Sheathing her blades she walked to the brow of the hill, staring out over the land.
Kiall joined her. ‘You still intend to rescue your lady?’ she asked him.
‘Yes, if I can. But she is not my lady, she never was. I know that now.’
‘You blame me for that, Kiall.’
‘I blame you for nothing, Princess. I was foolish. I had a dream, and I thought that dream was real.’
‘We are full of dreams,’ she said. ‘We long for the unattainable. We believe in the nonsense of fables. There is no pure love; there is lust and there is need.’
‘I do not believe that, Princess.’
‘Another dream you think is real?’
‘I hope not. There is so much sadness and hate in the world. It would be a terrible thing if love was an illusion.’
‘Why did you walk away from me earlier, when you were touching me?’
‘I … I don’t know.’
‘You lie, Kiall. I could feel the growing warmth in your hands. You wanted to bed me, did you not?’
‘No!’ he replied instinctively, then looked away, reddening. ‘Yes, I did,’ he said angrily. ‘And I know it was wrong.’
‘Wrong? You are a fool, Kiall. It was honest lust – do not be ashamed of it, but do not write poems about it either. I have had fifty lovers. Some were gentle, some were cruel, and some I even grew fond of. But love? If it existed, I would have found it by now. Oh, Kiall, do not look so shocked. Life is short. Joy is everything. To deny that is to deny life.’
‘You have the advantage of me,’ he said softly. ‘I do not have your experience of life. I was raised in a village, where we farmed and we raised cattle and sheep. But there were people there who had been together for half a lifetime. They were happy; I believe they loved one another.’
She shook her head. ‘A man and a woman are drawn together by animal passions; they stay together for security. But if a better, perhaps richer man comes along, or a younger, more beautiful woman, then – and only then – can you test their love. Look at you, Kiall. Three days ago you loved a woman enough to risk death for her. Now you say you did not love her after all. And why? Because I appeared. Does that not prove my point?’
He remained silent for several seconds, staring out over the horizon. Finally he spoke. ‘It proves only that I am a fool. That is not hard to do.’
Tanaki moved to him. ‘I am sorry, I should not say these things. I thank you for rescuing me. I will be grateful to you all the days of my life. It was noble of you – and courageous. And I thank you also for walking away back there; that was considerate. But give me a few days and I will teach you joy.’
‘No!’ he said. ‘I do not want to learn that kind of joy.’
‘Then remain a fool,’ she snapped, turning and stalking away to sit alone.
*
For almost three weeks the questors journeyed more deeply into the lands of the Nadir, moving across the desolate Steppes towards the far, grey mountains. Occasionally they stayed in small Nadir tent settlements, but mostly they camped in hidden gulleys, caves or hollows. There was no sign of pursuit, and they saw nothing of the soldiers of Tsudai.
Chareos said little during their journey. His face was set and grim, his eyes haunted. Beltzer too had little to say. Harokas proved adept with the bow and twice brought down deer. But mostly their food came from the land in the shape of long, twisted roots, purple in colour, which made a thin but nourishing soup.
Tanaki recovered well and often entered into bantering conversations with Harokas, but Kiall saw the fear in her eyes when any of the questors came too close, watched her flinch at a touch. For some days he said nothing of it. He treated her with courtesy, though she ignored him for most of the time; he guessed she was still angry at what she saw as his rejection of her.