He took hold of her offered hand and peered at it closely, running his own fingers over its unblemished softness. "It was the gewgaw, wasn't it? You reached for it, and it burned you?"
"Hush," the Aumrarr murmured. "Be careful. We must speak as if a servant stands over us always, listening to what we say and writing it down. Come to bed."
Rod raised his eyebrows in such stunned astonishment that Taeauna giggled, and put the bed-furs to her mouth hastily to muffle her mirth. Then she lowered them enough to say in mock indignation, "By the Flying Falcon, do men think of nothing else? Really!"
At least, Rod hoped it was mock indignation.
Pointedly keeping the cloak on and wrapped around him, Rod slid in under the furs beside her, muttering, "Your lord obeys your command. So what am I supposed to be thinking about?"
In response, Taeauna ducked down under the furs, crooking her head in a clear signal for him to join her. When they were both entirely under the covers, she threw an arm over him, pulled herself close against him, and whispered, "Move about a little, and moan, as if we're… you know."
"What is this, method acting?"
Taeauna gave him a puzzled frown, and Rod shrugged and tried an amorous moan. The result left her fighting not to giggle again, a struggle she promptly abandoned.
"Tay," Rod murmured patiently, "I love being in bed with you, even if, you know, nothing happens, but like any other guy, I find the teasing gets a little wearing. What is this?"
Her face went serious in an instant, and she nodded. "Lord," Taeauna whispered, "this is the best way for us to talk together frankly, just now. The way you found me, the 'gewgaw,' as you call it; you should know what it does before anything else happens."
Rod moved his arm over her, growled as if in passion, and whispered into her armpit, "So tell me."
Taeauna firmly pushed his head away. "That tickles. Know then, lord, that I awakened before you, and sought the chamberpot. You were then- forgive me-flat on your back and snoring."
"Nothing to forgive," Rod said, carefully rolling over atop her but keeping his weight on his arms and off of her. Under him, Taeauna deftly rolled onto her front.."Say on."
"The usual glow in the air, and that… that thing appeared, above your chest, about the length of my leg-and don't go feeling along the length of my leg, lord, thank you very much. I climbed back onto the bed and stretched out my hand to catch it as it fell; not to take it from you or pluck it out of the air, hut to shield your chest from it. With those little points it has, and its weight, I saw it as no better than a dagger aimed at your chest. So I tried to catch it."
"And things didn't go well."
"Indeed. It fell, flamed the instant it touched my fingers, and as I let go, it spat lightning at me. You saw what it did, yet we were no more than the thickness of my hand above your chest, and it touched you not; not even one hair is scorched, and yes, I've looked. The bolt went down my arm and into me, and hurled me right off the bed, furs and all, and left me as you found me; wounded unto death."
Rod reached down under the linens and furs on his side of the bed, to where he'd slipped the gewgaw under discussion to keep the servants from seeing it.
Taeauna winced as he brought it up between them in the darkness, to peer at it curiously and turn it over and over in his hands.
"Are you seeing something, now?" she asked softly. "That castle?"
"Yes," Rod muttered. "Yes, and now, for the first time, I feel as if I very much want to go in there."
"Oh, shit," Taeauna whispered. "Oh, Rod."
Sounds were returning in waves, like surf pounding on Stormar shores. Iskarra winced and tried to move her fingers and toes. Thank the Falcon, everything responded, and there were no knife-like stabs of agony.
The dark, pitted curve of a well-traveled wagon wheel was hard by her head, and a stunned or unconscious Garfist was drooling on the other side of it. As she gazed at him, his eyelids fluttered and his lips shaped a disgusted, "Too bloody typical. Always I get the whack. Always."
Iskarra read his lips more than she properly heard those words, but hearing was coming back to her. Yes, it was coming back.
She risked turning her head, looking back to where the gray wagon had been. A few knights were standing looking grimly down at the shallow pit, but most activity and attention was on the fires flickering on other wagons, and the buckets of sand and water being dashed over them.
The courtyard gates had been closed, and there were more hard-eyed knights standing with their shoulders against them. A lot more hard-eyed knights.
She reached out a hand past the curve of the wheel to dig her fingers into Garfist. Who stiffened and rolled over to glare at her.
"Oh. Isk. I can't hear anything, Isk!"
She tapped an imperious and bony warning finger across her lips, then pointed at him and at herself and then upwards, miming a set of steps with her hand, and then pointing up again.
It was time for them both to slip away and up into the keep, before all the tumult died down and they were noticed again.
Thank the Falcon, Garfist was nodding agreement.
As the two roads converged, and the many-bannered armies riding along them drew very close to meeting, one commander gave a signal, and war-horns rang out again. They were promptly answered from the other glittering host.
One last reassuring exchange of "peaceful parley" notes. Good. Arduke Tethgar Teltusk did not allow himself to relax, however. He didn't think even a weasel like Glusk Chainamund would risk treachery after Devaer's stone-cold-simple orders and threats, but one never knew.
The wits one wizard could twist one way, another mage could as easily turn another way, after all.
"Ho, Teltusk!" the fat baron called, from beneath his fluttering, yellow-and-scarlet horned ox-head banners, all joviality in what looked like new silver-bright armor studded all over with great round rivet-heads. "Any sign of Deldragon knights?"
"None," the raven-haired arduke called back, in as affable a tone as he could muster. "I think he's hunkering down inside his best armor and just waiting for us to come a-battering!"
"Good!" Chainamund bellowed, straw-yellow mustache quivering. "Let this be a grand day for battering, then!"
Walking away from the courtyard of wagons down one of the dark stone passages slowly and casually, as if they belonged in the keep, had taken all the nerves Garfist and Iskarra had left to muster. By the time they reached a long, dark, rotting-food-stinking passage somewhere behind the kitchens, they'd been trembling and only too glad to break into a run.
That brisk sprint took them down the rest of that passage, around a corner, and into an even darker passage, where Garfist's winded state brought them to a panting halt.
Iskarra sniffed. "Mildew. Well, better than rotten meat and eggs."
Garfist waved such trifles away with one hairy fist. "What made the dratted cart explode, anyway?" he growled.
"Your wits did get scrambled, didn't they?" Iskarra asked sharply, tapping his forehead with one bony finger. "The wizard. Taking care of his man, who might be made to talk."
"Shit. He'll come after us, won't he?"
"Not if he doesn't think we're still alive," Iskarra snapped, tugging open the front of her clothing one more time. "So you are going to wear the crawlskin as a pair of fittingly huge breasts, and become the heftiest washerwoman in all Falconfar, and I'm going back to my skeletal self. And we're just going to have to hope he hasn't left some sort of magic in our minds that will let him find us and rule us at will."
Garfist stared at her. "Oh, shit," he rumbled. "We're right back in it, aren't we? Even worse than fleeing an angry Arlsakran, this is. Running around a keep hoping a skulking wizard doesn't see us while a siege sets in."