Page 65 of Something Human

“You’d have been angry with me if I cheated on my wife—my hypothetical wife—with you. Try to tell me you wouldn’t.”

“I’d have been sad … ”

“Disappointed in me.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Yes. Actually, you’re right.”

“There you go. I wouldn’t have done it.”

“You wouldn’t have done it because I wouldn’t have liked it?”

Adares shrugged. “That, and it’s not the kind of husband I’d want to be. Not the kind of lover I am—when I don’t think the other person’s dead.”

“I know. I do know. I’ve insulted you. I will give you twenty horses in recompense.”

Adares looked interested. “Do you have twenty horses?”

“No. Kahar don’t own horses. It was a joke.”

“Oh, a joke.”

“How many people did you sleep with, while you thought I was dead?”

“One. The ex-wife of the First Spear of the colonial legion. He’s dead—killed in the Luth assault—but they were divorced before that. So she was mourning too, but in a complicated way. We had an affair. It lasted a month. She ended it—she said we weren’t right for each other, and it was true. I couldn’t give her what she needed—I don’t even know what it was—and she couldn’t give me what I needed. Partly because she doesn’t have a blue-striped dick. But mostly because she doesn’t have your sense of humour.”

So there it was. He had found someone else, and they had been lovers for a month. That wasn’t long, Rus thought, in the realm of love affairs, but it was more than three days. And yet here Adares was.

“Did you tell her about me?” Rus asked after a moment.

Adares drew a breath and let it out slowly. “No,” he said finally. “I wasn’t sure she would understand.”

“I’m sorry.”

Adares gave him a look, eyebrows raised.

“Because you suffered,” Rus explained. “Because you suffered, and it was on account of me. And yes, of course, I am glad for my own sake, that you didn’t talk to her about me, because perhaps if you had, the understanding between you and her would have grown, and you would have ceased to think of me, and you would not be here now.”

Now Adares was giving him a different kind of look. “That’s the sort of speech that makes me want to grab you and give you a kiss, Rus. But we’re silhouetted against the sunset here, and your acolytes or whatever are down below. Can you just imagine it for me instead?”

“I always do.”

They stood a little longer in silence, and the light faded as the sun disappeared into the crook of the mountains. Rus was aware that something had changed, shifted, because of all that Adares had just said, but he couldn’t pin down exactly how or what. Finally he said, “We should make a plan.”

“Oh. Yes, sure. What sort of a plan?”

Rus thought for a moment. “Perhaps I could invite you to go for a ride tomorrow morning, to see one of our other stone circles—perhaps you have taken an interest in them, and I have offered to show them to you. But your men will stay behind, because the other kahar are going to teach them to play hargan.”

“They’ll like that. But is it proper for me to ride out with you without any attendants?”

“It is how things are done in Tios. If anyone asks, that is what we’ll tell them.”

“It’s true, as it happens.”

“There you are. Will it do?”

“Yes, of course. I have a feeling they’re fascinating standing stones, and I’m going to want to spend a long time admiring them.”

“They have many significant carvings. I will explain them all to you.”