impossible that anything so awkward would actually work until he had the last strap in place, half walked and half wobbled to the pond, and then pressed himself out onto the ice. Between one breath and the next, he became grace made flesh. His legs scissored and shifted, the blades hissing as they scored the ice. His body shifted and swooped as he slid across the pond and then back, his arms graceful as a dancer’s.
“They’re not bad,” he called. “Come on. You try.”
Another drink of wine, and then one more for luck, and Cithrin maneuvered herself out. Cold air bit at her, but only with dull teeth. Her ankles shifted as she fought to make sense of this new way of balancing. She tried to push off the way Sandr did, and fell hard on the ice. Sandr laughed his delight.
“It’s hard the first time,” he said, hissing to her side. “Give me your hand. I’ll show you.”
Within minutes, her knees were bent, her arms widespread, and her feet chopping at the ice. But she didn’t fall.
“Don’t try to walk,” Sandr said. “Push with one foot, glide on the other.”
“Easy for you,” she said. “You know what you’re doing.”
“This time. I was worse than you when I started.”
“Flatterer.”
“Maybe you’re worth flattering. No, like that. That’s it. That’s it!”
Cithin’s body caught the trick, and she found herself gliding. Not quite as gracefully and certainly as Sandr, but closer. The ice sped under her, white and grey and black in the moonlight. The night tasted like the fortified wine and moved like a river flowing around her. Sandr whooped and took her hand, and together they raced the length of the mill pond, the grooves of their skates tracing white lines in the dim.
From the banks, one of the mules commented with a grunt and flick of his haunch. The wind of Cithin’s passage whuffled in her ears. She felt herself grinning and spinning. The knot in her belly was a memory, a dream, a thing that happened to another person. She fell twice more, but it only seemed funny. The ice was cloud and sky, and she had learned how to fly. It creaked and groaned under her weight, and Sandr clapped his hands as she made an elaborate and awkward curtsey in the center of the pond.
“Race me,” he shouted. “There and back.”
Like an arrow from a bow, Sandr sped for the far bank, and Cithrin followed him. Her legs ached, and her heart beat like a boulder rolling down a hill, her numb face made itself a mask. Sandr reached the edge of the ice, pushed off from the snow, and sped past her, going back toward her cart. Cithrin turned too, pushing faster, harder. In the middle of the pond, the ice darkened and complained, but then she was over it, almost at Sandr’s back, skating beside him, past him. Almost past him.
Her skate slammed into the snow and the dead, winter-killed reeds. The moon-blued ground rose up and hit her so hard she couldn’t breathe. Sandr lay beside her, his eyes wide, his cheeks as red as if she’d pinched them. The look of surprise and concern on his face was so comic that, when she could, Cithrin started laughing.
Sandr’s laughter twinned with hers, and he threw a handful of snow in the air, the flakes drifting down around them like dandelion fluff. And then he rolled to her, resting his weight against her side. His lips were on hers.
Oh, she thought. And then, half a breath later, she tried kissing him back.
It wasn’t as awkward as she’d expected it to be. His arms shifted around her, his body entirely on hers now, pressing her into the snow that didn’t seem cold at all. His hand fumbled at her jacket, and then the thick wool sweater. His fingers found her skin. She felt herself arching up, pressing herself into the touch almost as if she were watching it be done. She heard her breath grow ragged.
“Cithrin,” Sandr said. “You need to… You need to know…”
“Don’t,” she said.
He stopped, pulling back. His hand retreated from her breasts. Contrition narrowed his face. She felt a flare of impatience.
“Don’t talk, I mean,” she said.
She’d always known about sex in a general way. Cam had talked about it in dour, stern, and warning tones. She’d seen the mummers in the spring carnival dancing through the torchlit streets in masks and nothing more. Perhaps there should have been no mystery. And still, as she undid her belt and pushed down the rough pants, she wondered whether this was what Besel had done with all those other girls. All the ones that weren’t her. Had it been like this for them? She’d heard it hurt the first time. She wondered what that would feel like. Sandr’s bare flanks shone nearly as pale as the snow. Concentration possessed him as he tried to pry off his skates without rising up.
I hope it’s all right that I don’t love him, she thought.
A roar came out of nowhere, deep and violent and sudden. Sandr rose up into the air, his weight gone, his eyes round in surprise. Cithrin grabbed for her waistband. Her first thought was that a monstrous bird had come down from the sky and plucked him away.
Captain Wester threw Sandr out onto the ice, where he landed awkward and skidding. The captain’s sword hissed out of its scabbard, and he moved toward Sandr, cursing in three languages. Cithrin rose to her knees, tugging at her clothing. Sandr stumbled back, his still-erect penis bobbing comically, and slipped.
“I wasn’t forcing her,” Sandr squeaked. “I wasn’t forcing.”
“Do I care?” Wester shouted, pointing with his sword at the wineskin half covered by snow. “You get her stupid drunk to get her knees apart, and you want a good-conduct medal?”
“I’m not drunk,” Cithrin said, realizing that she likely was. Wester ignored her.
“Touch her again, son, and I cut something off you. Best pray it’s a finger.”
Sandr opened his mouth, but only a high whine came out.
“Stop it!” Cithrin shouted. “Leave him alone!”
Wester turned to her, rage in his eyes. Taller than she was, twice as broad, and with naked steel in his hand, he made the small, still part of her mind tell her to be quiet. Wine and embarrassment and anger washed her forward.
“Who are you to tell him what he can and can’t?” she said. “Who are you to tell me?”
“I am the man who’s saving your life. And you will do as I say,” Wester shouted, but she thought there was a new confusion in his eyes. “I won’t have you turning into a whore.”
The word bit. Cithrin balled her fists until her knuckles ached. Blood lit her cheeks and roared in her ears. When she spoke, she shrieked.
“I wasn’t going to charge him!”
Wester looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. The confusion deepened, knitting his brow, and something like amusement plucked at his mouth. And then-inexplicably-anguish.
“Captain,” a new voice growled, and the Tralgu loomed out of the darkness.
“Not a good time, Yardem,” Wester said.
“Took that from the shouting, sir. There’s soldiers.”
Wester changed between one heartbeat and the next. His face cleared, his body pulled back a degree. Their confrontation evaporated, and Cithrin felt herself unnerved by the sudden shift. It seemed unfair that the captain had abandoned their conflict with things still unsettled.
“Where?” Wester asked.
“Camped over the ridge to the east,” the Tralgu said. “Two dozen. Antean banner, Vanai tents.”
“Well, God smiled,” Wester said. “Any chance their scouts overlooked us?”
“None.”
“Did they see you?”
“No.”
Cithrin’s rage collapsed as the words fought through the wine fumes and trailing remnants of anger. Wester was already pacing the length of her cart. He considered Sandr still wobbling on his skates, the half-buried wineskin, the pond with the white scoring of blade tracks still on the ice.
“Sandr,” he said. “Get Master Kit.”
“Yes, sir,” Sandr said and awkwardly scampered off toward the mill house.
Wester sheathed his sword absentmindedly. His eyes shifted across the landscape, searching for something. Cithrin waited, her heart in her throat. They couldn’t run. Against two dozen, they couldn’t fight. Any goodwill she might have expected from Wester was certainly gone now.
The seconds stretched by endlessly. Wester took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
