She Stoops to Conquer Page 4

barely felt the twinge of released tension as she let the Gateway close, but the all-subsuming ache in her head stopped just short of logic burnout.

  She rolled away from the thief, resisting the urge to bury her face in the soft mulch to shelter from the light. It would have to be enough to cover her stinging eyes with her hands.

  "Pevan?" Van Raighan held his voice feather-soft, but there was rough camaraderie in the arm he laid across her shoulders instead of tenderness. Even with her brain non-functional, she was glad of that. He said something cheery that she couldn’t make out. Were her ears buzzing?

  "Wheh?" Her teeth ached as speaking pushed air across them.

  He gave her shoulder a little shake, almost gentle enough not to bounce her brain around. She managed not to retch. When he spoke, it was slowly, every word clipped clear. "How bad is it?"

  "Bad. Not burn-out." The words felt as squishy as the dirt under her hands. A shiver ran through her and didn’t stop. With the panic over, she had time to notice she was soaked to the skin. The woodland broke the wind, but not enough to preserve her flagging body heat.

  She didn’t protest as the thief pulled her closer to him. Voice still soft with concern, he said "Can you stand? We could do with getting a bit more cover, in case they don’t give up."

  "-think so." If she kept to a mutter, speaking was almost tolerable.

  Van Raighan helped her sit back onto her ankles, waking a whole new brood of aches in her exhausted legs. Somehow, the familiarity of the pain helped, pulled her a little way back into focus. The muddy, indistinct sound cluttering up her ears resolved into the rustle of the leaves above them, cut by the occasional distant shout of the Noncs.

  Before her tired brain could waste itself wittering over taking things slowly, she threw herself upward. With a sensitivity – and reflexes – that surprised her, Van Raighan matched her motion. Just as well, since her legs melted half-way up. She sagged against the little man, yet again glad of the strength in his deceptively narrow arms. His wet clothing left his embrace without much warmth to offer, but there was a spiritual warmth in not being alone in such desperate conditions.

  She couldn’t reconcile the man beside her with the nightmare Federas had lived through the winter. You won’t believe this, but it was so I could get some time alone with you, he’d said. Even if circumstances hadn’t thrown them together, the thief had earned that much. He’d probably earned release from her thinking of him as ‘the thief’, too.

  Good. Her brain was clearing up. It still took a moment to remember how to say his name. "Van Raighan-"

  "Call me Chag." His voice stayed soft, but his face put an edge on the words. "Please."

  Pevan couldn’t tell if the desperation she saw in his eyes was his, or just something she projected onto him. "Sorry. Chag."

  He smiled. "Don’t worry about it. Let’s find a better spot."

  She tried to carry her own weight, she really did, but the forest floor was against her. Dimly, she realised that if Rel or Dora saw her cuddling up this close to Van Raighan – Chag – they’d be outraged. She indulged in a silent curse for their judgement. Chag’s guidance proved more than adequate, and her head steadily cleared as they headed deeper into the wood.

  With him concentrating on where they were going, Pevan had the opportunity to study Chag in a way she hadn’t even when watching him in his cell back in town. Close contact showed him barely taller than her, and she’d have bet she weighed more. She’d thought his face rattish, feral, but up close it was just narrow and a little gaunt, overwritten with a thousand little strains.

  As he lowered her to the ground, back to a tree-trunk, cosseted in the nook between two finger-like roots, she pondered those strains. It was supposed to be only the Second Realm that human beings couldn’t understand, but as Chag squatted down, facing her, she allowed herself a wry smile; he certainly competed with the Children of the Wild for incomprehensibility.

  He met her smile with one of his own. "You look a bit better."

  Pevan screwed her eyes shut, rubbed them, and opened them again. "I just need to rest." She folded her arms, shivering again. "Looks like you’ve got your time alone with me."

  "I could wish it came at less expense to you." He stirred a hand through the leaf litter. "How long do I have?"

  She shrugged, the gnarled old tree scratching her through her blouse. "I need to sleep, really. I should be able to get us back to town with a couple of hours’ downtime."

  "Town? No, I mean-" For a moment, alarm hastened his speech to the point his southern accent vanished. He caught himself and resumed at a more even pace, smiling wryly. "This is what it comes down to, doesn’t it. If I asked you to come with me for a little while before returning to Federas, would you at least hear me out?"

  Pevan bit back the urge to snap at him. The request was carefully-phrased, she couldn’t argue with that. He hadn’t asked for his freedom, but he’d definitely left the question open. "And after that, you’ll come quietly back to Federas?" She was too tired to keep the scepticism from her voice.

  "If I can’t persuade you to reconsider," he said affably.

  She felt her face turn hard. An uncomfortable twitch of self-reflection identified the emotion surging through her as disappointment. He just wanted a chance to rationalise. Had she wanted him to produce a good explanation? "You really think you can talk me out of it?"

  Chag blinked at her, then winced. "Sorry, I’m not explaining this well. I..." He picked up a twig, spun it between his fingers, snapped it. Then he took a deep breath and met her eyes again. "I want to show you something. Things. Introduce you to some people. Explain where that Witnessing came from, and the one I showed your brother-"

  "Rel? What did you show him?" Her anger lasted only as long as her feeble attempt to sit forward, but it warmed her a little.

  Maddeningly, Chag smiled. "You were there. In the Warding Hall, when you caught me, remember?"

  "I remember." Something in that Witnessing of Van Raighan’s brother had sent Rel haring off across half the length of the First Realm. "That wasn’t a real Witnessing either, then?"

  He took the barb hard, rocking back on his heels before he spoke. "It’s not exactly unreal." He bit his lip, looked away. "It’s hard to..."

  "I’ve never kissed you!" She blurted the words without thinking, and they left ringing silence in their wake.

  Chag looked down, then away through the forest. Pevan almost wished one of the Noncs would stumble on them. Instead, the thief turned back to her, cruelty in his bitter smile. "Well, I live in hope."

  The words sickened her. She gaped at him, fully conscious of the line they’d just crossed.

  The pain and shame in his eyes came between her and any further speech. He said, "Sorry, bad joke." His voice faltered, robbing his smile of any mirth. "You need to sleep. If I’m still here when you wake up, will you take it as proof of my good intentions?"

  "I’m not sure I should sleep anywhere near you."

  "What other choice do you have?" Only the hard edge on his voice told Pevan she’d hurt him. "You’re a long way from home. Unless you fancy walking, what, ten miles? In the dark and the rain."

  That wasn’t fair. They had hours of daylight left, and the rain was lighter here than it had been when they first saw the Noncs. One by one, her body’s aches gave voice, warning just how long that ten-mile walk might take.

  In the end, the decision was as simple as that. No other options. She had nothing to say to Van Raighan, either. She shifted against the tree-roots until she could rest her cheek on one. It had all the comfort and warmth of, well, damp muddy wood, but it prevented her looking at the thief. The fact that trusting him was her only choice was going to make sleeping difficult.

  ***

  About the author

  R. J. Davnall has been telling stories all his life, and thus probably shouldn’t be trusted to write his own bio. He holds a PhD in philosophy and teaches at Liverpool University, while living what his mother insis
ts on calling a 'Bohemian lifestyle'. When not writing, he can usually be found playing piano, guitar or World of Warcraft.

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