Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 1 - The Fort at River's Bend

She looked me up and down now with narrowed eyes, her head tilted to one side.

"Lucanus is well. I think he was merely tired from the journey. He's no longer young and, as you know, he never was a horseman. Riding—merely staying in the saddle— is an effort for him and it tires him quickly. As soon as he climbed down from his horse, his colour improved and he became himself again. I tried to coax him to lie down, but he would have none of it. I saw him a short time ago, sitting in the sun talking to Joseph, and he seemed perfectly at ease. How are you feeling?"

"Me? How should I be feeling? I'm no different than I was when we rode up here—in prime condition."

"Hmm. Tressa said you seemed unwell, upset."

The moment she spoke the other woman's name, I experienced a flash of revelation. Tressa, on leaving here, had gone directly to Shelagh! Of course she had, I realized now, understanding. Tressa was acting at Shelagh's behest. The knowledge made me thrill, but I was careful to conceal any sign of it from Shelagh. My thoughts and emotions were in a turmoil, but only for a few moments, after which I was in control of myself once more, and, for the first time in my memory, of Shelagh, too. I found myself smiling broadly at my lovely friend, and side-stepping.

"Ah! Tressa," I said. "Well, Tressa was in error. I am not unwell, nor am I upset. But now that you bring her name up, we two should talk of Tressa."

Shelagh shifted slightly, placing herself now directly in front of the window so that she was silhouetted against the brightness of the afternoon. She stood there for long moments looking at me, her head held high and the light behind her preventing me from seeing the look in her eyes. I waited, counting silently to ten before she responded, in a very gentle voice, "Very well then, let us talk of Tressa. What should we discuss?"

What, indeed, should we discuss? More quickly than comprehension could permit, I found myself off-balance. The simplicity and the immediacy of Shelagh's question caught me unprepared, and I realized that I could say nothing in direct response without either betraying, perhaps offensively, my sudden knowledge of what she was about, or sounding both foolish and ungrateful, or, for that matter, without sounding harshly and undeservedly critical of Tressa. I coughed, clearing my throat in an attempt to win myself some time for thought, and then I decided to take refuge in the truth.

'Tressa," I said, suddenly finding it easy to smile. "You set a trap for me, baited with Tressa."

For a fleeting instant, I saw her stiffen, as though in surprise, and then she tossed her head, although her voice, when she resumed, sounded unchanged. "A trap? You make me sound unfriendly, Caius. How would I do that, and why?"

'To lead me astray, perhaps?" I kept my tone light and friendly, part of me afraid she might take offence where none was intended.

"From what?"

· "Why, from my resolve to remain sexually unencumbered, what else?"

Again, that fleeting stillness, and then a laugh—high, clear and amused—and all I could see was the black shape of her, all detail lost against the flaring brightness of the sky. at her back.

"Unencumbered? You would see a lovely young woman like Tressa as an encumbrance?"

I waited, but she had nothing more to add, and when I was sure of that, I shrugged. "Most men who consider celibacy worthwhile would, Shelagh."

"Ah yes, of course, your celibacy."

"What? What do you mean, 'your celibacy'?"

"Just what I said, and with a heavy hint of scorn. Celibacy, in any man, is an admission of failure to live as the gods intended—but in you, my dearest friend, it is ludicrous." She straightened up, abruptly, and moved away from the window, so that I could see her face again, and I felt a surge of relief. Now she laughed aloud and moved directly to sit at the table where I had sat earlier that day.

"Why are you laughing at me?"

"I'm not." But even as she denied it, her laughter-continued, although I knew it as the laughter of a friend, containing nothing demeaning. "Come, come here and sit with me." I moved to sit across from her on the other chair and she sat still for a space of heartbeats, smiling now and shaking her head fondly. "You have the gift we share to thank for this, dear Cay, for I admit I brought Tressa to you deliberately. I saw her, in a dream one night, and saw you with her, smiling." She held up her hand- "Now, don't ask me, for I cannot say whether the dream was prophesy or no, but it was clear, and unmistakable, and wholesome. So I acted upon it."

"Whether I would or not?"

"No, for I knew you would. You need to." She shook her head, briefly and impatiently, and puffed an errant wing of hair out of her eyes. "Caius, this talk of celibacy is absurd, coming from you, and I care not for your careful, self-serving reasons. You are no celibate!" She made the word sound like catamite. "Aye, you'd have me believe you would be celibate! At least, your responsible mind would be, with its love of logic, and that I believe. But what of your other parts—even the other part of your mind, that which purges itself in dreams of women who may or may not be faceless? That purging, that effusion of your seed, is evidence that there is life in you, Caius, demanding to be lived. To deny it, in die face of your god, or mine, or those of anyone else, must be a sin, man! Look at me, now, don't turn your face away"

I looked back to her but said nothing and her eyes narrowed.

"Is it the girl? You find her displeasing?"

I shook my head. "No, not at all. She is most pleasant, and she is clean and wholesome."

"What, then? There's something wrong, somewhere. Where is her lack?"

"She has none, that I can see. None physical."

"And none mental, either. Have you spoken with her?"

I felt my eyebrows rise in surprise. "Of course I have. I spoke with her today. She prattled on for the longest time about the things she was doing."

"No, not like that. She was nervous and afraid of you, I suspect. Have you spoken with her, Cay? Have you conversed with her?"

"On what topic?"

She sighed explosively and threw up her hands in a gesture of resignation. "On anything, man! Caius, you could talk with that girl about anything you have in your mind at any time. Don't be gulled by what you think of—being a man—as her simpleness or her untutored, Cumbrian speech. That young woman is the most gifted seamstress I have ever known, and she has a mind as good as mine or Ludmilla's or any other woman you could think of—and that means it's as good as any man's in a hundred." She slumped back then in her chair, looking at me wide-eyed and shaking her head very gently from side to side as though in wonderment at my ignorance.

"What is it, Shelagh?" I asked. "You have something to tell me, I think."

. "I do. Do you remember this?" She dropped her hands into her lap and spread the fingers of each over one of her leather-covered thighs, on either side of Where the front of her tunic hung down between them. I gazed at them in confusion, my heart suddenly pounding in my breast.

"Remember what?" The tension in my voice was unmistakable—dense and sexual.

"The body beneath these clothes, the one we decided together long since, and for the very best of reasons, that you may never have. In all the years since then, we have never done a thing of which we need ever be ashamed in the eyes of anyone."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Aye, I know all that, so what are you saying to me, Shelagh?"

"That I know how much the wanting can hurt, Cay, despite the fact of a husband whom I love and who loves me and who can satisfy my wanting. It grieves me, and has done so now for years, to know that you have no surcease for yours, other than random dreams."