is.' He plucked at his beard again. 'I need to ponder this a bit more before I go and do it. It's not something I can just set in motion before I try to look at the places it may lead.'
'Rihwin would,' Van said. 'But then, you already said what needs saying about him. Not that he's stupid, mind, but that he thinks he has your Dyaus' view of things, and he doesn't.'
'I don't what?' Rihwin asked, coming into the great hall from the courtyard.
'Know your backside from a longtooth turd,' Fand said. Gerin and Van hadn't put it so pungently, but it did a fair job of summing up their opinion.
Rihwin looked down over his shoulder at the part of him cited. ' That's what I thought I had there,' he said, as if in relief. 'Trying to sit down on a longtooth turd strikes me as unaesthetic.'
'As what, now?' Fand said. Her Elabonian was fluent, but that was not a word used every day in a frontier castle of a former frontier province of the decaying Empire of Elabon.
'Messy and smelly,' Gerin translated for her. 'He's making a joke.'
'Is he? Then why doesn't he up and do it?' Fand said.
'I take a certain amount of pleasure at being insulted by so fair a lady,' Rihwin said, bowing, 'but only a certain amount.' He turned on his heel and strode out.
'A pity you gave him back his missing ear,' Fand said to Gerin. ' Better you should have torn off the other one.' She bared her teeth and looked every bit as savage as she sounded. The Fox was sure she meant to be taken literally.
He said, 'What good would that do? Rihwin didn't listen with two ears and didn't with one, so why do you think he would with none?'
Fand stared at him, then gurgled laughter. 'It's not just that y' are lefthanded, Fox, but sure and you think that way as well. How am I to stay angry at you, now, when you go sneaking round my temper with such silliness as that?'
Gerin didn't answer. As far as he was concerned, he hadn't done anything to deserve Fand's anger. His thoughts were another matter, but if men-and women, too-were scourged for their thoughts, every back in the northlands-no, every back in the world-would bear stripes.
Van said, 'Will you send to Aragis, then, Captain?'
'I think so,' Gerin answered. 'But as I said, I'll weigh it a bit more before I make up my mind. I grudge the strength I'd have to send to make sure my embassy got through.'
'Fair enough, I suppose,' the outlander said, 'but don't go weighing overlong. My gut warns me we haven't much time to squander.'
If Van was worried, the situation could not be good; Van generally saw fighting as sport. Gerin had already thought matters bleak. Seeing his friend's concern, he wondered if he hadn't been too optimistic.
Rap, rap. Knocking on Fand's door, Gerin realized he hadn't been so nervous approaching a woman since he'd gone off into the woods with a serf girl at about the age of fourteen. If she told him no again, he vowed he'd have nothing more to do with her.
The door opened. Fand eyed Gerin with the same irresolution he felt. At last, with the hint of a smile, she said, 'You're not one to give up easy, are you, now?'
'If I were, I'd either be dead or living in the southlands,' Gerin answered. 'May I come in?'
'Sure and you'd do better with more sweet talk, not just throwing it out so, like a sausage, splash! into the soup pot.' Fand sounded a trifle irked. She didn't close the door in his face, though, as she had so many times lately. After a moment, she stepped aside and motioned for him to join her. She closed the door behind him, barred it.
A tunic lay on the bed, bone needle and thread halfway through a rip on one sleeve. Gerin turned the sleeve right side out so he could see how the repair would look. 'That's fine work,' he said.
'For which I thank you, though sewing by lamplight is more trouble nor it's worth, I'm thinking.' Fand rubbed her eyes to show him what she meant. After an awkward pause, she went on, 'But you didna come here to be talking of shirts.' She sat down on the bed.
'No, I didn't.' Gerin sat down beside her. 'I came because I hoped we could end the quarrel between us.'
'Because you wanted to futter me,' Fand said. She didn't sound angry, though, as she had so often when she sent him away. She might have been talking about how the wheat was doing this year. After a moment, Gerin nodded; saying he didn't want her would have been a lie. Fand's mouth quirked in a wry smile. 'Och, you're no seducer, are you now? But have your way this once, Fox. We'll see what we bring to it.' She pulled the tunic she was wearing up over her head, then stood to slide off her brightly checked wool skirt.
Seeing her naked made the breath catch in his throat, as it always did. She was a splendid woman, and she knew it, which only made the impression stronger. Gerin undressed in a hurry. They got back down on the bed together.
They did their best to please each other. The Fox tried hard; he could tell Fand was doing the same thing. He rolled off her quickly afterwards, not wanting her to have to bear his weight any longer than she needed to. 'I thank you,' she said, and sat up.
Gerin lay on one side. He looked over to her and said, 'It's no good any more, is it?'
She sighed. 'If you're after knowing the answer, why d'you ask the question?'
'Saying the words, hearing them, makes it seem real somehow,' he answered. 'Besides, I might have been wrong.' He swung himself over to the side of the bed, grabbed his breeches, and put them back on. As he fiddled with the waist string, he added, 'I won't trouble you that way again.'
' 'Twas no trouble,' Fand said. ' 'Twasn't much of anything at all, if you take my meaning. And isn't that a strange thing, now? The gods know I looked for the two of us to break, but I thought 'twould be after a grand shindy we'd both remember all our days. But here we are, just-quits.'
'Quits,' Gerin echoed dully. He leaned over and kissed her, not on the mouth but on the cheek. 'It was always lively while it lasted, wasn't it? If it's come to the point where it's not any more, as well we give it up.'
'Truth there.' Fand sent him an anxious look. 'You'd not throw me out of Fox Keep because I'm your doxy no more, would you?'
He laughed. 'And have Van come after me with that mace of his? Not likely. No, you're welcome to bide here as long as you like-provided you don't drive everyone around you utterly mad. That may not be so easy for you.' He chuckled to show he didn't expect to be taken altogether seriously.
'Och, when I'm the only one right and the whole world beside me wrong, how can I not speak out plain?' But Fand laughed, too. 'I ken what you'll tell me-you wish I'd find a way. Well, I'll try, indeed and I will. What comes of it we'll have to see.'
He nodded and got to his feet. Walking to the doorway felt strange. He'd never parted from a longtime lover before. Elise had parted from him, and without a word of warning, but that wasn't the same thing. With his hand on the bar, he turned back and said, 'Goodbye.' The word came out funereally somber.
Maybe that crossed Fand's mind, too, for she said, 'I've not died, y'know, nor yet headed back to the forests. I'll be down for porridge come the dawn, same as always.' But she also seemed to feel the moment. 'It won't be the same any more, will it?'
'No, but it's likely better this way. If we did go on long enough, we'd have ended up hating each other.' Something of that had happened with him and Elise, though there it had been quiet and one-sided till it burst out when she left.
If he stayed by the door talking, he was liable to end up talking himself out of what he'd resolved to do. He swung up the bar. Fand came over to lower it after he left. She smiled a farewell as he stepped out into the hallway, closed the door after him.
From her chamber to his was only a few strides. In the moment he needed to step between them, Selatre came down the hall, probably on her way to the garderobe. She'd seen Fand's door close. She looked from it to Gerin and back again, then kept walking without a word or another glance.
His face heated. The kindest thing Selatre could think of him was that he'd just slaked his lust. He wanted to run down the hall after her and explain that he and Fand weren't going to do that sort of thing any more, but he
