Agnith's Promise: The Vildecaz Talents, Book 3

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “So I hope,” said Erianthee even as she wondered if she had actually gained a protector, or if the confrontation she had just witnessed was as much a performance as one of her Shadowshows.

  * * *

  “The animals are getting fidgety,” said Doms Guyon as he paced around the confines of the travelers’ hut.

  “So I see,” Ninianee said, stopping her preparation of their supper to watch him.

  “Two days standing in a stall when each of them is used to covering distance every day . . . There’s no room to exercise them in the snow and now that they are rested, they’re getting bored and restless . . . ” He let his words trail off. “I don’t know what I can do, short of bringing them in here and encouraging them to move about.”

  “They couldn’t fit through the door,” she pointed out. Privately she shared the restlessness of the mules and ponies, but she couldn’t give Doms the satisfaction of admitting it. He had been right about too much, and she hated the burden that gratitude imposed upon her. With all he had done for her, how could she refuse him anything? That understanding bothered her more than their isolation or the drouches hiding in the near-by woods.

  “They’ll need to do something,” he insisted. “They’re all getting stall-sour.”

  “What might that be? We’re snowed in. With drouches about, we can’t turn them out into the paddock, even if we could get the door open. I can try to calm them, if you like.”

  He halted in the center of the room. “We’ll need more logs by tomorrow night. I suppose we’ll have to find some way to get outside and take the wood from what’s piled at the side of the hut – assuming it isn’t covered by snow.”

  “So we will.” She gave the sausage-and-sea-grass soup a stir with the one spoon she had put in the chest, thinking as she did that their animals weren’t the only ones fretting at confinement. “But keep in mind while you’re hunting those branches, the drouches may be back. They smell living flesh in this hut, ours and the animals’.”

  He nodded. “I heard them wrawling this morning. They sounded fairly near, I’ll admit. The mules are more worried about them than the ponies are.” Then he knelt down beside the bench were she sat before the cooking-pot over the fire. “Two days and nights completely alone with you, though, that’s a precious privilege. I am glad that chance brought us here and the snow kept us in. That’s almost worth fighting drouches, or freezing. You’re much more valuable than any danger, you know.” His icy eyes were hot as the blue heart of a flame.

  “Don’t say that, and don’t flatter me,” she said without amusement. “Drouches would rend us limb from limb if they had the chance. And if we freeze, my father won’t be found.”

  “Then better we stay in and hope tomorrow the weather warms enough that we can leave, otherwise we’ll be cold and hungry by the day after. The day after that would be worse still. So we must make plans to leave.” He touched her face. “You have a journey to complete.”

  “Yes,” she said, stirring the pot with more vigor than necessary.

  He rose and started pacing again. “I know some spells that might make digging out of this place easier now that there is sunshine again, and the winds have died. They won’t last long, but if we’re ready to leave, we can get the snow in front of the byre door to soften and collapse. If we depart as soon as the spell works, we should be able to get away, providing we can get through the drifts. Luckily there hasn’t been any more snow since the storm rolled in from the south. But it is cold, and much of the snow is coated in ice, and that has made opening that door a task for many more people than Doms, or Doms and Ninianee.” He watched her as he continued to tread the limits of the travelers’ hut.

  “As we determined yesterday afternoon,” she said, perplexed that she should find his company so comforting when she knew he might well be amusing himself at her expense, for in spite of all he’d done for her among the Bindomajes, he had also left her without explanation – it was almost a year ago now, she realized – and didn’t bother to let her know he was in Valdihovee for months. He was too mercurial, she told herself, too aloof. It was folly to depend upon him, no matter how pleasant his company might be. If she decided to trust him it was possible that he would once again vanish without warning.

  “You look distracted. What’s on your mind?” He came up to her again.

  She said the first thing that came to her. “I’m glad the moon isn’t full.”

  He chuckled. “Truly. Who knows what kind of creature I would have to contend with? They can’t all be as pleasant as the Crag-lion. But you can’t tell me in advance, can you?”

  “No,” she said morosely, already anticipating her next Change.

  He saw that she was upset, and so he went to her again. “You can Change into anything, and it will not alter my feeling, Ninianee. Nothing you could do will – “

  ”Change you?” she suggested. “What are you hoping for – my gratitude? You have as much of it as I am likely to give.” For the first time in two days, she felt exhilaration enlivening her – wrangling with him was driving away her morose thoughts. “I am not a contented person, and you cannot make me so. Do you think to turn me compliant by your promise to protect me? Do you suppose that I will succumb to you because of your – “

  ”I don’t expect you to be anything other than who you are.” He touched her face again, to turn her eyes up to his. “If you stopped being feral and contentious, then I might question my allegiance to you. But you, as you are now – you are what I want. And I know – much as you may wish it weren’t so – that I am what you want.”

  She studied him in silence, then said, “You’d best fetch your bowl. This stew is almost ready – such as it is.”

