Luck Of The Wheels

TWENTY

'Loveran is no longer a Human province. Does it feel strange, knowing you're responsible for a thing like that?'

A few heartbeats passed before Vandien answered. 'No. Because I won't accept that as true. All of this would have happened without us, you know. Kellich would have killed the Duke, if we had never happened along.'

'But we did.' Ki watched the Brurjans trotting toward them, then glanced over at Vandien once more. Bad enough that he looked so damn good in the Duke's armor, on the Duke's horse. Did he also have to be aware of it? As the Brurjans closed with them, he lifted his hand in casual greeting. Both his sleeves were rolled back, but they scarcely glanced at the knife's scar. 'Keklokito,' one growled companionably in passing, and Vandien nodded. His white horse cut through their ranks, and the opening widened to allow Ki, riding Sigmund and leading Sigurd, to follow. She'd sold the wagon in Villena, as much out of disgust with it as for the coin. Sigurd's leg needed the rest from pulling anyway.

She waited until the sound of the Brurjan troops had faded behind her before she asked, 'How's it feel to be a Brurjan legend?'

He made a noncommittal sound.

'What's it mean, anyway?'

'Lordly one,' he said, quite seriously.

'I'll bet. How much farther to the border, do you suppose?' 'Doesn't matter, remember? No freight, no customers, no deadlines.'

'No money,' she pointed out.

'Has it been a problem so far?' he asked chidingly.

'No. But after we cross the border, Keklokito isn't going to have his Brurjan friends to depend on. Thank the Moon.'

'They aren't that bad,' he insisted again, and Ki snorted, but let it drop.

'I miss him,' Vandien said suddenly into the silence.

Ki didn't need to ask who. 'Dellin said there was something between you. A teacher bond. It's what made him keep looking for you after I'd given you up for dead. And he'll always be aware of you, through that bond ...'

'As close as I'll ever come to a son. And I'll never see him again.'

'We don't have to go back north,' Ki suggested.

'Yes we do.' He cleared his throat. 'I had to leave the boy. Dellin explained it to me that last night. As long as I was close by, Goat would never form a primary bond with him. And he needed that bond to teach Goat, not just healing, but how to shield and protect himself.'

'So, for his own good, you leave him.'

'He understood.'

'Is that what all those long talks were about in the back of the wagon while your body was shaking off the poison?'

'Dellin said it was more the effects of the Brurjan cure than the poison from Kellich's blade. She must have given me the full Brurjan dose.'

'Could Keklokito have merited less?' Ki asked gravely.

He shot her a glance, but didn't smile. It was something she'd missed lately; it was harder to make him smile, and he seemed always to be thinking of something else. Was this the change Dellin had warned her about?

'Know what Goat said to me, the night before we left Villena?'

'What?' Ki asked tolerantly. Since they had left Villena, Vandien hadn't stopped talking about the boy, and repeating precocious things Croat had said. Oddly, she found she didn't mind hearing them. She'd even added a few of her own.

'He said, Your honor, Vandien, is what makes it possible for you to live with yourself.'

'And can you live with yourself, now?' 'A little better than it was right afterwards. Goat assured me that my motives were always honorable, even when the results were appalling.' Vandien paused, gave a small laugh. 'It's strange. The words of a child, and I take them so seriously.'

'He knows you very well.' Ki couldn't keep a twinge of jealousy out of her voice.

'Well enough to know there's only one woman I'd burn a town down for.' Vandien grinned suddenly. 'I think Goat would have helped me do it, too, if he'd had the chance.'

Old habit made Ki refuse to look at him. Then she caught herself and brought her eyes up to face him. 'Did you think I'd threatened Willow with less than that for your life?'

They rode side by side, as close as White could be persuaded to come to Sigmund. Something hummed between them, like a secret they both knew and neither wanted to speak. It was good.