Red Country (18 page)

His voice was harsh and quick. “Zem made his own decision on his own judgment, of his own free will. You were not to blame for anything at all.”

It was time for the rear ambush. “Then let me point out something else. You owe me, if I don't owe you. It was I who buried Zem.”

He went white with rage and before he could retaliate I changed my whole battle-line.

“Zam, please be reasonable, please. You can't do all this by yourself, it's too much for anyone. You know it is. I won't quarrel with you, I promise I won't even come near you unless you ask. But if I have to sit in some dassyk and wonder what's happening and if some dirty brigand's knocked your head in yet, I'll go insane, I know I will! You didn't see yourself after that fire. . . .”

I broke off to master my voice. Then I said rather desperately, “And I care about Hethria. You risk it, when you take stupid risks with yourself. If anything happens to you, it's the end. We can't stop Estar without you, Zam. You know that as well as I.”

He was biting his lip. But as I had prayed, that last argument tipped the scales.

“Stay then,” he said harshly. “Either way, it doesn't concern me.”

* * * * * *

When they had saddled up, left me most of their rations, Zam had supplied directions, and I had kissed them good luck in lieu of better thanks, I watched Karyx and his men ride away with a ridiculous lightness of heart, considering I had just contracted to renounce wealth, rank and power in favor of work as a general drudge for a master who clearly disliked the entire idea as much as he loathed me. But I was in Eskan Helken, away from Everran's ruin. Free of Kastir, actively helping Hethria, at the heart of operations. And Zam was here. Something kept singing a silly variation on Zem's broken promise.
He's here now, everything will be all right.

I roused to find Zam regarding me with a mixture of suspicion and distaste, and said blithely, “I shall camp down here where it won't worry you. But I'll come up now for water. You'd better change those clothes, if you can. If not, you'll have to leave them down here and run about bareskin, because I shall wash them anyway.”

“Women!” he said bitterly. “They're born in a laundry, every one.”

As he picked up his saddlebags and started for the cleft I called, “Will you come down, or shall I bring tea up?”

He stopped. “You'd best,” he said resignedly, “come up. Somehow or other, you'll get there anyway. Give me that.” He scooped up my waterskin and strode off before I could react.

When I emerged from the cleft he had vanished, but his clothes were strewn by the well, along with his rations and my waterskin. So I spent a messy, busy morning as I assembled all the memories I had of those caravan journeys, of my own soldiers and travel-trips, and pitched camp behind the ferns, to the disgust of the resident pair of little black and white saeveryrs, who must have made it their traditional place to nest. It was worlds away from being a princess, let alone Kastir's consort. Given a different situation, I could have been almost happy as I contrived a cache to preserve the food from ants and wyre-sparyx, built a bed, and assaulted the washing, another thing I had never done in my life.

The robe finally approximated cleanness, but I had to admit defeat with the trousers, horse-sweat and skin-oil having left marks no amount of cold water and lusty beating on rocks would extract. Nevertheless, it was in something like triumph that I turned to constructing a fireplace, and at last put a little camp-kettle to boil.

When it wisped steam, I thought tentatively,
Zam?

The answer was curt, cold and succinct.

* * * * * *

He came at dusk, when the spectacle of sunset on Eskan Helken had quieted my mood to wonder mixed with awe. He looked deathly tired, too tired to move. But not too tired to say, after one glance at my camp, “Your bed will be soaked by morning. You'd best come up to the house.”

I opened my mouth. Choked back fire, and answered, “Eat this while it's hot.”

It was dried meat boiled with a haphazard selection of herbs. Not my best friend could call me a cook, but he would probably have eaten labeled aspnor roots. He swallowed it in total silence, oblivious.

I poured the tea. He did pay that the minor compliment of a sigh. Then I asked, “Won't Fengthira mind?”

“Fengthira? Oh. No.” He eyed the strewn gear, clearly feeling obliged to assist, and almost too tired to face it.

I said, “Never mind that. Did you—have any trouble with my family?”

“Why should I?”

“Sazan and Haskar. I thought they might not want to leave.”

“They had no choice.” He struggled to his feet. Suppressing more umbrage at that unconscious arrogance, I started to pack up.

