Beguilement

Chapter 11

Dag thought he’d had his groundsense strapped down tight, but whatever of his vile mood still leaked through the cracks was enough to clear the bathhouse of the three convalescent patrollers idling there within five minutes of his entry.

Still, at length both his body and his wits cooled, and he went off to find some useful task to occupy himself, preferably away from his comrades. He found it in taking a saddle with a broken tree uptown to the harnessmaker’s to trade in for a replacement, and retrieving some other mended gear there, which filled the time till dinner and the arrival of the anxious Utau and the rest of his swamp-slimed patrol.

Mari’s arguments were not, any of them, wrong, exactly. Or at all, Dag admitted glumly to himself. Ashamed, he dutifully set his mind to the upholding of a self-restraint that had once been more routine than breathing… which had somehow grown as heavy as a stone cairn upon his chest. Dead men don’t need air, eh?

At dinner that night he behaved toward Fawn with meticulous courtesy, no more.

Her eyes watched him curiously, wary. But there were enough other patrollers at the table for her to pelt with her questions, tonight mostly about how patrol patterns were arranged and walked, that his silence passed unremarked.

Never had rectitude seemed less rewarding.

The next day was officially devoted to rest and the preparations for the bow-down, and Dag allowed himself to be made mule to help carry in supplies from uptown gathered by the more eager. He crossed paths with Mari only long enough to volunteer for evening watch and door duty, and be briskly refused.

“I can’t put the patroller who slew the malice onto guard duty during the celebration of his own deed,” she said shortly. “I’d have a revolt on my hands—and rightly, too.” She added after a reluctant moment, stopping his protest, “Make sure that little farmer girl knows she’s invited, too.”

Shortly after, he ran into the enthusiast from Log Hollow who was nabbing the volunteer musicians from the combined patrols for practice, a novelty in the experience of most involved, and did not escape till almost time to collect Fawn. Fawn peered at her hair in the shaving mirror and decided that the green ribbons, loaned by Reela of the broken leg, matched her good dress very well.

Reela had been teaching her how to do Lakewalker hair braids, which had turned out to have various meanings; the knot at the nape, Fawn had found out, was a sign of mourning, except when it was a prudent arrangement for going into a fight. Knowing this made the mob of patrollers look different to Fawn’s eyes, and gave her a strange feeling, as though the world had shifted under her feet, if only a little, and could never shift back. In any case she could be certain that tonight’s style, with her hair tied up high on the back of her head by a jaunty bow and allowed to swing like a horsetail, curls bouncing, didn’t say anything she didn’t intend in patroller.

Dag came to her door, seeming more relaxed this evening; Fawn wondered if Mari had imparted some bad news to him in the stable yesterday, to so depress his spirits last night. But now his eyes were bright. His simple white shirt made his coppery skin seem to glow. Yesterday’s reek of swamp and horse and emergency was replaced with lavender soap and something warm underneath that was just Dag.

His hair was clean and soft and already escaping whatever order a stern combing had imposed upon it, looking very touchable, if only she could reach that high.

Tiptoes. A stepladder. Something…

The atmosphere in the dining room was not too different from other nights, ravenous and raucous, except more crowded because for once everyone was there at the same time. They were all notably cleaned up, and many seemed to have obtained, or shared, scent water. Party clothes seemed to be everyone’s same clothes, except laundered. Fawn supposed saddlebags didn’t really have room for many changes; the women were all still wearing trousers. Did they ever wear skirts? Hairstyles seemed more elaborate, though. Some of the younger patrollers even wore bells in their braids.

Food and drink, especially drink, overflowed through the entry hall into the next room, where chairs were pushed to the walls and rugs rolled up to make a space to dance. Fawn found herself a seat with the rest of the convalescents, Saun and Reela and the man from Chato’s patrol with the game knee and stitches in his jaw, and that poor subdued fellow who’d managed to get snakebit yesterday and was now good-naturedly enduring some pretty merciless ribbing about it.

