She stared at him. “Holy cats! You’re in love with her! Oh, great! What an odd couple you two make!”
He sighed. “You’ve been a fairy too long, Marge. You don’t plan these things. Since we left Terindell, she’s been a whole different person. And, no, I know what you’re thinking—it’s not the kinky bondage stuff. I’d do away with that in a minute if the Rules allowed it. It’s beyond that sort of crap. Throw it away. Ignore the slave thing. She’s been a partner, tough, has more guts than any man of any status I ever met, as smart as anybody I know, and in just a short week she’s become my indispensable left arm. She’s got all the qualities I loved in Ti, only more so, but without the qualities that kept us apart. I don’t know another person who wouldn’t have been destroyed by what’s been done to her, yet the more she was stripped of everything, the stronger she’s grown. The laws, the Rules, and the sorcerers took everything people think they desire from her, stripping her down to her core, and that core’s proved already to be somebody remarkable. ”
She stared at him. “Boy, you got it bad.” Still, she had to admit, he had a real point. That girl was beginning to look like somebody who, were it not for the slave business, would take Husaquahr by the tail and shake it.
The odd thing was, had she not been a slave, she probably would never have revealed or even known how good she was. She’d be somebody’s wife, or maybe a political manipulator or something like that, depending on where she was, but she’d never have been forced to test herself and would never have been willing to take the kind of chances she took. When you had nothing, not even your dignity, you also had nothing to lose. With no inhibitions even possible, and with her brains and resourcefulness, Marge thought, she was probably more dangerous than anybody, even Joe in a rage.
“She’s not gonna look any better, either,” Marge pointed out.
He shrugged. “I married my first wife because she had the most stunning looks of any woman I’d ever seen. She had the soul of a viper—if she has a soul at all. With Ti, it was not only her looks but her education, her background, her breeding—all the stuff neither I nor my first wife had. I may be slow and ignorant, but even I eventually learn. I guess it was because everybody always prejudged me by my looks. This is a primo lesson in how unimportant that crap really is. Boquillas was one of the best-looking, dashing, charismatic men I ever met. Sugasto was kind of a pretty boy, too, when we first met him. It’s what’s behind the face and eyes that count.”
“Well, okay, Lover Boy, we’ll talk more about this some other time,” the Kauri said at last. “If she’s that good, and we don’t have your iron wrapped, the money secure, and all the rest of the junk ready to go, and she gets here, we’re gonna fail her.”
“Good point,” he admitted, and started work.
“You aren’t even worried about her?”
“Worried sick,” he admitted. “But if she wasn’t my slave but my partner and equal, a mercenary or Amazon or something like that, I wouldn’t have hesitated and you wouldn’t have anguished about it.”
“Yeah, okay. You handle the sword, remember. And wrap it securely.”
He nodded. “I’ll do the iron first. The rest I’ll let you get to, since I want to go down and settle the bill.”
“Holy cats! You’re gonna pay this dump?”
“Sure. I don’t want any blemishes on the record. And if they know we intend to set out before dawn, they won’t wonder why they never saw us leave.”
“Well, I just hope your pegasus can carry everything. Us, too. We’re great for sprinting and medium flights, but these wings won’t match the kind a flying horse would have.”
“The guy I saw flying the thing looked about average. What’s a Kauri weigh, anyway?”
“Dunno. Haven’t had to worry about a scale in years now. Fairy construction is very different from human, though. I’d say forty pounds, give or take. Just a wild guess. Still, it means not having to worry about straps and seat belts.”
“Easily within limits, even with this stuff.” He picked up the newly bought hafiid, then tossed it. “Won’t have to worry about that, thanks to Sugasto. I wish we had a decent magician along, though. I’d love to know if he added anything nasty to that spell.”
“I can read some of it,” she told him, packing away. “Hey— you better take care of that bill now, or you’re either gonna have to fly it down or she’s gonna have to carry somebody the size of the manager.”
“Good point,” he admitted, took out some money, and left the room.
For Mia, the waiting was the worst part. Not because it was so boring in and of itself, but because she had nothing to do but think. Why had he kissed her like that? Why had he kissed her at all, let alone with such—such passion. They had made love, yes, but when they thought themselves married, it had been fun but, well, ordinary. And the last time, it was an act of kindness, she knew, to help her forget her shearing. This one kiss had been different, almost, well, electric. It had been hours now, and she still felt tingly and turned on. It wasn’t the sort of thing that could be so convincingly faked—well, after living with him for months now, it wasn’t something he could fake, she knew.
It couldn’t be physical. The shearing and the removal of all adornments made her looked like an eleven-year-old eunuch.
She was finally snapped out of her confused thoughts by the appearance of a large red-bearded man in furs and horned helmet coming toward the pegasus. The man looked particularly odd because it was still fairly warm out, and he had to be sweltering in that outfit. The reason for his garb was apparent when he went to the shed and started assembling the gear and taking it over to the pegasus.
He’s going to fly off! Too soon! Too soon! she thought, disappointed beyond words. This was all for nothing, just folly.
A soldier approached the man, saluted, and said, “Are you certain you want to risk it? You might not make it until after dark, and you know how bad the pegasus’ night vision is.”
She hadn’t thought of that, either!
“Oh, ya, ya. No problem,” the fur-clad man responded. “Ve only go little ways. Besides, is still full moon.”
And, sure enough, he prepared to go. She watched with a mixture of sunken heart and total failure as the man created his strange saddle, strapped in, rode the pegasus, albeit uncomfortably, as a horse out to the main road, checked something—the wind, she realized, seeing a flag on the shed—waited, then kicked the steed into a gallop, going faster and faster down the road, and, suddenly, those great wings just spread out and the flying horse lifted, flapped a number of times, gained altitude, and then picked a direction and was off. The soldier, too, watched him go, then shut up the shed and secured it, then walked off.
Now what? she wondered to herself, looking around. The sun was very low on the horizon, the shadows long, but it had not yet set, and she would have close to an hour of darkness before moonrise. Some cover, yes, but there were a lot of people—and others—around. Where to go?
Even if she could evade these soldiers and make the front gate, it would matter little. It wasn’t so much the distance, as taking total pot luck on what she’d become. A horse wouldn’t do—it would be considered a stray or runaway and kept there, maybe tied up. She had thought soldier or Bentar, but now she remembered Sugasto’s spell. The were curse usually didn’t affect spells, which was why the ring remained. Sugasto had said that she not only didn’t need to wear clothes, she couldn’t. A naked soldier of whatever race, particularly with a ring in his nose, wouldn’t be much of an improvement over now.