"Don't I get an answer?" he asked.
She took his hand that was holding her wrist and pulled his fingers from her. Then she held that hand in both of hers.
They had made love again in the night. He was not sure who had started that. She might have. Certainly he had needed no reason, whether or not she had intended to come up close against him, and he had gone slower in the act this time, to give her the pleasure she had missed the last time. But he had fallen asleep again after, till she moved and waked him in the dawn.
She gave him no answer now, except the pressure of her hands around his.
Well, maybe, he thought, that was as fair an answer as she could give—no courtesan's glib Of course, my lord. Taizu thought about things. Taizu thought for days on a matter before she ever opened her mouth. He could imagine the pensive line between her brows and the fierce tightening of her mouth. Then she slipped away from him, grabbed up her clothes on the way to the door and fled in a flash of daylight.
So Shoka sat on the porch in the cool morning, with the polished bronze bowl hooked to the post, a pan of warm water in front of him, judiciously scraping the stubble from his chin. That he did most every day, when he got around to it. But this time he had put his scalplock up in its clip at the crown, the rest of it, still black and still thick as any boy's, to hang down his back. There were weather-lines about the face, sun-frown graven about the eyes and the edges of the mouth; but overall, looking at that image in the bronze, he saw an appalling similarity between himself and a certain younger man, and said to himself: Haven't learned a thing, have you?
He was finishing when Taizu came up the hill from her bath—she still preferred the spring, for whatever reasons; and he had rather the rainbarrel, which was not so cold a walk afterward. She looked at him sitting there in his old guise, her eyes widened, and she stopped there, with her wet shirt hugged about her in the chill.
He shook water from his razor and dried it, flattered and pleased at that look, that fed a vanity he had not known he had, and for which he was, all taken, a little regretfuclass="underline" damned nonsense, he thought, in the same moment, because it was not Shoka the man she was seeing. It was Saukendar the fool. The one the world knew.
But it did not please her.
What in hell's the matter? he wondered, and froze, afraid suddenly, and not even knowing the answer.
She was afraid, he thought.
Of what? Noblemen? Gods knew she had cause.
"Something the matter?" he asked her.
"No, master."
"Master, hell. M'lord, if you like. Shoka if you don't." He rested the hand and the razor on his knee. "About last night—"
"I'm cold. I want to get dressed."
"Girl, I'm more than fond of you, if you haven't figured that out. I'd have you for my wife, if you want that."
She looked at him still, so still, and drew herself up with one breath and a second, sharper one. She stood there a moment looking at him, gathering her composure. Then she bit her lip and ran the steps right past him.
"Doesn't that even get an answer, girl?"
He heard her stop. He heard her standing by the door, the little movements of breathing, against the hush of dawn.
"I'm not a lady."
He turned around where he sat, and looked at her, figuring some of what was going on, at least. "My wife is whatever she wants to be. My wife is a lady. That's what I'm offering, dammit. I don't think I've insulted you."
A long silence. She looked toward the dark doorway, not at him, a long, long time. And the hand came up toward the scar which, gods witness, he had not so much as thought about, not last night, not this morning.
That damned scar and everything that went with it.
No tears. He feared she was going to cry in the next moment, and his gut tensed up; but she kept her composure. And never looked his way.
"Master Shoka, please don't come with me. Let me do this. Then I'll come back and be your wife. I'll be whatever you like. Just stay the hell out of my trouble!"
He sat there, still, calm, while a girl cut at him in a way that no one on earth would do and walk away from—if he had not sensed the pain in her, and the woman's honor she had, not to take morning-promises of a man that he might be fool enough, having shared a bed with her—to mean for three and four hours.
"I put no conditions on anything," he said. "I couldn't stop you from coming here. Now you can't stop me from leaving this place. You see—preventing things is very difficult. So I taught you. So I let you go. And now you can't stop me."
"Yes, master Shoka." A hoarse and hollow tone, as if she foreknew defeat and played the game for courtesy's sake.
"I'm no fool, girl. I passed my own adolescence a long time ago. Give me that."
Silence.
"That's what you think, is it? I'm a fool?"
"No, master Shoka."
Bitterness overwhelmed him, a sudden vivid recollection of Meiya's grave, carefully painted face, a meeting in a garden, in the palace: Marry someone. For the gods' sake— And a thought, sharp-edged, that Meiya had traveled into that hazy nowhere-land of legends, a damned romance the country-folk told in wintertimes. Saukendar and lady Meiya. As if he, plain Shoka, had no right to tamper with that, or change the ending.
Master Saukendar. . . .
—Dammit to hell, I'm still alive!
And if I want a Hua pig-girl in Meiya's place, isn't that my right?
I never wanted to be a damn legend.
"Dress," he said sharply. "Then get out here. Or if you've changed your mind about going to Hua, say. You're not obliged to be a fool, you know. Or if you're set on it, then we'll go today. Whatever you choose."
She went inside. He picked up his shirt from beside him on the boards, put it on, belted it this time, and looked up at a thump and crash of something from inside the cabin.
Temper. Yes.
He put his armor sleeves on and tied the fastenings, and the shin-guards, with their ties, before Taizu came out and dumped their rolled mats on the porch.
"Come here," he said, and pointed to the steps at his feet. She frowned and came that far. "Sit," he said, and added: "Please."
"What are you going to—?"
"Sit."
She sat, and he unbraided her wet hair and combed it, carefully—then faced her about by the shoulders and took his razor.
"What are you doing?" she cried.
"Come, come—" He took up one lock and the other, combed them back, then cut the next, making a fringe of bangs.
She squinted her eyes and wrinkled her nose as the hair drifted down. Three and four judicious cuts and he took a loop of metal and a pin and faced her about again, combing the long hair up to fasten.
"You're wasting your time," Taizu said.
"Why?"
"You can't make me look like a lady."
"That's all very well. I don't want them to take you for a bandit, either." He faced her about again, combed more hair loose about her ears, held her by the chin. "Damn, that's not bad."
Her mouth made a hard line. There was thunder in her eyes, and a trace of rain.
"It makes the scar show."
He pinched her chin hard. Shook at her. "What kind of thinking is that? Hold the head up. Hell with the scar and hell with them. People won't forget your face, that's sure. So hold your chin up. Who are you afraid of?"
"Nobody."
"What kind of words are you afraid of?"
"Nothing."
"Mmmn, it used to be Sleep with me."