But when I reached the house I found an old beam had been lashed between the trees with vines, a couple of boughs lopped and more vines strung to hold branches between them, making a sort of lean-to shed. I paused, staring, and felt an illogical prick of tears. He had been so tired, so unfriendly, this was his own place. Yet he had done this.

Thank you,
I thought impulsively, with a glance toward the cave, which was now his only logical retreat. Of course there was no reply.

* * * * * *

At breakfast I asked no questions. I merely thought, appalled, that if twenty-four hours spy-weeding and refugee-warding had such an effect then the sandstorm would slay him dead.

He shot me a prickly look and retorted, Then he retreated to his den.

I spent the day on tenterhooks, and he left me there till dark. When he emerged at twilight I took one look and said flatly, “You'll sleep tonight or I'll put yeldtar syrup in your tea. I don't want to bury you both.”

I had looked for a scorching denial, but to my astonishment he sighed and said, muzzily but meekly, “I suppose I must.”

That night the moon was near the full, so I lay in my cloak and smelt the luxury of dew on live grass, listening to the deep silence of Eskan Helken, a silence growing hourly more dear to me, watching the rocks turn from blurry shadows to dramatic black and silver bastions, and quietly giggling as I pictured my mother's reaction to the news that I was living in scandalous proximity with a young man for whom she contemplated the matrimonial snare. I was sure Karyx would tell her the moment they met, and quite sure the meeting would occur. The only question was, how soon? And where?

My eyes drifted shut. All but asleep, still smiling, I heard Zam scream.

A man's scream is perfectly appalling. I flew out of my cloak and over the vines without a thought of Fengthira and went full tilt into Zam as he charged out of the cave. I clutched his arm, he howled, “Zem, Zem, I'm coming—” and hurled me broadside into the vinery with one violent backhander and a resounding crash. The noise spun him round instantly, snarling, “Who's that?”

He sounded wide-awake and freezingly dangerous. Gasping, quite winded, I found breath enough to cry, “Me! Sellithar!”

While I scrambled from the creepers he stood shaking, gasping, striking at his eyes with the back of a hand. The moon showed me the sweat on his face, its pallor, his frantic expression. Instinctively I grabbed his arm again and spoke as to a panicking horse. “Steady, Zam, steady. It's all right. It's all right.”

He plunged away. Caught himself. Then glared at me, literally showing the whites of his eyes.

“Zem. . . . It was Zem . . . I thought—I dreamt—”

He stopped on a shattering sob, ice, hostility, composure itself in tatters, and his distress wrung my own heart.

“I know,” I said. “I know. But you're awake now. Come to the fire.”

Shock actually made him docile. I shook up the coals, put on the tiny kettle, willed it to boil. He huddled over it with hands in his armpits to resist their trembling, staring blindly into the flames.

After a moment he said, “If I'd not been in Axaira—” There was more than anguish in his voice.

Afraid to touch him, still more afraid to hurt him further, I tried to make my tone soften the bitter truth.

“He made his own decision. You told me that. If I'm not to blame, neither are you.”

This cold comfort, or the hot tea, seemed to rally him a little. As he took the second cup, he said, sounding infinitely remote, “Beryx used to have nightmares. We'd wake up and see him. With my mother. Just like this.”

I left my curiosity silent, where it need not be satisfied.

“In Stirsselian. The big swamp.” He stared into the cup. “Moriana—wrecked Assharral. Trying to make him come out. He wouldn't move. He had nightmares instead. I didn't think it happened once you'd—lost.”

The banal, futile platitudes dried in my throat. Death, I thought, is the bitterest, most unacceptable fact. And the most inescapable.

He looked up. Then he put the cup down, climbed to his feet and said with a resignation that pierced me all over again, “Yes. It is.”

Next morning I did not vex him with such well-meant inanities as, Are you all right now? His face made it obvious he was not. I was exercising my mind on the problem of war fought with a one-man army which bade fair to collapse before it entered combat, when he said in a voice that positively dripped icicles, “Thank you, if you confine yourself to grooming and feeding me, that will be quite enough.”

