The sun is touching the horizon when he finally rides out through the compound gates and turns the white gelding toward Jakaafra. He looks ahead, wondering if Ryalth has come … or if she is still on the way. He does not dwell on other possibilities.
The sun is below the horizon when he passes the keystone that indicates he is one kay from the square, and his breath leaves white clouds in the fading light.
Lorn rides slowly through Jakaafra in the dimness of late twilight, toward the dwelling he has scarcely used. The glow of a few lamps glimmers past shutters mostly closed against the chill of a winter evening. Will there be a lamp glimmering at his small dwelling, or will he be the one to light it and wait?
The scent of burning wood fills the air as he nears the small dwelling on the east road. Lorn smiles as he sees lights past the front shutters, and he forces himself to ride to the stable. A chestnut is stalled in the small stable. As he unsaddles the gelding, his eyes pick up the blue-and-green-bordered saddle blanket.
With a smile, he closes the stable doors and carries the bag with his formal uniform and other clothing to the front door. He pauses, then knocks, listening for footsteps he does not hear in the dimness of evening, with the scents of burning wood and cooking spices sifting around him.
After a moment, the door opens, and Ryalth smiles. “You could come in. It is your dwelling.”
Lorn just stands there, at the door, looking at Ryalth, her red hair, faint freckles, and creamy skin. He finally speaks. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
He steps forward. So does she.
How long the embrace lasts, Lorn does not know. Nor does he care.
When they step apart, he studies her again, unable to stop smiling.
“The way you look at me …” She looks down.
“I missed you. Each time I see you after we’re apart, I realize that more.”
“Sometimes … you’re still that student I met that night. After all these years, it’s hard to believe you still want to see me that much.”
“More than when I was that student,” Lorn admits. “Much more.”
“For that, I am glad … more than glad.” Her eyes twinkle and her lips curl into a smile as as she steps around him and closes the door, clicking the bronze latch in place. “We might be better off with this closed.”
Lorn looks back. He had forgotten the door. “I suppose I do need to clean up,” he finally admits as she turns from the door. “I didn’t want to take the time after we finished the patrol. I was just thinking about how you might be here ….”
“You were more than thinking, my lancer captain. That I can feel.”
Lorn can feel his face redden.
“So was I.” Her voice is gentle.
After a moment of silence, Ryalth continues. “There is a stew and some bread. I have tried my cooking skills. I find I’m not preparing meals as often these days. This stove is like the one at my Aunt Elyset’s ….”
“Old, I know.” Lorn grins. “Of course, cooking is possibly beneath your wealth as a rising trading house?”
“Wealth …?”
“Wealth, I suspect. I’ve heard from many sources …”
“Go … and wash up.” Although her voice is stem, her eyes sparkle.
“As you command, Lady Trader.” Lorn can’t help grinning. “As you command.”
“Your supper will be ready before you are,” she cautions.
“I’ll hurry.” Lorn finds himself flushing again.
Ryalth smiles as she shakes her head, before turning and walking back to the ancient ceramic stove that is built out from the far wall.
Lorn carries his bag to the bedchamber. He unfolds the formal uniform and hangs it in the armoire. He smiles as he sees the two sets of blues-one very formal on one side of the hanging part of the armoire. After unclipping his scabbard and leaning the weapon in the corner of the bedchamber, he makes his way to the small bathing room where he washes quickly with the two buckets of water and the pitcher of hot water Ryalth has clearly heated for him.
Then, before he comes to the table, he retrieves a bottle of the Alafraan from the small rear storage room. “Such cooking deserves a good wine.” He looks for glasses in the small cupboard but can find none and settles on two mugs that are but slightly chipped. After uncorking the bottle, he fills the mugs two-thirds full, and stands by the table.
“We deserve it, one way or another. I hope as reward. You may need it as recompense. You can sit, dear lancer.” The redhead sets the stew kettle on the cracked green ceramic trivet in the middle of the table. She sniffs. “Oh … something’s burning.” She scurries back to the stove and uses a heavy woolen mitt to open the oven door. A curl of gray smoke drifts upward as she struggles to get a short baking paddle under the roughly circular loaf of dark bread. After a moment, she turns and eases the loaf into a dry woven grass basket that she carries to the table. “Good. It didn’t burn. It was just the dough that I slopped on the bottom of the baking grate.”
“You don’t slop things.” Lorn pulls out the ancient armless wooden chair and seats himself.
“When I cook, I do.” Ryalth seats herself.
Lorn takes the battered wooden-handled cupridium ladle and dishes the stew into Ryalth’s crockery bowl, then into his own. He nods toward the basket and the steaming loaf.
“You don’t trust my cooking?” Her tone is mock-plaintive. “Even before we’re to be consorted?”
“My most honored lady trader, I have always trusted your cuisine … long before I proposed this coming consortship. Or have you forgotten that so soon?” Lorn does his best to mimic her plaintive tone.
Her laugh is a warm caress, and he smiles inanely.
“The sole worry I have had about you,” he says, “is your traveling all this way from Cyad into the near wilds of the east of Cyador.”
“I did not travel alone, but your factor friend Dustyn was kind enough to provide lodging … for Eileyt-I thought it wise to bring an enumerator-and a hired guard.”
“You were probably most wise, and even wiser not to have them here.”
“Wiser for you … or for me?” Ryalth arches her fine eyebrows.
Lorn finds himself flushing, and takes refuge in a mouthful of the crusty hot bread. He swallows abruptly, reaching for the crockery mug that holds his Alafraan, as he senses the chill of a chaos-glass casting for him.
“Still?” Ryalth murmurs, her lips barely moving.
“It is the second time since I came off patrol,” he murmurs back, lifting the mug in a toasting gesture he does not feel, forcing a smile.
“To us, despite those who watch.” Ryalth responds with a smile that appears less forced than Lorn’s feels to him.
“To us.” His smile feels more natural as the chill of the glass fades.
“Has this happened often?” she asks quietly.
“At times since I’ve been here, but more often recently. A majer in Geliendra suspects that I am more than I appear. What of you?”
“But a time or two, and the chill was not near so … unfriendly … not so cold.”
“Perhaps it was my father. He has recently hinted that I was right about you, and that he was mistaken.”
Her fine eyebrows arch. “Your father of the Magi’i-the renowned Fourth Magus?”
“There is no Fourth Magus,” Lorn points out.
“Not in name, but that is what many call him, in respect,” Ryalth says. “All throughout Cyad.”
Lorn laughs. He cannot help it. “He tries to discover more of you, and you of him, and neither tells me.”
Ryalth shrugs so helplessly that Lorn finds himself shaking his head, half in admiration, half still in amusement.
After a moment, Ryalth takes a sip of the Alafraan, and then some of the stew. “It does have a good taste.”
His mouth full, Lorn nods.
They both eat for a time, until Ryalth looks up. “I’ve never been consorted,” she says slowly.