Hunting (30 page)

"Lauren..."

"I–" His hand tightened on hers. "I
still didn't believe it of him. Wouldn't. Shut my eyes to the
strange expressions, refused to hear the whispers. Then, his
funeral."

Ash grit her teeth with the effort of
not pulling her hand away, her abused fingers firing back to agony.
But now would be a terrible moment to flinch from him again.

"After that, when it was impossible not
to face, Eman confirmed every story, and added...too many of his
own. He'd gone through the same childhood, but Eman had been
privileged to discover the truth through observation of the man
himself, and cannot bear to have him mentioned. Our father, who I'd
longed to emulate, and who I now spend all my energy trying not to
become."

"Why would you–?"

The faint metallic scraping that
interrupted might as well be the explosion of one of the chancy new
flintlocks. Ash certainly jerked as if shot. She stared upward,
gasping as a grey half-circle appeared.

"
Hallo
!
" She screamed it,
even as it occurred to her that it might be Frog, come back to
check. "
DOWN HERE
!
"

"Ash?"

Barely audible, but Ash still managed
to recognise the voice.

"
Cassia
?!
Cassia! Thank
Luin! Lower the bucket! Oh, Sun." She was going to cry, at the
stupidest moment.

"...all right?"

"Yes! The bucket! THE BUCKET!"

"...moment."

The head disappeared, and the circle
opened up fully.

"Cassia?" Lauren's voice was hoarse,
choked by shock and emotion.

"Laundry maid. Astenar incarnate. I'm
going to have to think up something really nice to do for her."

A little cough of laughter, and then
Lauren took a deep breath and seemed to forcibly summon back his
usual first seruilis self. "But how did she find us?"

"Who cares? I'll ask when we get out of
this pit. Oh, Luin's Heart, I didn't really believe we would."

"I don't think I shall until I'm
standing on something solid."

A squeaking noise was all the warning
they had before the bucket free fell toward them. It struck Ash
painfully on her shoulder, enough to bruise, but not to make her
sorry.

"...get help..." drifted down.

Ash called an encouraging response, but
it looked like Cassia had already departed, so Ash pulled out some
slack, and looped the rope, bucket and all, under Lauren's
arms.

"I was thinking I'd just climb right
out," she said. "But my hands and feet feel like soggy dough. Could
you manage?"

"Possibly," Lauren replied, but didn't
need to test his ability as rescue came with rope ladders, and
extra lines to twist into harnesses, taking their weight as they
climbed. Ash sent Lauren first, but quickly followed, and found
herself hauled up the last few rungs by Investigator Verel.

"Investigator," she said. "You are
beautifully warm."

Her legs trying to give out beneath
her, Ash gave a moment's attention to the inordinately large number
of people in the room. Guards mainly, and a couple of Godskeeps.
She found Carlyon sitting on the floor, leaning against the well, a
Guardsman examining a bruised and swollen lump decorating one
temple.

Business first, Ash hung a moment on
Investigator Verel's arm. "It was Frog," she said, in a terse
undertone. "Athan Vicardie. Laid a trap for Lauren and tossed me in
after."

The Investigator responded with a
blanket and a nod, handing Ash off to another Guard. Ash was
finding it difficult to stand, her bare feet swollen and painful,
but that did not stop her from searching out Cassia and soaking her
with a well-earned hug.

"How did you find us, you wonderful
creature?"

"I followed you," Cassia admitted, a
blush competing with a beaming smile. "At least to the Gods' Hall.
You were acting so oddly. When I heard the Guard were searching for
you, I came to check." She produced a shining slip of metal. "Is
this yours?"

Ash laughed in pure delight, picturing
Cassia following her as she followed Carlyon as he followed Frog.
Then she had to sit down.

After inspecting her tender feet, she
smiled at Cassia. "I don't suppose I could impose on you for a pair
of soft shoes?"

"I'll fetch some," Cassia promised, and
dashed off as Ash's trailing Guard minder produced a jar of what
smelled like semaileon, and set fire to Ash's fingers and toes by
rubbing it into the skin.

"That's one way to wake me up," Ash
gasped, trying not to writhe away. Strangely, being out of the
water seemed to be robbing her of her remaining warmth. She used
the blanket to dry herself as much as possible, then frowned around
at the crowded room.

"I still don't see how he managed to
get behind me," she said, as the Master of the Mern arrived, with
Thornaster at his elbow. "I made certain there was no-one else in
the room before I went anywhere near."

Thornaster smiled with relief at the
sight of her, then checked, his attention shifting to the well.

"What is this place?"

"Former Well of the Heart," Ash said
through chattering teeth. "Not used for that since the
Breaking."