The teasers also distributed fresh beer to all the chair-bound, however, and seemed dedicated to keeping it coming. Fawn sipped hers and smiled shy thanks.

Dag had vanished briefly, but now he returned, screwing something into his wrist cap. Fawn blinked in astonishment to recognize a tambourine, fitted with a wooden peg so he might hold it securely.

“My goodness! I didn’t know you played anything.”

He grinned at her, giving the frame a last adjustment and drumming his fingers over the stretched skin. The staccato sound made her sit up. “How clever. What did you play before you lost your hand?”

“Tambourine,” he replied cheerily. “I tried the flute, but it tangled my fingers up even when I had twice as many, and when I tackled the fiddle, I was accused of tormenting cats. With this, I can never strike a wrong note. Besides”—he lowered his voice conspiratorially—“it gets me off the hook for the dancing.”

He winked at her and drifted up to the head of the room, where some other patrollers were collecting.

Their array of instruments seemed a bit random, but mostly small, as would fit in a spare corner of a saddlebag. There were several flutes, of wood, clay, or bone, two fiddles, and a makeshift collection of overturned tubs for thumping on, obviously filched from around the hotel. The room filled and quieted.

A gray-haired man with a bone flute stepped forward into the hush and began a melody Fawn found haunting; it made the hairs stir on her arms. Disturbed, she studied that pale length of bone, its surface burned about with writing, and was suddenly certain it was someone’s relative. Because thighbones came in pairs, but hearts came one by one, so what did Lakewalker makers do with the leftovers, in all honor? The tune was so elegiac, it had be some prayer or hymn or memorial; Fawn could see a few people’s lips moving on words they obviously knew by heart. A hush followed for a full minute, with everyone’s eyes downcast.

A rattle like a snake from the tambourine, and a sudden spatter of drumming, broke the sorrow to bits as if trying to blow it out the windows. The fiddlers and flute players and tub-thumpers struck up a lively dance tune, and patrollers swung out onto the floor. They did not dance in couples but in groups, weaving complex patterns around one another. Except for the shifting about of partners in blithe disregard of anyone’s sex, it reminded Fawn a lot of farmer barn dances, although the patrollers seemed to do without a caller. She wondered if they were doing something with their groundsenses to take the place of that outside coordination. Intensely complex as the patterns seemed, the dancers seldom missed a step, although when someone did, it was greeted with much hooting and laughter as the whole bunch rearranged themselves, picked up the pulse, and started again. The bells rang merrily. Dag stood at the back of the musicians, keeping steady time, punctuating his rhythms with well-placed spurts of jingling, watching it all and looking unusually happy; he didn’t talk or sing, but he smiled a bit as the jokes flew by.

The younger patrollers’ appetites for fast dances seemed insatiable, but at length the wheezing musicians traded out for a couple of singers. Outside, the long summer sun had gone down, and the room was hot with candles and lamps and sweaty bodies. Dag unscrewed his tambourine and came to sit at Fawn’s feet, catching up on his beer-drinking with the aid of what seemed a bucket brigade of well-wishers.

One song was new to Fawn, another to a known tune but with different words, and a third she’d heard her aunt Nattie croon as she spun thread, and she wondered if it had originated with farmers or Lakewalkers. The singers were a man and a woman from Chato’s patrol, and their voices blended beguilingly, hers pure and fair, his low and resonant. By this time, Fawn wasn’t sure if the song about a lost patroller dancing in the woods with magical bears was fantasy or not.

The man with the bone flute joined them, making a trio; when he sent a preamble of notes into the air for the next song, Dag set his half-full glass rather abruptly on the floor. His smile over his shoulder at Fawn more resembled a grimace. “Privy run. Beer, eh,” he excused himself, and levered to his feet.

Three sets of eyes marked his movement in concern: Mari’s, Utau’s, and one other older comrade’s; Mari made a gesture of query, Should I… ? to which Dag returned a small headshake. He trod out without looking back.

