Ki stood still, thinking it through. Finally, she sighed. 'I think I understand what she meant. I had a strange dream, shortly after we took Goat on.' She paused, and found herself unwilling to tell Vandien exactly what the dream had been. 'It was like someone was sifting through all my memories,' she said reluctantly. 'And looking in on the most personal ones.'
Vandien winced, and looked away from her. 'I thought I was getting somewhere with that boy,' he muttered, and then burst out, 'Why didn't you say something to me?'
'What could you do about it? Besides, I thought it was only a dream. Now that I know what it was ... I don't know what I'm feeling. Anger. And violation.' She glared over at Goat, recalling what she haddreamed. The blush that reddened her face was not shame, but fury. Fury that was suddenly engulfed by puzzlement. 'I'd like to kill him, Van. But that doesn't help me understand what's happening now.'
'Vandien,' he corrected her automatically. Then, 'What do you mean?'
Ki jerked her head, and Vandien glanced past her. Willow finished refilling Goat's cup with spiced tea. Goat was grinning delightedly as Willow waited on him, but it was the look on Willow's face that was unsettling. She was not smiling, nor glaring. Her face was carefully bland, almost blank.
'She looks like a very polite guest who smells something terrible in the soup, but is so well mannered she will eat it anyway,' Vandien observed.
'She wants something,' Ki said, suddenly sure of it.
'But what?'
'Revenge,' Ki guessed. 'Vandien, I'd like to kill him. But I know I won't. If a grown person had spied on me that way, I'd have to kill. But I look at him, and I see a wayward, very spoiled child.'
'To me, that makes his dream-stealing more offensive, not less,' Vandien observed. 'I'll kill him for you.'
She looked at the set cold anger in his dark eyes. 'Would you?' she queried softly. 'How? Beat him to death while he cried and screamed for mercy? Run him through with your rapier, after you had chased him down? Strangle him in his sleep?'
A shudder ran over Vandien, and she felt the sudden tension run out of his body. 'No.' His voice sounded old. 'No. You're right. I couldn't.'
She touched his hand. 'I know. If you could, I couldn't feel about you as I do.'
Amusement flickered across his face. 'Why don't you ever admit you love me?'
For an instant their eyes locked. Ki squirmed in discomfort. 'Good friends are too hard to come by,' she said at last, and he laughed.
'That they are,' he agreed, and squeezed her hand. 'So. To get back to the subject. What do we do about Goat and Willow?'
'I don't know,' Ki admitted. She watched Willow get up to put some wood on the fire. When she sat down again, she was closer to Goat. Not sitting beside him, but closer.
'She's stalking him,' Vandien said. 'But perhaps we should do nothing ... unless we have to. We'll be in Tekum by tomorrow afternoon. We leave Willow there, and that's an end to it. Then on to Villena, to get rid of Goat. Then ...' He let the sentence dangle, looking quizzically at Ki.
'Then we go north, away from this damn Duke and his Brurjans and his papers and checkpoints.' She spoke defiantly, expecting an argument. Instead Vandien nodded.
'I think you're right. I don't like the feel of this land, or its folk. Always watched and watching. But I say we bear north and east, away from both this Duke and the Windsingers.' 'North. We can go east after I've gotten a new wagon.'
'We'll see.' Vandien's capitulation was uttered in so distracted a tone that Ki turned to see what he was watching. A shiver of dread snaked up her spine. Willow had not moved. But Goat had. He sat at her feet beside the stone she perched on. His head was leaned against her knee. As Ki stared, her pale hand lifted, settled on his hair, stroked it. Like a fondled kitten, Goat nestled his head closer against her knee.
Without hesitation, Ki turned and strode back to the fire. She didn't break stride as she gripped Goat by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Willow gasped and Ki saw sparks of anger in those blue and green eyes. Ki's anger met them.
'What was it to be, Willow? A little silver pin driven up behind his ear? Or a quick bit of knife across his throat?'
But the glitter was already erased from Willow's eyes. The face she turned to Ki was passive and empty. 'What do you mean?' she asked slowly.
'I'm talking about Goat's head on your knee, and your hatred of him. They don't go together, Willow, not unless you're getting him in close enough to kill. I won't have that. I've been paid to take him to Villena. And I'll get him there. I don't condone what he did to you.' She glanced at the boy, still half-strangled in her grip. Disgust filled her face, and her sudden push sent him staggering. 'If it's any comfort, you weren't his only victim. But much as I hate what he's done, I won't have bloodshed. You can't undo what's happened, Willow.' Ki was almost whispering now, and the girl's face was still. 'Leave it behind you and go on from here, forget it and take up the rest of your life. Think of Kellich, and take comfort in him.'
At the mention of his name, life passed briefly over Willow's face. And agony. 'I do think of him,' she murmured. 'I do.' With those words, her face closed again, her eyes going as empty. 'I meant no harm to Goat,' she said calmly.
'Let me go, you ass! Mind your own business!' Ki turned from Willow, to find that Vandien had a firm grip on Goat and was easily dealing with the boy's efforts to shake him off.
'Let him go, Vandien.' Willow's request came just as Goat gave a violent lunge away from Vandien. Vandien released him, letting the boy's own momentum carry him away. Goat plunged into the dust at Willow's feet. He scrambled up angrily.
'Leave us alone!' He stared from Ki's face to Vandien's. 'Is it so hard to believe she likes me? Yes, she likes me, and she asked me to sit beside her because she was lonely. You don't believe it, do you? But it's true!'
Vandien opened his mouth to speak, but Willow interrupted. 'It's true,' she said. She reached out a hand to Goat, and he took it as he sat down beside her. He stared up defiantly.
'You see,' he said. 'She likes me.'
'I give up,' Vandien muttered. He snagged Ki's hand and drew her along. Together they walked off into the evening. The night was fragrant and soft around them, and overhead a myriad of stars shone. But Ki could not surrender herself to the peace.
'I don't understand.' There was pain in her voice, for Willow. 'I don't either. Look.' He tugged her up a small rise of earth. He pointed down the long gentle slope before them. The distant lights shone warm and yellow. 'Tekum,' he said softly. He stood behind her, his arms around her, his mouth by her ear. 'Tomorrow it will end. Willow will go her way, and we will take Goat on to Villena. Do you think the team could stand longer days? I'd be willing to drive evenings, to get us there sooner.'
'Maybe.' Ki sighed, and turned in his embrace. She held him close, smelling his smell, a scent like herbs and grasses damp in the morning. She felt the strength in his arms, in the muscles that ran across the flat of his back. Her strong fingers kneaded the flesh of his back and he groaned with pleasure. 'You know,' she said in his ear, 'there are Brurjans and checkpoints and papers and cracked axles and thrown shoes waiting for us down every road. Why do we keep on wandering the way we do?'
He shrugged, and his fingers tracked her aching spine. 'If we stayed in one spot, we'd just have to wait for them to come to us,' he observed. 'But I'll be glad to see the end of this run. Very glad.'
'Me, too.'
They walked slowly back to the camp, savoring the light wind that carried the moisture-laden air through the night. Habit made them both gather a few dry sticks as they walked. In the camp, Ki poked them carefully into the fire, then lifted the kettle. 'Shall I make more tea?'