“You didn’t learn all this in the desert!” Inos said accusingly. Blood-red eyes twinkled. “In the mountains, the Agonistes. When I was small.”
If that was a hint of some personal history she did not know of, he failed to add to it. He went back to the wildlife. Deer and goats for certain, he said, and probably wild cattle.
But no people. When the time came to rest the mules and feed the riders, Azak was joyful. No cut trees, no tracks, no fences, no smoke. There were no people in Thume, he said. Anything else he could handle, of course, except demons.
Inos smiled, and assured him politely that she trusted both his eye and his arm.
Kade said nothing, frowning around and biting her lip.
“This is a splendid place to make camp!” Azak proclaimed royally, encompassing the glade with a sweeping gesture of approval.
Inos had been lost in a reverie of plans for Hub. Startled, she suppressed a snigger. At times that large young man assumed lofty airs that were not in keeping with his ragged robes and wildly bushy red beard—nor with his posture, for his legs were very nearly as long as his mule’s. He had ridden all across the mountains with his feet almost trailing on the ground, and he could probably dismount by walking backward on tiptoe if he wished. Still, even if habit still made him pontificate sometimes, he had proved far more adaptable than she would ever have suspected back in Arakkaran. He had watched his dominion shrink from a kingdom to a single caravan and then to two women, and he had never complained or seemed to feel slighted. He had turned out to be a superb woodsman just as he had been a superb ruler of a kingdom. Whatever the game, whatever the stakes, Azak played with all his heart, and with all the native skill of a born winner.
He had his faults, Azak ak’Azakar, but he was a magnificent chunk of royalty.
Yet why this sudden change of heart? He. had forced the pace ever since the hurried departure from Elkarath’s caravan, so why a call to pitch camp now, with at least two hours’ daylight left? They had no tent to erect and, while the clearing was a pleasant enough spot, it was no better than a dozen others they had seen.
Inos shot him a puzzled glance. “We hear and obey, Protector of the Poor, Beloved of the Gods!”
“Of course!” A smile flashed out of his red bush like an escaping bird, but Inos was certain that the ruby eyes had read every thought in her head. Who would ever have believed that Azak could handle her teasing so well? How had he ever learned?
Then his eyes flickered a signal. Inos twisted around to look at Kade, who was bringing up the rear.
Idiot! Furious that she had been so thoughtless—and that Azak should have noticed what she had not—Inos slid from her saddle, dropped her reins, and hurried back to Kade’s mule.
“Aunt! Are you not feeling well?”
“Oh, I’m quite well, dear. Why are we stopping?” The paleblue eyes made a great effort to find their old sparkle—and failed. No matter what she said, Kade was not better; she was worse.
Whatever was wrong was taking a price. She was humped in her saddle, she seemed to have aged ten years, and for the first time in Inos’s experience, her absurdly uncrushable cheerfulness had failed her.
“Azak thinks we should make camp now.”
The news was not welcome. Kade twitched and looked around with evident alarm. ”Oh, surely we can make a league or two before dark?”
“He thinks not. Here, let me help you down.”
“Oh, I think we should continue!” Kade protested.
“Why?”
“The sheik? Queen Rasha?”
“The sheik is not going to catch us after all this time, Aunt. The mules need a rest.” And so do you!
“Well . . . We might find a better campsite?”
“Azak insists that this one is perfect,” Inos said firmly.
It was at least satisfactory, a grassy meadow in a wide loop of the busy river, with water on three sides and unusually bushy forest closing off the fourth. Even if the mules pulled up their pickets, they would not stray far unless the weather turned bad, and at the moment the weather was perfect: hot sunshine and cool breeze. Here and there the sward buckled in low mounds that hinted at ancient dwellings, perhaps a farm—given a little leisure time, those might be fun to explore for relics—and the only other landmark was a small copse in the middle, a dozen or so spindly trees. Inos knew enough of Azak’s thinking now to guess his intent. He would embellish those saplings into an illusion of shelter, and it would have open ground all around. Practical man!
Still murmuring reluctance, Kade dismounted. Azak’s mule, already stripped of its tack, was rolling in the thick grass with all four legs in the air, obviously agreeing with his opinion of this place.
In another half hour or so, the work was done. Azak had chopped saplings and branches from the woods and dragged them over to the copse to fashion a windbreak. Kade was sitting in there, brewing a peaceful pan of tea on a small fire. The mules were contentedly chomping grass at the end of long tethers, and Inos was standing on the riverbank with Azak. A brief inspection of the mounds had turned up nothing more interesting than old hearthstones, the day was not over yet, and she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do next.
Azak was shielding his eyes with his hand as he studied the westering sun. Estimating time, likely.
Inos wondered idly how it would feel to throw her arms around that oversized camel jockey and kiss him till his beard smoked, to be herself kissed as Andor had once kissed her. Actually Andor’s kiss had not been all that spectacular, even if he had used occult power. The kiss she really remembered, out of her very small collection, had been when Rap had been leaving for the spring drive and . . . but Rap was dead, and while she had a certain natural curiosity about how an overgrown, bushbearded sultan might kiss, she could not detect any real excitement in herself in considering the prospect. Nor any real desire to try it, even were Rasha’s curse to be revoked. So perhaps she was not making much progress in the falling-in-love department.
She could not imagine any man she would rather have here to guard her against the dangers of a savage land—as long as his curse was in place, of course—and very few men she could less easily imagine wanting to share the rest of her life with. Trust in love? Fun to have around, perhaps, but . . . every day? Every night?
Gods, but he had noticed her stare! She turned quickly to face the wind. ”Is that the sea I can smell?”
There was a heart-stopping pause, then he said, “I think so. It can’t be very far off— two days, maybe.”
“Then we head west, to Qoble?”
“Maybe. We shall come to that large river, and we are on the wrong side of it.”
She should have thought of that, of course! “I feel very grubby. This water will be warm, I expect.”
He frowned at the arc of white sand fringing the meadow. “The current is swift, little kitten.”
“Oh, I shan’t go in deep. I can’t swim. It’s quiet this side.” Near the sand, the water was barely bothering to move the leaves drifting on its surface, but the far bank had been undercut into a small cliff and there the river was bundled in glistening, motionless waves below the overhanging forest boughs. Even as she watched, a floating stick went leaping through those waves at an astonishing speed.
Azak grunted, peering upstream and downstream, and also across at the jungle, which was thick and dark, casting shadows on the river. “Crocodiles?”
“No!”
“Well, I can’t see any,” he admitted. “But don’t trust floating logs, especially if they smile at you.”
Inos shivered. “I shall certainly keep that in mind. But I will wash the clothes—and me.”
“I’ll stay within earshot.” He spoke seriously, his face expressionless.
Inos realized that she had been expecting a wisecrack, perhaps a joke about keeping careful watch—the sort of racy retort she would have received from her friends among the stablehands and servants of Krasnegar. Even the young dandies at Kinvale would likely have tried to mask embarrassment with wit. Not Azak. Of course the female body held no secrets for him, and to spy on her would be self-inflicted torment. His sense of fun was an intermittent, unpredictable thing anyway.
“You are going hunting!” she said firmly.
“Oh! I am?” He pursed his lips in astonishment.
“Yes, you are. You know we’re short of supplies. Fresh meat will be a welcome change after all those pancakes and dates and things. You have time.”