“Fifty folk walked out that day,” the song began, and Fawn quickly twigged to Dag’s sudden retreat, because it turned out to be a long, involved ballad about the battle of Wolf Ridge. It named no names in its weaving of poetry and tune, of woe, gallantry, sacrifice, and victory, subtly inviting all to identify with its various heroes, and under any other circumstances Fawn would have found it thrilling. Most of the patrollers, truly, seemed variously thrilled or moved; Reela swiped away a tear, and Saun hung openmouthed in the intensity of his listening.

They do not know, Fawn realized. Saun, who had patrolled with Dag for a year and claimed to know him well, did not know. Utau did, listening with his hand over his mouth, eyes dark; Mari, of course, did, with her glances at the archway out which Dag had quietly vanished, and through which he did not return. The song finished at last, and another, more cheerful one started.

When Dag still did not return, Fawn slipped out herself. Someone else was exiting the commode chamber, so she tried outside. It was blessedly cooler out here, the blue shadows relieved by yellow light from the cheery windows, from the lanterns flanking the porch door, and, across the yard, from above the stable doors. Dag was sitting on the bench outside the stable, head back against the wall, staring up at the summer stars.

She sat down beside him and just let the silence hang for a time, for it was not uncomfortable, cloaking them like the night. The stars burned bright and seeming-close despite the lanterns; the sky was cloudless. “You all right?”

she asked at last.

“Oh, yeah.” He ran his hand through his hair, and added reflectively, “When I was a boy, I used to just love all those heroic ballads. I memorized dozens. wonder if all those other old battle songs would have seemed as obscene to their survivors?” Yet he claims not to sing. Unable to answer this, Fawn offered, “At least it helps people remember.”

“Yes. Alas.”

“It wasn’t a bad song. In fact, I thought it was awfully good. As a song, I mean.”

“I don’t deny it. Not the fault of the song-maker—whoever it was did a fine job.

If it were less effective, it wouldn’t make me want to weep or rage so bad, I suppose. Which was why I left the room. My groundsense was a little open, in aid of the music-making. I didn’t want to blight the mood. Pack thirty-eight tired, battle-nervy patrollers into one building for a week, and moods start to get around fast.”

“Do you often make music, when you’re out on patrol?” She tried to picture patroller song and dance around a campfire; the weather likely didn’t always cooperate.

“Only sometimes. Camps can be pretty busy in the evenings. Curing hides and meat, preserving medicinal plants we pick up while patrolling, keeping logs and maps up to date. If it’s a mounted patrol, a lot of horse care. Weapons training for the youngsters and practice for everyone. Mending, of clothes and boots and gear. Cooking, washing. All simple tasks, but they do go on.”

His voice slowed in reminiscence. “Patrols vary in size—in the north they send out companies of a hundred and fifty or two hundred for the great seasonal wilderness sweeps—but south of the lake, patrols are usually smaller and shorter. Even so, you’re like to be in each other’s hair for weeks on end with no entertainment but each other. After a while, everyone knows all the songs.

So there’s gossip. And factions. And jokes. And practical jokes. And revenge for practical jokes. And fistfights over revenge for practical jokes. And knife fights over—well, you get the idea. Although if the emotions are allowed to melt down into that sour a soup, you can bet the patrol leader will be having a very memorable talk with Fairbolt Crow about it, later.”

“Have you ever?”

“Not about that. Although all talks with Fairbolt tend to be memorable.” In the shadows, he scratched his nose and smiled, then leaned his head back and let his eyes rest on the mellow windows across the yard. The singing had stopped, and dance tunes had begun again; feet thumping on the floor made the whole building pulse like a drum.

“Let’s see, what else? On warm summer nights, gathering firewood is always a popular activity.”

Fawn considered this, and the amusement underlying his voice. “Should think that would be wanted on cold nights, more.”

“Mm, but you see, on warm nights, no one complains if folks are gone for two hours and come back having forgotten the firewood. Bathing in the river, that’s another good one.”

“In the dark?” said Fawn doubtfully.