  “I’ll do that – right after I put more wood on the fire. It’s getting chilly again, and I want to keep the cold from coming down the chimney. We’ll have to keep the fire going to do that.” He went to the wood-tub, calculating the number of cut logs and branches they would need to get them through the night. “We could cast a warming-spell tomorrow morning,” he suggested.

  “A warming-spell,” she said, and laughed without humor. “How long would that keep us warm, I wonder? And how warm would we really be? The spell might warm the hut, but not enough to hold off the cold outside.” She reached for her own bowl and filled it, then, as he proffered his own, she put the rest of the stew in Doms’ bowl. “We have the last of the sausage for the morning, but then only hard bread. We’ll need to find an inn or some other shelter by tomorrow night.”

  He sat down beside her on the bench, braced his elbows on his knees and held his bowl between them. “That we will.” Bending forward, he sniffed the steam rising from the bowl. “Not too bad, considering.”

  “I thought about conjuring some herbs to improve the taste, but decided against it. We need all the virtue there is in the stew, and magical ingredients might lessen its nutrition.”

  “True enough,” he said, and lifted the bowl to sip a little of the stock in which it was cooked.

  She remained still, watching him out of the corner of her eye. Then she rounded on him. “How do you do it?”

  He turned to her, all surprise. “Do what?”

  “Deal with all of this so calmly,” she said with exaggerated patience.

  “Would fear or elation be preferable?” He picked out a wedge of sausage and bit into it.

  “Yes! No.” She glared at her stew to keep from looking at him again.

  He swallowed, then said to her, perfectly seriously, “You know how little good either fear or elation does in these circumstances. You always keep your mind on your purpose. I’ve seen how sensibly you deal with set-backs and problems.” He plucked another bit of sausage, biting into it with satisfaction. “The sensible thing to do now is to eat.”

  How she wanted to rail at him, to let go of all the worry and confusion that she had been holding within her since he had stepped in on her behalf with Hircaj Chogrun. But she knew he was right, and she coul
d only agree with him – which was somehow worse. If only he didn’t cause such agitation within her. But that, she knew, couldn’t be dealt with now, not with drouches on the prowl, and masses of snow on the ground. Now she had to bend her attention to immediate problems. She set to eating this most austere meal, all the while hoping he would do or say something that would provide the excuse to give vent to the jumble of emotions within her. As she ate, she made herself put such considerations aside. There would be other times – better times – for such expostulation. When her bowl was empty, she said, “When I fed the animals, I saw that we’re running low on grain for them.”

  “I saw that, too, when I cleaned their bedding.” He tipped back his head to drink the last bits of the stew.

  “So there really isn’t much choice, is there? We leave tomorrow morning.” In a way, she was glad, for being kept confined in his presence was more unnerving than she wanted to admit, even to herself. She was so susceptible to him, though she couldn’t imagine why.

  “Don’t you think it would be best? We’ll make the most of the daylight, and provide us the best chance of getting far from this place, don’t you think?” he asked, wiping his bowl out with a cloth charged with a cleaning-spell. He handed it to her when he was done and sat down again. “Drouches usually don’t start hunting until late afternoon, do they, so we needn’t worry about them, assuming we get an early start. We can be at Gnocarnaz by mid-afternoon if we are on our way within an hour of sunrise and the road is fairly clear.” He regarded her in silence while she rubbed her bowl clean. “Good food, a soft bed, decent feed for the animals.”

  “I know, I know,” she said testily as she turned the small cauldron upside down to drain. She had never been to Gnocarnaz, but was fairly sure he had, for how else would he be familiar with the road they were traveling? “The oil in the lamps is getting low, along with all the rest,” she added, although he didn’t seem to hear. “Another reason to le – “

  Then he reached out and fingered one corkscrew tendril of her russet hair. “The first thing I noticed about you was your hair.”

  “It was windblown and no better groomed than a hayrick.” She lowered her head, pulling the tendril from his hand. She hated to acknowledge that she remembered their first meeting.

  “More as if you had inner lightning – a force inside you that you damped down so that it only came out in your hair,” he said, and poked at the fire with a long stick, watching the sparks fly. “There you were with your father, on the Duzine Wharf in Valdihovee, the wind off the Mautsarej Ocean. You were all in bronze and deep green-blue, shivering and trying to smile.”

  Suddenly she giggled, because when she was a child, she had thought the same thing about her hair, something she didn’t dare tell him. “Inner lightning – and that wasn’t enough to scare you?”

  “Quite the contrary,” he said before he kissed the corner of her mouth. “Ninianee,” he whispered.

  Caught unaware, she didn’t draw back, but instead rested her head on his shoulder. “What have I got you into?” She pulled away a little.

  “A chance to be with you,” he said at once.

  “But you could . . . This isn’t your seeking, Doms, it’s mine. I have to do this for my father.”

  “Then I do it for you,” he said quietly. “To be with you.”

  “Is that why you followed me? Were you with me then?” The amount of excitement Doms generated in her was frightening – she wished he didn’t have that much impact upon her, but she couldn’t summon up the determination to insist he stop talking to her.

  “I was as near as you would want me to be – if you had known.” His habitual underlying amusement was gone and all that was left was an expression revealing how deeply he cherished her.

