"We're forbidden to enter a temple," he said.
"No one can be forbidden the temple."
"But he'd know. He killed one reeve for disobeying."
"I don't remember that! Whoo-ei! How do you get used to this?"
But he was used to flying, the dips and turns, ups and downs, heights and dives. It was the memory of the quick and brutal death that softened him, and she seemed immediately aware of his distress.
"In all that time, there's one thing I never did discover," she said over her shoulder. "Where Marshal Yordenas came from."
"Don't know and don't care."
"Where do you come from?"
"Haldia."
"You're a long way from home."
She shifted. The feel of her body, helpless in his grasp and moving against him, got him going again, burning and full. She sensed it, and twitched her buttocks right up against his groin until he groaned and begged her to stop, or let him land and have done, they could just find a clearing and land and no one would be the wiser.
"Oh. Oh, no," she said with a laugh as Tumna found a draft and rode it up. "This is amazing! You know, you can't serve the Merciless One if you're too hasty. How I despise men who are hasty. Surely you aren't going to be one of those? I thought you were strong enough to take your time."
"I'm strong. I've bided my time this long, haven't I?" He was sweating so much that beads ran down to sting in his eyes.
"Bided your time in Argent Hall? It's true, Marshal Yordenas is a slimy worm. I didn't like him, and I'll tell you something in confidence. If you promise not to say."
Then she did it a second time, and it was killing him with his trousers so tight and nothing to be done up here, and Tumna slipping out of the updraft into a glide over the trees, the first real height the eagle had gotten so he daren't land now and lose all that effort. Best keep his mind on other things.
"I promise not to say. I hate Yordenas. Always have. Arrogant sneering bastard."
"He really is a worm. He's got a limp prick."
"Heh! No. Truly?"
"Truly. No milk in him, I'm telling you. What a disappointment! But I can tell you're nothing like that. You're as full a man as I've snuggled up to in a long while. Tell you what."
It was hard to talk because he was so horribly aroused between the smell and shape of her and knowing he was going to get something Yordenas couldn't have. It was like the sun shining right in your eyes, blinding you. It was agony. "Ah. Ah. What?"
"Look at that view!"
He could see the view anytime. It was the view of her that was something new.
She went on breathlessly. "Let's see your message delivered, and us on our way back to Olossi with enough time in the day, and I have an idea about how to get those trousers off you while we're still in the air. Want to try it?"
Just thinking of it was almost enough to push him over the edge. "The hells. What do you think?"
She laughed. "Careful, now. You don't want to be spilling your milk too soon, do you? Here, now. Tell me a story."
"Don't know any stories."
"Tell me about where you grew up."
"Nothing to tell."
"You got to be a reeve. That must be something to tell."
"Not much. I hated the village I grew up in. It was full of prating, mewling farmers and foresters and carters who would go on and on about what we owed the gods, and good manners, and where I should serve my apprentice year when all I wanted to do was serve the Thunderer, and how a man ought to behave when that wasn't what I wanted at all and I didn't see what business it was of theirs to be telling me what to do!"
"They're like that at the temple, too, the old bitches. Always ordering a person about."
"Heh. Yeh. Then there was some trouble over the headman's daughter and the rights to the best parcel of land, but of course they would all plot against me, so after I-well, anyway, after that I left and walked all the way to High Haldia. I'd heard a man could get work in their militia, and I don't mind saying I was strong enough to do their kind of work. I was good with a staff, always was, ever since a boy, and good with a bow, did a lot of hunting along the river when I was a lad. That's all even though they wouldn't let me serve my apprentice year with Kotaru, but I showed them by thrashing every one of those who did, in all the villages nearby. But anyway, they didn't take kindly to me in High Haldia, for their captain was jealous of how good I was with the staff, better than any of his men, although of course he wouldn't admit to it and had to spew some other such vomit about why I wasn't fit for their puny little militia. I thought I'd have to work felling trees again, which wasn't to my liking, I'll tell you, even though a man has to eat, but it came about that a consortium of merchants was looking for guardsmen to accompany a caravan up-river to Seven and up the Steps to Teriayne. That wasn't bad duty, even though the caravan master was a real prick about everything and let me go as soon as we reached Seven. I spent a while there doing this and that. One thing led to another, and next I knew I was sent with a supply train up to Iron Hall and after that Tumna chose me. That was a surprise! I showed them, didn't I?"
"You showed who?"
"All those who said I wouldn't amount to anything. But I showed them!" He was juiced, the words flowing into that sympathetic ear, and the story of his many grievances at Iron Hall tumbled out as Tumna labored upriver parallel to West Track. How the arms master had picked on him, and made fun of him in front of the others, just because the man didn't like that one time he had gotten in past his guard and scored a hit to his shoulder. How that hireling girl had told him off when he'd made her an offer, and damned if anyone would speak to him that way, but he'd shown her, hadn't he? You didn't treat a man with so little respect and expect him just to walk away. How he'd gotten passed over when it came time to appoint a new wing leader, which ought by rights to have gone to him but after all the marshal had favored that bitch of a northerner out of the high country, probably because she was milking him not because she was anything special as a reeve even if the rest of them did sing her praises just because she had a creamy way of talking sweet to them all. And then she'd pretended to be kind and sorry afterward, the way you would scratch a dog's head when it was whining, not that he ever whined even when he got cut the short end of the stick. Anyway, it wasn't his fault that man assaulted him. You didn't have to take that kind of nasty shit-talk from common farmers just because you were a reeve and ordained to keep the peace, as the veterans were always droning on about. Reeves ought to be treated with respect and not shoved and cursed at and called rude names. So it wasn't his fault that the man had pushed too far, and he'd retaliated with perfectly reasonable force. Not his fault at all, no matter what anyone else said. They were overreacting, just because the man died when after all it was his own bad temper that had done him in. You'd think they would have taken that into account, but it always seemed the marshal-everyone, for that matter-weighed in against him whenever there was trouble.
"You've an eloquent way of telling your tale," she said. "I do feel I know you better now. How do you like it at Argent Hall?"
"It's a little better," he said grudgingly. "There's a good group of reeves there who have taken a liking to me, but I must say that Marshal Yordenas is a disappointment. He's weak. Too puffed up with his own importance. If the lord commander hadn't appointed him marshal, he'd never have risen so far."
"The Commander of Clan Hall? Appointed Yordenas as marshal? I thought reeves elected their own hall marshal-Oh… of course, I'd forgotten about the lord commander's part in all this."
"Hard to see how you could overlook it, considering this is his army." Because he had a sharp gaze honed from years as a reeve, he gestured to make sure she saw the sight coming into view where West Track cut across open country. "There they are. Tumna usually would cover this distance faster than she did today. That's about two days' march we've covered just since midday. I don't want you to think she's like other eagles, she's much better, but the weight slowed her down."