“In the river is even more the question. Especially when the season’s turned frosty. Walks, oh sure, that’s believable, when everyone’s been out slogging since dawn. Scouting around, too—that draws many selfless volunteers. Some dangerous squirrels out in those woods, they could mount an attack at any time.

You can’t be too prepared.” A rumbling chuckle escaped his chest.

“Oh,” said Fawn, finally understanding. Her lips curled up, if only for the rare sight of the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes.

“Followed by the breakups and the makeups and the people not talking to each other, or worse, going over it all again till you’re ready to stuff your head in your blanket and scream for the listening to it. Ah, well.” He vented a tolerant sigh. “The older patrollers generally have things worked out smooth, but the younger ones can be downright restive. It’s not as though folks’ lives stop for patrol. Walking the patterns isn’t some emergency where you can drop everything, deal heroically, and then go home for good and all. It all starts again tomorrow at dawn. And you’ll have to get up and walk your share just the same.” He stretched, joints creaking a bit, as if in contemplation of such an early start.

“It’s not that we’re all mad, you know, although sometimes it seems like it,”

he went on in a lower voice. “Groundsense makes our moods very contagious. Not just by speech and gestures; it’s like it gets in the air.” His hand traced an upward spiral. “Now, for instance. Once a certain number of people open their grounds to each other, there starts to be… leakage. Bow-downs are really good for that.

That building over there’s downright awash, right now. All sorts of things can start to seem like a good idea. Absent gods be thanked for the beer.”

“The beer?”

“Beer, I have concluded”—he held up an edifying finger, and Fawn began to realize that he was slightly drunk; people had kept the musicians well supplied with encouraging refreshment, earlier—“exists for the purpose of being blamed the next day. Very regrettable beverage, beer.”

“Farmers use it for that, too,” Fawn observed.

“A universal need.” He blinked. “I think I need some more.”

“Are you thirsty?”

“No.” He slumped down, staring at her sidelong. His eyes were dark pools in this light, like night condensed. The lanternlight made glimmering orange halos around his hair, and slid across his faintly sweat-sheened features like a caress. “Just considering the potential of regret…”

He leaned toward her, and Fawn froze in hope so strong it felt like terror.

Did he mean to kiss her? His breath was tinged with beer and exertion and Dag.

Hers stopped altogether.

Stillness. Heartbeats.

“No,” he sighed. “No. Mari was right.” He sat up again. Fawn nearly burst into unfathomable tears. Nearly reached for him.

No, you can’t. Daren’t. He’ll think you’re that… that awful word Sunny used. It burned in her memory like an infected gash, Slut. It was an ugly word that had somehow turned her into an ugly thing, like a splash of ink or blood or poison discoloring water. For Dag, I would be only beautiful. And tall. She wished herself taller. If she were taller, no one could call her names just for, for wanting so much.

He sighed, smiled, rose. Gave her a hand up. They went back inside.

In the entry hall Dag’s head turned, listening. “Good, someone’s using the tambourine. They can get along without me for what’s left of this.” Truly, the music coming through the archway seemed slower and sleepier. He made for the staircase.

Fawn found her voice. “You going up?”

“Yeah. It was good, but it’s been enough for one night. You?”

“I’m a little tired, too.” She followed after him. What had happened, or not happened, out on the bench felt a lot like that moment on the road, some turn she had somehow missed.

As they exited the staircase on the second floor, bumping and laughter echoed up behind them. Dirla and two young patrollers from Chato’s group burst out giggling, saluted Dag with cheerful hellos, and swung down the adjoining hallway. Fawn stopped and stared as they paused at Dirla’s door, for one fellow looped his arm around her neck and kissed her, but she was still holding the other’s hand to her… chest. Dirla—tall Dirla—extended one booted foot and pushed the door open, and they all fell through; it closed, cutting off some jest.

“Dag,” Fawn said hesitantly, “what was that?”

He cocked an amused eyebrow at her. “What did it look like to you?”

“Is Dirla taking that… I mean, them… is she going to bed with those fellows?”

