Listen,” said Ranald, “There are the singers.” They were all in the uniform of common soldiers; four men, on tall and burly, another with shaggy, reddish-brown hair and an untrimmed patch of beard, one short and fat with a round, rosy face and a lopsided smile, and the fourth tall and gaunt, with a scrawny face and big red hands; but from his throat came the most exquisite tenor she had ever heard. They hummed a little together to find their pitch, then began to sing a popular drinking song which, Romilly knew was very old.
Aldones bless the human elbow.
May he bless it where it bends;
If it bent too short, we’d go dry, I fear,
If it bent too long, we’d be drinking in our ear…”
They finished the catch by up-ending their tankards with a flourish to show them empty, and the soldiers roared approval and poured them all brimming mugfulls, which they drank and then began another song.
Their songs were rowdy but not indelicate, mostly concerned with the pleasures of drink and women, and their voices were splendid; with the rest, Romilly cheered and sang along on the choruses till she was hoarse. It made her forget her own strange feelings, and she was grateful to Lord Ranald for suggesting this. At one point someone thrust a mug into her hand – it was the strong, fragrant lowlands beer, and she felt a little tipsy from it; her voice sounded good to herself – usually she had no singing voice to speak of – and she felt pleasantly dizzied and yet – not drunk enough to be off her guard. At last, it grew later and the men sought their beds, and the Windsong Brothers, full of wine and yet walking steadily, sang their last song to wild cheers and applause. Romilly had to lean on Ranald as she sought her tent.
He drew her close to him in the bright moonlight. He whispered, “Romy – what is done under the four moons need not be remembered or regretted.”
Half-heartedly she shoved him away. “I am a Swordswoman. I do not want to disgrace my earring. You think me wanton, then, because I am a mountain girl? And Lady Maura shares my tent.”
“Maura will not leave Carolin this night,” Ranald said seriously, “They cannot marry, till the Council had agreed, and will not while she is needed as his leronis, but they will have what they can; do you think she would blame you? Or do you think me selfish enough to make you pregnant, while we are in the middle of this war and your skills are as valuable as mine?” He tried to pull her into his arms again, but she shook her head, wordless, and he let her go.
“I wish – but it would be no pleasure to me if it was none to you,” he said, but he pressed a kiss into her palm. “Perhaps – never mind. Sleep well, then, Romilly.” He bowed again, and left her; she felt empty and chill, and almost wished she had not sent him away….
I do not know what I want. I do not think it is that.
Even in her tent – and Ranald had been right, Lady Maura was not within, her blanketroll was tossed empty on the floor of the tent – she felt that the moonlight was flooding through her whole body. She crawled into her blankets, pulling off her clothes; usually she left on her undertunic at night, but tonight she felt so heated in the moonlight that she could hardly bear the touch of cloth on her feverish limbs. The music and the beer were still pounding in her head, but in the dark and silence, it seemed that she was outside in the moonlight, that she was somewhere pawing at the grass, a sweet, heady smell arising from the earth and somewhere a frantic restlessness everywhere within her.
Sunstar, too, seemed flooded with the restlessness of the four moons and their light . . . now she was linked deep in rapport with the stallion . . . this was not new to her, she had sensed this before, in bygone summers, but never with the full strength of her awakened laran, her suddenly wakeful body . . . the scent of the grass, the flooding of life through her veins till she was all one great aching tension . . . sweet scents with a tang of what seemed to her shared and doubled senses a tang of musk and summer flowers and something she did not even recognize, so deeply was it part of herself, profoundly sexual, sweeping away barriers of thought and understanding . . . at one and the same time she was one with the great stallion in rut, and she was Romilly, frightened, fighting to break out of the rapport which she had, before this, shared so unthinking, it was too much for her now, she could not contain it, she was bursting with the pressure of the raw, animal sexuality under the stimulating light of the moons. . . . She felt her own body twisting and turning as she fought to escape, hardly knowing what it was she dreaded, but if it should happen she was terrified, she would not bear it she would be drawn in forever and never get back never to her own body what body she had no idea it was too much unendurable … PASSION, TERROR, RUT …NO, NO…