by Clayton, Jo;
Gwynnor had his apprentices practicing their fingering and running over and over and over a simple progression of notes. He looked up and smiled briefly at her then went back to work, correcting and praising. Aleytys leaned against the bole of a smooth-barked giant, but the deadly dullness of the exercises soon drove her off down the stream.
When distance and intervening trees muted the practice session to a distant thread of sound that blended happily with the brush-brush of water song, she dropped onto a thick patch of grass padding the bank and watched the water slip past her toes. After a while, she curled up and went to sleep, a heavy daze filled with bad dreams and too many memories.
“Aleytys.” A hand shook her lightly.
She came slowly from the sodden depths of her stupor and blinked up into Tipylexne’s shadowed face. Grunting with effort, she pushed her stiff body up to sit with her hands pressed against her aching head. “Madar,” she groaned, “this was a mistake.”
“Mistake.”
“Sleeping.” Her body felt heavy, unwieldy, her mind sluggish. “What time is it?”
“First fire. My woman asks that you share our evening meal before the council gathers.”
“How goes the building?”
“Completed.”
“Already?”
He looked amused. “Yes, fire sister. The forest is generous to those who ask properly.” He dropped beside her with a loose, easy fall, sitting on his heels, knees spread so that he could bend close to her, nostrils flaring as his cat eyes scanned her face. “You are without peace.”
His closeness set her nerves on edge. Quietly, because she liked and respected him, she touched his cheek, then shifted her body, tactfully pretending to search for a more comfortable position. As she moved, she brushed against his leg. The touch of the soft silky fur over the hardness of muscle brought her a sudden intense awareness of his maleness.
At the blatant outpouring of sexuality, with its accompanying intensification of her female odor, Tipylexne drew back, surging erect with swift fluid ease, waves of helpless embarrassment churning out from him to jar against her sensitized nerves.
She stared down at her knees, rubbing the thinly buried bone with her thumbs. “It’s hard to know what to say.” Fighting against her own embarrassment, she looked up. “May I speak of woman things to a hunter?”
He stepped into deeper shadow, repugnance, curiosity, and a hesitant friendliness pouring out from him in waves that washed over Aleytys until she barely managed to string two thoughts together. Breathing hard, she raised her barriers, feeling absurdly hurt by the need to cut herself off from him.
Taking his silence for consent, she said slowly, “My bleeding time is close, Tipylexne. It makes me … um … what do I say … it makes me react strongly to a male presence.” She gave a short bark of laughter. “Is that expressed delicately enough?” Spreading her hands in a helpless gesture, she went on. “And I find you very much a man.”
The fur over his chest muscles stirred, ruffling up in little waves. When he spoke, his voice was harsh, as if his throat was constricted. “You shouldn’t talk to me of these things. Qilasc …”
“Is not here.” Impatiently she jumped to her feet and confronted him. “Since I’m so repulsive, I’ll take myself off.”
“It’s not that I refuse,” he burst out. “I cannot. Fire sister, I … the … you … you smell wrong.” At the look on her face, he spread his hands helplessly. “Not bad. Wrong. The … the reflex in me is triggered by the … the scent of my woman when she is with desire and then we dance the two-backed dance. Your flesh is smooth, the texture is wrong, I smelled your desire, but the smell is wrong. Do you understand?”
She sighed. “Yes.” Running her hands through her hair, she shook off some of the lingering dullness from her too heavy sleep. “I’m starting to get hungry.”
Tiplyexne stepped from the shadow onto the brighter gloom of the path, relief flooding from him. Together they began walking back toward the settlement.
“How’s the Director doing?”
“He stalks about the camp like a bull weywuks, demanding honor over and over.” Tipylexne snorted, mouth pulled into a contemptuous grimace. “An empty man. Two fingerlings mocked him until Tatto, my brother, cuffed them to obedience. He pretended not to notice.”
“He’s no fool.”
“A man without honor.”
