She was alone, but for a servant, who absented herself to her quarters quickly enough after he arrived. They sat drinking wine in the cool night air, the room lit by three evenly spaced oil lamps, all profligately lit. The Jacobsons really did have more wealth than they knew what to do with to burn oil like that. He supposed Mahaut was getting used to it, too. She allowed the servant to pour their wine before leaving, but sat upright upon her lounging couch rather than recline in a semi-swoon position, as would most women with her position and means. Abel sat in a leatherback chair that felt solid, comfortable, and far more expensive than anything he could afford.
The change in her was enormous. No longer was she taking faltering steps, but hopping around with plenty of energy, only hampered by the slight limp in her right leg. She wore a saffron linen gown with a red sash drawing it closed. And she’d even applied kohl liner to her eyes and a bit of rouge to her cheeks.
“Did you do that before?” he asked her, he said, pointing to his own eye to illustrate. “I don’t remember.”
“You barely noticed my existence before I was shot,” she told him. “I doubt you remember a thing about me.”
“Not true,” he said. “I did at least know Xander had a sister.”
“I saw you,” she said. “When you were in from scouting. That russet tunic. Xander made fun of it, told me how black was better, but I liked it then. And I like it now.”
“It hides bloodstains well, they say.”
“No doubt,” she said. “You were saying your father was a bastard?”
“He didn’t want me to come here. He doesn’t think this is a good idea.”
“Doesn’t think what is a good idea?”
“You are married.”
“We are friends.”
“Yes,” he said. “And I want to be your lover.”
Now she was taken aback. She flushed, and even in the wan light and even with the rouge, he could see it.
“I am a ruin,” she finally said. “You of all people know that.”
He took a strong swallow of wine. There, I’ve told her, he thought. I’ve brooded for two three-moons over how I would say it, and now it’s out, done.
“An interesting ruin,” he answered her. “You can’t pretend I don’t know. I’ve seen it. I’ve touched it.”
“You’ve healed what could be healed,” she said. Mahaut nodded, sipped from her own cup. The lamplight flickered across her face, and it slowly dawned on him.
She’s prettier than I remembered. Much.
“What have you done to yourself, anyway?” he asked her. “You’ve…I’m so tired…it isn’t just the makeup, is it?”
“The hair,” she said. “I don’t have it pulled it back in braids. And the robe. You remember me from when I was wearing Xander’s castoffs, and then from the Lilleheim knoll. I long ago made a truce with fine linen, Abel. Let’s just say smooth linen and I became allies, if not friends. And do you like this bracelet? The gems are northern black onyx.”
She held up her arm, and the robe sleeve fell back to reveal a glittering train of jewels. Her fingernails were painted a subtle red.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to act like they tell you to act,” he said. “I won’t believe it.”
“The problem, my dear Captain, is not with me, but with your imagination. We didn’t run into one another for a year or more once I moved to Lilleheim. You never saw me this way, that’s all,” she said softly, but with a laugh in her voice. Then she pouted a beautiful, bowed pout. Lip rouge. Just a trace, but enough. “You don’t like it?”
He didn’t answer, but downed the rest of his wine and moved to pour himself more. She rose, took the pitcher, and filled his cup.
The slightest trace of sandalwood perfume.
“I liked you as a tomboy,” he said. “I like you now.”
And then she bent to kiss him. It was what he’d thought of, brooded on, fallen asleep imagining on cold desert nights. Perfect.
He stood and picked her up. She was still so slight, so thin from her long recovery. He took her to the bedroom.
“I have to leave at dawn,” he said. “I have to be on the Escarpment by noon.”
“Were you thinking of sleeping?”
“No.”
He laid her on the bed, untied the red sash, pulled back her robe.
Somehow he had remembered her breasts as being on the small side, but they were not, they were ample. The scar stretched from above her hip, down her right groin and onto the leg. A portion of muscle had been destroyed beneath it and would never grow back, leaving a slight depression. This was not beautiful. Neither did it matter.
He was throwing off his tunic, unwrapping his filthy leg wraps, all at once, all in a frenzy, and she began to laugh.
“What?”
“Straight in from the field,” she said. “You probably have the blood of your enemies on you.”
“Some, yes,” he said.
“His blood?” The question was sudden, as if it were something she’d wanted desperately to ask and had only now worked up the courage.
He stepped back. “No,” he said. “I didn’t manage to draw any of that.”
Mahaut pulled him toward her, guided his hand to the scar tissue.
Then suddenly she twisted an arm up and under his chin.
An obsidian dagger was in her hand. Its tip was biting into his neck deeply enough to raise a welt of blood.
She knows her anatomy, he thought. She’s got it just over the artery.
“Don’t show pity,” she said.
“All right,” he said. “I won’t.”
He drew back, and with the same motion caught her arm, twisted. With a cry of pain, she released the dagger. He took it up and plunged it into the wood of the bed’s headboard, where it stuck fast.
In almost the same motion, he put a hand on her breastbone and leaned hard onto her, one knee on her bed, one foot on the ground. He stared down at her naked form, said nothing.
She pulled him closer, kissed him again. Her tongue snaked out and forced its way into his mouth. Now he pulled down his breeches enough, but he was still half undressed. It was enough. And he could no longer wait.
“No pity,” he said. “And no mercy.” He touched the scar. Then he moved his fingers lower till she gasped.
Suddenly she cried out. She twisted away from his touch, raised a hand and slapped him across the face. She put her fingernails into it, enough to scratch, to draw blood. He snatched her free wrist, held it tight-under the pressure of his grip, the black onyx bracelet dug into her flesh until she gasped. He pushed the hand down, down to the other hand, wrist over wrist, and held her to the bed. She ceased to struggle but lay rigid, the muscles of her body tensed.
“Do you want me to let you go?” he said.
She shook her head. “No. Don’t let me go,” she said.
He held her tighter.
“Bring me back,” she whispered. “You brought back Loreilei. Bring me back.”
Holding her in this manner, he found-felt-his way inside her.
Then, as suddenly as the storm took her, she was calm. Her breathing eased. She opened to him like the Land itself.
* * *
Mahaut gave him the dagger to take with him.
“It was my grandmother’s,” she said. “For protection in the streets of Mims, she told me. I used to always carry it, but I’ve got a pistol now.”
He looked at her in surprise.
“We are rich. Such things can be acquired. It’s only for the protection of my virtue, such as it is,” she said. “I use a bow for pleasure.”
“And the occasional Scout captain?”
She laughed at that, but continued to proffer the dagger. “I want you to carry it with you. Always. Will it be a hindrance to you?”
Not a hindrance, but probably as useless as Father’s saber, he thought.
“I will carry it,” he said.
He left at dawn, and slept in the saddle on the way back to Hestinga. His dont knew the way, and though it stopped a few times to graze upon the thorny grass on the side of the road it craved, he made it back in time to deploy up the Escarpment.