“Seems likely.”

Likely? If his groundsense did half what he said, he likely knew very well.

“Both of them?”

“Well, numbers are generally uneven, out on patrol. People make adjustments.

Dirla is very… um… generous.”

Fawn swallowed. “Oh.”

She followed him up their hallway. Razi and Utau were just unlocking the door to their room; Utau looked, and smelled, distinctly the worse for beer, and Razi’s hair, escaping his long braid, hung plastered in sweaty strands across his forehead from the dancing. They both bade Dag a civil good night and disappeared within.

“Well,” said Fawn, determined to be fair, “it’s too bad they weren’t lucky enough to find ladies, too. They’re too nice to be lonely.” She added after a suspicious glance upward, “Dag, why are you biting your wrist?”

He cleared his throat. “Sometime when I am either a lot more sober or a lot more drunk, Spark, I shall attempt to explain the exceedingly complicated story of how those two came to both be married to the same accommodating woman back at Hickory Lake Camp. Let’s just say, they look out for each other.”

“Lakewalker ladies can marry more than one fellow? At a time? You’re gulling me!”

“Not normally, and no, I’m not. I said it was complicated.”

They fetched up before his door. He gave her a slightly strained smile.

“Well, I think Dirla is greedy,” Fawn decided. “Or else those fellows are awfully pushy.” “Ah, no. Among Lakewalkers of the civil sort, which you know we all are, the woman invites. The man accepts, or not, and let me tell you, saying no gracefully without giving offense is a burden. I guarantee, whatever is going on back there was her idea.”

“Among farmers, that would be thought too forward. Only bad girls, or, or”

stupid “foolish ones would, well. Good girls wait to be asked.” And even then they’re supposed to say no unless he comes with land in hand.

He stretched his right arm out, supporting himself on the wall, half sheltering her. He stared down at her. After a long, long, thoughtful pause, he breathed,

“Do they, now?” He scraped his teeth over his lower lip, the chip catching briefly. His eyes were lakes of darkness to fall into, going down for fathoms.

“So, um, Spark… how many nights would you say we have wasted, here?”

She turned her face upward, swallowed, and said tremulously, “Way too many?”

They did not exactly fall into each other’s arms. It was more of a mutual lunge.

He kicked his door open and kicked it closed again after them, because his arms were too full of her. Her feet did not touch the floor, but that was not the only reason she felt as though she was flying. Half his kisses missed her mouth, but that was all right, almost any part of his skin sliding beneath her lips was joy. He set her down, reached for the door bar, and stopped himself, wheezing slightly. No, don’t stop now…

His voice recaptured seriousness. “If you mean this, Spark, bar the door.”

Not taking her eyes from his dear, bony, faintly frenzied face, she did so.

The oak board fell into place in its brackets with a solid, satisfying clunk. It seemed a sufficient compromise of customs.

His hand, reluctantly, slid from her shoulder and let her go just long enough for him to stride over and turn up the oil lamp on the table beside his bed.

Dull orange glow became yellow flare within the glass chimney, filling the room with light and shadow. He sat rather abruptly on the edge of his bed, as if his knees had given way, and stared at her, holding out his hand. It was shaking.

She climbed up into the circle of his arm, then folded her knees under her to raise her face to his again. His kisses slowed, as if tasting her lips, then, startlingly, tasting in truth, his tongue slipping inside her mouth. Odd, but nice, she decided, and earnestly tried to do it back. His hand wound in her hair, undid her ribbon, and let her curls fall down to her shoulders.

How did people get rid of their clothes, at times like these? Sunny had merely lifted her skirts and shoved down her drawers; so had the malice, come to think.

“Sh, now, what dark thought went past just now?” Dag chided. “Be here. With me.”

“How did you know what I thought?” she said, trying not to be unnerved.

“I don’t. I read grounds, not minds, Spark. Sometimes, all groundsense does is give you more to be confused about.” His hand hesitated on the top button of her dress. “May I?”

