Her cat eyes searched him in the night, so much less dark to her than to him. “I’ll always love you, but—I’ve changed. My dream has changed.”
It was Cyncaidh who broke the next silence. “We’ve heard tales of the amazing General Macurdy. That you ride a wild boar; that you have two rows of teeth—that an Ozian spear maiden loves you, and you’ve refused her.”
Macurdy laughed, a laugh amused but without joy. “I got my front teeth all broken or knocked out back in Oz, and new ones grew in. A whole new set, all nice and straight. They even pushed out the good ones I already had. I never had sprouted wisdom teeth before; I guess that tells you something.” He turned to Varia. “I guess it took, when you spelled me to not get old. I guess that’s how I grew them. And there is a spear maiden; you’re not the only one who knows about loving two at a time.” He paused. “You don’t suppose you could do for her what you did for me, do you? Give her long youth?”
Varia’s teeth gnawed her lower lip thoughtfully. “If she has the necessary ylvin genes. The blood. But that’s very unlikely, for someone from Oz. Where is she now?”
“In camp, in the hospital. Someone put a big dent in her helmet, in the battle. She’ll be all right though.”
“If you can bring her here to me—”
While the two of them discussed the possibilities, Cyncaidh rode quietly, thinking. The commander of the southern army still showed a little of the farmboy Varia had told him about. Had described to him at length, till she’d become comfortable with her memories. He’d come to feel he knew Curtis Macurdy.
Actually he hadn’t, and neither had Varia. Or no, that wasn’t right: she’d known him as he had been. Then, held to the fire, instead of flaring and dying, or softening, or going brittle, he’d tempered, strengthened, grown into something uncanny, a man who still hadn’t learned how powerful he was.
Varia’s voice drew him from his reverie. “Raien,” she said, “I want to go back with Curtis tomorrow to visit his spear maiden, with a guard platoon to bring me home. I’ll only be gone a day.”
For just a moment Cyncaidh felt misgiving, but it faded. He—he and A’duaill and Mariil—had come to know her as deeply as you could know anyone, and there was no dishonesty in her. She would come back. And if somehow she changed her mind, what right would he have to complain?
She’d come back though. As she sat in the saddle looking at him, her love assured him of it.
They started back to camp, and Cyncaidh’s thoughts reached ahead to Duinarog. Paedhrig would sign, beyond a doubt, and the agreement with the Rude Lands would be law. Then they’d have to weather the resulting storm. The Expansion Party would be enraged at the agreement, but with Quaie dead there’d be a period, no doubt all too brief, of confusion, probably indecision, and perhaps even conflict within its ranks. Then someone would establish leadership and attempt to drum up public outrage at a treaty without vengeance, made when the smoke of funeral pyres had hardly dissipated.
They’d deal with it, though, he and Paedrigh. If it got bad enough, he’d resign as chief counselor, claiming family reasons, and Paedhrig could appoint Gavriel, a smoother politician. It might be just as well. It might be time for a healer in the Chief Counselor’s office. Then, after a time, Paedhrig might appoint him Minister of Southern Affairs.
He smiled to himself. He could stand being dismissed. He’d take Varia back to Aaerodh Manor, and they’d spend a year exploring. Do the coast and islands in his sloop, the rivers by canoe and the forests on skis.
That night Macurdy lay awake thinking. Last night he’d told Melody he’d marry her, and had wondered how he could have said it. Now he’d learned that Varia was married to someone else. Yesterday it had seemed he’d been a fool to imagine this invasion producing anything but disaster and death, and tonight he had an agreement, or seemed to.