“And so all the more dangerous.”
She felt his shoulders move as his almost soundless laugh whispered past her ear. “You know the weheyq?”
“The strangler vine that grows as you watch? I nearly fell in a patch of it a few days ago but your son warned me in time.”
She could feel Tipylexne’s sudden burst of pride and smiled to herself as he went on.
“Inkatay sang a loop around his guest house and Tatto fed it some squirrels pretending loudly to pay great honor to our guest. I don’t think he’ll go walking about in the dark.”
She laughed but shook her head, forgetting that the blackness under the trees combined with the cludair’s less efficient eyes to make the gesture invisible.
“The armlings who guard him have very respectfully …” Amusement rippled into his voice. “Very respectfully exhibited a number of interesting trophies, boasting their delight in their skill as hunters. There was a tree cat’s teeth and claws—Old Grandaddy, that my father’s father and his three brothers netted late on one hard winter. And the fire snake’s skin with fangs intact that you saw hung as spirit guard to the rafters of the longhouse.”
Aleytys chuckled. “Gave me nightmares for a week.”
“They might have exaggerated the dangers out under the trees a trifle.” Once again she heard his breathy laughter. “A common trait of newly blooded males.”
“Good. But that’s not what I meant.”
He reached out and touched her cheek, striving to read what he couldn’t see. “What is it?”
“How far do you think you can trust that snake once he’s out of the forest?”
Tipylexne was silent a moment. She could feel him trying to puzzle out exactly what she was saying. “You think he won’t keep his word?” He sounded and felt increasingly unhappy.
“Only if it’s to his advantage. You said it yourself. He’s an empty man. A promise he makes is good only as long as you can force him to honor it.”
“I’ll have to think about that.”
Ahead, the center fire cast feeble red gleams into the dark.
“The council meets tomorrow?”
“Yes. Fire sister …”
“It wouldn’t be a good idea for me to be there.”
“Qilasc was to talk with you about this, but …” His shoulders moved past hers as he shrugged, the silky hair tickling her skin and rewakening a pale echo of her need. She moved a little to one side so he didn’t touch her. “It would be a kindness if you would not be there,” he said quickly.
“With my long nose out of cludair business.”
He made an apologetic choking sound in his throat. “We are … we are very grateful for your help, fire sister.”
“But I smell wrong and I disturb your peace.”
“Would you have me lie?”
“No.” She sighed, then patted his arm lightly. “Don’t disturb yourself, my friend. I’m not offended.”
They walked slowly into the clearing, talking quietly as they moved toward Tipylexne’s family tree, a comfortable space separating the two bodies, conflict and embarrassment sunk under a quiet friendliness.
Chapter XVI
Aleytys moaned in her sleep and rolled onto her stomach, snakes hissing and coiling around her with mottled scales glistening damply, great red triangular heads darting at her, retreating, darting again. She shuddered, her body hot and tight in the grip of the nightmare.
A tree cat howled somewhere in the distance. The noise jerked her free from the disturbing images. She elbowed over onto her back and lay panting and shaking on the rush matting.
She scrubbed her hands across her face, then sat up, gasping as her head throbbed with a dull heavy pain. Her skin was sticky-slick with sweat, the tunic clinging to her body, twisted around her tight enough to waken a rush of claustrophobia. She sucked in a lungful of the stale, sodden air then breathed it out again as the walls seemed to close in on her, increasing the claustrophobic pressure. She dabbed at the sweat trickling between her breasts, then crawled cautiously out of the guest house.
The wirebush stung her ankles as she stepped carelessly onto the top loop of the laddervine, shocking her into momentary alertness. As she swung down over the cinnamon-scented bark, she muttered irritably at the stupidity of putting such a plant into a such a place until she remembered that the itch was a small price to pay for freedom from snuggling tree snakes.
