I swallowed, and something stirred deep within me. Everything around me seemed to collapse into a tiny tunnel through which all I could see and hear was Aleksey: his eyes made brilliant by the wind, the high color on his cheekbones, the muscles in his thighs as he controlled the wild horse. I slid off Xavier’s back, ignoring the cold water around my legs, and buried my face in his warm, familiar hide, smelling him, feeling his heartbeat. I was wholly unable to move until things had subsided. The intensity of my desire almost undid me. I let Xavier lead me deeper into the water until I was covered to my waist. The freezing soaking did its job, and I remounted, wet, cold, but myself once more, the self I presented to the outer world.
Aleksey had also dismounted and was bent over, looking at something in his horse’s hoof.
“All right?”
He nodded, his back to me. “Go on. I will be with you in a moment. He has picked up a stone.” He waved in the direction of some smoke I could now see curling up at the side of the forest. “That’s the inn.”
I nodded, although he could not see this, and turned Xavier toward the smoke. He pranced a little, and I reined him back, easing him around some driftwood that had accumulated from a storm at the high tide mark. I had not gone far when Aleksey rode up behind me. He did not say anything. I could think of nothing to say either, and so we arrived at the inn in silence except for the panting and snorting of our horses.
I was immediately struck by the appearance of this place. I could see a small hamlet of houses surrounding the main building of the inn. For the first time since leaving civilization, I saw a place not degraded by poverty and ignorance. Each cottage seemed well cared for. Each had a small garden, likewise cared for and abundant with flowers and vegetables. The main street was paved with drainage channels. I had not seen its like outside of the capital, and even in that main city the paving was badly maintained. The whole place was well situated, as if someone who understood systems of drainage and prevailing winds and weather had placed a godlike hand down and commanded that there be light.
Aleksey led us around behind the inn to a cobbled courtyard and dismounted. He was about to walk his horse toward a stable when something tackled him. It was small and noisy, and when my senses recovered, I saw it was a boy about four years of age. Aleksey rolled on the ground for a moment, apparently seriously injured. The boy held off, anxious, and then he was swept up in a vicious tackle and tossed in the air for a while. Screaming with glee, he began to hiccup alarmingly and was so let down with an all-consuming hug and a kiss full on the lips as one might give… their child. I bit my lip, thinking, as I dismounted. Perhaps this boy was another Stephen, a royal bastard—Aleksey’s bastard. This young prince was of an age to have many such children running around in these horrid hamlets. Quite out of humor now from my previous enchantment with the place, I led Xavier into the stable and fastened him securely. Aleksey came in with the child on his shoulders. The boy had his hands over Aleksey’s eyes, and the prince was pretending he could not see. He barged into me, which annoyed me excessively, and I told him to stop being a fool. The boy grinned and said in good German, “Why does he speak funny, ’Sey?”
“Because, Sebastian, he is a very funny man who is pretending to be very annoyed with me.” This was said in German also, which he knew I understood.
“Why is he cross with you? No one isevercross with you.”
“Ah, he does not yet understand that, my little corporal. He is cross because I have not told him how well he rides and how incredibly beautiful he looks upon his horse. He is very vain, and I do not want to encourage him.”
“I do not think he is very beautiful.”
“That is because you are a silly baby.”
“I am not a baby.” And this argument went on for some time, with Aleksey claiming all kinds of evidence to prove his point and the poor child trying vainly to prove, by crying and smacking his tormentor, that he was actually very mature and quite Aleksey’s equal.
Suddenly there was a roar. Even I jumped a little. The child started too but in delight and then flung out his arms, crying, “Papa!” and the bear of a man I had met in the forest swung him off Aleksey’s shoulders.
