“Why the face?” he asked her.
“It’s nothing.”
“Alythia?”
Sasha shook her head. Errollyn reached his hand beneath her blankets to grasp her own. Then he put it on her thigh. Sasha removed it. “That’s not like you,” Errollyn teased.
“Just rest it for a moment, will you?” Sasha said. Errollyn sighed, withdrew his hand, and laid his head back to sleep.
“I’m sorry.” Sasha wriggled sideways in the hammock. “I didn’t mean to snap.”
“You always snap. I’m used to it.”
Sasha could have argued, but didn’t. Denying her own temper was foolish. If she wanted the man she loved to stay in love with her, at some point she was going to have to stop picking unnecessary arguments.
“This ship annoys you. Very few serrin women would envy you, being what you are, here amongst humans.”
Sasha smiled. Of course he understood. He always understood. She reached, and took his hand. Her frustrations had hardly kept them abstinent, of course. The hammocks were not suitable for a couple without the privacy or patience to experiment, but the cargo hold was usually empty. Which had been hardly romantic, with no space between crates and bags to lie down, but they’d managed nonetheless. As svaalverd warriors both, they shared an interest in physicality, and discovering what their bodies could do together-in positions that did not involve lying down-had been an entertainment all of its own.
There came a round of unpleasant coughing from behind the next partition. Sasha swore lightly, and slid from her hammock. The other reason the hammocks were unsuited was that Kessligh bunked directly alongside. She suspected he wouldn’t have cared, but even so…
She slipped past the blanket, and found him half seated in his hammock, sipping from a water flask. “You all right?”
He grimaced, nodding as he drank. There was a small pan on the floor beside the bed, just in case. “Damn ships,” he muttered. “We’ll be in Tracato soon, that’ll cure me. What did Errollyn see?”
“They’re not gaining. The captain fears a trap. Perhaps we’d best not sleep?”
“If there’s an ambush, we’ll have enough warning to wake, dress and arm. Better to fight rested.”
Sasha nodded. “How’s your leg?”
“It’s fine, dammit woman,” Kessligh growled. “My mother died long ago, you don’t have to check on me every time you hear a noise.”
“Oh, but look at you,” said Sasha in consternation. “Your hair’s a mess, you haven’t shaved in two days…here, just let me…” She moved to comb his hair down with her fingers. Kessligh swatted at her, dangerously fast, and she danced away with a mischievous grin.
“You,” Kessligh said warningly, “will find you’re not too big for a spanking.”
“You’d have to catch me first, old man,” Sasha laughed. “Sleep well.”
She retreated back into her hammock. The ship lurched and rolled, but the only twisting in her stomach was from happiness. Woman. Kessligh called her “woman,” not “girl.” It was hard not to grin with delight.
Errollyn noticed. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” Sasha turned onto her side, facing him. “Say, you want to go downstairs and fuck?”
Errollyn grinned. Spirits he looked nice when he did that. Those incredible green eyes flashed, full of humour. Sometimes she couldn’t believe her luck.
“You’re impossible,” he said. “Tracking your moods is like sailing through four seasons before breakfast.”
Sasha laughed. Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed him long and deep on the lips. Then she lay back again, and contented herself with holding his hand.
“Sasha?” Errollyn asked. “I’ve a question. Don’t kill me.”
“Ah,” said Sasha. “A stupid serrin question. Go ahead, I’m bracing myself.”
“Do you think…I mean, Kessligh is like a father to you. But it’s all very well to say that, it’s another thing when a man hasn’t had a partner in a long time, and after all, you’re not his daughter…”
Sasha frowned. “You know, for a serrin wordsmith, that’s an appallingly opaque question. Spit it out.”
“Do you think he’s ever fancied you?”
Sasha stared at him in horror. “No!” And remembered to keep her voice down. “How can you ask me something like that?”
Errollyn shrugged helplessly. “Stupid serrin question, remember?”
“We were…dammit, Errollyn, we’ve been together since I was eight! He still thinks I’m a little girl, or…or…” Only now, he called her “woman.” She broke off in frustration.
Errollyn put a hand on her arm. “Don’t be angry. I was just curious.”
Somehow, Sasha found that she wasn’t angry. If anyone else had suggested such an appalling thing, she’d have most likely hurt them. But serrin were so innocent, in some things. Not innocent like children, far from it. But they weren’t offended by the notions that most humans found so terrible.
He reached, and put a hand on her hip. “Do you still want to go downstairs and fuck?”
“Gods, never again.” In the dim wash of lamplight, Sasha thought she saw Errollyn’s face fall. As if she’d actually managed to offend him. She grasped his hand and held it tightly. “I’m joking! Errollyn, I’m kidding.” He looked a little relieved. “Just…maybe tomorrow. You’re fine in the dark, but I’ll whack my foot and break something.”
“Tomorrow we may die,” Errollyn said reasonably. “I’ll make certain you don’t break anything.”
Sasha gave him a hard look. She hated it when he did that-said exactly the right thing to talk her into something she’d already decided she shouldn’t do. “All right,” she sighed. “It’s not late yet. We’ll get a lantern and go down the front way.”
Sasha was up at dawn, and found their pursuers gone. What was more, the wind had fallen to a cool breeze and the seas were calming. She exercised on the deck, watching the sky change from dark to pale blue, then yellow, red and gold. To starboard, Windsprite gently rocked, her sails full as she cut through azure seas.
To port, Radiance lagged a little, and seemed to have damaged a foresail. At the captain’s wheel, the night helmsman cast dark looks in Radiance’s direction. When the captain rose to relieve him, some unimpressed gestures were aimed in the other ship’s direction.
Errollyn joined her soon enough, and was delighted to find their pursuit had vanished. He pulled off his shirt, and Sasha chided him in Saalsi for his vanity. She’d have been prepared to fall for a man less pretty than this one, so long as he’d been the right man. This, however, was serendipity. And what she’d done with him in the cargo hold last night had been considerably more than that. She couldn’t believe no one else on the ship had heard her. She’d tried to muffle it, but there’d been a few shrieks that surely could have been heard above a raging thunderstorm.
She and Errollyn sparred as the sailors watched them. Most Rhodaani men might have seen serrin women spar, but few would have seen human women at her standard. The svaalverd, at the level practised by Sasha and Errollyn, was blindingly fast. Neither of them missed a stroke, a shifting, circling dance of sliding feet and flashing wooden blades, the sharp cracking of wood-on-wood breaking the morning calm.
Errollyn suggested variations, and Sasha complied with flashing attacks, complete sequences but for the killing blow. She found herself actually enjoying the shifting deck beneath their feet. All svaalverd fighters were obsessed with balance, and anything that challenged it was an intrigue to be explored at length.
“Keep bossing her about, lad,” said one bald, pot-bellied sailor in passing. “You can still teach her a thing or two, I’ll wager.”
Errollyn grinned, windmilling an arm, sweat dripping down his flexing chest and hard stomach. Sasha realised the sailor had mistaken Errollyn’s suggestions for commands. “She’s teaching me how not to die,” Errollyn corrected the man. “If she came at me with something I was not prepared for, I’d last two strokes.”