denial you are constantly dealing with? Why does it distress you so much that you depend upon him, and why do you constantly battle to conceal from him and yourself the depths of your feelings for him?'
'No.' Ki's voice was flat.
'No to what?' Dellin asked, and she was pleased to notice a note of surprise in his voice.
'No to all of it. I don't need to understand what I feel for him; I've lived with it for years, and it seems to work well for both of us. If it isn't broken, don't fix it, my father used to tell me. No, Dellin, the most I want from you is to know where he is, so I can catch up with him. And then I have to find my horses and wagon. And find a way to put my life back on a paying basis.'
'Do you realize how you hide from yourself behind these prosaic worries? Listen to how you say you must find him before he gets into trouble. Aren't you really feeling that you must find him before you get into trouble you can't face without him?'
The damn mule was too slow. At the rate they were moving, it would be nightfall before they even got to the outskirts of Tekum. Then, even if Dellin could take her straight to Vandien, there she'd be, in a hostile town full of Brurjans without even enough coins for a meal, let alone a room for the night. And how the hell was she ever going to track down her team and wagon? She turned to Dellin to ask him if he had any ideas, only to find he was already looking at her, his dark eyes full of pity.
'Sooner or later, you will have to deal with your feelings.'
'Then it will have to be later. Dellin, once we get into Tekum, is there any way you can trace my horses and ...' But he was already shaking his head before her sentence was half begun. 'I can't go into Tekum with you,' he said gently.
'Then how am I going to find ...'
'You'll find him. If you just trust yourself, you'll probably go straight to him. But in any case, I can't take Goat into Tekum. It's Festival there, and the streets are full of noise and emotion, too much for me to handle, let alone an inexperienced and sensitive child like Gotheris.'
'Then why are you bothering going this direction at all, if you aren't going to help me find him?' Ki demanded bitterly.
He shrugged. 'Duty, perhaps. I hate to see a person as confused as you are go floundering off into a dangerous place alone. Gratitude that you managed to bring Gotheris to me, even if you still owe us the rest of the trip. But most probably, curiosity. I would meet this Vandien, to whom you bond so tightly and who has left such a deep impression upon Gotheris. When we get to the outskirts of Tekum, I will find a safe place for us and let you go on alone.'
'Wonderful,' Ki said sourly. 'Thank you very much.'
'I don't understand,' Gotheris interrupted.
'You mean her words do not match her face?' Dellin suggested.
The boy nodded.
'Now you are beginning to learn,' Dellin said, and smiled at him. And the smile that Gotheris returned him was finally the boy's own.
Dusk was falling when they reached the outskirts of Tekum. The scattered farms were beginning to be smaller and closer to one another. Darkness was gathering around them, but in the town ahead yellow torches lit the streets and the dim sounds of merrymaking reached Ki's ears. Ki could make out the tree-lined streets that she and Vandien had passed down what seemed like ages ago. Their branches seemed to sparkle. She rubbed her eyes. Dellin stopped and the mule halted beside them. He peered about in the darkness, then pointed and spoke.
'There is a shed over there. The boy and I will spend the night there. It doesn't feel as if anyone is at home in the house. You will come back to meet us here, in the morning?'
Ki shrugged, feeling tired, frustrated and angry. 'I don't know. I suppose. Can't you give me any idea of where to look for Vandien?'
'I know no more than you know yourself, if you would only listen to yourself. He's here, somewhere. The link between you is not a thread that can be followed, but is more like the echo of your voice bouncing back to you. Go feeling for him; you'll find him.'
'I suppose so.' Ki tried to keep the scepticism out of her voice. She must be crazy to even believe this man at all. Maybe she was only going looking for Vandien because she so desperately wanted to believe he was alive. To keep the darkness at bay.
Dellin led the mule away, across the pasture. She listened to the animal's splayed hooves crunchingthrough the dry grasses until their silhouettes merged with the darkness. Then she moved on. The night seemed blacker now that she walked alone, but she found herself keeping to the side of the road and listening for other footsteps. Yet when she did encounter other folk, they paid little mind to her. She had reached the tree-lined street by then, and could make out the shards of glass and tiny bells that caught the yellow light of the torches and shimmered with it. The people who moved through the streets behaved as if it were full daylight, and a market day at that. A
