Turned grave, he shook his head in his turn. “You do not know what becomes of camp followers, Svoboda Volodarovna. I do.”
Understanding washed over her. “Y-you are a lonely man, Cadoc,” she said around a thickness. “Why?”
“Make the best of that life you have,” he counselled. “Each in our own way, we are all of us trapped in ours.”
“You too.” Your strength must fade, your pride shall crumble, in one more blink of time you will go down into the earth and soon after that your very name will be forgotten, dust on the wind.
He winced. “Yes. Thus it seems.”
“I’ll remember you!” she cried.
“What?”
“I— Nothing, nothing. I am shaken and weary and, and I think a little drunk.”
“Do you wish to sleep till your clothes are ready? I’ll stay quiet— Svoboda, you weep.” Cadoc came around the table, stooped over her, laid an arm across her shoulders.
“Forgive me, I’m being weak and, and foolish. Not myself, please believe me, not myself.”
“No, certainly not, dear venturer. I know how you feel.”
His lips brushed her hair. Blindly she turned her head toward him, and knew he would kiss her. It was gentle. Her tears made it taste like the sea.
“I am an honorable man, of sorts,” he said against her cheek. How warm were his breath, his body. “I’d not force you to anything.”
“You need not,” she heard through the great soft thunders.
“I depart shortly after dawn, Svoboda, and your marriage awaits you.”
She gripped him hard, nails into his coat. “Three husbands I have had already,” she told him, “and sometimes, at the lakeside, the spring feast of Kupala— Oh, yes, Cadoc.”
For an instant she saw that she had let out too much. Now she must somehow answer his questions, with her head awhirl... But he gave her his hand, it was as if he lifted her to her feet, and went by her side to a bed.
Thereafter she was again in a dream. Her wanting him had come over her as a torrent. If she foresaw anything whatsoever, it was a slaking. He was not a big man, but he might be strong, he might take a while to finish, long enough, and then she could topple into sleep. Instead, he took the robe from her through a time that swayed on and on, and guided her to help him off with his garb, always his fingers and his mouth knowing what to do, what to evoke; and though the bed was narrow, when he brought her down upon it he still stroked and touched and kissed until she wailed for him to open the heavens and unloose the suns.
Afterward they caressed, laughed, japed, spread two straw ticks on the floor that they might have real room to move about, played, loved, his head rested between her breasts, she urged him anew and yet anew, he swore he had never known the match to her and the believing of him was a tall fire.
The glass in the window grayed. Candles had burned down to stubs. The smoke of them drifted bitter through a chill that she finally began to feel.
“I must see you to your lodging,” he said in her arms.
“Oh, not at once,” she begged.
“The fleet leaves soon. And you have your own world to meet. First you will need rest, Svoboda, dear.”
“I am weary as if I’d plowed ten fields,” she murmured. A giggle. “But you did the plowing. You rascal, I’m hardly able to walk.” She nuzzled the silky beard. “Thank you, thank you.”
“I’ll sleep soundly on the ship, myself. Afterward I’ll wake and remember you. And long for you, Svoboda. But that is the price, I suppose.”
“If only—”
“I told you, the trade I follow these days is a bad one for a woman.”
“You come home from it after the season, don’t you?”
He sat up. His face seemed as gray as the light. “I have no home any more. I dare not. You couldn’t understand. Come, we must hurry, but we needn’t ruin this that we’ve had.”
Dumbly, she waited while he dressed and went to get her clothes from Rufus. The thought trickled through her: He’s right, the thing is impossible, or at least it would be too brief and become too full of pain. He does not know, however, why he is right.
Her garments were wet after washing. They hung clammily. Well, with luck she could get to her room unnoticed. “I wish I could give you the silk robe,” Cadoc said. “If you can explain it away— No?” Maybe he would think of her when it passed to some girl somewhere else. “I also wish I could feed you. We’re under time’s whip, you and I. Come.” Yes, she was hungry, faint with hunger and weariness and ache. That was good. It pulled her spirit back down to where she belonged.
Fog hazed and hushed the streets. The sun had belike risen, but barely, in the east that Svoboda had forsaken. She walked hand in hand with Cadoc. Among the Rusi, that simply meant friendship. Nobody outside would know when the clasp tightened. Few people were around thus far, anyhow. From a passerby Cadoc learned the way to Olga’s dwelling.
They stopped before it. “Fare gladly, Svoboda,” he said.
“And you,” was all she could answer.
“I will remember you—“ his smile twisted— “more than is wise.”
“I will forever remember you, Cadoc,” she said.
He took both her hands in his, bowed above them, straightened, let her go, turned, and walked off. Soon he was lost in the fog.
“Forever,” she said into the emptiness.
A while she remained standing. The sky overhead was clear, brightening to blue. A falcon, early aloft, caught the light of the hidden sun on his wings.
Maybe it’s best that this was what it was and nothing more, she thought. A moment snatched free, for me to keep beyond the reach of the years.
Three husbands have I buried, and I think that was release, to pray them goodbye and see them shoveled under, for by then they had wasted and withered and were no longer the men who proudly stood beside me at the weddings. And Rostislav had peered at me, wondered, accused, beaten me when he got drunk... No, burying my children, that was the worst. Not so much the small ones, they die and die and you have no time to know them except as a brightness that goes by. Even my first grandchild, he was small. But Svetlana, now, she was a woman, a wife, it was my great-grandchild who killed her in the birthing.
At least that was the final sorrow. The villagers, yes, my living children, they could no longer endure this thing that is I, that never grows decently old. They fear me, therefore they hate me. And I could no longer endure, either. I might have welcomed the day when they came with axes and clubs to make an end of the thing.
Gleb Ilyev, ugly, greedy little Gleb—he has the manhood to see past strangeness, see the woman who is neither child of the gods nor creature of Satan but is the most lost and bewildered of any. I wish I could reward Gleb with better than silver. Well, I wish for much that cannot be.
Through him, I have found how to stay alive. I will be the best wife to Igor Olegev that I am able. But as the years pass, I will befriend somebody else like Gleb, and when the time comes, be will find a new place, a new beginning for me. The widow of one man can many again, in some town or on some farm well distant, and nobody she knew will think it is altogether outlandish, and nobody she comes to know will think of questions she dares not answer. Of course, the children must be left provided for, such as are not grown. I will be the best mother that I am able.
A smile winged by.
Who can tell? A few husbands of mine may even be like Cadoc.
Her dress clung and dripped. She felt how cold she was, shivered, and walked slowly to the door of the house.
VII. The Same Kind
1
Habit dies hard, and then from time to time will rise from its grave. “What do you really know about this drab, Lugo?” asked Rufus. He spoke in Latin such as had not been heard for centuries, even among churchmen of the West.