So we parted with high speed and extreme dudgeon on both sides. At sunset he was still icy and I was still furious, and when he retired I thought, damn you, so far as I'm concerned you can kill yourself as soon as you like.

* * * * * *

After that we settled into a routine of worry, sparks, more worry, and work. Apart from the general concerns, I was anxious over the small but vital detail of food. I had no intention of gaily squandering dry rations until they ran out, leaving no reserves, and that meant living off the land. I went so far as to tramp out into the desert, assess the well's visitors, recall what I knew of Hethox food and the construction of a snare. Then I stubbed a toe on stone while tidying my bed, swore, groped to hurl it away, and found it thick, round, heavy, indented and somehow familiar. I prized it up. It was a saddle quern.

I was mulling it over while I made breakfast, when Zam appeared, white, hollow-eyed and blinking, to announce, “Your family is safe.”

“Safe!” I clapped my hands, shedding precious flour in the fire. “Oh, Four be thanked!”

He went on blinking, but his tone was almost pleasant when he responded, “Yes. Yes, they are.”

It was such a relief I could not help turning breakfast into a celebration, if you could so term a meal with no dainties but some dried cheese and a couple of wild figs, no wine, and the only other participant both absent-minded and too tired to speak. However, I made the most of the mood to say, “I found a saddle quern in the vines. If only we had wheat I could grind my own flour.”

“Fengthira's.” He glanced aside at it. “I must have spent hours over that thing.
Tha, boy, if tha'rt so much above thaself, canst work off tha fidgets in the mill.
”

Uncannily, his voice had become crisp, acerbic, and utterly feminine. Aedryx do not mimic, they re-create. Ignoring my expression, he went on, “You can do without wheat. The Hethox use grass seeds, seed pods, yam fiber, anything that will grind.”

“Oh.” Somewhat deflated, I said, “I thought I'd go hunting soon.”

“No need. Let me know, I can use Wreve-lan'x. Bring you a lydyr or two.”

“Bring me. . . .”

“Call them up for you.”

“But—that's revolting! It's not fair! You might at least give them a chance!”

“Chance? If most lydyrx had one, you'd miss it. Unless you can throw better than most women, that is. And this is food, not sport.” He gave me a snappish glance. “Aedryx are like langu. Unpleasant, but real.”

I clenched my teeth, thought grimly of my rescued family, and recalled another longstanding question. “What was Fengthira like?”

He gave me an eye corner. But relief must have freshened him too, for next moment he turned full face to me and ordered, “Look here.”

Mouth open to snap, “I am looking,” I left it open. For his eyes had dilated. Then the gray began to weave in swift, barely visible motion, his pupils flared wide open and the gray vanished in solid black. It cleared like a calming pool that became a crystal where tiny, perfect figures in a tiny, perfect landscape began to move.

A miniature Eskan Helken, the grass bay, a blue-robed, black-turbaned figure on a cantering gray horse. The horse halted. The rider doffed his turban. Beneath a crop of silvery hair, from a face whose structural arrogance dwarfed Beryx's, looked a pair of gray eyes, deep in crowsfeet, almost rectangular, limpid as rainwater between black fringes of lash, so penetrating they seemed to read my very soul. That crisp, resonant, acerbic voice remarked, “Art come then. I'll warrant t'will be long before tha leaves.”

As I pulled away the tiny world vanished. Zam's pupils contracted, and the swiftly woven gray irises subsided to the slow, easy motion so apparent in Beryx's eyes.

He said, “Phathire. Past-sight.” He suddenly looked tireder than ever. “We both have gray eyes, but we were not kin. Her line was Havos. Mine is Stiriand.” He might as well have said he came from the moon. Rising abruptly, he flung over his shoulder, “And how I wish she was still here.”

* * * * * *

He had enraged me often enough. It was the first time he had wounded me. It took the shine off the day, my grass-seed harvest, mostly foiled by the grays, who trampled every thick patch as they circled with charming but maddening persistence, sure I must eventually produce salt, then the wild yams found in a seepage corner, the small lizard that foolishly posed too long on a rock so I was able to pounce and batter it into unconsciousness. He can damn well skin it, I was thinking as I trudged up the pocket. That'll fetch his nose out of the air. . . .