A loud splashing answered her. She pushed hastily through the thick brush surrounding the spring. The spring was in a hollow, its bank built up by the tall grasses and bushes that throve on its moisture. Goat sat in the middle of the small spring, the water up to his chest. His discarded garments littered the bank. He grinned up at them. 'Not a very big pool, but big enough to cool off in.'
'You did get yourself a cool drink before stirring up the mud on the bottom, didn't you?' Vandien asked with heavy sarcasm.
'Of course. It wasn't very cold, but it was drinkable.'
'Was it?' Vandien asked drily. He glanced over at Ki, then reached to put Sigurd's lead into her hands. 'You explain it to the horses,' he said. 'I'm not sure they'd believe me.' He turned and strode back through the trees to the wagon. Ki was left staring down at Goat. She forced herself to behave calmly. He had not been raised by the Romni. He could know nothing of the fastidious separation of water for drinking from water for bathing. He would know nothing of fetching first the water for the wagon, then watering the horses, and then bathing. Not only had he dirtied all the available water, his nakedness before her was offensive. Ki reminded herself that she was not among the Romni, that in her travels she had learned a tolerance for the strange ways of other folk. She reminded herself that she intended to be patient, but honest, with Goat. Even if it meant explaining these most obvious things.
He grinned at her and kicked his feet, stirring up streamers of mud. Sigurd and Sigmund, thirsty and not fussy, pulled free of her slack grip and went to the water. Their big muzzles dipped, making rings, and then they were sucking in long draughts. Ki wished she shared their indifference.
Goat ignored them. He smiled up at Ki. 'Why don't you take your clothes off and come into the water?' he asked invitingly.
He was such a combination of offensive lewdness and juvenility that Ki couldn't decide whether to glare or laugh. She set her features firmly in indifference. 'Get out of there and get dressed. I want to talk toyou.' She spoke in a normal voice.
'Why can't we talk in here?' he pressed. He smiled widely. 'We don't even have to talk,' he added in a confidential tone.
'If you were a man,' she said evenly, 'I'd feel angry. But you're only an ill-mannered little boy.' She turned her back on him and strode away, trying to contain the fury that roiled through her.
'Ki!' His voice followed her. 'Wait! Please!'
The change in his tone was so abrupt that she had to turn to it. 'I'm sorry,' he said softly, staring at her boots. His shoulders were bowed in toward his hairless chest. When he looked up at her, his eyes were very wide. 'I do everything wrong, don't I?'
She didn't know what to say. The sudden vulnerability after all his boasting was too startling. She couldn't quite believe it.
'I just... I want to be like other people. To talk like they do, and be friends.' The words were tumbling out of him. Ki couldn't look away. 'To make jokes and tease. But when I say it, it doesn't come out funny. No one laughs, everyone gets mad at me. And then I ... I'm sorry for what I said just now.'
Ki stood still, thinking. She thought she had a glimpse of the boy's misunderstanding. 'I understand. But those kinds of jokes take time. They're not funny from a stranger.'
'I'm always the stranger. Strange Goat, with the yellow eyes and teeth.' Bitterness filled his voice. 'Vandien already hates me. He won't change his mind. No one ever gives me a second chance. And I never get it right the first time.'
'Maybe you don't give other people a second chance,' Ki said bluntly. 'You've already decided Vandien won't like you. Why don't you change the way you behave? Try being polite and helpful. Maybe by the end of this trip, he'll forget how you first behaved.'
Goat looked up at her. She didn't know if his gaze was sly or shy. 'Do you like me?'
'I don't know yet,' she said coolly. Then, in a kinder voice, she added, 'Why don't you get dried off and dressed and come back to camp? Try being likeable and see what happens.'
He looked down at the muddied water and nodded silently. She turned away from him. Let him think for a while. She took the leads from the horses and left them to graze by the spring. They wouldn't stray; the wagon was all the home they knew. As she pushed through the brush surrounding the spring, she wondered if she should ask Vandien to talk to the boy. Vandien was so good with people, he made friends so effortlessly. Could he understand Goat's awkwardness? The boy needed a friend, a man who accepted him. His father had seemed a good man, but there were things a boy didn't learn from his father. She paused a few moments at the edge of the trees to find words, and found herself looking at Vandien.
He knelt on one knee, his back to her, kindling the night's fire. The quilts were spread on the grass nearby; the kettle waited beside them. As she stepped soundlessly closer, she saw that his dark hair was dense and curly with moisture. He had washed already, yes, and drawn a basin of water for her as well, from the water casks strapped to the side of the wagon. Sparks jumped between his hands; grass smouldered and went out. He muttered what was probably a curse in a language she didn't know. Shestepped closer, put one hand on his shoulder and stooped to kiss the nape of his neck. He almost flinched, but not quite.
'I knew you were there,' he said matter-of-factly, striking another shower of sparks. This time the tinder caught and a tiny pale flame leaped up.
'No, you didn't,' she contradicted. She watched over his shoulder as he fed twigs and bits of dry grass to the infant flame. Idly she twined one of his damp curls around her finger. It bared the birthmark on the back of his neck, an odd patch shaped vaguely like spread wings. She traced it with a fingertip. 'Vandien?' she began cautiously.
'Sshh!' he warned suddenly, but she had already heard it. Hoofbeats; a horse being ridden hard. As one they moved to the end of the wagon, to peer down the road. Goat's comments on how the Duke felt about Romni had put Ki's nerves on edge.
A great roan horse with a thick mane and tail galloped heavily toward them. The pale grey of the evening sky and the wide empty plain was behind it; it was the only moving thing on the face of the world. Its hooves were falling clumsily, as if it were too weary for grace, and lather outlined the planes of the animal's muscles, but for all that it had beauty. Atop it were two girls, their heavy hair spilling black and red and moving with the horse's stride. Their faces were flushed and bright beneath a haze of road dust. Their loose robes had been hiked up so they could straddle the big roan, and their bare legs and sandaled feet gripped the barrel of his body. Ki watched them come silently, seized by their beauty and vitality.
'It looks like the two girls from the hiring mart,' Vandien murmured by her ear. She could hear the smile in his voice. 'I guess the red-haired one is running off to her sweetheart after all.'
Then: 'Halloo, the wagon!' A clear voice rose in the twilight. Vandien stepped out from the wagon and lifted a hand in greeting. The two girls flashed wide grins as they saw him, and then the sweating horse was pulled from the road, and came toward them over the coarse turf. The girl in front pulled in on the reins. The roan tucked his head stubbornly, and then perked his ears to her voice. He halted obediently, but tossed his head as if to show her he obeyed only because he wanted to.
'Lovely,' Ki muttered to herself, caught up in his clean lines and proud head.
'Aren't they?' Vandien said as the girls slid from the roan's back.
She had to nod to that, too. She guessed their ages fell somewhere between fifteen and eighteen years, but could not say which was the older. They were like enough in height and limb to be twins, but there the resemblance ended. The dark-haired girl with the startlingly blue eyes would have been a beauty anywhere, but her beauty would not have been enough to keep anyone's eyes from her sister. The other girl's hair gleamed between bright copper and rust. Her mismatched eyes, set wide above a straight nose, met Ki's frankly; it made what might have been a fault into a flashing attraction. Where her sister was olive, she was pale. Freckles bridged her nose irresistibly. When she smiled, her teeth were very white. She glanced from Ki to her sister, and then to Vandien. 'I'm so glad we caught up with you!' she said breathlessly. 'We didn't hear you'd left until after noon. If Elyssen hadn't been able to borrow this horse, I'd never have been able to catch you!'