Dear Goddess, it was hard. At first I never mentioned the subject of sex, for we were still learning about each other, and Varien was busily coming to terms with a new life and a new form.
The problem was that his new form was to me the most alluring I had ever known. And I slept near him, and longed for him as a drowning man longs for air, and had not yet allowed myself so much as a lingering kiss.
It was not that I was, as the foolish maidens in Ilsa put it, "saving myself" until we were wed.
The thought never crossed my mind to do any such thing. But for all his length of days, Varien was yet but a month or so old as a human, and in honour and simple respect I made myself wait until he had grown into his new body before I did anything about my own desires.
Typical, of course. When he finally asked me about "mating'' (as he called it), I was in the blood of my moon-cycle. I tried to keep a straight face about explaining the details, but when he looked so skeptical-—and at one point absolutely disbelieving—I laughed and held him tight and said we'd work on it later.
Goddess, it was hard to let him out of my arms. I longed for him more each day, and we had never yet truly kissed. He was still learning how, though his pecks on the cheek were rapidly progressing from the buss of a toddler to something more interesting.
I am not by nature a patient soul. Thank the Lady we were working so hard to put distance between us and Corli, and were keeping watch over each other through the nights. It meant we were seldom in bed (when we slept in a bed) at the same time.
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?"