Elizabeth Moon - Surrender None

“Never mind,” she said, under cover of the harper’s quick fingering—it would be a jig, this time, and someone had found sticks to patter. Without really looking at the girl, Gird eased back to the angle between wall and fold, not at all surprised to find she had come with him. She stood closer than he found really comfortable; he could have put his arm around her and found her no closer.

“You know my name,” he said, gruffly, unwilling to ask what she might refuse to answer.

“I’m Mali, from the village near the crossing—some call it Fire-oak.” He remembered that name, from his guards’ training; with the name he called up the location, the number of families, all the details he’d been taught. It surprised him; he didn’t know he could remember all that. He looked down at her.

“You knew of me—”

She shrugged, and the shawl slipped back from dark hair. Something marked the side of her face: a scar, a birthmark. Hard to see in that light, but he could just make out a paler path across her cheek. “Most do; that kind of tale spreads. But Amis told me of you, and your past before the Guards. So I wanted to see you, see what they’d made of you.”

“A failure,” Gird said, then jumped as she slugged his arm. Hard: he would have a bruise there.

“Only you can make yourself a failure—and you a great strong lad with a head of solid stone—”

He was wide awake, now, as if he’d been dipped in a well. “What are you, some foretelling witch—?”

Firelight and shadow moved on her face; he could not read her expression. “I? I’m a farmer’s daughter, as you’re a farmer’s son. I’m headstrong too, so they say of me, and a dangerous lass to cross. If you married me you’d have a strong mother of your children, and a loyal friend—”

“Marry—I can’t marry—I’m—”

“A whole man,” she said. Gird could feel his ears go hot; he wanted to grab her and shake her, or disappear into thin air. He knew he was whole; his body was as alive to her as his ears, and far more active. Was this how girls his age bantered? Surely she was bolder than the others.

“I’m sorry,” she said then, in a quiet voice. He could feel her withdrawing without actually moving; she slid the shawl back over her hair. The withdrawal pierced him like a blade. He could not stand if it she left.

“Wait!” he said hoarsely. “I—you—I never heard anyone—”

“It’s no matter.” She wrapped the shawl tightly around herself, hugged her arms. “I’m overbold and wild; I’ve been told often enough. But I’d heard of you, and how you had changed, refusing your friends. I thought perhaps I could help, being a stranger—”

“You did.” Gird rubbed his own arms, feeling the texture of his clothes and skin for the first time in—when?—years? He felt alive, awake, inside and out, and not only in that way which proved men whole. His skin tingled. “I’m—I’m awake,” he said, wondering if she’d understand. Hot tears pricked his eyes; his throat tightened again.

She was looking at him, dark eyes hard to see in that flickering firelight—but he could feel the intensity of her gaze. “Awake?”

“It—oh, I can’t talk here! Come on!” Without thinking, he grabbed her arm and led her around the wall to the entrance. She had stiffened for an instant, but then came willingly, hardly needing his guidance. He barely noticed someone by the gate turning to look, and then they were out beyond the walls, on the open fields, with the firelight twinkling behind them and stars brilliant overhead.

He stopped only when he stumbled over a stone and fell, dragging her down too. He had been crying, he realized, the roaring of blood in his ears louder than any night sound, the smell and taste of his own tears covering up the fragrance on the wind. She had pulled free when he fell, and now crouched, a dimly visible shape, an armspan away. When he got his breath at last, he sat up; she did not move, either towards him or away.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t—I’ve never done that before—”

“I should hope not.” The tone carried tart amusement, but not hostility.

“I had to get away—I couldn’t talk about it there, with those—”

“Only a few of them would still mock you, Gird.”

“It’s not that. It’s—oh, gods, I’m awake again! I didn’t know I wasn’t. I didn’t know I’d gone so numb, and now—”

“Does it hurt, like a leg you’ve sat on too long?”

He drew a long breath, trying to steady his breathing. “Not—hurt, exactly, though it does prickle. It’s more as if I’d been sick, shut indoors a long time, so long I forgot about the colors outside, and then someone carried me out into spring.” He turned to her, wishing he could see her expression. “Did you mean that about marrying?”

To his surprise, she burst out laughing, a joyous rollicking laugh that he could not resist. He didn’t know why it was funny, but he laughed too. Finally, after a last snort, she quieted down, and apologized.

“I shouldn’t laugh at you, I know that, but for someone just waking after long illness, you do move fast. Was this how you courted the girls, back when you were in the guards?”

“I didn’t, back then—I was too young.” Even in starlight, he could see that she’d let the shawl slip back again, revealing her face. His body insisted that he was not too young now ; he tried to stay calm. “Mmm—would you sit with me?”

She moved closer, spread her skirts, and sat down almost hip-to-hip. “I thought I was, with you the closest person to me on this whole dark night.”

She had a scent he had not noticed before; now it moved straight from his nose to his heart. Did all women smell like this? He cursed himself for a crazy fool, to have wasted the years in which he might have learned how to court such a girl. He clenched his fists to keep from reaching for her.

“But surely—” His voice broke, and he started again. “But surely you have someone—someone in your village—?”

Her low chuckle warmed his heart. “Alas no, Gird. For I’m the forward, quick-tongued lass you heard tonight; I will not guard my tongue for any man’s content, though I swear by Alyanya there’s no malice in it. And though I’m big and strong enough, and a good cook, I’m not much for threadcraft. My spinning’s full of lumps, and my weaving’s as bad as a child’s. My family’s parrion has always been in threadcraft, though my great-aunt taught me her parrion of cooking—she said I’d been born with a gift that way.”

“My mother and sisters have threadcraft enough,” Gird said. “But a parrion of cooking they’d welcome, even more in herblore than bakecraft.” He could hardly believe they had come so fast to discussion of parrions. Wasn’t that the last part before formal betrothal? He could not remember; he could not think of anything but the girl herself—Mali, he reminded himself firmly—and the smell and feel of her.

“Mine is that,” she said, the weight of her coming now against his arm; he shifted it around her shoulders, and she leaned into him. Where she touched him, her body seemed to burn right through their clothes; he felt afire with longing for her. It was a struggle to speak calmly. He took another long breath of the cold, clean night air.

“Your father?” Gird thought it likely her father wouldn’t agree, given his own reputation. But she shook her head, in the angle of his arm, where he could feel it.

“Grandmother’s our elder, and village elder too—the magelords don’t like it, but they agreed. She’ll be glad enough if anyone wants me, and you’re a farmer’s son, in the same hearthing. But what of your mother?”

“She’ll be happy.” He leaned closer, to smell her hair. Was he really talking of marriage with someone met just this night, and by firelight? Could she be a witch—or, worst of all, a magelady pretending to be peasant, disguised by her magic?