Tatzel watched with her mouth drooping. "I am truly perplexed."
"Indeed? What is it this time?"
"Why do you stubbornly hold me captive? My own preference is to be free, and I only impede you on your journey. Apparently you do not even intend to use me as a woman."
Aillas thought back across the events of the day. He muttered: "I could not bring myself to touch you."
"Most peculiar! Suddenly you respect my rank!"
"Wrong."
"Because of the bandit, then." Tatzel blinked, and Aillas thought he saw tears glistening in her eyes. "What could I gain by fighting? I am in the power of Otherlings: escaped slaves and bandits; now I am apathetic. Do as you like with me."
Aillas made a scornful sound. "Save your dramatics. I told you last night and again tonight: I would never force myself upon you."
Tatzel looked at him sidelong. "Then what are your plans? I am mystified by your conduct."
"It is quite simple. I was enslaved and compelled to serve you at Castle Sank, to my abiding fury. I swore that some day there would be an accounting. Now you are the slave and you must serve me according to my whims. What could be simpler? There is even a kind of beauty in the symmetry of events. Try to enjoy this artful beauty as much as I do!"
Tatzel merely compressed her lips, "I am not a slave! I am the Lady Tatzel of Castle Sank!"
"Those bandits, were they impressed with your rank?"
"They were Otherlings, but partly of Ska blood."
"What is the relevance of that? They were both depraved. I killed them with pleasure."
"With arrows and ambushes," sneered Tatzel. "You dare not confront the Ska otherwise."
Aillas made a wry face. "In a certain sense, that is true. So far as I am concerned, war is neither a game nor an occasion for gallantry, but rather an unpleasant event to be settled with the least possible hurt for one's self. ... Do you know of a Ska named Torqual?"
At first Tatzel seemed disinclined to answer. Then she said: "I know of Torqual. He is a third cousin to me. But I have seen him only once. He is no longer considered Ska, and now he is gone to another land."
"He has returned, and his den is up yonder, under Noc. Tonight we have drunk his wine and consumed his onions. The trout was my own."
Tatzel looked off down the gully where a nocturnal beast had caused a rustling among the leaves. She looked back to Aillas. "Torqual is said to keep close reckonings. I suspect that you will pay a dear price for your feast."
"I much prefer to enjoy Torqual's bounty free of charge," said Aillas. "Still, no one knows how the future will go. It is a dark and awful country, this North Ulfland."
"I have never found it so," said Tatzel in a reasonable voice.
"You have never been a slave until now... .Come. It is time we were asleep. The wagon-boy will talk everywhere of the noble Ska lady, and the valley will swarm with Ska soldiers. I want to make an early start."
"Sleep, then," said Tatzel indifferently. "I will sit up for yet a little while."
"Then I must tie you with rope lest you wander off during the night. In these places odd creatures move about in the dark; would you want to be dragged down into a cave?"
With poor grace Tatzel limped over to the bed. "We still must use the rope for the sake of security. I sleep soundly, and I might never awake if during the night a rock fell upon my head." He passed the rope around Tatzel's waist, made it fast in a tight-bowline which she could not untie, and secured the ends to his own waist, thus constraining her close beside him.
Tatzel lay down and Aillas covered her with her cloak. The moon, three-quarters full, shone through a rift in the leaves and played full upon her face, softening her features and causing her to seem entrancingly pretty. For a moment Aillas looked down at her, wondering as to the quality of the half-sleepy half-scornful smile which momentarily twitched at her mouth. ... He turned away, before images could form in his mind and, lying down beside her, covered himself with his own cloak... . Had he overlooked anything? Weapons? All secure. Rope? The knots were out of her reach. He relaxed and presently fell asleep.
III
AILLAS AROSE AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN. There had been no rain and he discovered a live coal among the ashes. He covered it with dry grass and blew up a fire. Yawning and shivering, Tatzel crept from her bed and huddled before the blaze, warming her hands. Aillas brought out bacon and the sack of meal, which Tatzel pretended not to notice. Aillas spoke a few terse words; after scowling and darting a glance at his back, Tatzel set herself to frying bacon and baking griddle-cakes. Aillas saddled the horses and made them ready for the trail.
In the dewy pre-dawn stillness Aillas and Tatzel ate their breakfast, and neither chose to speak.
Aillas loaded the pack-horse, helped Tatzel into the saddle and they departed the ravine. Coming to the trail Aillas stopped to look and listen, but discovered no evidence of traffic, and once again the two set off up the valley, and all the while Aillas kept a close watch down the valley behind them.
They rode through perilous territory. Aillas pushed the horses to their best speed, that they might pass by the fork to Castle Ang as early in the day as possible.
As the miles passed by, the landscape became ever more grand. At the sides of the valley cliffs reared high, sometimes lofting above tumbles of boulders, sometimes rising from stands of massive pines and firs.
The sun appeared above the eastern ridge and shone upon three pines standing tall beside the trail, with a ram's skull nailed to the trunk of each. At this place the road forked, one way leading off to the right. With alacrity and a lightening of the spirit Aillas rode past the ominous fork and put it out of sight behind them.
The horses began to labor, both for the pace Aillas had set and for the gradient of the trail. Up, up, and up, traversing and twisting, back and forth under hanging ledges and bulging boulders, across an occasional mountain meadow: so went the trail, thence once again up on a new slant.
An hour after passing the fork to Ang, Aillas led the way to a secluded nook at the back of a forest of pines. He dismounted, and helped Tatzel to the ground. Here they would rest during the middle of the day, and so lessen the chances of meeting other riders, who, in these regions, could only be sources of danger. Tatzel seemed to feel that prudence of this sort was both furtive and ludicrous. "You are as timid as a rabbit," she told Aillas. "Do you live your life in fear, always peeking and peering, and jerking about wide-eyed at a whisper?"
"You have found me out," said Aillas. "I cringe to a thousand fears. It must be the ultimate abasement when a man is considered a coward by his own slaves."
Tatzel uttered a jeering laugh and stretched herself out on a sunny patch of sand.
Aillas leaned back against a tree and looked around the skyline. Despite all, Tatzel's comments had irked him. Could she truly think him timid, merely for exercising ordinary caution? More than likely so. In her own experience, men travelled the countryside without dreading unpleasant events. "Before long the Ska will be peeking and peering too," Aillas told her. "They are no longer chivvying a few poor peasants from pillar to post; now they have the Troice to contend with and this is a far different matter."
"If all Troice are as prudent as you, we are in little difficulty."