“I’m forty. Maybe notoldold yet, but my body’s slowly letting me know things are wearing out.” She pulled an old shirt out of the laundry hamper and wiped herself off with it, then offered it to him. He did the same, then the shirt was tossed back where it had come from. Task completed, as casual as can be, Lynette curled up in bed next to him. She reached over to turn down the lantern, then dragged the blankets up over them both and snuggled in against his shoulder.
For a moment, Koradan was simply frozen in shock. “Is it okay if I stay?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said, sounding surprised by the question. “Is that okay with you?”
“Perfect,” he said, unable to believe his luck. “It’s just that…” A flush of embarrassment hit him. “I’ve never spent the whole night in bed with a woman before.” Previously, he’d always been promptly kicked out, the woman in question not wanting to linger on the idea of who she’d been with.
Lynette propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at him with a gentle smile. “I’d very much like you to stay.” She stroked one fingertip over his eyebrow, then down his cheek and across his lips. “You’ve turned my entire world upside down, in the very best of ways.”
She lay down again and Koradan wrapped one arm around her shoulders. Her head was resting on his chest, her hair a gentle tickle against his skin. The flood of emotions assailing him was confusing, and overwhelming, and more uplifting than anything he’d ever experienced. Perhaps only his first ever flight on Ashd would have been able to compare to the soaring sensation he felt now.
“Would it be too soon to tell you I think I’m falling in love with you?” The words, whispered into the darkness, dared to touch on a dream he’d long believed would never be fulfilled.
He felt Lynette’s arm tighten around his chest, heard her intake of breath. “I think… I think I love you too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The bonfire out in the paddock was blazing, the deep orange lighting up the slowly dimming evening. Gathered in a semicircle around the fire, Koradan and his men bowed their heads, sending prayers to Alfrix the Destroyer to receive the spirit of their comrades into the afterlife. The vreki were gathered on the other side of the fire, their sorrow for their lost friends weighing heavily on the salases through their mental connections.
Behind Koradan, a group of the villagers had gathered, word having spread quickly about the intention to hold a funeral for Vingarin and Badj. Koradan had been deeply touched when Peter had suggested that the village attend the funeral – not to interfere or to impose their own practices on the salases, but merely to observe and offer moral support. “I’m sorry we never got to meet them,” Peter had said, when he’d raised the idea. “Given everything that’s happened here, it’s easy to think of them as friends we never got to meet. If our world was a little better than it is, maybe that could have been different.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Koradan said to him. “I truly do. But I haven’t been entirely honest with you about how they died.”
“Killing some of our warriors?” Peter guessed immediately. “You said they died ‘just before you crossed the gate’. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what that actually meant.”
Peter was right, and yet also wrong in one significant detail. “They were shot down by a ballista. We weren’t trying to kill anyone. We were just trying to get past the army as quickly as possible.”
Peter nodded. “So he was effectively murdered while trying to run away. Hm. Perhaps you don’t want humans at his funeral after all.”
“Anyone who wants to watch is welcome to come. But they’ll need to be aware that we have a lot of mixed feelings about the whole thing. As grateful as we are for the acceptance we’ve received here, there’s still a lot of anger and sorrow tied up with leaving Chalandros.” Koradan didn’t want to cut the villagers out entirely. This was an opportunity to share an important part of their culture with humans. But at the same time, he didn’t want to upset his own team through any inappropriate comments from onlookers.
“How about this,” Peter offered. “I’ll tell people it’s by invitation only, and then I can choose the right sorts of people who aren’t going to make a scene.”
“Thank you. That sounds like a workable compromise.”
Hours later, the group gathered behind Koradan were standing silent and solemn. Lynette was there, at the edge of the group. She’d been with them in the paddock since early afternoon, when they’d begun building the pyre and preparing for the funeral.
“Is Mergh okay about leaving her egg alone?” Lynette had asked him, when he’d explained the way the funeral would work.
“Paul said he’s going to watch the egg,” Koradan told her. “There’s no way in the world she’d leave it completely unattended, but she trusts Paul to watch over it. For about half an hour, at least. Once the fish has burned, she’ll be back in the barn like a shot.”
Standing beside Lynette was Mitch, along with Hazel and her children, and her sister, and Alti and his wife. Morgan and her husband Fen. Peter and his son Rex, and Rex’s wife.
Early this morning, Paul had volunteered to find a fish they could burn on the fire for Badj. He’d disappeared with two of the other village youths, heading for a river to the north, then returned a little after midday. Koradan hadn’t quite known what to expect. ‘A fish’ was a rather vague request, after all. But Paul had come back, dripping wet (for reasons that Koradan hadn’t dared ask too many questions about) and carting a fish that was slightly longer than his arm from shoulder to elbow.
“This is a golden perch,” Paul had announced happily. “We tried to find something that would be big enough to make a vreki happy. How did we do?”
“It’s perfect,” Koradan told him, feeling his throat tighten. “Badj would have loved it. But keep in mind that tomorrow, you’re probably going to get a dozen different questions from the vreki about where you caught it and how they can go and find more.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Paul said. Then his expression turned more solemn. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for the funeral. I don’t want to get in the way, but I’m available if you need anything.”
With the prayers completed, Koradan stepped towards a small tray they’d built out of half-rotten branches. It had been tied together with dry grass and attached to a long, wooden pole. He poured a measure of whisky into a wooden cup and set it on the tray, next to the fish. Then he lifted the pole, carefully setting the tray on top of the bonfire. The stack of wood had been carefully arranged so as to allow the tray to sit sturdily on top, and Koradan detached the pole, then stood back.
Salas funeral rites were simple when compared to a lot of other Chalandrian species. The ragions in particular held ceremonies that could go on for days, while the rodolans and hadathmet required a significant amount of pomp and ceremony – speeches, headdresses, gifts of jewellery for the dead. The salases were considered primitive by comparison. All a salas funeral required was a simple gift for the deceased, a few prayers, and one single chant that lasted all of about two minutes.
The platform of rotten wood caught alight in the intense heat, sending plumes of smoke skywards. The smoke was important; it would carry the essence of the whisky and the fish to the afterlife, where Vingarin and Badj could enjoy them as a welcome into their new life. The fish began to hiss and spit as the fats in the skin started to roast. Flames licked up the sides of the cup. The whisky itself wouldn’t burn, but the vapours rising off the liquid as it heated would be carried to the afterlife while the cup burned.
Glancing sideways, Koradan gave Melowin a nod. Melowin had the best singing voice out of the five of them. The man took a breath, then began the first line of the funeral chant. It was still sung in Iddishmaki, the ancient language of the ragions, though even the ragions themselves had long since ceased to speak it.
