The Paladin Part 24

They shared a little smoked venison, and a bit of sausage; Taizu hoped for a proper supper tonight, and she would, she said, cook up a bit of rice they could roll in leaves and have on the trail tomorrow when they got hungry.

"We're through the worst," he said, "till we get to Ygotai."

"Maybe," she said hoa.r.s.ely, "bandits will give up on us." "Don't count on it," he said. "But we might have convinced them to think twice about us."

"You always worry."

"I always worry. I served the Emperor. It's a habit."

She cut off a piece of sausage, and nodded soberly. "I worried. That's how I got this far. I thought you'd teach me so I wouldn't have to. That was stupid to think."

"It was a kid's way to think. You're doing much less of that."

She looked at him a long moment. Finally: "Those men weren't much."

"Did you expect them to be?"

"What about Gitu?"

"Much better than that.Much better than that. Gitu's studied. He's also ten years older than I knew him.

He might have gone soft. But, I've told you, you can trust his guards haven't. Much better than those fellows back there with master Yi. Much better than the bandits. Don't expect otherwise. -Are you ready? Are you fit for more walking?"

"Yes," she said, and wrapped up their lunch; and gathered up their gear.

The land flattened out again and the road crossed over the little river at a shallow spot, up to Taizu's hips: she took her armor off and led Jiro across, using her bare feet to test the soundness of the bottom, while Shoka, astride, carried everything.

She went in up to her waist at one point, slipped and went in over her head. Jiro snorted and threw his head as Shoka kept him tight-reined and knew a heart-stopped moment till the river spat her up again soaked and outraged.

"d.a.m.n!" She still had Jiro's reins. And she added mildly: "Slick."

She led Jiro around. Shoka came across dry-shod, feet tucked up at the deepest part, and the girth wet.

But Taizu was a mess.

Interesting view, too. He gave her the appreciative stare it deserved as she pa.s.sed him up Jiro's reins; she looked down and pulled her wet s.h.i.+rt away from her body.

"Don't youever think about anything else?"

He grinned. "Not with a sight like that in front of me."

Shethought it was funny, then. A grin spread slowly, bright as sunrise and disquietingly wicked, before she laughed and swaggered up the bank to the flat of the road.

With a decided sway of her hips.

Like she had just found out her s.e.x had a certain power- -with a certain self-restrained and honorable fool.

The world would teach you otherwise, girl.

No, the world's already tried, dammit. She's not fragile.

Memory of her naked, pale dancer and bright steel, beset by shadows. Of her armored and blood-spattered, plundering the dead.

Of her arms and her body around him- Of her going tense and panicked at the d.a.m.nedest times- And she walked now in her wet clothes with a deliberate twitch of very visible hips.

A girl trying out womanhood, trying out a sense of amus.e.m.e.nt about the mysteries and the to-do people made of it- Of course. With Taizu things were grimly serious-or not. Honesty-was grimly serious.

And she would not, he thought,not deliberately cheat him.

I'm not your wife, it's because I'm scared and I don't like being scared, so I do it until I'm not. . . .

Fool. The girl warned you what she's doing. What does it take?

This morning she was a demon, Now she's a- -d.a.m.ned tart.

She's- -a kid. A scared kid who trusts me to treat her decently.

-Master Shoka- He hurt. That was what. He had better sense than she did. He saw where they were going and he foresaw her lying dead on the road, foresaw himself giving a fair account of himself against whatever nest of trouble they had met. But himself lying on the road thereafter. And the farmers nearby saying:Well, there goes a fool. And the n.o.bles in Chiyaden sighing and saying:With a peasant girl. Whatever can he have intended to do?

And others saying: Maybe he went a little crazy, living off on that mountain.

Boiled rice for supper, a decent fire, a good dinner. And Taizu fell asleep afterward, just-nodded off sitting there, her back against the rock, her rice-bowl empty in her lap.

It wouldn't be much good, Shoka thought; she had walked so far and run so hard; and she looked so d.a.m.ned innocent like that- He put their mats by her, he said: "Taizu," and waked her before he took her in his arms-safest. "Lie down, you'll get a stiff back," he said, slipping his arms around her. She put her arms around him andmuttered something, and nodded off against his shoulder.

d.a.m.n.

"Mmm," she said later, stirred and s.h.i.+fted over. He was not asleep, not quite. He had not dared in this place.

