“You think there are spies in Raven’s Mill?” Rachel asked.
“No, not yet,” Edmund said. “And if there were, Dionys wouldn’t know how to use them. But there are woodcutters and scavengers up in the hills that Dionys might capture and… question. I know that you will not be talking widely, but if I don’t even tell my closest confidantes, nobody can get upset if I don’t tell them. So I tell no one.”
Later, after the wine had been served and cleared away Edmund stood up and looked around. “I give you the forces of the Kingdom of Free States,” he said, raising his glass of brandy. “May they always side with the right.”
“Here, here,” Herzer replied, somewhat muzzily; he had had a bit too much of the wine.
“And with that, I think that we should all get some sleep,” Edmund continued. “It’s going to be an early day tomorrow.”
“Herzer, you take Rachel’s room,” Daneh said. “She can take mine. I’ll sleep with Edmund.”
“Good,” Bast said with a nod. “Glad I am to hear that. Come on, Herzer, I need to go tuck you in bed.”
“I think you’re a few letters of the alphabet away,” Herzer said, chuckling.
“For that maybe I will just tuck you in bed!”
“Why am I getting kicked out?” Rachel asked.
“Because my bed is a single,” Daneh chuckled. “Herzer, by himself, would have a hard time fitting in it. And I doubt he’s going to be by himself!”
“Not if I have anything to do about it,” Bast smiled. “Come on, lover boy, time to see how tired you are.”
Edmund poured himself a small measure of brandy instead of leaving immediately and waved the bottle at Daneh.
“No more for me,” she said, then thought better of it and held out her glass. “Herzer is starting to remind me a bit of Gunny.”
“He’s… a lot like Gunny when Miles was much younger,” Edmund agreed. “Up to and including the lack of self-confidence.”
“Now that, in Gunny, is hard to believe.”
“Gunny is a character.”
“Yeah, I’d sort of noticed.”
“Noticed but not understood. There is a person called Miles Rutherford. And then there is the character Gunny. But Miles has done the character for so long that, like a good character actor, he’s sort of assumed the role. I don’t know if Gunny believes he’s the reincarnation of a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant from world war two. But that is what he is. He lives every day as he envisions such a person would live. He has done that for nearly a hundred and fifty years. And before that he was a Roman centurion, doing the same thing. The only reason he switched was that he became convinced that the Marines had studied the centurions and improved upon them. He once talked about getting modified so that he could eat steel and shit nails. I have no idea why or what it means! For his period, Gunny is much more informed than I am.”
“That would be… that would be a major mod,” Daneh said, after contemplating the image with a grimace.
“Yeah I know.”
“Steel teeth…?” she mused.
“No, have to be diamond or something…” Edmund said with a smile.
“Tough mod… you could construct some gut nannites to… Oh, never mind!” she ended with a grin.
“Herzer can learn a lot from Gunny,” Edmund said, looking off into the distance. “Gunny… well, he’s been in situations that almost no one else in this world has and come back. On the other hand, if Herzer had learned a lot from Gunny before… your incident, Herzer would be dead and otherwise things would be the same.”
“I was raped. You can say it, Edmund.”
“No, you can say it. I still can’t. In some ways you’re stronger than me. You walked away from… from us when you knew it was right. I never could.”
“And I walked back,” she said, taking his hand, “when I knew it was right. It’s late, Edmund. Come to bed.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, looking at her in the torchlight. “The last time didn’t go so well.”
“I have never been so sure of anything in my life.”
“Well, here we are again,” Herzer said, stroking Bast’s cheek.
“We’ve never done it in this bed,” Bast replied with a grin. “I’m sure I’d remember!”
Herzer wrapped her in his arms and pulled her down on top of him, nibbling at her shoulder. “You know what I mean.”
“And I also know that you’d rather Rachel were still in it.”
He lifted her up to where he could see her face but she was still grinning. He ran his hand across her face and twined a bit of her hair into his fingers. “You know I love you…” he said.
“Sure,” Bast said with an irrepressible smile. “Although, ‘lust for you’ is what you’re really thinking. You love Rachel.”
“Well…”
“Don’t bother trying to lie to me,” Bast said again, shaking her head. “Agggh, Ghorbani women! They’ll be the death of me yet! First it was Sheida slipping away with Edmund and then Daneh…”
“Sheida? The council member?”
“Hai, she was a right vixen in her day,” Bast frowned for a moment. “There I was, having my way with Sir Edmund, and suddenly he up and disappears. Over in the bushes with that tramp Sheida! And then she introduces him to her sister and it’s like somebody hit him in the middle of the eyes with a mace! And now Rachel! May they all develop spots.”
“Bast…”
“Tell me, Herzer,” she said, smiling again. “If you had the choice of being in bed, tonight, with either me, Bast, the queen of all that is of the body, a thousand-year-old-lover who can squeeze the last dregs of pleasure from your body, or a callow youth who has, okay, decent hair and larger breasts, which would you choose?”
Herzer looked at her wide-eyed for a moment and then sighed. “Both?”
“Oh, you are a bastard!” Bast said with a chuckle as she struck him in the sternum.
“Bast…” he said.
“Don’t whine.” The elf smiled. “I do not intend leaving this bed before morning nor shall you be tossed from it. It is fine that you care for Rachel. She is a sweet and loving girl.”
“Who looks right through me,” Herzer said. “She hates me for not saving Daneh. I hate me for not saving Daneh, so I know how she feels.”
“You think you know how she feels,” Bast said. “But you’ve never asked her how she feels.”
“It’s pretty obvious.”
“Maybe to you. I see a young woman who is terribly challenged by the life she’s been thrust into and who looks upon you as a friend. One with faults, some of them aggravating faults, but I don’t think she hates you.”
“Really?” Herzer said, his face lighting up.
“Oh, great,” Bast replied. “You’re ready to go charging into her room right now!”
“Only to see if I could drag her back,” he joked and raised his arms against blows that were surprisingly painful.
“Just for that I shall do the position of the Three Swans,” Bast said, her eyes shooting lightning.
“Ah! No! Mercy!” Herzer chuckled.
“You laugh, but I shall have no mercy on you!” she replied, shifting lower. “And let me just see if I can get a red-haired young lady out of your mind!”
“Who?” Herzer laughed then involuntarily sucked in a breath of air. “This is gonna hurt, isn’t it?”