“He did?”
“He did. Said he wasn’t sure what it was, but he asked Ingeld and she laughed, so he’s decided it’s not what he thought it was at first. Whatever it is, go ahead and ask.”
The Hand said, “You won’t get mad?”
“Mad?” Waels laughed aloud. “I won’t get mad at you if you tell me to eat mud. You’re so brave you’re insane, even by Werist standards. You’re also the brother of my, er, flankleader, and, I mean, why would I get mad?”
Benard smiled shyly, showing gaps and half-healed gums. “If I tell you I love your smile?”
Waels felt his fists and jaw clench. Blood pounded in his throat. He was a Werist now and didn’t have to take that from anyone, not ever again.
“If anyone but you said that, I’d eat him.”
Benard seemed truly puzzled. “Said what? You worried about that mark on your face? I don’t even see it when I look at you. All I see is shape. I have a commission to carve some gods. The marble is Vigaelian color. You think I’d paint that mark in? All I want is shape, and you have one of the finest male bodies I’ve ever seen. Gods must be as beautiful as possible, obviously, and your proportions are perfect. Your muscle definition is superb. And your smile is incredibly cryptic.”
Oh? Waels said, “Thank you,” awkwardly.
“My brother must think so too, judging by the way he looks at you.”
Annoyed again, Waels said, “Are we so very obvious?”
“No, I’m very observant. Your flank-mates know, you know?”
“They don’t matter.” Whatever Orlad wanted was fine by them. Fortunately he wanted Waels.
“Now, are you going to strip in here?”
“I s’pose another dip won’t hurt me.”
“That’s all I need-to get a proper look at you.”
Starting to feel flattered, Waels said, “You’re welcome. Admire anything you want.” He tried to look cryptic.
The bathhouse was large and dim, just a log shed built over a creek, full of dank odors of mud and wet timber. Water entered by a trough about thigh height, splashed onto some flat stones, then fed into a pool that took up most of the interior. Some attempt had been made to provide benches and flooring, but mud had spread over everything. There was no one else there-to Waels’s intense relief-but the Revengers had churned the pool to a black wallow.
“The idea is to get yourself dirty in that,” he said, “and then crawl under the dribble to get clean again.”
Benard waded into the wallow, loincloth and all, and sat down with only his head showing. He sighed with delight. And looked expectantly at Waels.
Who said, “It’s very dark in here. Wouldn’t you rather wait until
… I mean…”
The artist chuckled. “I can see very well. Get it over with. I won’t laugh.”
“There’s nothing to laugh at!” Waels said angrily, and stripped to prove it. Funny-he’d been naked around men every day for years and never felt embarrassed like this before.
“Feet a little closer together,” Benard said. “Bend your left knee just a… not so much. Now imagine you’re holding a heavy wine jug against your thigh. A little higher. Oh, yes! Push that hand down with the other one so I see how your muscles would take the weight. Wonderful! Turn around. Thank you. You’re going to be holy Cienu, except you’ll be wearing that gorgeous smile of yours instead of looking like a virgin on her wedding night.”
Waels responded to that remark by jumping into the pool ass-first and throwing a monster wave into Benard’s face. He spluttered and laughed.
For a moment they just sat there in the muddy water and grinned. Benard himself had a mammoth-wrestler’s physique. Orlad did not, but he was much stronger than he looked, able to do wine-jug-at-arm’s-length tricks that even Snerfrik couldn’t.
Waels said, “You’re going back to Kosord now, to finish your statues?”
“Hope so. Ingeld has to bear Oliva there-our daughter. Horold is no threat now. What are you going to do?”
What Waels wanted to do and what he could do were very different. “Don’t know,” he said miserably. “Thanks to you Celebres, Stralg’s brothers are both dead. His sister should be by now. But who’s going to rule after them? Heroes won’t be short of work in my lifetime.”
“Seems wrong to kill for a living.”
How could such a hunk of a man be so unmanly? “You don’t want to be doge of your father’s city?”
Benard guffawed. “Me? You’re joking!”
How could a man with such incredible courage have so little ambition?
Pause.
“Waels…”
“Mm?”
“You love Orlad?”
Any other man who had the cheek to ask that would learn not to very swiftly. “What’s it to you?”
“Just that I’m very happy about it. Orlad’s been hurt more than any of us, even Dantio. He reminds me of castings I do sometimes-a coating of hard bronze outside and a clay center. Of course, in the casting the clay is baked hard, but I think there’s still some human softness left deep inside Orlad. I hope you can find it. He loves you?”
Waels debated breaking another neck, but three in one day seemed excessive. The alternative was to trust this bewildering, tangled sculptor person. “He says he thinks he does. He says he’d rather be with me than with anyone else, and he will never do anything to hurt me.”
“Then he’s being honest, and that’s rare in love affairs. You can’t expect more from him yet. Ask Ingeld. She knows more about love than Eriander, who just peddles lust. Her goddess does, I mean. She’ll advise you. No, I mean it. Talk to Ingeld.”
After a moment, the sculptor shrugged, raising ripples. “I don’t know if this would help… I can’t promise anything. If that birthmark bothers you, I can ask holy Anziel to remove it. She sometimes does favors like that for me. Often she won’t, of course, but you would be incredibly beautiful without it. It would be a sort of present to Orlad.”
Great murderous, frightful, wonderful Weru!
Waels had not really believed Orlad’s account of how his sister had escaped from the satrap’s palace. But… He looked down at his paler limbs, glimmering under the muddy water. Benard’s were almost invisible. He was a black-stubbled brown face floating above nothing.
Trying hard to keep his voice steady, Waels said, “If you can do that, can’t you change all of me?”
Benard looked startled. “What? Why?”
“Because Orlad’s going over the Edge to win back his city and he won’t let us go with him! Fair-haired Werists die on sight over there, he says. I’ve told him I don’t care, but he insists.”
“You love him that much, that you’d go and fight for him?”
“And die for him if I must.”
“You’re sure, absolutely sure…?”
“Oh, yes!”
“That’s beautiful too,” the artist said. “Be quiet a moment.”
He stared at Waels and for a while his lips moved. Then just a stare. At last he frowned in annoyance. “This is harder than I thought it would be. Look, grab a couple of handfuls of mud and rub it in your hair.”
“Why?”
“Shut up and do it.”
Waels hesitated. An extrinsic telling a Hero to shut up? If this was a juvenile joke… If anyone came in… He pulled up two handfuls of black muck and did as he was told, rubbing it into his stubble.
“Now your face,” Benard said.
The mudface said! Admiration of a man’s courage only went so far. Either this artist was gibbering crazy or he was trying to sucker a Hero and ought to be dismantled. But Waels thought about losing Orlad and nothing
