Damn, damn, damn.
Lanen said we were making for her old home, Hadrons-stead. She had told me about the Gedri custom of "wedding," and when I asked if we might not be wed on the morrow, she laughed kindly and explained that the whole idea was to have friends and family to witness the formal joining, and we would need to wait until we reached her home.
It made perfect sense. There is a formality of roughly the same kind among the Kindred, in which the two who wish to be joined go together to their families and announce their intent.
By happy chance I heard a ballad one night as we supped in the common room of that night's inn. It was a tale of two lovers, and though it ended badly—very badly—I suspected that I could do worse than follow the hero's early example.
Accordingly, a week after she had explained things to me, I judged that the time was ripe.
When we returned from our supper,
Of course, I kissed her thrice on the cheek, though my rising blood told me that something else entirely was called for.
Lanen raised me up and took my face in her hands, smoothing back my hair, and said in truespeech, ''Of course I will wed with you, Varien Kantriakor, did you think otherwise?"
''Never, dearling, since the Flight of the Devoted. We became one that night"—and with great satisfaction I leant down, such a little way, and kissed her on the lips, full and long and deep. It thrilled me, a simple kiss shivering down my spine, and I said in a voice now grown rough with longing—"and now we are of one kind and Kindred, and a true joining is possible. Come, my beloved, Kadreshi naVarien, join with me in love."
"Varien. Akor. Kadreshi naLanen."
I have tried to write of that night, the first of our loving, a hundred times, and each time it sounds worse—full of gushing sentiment, the words of a green girl with her first true lover.
But despite our lack of experience we were neither of us children, and after the first fumbling starts we laughed, kissed again deeply, and went about it with light hearts and urgent bodies.
It was wonderful. I suspect I did more than my fair share of laughing at Varien's astonishment at finding things so pleasurable, but my love laughed with me, and it was good.
We had seen no sign of pursuit in all this time and dared to hope ourselves safe, at least for the moment. I had asked the hostellers along the way, and we were no more than halfway, if that, when we began our loving. The days sped past as we rode swiftly, still with the thought of escaping a threat, but also trying to outpace the onset of deep winter; and the nights were spent in love and delight as we learned each other's bodies and rejoiced in their blending.
We were blessed in the weather as well—at least, when I remember those times, the sun is always bright with the edged golden light of late autumn, the sky is blue and only spotted with clouds enough to make a goodly show. There again, if we had ridden through another such tempest as had tossed the Harvest ship on the way to the Dragon Isle, I don't think either of us would have noticed.
I do remember, though, that it was on such a day that we came to Hadronsstead at last. It was only two hours after noon and already the sun was falling in the West, but we saw the stead first in daylight as we came over the rise. I could hardly bear the joy that possessed me—for not only was I come home, I saw in a field not fifty paces distant the face of all my kindred.
"Jamie!" I cried, and in the instant I was off my horse and running.
If there had been a hundred men in that field, I would have known Jamie among them. His face gleamed like a sunrise when he saw her—and when I touched my hand to my soul-gem (I carried the circlet under my coat), I could feel his joy and his deep rejoicing.
He held her tight, the embrace of a father and daughter, and over her shoulder he looked into my eyes. I dismounted and strode over to them, stood waiting while yet they communed in silence.
When at last he could bear to let her go, she stood back and would have spoken (to give us each other's usenames, I learned later—a curious but useful habit when there are so many to know), but Jamie silenced her with a gesture. He gazed deep into my eyes. I smiled, for he stood in what was unmistakably Protection of a Youngling, as I had when first I met Lanen. I met his gaze in quiet rejoicing, for Lanen had told me so much of this man who stood father to her.
Suddenly he grinned, and his first words to me were "Yes, you do love her truly, don't you?"
"More than I have words to say," I told him.
"Come away in, my children," he said, taking an arm each of ours in his own and leading us towards the building. "We have much to do in little time, if there is to be a wedding at midwinter."
Lanen could not speak for joy, and I would not interrupt their communion, so in the silence of kinship we came to Hadronsstead and in at the kitchen door.
It was late that night when at last all tales were told in full. I could not read Jamie's expression as he glanced from Lanen to me and back again, but it was certain he could not be mistaken in our regard for one another.
Lanen retired first, pleading weariness, but we all three knew well enough why she left Jamie and me alone. He gazed at me in silence for some time. I returned his gaze openly, though I found it hard not to laugh.
"I'm glad I amuse you, at least," he said gruffly. "What's so funny?"
''Forgive me, Master Jameth. I wondered if you thought to outwait me in silence, as we do with the younglings of our Kindred when they have some minor disobedience to admit to their elders."
"I am not as gullible as Lanen," he replied. "I don't believe in wonders. Where had you been hiding in that cave, and for how long?''
"Ah, youngling," I sighed without thinking, "and still our Kindreds mistrust each other. What could convince you that I am who I say I am?"
"Nothing that I can think of. Unless you were to use this truespeech on me, and I heard you."
"Most of your people—forgive me—most humans are deaf to the Language of Truth, and in all the history of the Gedri only Lanen has not been mute. Most likely you would hear nothing."
"I'm willing to chance it," he said, challenging me.
I sighed and rose. I fetched my circlet from my pack in the corner, where I had stowed it when I arrived. I placed it on my brow, breathing deep, remembering that when last I had worn it I stood before my own people. ''May I bespeak you, Jameth of Arinoc? It is Varien who speaks."
I waited. "Well?" he said. "Go ahead and try."
I tried again, using the broadest kind of truespeech. ''Master Jameth, would that I might convince you of that which is simple truth. I am he who once was Lord of the Kantri. I am become human by the will of the Winds and the Lady. And I love your heart's-daughter Lanen with a love that will be remembered in song on the Isle of Dragons when we all are dust and gone.''
Jamie's expression did not change. I removed the circlet. "Forgive me, Jameth. I spoke, but you did not hear."
"Ah, well. You tried," he said, much of the rough concern gone from his voice.
"Yet despite your deafness you are well content. I do not understand."
He half-smiled at me. "You might just be telling the truth. I've seen conjurers at fairs who claim Farsight. They moan and groan and frown, there's a whole act goes with it. You didn't even twitch. Did Lanen hear you?"