“Please,” she said, relieved of a procedural worry. Of course Dag would know how to do this. She had only to watch and copy.

He undid a few more fastenings, gently pulled down one sleeve, and kissed her bared shoulder. She gathered her courage and went after the buttons of his shirt. Mutual confidence established, things went faster after that, cloth tumbling to the floor over the side of the bed. The last thing he undid, after a hesitation and a glance at her from under his lashes, was his arm harness, unbuckling the straps around his lower arm and above his elbow, and setting it on the table. His hand rubbed the red marks left by the leather. For him, she realized dimly, it was a greater gesture of vulnerability and trust than removing his trousers had just been.

“Light,” Dag muttered, hesitating. “Light? Farmers are supposed to like it dark, I’ve heard.”

“Leave it on,” Fawn whispered, and he smiled and lay back. When all that height was laid out flat, it stretched a long way. His bed was not as narrow as hers in the next room, but still he filled it from corner to corner. She felt like an explorer facing a mountain range that crossed her whole horizon. “I want to look at you.”

“I’m no rose, Spark.”

“Maybe not. But you make my eyes happy.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled up enchantingly at that, and she had to stretch up and kiss them. Skin slid on skin for the length of her body. His muscles were long and tapering, and the skin of his torso was unevenly tanned where his shirts had been on or off, paler still below his waist along his lean flank.

A

faint dusting of dark hair across his chest narrowed and thickened, going down in a vee below his belly. Her fingers twined in it, brushing with and against the grain. So, with his odd Lakewalker senses, what more of her did he touch?

She swallowed, and dared to say, “You said you could tell.”

“Hm?” His hand spiraled around her breast, and how could such a soft caress make it suddenly ache so sweetly?

“The time of the month a woman can get a child, you said you could tell.” Or wait, no, was that only Lakewalker ladies? “A beautiful pattern in her ground, you said.” Yes, and she’d believed Sunny, hadn’t she, on a piece of bed lore that, if not a mean lie, had turned out to be a costly untruth, and Sunny’s tale had seemed a lot less unlikely than this. A shiver of unease, Am I being stupid again… ? was interrupted when Dag propped himself up on his left elbow and looked at her with a serious smile.

His hand traced her belly, crossing the malice marks there that had turned to thin black scabs. “You’re not at risk tonight, Spark. But I should be right terrified to try to make love to you that way so soon after your injuries.

You’re so dainty, and I’m, um, well, there are other things I’d very much like to show you.”

She risked a peek down, but her eye caught on the parallel black lines beneath his beautiful hand, and a flash of sorrow and guilt shook her. Would she ever be able to lie down with anyone without these cascades of unwelcome memory washing through her? And then she wondered if Dag—with, it seemed, so many more accumulated memories—had a similar problem.

“Sh,” he soothed, and his thumb crossed her lips, though she had not spoken.

“Reach for lightness, bright Spark. You do not betray your sorrow to set it aside for an hour. It’ll be waiting patiently for you to pick it up again on the other side.”

“How long?”

“Time wears grief smooth like a river stone. The weight will always be there, but it’ll stop scraping you raw at the slightest touch. But you have to let the time flow by; you can’t rush it. We wear our hair knotted for a year for our losses, and it is not too long a while.”

She reached up and ran her hand through his dark tousle, petting and winding it through her fingers. Gratified fingers. She gave a lock a little tug. “So what was this supposed to mean?”

“Shaved for head lice?” he offered, breaking the bleakness as she giggled, no doubt his intent.

“Go on, you did not either have head lice!”

“Not lately. They’re another story, but I have better things to do with my lips right now…” He began kissing his way down her body, and she wondered what magic was in his tongue, not just for his kisses and how they seemed to lay trails of cool fire across her skin, but for how, with his words, he seemed to lift stones from her heart.

Her breath caught as his tongue reached the tip of her breast and did exhilarating things there. Sunny had merely pinched her through her dress, and, and blight Sunny for haunting her head like this, now. Dag’s hand drifted up, his thumb caressing her forehead, then he sat up.

