She sat stunned. Was it what they both wanted? If he had asked that question years ago, before she left for the academy, she would have said yes. Yes, at once and without thinking about it. She had ached for him, longed for him. Even now, parts of her went all wet-crotched at his words. She could feel some inner part of her breaking loose, panting against the thick wall between them, ready to dig through it to him, some frantic bitch part with hard little tits and all four feet flailing. “Yes, I want to be with you, Chernon,” she said, being honest, almost appalled at the longing in her words. “At least part of me does. But I think I could wait until carnival.”
“No!” It was almost a shout. “Not carnival. Not orgy time, with everybody in the city falling in and out of bed with everyone else….”
She was angered at this. “I didn’t say I intended to fall in and out of bed with anyone!”
“I don’t mean that! I mean I don’t want what I feel for you to be…” He reached for loftier words than those that first came to mind. “I don’t want it to be part of some general… some ritual indulgence. I don’t want us surrounded by a thousand drunken warriors and giggling women. I want it to be… something finer than that.” These were Michael’s words, and Stephon’s, cynically composed and now offered out of desperation.
“Simeles,” she said, her lips quirking, half amused.
“What?”
“Your warrior poet Simeles. Doesn’t he have a song about being in paradise alone with the beloved?”
Silence. Then, “I don’t care if it’s paradise or not. But I do want it alone, with you. Without some assignation mistress tapping on the door saying time’s up.”
She couldn’t answer him. The observer Stavia was paralyzed, bitten by some viper of indecision, unable to say yes, no, perhaps later, let’s think about it. She didn’t want this conspiracy, this subterfuge. She felt herself standing aside, felt that other Stavia taking over. The actor. The actor who made it all seem so easy, right or wrong, so easy.
“All right,” she said, not letting herself feel anything except that this was Chernon, and that her heart turned over when he spoke to her. She had wakened in the night sometimes in Abbyville, dreaming of him. He was not merely another warrior, not one like Barten, not a loudmouthed braggart. He was Chernon. Beneda’s own brother. He was in her marrow. She had tried exorcising him, and she couldn’t.
“I’ll be leaving shortly for an exploration trip to the south,” she told him. “I’ll arrange for you to have transportation to a place well south of Emmaburg, and I’ll meet you there. You’ll have to cover your brand and shave off your beard—not that you’ve got much—and plait your hair like a servitor.”
Stubborn silence. “I don’t want to….”
The actor Stavia could deal easily with this. “Chernon, it’s that or nothing. I can’t be seen wandering around with a warrior down there. You may not be seen, but if you are, so far as anyone knows you’ll be a servitor named Brand from Agathaville. No one knows you, you don’t know anyone. I’m the only team member from Marthatown, so there won’t be any questions asked. Unless we’re alone, you’ll take orders from me, politely. You’ll call me ma’am.”
“What about the real servitor, the one who was supposed to go with you?”
“I’ll have to figure something out. Some way to send a message telling him not to come. You and I will do the exploration I would have done anyhow, then we’ll return separately. I’ll come back to the town; you’ll come back to the garrison. According to you, that will satisfy you.” Her voice gave no indication of the turmoil inside. She wondered at that, finding it inconceivable that she could sound so cool and feel so hot.
He had to agree to what she wanted. His visions of quest had always concluded with his return to the garrison, his return to honor and glory. That there was something unsatisfying about the plan Stavia laid forth, he perceived only dimly without in any way recognizing what it was. If he had been capable of analyzing it, he would have been astonished and shocked to find he did not really like the idea of returning.
“I’VE BROUGHT MORE MEDICINE for Bowough.” She was drinking tea in the room Septemius shared with old Bowough. “That’s the favor I’m doing you. As for the favor you can do for me….”
“Yes,” he asked, interested, conscious of the quiet in the next room where Kostia and Tonia were hanging upon every word.
“I want you to travel south from here, as soon as Bowough is able to travel. Once you’re a mile or so outside the city, someone will hail you by name and ask for a ride farther south. I hope you’ll be sympathetic to that request.”
“Where might this person want to go?”
“South. Almost to the sheep camp you mentioned to me before. There should be no trouble taking him there. The roads that far should be quite safe. It would be very helpful to me.”
Septemius didn’t say anything.
Tonia, who had overheard this with a pang of apprehension, came in from the neighboring room. “Do you believe in fortune-telling?” she asked Stavia.
Stavia looked up abstractedly. “Fortune-telling?”
“Kostia and I are very good at it. We’d like to lay the cards for you, Stavia. Would you mind?”
Stavia gave Septemius a suspicious look.
“Let them,” he sighed. “They are good at it, and it won’t hurt anything.”
Bonelessly, Tonia sank to the rug before the stove, pulling over the bench that stood beside it. The deck was in her right hand, and she passed it to Kostia who shuffled the cards before passing them on to Stavia. “Shuffle,” she said. “Any way you like.”
Almost angrily, Stavia shuffled the deck, knocking it into alignment with a sharp