“Stop abusing my children.” He tucked the child under his arm, clasped Aleksey with his other, and proceeded to knuckle-rub his head until he cried out in genuine distress. The giant chuckled, swung his son onto his own shoulders (narrowly missing braining the child on the roof), and said amicably, “There, you are both babies equally.” He turned to me. “I apologize for my friend’s appalling lack of manners. I am Gregory.” Then he laughed. “Ah, we have already met.” He turned slyly to Aleksey and added, “I see all desired things come to those who already have everything, hey, spoiled child?”
“Shut up, Gregory.” Aleksey moved swiftly and propelled me toward a door that led into the back of the inn. Once more I was surprised by what I saw, and yet it was only cleanliness, freshness, and openness of design and style that I had rarely witnessed. I had no time to comment on any of this, for two men rose from a table as we entered. I should have expected it: the scarred man and the boy. Aleksey made a murmured inquiry of the boy, only to receive a grief-stricken look and departure in return. Not understanding any of this, I sat, my head spinning.
He thought I was beautiful.
Or was he merely humoring himself, as he seemed to do in all things?
Gregory came to join us at the table, and Sebastian was dispatched to the kitchen to find his mother. I expected this woman to come out and serve us food, but when she appeared, she sat next to her husband at the table. She was carrying another small child, a girl, who was playing with a little doll. It was a particularly affecting scene for some reason. I was extremely tired by now, of course, and hungry, but even this could not explain why I felt my emotions suddenly overwhelm me. I rose swiftly, made the excuse of needing some air, and returned to the stable.
After a while, I sensed someone behind me. I turned, thinking it would be Aleksey, but it was Gregory’s wife. She smiled, swapping the little girl to her other hip. She was a striking woman: dark skinned, as if she spent a great deal of time out of doors. Her hair was black and luscious and curly down to her waist, for it was not tied up or covered. I had never seen the like. She wasn’t young or beautiful, but she caught and held the eye. Perhaps it was her frank way of looking at me. I held out my hand to the little girl. She reached and took my finger in her chubby ones. “She is very pretty, Madame.”
“Pia. My name is Pia.” It was very unusual for women to address a stranger quite so frankly. I was at a loss how to respond, so I just bowed politely. She continued to eye me openly. “You have no family?”
I shook my head, now busying myself with Xavier’s tack.
“It must be hard to be so far from home amongst strangers.”
I gave an imperceptible shrug. I had always been far from home and always amongst strangers.
“You lost your parents very young, I think… and… a sister?”
I turned sharply. “You would do well, woman, to keep such strange ability to read a man’s mind to yourself in this country.”
She did not seem offended by my complete and uncharacteristic lack of manners. It was not every day that the very things I had been remembering were plucked so accurately from my mind. “I do not need to be a witch, sir, to read the sadness and longing in your face when you saw me with my husband and children. Am I wrong?”
I debated telling her that she was being impertinent and that I had no intention of sharing my personal business with her or anyone else in this horrible place, but as I was about to speak, my eye was caught by a structure in the yard: a little bird table. I had not seen such a thing since I left England. It was just a simple wooden construction, painted sunflower yellow, but it spoke volumes about the kindness of these people in this little valley by the sea.
So instead of cruel words, I found myself telling her about my parents and their terrible deaths. How I had witnessed the massacre of our small colony, hanging so precariously on the edge of the world. How my sister and I had been taken by the Powponi to raise as their own, the tribe unconcerned that, having massacred our parents, we might resent them or their way of life. And how they had been proved right. That despite the early death of my little sister from the shock, I had come to think of those savage people as my own. I had never told anyone this, so why I told that strange woman I have no idea. Maybe shewasa witch. She certainly bewitched me. When I had stopped speaking, she swayed a little, rocking the baby.
“My mother was from a place so far away that no one here knows where that was. Not even Aleksey, and he knows many things we do not. She was not like us. She was the color of the rich earth when you turn it for planting. She spoke no words that anyone but I could understand. There were just the two of us, and her stories of a wise people who knew everything about the world and the stars and the way the seasons turn. She could cure the sick. She could tell of future events, because she watched and thought and put the world into order around her.”