“Roll over,” he murmured. “Let give you a back rub. Think I can bring your body and ground into better tune.”

“Do you—if you want—”

“I won’t say, trust me. I will say, try me,” he whispered into her curls.

“Try me.”

For a one-handed man, he did this awfully well, she thought muzzily a few minutes later, her face pressed into the pillow. Memory seemed to melt out of her brain altogether. The bed creaked as he moved off it briefly, and she opened one eye, don’t let him get away, but he returned in a moment. A slight gurgle, a cool splash pooling on the inward curve of her back, the scent of chamomile and clover…

“Oh, you got some of that nice oil.” She thought a moment. “When?”

“Seven days ago.”

She muffled a snicker.

“Hey, a patroller should be prepared for any emergency.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“Just give me a bit more time, Spark, and we’ll see… Besides, it’s good for my hand, which tends to get rough. You don’t want hangnails catching in tender places, trust me on that.”

The oil did change the texture of his touch as he worked his way smoothly down to her toes, turned her over, and started back up.

Hand. Soon supplemented with tongue, in very tender and surprising places indeed. His touch was like silk, there, there, there? ah! She jerked in surprise, but eased back. So, this was making love. It was all very nice, but it seemed a bit one-sided.

“Shouldn’t it be your turn?” she asked anxiously.

“Not yet,” he said, rather muffled. “ ‘M pretty happy where I am. And your ground is flowing almost right, now. Let me, let me just…”

Minutes flew. Something was swirling through her, like some astonishingly sweet emergency. His touch grew firmer, swifter, surer. Her eyes closed, her breath came faster, and her spine began to arch. Then her breath caught, and she went rigid, silent, openmouthed, as the sensation burst from her, climbing up to white out her brain, to rush like a tide to her fingers and toes, and ebb.

Her back eased, and she lay shaking and amazed. “Oh.” When she could, she raised her head and stared down over her body, strange new landscape that it had become. Dag was up on one elbow, watching her in return, eyes black and bright, with a grin on his face bordering on smug.

“Better?” he inquired, as if he didn’t know.

“Was that some… some Lakewalker magic?” No wonder folks tried to follow these people to the ends of the world.

“Nope. That was Little Spark magic. All your own.”

A hundred mysteries seemed to fly up and away like a flock of startled birds into the night. “No wonder people want to do this. It all makes much more sense now…”

“Indeed.” He crawled up the bed to kiss her again. The taste of herself on his lips, mixed with the scent of chamomile and clover, was a little disturbing, but she valiantly kissed him back. Then brushed her lips across his enthralling cheekbones, his eyelids, definite chin, and back to his mouth, as she giggled helplessly. She could feel an answering rumble from deep in his chest as she lay across him.

She had brushed against him, but she had not yet touched him. It was surely his turn now. Hands should work two ways. She sat up, blinking against dizziness.

He stretched out straight and smiled up, his crinkling eyes now resting inquiringly on her, downright inviting, in an unhurried sort of way. He lay open to her, to her gaze, in a way that astonished her anew. All but his mysterious ground, of course. That was beginning to seem an unfair advantage. Where to begin, how to begin? She recalled how he had started.

“May I… touch you too?”

“Please,” he breathed.

It might be mere mimicry, but it was a start, and once started, acquired its own momentum. She kissed her way down and up his body, and arrived back at the middle.

Her first tentative touch made him jerk and catch his breath, and she shied back.

“No, it’s all right, go on,” he huffed. “I’m a little, um, sensitized just at the moment. It’s good. Almost anything you can do is good.”

“Sensitized. Is that what you call it?” Her lips curled up.

“I’m trying to be polite, Spark.”

She tried various touches, strokes, and grips, wondering if she was doing this right. Her hands felt clumsy and rather too small. The occasional catches of his breath were not very informative, she thought, though once in a while his hand covered hers to squeeze some silent suggestion. Was that gasp pleasure or pain?

