But you know. And he knows. And you both know that the other one knows.
“Madam—” he began.
Slate raised a hand, opened her mouth, found absolutely nothing to say, and closed it again.
He looked up at her finally, saw that she was burning scarlet, and his eyes widened.
“Ma—Slate—there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
It’s an interesting conundrum,Slate thought, as blood pounded in her ears.I am more embarrassed because I have nothing to be embarrassed about than I would be if I’d actually managed to do something embarrassing.
“I haven’t thanked you,” she said, not looking at him. “You saved my life.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“I’m not sure what else I can do.”Since any other offers I might have made seem to be of little interest to you.
“I…”
“I’m sorry if I offended you,” she said.
“Offended?” He actually looked up at that. “What? Oh! No. No, of course not. Not with—no. But you—when people are frightened—”
She didn’t know what her face looked like but apparently it was not kind, because his eyes slid away from hers.
Unfortunately, he also kept talking.
“I took an oath,” he said, staring back at the ground again. “The strong should not take advantage of the weak.”
Slate parsed this mentally and came to a conclusion so outrageous that it took her several tries to get the words out. When they came, they were so calm they seemed to belong to someone else, a totally different Slate, who was not nearly dizzy with outrage.
“Did you just call meweak?”
“We’re all weak sometimes,” he said gently. “It’s nothing to be—”
“Ah.”
She packed enough acid into that syllable to stop him cold.
Sonofabitch is patronizing me. Sonofabitch thinks I’m weak. Even Learned-bloody-Edmund is at least scared I’ll fry his genitals off.
I suppose he thinks thatIneed to be protected fromhim.
I pulled you out of a stinking cell where you flinched every time someone moved. I led you blind because you were afraid of the sky. And you dare—youdare—to call me weak?
She did not say these things. They crashed in her head like stones, and if she tried to get them out, they’d all fall out together like an avalanche, and god help her, she’d start crying again, because shealwayscried when she was really furious, and goddamnif she was going to give him the satisfaction.
“I just wanted to keep you from doing anything you’d regret,”Caliban said, a man who had dug six feet down and decided to keep on going.
“You arrogantjackass,” said Slate, her voice clipped and calm and almost pleasant.
He took a step back involuntarily. Slate felt a stab of triumph.
If Brenner had appeared behind him at that moment, and laid a knife across his throat, Slate wouldn’t have sworn that she wouldn’t have nodded. But the assassin was off collecting wood and missed his chance.
“Slate—”
“Don’t talk to me,” she growled, and turned on her heel and stalked back to camp.
