Part 32 (2/2)

Sorcerer and a QentUman 279.

After a moment, she said, ”I saw it had maps.”

Dewar nodded, and then he understood. ”Would you like me to read aloud to you while you sew?” he suggested.

A smile, the first he had gotten from her, was his reward, and a warm body cozily tucked al the other end of the bed who listened with wide-eyed flattering attention as he read and who fetched him other books, a tall stack of them, epics and histories and chronicles. All were written in Chenaran, the old local tongue, instead of the King's tongue of Lan-nach, which Dewar found curious; and their perspectives and subjects were Chenaran as well. The house and its library were antiques. Finding history dry, he abandoned it for a lush romance with beauteous princesses, n.o.ble and base knights, improbably powerful magicians, and unlikely coincidences. The cadence of his voice gave measure to the storm outside, and the time and the storm pa.s.sed in chapters and verses.

Dewar had had nothing to do but observe the young woman for several days now, and he thought he knew her better than she meant. He also supposed she was h.o.a.rding notes on him. It wasn't worth being worried about; it was a game, to see how many sound conclusions he could draw on accidental evidence.

She was not of the upper cla.s.ses; she had said, ”Oh, no lady I,” once and had amused him enormously with a couple of straight-faced indelicate remarks, one on a plump juicy sausage which had spurted heroically when pierced in the pan. She cooked very well, and that and her medicinal knowledge made him think her some camp follower of Pros-pero's army, left behind accidentally. She was practical and efficient, neat and quick with her needle, and accustomed to being self-reliant. She was sober of mind and not quick to laugh; often his jests pa.s.sed her utterly. And she was generous and humane, having dragged him half-alive out of the ditch and succored him here.

He did not know how she felt about being here nor why she had come with the army nor what her plans were.

She was not worn and frayed as the camp followers of Landuc had been. Providing the services of laundresses.

2SO.

nurses, cooks, general heavy labor, and s.e.xual accessories for the armies, these lackl.u.s.ter women had been pathetic, anything but exciting to Dewar. He supposed that if a pa.s.sive vessel for release were all that was required, one would do, but he preferred more engaging encounters and had ignored the pack of them. Prince Josquin was under his uncles' eyes and had been a model of princely decorum and restraint, by Josquin's standards, anyway. Neither of them had acknowledged their brief prior acquaintance, though Dewar was certain the Prince Heir had recognized him. Their friends.h.i.+p in the army camp had included fencing together in practice-sessions, there exchanging a few unguarded heated glances, but nothing more intimate than that.

His companion in the hollow manor-house was s.e.xually neuter. She treated his body without noticing it, and she dressed and undressed in the bedroom's dressing-room, out of sight. Her skin was fair, though wind-chapped, her hands lightly callused, her arms stronger than most women's. Dewar thought she was pretty enough when she smiled, but that otherwise she was unremarkable: .an innkeeper's wife, perhaps, or a craftsman's, or a seacaptain's pragmatic and durable helpmeet.

She wore plain gowns scavenged out of the cupboards of the house; they showed little of her uncorseted form save that it was female. Sometimes a soft breast would press his arm as she helped him move, but there was no spice of flirtation in it.

She slept on the floor in front of the fire, bundled in blankets, and did not snore.

But all in all, Dewar thought, he knew very little about her, and he admired her caution. Her speech was accented, which was queer; having pa.s.sed the Well's fire, he should not have heard an accent on her tongue. He knew nothing of her family, her home, her estate; he did not know what she had been doing in Prospero's army; he did not know her origin, and he did not know her wishes in anything but that the snow might stop. She slogged out to the barn where her mount was stabled (whose name he also did not know) Sorcerer and a Qentteman 281.

daily, and reported the height of the snow on her return.

”Waist-deep,” she said, holding her hand at her ribs.

”I wonder if there is a tunnel to the barn. Places that get such heavy snow often include that as a routine convenience.”

”I thought these storms were unusual.”

”Why?”

”You said something about how they had been delayed,” she said.

He had? Yes, he had. ”They were late, for the region,” he said. ”I suppose they may be unusually severe as a result of that. Pent-up.” With a sorcerer who commanded his Element as Prospero did, Binding the winds, it was as close to a sure thing as one could come, but Dewar thought he would not get into a discussion of the defeated Prince's strategies and abilities with his partisan.

The storm abated after five days, leaving snow shoulder-deep at its shallowest.

”I won't need a horse,” Dewar said dolorously, when she reported this.

”The drifts are at the windowsills on this floor! The first floor's covered right up, except on the lee side and the windows are half-covered there.”

Dewar wanted to see. She allowed him to hop, leaning on her, to the window, to peer out at the white glittering featureless plain that covered the landscape, and then made him return to his bed.

”I can get up-” he protested, despite the pains moving had started.

”Please, not yet. You must give that leg a little more time to set. Three days. And where will you go in such a hurry?” she asked him. ”Sliding on boards like the hairy mountain-men you told me about?”

”I suppose,” he conceded.

Dewar had thought about this, as her reports of the weather came in day by day. He was in no condition to ride, nor even to mount; though his ribs felt nearly healed, the leg and arm must take longer, even aided by his drawing on the 282.

Well. He would leave by other means, after her. Which meant he must encourage her to abandon him here after he could get about reliably by himself- His thoughts on promoting her departure pulled up abruptly. If the snow lay so deep, then she could hardly ride out and away herself, no more than he could.

She herself seemed to reach a similar conclusion after ploughing out to the barn again and back after breakfast.

”How's your faithful friend?” he inquired.

”Wanting to stretch her-legs,” the woman replied, gnawing her lip abstractedly.

”Something wrong?”

”I cannot open the big barn doors,” she said. ”The snow's too high; it has covered them, and the winds blow more on every hour.”

The wind had been moaning disagreeably at the chimney, plaintive without the rattle of ice, all day.

”Ah,” said Dewar. ”And it's rather deep for riding anyway.”

She nodded, morose, and went to stare out the window, around the curtain. ”Trapped,” she said, shoulders down. ”Useless.”

Neither of them had mentioned the war.

”Come sit down,” Dewar said, ”make us some tea, and let's think about it. Certainly there's more than one barn door.”

”None's big enough, and most are blocked. Do you want tea?”

Dewar nodded.

”We're going to get fat as pigeons, eating out the winter here,” she said crossly, and went to fill the kettle from a barrel of melted snow-water.

”Make less for us to eat.”

”If you like.”

Surly and silent, she made tea and poured it, scalding, and ignored hers, glaring at the fire. Dewar read to himself, not aloud. The wind keened. The woman jumped up abruptly and left the room with a bang of the door.

Oh, no, thought Dewar. She'd been a pleasantly bland Sorcerer and a (jenteman 283.

companion thus far. If she were going to become snarling and unsociable on realizing her s...o...b..und predicament, he'd take the first opportunity to leave her. In a few days when she went out to the bam, he could build up the fire, open his Way, and be through it ere she returned.

A simple solution to an otherwise uncomfortable and tedious situation. He tucked it away in his thoughts and read about the Lucin War, fifteen centuries past, in which Prince Marshal Gaston had distinguished himself for his great mercy toward the defeated.

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