And when Geva walked back out toward where Rathgarr was waiting, she smiled at his unreadable face, slipped her arm into its familiar place against him, and leaned in close. Breathing him in, feeling his warm familiar strength, his safety. Even stronger than the eighteen days, the looming impending doom. One step at a time.
“So lunch next, then, love?” she asked, as lightly as she could. “Also, I was wondering if you might come with me to the schoolroom again tomorrow morning?”
She still couldn’t at all read the look in his eyes, the very slight movement on his mouth. But she waited, waited, her heart thundering louder with every beat, until finally he nodded, his breath exhaling out slow.
“Ach,” he said. “I shall come.”
37
Rathgarr came to class the next day, and the next, and the next.
Geva was truly grateful to have him there, guiding and settling the orclings, and running interference whenever she, Tristan, or their clan guests needed it. And so far, with his support, the daily clan visits had been an unqualified success — they’d had a lesson in seed sprouting from Kalfr, a demonstration on moving silently from Simon, and a session on basic first aid from a tall, cheerful Ka-esh medic named Salvi, who also turned out to be Tristan’s mate.
In addition to the daily clan guests, Geva and Tristan had also continued to add more focused lessons on reading and writing, in both common-tongue and Aelakesh — however, this had inevitably resulted in copious amounts of squirming, wriggling, and whispering, especially from the younger orclings. To the point where Rathgarr began rotating each table into wrestling sessions in the side room, where he’d spread out soft furs all over the floor.
“If we truly wish them to sit through logic or mathematics, or even music,” he told Geva after the fourth day, “we ought to make sure there is wearying activity before this. Can you not add this to your schedule?”
It was a good point, Geva could admit, and she wheedled Rathgarr into explaining it to the Orc Mountain Educational Congress the next day — a planned day off — at their first follow-up meeting. Prompting Killik to smirk smugly over toward Rosa, his arms folding with satisfaction behind his head as he crossed his booted feet on the table. “Ought to run about outdoors each day, I ken, along with all the rest,” he said. “We shall order this, ach, Rathgarr?”
To Geva’s vague surprise, Rathgarr didn’t argue this plan, and the next morning, they began the day out on a stunning little alcove near the top of the mountain, beneath the bright beaming sun. The alcove had sheer stone walls rising on each side, some steeper than others, and Killik and Rathgarr had attached multiple knotted ropes across the top. And then, while the orclings watched with awestruck fascination from below, Killik swept up the longest rope, climbing hand over hand as his feet lightly leapt up the ledges lining the wall.
“Wow,” squeaked Isak, who, like the other small Ka-esh, was wearing an adorable little eye-mask that Rathgarr had brought, on accord of Ka-esh eyes being extra sensitive to sunlight. “But Killik is Skai, ach? We Ka-esh cannot do this.”
“You can, Isak,” Rathgarr said cheerfully, with a gentle shake at his shoulder. “You remember your clan brother Abjorn, ach? Now, you three are with me, on this smaller wall. You younger Grisks, also.”
Soon the orclings were collectively squealing, laughing, and scurrying up the walls, with varying degrees of success. Unsurprisingly, Sune and Bjorn were the most nimble, with their lean Skai bodies, but Hagen and Hauk, the two Bautul brothers, were highly impressive as well. And by the end of it, all the orclings had succeeded in climbing at least one wall, their faces bright and flushed with delight.
It turned out that they were indeed far more attentive to Tristan and Geva’s reading instruction after that, and also to the day’s clan-focused activity. It was a drumming session with a burly, smiling Ash-Kai named Othan, who came in laden down with an armful of round wooden hoops and dried animal-skins. “First we must make the drums,” he told the class, “and then we shall learn to play them, ach?”
It was a truly fascinating lesson, in which Geva learned that drum-making was a uniquely Ash-Kai trade, and that Othan currently served as the resident expert on the subject. And apparently even Rathgarr had learned a little drumming in his youth, and it did strange, simmering things to Geva’s insides to watch him lead the drumming circle with Othan, a steady beat thudding out from beneath his big capable hands.
“You were very good also, poppet,” he told her afterwards, raising his brows toward her. “I should almost think you had studied this at length, ach?”
Geva flushed at that, and quickly explained that the kind of drumming she’d learned was entirely different, on a pot drum, rather than a skin drum. Which then prompted Rathgarr to demand a full explanation, and after having gained it, he cocked his head sideways, his brow thoughtfully furrowing.
“I ken I saw a drum like this in the Grisk storage-room,” he said. “Come along, poppet.”
Geva readily obliged, and soon found herself staring in awe at a large, lovely Eziran pot drum. It was built rather like a huge metal bottle, with a rounded base and a slim neck, but also with a small circular hole cut into the side. And once Rathgarr had fetched some water to pour into it, Geva settled down onto the nearest available chair, placed the drum between her knees, and began to play. Patting out a light, easy rhythm at first, brushing her fingers against opposite sides of the drum, and then adding layer after layer. Until her hands were flying over the pot, her palms striking at the hole, while its smooth, intricate sounds rippled through the room.
When she finished, Rathgarr was eyeing her strangely, his mouth pursed. And without a word, he picked up the drum and strode with it to the counter, where he briefly consulted with the Grisk porter, and then began counting out coins.
“You… you didn’t need to do that, Rathgarr,” Geva stammered at him afterwards, as he carried it up the corridor. “That was a lot of coin, and it’s so big and heavy, I couldn’t possibly…”
Take it with me, she should have said, but she couldn’t seem to find the words, because they were already down to twelve days. And though she’d been very intently trying to avoid thinking of that ever-encroaching deadline, it still seemed to loom higher every morning she awoke in their lovely little room, curled close into Rathgarr’s chest.
“Ach, we shall keep it in the schoolroom, where the orclings shall welcome it also,” Rathgarr replied, a little too casually, as he strode back into the schoolroom, and set it down beside a table. “And should you wish to thank me, you well know how to do this, ach?”
The gratitude was surging far too strong in Geva’s chest, and she beamed up at him as her hands swiftly found his belt, and she nudged him down into a chair. Where she knelt between his sprawled legs, working over his groin with furious abandon, until his head arched back, his fist striking the table, as he poured his thick sweetness deep down her desperately swallowing throat.
Once she’d sucked him clean, just the way he liked, Rathgarr bent over toward her, his hands shaky and gentle on her face. Tilting it up, almost,almost, as if he might kiss her — but then he abruptly sagged back again, his eyes squeezing shut, his hands sinking deep into his own hair.
It was a familiar theme by now, his consistent pulling away whenever things became too close, creating distance between them with either his words or his actions — or still, far too frequently, his secrets. And once again, Geva fought through the whispering hurt, the ever-rising fear and dread and disappointment, and attempted a smile, and a change of subject. Looking forward. One step at a time.
“So I was talking to Kesst, when he stopped by earlier,” she said, as lightly as she could. “And he mentioned that maybe we’d like to join him and Efterar for supper tonight? And then dancing?”
Rathgarr easily agreed, as Geva had known he would — he always accepted every possible invitation that Kesst would offer, many of them gained through her own mediation, and the occasional slight falsehood, too. A fact that she’d felt consistently guilty about, until that evening found her and Efterar standing together in the kitchen, and watching Kesst and Rathgarr bickering over how best to bake the cake they wanted for dessert.
“Oh, I think they need as much of our help as they can get,” Efterar wryly replied, once Geva confessed that the invitation had actually been entirely her doing. “They’re both far too stubborn and suspicious to get through this all on their own. And maybe” — his eyes on Kesst had softened, gone a little sad — “maybe they’ve both been hurt too much, too. They both need time to trust and heal again.”