"My turn to sleep," he said muzzily. "Can you stay awake awhile?"

She brushed her fingers through his hair.

"If you do that," he said, "you're going to wake me up."

"I'm sorry," she snapped and shoved at him. "Go to sleep, then."

He blinked, rolled onto an arm, rubbed his eyes. "Don't ask profound philosophy of a man in the middle of the night, out of a sound sleep. What are we doing?"

Perhaps he embarra.s.sed her. There was a long silence.

d.a.m.n, she had thought she was being seductive.

He fumbled down her arm and found her hand. "Sorry." She let him do that, so he reached further and rested his hand on her s.h.i.+rt, on her stomach, just friendly.

She took his hand in hers and put it up under, against her heart.

Which was all right for a while. Then the s.h.i.+rt went; and his did; and the breeches.

He took his time. And when he slumped down close to her ear and said, with all the deliberate timing of a courtesan: "Be my wife."

"O G.o.ds-" she breathed. And eventually, shortly: "No."

He muttered an army obscenity and sank off to the side, disappointed, discouraged, but not defeated.

A few more breaths. "Yousay I'm your wife. I sleep with you. What more do you want?"

He knew the answer. It was plain to him as day and night. But it was hard to say to a hostile woman. So he said nothing.

"What would your wife have to do?"

"I suppose what you do now. I've had no luck stopping you."

"Then why do you want me to marry you?"

"Because," he retorted, "if you don't they can cut your d.a.m.n hand off for carrying that sword!"

"Well, youlie about it all right! I don't know why you couldn't lie to a magistrate!" Caught, he said: "I suppose I could."

"So you don't need to marry me."

"I don'tneed to marry you."

"Then why? What would be different? That you'd tell me what to do?"

He asked himself that, not for the first time. "I wouldn't stop you."

"Well,why , then?"

He traced a line down her shoulder. And did not find it any easier for being down to his last excuses.

"Because it'd please me. Because-"Because after two Emperors and someone else's wife, I'd like to know someone loyal to me,as well as the other way around.

She said, angrily: "It's stupid! You've gone crazy!"

She had her own hurts. He allowed that. His own pained him at the moment, sharp as the old wound when it ached, and he was not willing to get into an argument.

"Master Shoka?"

Thathurt.

He turned his back to her. But she grabbed him by the shoulder and leaned over his arm. He was angry enough to have thrown her clear to the riverside.

But she said: "I just want to know."

It took forty years worth of self-control to be very calm and say: "Because it's decent."

"What does decent have to do with it?" she hissed. "Because master Saukendar doesn't like to be sleeping with his student, but hiswife is all right?"

He took several careful breaths. He did not hit her.

"I just want to know why," she said.

"It's decent for people to make promises to each other, and keep them. I want-"Once to have someone promise me something, and mean it. "-to go to sleep. You wear me out, girl."

"Wearyou out!I'm the one carrying the baggage!"

There was no romantic instinct in the girl. None.

She threw her arms around his neck, knelt there and rested her head against his shoulder. "I'm a peasant," she said. "The first time you see the ladies in Chiyaden you'll hate the sight of me."

"d.a.m.n if I will." He turned over and clipped her chin by accident. "Taizu, for the G.o.ds' sake-" Hetouched the offended chin.

"You will."

He was pus.h.i.+ng too hard, trying to compel her. That was no good. It had nothing to do with the loyalty he wanted. "No," he said. "No." And sighed and gathered her into his arms, determined to go to sleep.

"Let it be. Let it be. You don't believe me. And that's the end of it."

"What would I have to do? Do what you say?"

"Hush, go to sleep."

"Why do you want me to marry you?"

"Because I love you," he said. It was more complicated than that. But it shut her up for a while. Maybe she was thinking. Everything Taizu did was tangled.

Finally she said: "Are you going to say I have to do what you say?"

"No," he said, weary of this endless dicing of the matter; but patient. It took that, with Taizu. Heknew her mind. They would be arguing when they got to Hua.

She was quiet a long time. He was half-asleep when she said, her head pillowed on his chest: "Can I think about it?"

He tousled her hair. "Do that." And tenderly combed it, since it had gotten leaves in it. "Don't sleep without waking me. Understand?"

"Mmnn," she said.

But he waked with the crack of a branch in his ears and the sun on his face.

"Dammit!" he said, and rolled over with his heart pounding, grabbing after his sword.