Drakkar's mouth quirked as well. "Either are just as deadly. And then where will your treaty be?"
"On the heads of fools," Thomas answered. He looked the young man over. Drakkar was equipped for just about anything. "I don't want to do this," he said.
"I promise you, any trouble and you can send me back."
"We'll see about that. All right, Shankar. You've got a vacation. I'll take Drakkar with me, BUT," and he pointed at the Mojavan. "Any trouble and there won't be enough left of you to send back."
Drakkar's dry little smile flashed into a sudden grin. He said to Shankar, "Like Father, is he not?" and spurred his horse forward.
"Not so fast. Dismount and let's see how you're equipped."
Gem-blue eyes blinked lazily. "Why, of course, Sir Thomas."
Blade swung back down, sure that even though he was going to be given a look through the young man's saddlebags a certain amount of sleight of hand would be hiding valuables and other important items from him.
Lady watched as the Mojavans approached Thomas and, from the gear on Drakkar's horse, guessed that the boy intended to go with the mappers. She turned from the shelter of the patio to make her way to Alma's room in the barracks. What was it about the promise of adventure that drew men, a lure even more tantalizing than sex? Her nose tickled. She rubbed it vigorously, thinking that she herself would jump at a chance to go though she knew the tedium, as well as the danger, of the long ride ahead. The difference was that she had not been invited. Thomas had never, not once, entertained the idea of her going.
Nor had she ever asked.
She wasn't sure why. She knew they had reached an impasse in their relationship. There was more than sex to be had, but neither of them were quite sure what, or what they wanted. Until they reached beyond and defined it and began to obtain that—there was nothing else. Either what they had would continue to grow, or it would die. Without being told, she sensed that Thomas hesitated to reach out, and she knew that she could not develop their relationship alone. It took two, just as fulfilling sex did. She doubted, even if she dared to ask Thomas what the problem was, that he would have an answer.
What she hadn't anticipated was that the process of breaking away at this point could be so painful. She felt as if her soul had been taken in two hands and torn asunder. Without future or commitment, hopes or promises, none of those exchanged between either of them, she had already crossed the line between lover and beloved. She loved Thomas and she could not tell him until he was ready to hear those words, until he was ready to explore all that went with it. And now she was letting him go again. He'd been gone all spring and summer riding the justice circuit and now she was letting him go again.
Franklin beamed from the kitchen as she entered the barracks. "Everyone hit the trail?"
"Not quite. I think they're waiting for a military salute."
He gave her a quizzical look as she mounted the stairs to Alma's room. She gave a perfunctory knock on the door that stood ajar.
Alma sat on the window ledge. She could see a slanted view of the stables from where she sat. Lady joined her.
The girl turned to face her. "There's no hope, is there?" she asked.
"No. They're going and that's that. And despite the dust and smog and In-City treachery and cold and rain and saddle sores, they're convinced it's going to be a glorious adventure."
Alma smiled briefly. She tucked a strand of her long, dark hair behind her ear. "And they'll be right."
"Ummm." She reached over and patted Alma's knee. "He did ask. Stefan wouldn't stay."
Alma's face paled slightly. "I didn't think he would," she said slowly. "What's wrong with me?"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We need for you two to be together, to bear children—we haven't the luxury of hoping you might love one another. I hope you can forgive us."
Alma fell into Lady's arms. She sobbed two or three times, then subsided into nearly silent tears. After a long moment, she withdrew. She dried her eyes on her sleeve. "That's not good enough. I'm sorry, but it's not. And it's not your fault, it's mine."
"No."
The girl would not look back at her, just kept staring out the window as the mappers all mounted and leaned out of their saddles, saying their last good-byes. Stefan had not yet put on his hat. His height and his white-blond hair stood out like a beacon. She took a deep, steadying breath. "I'll be all right, Lady. Could you . . . leave me alone for a while?"
Lady hesitated. She wanted to tell the girl that she needed comforting as well, but she did not want to burden Alma further. "Just have Franklin give me a call. I'll be in the classrooms."
