Tears p.r.i.c.ked. "I do," he whispered, and cleared his throat. "I must go to her kin . . ."
"Her kin," Sian said coolly, "are aware of her fate. You need not put yourself at their disposal."
It struck him to the core, that chill note, and he opened his eye to stare at her. "Sian-yes, I have been long asleep! But surely custom has not changed so much as that! Faldana gave up her kest to me. Wounded as I was, I would never have won through the keleigh without-"
Her hand rose again, stopping him in mid-sentence.
"Dear Cousin Meri, I ask your indulgence. Stay at least until the philosophers have done their work, and we have both heard what they have to say." She smiled at him. "Is that a bargain?"
He thought of Vanglewood, the sunlight filtered green and sumptuous through the leaves, and the wind tasting of growing things. And yet-he was weak, wounded. If he was also hunted, it were only prudence to know it-and the names of those pursuing, if they might be learned.
So thinking, he returned Sian"s smile, and inclined his head.
"It is a bargain," he agreed. "Cousin."
The bath water was like heavy silk, rippling intimately over her skin, kissing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, stroking her private parts. Becca drifted, drowsy with pleasure. Of all the things Altimere had taught her, this savoring of pleasure was the strangest. Indeed, it seemed to her that, before she had come away with Altimere, that she had never truly experienced pleasure. Oh, she had known satisfaction-in a successful planting, in seeing a patient regain health through her offices, or-more rarely-in duty done. Pleasure in the simple sensations of daily life-the scent of growing things, the firm stroke of a brush through one"s hair, the taste of sorbet, or the feel of Rosamunde"s coat beneath her palm-no one had spoken of such awareness at all, as if everyone she had known had moved through their days with eyes closed and hands fisted in pockets, refusing to see, to touch.
To be.
To be in the moment, Altimere had taught her, thinking neither of the past"s mistakes nor the future"s uncertainties-that was the greatest pleasure of all. Becca rarely achieved such an exalted state of sensation, and she suspected that Altimere, with his correspondence, and the projects that kept him all day in his laboratory, approached it even more rarely.
In the bath, Becca sighed.
"Altimere?"
"Yes, my water sprite?"
"Does your work give you pleasure?"
"Certainly it does, or I should not pursue it. Though I will own it to be a different sort of pleasure than that which will have you at one with the bath water, if you do not rouse, just a little."
She laughed dreamily, and opened her eyes to show she was awake. Altimere reclined upon a cushion at the edge of the bath, his head upon his hand. His hair glittered like a king"s ransom in the soft illumination from the fog-bowls.
"You will also find," he said, giving her a slow smile that edged her languor with . . . antic.i.p.ation, "when you are as old as I, that your pleasures will change. Those which beguiled you in your youth will interest you no longer, while sensations you had scarcely noticed will exert a . . . fascination that cannot be broken. Some pleasures will cool and be taken sparingly between warmer delights."
"Like sorbet," Becca murmured, moving her fingers to feel the water swirl between them. "How old are you, Altimere?"
He raised an eyebrow, by which she knew she had surprised him.
"I am of the Elder Fey, child. Did you think it just a pretty claim?"
"I don"t know what it means," Becca said, smiling. "Certainly it is pretty-sounding. But tell me, sir-were you in . . . the war?"
There had been a war, so she had learned, though it had been unimaginably long ago. There were surely books dealing with the topic in Altimere"s extensive library, and she doubted not but that one day she should read them. For the moment, however, her work was to learn to decode the strange, swirling pictographs that made up the written Fey language. No easy task, when Altimere could spare her only a few moments in the mornings before his own work called him to the laboratory, and Elyd with only the patience to bear with her for a page or two.
"I was in the war, yes," Altimere said, and put a languid hand down to stroke the water.
"The bath grows cold," he said, sitting up with his boneless, effortless grace. "Come out now, zinchessa."
Obediently, she rose, the water clinging to her for a moment like a garment, then falling away, leaving her to tremble deliciously in the scented air.
