Pakar looked up. “Ah, Jame. May I help you?”
Jame smiled. “I’m just waiting for Tigh.”
Pakar nodded. “Our new intern.” Her expression was both pleased and puzzled. “She certainly made quite a first impression on healer Bede.”
“I bet she did,” Jame murmured.
“I’ve never seen him take to someone as quickly as he took to her,” Pakar said. “He went on and on about her tidy and efficient mind and how she seemed to understand his idea of order.”
Jame realized she was staring at Pakar and searched around for a response. “She’s a very tidy person.”
“Ah, there she is now.” Pakar smiled at the doorway to the ward.
Tigh, with an inscrutable expression on her face, was trying to concentrate on what Bede was telling her as he walked her into the foyer.
“Don’t worry about the reactions of some of the patients,” Bede said as Tigh’s eyes met Jame’s. “They’re always a little nervous around new interns.”
Tigh gave him a confused look. “Uh, yes. Thank you.”
“We’ll see you back here after the morning meal tomorrow,” Bede said. “Have a nice evening.”
“You, too,” Tigh said as she grinned at Jame.
“You look none the worse for wear,” Jame said.
“Uh, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” Tigh glanced at Pakar, who smiled at her.
“That’s good.” Jame had been worried about how Tigh would react to this strange new environment.
As they walked across the compound, the evening sun still held the heat of the day as it splashed the thin clouds on the horizon with intense oranges and reds, but Jame knew the desert air would be chilled after dark.
“The sunset is beautiful tonight.” Jame stopped to watch the hues intensify on the clouds.
“Yes. Beautiful,” Tigh said.
“Where do you want to eat?” Jame turned to Tigh, who snapped her eyes to the ground.
“Your choice.” Tigh’s voice was husky. She cleared her throat.
“Do you have a favorite place?” Jame asked, fascinated by Tigh’s behavior. She’d witnessed similar reactions many times in Emor when tough warriors were smitten by that infamous invisible foe they had no defense against.
“I take my meals in my room,” Tigh said.
“Where did you have your midday meal today?” Jame took in Tigh’s sheepish expression. “You didn’t eat?”
“I, uh.” Tigh scuffed her boot on the adobe brick ground. “I’m not very comfortable eating by myself. Surrounded by people, I mean.”
“What about eating with someone else? Surrounded by people?” Jame asked.
Tigh lifted her eyes. “That depends on who the someone else is.”
“I hope I qualify, since that’s what we’re about to do,” Jame said.
Tigh looked back at the ground. “You qualify.”
Jame couldn’t believe Tigh was actually blushing. She touched Tigh’s arm. “Let’s go somewhere special.”
JAME LED TIGH into a lane that spiked off the massive plaza. On either side of them were narrow mismatched buildings that looked as if they would all fall if one of them collapsed. Tigh remembered that the blacksmith and tanner, amongst other crafts people, worked out of these buildings.
The wall surrounding Ynit proper stood in their way. Tigh gave Jame a questioning look.
“This way.” Jame walked down a narrow alley that fronted the wall, to a small door with a sword and bow etched on it tucked behind an out building that partially blocked their way.
Jame grinned at Tigh’s surprised expression and rapped on the door. A small panel slid open then closed.
The door opened and Jame and Tigh entered a corridor where the smells and the dull clank of utensils against metal pots told them the kitchen was nearby.
“Well met, my princess.” The small white-haired woman acknowledged Jame with a slight bow of her head.
“Well met, Lon,” Jame said. “This is my friend, Tigh. We’re here for the evening meal.”
Lon flicked her eyes over Tigh. “Well met, Tigh.”
“Well met, Lon.” Tigh wondered a bit about the ritual greeting. Like just about everyone in the Southern Territories, she knew very little about Emoran culture.
“Please, come this way.” Lon led them past the open door of the sprawling kitchen and through the back entryway into the common room.