  Now her throat tightened. “You don’t have to come with me, Doms.”

  “Fine official suitor I’d be if I didn’t,” he said, not moving from his place beside her. He resisted the urge to take her hand. “Don’t you understand yet that I prefer to be with you than anyone else? That if you were going from Haverartbow to Fah, I’d want to go with you.”

  “I may still do that – go from Haverartbow to Fah. And Pomig, and Ymiljesai. And the Drowned World.” Her attempt to make light of this failed utterly. She felt her eyes fill. “Oh, Doms – what if I don’t find him?”

  He put his arm around her. “If he can be found, Ninianee, you’ll do it.”

  “The Oracle said I would keep searching,” she said dreamily. “But there’s Vildecaz, and my Changing, and both need my attention, too.”

  “Your sister will be back at Vildecaz Castle in six weeks or so,” Doms reminded her. “She’ll manage the Duzky. She has Hoftstan Ruch to help her, and General Rocazin.”

  “And Poyneilum Zhanf, at least for the time being. I hope he will remain for a while once she returns,” said Ninianee. She knew that Erianthee would be angry with her for leaving before she returned from Court, leaving the Duzky in the hands of a stranger, but Ninianee hoped her sister would understand. When she returned with their father, she’d explain it all to Erianthee.

  “He is a great help,” said Doms.

  “Well, he is,” she insisted.

  “I agree with you,” he said, dropping his arm from her shoulder. “I’ve known him most of my life, and I’m sure he’ll do his best for Vildecaz.” He turned on the bench, facing her. “I know you have doubts about me, and you hear many nefarious implications in everything I say, but for once, put them aside and listen to me without suspicion.” When he was sure he had all her attention, he continued. “I love you. If there were no magic in the Great World, there would be magic enough for me in you. I would abandon all the gods and goddesses before I would abandon you. I will not leave you – I tried last winter, for I knew if I remained at Vildecaz there would be no leaving you, ever. The Mautsarej Ocean wouldn’t let me go. I will be with you as long as there is breath in my body.” He took a deep breath. “I’d promise you all this, but a promise is paltry compared to my ties to you.”

  Ninianee heard him out, trying not to allow her usual uncertainty color what she heard. If she let herself, she could succumb to him as she would to an enormous flood. If all he said were true, she would be a fool not to. But try as she would, she couldn’t silence the niggling fright that if she allowed herself to yield to him and he left again, as he had done almost a year ago, she would be utterly bereft. She took his hand. “I will try to give credence to what you say, without qualifications of my own.” How stiff and unconvincing she sounded. “I want to be persuaded without feeling gullible or trivial.” Abruptly she kissed his hand. “This is my barrier to climb, not yours. I wish it were otherwise.”

  “I’ll wait,” he said quietly.

  “You don’t have to prove anything to me. I have to . . . to decide if I am the woman you love, or if it is some ideal you have made, a Ninianee that belongs in one of Erianthee’s Shadowshows, not this – this Ninianee.” It was difficult to say, and she began to tremble, not from cold but from the emotions rising within her.

  His lips on hers began a melting kiss, one that joined them as surely as magic bound the Outer Air to the Great World. There was tenderness and passion in the kiss, as well as hope mixed with foreboding. He embraced her, his arms wrapped around her shoulders, and after a slight hesitation, she closed her arms around his waist, her pulse beating so powerfully that she was surprised he couldn’t hear it. Finally the kiss ended, but he still held her close, his lips against her hair, and she didn’t let go of him.

  “We have a long way to go tomorrow,” she said some time later. She let go of him, standing in spite of the dizziness that had taken hold of her.

  “We do,” he said, his face puzzled.

  “We had best bank the fire and get to bed, before the room gets cold again,” she told him, trying to sound matter-of-fact, though her breath caught as she spoke. They had lain in the same bed together since the last full moon, and although they had clung together for warm
th, they had carefully avoided anything that might have led to greater intimacy. Now she wondered if that would ever happen again. She chided herself for being foolish, reminding herself that many men would have expected much more from her before now.

  “As you wish,” he said, getting to his feet as unsteadily as she had. “I’ll do the fire, shall I?”

  “If you would,” she answered, feeling unaccountably skittish. It was so difficult to look at him that she didn’t try, concentrating instead on tending to the packing away of their few dining supplies. She opened the chest and stored their bowls and the cleaning-cloth, then went to the door leading to the byre. “Do you think they need anything more? They’ve been fed and they have water, and you’ve put their blankets over them, but – “

  Doms came away from the fireplace, moving up behind her with firm steps. “You don’t have to worry, Ninianee.”

  She rounded on him. “About what?”

  “About tonight. I won’t make demands of you that you aren’t ready to meet. And I know you’re not ready. You think you will discharge your obligation to me, but I . . . I don’t expect – and I don’t want you to use your body to balance our debts, whatever you conceive them to be.” I’ll sleep beside you as I have done, and you needn’t worry that I’ll expect more than rest.” He spoke gently as he studied the curve of her mouth, the light of her eyes.