Kigh - Fifth Quarter Part 11

He'd asked for the best room in the house. They'd been shown to a corner of a common loft with narrow shuttered windows opening in two directions and thick straw pads rolled up at the base of the wall. For an extra crescent, the innkeeper threw in a pair of reasonably clean blankets each. Except for the patina of old grime, the place could've pa.s.sed for one of the barracks back at the garrison.

Gyhard's scowl set her off again. Finally, the nervous energy died and she took a deep, steadying breath. "We've got to work the stiffness out, or we won't be able to walk tomorrow let alone ride."

"I a.s.sume they have a bathhouse..."

"Yeah, but would you care to sink your bare b.u.t.t into it?" An eloquent wave took in the surrounding filth. Pus.h.i.+ng herself away from the wall, she started to stretch the abused muscles in her legs.

After a moment, Gyhard began awkwardly imitating her, breath hissing through his teeth at the sudden intensifying of what had become a constant background pain.

Vree snickered and twisted him into the proper position. "What's the matter with you? You've done this a hundred times."

"No, he hasn't, Vree."

All at once it wasn't funny any more.

She woke from dreams not her own and found herself crouched in the center of the straw mat, the blankets thrown aside, a dagger in her hand, waiting for an enemy.

"Bannon?"

He shared her pounding heart, her sudden surge up out of sleep. "What's wrong?"

Both windows were open to catch the night breezes. Moonlight painted sharp-edged shadows down the length of the loft. The empty loft. She c.o.c.ked her head and sifted the sounds of the night. No threat.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong."

"Then why are we awake?" he muttered, settling back into her mind and trying to pull oblivion up over consciousness.

Why indeed? She sheathed the dagger and turned to look at the man lying beside her. Sleep smoothed away the small differences of expression and gesture, leaving only her brother's face and her brother's body. Her fingertips caressed the air above an angled cheekbone, traced the arc of an imperious brow, hovered over the sensuous curve of a full upper lip. Impossible not to react sometimes as though this were still her brother instead of, or maybe as well as, the presence in her head. How could she treat her brother's body as though it was not her brother's body?

Dangerous.

So, what are you afraid of?

Of being alone.

Pillowing her chin on folded arms, she stared out the window at the stars and tried to see them as a thousand campfires, Jiir's army bedded down across the sky. A rustle of leaves from the scraggly garden below lifted the hair on the back of her neck. She held her breath and closed her fingers around a familiar hilt.

"It's a cat. Go back to sleep, Vree, I'm tired."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then they'll have to come to us. We'll deal with it then."

No point in reminding the G.o.ddess to allow them to die together if the battle

went against them-they were no longer able to die apart.

"No, Bannon. Forget it. I'm not going to do it."

"So you'll help him kill the prince?"

"No!"

"Then we have to get the son-of-a-sow out of my body and me back in and the

only way we're going to do that is if something distracts him.""I am not going to sleep with you... him."

"Doesn't that hurt?"

Vree carefully turned to glare at her companion. Horses, she'd discovered during the last eight days, were not as smart as they looked and responded to any number of obscure physical cues. "Doesn't what hurt?"

"That expression." Gyhard smiled pleasantly at her. "You've got your jaw so tightly clenched I can see the muscles jumping."

"No."

"No?"

"No, it doesn't hurt," Vree snarled and went back to staring at the road through the definition of her horse's ears. "Why is s.e.x your solution to everything?"

He ignored the question. "We're more than halfway to the Capital. Only five more days..."

"I know that."

Gyhard watched her profile and wished, not for the first time, that he could be privy to the private conversations that caused such a visible increase in tension. "Are you terribly disappointed that your attempt to dislodge me last night came to nothing?" he asked suddenly.

When the hand resting on her thigh folded itself into a white-knuckled fist, he a.s.sumed he'd made an accurate guess. s.h.i.+fting his weight in the saddle, he shrugged apologetically. "I did warn you that I was too strong for you to s.h.i.+ft- even when rudely awakened." He scratched at the day's stubble. "I'd like to point out that even should you decide to risk knocking me and young Bannon's body out cold, I have to be conscious to be moved. Or perhaps I should say, removed."

Vree swiveled her head to face him again, upper lip curled off her teeth. "Or perhaps you should say nothing at all."

"My apologies." He inclined his head graciously. "We'll be arriving in Kiaz shortly. I'll leave you to your..." The pause lingered long enough to be unmistakably deliberate. "... own thoughts until then."

Biting back her response, she forced herself to relax and tried to be less aware of the man riding at her side. How quickly the strange became the norm when only the strange remained. Over the last eight days, she'd almost grown used to her brother's thoughts mixed in with her own. She'd guarded against instinctively reacting to Gyhard as though he were Bannon, found herself reacting to Gyhard as Gyhard instead, and couldn't decide which was worse.

The feeling of exposure hadn't changed. Used to marching surrounded by thousands or slipping quietly over distance shrouded by night, to ride under the sun on the South Road as one of only two kept her in a constant state of semidread that had barely lessened as day followed day and it became obvious Emo had kept his teeth closed on what he knew.

"You can't shut me out, Vree, so unless you want to help him slaughter the prince, a member of the Imperial Family you swore to serve, you come up with a better way to get him out of my body."

Better than going to his bed. Better than... She clamped down on the image. "No."

She heard him sigh, which was strange as she breathed for them both. "Don't tell me you don't want to, Vree."

"I'm telling you I won't do it." How much did he know, sharing her mind? How much did he only guess after sharing her life for so long? She couldn't ask.