After two years of avoiding all human contact and then the months of limited interaction within the compound, a bittersweet nostalgia flooded through Tigh. The sounds and smells hit her senses, bringing back the more pleasant experiences of being a Guard. She had spent long nights in establishments such as this as they celebrated victories and wore down their overabundant energy after battle.
Tigh had heard of Emoran safe houses but had never been inside one. She took in the fireplaces on three walls, lit more for light than for heat at that time of year. Oil lamps made up for most of the deep amber glow of the room. Tables of uneven sizes sat in the middle of the room and benches, padded with Emoran weave coverings lined parts of the walls. Tapestries depicting Emoran victories hung next to heroic displays of swords, bows, and staffs. Only a handful of tables were occupied by—as far as she could tell—merchants, travelers, and a few soldiers.
Lon led them to a corner of the room that had small tables separated from each other by artfully engraved and painted panels of wood. They slipped onto the short benches and faced each other by the light of a single oil lamp. Tigh felt the tight intimacy as the space enveloped them.
“Ale or tea?” Lon asked.
“Tea for me.” Jame looked at Tigh.
“Tea also.” Just sitting across from Jame and being able to look at her all evening was intoxicating enough for Tigh.
“Tigh’s an Ingoran,” Jame said.
Lon nodded and flashed a hand signal to a server. “Enjoy your meal.”
Jame grinned and Tigh wondered what she’d been so nervous about.
ARGIS GROWLED AS an enemy stronger than any warrior or even a member of the Elite Guard stood in her way as she desperately tried to reach her goal. The insurmountable mental barrier confounded her senses as they came back to the same building for the third time. “How do these Bal forsaken people live in this maze?”
Tas pulled her horse up next to Argis’s. “There must be some kind of trick to it. I don’t think we went that way.” She pointed down a street lined with closed up shops.
“We’ve been that way.” Argis scowled as she studied the four routes out of the crossroads they were in.
“The one that goes the way the soldier at the gate told us to go, came back on itself.” The only way they hadn’t tried was the one that went in the opposite direction of the Emoran safe house. “We haven’t gone that way.” She nodded toward a street splashed with torch light and too many people for comfort. The citizens of Ynit clearly favored the street for their nightly entertainment.
Tas scratched her head. “But—”
“We’ve been the other ways.” Not wanting to get into another discussion about it, Argis guided her horse into the-daughter-of-a-Yitsian-snow-creature street. Her muttered curses and frustrated glowering were enough that she didn’t have to worry about the good people of Ynit getting too close.
JAME WATCHED WITH curiosity as the young serving girl placed several food-filled dishes and an empty plate in front of Tigh. She looked down at her own fare of rabbit stew and rice, and was surprised by how different Ingoran cuisine looked.
“What’s in this dish?” She pointed to a small ceramic bowl containing some kind of vegetable covered with a pale yellow sauce.
“That’s cucumber in mustard sauce,” Tigh said. She took Jame’s fork from the table, stabbed a bit of cucumber, and held it up as an offering.
Jame eyed the delicate white slice and then sniffed it. She took the fork and ventured into a new culinary world.
“Interesting.” Jame allowed the subtle sensatio
ns of the delicate flavors tickle her imagination. “It’s so light. How can it possibly fill you up?”
“It fills one up without being stuffed,” Tigh said.
Jame pondered this while chewing on a mouthful of the rabbit stew. The taste was certainly different from the cucumber. “I admit, all I want to do sometimes is take a nap after a big feast.”
Tigh dribbled a spoonful of milk sauce onto her plate and placed several dumplings filled with spiced potatoes and spinach on top of it. She then smothered one of the small dumplings in the sauce and popped it into her mouth.
“Next time, I think I’ll try Ingoran,” Jame said.
Tigh looked up. Shyness, hope, and wonderment flickered across her face before she molded it into a passive mask. “Next time?”
“Someone has to make sure you eat,” Jame said. “So I predict there will be plenty of next times.”
Tigh’s cheeks reddened and she looked too stunned to speak.
