It was close to dawn before they pulled up at the Golden Dolphin.
“Killashandra?”
“Yes, Biyanco?”
“I’m in your debt.”
“No, for we exchanged favors.”
He made a rude noise. And she smiled at him. “We did. But if you need a price, Biyanco, then it’s your silence on the subject of crystal singers.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m human, no matter what you’ve heard of us. And I must have that humanity on equal terms or I’ll shatter one day among the quartz. It’s why we have to go off-world.”
“You don’t lure men back to Ballybran?”
“Would you come with me to Ballybran?”
He snorted. “You can’t make harmat on Ballybran.”
She laughed for he had given the right answer to ease his own mind. The tractor moved off softly in first.
She slept the sun around and woke the second dawn refreshed. She lazed in the water, having been told by the pug-nosed host that the lunk ships were still out. Biyanco greeted her that noonday with pleasantries and no references to favors past, present, or future. He was old enough, that brewman, she thought, to know what not to say.
She wondered if she should leave Trefoil and flit around the planet. There’d be other ports to visit, other fishermen to snare in the net of her attraction. One of them might be strong enough, must be strong enough to melt the crystal in her. But she tarried and drank harmat all afternoon until Biyanco made her go eat dinner.
She knew the lunk boats were in even before the parched seamen came thronging up the beachroad, chanting their need. She helped Biyanco draw glasses against their demand, laughing at their surprise to see her working behind the bar. Only Shad Tucker seemed unamazed.
Shamus was there, too, with Tir Donnell, teasing her as men have teased barmaids for centuries. Tucker sat on a stool in the corner of the bar and watched her, though he drank a great deal of harmat to “unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth.”
Biyanco made them all go eat, to lay a foundation for more harmat, he said. And when they came back, they brought a squeeze box, a fiddle, two guitars, and a flute. The tables were stacked against the wall and the music and dancing began.
It was good music, too, true-pitched so Killashandra could enjoy it, tapping her foot to the rhythms. And they played until the musicians pleaded for a respite, and leaving their instruments on the bar, swept out to the cool evening beach to get a second wind.
Killashandra had been dancing as hot and heavy as any woman, partnered with anyone who felt like dancing, including Biyanco. Everyone except Tucker, who stayed in his corner and watched . . . her.
When the others left to cool off, she wandered over to him. His eyes were a brighter blue in the new red-tan of his face. He was picking his hands now and again because the last of the lunks had an acid in their scales that ate flesh. And he’d had to grab some barehanded at the last.
“Will they heal?” she asked.
“Oh, sure. Be dry tomorrow. New skin in a week. Doesn’t hurt.” Shad looked at his hands impersonally and then went on absently sloughing off the dying skin.
“You weren’t dancing.”
The shy grin twisted up one corner of his mouth and he ducked his head a little, looking at her from the side of his eyes.
“I’ve done my dancing. With the fish the past days. I like to watch, anyhow.”
He unwound himself from the stool to reach out and secure the nearest guitar. He picked a chord, winced so he didn’t see her shudder at the discord. Lightly he plucked the strings, twisting the tuning knob on the soured G, adjusting the E string slightly, striking the chord again and nodding with approval.
Killashandra blinked. The man had perfect pitch.
He began to play, softly, with a style totally different from the raucous tempi of the previous musicians. His picking was intricate and the rhythm sophisticated, yet the result was a delicate shifting of pattern and tone that enchanted Killashandra. It was improvisation at its best, with the player as intent upon the melody he produced as his only audience.
The beauty of his playing, the beauty of his face as he played, struck an aching in her bones. When his playing ceased, she felt empty.
She’d been leaning toward him, perched on a stool, elbows on her knees, supporting her chin with cradled hands. So he leaned forward, across the guitar, and kissed her gently on the mouth. They rose, as one, Shad putting the guitar aside to fold her in his arms and kiss her deeply. She felt the silk of his bare flesh beneath her hands, the warmth of his strong body against hers and then ... the others came pouring back with disruptive noise. The mood he had so delicately created was brutally torn apart.
As well, thought Killashandra, as Shamus boisterously swung her up to the beat of a rough dance. When next she looked over her shoulder, Shad was cornered and watching, the slight smile on his lips, his eyes still on her.
He is much much too young for me, she told herself, and I am very fragile with too much living.
The next day she nursed what must have been her first hangover. She’d tried hard enough to acquire one. She lay on the beach in the shade and tried not to move unnecessarily. Otherwise she’d ache and hurt. No one bothered her until midday; presumably everyone was nursing hangovers of their own. Then Shad’s large feet stopped on the sand beside her pallet. Shad’s big knees cracked as he bent over her and his peeling hand tipped back the wide hat she wore against sun glare.
“You’ll feel better if you eat this,” he said, speaking very softly. He held out a small tray with a frosted glass and a plate of fruit chips on it.
She wondered if he were enunciating with extra care for she understood every soft word, even if she resented the gist of them. She groaned and he repeated his advice. Then he put gentle hands on her, raising her torso so she could drink without spilling. He fed her, piece by piece as a man feeds a sick and fretful child.
She felt sick and she was fretful but, when all the food and drink were in her belly, she had to admit that his advice was sound.
“I never get drunk.”
“Probably not. But you also don’t dance yourself bloody-footed either.”
Her feet were tender, come to think of it, and when she examined the soles, discovered blisters and myriad thin scratches.
Tucker sat with her all afternoon, saying little. When he suggested a swim, she complied and the lagoon water was cooler than she’d remembered, or maybe she was hotter for all she’d been lying in the shade.
When they emerged from the water, she felt human, even for a crystal singer. And she admired his straight tall body, the easy grace of his carriage, and the fineness of his handsome face. But he was much too young for her. She would have to try Shamus for she needed a man’s favors again.
Evidently it was not Shad’s intention that she find Shamus for he persuaded her that she didn’t want to eat in the hostelry; that it would be more fun to dig for bivalves where the tide was going out, in a cove he knew of, a short walk away. It is difficult to argue with a soft-spoken man, who is taller than you by six inches, and can carry you easily under one arm . . . even if he is a century or so younger.
And it was impossible not to touch his silky flesh when he brushed past her to tend the baking shellfish, or when he passed her wine-steeped fruit chips and steam roots.
When he looked at her, sideways, his blue eyes darker now, reflecting the fire and the night, it was beyond her to resist his importunities.