Jaelle looked at him defiantly, and said, “His horse and gear?”
“Oh, that,” said Rumal. “That I kept to cover the cost of feeding him between snowfall and midwinter-night, lest the ransom grow too great for one horse to carry.” He said ironically to Peter, “Farewell, my Lord; fortunate is that man so loved by his kinsmen that they entrust him to a woman’s ransoming. See that you repay these ladies well for their courtesy, my Lord, since no doubt it was only their pleas that persuaded the menfolk of your clan to ransom you at all. And now-” He made a deep, graceful bow, whose very courtly grace sent a shudder of horror through Magda, much worse than if he were ugly or deformed. “Farewell, dom; a safe journey and a fortunate homecoming.”
Peter made him a deep, equally ironic bow. “My thanks for your hospitality, messire di Scarp. May I sleep the night hi each of Zandru’s hells in turn before I taste of it again.”
“A churlish speech,” Rumal drawled, “but the color of money is not brightened by courteous words-nor dimmed by boorish ones.” He turned on his heel and walked away, not looking back.
Peter reached out and seized Magda’s hands in a hard grip. His own were shaking. “It is you,” he said. “I dreamed-I dreamed-” His voice caught, and for a moment she thought he was about to weep, but he managed to control it, clutching her ringers painfully hard in his own.
She said, and her heart was wrung with pity, “You are so thin and pale! Have they been starving you?”
“No, no, though the fare was not what I could have hoped for in the Hellers,” he said, still clinging to her hands.
Jaelle broke in: “There is a horse for you at the end of the causeway; we traded for it in the last village. I thought Rumal would keep yours, as he did. I hope it suits you.”
“Mestra, I would ride a rabbit, or walk from here to Thendara in my bare feet, it is so good to be beyond these walls,” he said. “Come, let us get out of bowshot…. How came this to be? I had utterly lost hope that you would ever know where I was, or how, even, I had died.”
Jaelle was studying him curiously as they came to where they had left the horses. “I cannot believe it! This is not a joke? You are not my cousin Kyril? Are you truly-Terranan?”
“I am,” Peter said, and glanced curiously at Magda, “Who-and what-?”
“She is my friend and sister, Peter,” Magda said quietly, “and she knows who we are, so there is no need for pretense.”
Peter bent over her slender hand. He said, “How can I speak my thanks, mestra? Midwinter-night is too near for me to pretend I was not afraid.”
Jaelle looked back, saw that Rumal and his men had turned to watch them from the end of the causeway. She said, with a hesitant laugh, “Now, indeed, I believe you are not my cousin Kyril. T think he would rather be hanged in fragments from Rumal’s walls than confess himself afraid!” She added, after a moment, “No doubt they are watching and wondering why you do not greet me as a kinswoman.”
From anyone else Magda thought that would have sounded almost unbearably flirtatious; Jaelle only sounded embarrassed. Peter said, “That will be my pleasure, then-kinswoman.” He bent forward and made as if to give her a brotherly embrace and kiss on .the cheek. Jaelle colored and lowered her eyes; suddenly, gently, Peter took Jaelle’s slender hand up in his again, bent and laid a light kiss on her wrist.
Magda, watching, thought unexpectedly, I’m free of him. Before, I would have been unendurably jealous-to see that look in his eyes, turned on any other woman. I nearly went mad when he danced with Bethany at a New Year’s party last year. Now I do not care. Her love, her guilt, her concern, had been a part of her so long that she felt cold, flat and empty. Now she looked at him with sympathy, with concern for his thinness and pallor…. As if he were my brother, my child. But not a lover. Not now.