Alma nodded her understanding as the woman left, closing the door behind her.
As soon as the latch clicked into place, she reached under the fold of her skirt and brought out the fleecing shears she'd hidden there. The heavy scissors knocked aside a jar of walnut oil as well. Alma fumbled for it, praying the wooden seal would hold. Using the glass window's reflection as a mirror, she cut her hair short and then carefully applied the staining oil to her ashen face. She rubbed her hands together briskly, staining them as well.
She tore off her skirt to reveal old, worn buckskin breeches underneath, and reached under her cot for the bulging pack sacks she'd stored there earlier. Lady might take Sir Thomas' leaving in stride, but she would never be so calm, so resigned. Stefan was her husband and she was determined to follow.
Lady was going over the classroom books when she saw a movement by the pasturing yards. She paused, head up, alert, wondering if the sentries had let an intruder through again. Her senses flared. She felt someone where no one should be.
The fine hairs rose on the back of her neck. She checked her wrist sheath, twisting the knife loose in its casing. She went to the classroom door and made her way down the building's length, back to the wall, holding her breath.
A pebble clicked around the corner. She reached out and grabbed, dragging her opponent into the sunlight, bunched shirt filling her left hand and the knife in her right.
A tan slim boy writhed in her grasp, a horse shying at his back. The horse backed up a step or two as its reins dropped to the ground. In her grasp, the boy struggled. The big brown eyes, wide with fright, rolled up at her.
"What—"
"Don't stop me," the boy pleaded. "I'm going after them."
Lady's jaw dropped. She knew the voice and the eyes, even if the exterior fooled her. "Alma! My God. What are you doing?"
But the girl had already told her what she was doing. Alma stood in silence now, her lips pressed stubbornly together. Lady let go of her shirt and replaced her knife.
"That's a good way to get yourself killed," she said.
Alma picked her hat oif the ground and dusted it of by whacking it across the knee of her trousers. "I figured if I could get by you, I could get by anybody."
"Well, you didn't get by me."
"You're better than I figured."
Lady took a deep breath. "And so are you." She had thought of several things Alma might do. This had not been one of them.
"Going to call Franklin?"
She looked at the girl/boy, her slim chin lifted defiantly. "No," Lady said finally, "I'm not. Go ahead. Follow him. Join them if you can—but the first time you pee, you'll be found out."
"I'll not. And I've got herbs to roughen my voice."
Lady laughed gently. "Be that as it may, you asked for it, you go get it. If I let you go today, you've a chance of catching up with them. If you run away tomorrow or the day after, then you'll be traveling alone and you'll never make it. I'll not have that on my list of sins!"
Alma's expression was one of total surprise.
Lady nudged her. "Go on—and hurry!"
The girl/boy scrambled to catch up the mule's reins. Lady stepped back as Alma left in a hail of dust and grit. She blinked, eyes tearing, from the dust she supposed.
She'd had the guts to follow Thomas once.
But not this time. What
had happened to her?
Chapter 11
A bell tinkled in the mews as a pigeon made its way into the cote, the brush of its body against the chimes alerting the handler to the arrival of a message. The tired bird was caught up and relieved of its tightly wound scroll and, in due time, the missive was passed on.
The dean paused in his study of the map crudely drawn on a stretched donkey hide. A fawning nester brought a tray in and weighted on the tray was a scroll. The dean slapped away the intricately carved geode that held it down and snatched up the paper.
A wolfish smile came to his features. He looked up at the clansmen gathered around the map framework.
"The bait's been taken. A salvage team has left the center at Palos Verdes." He looked at them, his human glare beating down the animal in their eyes. "He'll come to you. Either tell him what we've discussed or say nothing at all. Anything else will be the death of you and your clan."
A chunky, pock-faced boy faced him. "If we break the pact, we'll lose our water."
"Stay with me and you'll never have to beg for water again."
The boy who was nearly a man brushed greasy braids from his forehead. Dreadlocks, the dean thought, a holdover from his distant past. The chieftain did not hesitate to meet his eyes. "I do not beg," he said. "But water is
life."