She clung to the trunk and struggled to clear the wisps of sleep from her head. The forest had been benign so far but barely so. Her ignorance of the ways of life here had landed her in danger several times; only luck and a persistent young cludair had saved her skin for her. To walk into the forest with a head full of clouds was idiotic.
When she stepped onto the ground she heard, faintly, the sound of Gwynnor’s flute drifting back from the direction of the stream. She hesitated, uncertain whether company was unendurable or necessary. Overhead, the moon thrust a pale grey-green edge into the ragged circle of open sky. The night was barely begun, less than two hours into sleeping time. Rubbing her arms she stumbled down the newly pounded path to the stream, following the sound of the flute.
Gwynnor sat, back curved into the curve of the tree trunk, drawing absent-minded, shapeless doodling from the flute.
Oh god, she thought, if that was Vajd and I was back … back home … if that was Vajd … oh god. She stumbled against the tree and surrendered to a pain of loss that time seemed unable to diminish. She turned her face against the crumbly, spicy bark, struggling to rip away at the invading memories and force them back into the closet where she could ignore them and get on with living.
“Aleytys?” Gwynnor touched her shoulder. There was worry in his voice. And uncertainty. “What’s wrong?”
She pressed her face harder against the bark. “Memories.” Her voice was hoarse and muffled against the tree. The bark tasted sharp and musky.
His hands moved over her shoulders, stroking her hair aside so he could massage the tense muscles of her neck. At the touch of his fingers she shuddered, and shuddered again as her body response overwhelmed the ache of memory. She broke away from him and walked blindly, rapidly onto the the grass beside the stream. She dropped heavily onto her knees and stared up at the pitted face of the moon, rubbing unhappily at her aching breasts.
Gwynnor lowered himself quietly beside her and watched her out of cat eyes whose slit pupils were open wide until they approximated circles. The narrow segments of iris glowed with a faint phosphorescence. Absently, without taking his eyes from her, he groped for the flute and held it loosely in his fingers.
Aleytys sighed, her stiff body loosening. She let herself lean back until she was sitting instead of kneeling. She hugged her arms over her breasts, fingers wrapping around her upper arms. She dug at the grass with her toes, crossed over her legs right over left, then left over right. Then right over left. Yawned. Twisted from side to side. There was no comfortable way to sit but moving brought no relief either. Her body ached with restless energy that gnawed at her, twitched like army ants crawling up her arms, her back, her legs. Watching her struggle, Gwynnor lifted his flute to his lips and coaxed a soothing dreamy melody from it, attempting to calm her nervousness. Aleytys looked at him, then away, chewing on her lip. For the first time, the water magic failed to work and the song of the flute brought no ease to her aching spirit. Too many memories. Too much pain. Too much her body’s betrayal.
Gwynnor let his music trail off. The starwoman was crouched beside him, sitting with her knees pulled tight against her breasts with her chin resting on her crossed arms. Even the tiny hairs on her arms quivered with the disturbance that flowed beneath her skin. He watched her suffering, helplessly. Her sexual readiness was a club, smashing repeatedly against his senses. He put the flute aside once more as his body responded to the spicy disturbing odor that steamed from her.
“It’s almost finished here,” she said suddenly.
“Are you sorry?” He struggled to keep his voice even and drew his legs up his growing stiffness.
The bright hair jerked as she shook her head. He wanted to touch it, to hold the smooth curve of her hair against the matching curve of his hand.
She rubbed her hand over her face, looking harried. “I like them.”
“I know.” He looked away, unhappy at his sudden jealousy of Tipylexne.
“What about you? Still coming with me to the city?”
“Yes.” His fingers slid briefly up and down the silken smooth length of the flute lying on the ground beside him.
The starwoman moved restlessly, straightening her legs out and leaning back against the tree. The moonlight was strong enough for him to see her teeth set on her lower lip, her brows coming together in a brooding frown. “You told me one of the others in the Dylaw’s band was your lover.”
“Yes.” He squirmed uncomfortably, wishing she’d pick something else to talk about. “I’ve grown past him now.”
