Even her complaints were pleasant in an odd way; filling my mind with her trivialities so that I could not focus on my larger problems. Being with her was in some ways like being with the wolf. Tassin was focused on the now, on this meal and this night, with little thought of anything else. From considering this my thoughts wandered to Nighteyes. I quested softly toward him. I could sense him, somewhere, alive, but could tell little more than that. Perhaps too great a distance separated us; perhaps he was too focused on his new life. Whatever the reason, his mind was not as open to me as it had once been. Perhaps he was simply becoming more attuned to the ways of his pack. I tried to feel glad that he had found such a life for himself, with many companions and possibly a mate.
“What are you thinking about?” Tassin asked.
She spoke so softly that I replied without thinking, still staring into the fire. “That sometimes it only makes one more lonely to know that somewhere else, one’s friends and family are well.”
She shrugged. “I try not to think of them. I suppose my farmer found another girl, one whose parents would wait for a bride-price. As for my mother, I suspect her prospects were better without me. She was not so old that she could not catch another man.” She stretched, an oddly catlike gesture, then turned her head to gaze into my face and added, “There’s no sense in thinking of what’s far away and what you haven’t got. It will only make you unhappy. Be content with what you can have now.”
Our eyes were locked suddenly. There was no mistaking her meaning. For an instant I was shocked. Then she leaned across the small space between us. She put one hand on each side of my face. Her touch was gentle. She pushed the kerchief back from my hair, then used both hands to smooth the hair back from my face. She looked into my eyes as the tip of her tongue moistened her lips. She slid her hands down the sides of my face, down my neck to my shoulders. I was as entranced as a mouse looking at a snake. She leaned forward and kissed me, opening her mouth against mine as she did so. She smelled like sweet smoky incense.
I wanted her with a suddenness that dizzied me. Not as Tassin, but as woman and gentleness and closeness. It was lust that raced through me, and yet it was not that at all. It was like the Skill-hunger that eats at a man, demanding closeness and total communion with the world. I was unutterably weary of being alone. I caught her to me so quickly I heard her gasp of surprise. I kissed her as if I could devour her and somehow be less lonely by doing so. Suddenly we were prone and she was making small pleased sounds that suddenly changed to her pushing at my chest. “Stop a moment,” she hissed. “Just wait. There’s a rock under me. And I mustn’t spoil my clothes, give me your cloak to spread out. . . .” I watched her avariciously as she spread my cloak out on the earth by the fire. She lay down upon it and patted a place beside her. “Well? Aren’t you coming back?” she asked me flirtatiously. More lewdly, she added, “Let me show you all I can do for you.” She smoothed her hands down the front of her shirt, inviting me to think of my hands doing the same.
If she had said nothing, if we had never paused, if she had simply looked up at me from the cloak . . . but her question and her manner were all wrong, suddenly. All the illusion of gentleness and closeness was gone, replaced by the same sort of challenge another fighter might offer me in a practice-yard with staves. I am no better than any man. I didn’t want to think, to consider anything. I longed to be able to simply throw myself down upon her and quench myself in her, but instead I heard myself asking, “And if I get you with child?”
“Oh,” and she laughed lightly as if she had never considered such a thing. “Then you can marry me, and buy my prentice years from Master Dell. Or not,” she added, as she saw my face change. “A baby’s not so large a thing to be rid of as a man might think. A few silvers for the right herbs . . . but we needn’t think of that now. Why worry about a thing that may never come to pass?”
Why indeed? I looked at her, wanting her with all the lust of my months alone and untouched. But I knew also that for that deeper hunger for companionship and understanding, she offered me no more solace than any man might find in his own hand. I shook my head slowly, more to myself than to her. She smiled up at me mischievously and reached a hand toward me.
“No.” I said the word quietly. She looked up at me, so incredulously amazed that I nearly laughed. “This is not a good idea,” I said, and hearing the words aloud, I knew they were true. There was nothing lofty in it, no thoughts of undying faithfulness to Molly or shame that I had already left one woman with the burden of bearing a child alone. I knew those feelings, but they were not what came to me then. What I sensed was a hollowness in me that would only be made worse by laying myself down beside a stranger. “It’s not you,” I said as I saw her cheeks redden suddenly and the smile fade from her face. “It’s me. The fault’s with me.” I tried to make my voice comforting. It was a waste.
She stood up suddenly. “I know that, stupid,” she said scathingly. “I only meant to be kind to you, nothing more.” She stalked angrily away from the fire, blending with the shadows quickly. I heard the slam of the wagon door.
I stooped slowly to pick my cloak up and shake the dust from it. Then, the night having become suddenly colder with a rising wind, I put it around my shoulders and sat down again to stare into my fire.
12
Suspicions
The use of the Skill is addictive. All students of this magic are warned of this from the very beginning. There is a fascination to this power that draws the user in, tempting him to use it more and more often. As the user’s expertise and power increase, so does the lure of the Skill. The fascination of the Skill eclipses other interests and relationships. Yet it is a difficult attraction to describe to anyone who has not experienced the Skill itself. A rising covey of pheasant on a crisp autumn morning, or catching the wind’s benefit perfectly in a boat’s sails, or the first mouthful of hot savory stew after a cold and hungry day; these are all sensations that hover for only a moment. The Skill sustains that sensation, for as long as the strength of the user lasts.
It was very late when the others came back to our campsite. My master Damon was drunk and leaning companionably on Creece, who was drunk and irritable and reeked of smoke. They dragged their blankets off the cart and rolled up in them. No one offered to relieve me in my watch. I sighed, doubting that I’d get any sleep until the next night.
Dawn came as early as it always does, and the caravan master was merciless in insisting that we rise and get ready for the road. I suppose she was wise. If she’d allowed them to sleep as long as they wanted, the earlier risers would have gone back to town, and she’d have had to spend the day rounding them up. But it made for a miserable morning. Only the teamsters and the minstrel Starling seemed to have known when to stop drinking. We cooked and shared porridge while the others compared headaches and complaints.