Jame gazed down at her stew and gathered another mouthful onto her fork. She kept making the mighty Tigh the Terrible blush. What an interesting skill. Then she remembered what Ingel had told her when she first started defending Guards. Their emotional development remained where it had been when they were recruited. Tigh may have seen twenty-two years and led a victorious army, but emotionally she was a fourteen or fifteen-year-old who had, most likely, lived under the sheltering fold of her family. She knew that Guards only emotional need had been to fight and their only lust had been for blood in battle.
“Tell me about your day.” Jame placed a hand on Tigh’s arm, stopping her from pushing the greens around her plate.
“IT STARTED OUT kind of interesting.” Tigh became more confident as Jame laughed and appeared to be enjoying her story, convincing her that she could live on Jame’s smiles and laughter.
By the time Tigh finished her account, the plates had been long taken away. They sipped spiced tea and shared a bowl of sliced fruit.
“You know, the healer’s assistant said you made quite an impression on Bede.” Jame’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “He told her he had never met anyone so tidy and efficient and who actually understood his need for order.”
Tigh almost sputtered her tea and laughed with Jame until they wiped away the tears. She lifted the quilted cozy off the teapot and poured more tea into Jame’s mug. Jame’s smile seized her and held her as a willing hostage.
“Jame!”
Tigh caught the startled and stricken look on Jame’s face before they both turned to the source of the interruption.
“Argis.” Jame’s voice cracked.
Tigh’s mind tumbled out of control at Jame’s reaction to this tall warrior. The stranger grabbed Tigh by the shoulders, pulled her away from the table, and dragged her across the room, past tables of patrons who seemed to know better than to get in the way of a vengeful Emoran warrior. Tigh twisted around to make sure Jame was unharmed. A smaller Emoran held Jame back.
An older Emoran held the door open as Argis shoved Tigh onto the quiet abode brick street.
“Argis! Stop this,” Jame shouted as she cleared the threshold.
Tigh staggered from the impact of Argis’s fist to her face and collapsed in stunned shock to the ground.
“Tigh.” Jame rushed to Tigh. She helped her sit up and examined where Argis had hit her.
“Jame! Get away from her.” Argis’s voice was filled with frustration.
Jame glared at Argis. “Why did you do this? What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk. Alone,” Argis said.
Tigh frowned through the throbbing ache on her cheek as she tried to make sense of this Emoran warrior. Why was she talking to Jame like that? Like she . . . A pain that had nothing to do with her cheek slammed through her. She pulled her knees to her chin and put her head in her hands, unable to cope with the only thing that could threaten these newfound emotions surging through her.
“I’ll talk to you,” Jame said. “Go inside with Tas. Give me time to make sure Tigh is all right. Otlar will tell me where to find you.”
Argis watched Jame for several heartbeats, fists clenching in tense indecision. Finally, she nodded, turned on her heel, and strode back through the still gaping doorway.
Tas studied Tigh and Jame for a puzzled moment and followed Argis into the safe house.
“Are you all right?” Jame asked, pulling Tigh’s arm away from her cheek.
“Go talk to your friend,” Tigh mumbled, filled with lonely resignation.
Jame squeezed Tigh’s arm. “I’m not going to leave this spot until you promise me something.” Tigh buried her head further behind her knees. “Whatever Argis has to say to me will not change anything between us. I had a choice whether to be in Emoria with Argis and all my other friends and family, or to be here in Ynit. My choice was to be here. I had a choice whether to spend the evening meal with you tonight or spend it with my colleagues. My choice was to be with you.”
“She didn’t give you a choice,” Tigh said.
“Yes, she did,” Jame said. “She just doesn’t realize it. That’s why I have to go talk to her. I can’t go through my life with the expectations of others hitting me at the most inconvenient times.”
Tigh lifted her eyes from behind her white covered kneecaps. “Is that what this is about? Expectations?”
“Mostly.” Jame sighed. “But it’s only because of what she holds in her own mind, not what’s in mine. I want to tell you my story after I see Argis. I only ask one thing in return.” Struggling with the need to trust Jame, Tigh nodded. “Have Otlar take care of that cut. And wait for me.”
