Locke walked along beside the wagon on the side opposite Vireska, trying to keep his eyes on their surroundings and away from Sabetha. She’d discarded her rather matronly hood, and her hair fluttered in the warm breeze.
She hadn’t kept their “appointment” the second evening. In fact, she’d barely spoken to him at all, remaining absorbed in the plays she’d packed and deflecting all attempts at conversation as adroitly as she’d parried his baton strokes.
The caravan, six wagons total, trundled along in the rising morning heat. At noon they passed through a thicket like a dark tunnel. A temporarily empty noose swung from one of the high dark branches, a forlorn pendulum.
“You know, it was novel at first,” said Calo, “but I’m starting to think the place could use a more cheerful sort of distance marker.”
“Bandits would tear down proper signposts,” said Vireska, “but they’re all afraid to touch the nooses. They say that when you don’t hang someone over running water, the rope holds the unquiet soul. Awful bad luck to touch it unless you’re giving it a new victim.”
“Hmm,” said Calo. “If I was stuck out here jumping wagon trains in the middle of shit-sucking nowhere, I’d assume my luck was already as bad as it gets.”
2
THEY HALTED for the night in the village of Tresanconne, a hamlet of about two hundred souls built on three marsh-moated hills, protected by stockades of sharpened logs. It was the only kind of settlement that could flourish out here, according to Vireska—too big for bandits to overrun, but too remote to make it worthwhile for parties of soldiers from Camorr to pay it a visit for “road upkeep taxes.”
No rural idyll, this. The villagers were sullen and suspicious, more appreciative of outside goods than the outsiders who brought them. Still, the rough hilltop lot they provided for caravans was preferable to any bed awaiting them out in the lightless damps of the wilderness.
Locke took his turn sweeping beneath the wagon while Jean saw to the horses. The Sanza twins, grudgingly accepting one another’s proximity, wandered off to survey the village. Sabetha remained atop the wagon, guarding their possessions. Locke needed just a few minutes to ensure that the space in which they would set their bedrolls was no embarrassment to civilization, and then it occurred to him that they were more or less alone.
“I, ah, I regret not having a chance to speak to you last night,” he said.
“Oh? Was it any real loss to either of us?”
“You had— Well, I don’t suppose you did promise. You’d said you’d consider it, at least.”
“That’s right, I didn’t promise.”
“Well … damn. You’re obviously in a mood.”
“Am I?” There was danger in her tone. “Am I really? Why should that be exceptional? A boy may be as disagreeable as he pleases, but when a girl refuses to crap sunshine on command the world mutters darkly about her moods.”
“I only meant it by way of, uh, well, nothing, really. It was just a conversational note. Look, it’s really damned … odd … having to look for ploys to speak with you, as though we were complete strangers!”
“If I’m in a mood,” said Sabetha after a moment of reflective silence, “it’s because this journey is unfolding more or less as I had foreseen. Tedium, bumpy roads, and biting insects.”
“Ah,” said Locke. “Do I count as part of the tedium or one of the biting insects?”
“If I didn’t know any better,” she said softly, “I’d swear the horseshit-sweeper was attempting to be charming.”
“You might as well assume,” said Locke, not sure whether he was feeling bold or merely willing himself to feel bold, “that I’m always attempting to be charming where you’re concerned.”
“Now that’s risky.” Sabetha rolled sideways and jumped down beside him. “That sort of directness compels a response, but what’s it to be? Do I encourage you in this sort of talk or do I stop you cold?”
She took a step forward, hands on hips, and despite himself Locke leaned backward, bracing against the wagon at the last second to avoid a fall that would have been, perhaps, the most graceless thing ever accomplished in the history of Therin civilization.
“I get a vote?” he said meekly.
“If it’s not to be encouragement, can you accept being stopped cold?” She raised one finger and touched his chin. It was neither invitation nor chastisement. “The Sanzas might be driving us all crazy at the moment, but I will say this on their behalf … when their advances were made and refused, they never brought the subject up again.”
“Calo and Galdo made a passat you?”
“Certainly not at the same time,” she said. “Why so surprised? Surely you’ve noticed that you’re not the only hot-blooded young idiot with fully functional bits and pieces in our little gang.”
“Yes, but they—”
“They understand that my feelings for them lie somewhere between sisterly affection and saintly tolerance. And while I sometimes imagine that they would hump trees if they thought nobody was around to see it, they’ve respected my wishes absolutely. Could you handle disappointment so well?”
“If I’m to be disappointed,” said Locke, heart pounding, “I really wish you would cut the prelude and just disappoint me, already.”
“Oooh, there’s some fire at last.” Sabetha folded her arms beneath her breasts and edged closer to him. “Tell me, how do you even know for sure that I don’t fancy girls?”
“I—” Locke was lucky to spit the one syllable out before the power of coherent speech ran up a white flag and deserted him. Gods above …
“You never even thought about that, did you?” she said, her voice a sly whisper.
“Well, hells … is that … I mean to say, do you—”
“Fancy oysters or snails? What a damned awkward thing to be unsure of, for someone in your position. Oh … oh, for Perelandro’s sake, you look like you’re about to be executed.” She bent over and whispered in his right ear. “I happen to like snails very well, thank you.”
“Ahhh,” he said, feeling the earth grow solid beneath his feet again. “I’ve never … never been so pleased at such a comparison before.”
“It’s a champion among metaphors,” she said with the faintest smile. “So very apt.”
“And now that you’ve had your sport with me, do I join Calo and Galdo in their exclusive little club?”
“They’re still my friends.” She sounded genuinely hurt. “My oath-brothers. That’s nothing to scorn, especially for a … a would-be priest of your order.”
“Sabetha, I dofancy you. It scares the hell out of me to admit it, but I say it plainly, as you did the other night. Only I don’t say it casually. I have … I have admired you since the instant we met, do you understand, the very instant, that day we went out from Shades’ Hill to see the hangings. Do you remember?”
“Of course,” she whispered. “The strange little boy who wouldn’t leave Streets. What a sad trial you were. But what was there to admire, Locke? We were dusty, starving little creatures. You couldn’t have been six. What feelings were there to have?”
“I only know they were there. When I heard that you’d drowned I felt as though my heart had been stepped on.”
“I’m sorry for that. It was necessary.” She glanced away from him for a long moment before continuing. “I think you look upon our past in the light of your present feelings and imagine some glow that is … more reflectionthan substance.”
“Sabetha, I don’t remember my own father. And other than a singlememory of … of sewing needles, my mother is as much a mystery. I don’t remember where I was born, or the Catchfire plague, or how I survived it, or anythingthat I did before the Thiefmaker bought me from the city watch!”
“Locke—”