"Clean water is life. Do they give it to you? Or must you give up everything else you have for it—lands, family, honor? Once we are united, the Countians will be unable to stop you from taking anything you want." The dean let his gaze sweep the room. The other nesters flinched from it.
A balding man, the side fringes of his hair grown long and brushed over the top of his head, grunted. He picked his teeth with an ivoried nail before saying, "Where are these strangers you promised us? The new weapons?"
"They're coming."
A grumble among the nesters. The dean straightened up. He lifted his chin and tilted his head to one side. He pointed at the transmitter sitting in the corner. "I called, they answered. And they will come. Soon." And even if the longships did not, the transmitter had served its purpose. It had convinced the nesters that there was a humanity even above that of the Countians, demigods, to whom all Earth would be held accountable. By the time the dean's word had been proved wrong, he would still hold the power of the united nester nation in his hands. All he had to do to keep them in his power would be to give them water.
Such an easy thing.
He waited until they filed out of the tent, still grumbling among themselves, before reading his note again. A surge of triumph went through him. Blade was in the forefront of the salvage party. He had him, he had him! The dean crumpled the note in his hands fiercely. Blade would go to the Vaults. It would be the death of him and his party. He would be there first. He would make sure that the twisted catacombs of the ruins would be a death trap.
The flap of the tent rustled. Ketchum stepped back in, the only nester chieftain silent among those who'd listened to him. As the dean's fortunes had risen, so had the tracker's.
"Is the man Blade among the salvagers?"
The dean weighed his options of lying and then, realizing his very hesitation in answering marked him, said, "Yes."
"He is a Protector. He has powers even you cannot explain."
"He's a freak!" The dean swung away angrily. "There's nothing he can do that will keep them alive with the traps we'll set. I want to leave in the morning. Get the animals and packs ready." He looked back, in spite of himself.
Ketchum's eyes were earth colored, with flecks of light green highlighting them. The green sparked now, weirdly, as the glow from the lanterns of the tent caught it. "What do you fear, big man?" the nester asked.
"Fear? What do you mean?" The dean responded quietly but inside, an inner voice raged, death, you fool, dying!
"I fear bad water. A stronger chieftain. A plague baby. More than two hands of wolfrats attacking. What do you fear?"
The dean felt like laughing bitterly but held it in. No matter how much he'd worked with Ketchum, the nester could not comprehend mathematics beyond the numbers of his fingers. He did not dare let the nester know he laughed at him. The dean swallowed tightly. "I fear a lot, Ketchum—but not him. Not him.""
The tracker moved to the tent flap. He stood there, blocking a cold fall wind. "Perhaps," he said, "you should."
"Blade has never been liked by you nesters."
"No. But he respects us, respects our treaty, respects our basic right to water. I don't like him, Dean, but I do fear him. The Shastra does not approve of you. I fear him also." With a whisper of wind through summer-dried evergreens, the tracker was gone.
The dean went to his writing desk and sat down. He watched the recall beacon's dual lights blinking on alternating current until they nearly hypnotized him. Then he broke away with a curse. He unrolled a hide, stretched and thinned until it approximated parchment. The message would be brief, but necessary. It was time he began to cultivate allies within the Seven Counties. There would be those eager to form new alliances once the strength of the nester nations was apparent.
He dipped his ink pen and began to write, muttering to himself. "Just think, my friend, you may be the only one left who knows how to spell." He gave a low and bitter laugh.
Chapter 12
There was someone riding drag to Thomas' point, and he didn't know who that someone was. He'd left Palos Verdes with eighteen boys and, unless he could no longer count, would pitch camp with nineteen on the second day. He didn't think the extra kid a real danger, but it made him uneasy, and so he reined about toward sundown and had the boys make camp early.
The lone rider trotted in and found everybody waiting for him. He reined back on his weary horse so hard it damn near sat down on its haunches. Without being told to, Drakkar had gotten to his feet and edged behind the boy, though the broken landscape Thomas had chosen pretty well walled off any attempt to escape unless the damn horse could sprout wings.
