When Varian took the time to think about such relationships, he had always been able to rationalize them thusly: He could not risk the time required to really know someone else; it was more important that he first spend his time getting to know himself.
But things with Tessa were . . . different? . . . yes, definitely. He spent two days with her in Eleusynnia. Two full and complete days. Every hour of every day. And every night. And yet there was not the familiar urgency, the swelling of bodily desire that seemed to cloud all rational thought. There was not the unspoken assent on both parties’ part to rush to a dark union and leave their souls somewhere behind.
No. With Tessa, he talked of many things. He asked her questions about herself. He told of his own life and inquired of hers. They shared one another—in mind as well as body—and Varian sensed that it was truly different. Perhaps, he first thought, he was growing “older,”as people often told him that he would. Perhaps he was finally feeling comfortable with the person who he had discovered he was? Or, perhaps it was something else entirely: that he sensed he was approaching a turning point in his life, a pivotal, crucial moment when all the things for which he had been unconsciously preparing himself were close at hand. . . .
Varian did not know, but he recalled old Furioso’s words about such things. The weapons master believed that everyone was in the World for a purpose, and that some of us came to their purpose early in life, and others late. But we all reached that point in our lives when things come to a sharp, brief, focus, and we know that it is Time. Time to change. To act.
Ever since Varian had spoken with Kartaphilos, he had sensed that things were changing in his life. He knew already that he could no longer be satisfied by simply being a sailor the rest of his days. There was more substance to the world than rolling chops and salty air. He knew that now.
And there was Tessa. Strangely beautiful. Innocent and naïve, and yet worldly-wise. Somehow, she was able to touch him as no woman had ever done before.
She was able to reach into him and set off the spark that had been lying dormant for so many years. With a look from her dark eyes, with a brush of her soft fingers on his cheek, with a word. These were the things which made Varian see her for what she might be . . . for him.
Varian saw these things as they passed the two days in the City of Light, and he dwelled upon them in the dark silence of the nights as she lay sleeping beside him. He made no claims to know what love might be, but something inside him was coming to life, and he suspected what it might be. There was something special about this woman, Tessa of Prend; he was certain of that. It was a specialness that he knew he had only briefly sampled. There were layers of her person that she hinted could be opened to him, and only him. And Varian was interested.
But when he thought more deeply, and honestly, about her, Varian knew that he was more than merely interested. He cared. About her and about what they might share together.
The two days passed swiftly, and Varian did not want it to end there. At the end of the two days, Tessa gave him her decision.
And he was very happy with it.
Chapter Three
It was a simple matter to book Tessa’s passage on The Courtesan. Both the captain and the first mate smiled when Varian introduced her to them. From that point, it was a “piece of cake,” and she assumed her place in the ship’s well-appointed galley where she worked with a short, hunchbacked cook by the name of Farle, who produced miracles with the small variety of the ship’s stores. A well-fed crew is a happy crew. A simple fact of life.
The voyage westward was an education for Tessa, and she spent many hours on deck with Varian, learning the ways of the merchant mariner. But when he was off-duty, he spent much of his time alone. It was not that he consciously ignored the woman, far from it, actually—he found her very attractive, intelligent, and resourceful among other things—but he had become quite interested in the crate of texts and manuscripts which he had carried on board from Eleusynnia.
Each night, he sat by lamplight in his private cabin and searched for references to anything which might tie the loose threads of Kartaphilos’ story together. There were so many places of sand, so few references to the Riken or Genon; the First Age seemed to be a world awash with legends, fables, and outright falsification. Somewhere along the line, the profession of the historian became distorted into that of a storyteller, and entertainer, to make one forget about the cold night beyond the aura of the campfire.
He debated sharing his search with Tessa, not that he was unable to trust her but that she would not believe him. Certainly she did not understand his need for privacy when he was off watch, and Varian imagined that she was wondering when he would get around to noticing her. Really