Tigh lowered her eyes. A part of her wanted to run as fast as she could away from everything that led to the hurt that burned through her at the thought that another may have already claimed Jame’s heart. But she’d never seen any lie in Jame’s attitude toward her as she had seen in so many others. Nothing could hurt more than what she was feeling, except hurting Jame by not giving in to such a small request. “I’ll wait.”
“Promise me,” Jame said.
Tigh looked up at the raw emotion in Jame’s voice and saw the desperate pleading in her night darkened eyes. At that moment, huddled on cold bricks in the middle of the night, surrounded by the brooding adobe of Ynit, she realized that her life had meaning again. That meaning was called Jame.
“I promise,” she whispered.
JAME TOPPED THE steps and saw Tas pacing the length of the short corridor. Smart of Lon to put them in a little used part of the establishment, in case any loud discussions disrupted the other guests.
Tas stilled her agitated feet and hung her head in embarrassment. “She heard about you defending Tigh the Terrible and went crazy. She thinks you’re being forced into helping her. I came along to keep her out of trouble.”
Jame took a deep breath to get her anger under control and put a hand on Tas’s shoulder. “Thank you for being a good friend. Do you think I’m being forced into anything?”
Tas shook her head. “It doesn’t look like it to me.”
“I was just doing my job and tonight, I was giving my friend a chance to relax a bit after her recent ordeals,” Jame said.
“She heard the two of you laughing . . .” Tas ran a hand through her shaggy hair. “You know how Argis can get.”
“Yeah, I know. Wish me luck.” Jame rapped on the door and pushed it open.
“Tigh’s the lucky one,” Tas mumbled as she slumped against the far wall.
Jame gave Tas a curious look then closed the door behind her and let the silence spark for several heartbeats while she waited for Argis to turn away from the window. The muscles in Argis’s back tensed with anger and confusion.
“Why are you here?” Jame finally asked.
“We heard that you were defending Tigh the Terrible,” Argis said to the window. “The school had pledged to keep you out of danger.”
“I wasn’t in any danger,” Jame said.
Argis spun around. “How ca
n you say that? She’s Tigh the Terrible.”
“Was Tigh the Terrible,” Jame said. “Besides, if she were still dangerous, you’d be dead.”
“Why didn’t she fight back?” Argis asked. “The impulse to fight can’t be cleansed from them.”
“That’s true. But the impulse to fight when provoked is gone,” Jame said. “She has no idea why you assaulted her. You walked into a public establishment and dragged a stranger into the street and flattened her with your fist.”
Argis stared uncomprehending at Jame. “You’re an Emoran princess. That should have been enough to tell her that I was just trying to protect you.”
“From what? Eating too much?” Jame shook her head and raised beseeching eyes to Laur. “We were sharing a meal.”
“Why?” Argis asked.
“We were hungry.” Jame fought to keep her anger down. Argis’s jealous possessiveness may have been endearing when they had been young but now it grated on every nerve in her body.
“Do you share a meal with all your clients? In a safe house? In an intimate corner?” Argis crossed her arms in a smug challenge.
“No. Tigh’s the first,” Jame said. “I consider her a friend.”
“A friend?” Argis’s incredulous bark echoed off the white-washed walls. “Now I know I have to get you away from here. How could you be so naive to think Tigh the Terrible sees you as anything other than a conquest?”
“How can you be so naive to think you know everything about someone you’ve never even seen before, much less spoken to?” Jame worked to control her anger. “If you’re questioning my ability to recognize suitable friends, I’m questioning my choice of you as a friend. It’s always been about you and what you want me to be in relation to you.”
Argis looked dumbstruck. “Everything I’ve done has been for you.”
“I have a choice on how to live my life before I become queen.” Jame kept her words steady but her voice quavered from too many conflicting emotions. “I told you before I left Emor that I may decide to be an arbiter for a while. You wouldn’t even listen to me. You just patted me on the head and told me how proud you were and then went on about your plans for when I returned to Emor for good.”
T.J. Mindancer - Future Dreams Page 9