The rider was young and soft, a scholar probably, dark bushy hair and complexion showing his Hispanic ancestry. His mouth opened and then pinched shut. Thomas eyed the sheepskin thrown over the saddle to help prevent saddle sores. This was no nester, unless their ability to disguise themselves was far more devious than he'd ever run into before.
With Stefan and the other boys watching his back, he approached the rider and stood with one hand lightly on the horse's headstall. The horse was heavily lathered and blowing.
"Either," Thomas said lazily, "I set someone a lot farther back on drag than I remembered, or you've been trying to catch up with us."
"Yes, sir. Ah, no, sir. That is," and the boy plowed to a halt. His voice was low and hoarse, at the edge of breaking. The broad-brimmed hat he wore shadowed his young face. Hadn't even started to shave yet, by the looks of it. Not that that bothered Thomas. Half the mappers in the party weren't shaving regularly. He stroked his mustache.
"Where are you from?"
"Laguna Hills, sir. My family came up with the trading caravan. I heard about the mappers. I—I wanted to go, so I took a remount and rode hard to catch up. Don't send me back, sir."
"Most of my boys have spent a lot of years in classrooms getting ready for this trip. What have you got to contribute?''
The boy's mouth worked soundlessly before he got out, "I'm good with mounts, sir. And I can cook."
Bottom, the heavy cheeked, peach-jowled young man who was their trail cook let out a snort. Thomas gave him a look over his shoulder. The chunky red-blond boy hunkered back on his heels as he banked the fire, but his smoky green eyes blinked resentfully at Blade.
"Geography? Geology? Cartography? Anything else?" the Protector said sharply when he turned back to the rider.
"I—I haven't been tested yet, but I kinda got a talent for Healing. Nothing much, but things knit better with me around."
The lad's voice was small. Humble, Thomas thought. He couldn't sense anything out of the ordinary, no danger, no threat, and he
was too far out from Palos Verdes to send this rider back alone.
As if sensing his dilemma, Drakkar spoke up. "I'll keep an eye out for him, Sir Thomas." Denethan's heir looked at him over the horse's rump. His feathered hair caught the lowering sun keenly. The plumage looked almost metallic in the last shafts of light, and his eyes burned their deepest blue.
Drakkar would keep an eye on the boy as well. That passed unspoken between them. Blade thought it over another long moment. "All right," he agreed. "What's your name?''
"Diego, sir."
"Put your horse on the line for grazing and make sure it's tended before you settle down yourself."
"Yessir."
Thomas walked away to see if Bottom had managed to coax up a brew of tea from his hesitant fire.
Drakkar watched the man stalk off and let out his breath through his teeth. Shankar had gone too far by sending a spy after him. Was he never to be out of sight of his father? He'd come to the Seven Counties to be polished and faceted like a fine gem. So let him be tumbled with the rocks and pebbles on his own until that polishing was accomplished. And, if this was one of Shankar's spies, he was not so certain Shankar was entirely on his father's side. So he would let the boy know that he knew what the game was. He spoke, and dropped his cupped hand across the gelding's rear.
Alma dared not let out her breath until the Protector had walked far away from her. When she did, and Drakkar spoke, she damn near jumped in the saddle.
The man slapped a familiar hand across the horse's rump. As he walked past, he leaned close and said, quietly, "I know who you are. The next time you take a remount, don't steal one of my horses. And, just like I told Sir Thomas—I'll be watching you."
He brushed past, his scent one of horse and wood-smoke and sage. Alma gulped down her fear and gathered up her horse's reins. If he knew who she was, why didn't he tell Sir Thomas? And what price would she have to pay to keep that silence? Unless, and her mouth tightened, the arrogant being thought she had trailed after because of him? He couldn't, could he? Did he honestly think he was such a gift to women that she'd come crosscountry to follow him, in spite of the fact that she was a married woman? Well, if he did, she'd . . . she'd . . . just have to take advantage of that. Thoughtfully, Alma wheeled her horse around and headed the weary gelding to the drop line.
Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall Page 12
