“Why should you have kept quiet if talking saved your life?”
Why indeed? He was no hunter then, brave in the face of death. He had just been a child, the sole survivor of his sammad. There had been no shame in speaking out, he realized now. It had saved his life, brought him here, brought him here to Armun who understood.
“No reason, no reason at all,” he said, smiling up at her. “I think that was when I stopped being afraid. Once they could talk to me they wanted me alive. At times they even needed me.”
“I think that you were as brave as a hunter, even though you were just a boy.”
These words disarmed him, he didn’t know why. For some reason he felt close to tears and had to turn away from her. Tears, now, he a hunter? Without reason? Good reason perhaps, they were the unshed tears of that little boy alone among the murgu. Well, that was well past, he was no longer little, no longer a boy. He looked back at Armun and without intending to reached out and took her hand. She did not pull away.
Kerrick was confused by what he felt now, for he did not know what it meant, could relate the powerful and unknown emotions within him only to what had happened those times alone with Vaintè, when she had seized him. He did not want to think about Vaintè now, or anything else Yilanè. Unknowingly his hand closed, hard, hurting her, but she did not pull away. A warmth swept over him as though from an unseen sun. Something important was happening to him, but he did not know what it was.
Not so Armun. She knew. She had listened often enough when the young women had talked, listened also to the older women who had children, when they told about their experiences, what went on in the night, in the tents when they were alone with a hunter. She knew what was happening now and welcomed it, opened herself to the sensations that overwhelmed her. More so because she had always had little hope, even less expectation. If only it were night now and they were alone! The women had been explicit, graphic about what was done. But it was day, not night. Yet it was so quiet. And she was too close to him now. When she pulled gently Kerrick opened his hand and she moved away. Rose and turned away from the look in his eyes.
Armun stepped outside the tent and looked about her. There was no one in sight; even the children were silent, gone. What did it mean?
The singing, of course, and when she realized this she began to tremble. Ulfadan had been a sammadar. They would all be at his singing, all the sammads, everyone. She and Kerrick were alone now.
With careful, deliberate movements she turned and went back into the tent. With sure hands laced shut the tent flap.
Just as surely opened the laces of her own clothing and knelt, pulling aside the furs, entering the warm darkness beneath them.
Her figure loomed, half-seen above him. He could not move much because of his leg. But he did not want to, and soon forgot about the leg completely. Her flesh was soft, unexpectedly warm, her hair brushing over his face in silent caress. When he put his arms about her the warmth of her body matched his as well. Memories of a cool body began slipping away. She was closer, closer still. She had no hard ribs, just warm flesh, round and firm, pushing with unexpected pleasure against his chest. His arms tightened, pressing her to him, her lips to his ear speaking sounds without words.
Outside the morning sun was burning through the mist, lifting it, taking the chill from the air.
Inside the tent, beneath the warmth of the furs, the heat of their bodies melted his memories of a cooler, harsher body. Pushed aside memories of a different life, a different existence, putting in their place a tender reality of infinitely greater worth.