“If you mean to say he roams around to satisfy his base desires, fighting with other males and impregnating females, then, yes, he would be called a tomcat.”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“That’s not a flattering portrait of the man—the creature—who sired me!”
“No,” he agreed without heat. No doubts or unmet dreams about his sire tormented him! “Didn’t your mother tell you anything about him?”
“She’s dead.”
“Oh,”he said. “That happens here in the Deathlands, doesn’t it?” He broke off to eye the heavens with a squint, frowning briefly. “The day is not much longer meant to brighten us here, is it? Will it be warmer at night?”
I glanced toward the road. The fields wore a cloak of snow, the kind whose surface has grown hard from days exposed to sun and wind and bitter cold. Traffic passed at intervals; on such a day, not many folk cared to be out and about. A man leading a laden donkey glanced our way, and a party of armed men dressed in tabards to mark their service to a nobleman’s household clattered past.
“No, it will be colder, and we will freeze to death. So the first thing is, we’ve got to travel without drawing notice to ourselves.” How quickly I proceeded from “I” to “we.” I made the calculations in my head. I had to reach Adurnam and warn Bee. I was alone, and young, and female. He was male, definitely that, and it appeared he felt obligated to protect me. Also, I was beginning to really shiver. “We will walk into Lemanis. You will keep your mouth shut. I will find us a modest room in a modest inn. There, you will remain while I hunt clothing for you.”
“Mama will approve of you. Out hunting for me already!”
“Be serious! You must say nothing until I have devised a suitable story that people may not believe but will accept.”
I started to walk, and I was relieved that, as he strode beside me, he had the prudence to keep the cloak pulled shut with one hand so as not to display any more of himself than he had to. His bare feet flashing below the hem looked frightful enough, padding across the snow. We reached the road and clambered up onto its pavement, an artifact of the old empire.
“First of all, you must have a name.” I frowned at him. He did look like me; no one would think it exceptional if I claimed him as my brother. The most singular difference was in our complexions, mine lighter and somewhat golden, not uncommon among the Kena’ani, while he had that reddish brown coloring. “Roderic,” I said, “for your complexion. I’ll call you Rory for your pet name.”
“I like to be petted.” His smile startled a pair of women beating rugs outside the gates. They simpered as he slowed to eye them very much in the manner of a tomcat thinking of going on the prowl.
I elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Move on, you imbecile. Beyond anything, we must not attract notice.” With him sauntering beside me, it was too late for that.
The surrounding gardens and fields and copses lay bare under winter’s hands. The view opened westward across the Levels to where the sun sank into the high country of Anderida.
We passed under the unguarded gate. What was there to guard against? The princes and mage Houses kept the roads and towns at peace under their rule, and while a few cohorts of restless youth might ride in small bands in the countryside pretending to raid cattle, or hiring themselves out to a lord or a mage House for a season or two, most such bands had long since been absorbed into the great households of the noble and the wealthy.
Lemanis bore the stamp of better days. Its streets did not bustle. Some of the stone buildings had fallen into disrepair, and gardens lay fallow in generous yards where, by the evidence of mounds of dirt and decayed piles of debris, other structures had once stood. A pair of competing inns always stand close by any town gate. Both appeared modest and reasonably clean. Trained by merchants, I felt no compunction in asking to see the available rooms in each establishment and then afterward playing the one off the other given that few travelers could be expected in this cold season to warm half-empty coffers. Young and shivering as we were, we might even have awoken sympathy in the breasts of these robust innkeepers. As odd as a barefooted and clothing-less man in winter would appear, the tale that he had been robbed and stripped of all his belongings, including baggage, carriage, and horses, while his beloved sister cowered in protective hiding behind a hedge of yew offered a fine incentive for luring in locals for a drink in the days after we had gone on our way.
By the time I had settled on a night’s stay at the County Members, with its gracious hearth and a small but respectable upstairs room for which I bespoke all four beds, I realized Rory was also his father’s son in one regard at least. In a quiet town where no excitement beckons in the depths of the winter season, he had attracted an audience of appreciative females. Cursed man! He was still smiling at the women who had trailed into the common room in his wake. Clearly he was going to be a terrible nuisance. They tittered and whispered among themselves but fortunately did not follow us up the narrow stairs. I pushed Rory into our room, untied my cloak, removed my gloves, and shoved them into his arms. Then I shut the door in his face before turning to face the innkeeper.
She chuckled, her rosy face crinkling with laugh lines. “A rare handful, that one. I know the type. Who’s the elder between you?”
The question startled me, but I am nothing if not quick to find my feet. “He is, of course, but I have always had to act the role, ever since our parents—” Here I broke off, not sure if we had decided our parents were alive or quite dead. Best to keep it as close to the truth as possible. “We have the same father but different mothers. There has been trouble.”
“Ah. Folk do say it is better to be quarreling than lonesome, but two women in the same house are like pepper and honey in the same pot.”
“Yes, indeed. I was wondering if you know where we could find clothing for him.”
“My cousin lost her eldest son just a year back. She kept his things. It’s respectable clothing that might fit him. Although it’ll be nothing as elegant as what you must be accustomed to,” she added as she looked over my fine cloak.
“We would be grateful for anything, and will pay what it is worth,” I assured her.
“Will you come downstairs so I can enter you in my ledger?”
I cast a glance at the door, a serviceable slab of wood showing the wear of years; it had been patched around the latch, as if rough handling some time in the past had broken the latch and needed repair. Like everything else, it was scrupulously clean. As the innkeeper descended the stairs, I paused to listen, but all I heard was Rory prowling in the confines of his cage.
When I reached the common room, the innkeeper was just sending one of her daughters out to the cousin for the clothes.
“I’m sure we can find something for you, too, dear,” she said as she sat at a table and opened her ledger. “A clean shift, perhaps. It will be easy enough to clean your outer clothes with a brush so you can be ready to travel in the morning, although I am not sure how you can do so having lost your conveyance. The warden is out on a complaint in the countryside. Sheep stealing, of all things! That hasn’t happened for years! He’ll be back in a day or two and you can make your report then.”
I flushed as it belatedly, and too late, occurred to me that our tale of woe would bring keener attention to our persons. All because of Roderic and his cursed nakedness!
“We can’t wait so long. We’ve got to be on our way in the morning. But a clean shift and a bath”—I sighed, not playacting at all—“would be glorious.”