"Look, sister-mine..." His voice had gentled, and she didn't want to know why.

"... it won't mean anything. You won't be sleeping with your brother. I'm here."

Although he wore her brother's body, the man who rode beside her was not her brother. Although he wore her brother's body. Her fingers grew sweaty on the reins. She had to do something or the prince would die. This was all they had left to try. She stared at a low line of distant hills rolling dusty brown along the bottom edge of a pale blue sky, listened to the hollow sound of hooves against stone and the roar of her blood in her ears. The wind lifted a strand of mane back over her hand and she stroked the coa.r.s.e length over the ridge of callus on her palm. "What if he doesn't want to sleep with me?" she asked at last.

Bannon almost laughed. "I know that body. He'll want to sleep with someone by now."

"Maybe he won't let your body rule him the way you did."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." He'd always been able to find willing partners. A quick tumble here. A heated moment there. A trip to Teemo's when he had the cash. There'd been a simplicity to his couplings she'd always envied. "What do I do?"

"What do you usually do?"

He sounded like he thought she was kidding. Vree allowed herself the luxury of a smile. "I sleep with women, there's no chance of little soldiers then."

"You sleep with men." But it was almost a question; he'd seen less of her life than she had of his.

"Now and then. When it's safe."

"Safe?" She could almost hear him as he silently counted the days. "Vree, you're going to..." "Soon. Don't sweat it, Bannon. I'll deal with it. I've been dealing with it once a moon for years." Another time, his near panic at the possibility of sharing her flows would've been funny.

"So it's safe now?"

She thought of her body moving under his and safe was the one word that didn't come to mind. "Yeah."

"Okay, here's what you do. Make him think you're interested in him. Get him talking about himself. That always works."

"And then?"

"Slaughter it, Vree. You're a woman, he's a man. Just let nature take its course."

"And then kill him."

"We both know there're worse ways to go."

Kiaz, a prosperous trade town at the junction of the Pymba River and the South Road, boasted half a dozen inns, from three waterfront dives to a well-guarded facility that catered to the Empire's n.o.bility. As the town had gained its prominence well within the security of Imperial borders, there were no walls and the streets were laid out in a planned grid to the west of the road, behind the inns and markets.

Traffic had increased as they'd approached Kiaz, and Vree had been forced to concentrate on controlling her horse, leaving no time to worry about drawing Gyhard into conversation. "Why aren't we stopping?" she demanded as the gelding took offense at a cart of fish and danced a couple of steps to one side. "We've pa.s.sed two perfectly good inns."

"Perhaps by your standards," Gyhard told her, the memory of other inns evident in his voice. "We'll be spending the night at Evion's, across the bridge."

"Who's Evion?"

Gyhard smiled at her suspicious tone. "I a.s.sume he was the original owner of the inn and it kept his name."

"Oh. You've been there before?"

"No, but it comes very highly recommended by a number of Governor Aralt's acquaintances."

She snorted, her opinion of the late governor's acquaintances clear. "Are you sure they'll let us stay?"

"Why shouldn't they?" Gyhard asked absently, his attention momentarily distracted as one of the brothels lining the road folded back the shutters around the second-floor balcony, indicating it had opened for business. Dragging his gaze off the taut, silk-covered curves of the robust and very flexible young man securing the tall, louvered panels against the far wall, he cleared his throat and repeated, "Why shouldn't they?"

"Told you." Bannon's mental voice was matter-of-fact. "Another day or two and he won't be able to keep his kilt down."

Vree ignored him. "If this inn caters to rich travelers, why would it accept two b.u.t.t-sore riders?"

"Because we have a great deal of money." He patted his bulging belt pouch. "And what's more we're very well-dressed, riding expensive animals, and I intend to behave as though I have every right to be there. An att.i.tude I'm sure you've had intensive training in a.s.suming given that you usually work where you have no right to be. What are we missing?"

The road ahead had momentarily cleared. As her horse seemed inclined to continue toward the bridge, Vree glanced over at her companion. "We have no servants," she said.

"Died."

"What?"

"They died." Gyhard smiled, his expression suddenly so like one her brother had molded those same features into that Vree started and had to hurriedly relax her grip on the reins. "Died of one of those flux diseases while we were in the south."

"Both of them? How? No rich sot would go to a place without healers."

"Oh, there were healers, but our servants were Olaki."

"Why would anyone hire one Olaki let alone two?" The Olaki were a small sect who believed their G.o.d would heal them with no direct intervention up to and including, in extreme cases, bandaging. They were a standing joke in the army where the burial squads were often called Olaki healers.

"Because besides being stupidly mortal, the Olaki also believe that a life of service will strengthen the bond with their G.o.d. This makes them excellent, albeit frequently replaced, servants."

"What about their horses? Or did our loyal but stupid servants run alongside?"

"We sold their horses for a tidy profit as we had no wish to lead the now useless beasts all the way back to the Capital."

Distracted by the necessity of guiding her horse through traffic and up over the arc of the wide stone bridge that lifted the South Road above the Pymba River, Vree wondered when this riding nonsense became instinct as Gyhard kept a.s.suring her it would. "It's an asinine story," she muttered through clenched teeth. "You can tell it."

"I had every intention of doing so."

A wide marble portico separated Evion's from the North Road. As Gyhard led the way up to one of the columns, a well-scrubbed girl of about ten ran out to take their reins.

"Will you be staying the night, sirs?" she asked as Gyhard dismounted.

"We will." He flipped her a quarter-crescent.