Page 29 of Something Human

By the time the snake was finished, the light was beginning to fade. They made love again, and this time it was Adares who was reduced to tears afterward.

“What are you thinking about?” Rus asked a little while after that, when they had been quiet together for some time in the twilight.

“Oh. Well, it’s not very … ” Not very romantic, he thought to say, but he knew Rus would have waved that away and still wanted to know what it was. “I was thinking about the Daine camped in the hills. I was thinking they’d be much more use to us inside Tios.”

“Ah. I suppose they would.”

“Particularly if Gunthanaruth had no idea how they got there. Or—better still, if he thought he had reliable information that they were coming down from the north … and then they turned up in Tios, just when he was looking the other way. That seems to me like the kind of thing that might make him abandon the siege. Doesn’t it?”

“It does. You are not speaking idly, are you, Adares?”

“No. Not really.”

“You would take them in the fishing boats, from that village with the difficult name?”

He nodded. “When I was out in the woods today, I began to think that I could get to the Ikthyra road without being seen—the camp nearest to it has been moved, and the woods there are fairly thick.”

“And you could get the Daine to come with you.”

“Yes, I think so. I don’t know how many boats we’d find, or how many boatsmen, and I know the Daine would be no help with that—but we could make multiple trips if we needed to. It would be risky, but in the dark it might very well be possible. And it’s convenient we have the horses now. A horse will give me a chance of keeping out of the way of the bull in the woods.”

“That bull won’t touch you.”

“Well, but I thought you said he’d try to attack me out of spite.”

“He’d have to get by me. And he won’t.”

“Rus, I couldn’t possibly ask you to come with me.”

“You don’t have to ask. But you don’t get to tell me no, either. Of course I am coming with you.”

Adares frowned. “I am grateful that you want to, but … ” But he couldn’t think what else to say.

He got up and lit the lamp and the brazier. For their dinner, he fried the priests’ onions with the rest of the mushrooms, and they ate them hot, folded up in the last pieces of bread and washed down with more milk. They ate sitting outside under the temple eaves.

“Rus,” said Adares finally, having formulated what he wanted to say, “if you leave here with me, to my mind, that crosses a line into treachery—one that you haven’t crossed yet.”

Rus looked at him in silence for a moment. “That would be a minority opinion, I think. That I haven’t crossed that line. No—” He held up a hand. “It is not what you think. I am not proposing to abandon my people and follow you to Tios and destroy your reputation or have you accused of treason yourself. I will go with you to the Daine camp to make sure you arrive safely, and I will go back to Gunthanaruth’s camp and make sure he knows that the Daine are in the hills ready to descend on him. That will be a falsehood, but if it will help end the siege of Tios without another engagement, it will spare the lives of some of my people as well as many of yours. It may be treachery, but not more so than what I have already done. Even if there is further fighting, it will be the Daine defending the walls of Tios, not riding out to massacre the Luth—I trust you not to let that happen.”

“Of course. As I trust you. And I don’t think you’re a traitor, I just … ”

“You are concerned for my honour, which is … strange … but I am grateful. For what it is worth, if there is any way after this to promote a peace between the Luth and the Phemians—an equitable peace, beneficial to both sides—I will do it.”

“I wish you could come back to Tios with me.”

“But I can’t. There’s no way to disguise what I am, and no way for us to be … anything to each other, considering your position.”

“My position,” Adares repeated.

“Ah, you know—you are not an obscure person in Tios, you have a reputation to maintain, I think. You couldn’t suddenly appear with a Luth … um … ”

“Lover,” Adares supplied. It struck him as a sad way for that word to be first spoken between them. “It would be … It might create difficulties, yes. But listen—you can’t come with me, even still. I’m going to have to leave tomorrow morning, early, and you’re not well enough to ride.”

Rus laughed. “Ah, Adares, I do not know why it is, but things that I would receive as insults from anyone else, from you seem the most precious flattery. I am stronger than you think I am. I will ride with you when you leave, and if we meet the bull in the forest, I will kill it for you. Then I will ride back to my headman and lie to him for you. For Tios, but for you.”

Adares sighed. “I don’t … I don’t know what to say to you.”

“‘Thank you, Rus.’”