Robert Salvatore - The Spine of the World

"I must talk with you," Meralda explained. "Please come outside."

"It's warmer in here," Jaka replied in his usual sly, lewd tone.

Knowing it unwise but shivering in the chill night air, Meralda motioned to the front door and scurried to it. Jaka was there in a moment, stripped bare to the waist and holding a single candle. He put his finger over his pursed lips and took Meralda by the arm, walking her quietly through the curtained doorway that led to his bedchamber. Before the young woman could begin to explain, Jaka was against her, kissing her, pulling her down beside him.

"Stop!" she hissed, pulling away. "We must talk."

"Later," Jaka said, his hands roaming.

Meralda rolled off the side of the bed and took a step away. "Now," she said. " 'Tis important."

Jaka sat up on the edge of the bed, grinning still but making no move to pursue her.

"I'm running too late," Meralda explained bluntly.

Jaka's face screwed up as though he didn't understand.

"I am with child," the woman blurted softly. "Your child."

The effect of her words would have been no less dramatic if she had smashed Jaka across the face with a cudgel. "How?" he I stammered after a long, trembling pause. "It was only once."

"I'm guessing that we did it right, then," the woman returned dryly.

"But-" Jaka started, shaking his head. "Lord Feringal? What are we to do?" He paused again, then turned a sharp eye upon Meralda. "Have you and he-?"

"Only yourself," Meralda firmly replied. "Only that once in all my life."

"What are we to do?" Jaka repeated, pacing nervously. Meralda had never seen him so agitated.

"I was thinking that I had to marry Lord Feringal," Meralda explained, moving over and taking hold of the man to steady him. "For the sake of my family, if not my own, but now things are changed," she said, looking Jaka in the eyes. "I cannot bring another man's child into Castle Auck, after all."

"Then what?" asked Jaka, still appearing on the very edge of desperation.

"You said you wanted me," Meralda said softly, hopefully. "So, with what's in my belly you've got me, and all my heart."

"Lord Feringal will kill me."

"We'll not stay, then," Meralda replied. "You said we'd travel the Sword Coast to Luskan and to Waterdeep, and so we shall, and so I must."

The thought didn't seem to sit very well with Jaka. He said "But. ." and shook his head repeatedly. Finally, Meralda gave him a shake to steady him and pushed herself up against him.

"Truly, this is for the better," she said. "You're my love, as I'm your own, and now fate has intervened to put us together."

"It's crazy," Jaka replied, pulling back from her. "We can't run away. We have no money. We have nothing. We shall die on the road before we ever get near Luskan."

"Nothing?" Meralda echoed incredulously, starting to realize that this was more than shock speaking. "We've each other. We've our love, and our child coming."

"You think that's enough?" Jaka asked in the same incredulous tone. "What life are we to find under such circumstances as this? Paupers forever, eating mud and raising our child in mud?"

"What choice have we?"

"We?" Jaka bit back the word as soon as it left his mouth, realizing too late that it had not been wise to say aloud.

Meralda fought back tears. "Are you saying that you lied to get me to lay down with you? Are you saying that you do not love me?"

"That's not what I'm saying," Jaka reassured her, coming over to put a hand on her shoulder, "but what chance shall we have to survive? You don't really believe that love is enough, do you? We shall have no food, no money, and three to feed. And how will it be when you get all fat and ugly, and we have not even our lovemaking to bring us joy?"

The woman blanched and fell back from his reach. He came for her, but she slapped him away. "You said you loved me," she said.

"I did," Jaka replied. "I do."

She shook her head slowly, eyes narrowing in a moment of clarity. "You lusted for me but never loved me." Her voice quivered, but the woman was determined to hold strong her course. "You fool. You're not even knowing the difference." With that she turned and ran out of the house. Jaka didn't make a move to go after her.

Meralda cried all through the night on the rainy hillside and didn't return home until early in the morning. The truth was there before her now, whatever might happen next. What a fool she felt for giving herself to Jaka Sculi. For the rest of her life, when she would look back on the moment she became a woman, the moment she left her innocent life as a girl behind her, it would not be the night she lost her virginity. No, it would be this night, when she first realized she had given her most secret self to a selfish, uncaring, shallow man. No, not a man-a boy. What a fool she had been.

They sat huddled under the wagon as the rain pelted down around them. Rivulets of water streamed in, and the ground became muddy even in their sheltered little place.

"This is not the life I envisioned," a glum Morik remarked. "How the mighty have fallen."

Wulfgar smirked at his friend and shook his head. He was not as concerned with physical comforts as Morik, for the rain hardly bothered him. He had grown up in Icewind Dale, after all, a climate more harsh by far than anything the foothills on this side of the Spine of the World could offer.

"Now I've ruined my best breeches," Morik grumbled, turning around and slapping the mud from his pants.

"The farmers would have offered us shelter," Wulfgar reminded him. Earlier that day, the pair had passed clusters of farmhouses, and Wulfgar had mentioned several times that the folk within would likely offer them food and a warm place to stay.

"Then the farmers would know of us," Morik said by way of explanation, the same answer he had given each time Wulfgar had brought up the possibility. "If or when we have someone looking for us, our trail would be easier to follow."

A bolt of lightning split a tree a hundred yards away, bringing a startled cry from Morik.

"You act as though you expect half the militias of the region to be chasing us before long," Wulfgar replied.

"I have made many enemies," Morik admitted, "as have you, my friend, including one of the leading magistrates of Luskan."

Wulfgar shrugged; he hardly cared.

"We'll make more, I assure you," Morik went on.

"Because of the life you have chosen for us."

The rogue cocked an eyebrow. "Are we to live as farmers, tilling dirt?"

"Would that be so terrible?"

Morik snorted, and Wulfgar only chuckled again helplessly.

"We need a base," Morik announced suddenly as another rivulet found its way to his bottom. "A house. . or a cave."

"There are many caves in the mountains," Wulfgar offered. The look on Morik's face, both hopeful and fearful, told him he needn't speak the thought: mountain caves were almost always occupied.

The sun was up the next morning, shining bright in a blue sky, but that did little to change Morik's complaining mood. He grumbled and slapped at the dirt, then stripped off his clothes and washed them when the pair came across a clear mountain stream.

Wulfgar, too, washed his clothes and his dirty body. The icy water felt good against his injured shoulder. Lying on a sunny rock waiting for their clothes to dry, Wulfgar spotted some smoke drifting lazily into the air.

"More houses," the barbarian remarked. "Friendly folk to those who come as friends, no doubt."

"You never stop," Morik replied dryly, and he reached behind the rock and pulled out a bottle of wine he had cooling in the water. He took a drink and offered it to Wulfgar, who hesitated, then accepted.

Soon after, their clothes still wet, and both a bit lightheaded, the pair started off along the mountain trails. They couldn't take their wagon, so they stashed it under some brush and let the horses graze nearby, with Morik noting the irony of how easy it would be for someone to rob them.