"Stand still," Altimere murmured, and began to towel her dry. The cloth was light but very absorbent, the texture as rough as a kitten"s tongue, rasping every inch of flesh into tingling attention.
Altimere knelt, the towel never ceasing its rough ministrations. Becca looked down as he bent closer to his task, his hair trailing golden threads along her brown skin. She moved her left arm and stroked his head; his hair was light and soft-like feathers-and warmed her weak fingers where the tendrils "round wound them.
He dried her legs, and her feet, one by one, then looked up, his smile squeezing her heart.
"So," he murmured, trailing long, white fingers across her belly. "Do you like this, pretty child?"
Like was not the word she would have used, though certainly the sensation was . . . compelling, even riveting. Breath caught, she watched as he played his fingers along her flesh, and felt the fire flicker in her belly, heating her blood until she shook with it, and now his lips were following the burning path his fingers had left upon her, and she clung to him, wrists bound with golden tresses.
"Please . . ." she whispered, and shuddered when he laughed against her breast.
"Please what, I wonder?" he murmured, his breath cool against her flesh. "Please stop?"
"Please . . ." she gasped. "Please let me touch you . . ."
"Ah, how the child grows . . ."
He rose suddenly, sweeping her up into strong arms, her heat pressed against his coolness. He kissed her throat, her temples, her eyes. Becca moaned, and moved her head, capturing his mouth on hers, all the heat in her body pouring into the kiss . . .
Sensation erupted into color, into light-into the wide world. She was every plant in Altimere"s formal gardens, the water in the pool, the elitch in the far garden; she was the stars, signing in the great, curving wheel of the- She was, some timeless while later, a gently glowing and langorous body lying between cool sheets, her left hand cradled between Altimere"s long fingers. He was smiling down at her with such pride and wonder that tears started to her eyes.
"No, zinchessa. There is no need to cry. You have exceeded yourself. I am very pleased."
His words comforted her; the tears evaporated and she smiled.
"I believe," Altimere murmured, leaning over to stroke her hair, "that you are ready."
"Ready?" she asked, sleepily.
"Indeed. What do you think keeps me for such long hours in my workshop?" He smiled at her, sweetly, and put his smooth cheek against hers. "I have been making a gift for you."
"But everything you give me is a gift!" She lifted her good hand and touched his face. "Please," she murmured. "Is there nothing I can do for you?"
He paused, then turned his face into her caress. His lips grazed her palm.
"Perhaps there may be something you might do for me," he murmured. "Very soon, now." He leaned closer, still smiling, and blew across her eyes.
"Sleep," he whispered.
Becca slept.
Chapter Twenty-One.
"Were you in the war, Elyd?"
The stable boy turned, Rosamunde"s saddle in his arms, and gave her a hard stare out of stone grey eyes.
"Do I look like I was in the war?" he snapped.
For all his peevishness, he walked light around the horses. Becca followed him and stood to one side, watching as he put the saddle gently on Rosamunde"s back.
"How would I know?" she asked reasonably. "Altimere was in the war-"
Elyd snorted. "Oh, aye, he was in thick of it, no mistake there."
"Well, then," Becca persisted, "why can"t you have been, also?"
He brought the belly strap under and tightened it with a steady, unaggressive pressure, shaking his head the while. "Because I"m not an Elder Fey." He gave her a sideways glance. "Very few of the Elders left-nor should there be, for what they"d done."
Becca blinked. "What they"d done?" she repeated. "But-what did they do?"
Elyd sighed heavily. "There"s books about nothing else, you know."
"Doubtless there are," she retorted. "And I would read them, if some people were a little less jealous of their time."
"It"s not my job to teach you to read," he said, snappish again. He turned away to pick up Drisco"s saddle. "I"m a stable hand."
"I know that," Becca said, "and I"m sorry. I wouldn"t trouble you at all except there are only you and Altimere to teach me, on this whole vast estate. If I"m to learn how to read, it must be one or the other of you who helps me, and Altimere-"
"Is continuously busy with his work," Elyd interrupted and pulled the cinch tight across Drisco"s belly. "I know."
