Page 30 of Something Human

“Well, yes. Thank you, Rus.”

“Good. Now, let us go back inside and get into bed, and you can tell me another story.”

“About what?”

“About you—about you in Pheme, before you came to Tios. And I will tell you about the scandal of Gunthanaruth’s second wife.”

“I’m scandalized already—I didn’t know Luth men could have more than one wife.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Phemian—his first wife was dead.”

They slept early that night, comfortably curled together, both of them exhausted by the day, and they woke before the earliest glimmer of dawn. It was cold. They sat wrapped in the bedclothes and breakfasted on milk and berries. Rus stretched to warm up his muscles, and pulled back his hair and secured it in a messy knot at the nape of his neck. Adares collected the cold pieces of his armour and asked Rus if he had a use for any of it. Rus shook his head.

“It would get it my way,” he said.

“I suppose it might.”

There was a strange constraint between them that morning. Since rising, they had barely touched. It didn’t seem appropriate, somehow. Neither of them spoke of the parting that would soon be upon them.

Rus said, “You don’t mind if I keep your kilt pin—I mean your cloak pin, for my kilt—do you?”

“Of course not, but it might be better not to show it to anybody, once you get back to your camp.”

“Ah yes, because they’re going to find out you’re not dead, so I can’t claim to have taken it off your body on the battlefield.”

“Well, it doesn’t have my name on it.”

Rus looked at him for a moment. “No, I suppose not.” Adares had the impression he had intended to say something else—what, he didn’t know.

Rus arranged his kilt in its proper folds and fastened it in place with the pin. The gold ship that was the emblem of Pheme stood out jauntily against the background of blue cloth. Adares put on his own black tunic again, laced his boots, fastened his breastplate and greaves, and threw his scarlet cloak around his shoulders, knotting the corners together to hold it in place. He held out his hand and looked at the snake on the back of it, as he had been doing off and on since Rus drew it.

They found Rus’s spear, put out the lamp, and went out of their quiet asylum for the last time. Outside, the sky was just beginning to lighten. The temple courtyard was pale and still.

The horses watched them sleepily as they walked among them, looking for a likely pair. Adares chose a black mare; he didn’t know much about horses, but she seemed friendly and looked well cared-for. Rus was not interested in any of the Phemian horses, but he had to inspect all five of the stocky, short-legged Luth animals, between which Adares could not see much difference.

Adares rummaged among the equipment that the Luth men had left in the stable, looking for a suitable saddle and bridle. He came out, with the best equipment he could find, to ask Rus what he needed. Rus had settled on a horse, already put a bridle and a curiously-shaped Luth saddle on her, and made a contemptuous face at Adares’s armload of Phemian equipment. He mounted, spear in hand, as casually as if he were walking through a door rather than getting on a horse, and rode around the temple courtyard while Adares saddled his own mount.

They rode out of the temple gates, around behind the honey-coloured walls, and into the woods. Adares was slightly uncomfortable in the saddle, but less so than he had feared. They followed the trail carved by the runaway bull, since there was no other path. They rode close together, Rus leading the way, not talking. Adares didn’t mind that. He enjoyed watching Rus ride, the easy, unstudied skill of it, horse and rider a fluid pair, blue and white in the darkness, like part of the Great Pattern Rus talked about.

By and by, Rus turned off of the track they had been following and led the way through the trees up to the ridge, where the grey dawn light faintly showed the Daine encampment crouched between the hills in the distance. It occurred to Adares that on his own he might well have been unable to find his way through the forested valley that lay between him and his allies. But Rus seemed to know what he was doing. They rode down the hill and back in among the trees. As the sky brightened, the forest came awake around them; the trees grew green instead of grey, more birds joined the chorus from the treetops, and the dew on the leaves glittered in the strengthening light.

They rode out into a clearing, where they could see the sky stained pink in the east. Rus rode around the edge of the open space, looking for the easiest way forward in the direction they wanted to travel. Adares let his horse graze a little in the centre of the clearing. He watched Rus and thought that he looked glad to be up and outside, in his own element again. But Adares could also see a certain, distinctive tightness in Rus’s expression; it was clear that all the while he seemed to sit so easily in the saddle, he was in pain.

Something hanging off the saddle of Adares’s horse had been bumping against his leg all the while he rode, and he looked down now to see what it was and whether he could get rid of it. He found a leather bag, attached by a strap to the saddle, with a stopper in it.

It must have been tied there by the officer who had ridden out of Tios in this saddle. It had survived the battle, though its owner hadn’t, and it had gone unnoticed first by the Luth who had captured the officer’s horse, then by Adares when he saddled this horse—it all seemed nearly miraculous. And it was probably nothing more worthy than some of the watered-down vinegar that the legions always swilled on campaign.

Adares unfastened it from the saddle, pulled the stopper, and sniffed at the contents. He took a swig.

“Rus! Feel like a drink?”

Rus turned to look. “Wine?”

“Boukossian red, and a good year. I may not know horses, but I do know wine.”

“This somehow does not surprise me.”

Rus turned his horse and rode back across the clearing towards Adares. He had reached out a hand for the wine, reining in his mount. Then, quite suddenly, he froze, listening. He quieted his horse and put out his hand to hush Adares’s mount as well. In a moment Adares heard the noise that had caught Rus’s attention: the unmistakable sound of something large moving fast through the forest, coming in their direction.