His apparent endurance for pain was a bit frightening, when she thought about it. “Can I try your oil on my hands?”

“Certainly! Although… this may be over rather quickly if you do.”

She hesitated. “Couldn’t we… do it again? Sometime?”

“Oh yes. I’m very renewable. Just not very fast. Not”—he sighed—“as quick as when I was younger, anyway. Though that’s mostly been to my advantage, tonight.”

And mine. His patience humbled her. “Well, then…”

The oil made her hands slip and slide in ways that intrigued her and seemed to please him, too. She grew more daring. That, for example, made him jerk, no, convulse, much as he’d done to her a while ago.

“Brave Spark!” he gasped.

“Is that good?”

“Yes…”

“Figured if you thought it would please me, it might be something that pleased you, too.”

“Clever girl,” he crooned, his eyes closing again.

She chilled. “Please don’t make fun of me.”

His eyes opened, and his brows drew in; he raised his head from the pillow and frowned down over his torso at her. “Wasn’t. You have one of the hungriest minds it’s ever been my pleasure to meet. You may have been starved of information, but your wits are as sharp as a blade.”

She caught her breath, lest it escape as a sudden surprised sob. His words could not be true, but oh they sounded so nice to hear!

At her shocked look, he added a little impatiently, “Come, child, you can’t be that bright and not know it.”

“Papa said I must be a fool to ask so many questions all the time.”

“Never that.” His head tilted, and his eyes took on that uncanny inward look.

“There’s a deep, dark place in your ground just there. Major fissure and blockage. I… it’s not going to be the work of an hour to find the bottom of that one, I’m afraid.”

She gulped. “Then let’s set it aside with the rest of the stones, for now.

It’ll wait.” She bent her head. “I’m neglecting you.”

“I won’t argue with that…”

Tongues, she discovered, worked like fingers on fellows quite as well, if differently, as they worked on ladies. Well, then. What would happen if she did this and also this and that at the same time…

She found out. It was fascinating to watch. Even from the oblique angle of view down here she could see his expression grow so inward it might have been a trance. For a moment, she wondered if levitation were a Lakewalker magical skill, for he seemed about to rise off the bed.

“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously, when his body stopped shuddering.

“Your forehead got all wrinkled up funny there for a minute, when your, um, back curved up like that.”

His hand waved while he regained his breath; his eyes stayed squeezed shut, but finally opened again. “Sorry, what? Sorry. Was waiting for all those white sparks on the insides of my eyelids to finish exploding. That wasn’t something to miss.”

“Does that often happen?”

“No. No, indeed.”

“Are you all right?” she repeated.

His grin lit his face like a streak of fire. “All right? I think I’m downright astounding.” From an angle of attack that would seem to allow, at best, a wallow, he lunged up and wrapped both arms around her, and dragged her back down to his chest, heedless of the mess they’d made. It was his turn to kiss her face all over. Laughter turned to accidental touching, to—

“Dag, you’re ticklish.”

“No, I’m not. Or only in certain aiee!” When he got his breath back, he added,

“You’re fiendish, Spark. I like that in a woman. Gods. I haven’t laughed this much in… I can’t remember.”

“I like how you giggle.”

“I was not giggling. That would be undignified in a man of my years.”

“What was that noise, then?”

“Chortling. Yes, definitely. Chortling.”

“Well,” she decided, “it looks good on you. Everything looks good on you.”

She sat up on her elbow and let her gaze travel the long route down his body and back. “Nothing looks good on you, too. It’s most unfair.”

“Oh, as if you aren’t sitting there looking, looking…”

“What?” she breathed, sinking back into his grip.

“Naked. Edible. Beautiful. Like spring rain and star fire.”

He drew her in again; their kisses grew longer, lazier. Sleepier. He made a great effort, and reached out and turned off the lamp. Soft summer-night air stirred the curtains. He flung the sheet up and let it settle over them. She cuddled into his arm, pressing her ear to his chest, and closed her eyes.

To the ends of the world, she thought, melting into deeper darkness.