“Thank you, Lalkhamsin-khamsolal,” I said. “Sleep now.”
I dried her face and body with my shirt, and she was asleep before I finished, or seemed so. But as I lay down once more, settling my arm over her waist just as though we were veteran bedfellows, comfortable old campaigners, she mumbled drowsily, “Tomorrow we will be off downriver.”
“No, we certainly will not,” I said into her ear. “You wouldn’t get as far as the boat.” My answer was a snore as delicate as lace. I lay awake for a little, listening to the water and watching stars disappear behind Lal’s shoulder.
We had words before we had breakfast. She was entirely serious about taking up our journey immediately, and I nearly had to wrestle her down to persuade her even to listen to any contrary proposal. Which would have been difficult, incidentally: I have never known anyone, man or woman, with Lal’s recuperative powers. One rib cracked, the muscles beneath another badly bruised; left arm all but useless, right thigh too tender to touch, the rest of her body clearly shrieking in sympathy—all that, and she was on her feet before I was, inspecting the boat and trying to resharpen her swordcane against different sorts of rocks. We had words about that, too.
Eventually we came to a compromise, aided perhaps by a brief dizzy spell on Lal’s part. We would be on our way on the following morning, come wind, come weather, and in addition she would continue to wear the sail-bandage around her battered ribs. For myself, I swore to treat her with no more consideration than I had since we left Corcorua, and never, never, to ask how she was feeling. On that understanding, we fished, dozed and talked through the day, discussing with some chagrin that third assassin who had so humiliated us both, and making what plans we could for our utterly futile assault on Arshadin’s home.
I want to make that very clear to you. Between us, Lal and I have a good deal more experience than most of strange combats in stranger places. But neither of us had ever had the least illusion that we were about to overcome a wizard powerful enough to make a desperate fugitive of our master. As I had told Rosseth, we were a diversion at very best, nothing more, and we could only hope that my Man Who Laughs would be able to make good use of whatever breath we might buy him. Assuming, of course, that Arshadin ever bothered to notice that he was under attack. Part of our experience has to do with knowing when you have attracted the attention of such things as wizards, and I had no sense at all that we were being observed as we bathed in the river, dried ourselves in the afternoon sun, and spoke of the days to come. Which shows you exactly what experience is worth.
“I have never pretended to be a sailor,” I said, “but I will never trust any boat that fits in somebody’s pack. Even I know that’s wrong.”
“It’s beautiful,” Lal said. “An absolutely beautiful design. I wish you knew more about boats, or about your old religious colleagues, either would do. I became so fascinated, trying to learn how it went together, I almost forgot that I was hurt and you were in danger. Anyway, I promise you that it won’t sink under us. I really don’t think it can. Amazing.”
She was as delighted with that wretched boat as though we had already completed our mission and destroyed Arshadin. I felt at once guilty at having to remind her of reality and angry at her for making me feel guilty. I said, “It had better be amazing. It had better be able to shoot a bow, climb a wall, fight off rock-targs, nishori, and magicians, sew clothes, forage for game, and practice medicine. Because all our stores and all our weapons are back there up the river, with a dead man to guard them. All we can hope for, as far as I can see, is that Arshadin may laugh so hard at us that he hurts himself. I am told it happens.”
I expected Lal to flare out at me again when I spoke so, but she remained placid for once, even seeming a bit amused. “All we need do is annoy him,” she answered, “and if you and I cannot make ourselves thoroughly disagreeable with nothing but our fingernails, then we should retire and help old Karsh to run The Gaff and Slasher. Now help me take this sail down, I want to try a different rigging.” As we worked, she began singing to herself in her usual tuneless, monotonous manner. I was almost glad to hear her.
That night, when I thought she was asleep, she turned suddenly and pressed herself against me, holding me as hard as one working arm would allow. Even at the inn, that one evening, she had not embraced me in that way. I stroked her hair awkwardly, and tucked the sail closer around her shoulders. I said, “What is it? Are you feeling ill?” Then I remembered that I had promised not to ask that question, and I said, “I never meant to alarm you about our chances. We will deal with Arshadin as we deal with him.” But that sounded as foolish and condescending as it was, and I did not finish saying it. Lal made no answer, but held onto me a moment longer, and then rolled away from me in one abrupt, violent movement and was instantly asleep. I could feel her arm around my back for a long time afterward.
At least we had no trouble loading our pocket boat in the morning. There was nothing on deck but the pair of us, one dulled swordcane, and as much fish as Lal had managed to smoke in the last two days. Now she ran up the sail while I pushed the boat away from the bank and scrambled hastily aboard, clinging to the mast and her undamaged ankle. Waist-deep is as far as I go voluntarily.
As you might imagine, I never became comfortable on that tiny, slippery deck, not in the three days that it was all my existence. I dreaded standing up, clung frantically to the mast when I did, and most often moved from one place to another by sliding along on my rump, like a baby. When we tied up and camped on shore, my dreams were an unending procession of nightmares about drowning. The smoked fish was not only dry and tasteless, but gave me gas, so that when I was not merely terrified I was embarrassed, angry, and constantly hungry. Being useless baggage was a new experience for me, very nearly as bewildering and maddening as being on a boat. And still I remember those three days with a wondering affection.
Idyllic? Hardly. Whenever my arms were around Lal during that time, it was to keep myself from falling into the Susathi, or to retie her bandage after washing it. If our intimacy was total, it was also enforcedly discreet. We afforded each other such privacy as two people isolated on a twelve-foot bit of driftwood have to give, turning our backs without being asked, somehow making place for solitude. One day passed almost wordlessly, I recall, except when it came my turn to replace Lal at the tiller. (There was a dainty procedure, by the way, invariably unnerving for me, since the rear of the boat was too narrow for us to trade places in safety. It quickly became simpler for Lal to slip into the water to let me by, and then ease herself back aboard, or sometimes hold onto a rope and trail behind for a while, testing her injuries against the river.) Apart from our few words then, the only sounds were birdsong and sometimes a wind ruffling the water. Our boat, built for silence, moved downstream like the shadow of those little sharp winds.
Yet that same night Lal woke gasping and shouting out of one of her nightmares, which had not happened since we left The Gaff and Slasher. She calmed herself very quickly, but she did not want to go back to sleep, so we talked until nearly dawn, lying close together beside a fire too small to be easily noticed and far too small to warm us.
What did we talk about: two scarred, skilled, and decidedly aging wanderers in the dark? The past, more than anything, and our childhoods most of all. Lal has two brothers, older and younger, whom she has not seen since she was taken from her home at the age of twelve. I had an older sister, whom I loved very much, more than anyone, and who died because the man she loved was a stupid, careless man who loved no one. He was the first man I ever killed. I was also twelve at the time.