Smiling reflectively, and looking at the peaceful and lightly freckled face of his consort, Lorn still finds it hard to believe that the festivities of their consorting two days earlier had lasted most of the day and into the evening. He and Ryalth had finally slipped away near sunset, to more than a few knowing looks. The day after the ceremony they had spent quietly-the first day Lorn can remember in years where he or Ryalth had not had to rise early for some reason or another.
“Mmmmm.” Ryalth nuzzles up to his cheek and kisses him gently.
“Mmmm to you, too, sleepy-head.”
She yawns quietly, then snuggles against him. “You don’t know how good it feels to sleep in the morning.”
“I was just thinking that.”
“But you woke up ….”
“It is mid-morning,” Lorn points out.
“It’s still cold.” She shivers and pulls the worn quilt up to her ears-one-handed.
“I’ll start the fire in the stove.”
“Mmmmm … if you don’t mind … too much?”
He grins at the mock-plaintive note in her voice. “I’ll start it and then come back until it’s warmer.”
The stone floor-the part not covered by the few braided rugs-is indeed cold to Lorn’s bare feet. He pads into the main chamber where he sorts out some of the thin strips of wood in the starter basket, and then piles some of the largerpieces above it in the firebox. Then he concentrates.
Hst! The tiny chaos bolt is sufficient to create a small blaze within the stove.
Lorn smiles and walks back to the bedchamber, where he slips under the covers again.
“Your feet are cold.”
“I did get the fire started in the stove.”
“Good.” Ryalth kisses his cheek, then pauses, before asking, “Have you ridden around Jakaafra much?”
“Except for the ward-wall? No. When you’re on duty most of the time … well … the only riding I really did was to Jakaafra to deal with Dustyn and to arrange for the consorting and dwelling.”
“You should. Now that you’re consorted, you can wear that uniform when you ride with me.”
“I hadn’t thought of wearing anything else.”
“You hadn’t thought of wearing anything at all today, you lecherous consort,” Ryalth teases.
Lorn flushes. “We’ve never had days like this together before, and they won’t last that long.”
“I know.” She sighs softly and hugs him, then kisses his cheek again. “I hoped for this for a long time. I didn’t think it was possible.”
“Lancers consort with merchanters.”
“But Magi’i don’t, and you were a student magus.”
“I still would have.”
“The way you are now, you would,” she admits.
“I don’t think I could have been otherwise.” His arms encircle her, and they kiss, a long and lingering kiss.
They both stiffen as they sense the chill of a chaos glass screeing them, and they hold to each other, barely breathing, until the scrutiny ends, and the chill fades away.
“Whoever … has no decency.” Ryalth snorts, leaning back just slightly.
Lorn wonders if his small use of chaos drew Maran, for it could be no other, or if the majer is merely curious about Lorn’s furlough.
“I didn’t feel that yesterday or at the consort signing … did you?” she asks.
“No.”
“Then he must think you’ve enticed your mistress to Jakaafra. I hope he gets very jealous. Very jealous.”
“He might be.”
“It’s getting warmer,” she says. “What did you do? Stoves don’t heat up that quickly.”
“A trick I learned as a student,” Lorn admits.
“Be careful who sees that.” She frowns.
“I am. You’re the only one who knows.”
A trace of another frown crosses her brow before she speaks. “Best it remain that way, my very dear lancer.” She half sits up, pulling the coverlet around her. “You didn’t read me a poem. One from the book. You brought it, didn’t you? You know it was really my first present to you?”
He smiles, thankful he can. “It’s in my bag. You want me to read one now?”
“One … we’re waiting for the stove to warm things up.”
Lorn eases out of the bed a second time, extracts the silver-covered volume from the bag, and then extends it to her. “You read one. Your favorite.” He slips back under the covers.
“Tonight, you have to read me one.”
“I will.”
She leafs through the book, then stops, nodding. After a moment she reads.
Like a dusk without a cloud,
a leaf without a tree,
a shell without a sea …
the greening of the pear
slips by …
Lorn smiles gently to himself as she finishes the verses.
… and wait for pears and praise
… and wait for pears and praise.
“I like that one, too,” he says, leaning next to her and kissing her cheek. After a moment, he takes the book and gently closes the cover.
Her fingertips hold him at bay. “You promised we could take a ride.”
“Do you really want to ride around Jakaafra?”
Ryalth nods. “People should see us, and the air will feel good.”
“And?”
“I might get some more ideas. I think I know where I can sell that amber melon ice wine, if it will travel.”
“Always the trader?”
“Not always.” She kisses his cheek again. “Not always.”
CIII
LORN COCKS HIS head to the side, then looks down at the draft of the scroll he writes on the table that serves for eating and writing and anything else in the small dwelling. He glances toward the glassed panes of the window whose inner shutters he has opened to get more light. Outside the warmth of the dwelling, a light but cold wind blows through a gray mid-morning.
When he had saddled both mounts earlier, Lorn had been glad for his winter jacket. From the table, warmed by the ceramic stove, he studies the sky once more. The clouds are high, and still do not look to bring rain or snow, or not soon.
He dips the pen again and adds a sentence to the draft of the scroll before him, then pauses before crossing out several words and penning in changes to the side.
“You are busy this morning,” Ryalth observes as she emerges from the bedchamber, wearing working merchanter blues. She walks over to Lorn, and bends down and kisses the back of his neck.
“Are you ready?” he asks, replacing the pen in its holder and looking up at her.
“As ready as you, my dear lancer.” She smiles warmly. “You do not mind accompanying me on merchanter business?”
“Not at all.”
“Even after yesterday?”
Lorn laughs. They had ridden nearly ten kays to a hamlet where a smith supposedly forged unique iron implements, only to find that their uniqueness was only in their size and crudeness. Then they had talked to a pearapple grower whose fruit was renowned in the region, but Ryalth had decided even from the dried and winter stored samples that the fruit would remain a local delicacy because it bruised too easily. Most of the day had been like that.
“It is just that I seldom get this far east and north ….” She shakes her head. “I would never get this far were it not for you.” She sets a blue leather wallet on the edge of the table, and there is the dull clink of coins. While Lorn has seen it before, he had never looked that closely, thinking it a trader’s wallet, and little more. This time, he sees, embossed on the leather, a green emblem-the intertwined letters “R” and “L” set within an inverted triangle.
Lorn studies the emblem, his lips curling into a smile.
“That’s the symbol I’ve been using from the beginning,” she explains.
“You never showed me.”