“You see? I think maybe that’s why we understand each other. Well, finally Gaia came - gods. I cannot ever tell you what it was like, looking into her eyes for the first time. It was - like souls touching. And the relief-knowing that I wasn’tmad, that I wasn’tdemon-possessed - I went from hell to the Havens in the space of a heartbeat.’’
He sighed and seemed to sink into his own thoughts for a long while.
“What did she do?” Vanyel asked.
“For one thing, she put me under her shielding; got me controlled until we arrived here and Savil took me under her wing. That’s more than enough reason to love her, even without the bond to her. She’s my very best friend and the sister of my soul.”
He reached up, and touched Vanyel’s cheek. His hand was cool; almost cold.
“But she’ll never be what you are. Can you understand what I’m saying, love? I owe her my sanity, but in a lot of ways she’s morethan I am; I love her the way I love Savil or my mother - inferior to superior. Notbrother to sister, or lover to lover; not everas equals.”
Vanyel put his own hand over the one touching his cheek, and held it, warming it in his own. “What am I, then?”
“You’re my partner, my equal, my friend - and my love. Vanyel, I didn’t say this in so many words last night - but I dolove you.”
Those words were notexpected; certainly the implied level of commitment was not what Vanyel had expected. “But - “ he stuttered, not sure whether what he was feeling was joy or fear.
“Van, I know we haven’t known each other long, but I do loveyou,” Tylendel said, ignoring the ‘but,’ holding Vanyel’s gaze with his own. “And I love you because I love you; not because I owe you anything, or because some god somewhere decided I was going to be a Herald, or because you’re a beloved teacher. I love you because you’re Vanyel, and we belong together, and together we can stand back-to-back against anything.”
Much to his confusion, Vanyel felt his eyes start burning. “I don’t know - really know what to say,” he replied awkwardly, blinking hard. “Except - ‘Lendel, I think after last night - I can’t ever remember being this happy.I’ve never loved anyone, I don’t know what it’s like, but if - “ he tried to say what he felt. “ - if wanting to die for you is love - “
His eyes burned; he rubbed at them with his free hand, and tried to put his feelings into coherent words. He groped after his thoughts, totally awkward and altogether out of his depth, but he neededto articulate his bewildering emotions. He’d never felt so vulnerable and exposed in his life. “I’d do anything for you; I’d take the sneers, the pointed fingers - I wouldn’t care, so long as they didn’t take me away from you. If I could, I’d give you anything. I’d do anything I could to make youhappy. And - I’ll .gladly share you with Gala.”
“Havens, don’t say that,” Tylendel chuckled, though his voice sounded suspiciously thick and hiseyes glistened in the shadows. “Shewanted to ‘eavesdrop,’ you know. She’d take you up on that, the randy little bitch.”
Vanyel’s face flamed hotly, and he laughed, using his own embarrassment to get past that moment of complete vulnerability. “I knewshe was saying something that would make me blush, I just knewit!”
“Well, she is notgoing to have her prurience satisfied, I promise you,” Tylendel said firmly. “ Iam not going to share you,and that’s that.”
Vanyel entered their room through the garden door, blinking until his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness after the noontide sunlight of the gardens. He was carrying his lute by the neck in his right hand, and holding his left, wrapped in a handkerchief, curled against his chest.
Ye gods, I should have known better,he thought ruefully, as his left hand throbbed. I am such a damned fool.
“ ‘Lendel?” he called into the outer room, racking the lute with care, still using only his right hand. “Are you out there?”
“Of course I am.” Tylendel strolled in, a half-eaten slice of bread and cheese in one hand. “It’s lunchtime, you know I’m always here when the food is!”
Vanyel began unwrapping his hand - slowly -
Tylendel stopped chewing, then tossed his lunch, forgotten, onto the table.
“Gods, Van - what did you do to yourself? Sit!”
The ends of Vanyel’s fingers were blistered, and the blisters had broken and were bleeding. The muscles of the hand were cramped so hard he couldn’t have gotten his fingers uncurled to save his soul. He looked at the wreckage he’d made of his hand with a kind of pained disbelief.
Tylendel pushed him down onto the bed, and took the injured hand in both his own.
“I made a fool of myself, is what I did,” Vanyel told him, regretfully. “I told the girls yesterday that if they’d leave me alone I’d play for them this morning. I forgot how long it’s been since I played - and, well, I’ll tell you the truth, I forgot I lost some feeling in those fingers when the arm got broken. I didn’t even realize what I’d done to my finger-ends until afterthe muscles in my hand started to cramp.”
“Stay right there.” Tylendel went to the little chest at the foot of the bed that he’d moved into Vanyel’s room with the rest of his things, bent over it for a moment, and came back with bandages and a little pot of salve. “I’m no Healer,” he said, sitting down and taking Vanyel’s hand back into his, “but I’ve banged myself up a time or two, and this is good stuff.”
He took some of it on the ends of his fingers and massaged it into the palm of Vanyel’s hand. A pleasant, sharp odor came from it, both green and spicy, and his fingers began to relax from their cramped position, both from the warming effect of the salve and the massage.
“What is that?” Vanyel asked, sniffing. “I’m going to smell sort of like a pastry.”
Tylendel laughed. “Don’t tempt me this early in the day, Vanyel-ashke.It’s cinnamon and marigold. Good for the cramped muscles andthe poor, battered fingers.”
He had worked all the way out to the ends of Vanyel’s fingers; the cramps were mostly gone, and the salve, rather than burning as Vanyel had half feared it would,, was numbing the areas where Tylendel was spreading it.
“Now just let me get you bandaged up.”
‘ ‘What was that you just called me?’’
“Ashke?It’s Tayledras.Hawkbrother-tongue. All those feathered faces and masks Savil has on the wall out in the common room are from the Tayledras;she studied with one of their Adepts, Starwind k’Treva, and they made her a Wingsister. That’s like a blood brother for them.”
Tylendel was wrapping each finger carefully and taking his time about it. Vanyel didn’t mind in the least. Now that he wasn’t in much pain, there was something a bit sensual about Tylendel’s ministrations.
“She uses a lot of their expressions when there isn’t a good word for the thing in our tongue. Like shay’a’chern- it translates as - oh - ‘one whose lover is like self,’ with a sexual connotation to the word ‘self that makes it clear that they aren’t talking about incest orsimilar interests. It’s a very complicated language.” He looked up from his bandaging, and Vanyel could see laughter-glints lurking in the depths of his eyes. “You smell delicious; are you sureyou have lessons this afternoon?”
“We promised Savil we’d be virtuous today,” Vanyel reminded him, feeling greatly tempted anyway.
Tylendel heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Too true. Well, ashketranslates simply to ‘beloved.’ And it’s part of your name already - ashke,Ashkevron. See?”
He tied off the last bit of bandage with a flourish.