“That sounds cold.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Probably not.” Her voice was muffled. He looked around to see her knees pulled up again, her face hidden by her crossed arms. The thong that held her hair in a long tail had come loose and the silky mass was falling in a tangled waterfall over her arms. He slid a hand along the ground and stroked a strand with trembling fingers. “I suppose you don’t have the same ways where you grew up.”
She turned her head. He saw her bright, troubled eyes fix on his face, “I’ve met men who loved men on my travels. I don’t know if I can understand it. Why.…”
“Affection. Loneliness. The need to touch and care.”
“Oh.” The sound was curiously forlorn.
“Men are lovers. For a time. But women are wives. For life.” Surreptitiously, he touched himself, felt the hardness under his hand and sighed. “The one is a brief thing,” he murmured. “A storm in spring. The other is a lifetime long, ebbing and flowing with the seasons. Children come, grow, leave home in a pattern as old as dark and light. Man and wife grow old in a sharing that is strong and warm and good.” He felt drained and unhappy, wanting her now to go away and let him deal with his problem.
She jumped to her feet, throwing the hair back over her shoulder with a quick twist of her head. “Don’t the wives want some of that springtime storm?”
“The babies keep getting made.” He looked up at her. “Go to bed, Aleytys. You’re making me nervous.”
“You!” She swung her arms over her head and arched her back. “My god, Gwynnor, this damn conversation is all I needed.”
“You started it.” He swallowed. “Go away, woman.”
“Gwynnor?” There was sudden comprehension in her face as she plucked her mind from her own troubles and really looked at him. She dropped to her knees. “I’m a fool. You said you’d grown beyond your friend. I don’t smell wrong to you?”
“Holy Maeve!” His body was as hot and taut as a burning rope. Before he could lose his nerve, he blurted, “Would you share my storm time, Aleytys?”
Chapter XVII
Moving carefully so she wouldn’t wake Gwynnor, Aleytys stood up. The cerdd lay on his stomach, sprawled loose-limbed across the patch of grass, his mouth open, snoring just a little, looking totally and pleasantly depleted. She smiled down at him, feeling a warm affection for him that, at present, had little sexuality in it.
Humming softly, she waded into the stream and sat down so the water flowed around her, coming up her ribs almost to her breasts. With handfuls of bottom sand she scrubbed the sweat and stains from her body until she felt comfortably clean. She stre
tched, yawned, then waded out and sat down on the grass to let the breeze flow over her and fan her dry, leaving her skin feeling sweetly cooled.
A tree cat padded from the shadow across the stream and stood watching her. Aleytys leaned back against the tree trunk, lacing her fingers behind her head, watching the cat with a grave curiosity of her own. She probed gently at the predator, exploring its feral psyche, then let it drink and sent it away, sighing with the memory of her magnificently terrifying companion so long ago, the black tars, Daimon. Idly, she wondered whether the big catlike animal was still alive, roaming the mountains of Jaydugar where even man was little threat to his well-being. But she was too content just now to dwell on the past. She stretched again and yawned hopefully.
Something clattered beside her. She looked down. Gwynnor’s flute. She picked it up and looked it over worriedly, exploring the smooth, polished surface of the instrument for possible injury. No nicks or cracks. Good. She chuckled as the shape of the flute and the way she was handling it reminded her of her activities not so long before. Still holding the flute, she settled back against the tree.
A purple glow expanded then contracted in her head. Then hovered there, pulsating with a vaguely apologetic air.
“Shadith?”
Purple eyes opened hesitantly. “Lee …”
“What’s wrong?” Aleytys sat up and looked around alertly.
“Nothing. I … I just wanted to talk to you.”
“You never hesitated before.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“You needed us.”
Aleytys relaxed against the tree, sniffing appreciatively as her back pressed perfumed oil from the bark, a wryly amused smile turning up a corner of her mouth. “So?”