"Well, then," Becca said, as he went to get the rest of the tack, "you can see why I have to ask all these idiotish questions. I"m very fortunate that you and Altimere both speak my language, at least!"
Elyd turned, giving her a look that was perilously close to pity. He shook his head and returned to his task.
"I don"t speak your language."
Becca laughed. "But of course you do! We"re talking even-"
"We"re talking, right enough," he said. "But I"m no more speaking your language than you"re speaking mine, no matter what either of us hears."
Becca studied his craggy brown face, and after a moment decided that he was serious. "How do we understand each other, then?" she asked quietly.
He shrugged. "The trees whisper your meaning to me. Perhaps they do the same for you."
"The trees?" Becca frowned. "No, I hear your voice, directly."
Another shrug. "Likely some artifice involved, in that wise-don"t ask me what it is! I"m Wood Wise."
Wood Wise, as Becca had come to learn, were the foresters of this world beyond the Boundary. And if Elyd was ignorant of Altimere"s work, he was absolutely eloquent in regard to anything that set roots in the ground and put forth leaves to soak in the benediction of the sun. It was from him that she had learned the names and habits of the unfamiliar plants in Altimere"s extensive gardens. She doubted not that the trees whispered to him, so comfortably did he move among them.
"Are you riding today, or not?" His voice was sharp, bringing her out of reverie.
"Yes." She gave him a smile, and extended her hand. "Elyd, forgive me for badgering you! It must be maddening to be required to explain what the least child knows! You must think me utterly mad-and unschooled, besides!"
She had meant to make him smile, and ease the strain between them. But Elyd-Elyd stood as one transfixed, staring down at her extended hand.
"Come," she prompted softly, "cry friends, Elyd, do."
He took a breath, and cast a furtive look into her eyes, seeming in that moment a wild thing and utterly alien to her. Then- "Friends," he whispered harshly. His hand darted forward, callused fingertips barely brushing her palm, then he turned away, dropping lightly to one knee, his hands ready to receive her foot.
Becca smiled and stepped forward. He tossed her neatly and was astride Dris...o...b.. the time she had gathered the reins into her hand and leaned over to whisper proper greetings into Rosamunde"s waiting ear.
"Where?" Elyd asked shortly, and she c.o.c.ked a whimsical eye at him.
"The Wild Wood?" she returned, mischievously.
His eyes flew to hers, such longing in them that Becca felt the heart squeeze in her chest. Tears p.r.i.c.ked her eyes-and then he was leaning over to pat Drisco"s withers.
"The Wild Wood being out of the question," he said, his voice excruciatingly even, "is there another ride that would please you?"
Rosamunde shifted, stamping her foot with energy, and Becca laughed. That was decided, then.
"The southern field," she told Elyd. "Rosamunde wants to run."
They rode in silence for a while, the horses walking mannerly side by side. A breeze came up, damp against Becca"s face, and she looked up at the sky.
"It won"t rain until evening," Elyd said, in answer to her unspoken concern.
She shook her head at him. "And how do you know that?"
"The trees," he answered, and gave her a brief, sideways smile. "They are sometimes wrong, but not often. We"ll have time for that run the lady commanded."
Becca laughed. "Rosamunde rules us all, does she not?"
He blinked, then inclined his head. "She does, at that," he agreed.
"I wonder," Becca said, as they pa.s.sed along the border of the water garden, "how you came to serve Altimere?"
The silence stretched so long that she thought he didn"t mean to answer her, then he spoke, so low that he might have been murmuring encouragement into Drisco"s ear.
"He is one of the last Elders. His House is old and he is awash in kest. Of course I serve him."
Which, Becca thought crossly, was scarcely more informative than his continued silence would have been.
The path widened somewhat, and there was the meadow, ahead and to the right, down a short slope, the fence that kept the Wild Wood at bay a full furlong distant. Rosamunde quivered, her yearning translating into Becca"s yearning.
She leaned slightly forward in the saddle, tucking her heels and stirrups up gently, and whispered, "Good girl," before she looked to Elyd and let Rosamunde have her head with the word they all waited for.