“Well, doesn't he speak prettily, though!” The sidicus, still sitting on Brother Rianus' shoulder, fixed Balkis with a beady eye. “As you should know!”
Anthony turned to Balkis, puzzled again. “What does it mean?”
Balkis lowered her gaze, blushing furiously.
Before she could speak, the sidicus said, “Should know, I said! If she told you how she really felt, you would speak just as prettily to her, and she would know!”
“How you really feel?” Anthony turned to Balkis, suddenly intent. “Of which feelings does this bird speak?”
CHAPTER 25
Balkis bit her lip, blushing furiously, confounded to find herself so completely tongue-tied and cursing the sidicus in her heart.
“Of course! You need not say, for I know!” Anthony said warmly. “Your feelings are care and concern for a companion and, I hope, for a friend.” Suddenly his arms were around her, her cheek was against the rough cloth of his tunic and the hard muscles beneath it, and his voice filled her ears as the fluttering began inside her again. “How fortunate I am to have so loyal and caring a companion! Thank you again and again, Balkis, for kind rescue!”
She was about to protest that it was more than friendship that had made her act so, but the words jammed up in her throat and would not come out.
“She doesn't want you to thank her, young idiot,” the sidicus said, “she wants you to kiss her!”
“Kiss her?” Anthony pulled back from Balkis, blushing but staring down at her doggedly. “Don't speak foolishness, bird! Why would so exquisite a creature wish for so lumpen a fellow as myself to kiss her?”
Balkis gazed up at him with longing, speechless but dying to tell him that he was anything but lumpen.
“Why, because she's in love with you, dolt!” the sidicus said. “Can't you see it? Really, you humans are so stupid! Any cock sidicus can tell when a hen takes a fancy to him! Do you really have to hear her say it?”
“Yes, and even then I probably shall not believe it.” Anthony's gaze held hers, and his eyes seemed to swell, to fill her whole world. She felt herself on the brink of falling into them, and his voice seemed to surround her. “Do you love me, Balkis?”
Her mouth opened, her lips parted, but the words would not come.
“Pray Heaven you do,” Anthony said softly, “for I am most overwhelmingly in love with you, and have been since first I saw you in human form.”
Her lips parted farther, her eyes widened in surprise; she was filled with a sweet aching, but still she could not speak even as his lips came closer and closer to hers.
Then they shaped the soft words, “Do you love me indeed?”
“Heaven forgive me,” she whispered, “but I do.”
Then his lips touched hers, gently, lightly, moving enough to raise a sensation that sank more and more deeply into her, and she closed her eyes to savor it the more, to caress his lips with her own, until nothing existed except his kiss.
A raucous laugh broke the spell, and the sidicus crowed, “Well enough, well enough! We don't mean to have to put you both into the mussel shell to revive you from smothering each other!”
Anthony broke away from her, red-faced and fighting down an angry retort. “You are a most unseemly savior!”
“Oh, but I have to save humans,” the sidicus explained. “Your follies are endlessly amusing, and life would be so boring without you!”
Brother Athanius came up to stand next to Rianus in time to hear this. Smiling, he said, “I own I find your jests amusing, sidicus, though they are frequently annoying, too.” He favored Anthony with a conspiratorial smile. “Indeed, I would rather have one like him, who carps and mocks but does good, than one who speaks me fair and does me ill.”
“Well, there is some truth in that,” Anthony allowed, and bowed. “I am Anthony, reverend one.”
Balkis remembered that they hadn't met. “Anthony, this is Brother Athanius, the other gentle hermit who healed you.”
“I am pleased to have aided, young man.” The hermit returned the bow, then glanced from one to the other, his eyes bright. “Of course, your fair young friend aided us in bearing you the mussel shell, where the curing waters healed your wounds.”
Anthony turned to stare at Balkis. “You have cared for me in every way!”
“Cared very much,” the sidicus agreed. “Of course, that might have had something to do with the fact that you had to go naked into the water.”
Anthony's stare widened. Balkis lowered her gaze, blushing. “Bird, do you know the meaning of the word 'discretion'?”
“Of course,” said the sidicus. “It is what people call for when they want to keep secrets.”
“Annoying he may be, but I have never known him to speak falsely,” Brother Athanius said.
“Of course,” Brother Rianus demurred, “that's not to say he won't mislead people if he thinks he will have more pleasure watching their confusion.”
“Of course,” the sidicus agreed. “What are humans for, after all? And you two have been great fun this morning!”
“I must not criticize one who has helped me,” Anthony sighed.
“Quite so,” Brother Rianus agreed, speaking up now. “Still, young people, I would say you have endured enough of his taunts. You are healed in both body and spirit now, and must go your ways to make enduring this treasure that you have hidden from one another, but that the sidicus has discovered within you.”
“I suppose we must thank him for that,” Balkis said grudgingly.
“Of course.” The sidicus' tongue lolled out in an avian smile. “You never would have told it by yourselves. Birds are much more practical.”
“Go hatch an egg,” Balkis muttered, then aloud she said, “Thank you I shall, then, for you have been a great help.”
“Yes, thank you, good bird,” Anthony said, “and I thank you, reverend sirs.”
“Go with our blessings,” Brother Ranius said, smiling, “and may love lead you.”
With Anthony's arm about Balkis, they walked in silence, stopping to gaze into one another's eyes now and then, smiling but still shy. After half an hour they overcame their shyness enough to stop and kiss again, then went on, talking in low tones of things they had never discussed in all the months they had journeyed together. All that day they drifted in a sweet dreamland, and though Balkis occasionally felt the touch of apprehension, wondering what would happen when evening came—though it sped her pulse, too—she was able to put it aside well enough to enjoy these first few blissful moments to the fullest.
When the sun went down, they walked awhile in the moonlight, Anthony talking of his love for her and of her beauty, stopping frequently for kisses that inflamed her thoroughly. Finally, though, Balkis' head began to droop with weariness, and Anthony stopped. “We have come far enough for one day, my love. It is time to sleep,” he said.
Apprehension clamored in her breast, surging up into her throat, but Balkis managed to only gaze up at him shyly and say, “Let us lie down, then.”
The ritual of pitching camp had become so routine that they were able to go through it without thinking—which was good, for Anthony began to grow silly, making foolish remarks that soon had Balkis giggling and breathless—but when they had supped and she knelt by her bed of bracken, again overcome with shyness, Anthony said, “Sleep, now, and I shall watch, for that bath in the magical shell has made me so completely well that I feel no weariness, and doubt I could sleep.”
Relief flooded her, though she could have wished for a better reason to keep him from sleep. “How long shall you watch?”