Her Visel's openly shocked expression,
hastily suppressed, told Ash that fact was no small matter, and she
decided not to make several pointed remarks she'd saved up on the
sheer pointlessness of putting bolts on wells, and whether the
Godskeeps had thought something was going to come climbing out.

Perhaps they had.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

One advantage of having few answers was
that detailed discussion could be put off in favour of getting warm
and dry. Two Guards linked arms and carried Ash off in style, only
pausing to accept some slippers from Cassia. Thornaster caught them
up just before they reached his quarters, and Ash suspected at
least one of them would be spending the night uselessly guarding
the corridor outside, even though she'd only wandered into the mess
by accident.

"Can you manage your clothes?"
Thornaster asked, pulling her nightshirt and her thickest socks
from a chest.

Ash murmured vague assent, and fumbled
her way through the change, listening to voices in the receiving
room. Thornaster returned briefly with a glass and a plate. The
plate held pastries stuffed with fruit and goat's cheese, which Ash
inhaled, but she hesitated over the glass. Brandy. Another bout of
shivering decided her, and she gulped it down. Liquid heat.

"Frog will run," she said when
Thornaster appeared again. "With Lauren still alive, he can't do
anything else."

"He won't get far." Thornaster sat
beside her on the end of the bed and dropped a drying sheet over
her head. "Here – a family party trick." The sheet grew abruptly
warmer, and Thornaster made quick work of drying her hair.

"Was the well...wrong?" Ash asked,
through the muffling cloth. "What would have happened if we'd died
there?"

"Montmoth would have been pulled
further out of Balance. That place – it's not the centre of
corruption, but I suspect it was the weakness which allowed
Karaelsur entry here in the first place.
Two
Wells of the
Heart! And Arun didn't even think to mention it!

"How long were we down there?"

"It's around a decem from
midnight."

"Really? It felt longer." She sighed.
"Well, at least I learned how to swim. I'll have to try that again,
somewhere brighter and warmer."

He laughed, a helpless sputter. "You
would
transform this into a positive experience,
stripling."

Ash glanced at him over her shoulder.
"I thought you weren't going to call me that any more."

"I was going to do a great many things.
Take my share of the heroics so this hunt took less of a toll on
you. Not declare myself until you were safely in the charge of my
mother."

What happened next hardly felt real.
Two warm arms, sliding around her as her Aremish Visel drew her
against his chest. Breath tickling her ear when he curled down to
press his cheek to hers. He couldn't be doing exactly what she
wanted him to do. But the sensation of being held didn't go away.
It was not a hallucination.

Disbelief turning to delight, Ash
promptly leaned back and started enjoying herself.

"I don't know that I'd call being
tipped down a well heroic."

"Yes, truly careless." His arms
tightened. "Ash, I – oh, Sun, this is the worst time to have this
conversation."

"Not from where I'm sitting."

"Perhaps, but proposing to exhausted
girls I've just dosed with brandy is not precisely the kind of
behaviour I'd care to boast of. We'll finish this in the
morning."

He pressed his lips to the top of her
head, then let her go and stood, moving to pull down the bed's
coverlet.

"No arguments."

"Very optimistic of you," Ash said, but
clambered beneath the sheets and let him tuck her in before adding:
"You thought you'd manage to get me all the way to Aremal without
me
declaring myself?"

This produced an expression that stole
Ash's breath and left them staring at each other. Thornaster
managed a shaky smile, and said: "Ambitious of me, admittedly.
Goodnight, stripling."

The last thing Ash wanted to do after
that was sleep, but there was little choice. She dreamed,
inevitably, of falling, and then of trying to hold the lid of a
well shut, as something tried to push its way out, and she thought
she could hear her own voice crying out through the metal.

ooOoo

Waking to sunlight, Ash found
Thornaster asleep in a chair beside the bed. He was freshly dressed
and shaved, and a breakfast tray sat on the table by the window, so
she guessed he'd been up all night and had not quite managed to
push on through the morning.

How long had it been since she'd last
thought herself in love? Seventeen and fascinated by Melar, working
herself up to tell him her secrets until she'd realised the depth
of his interest in Larkin. Brief spurts of attraction over the
years, never solid enough for her to chafe more than a little at
the confines of her deception. And then this man, with his
inclination to levity, quick intelligence, and that shining dark
hair that had once again fallen over his eyes. The idea that she
could be free to smooth it back filled her with wonder.

He'd tired himself enough to not wake
when she slid out of the bed, or even when she collected clean
clothes and took herself off to another room to dress. Refreshed,
she returned and sat on the bed to eat breakfast and contemplate a
hasty marriage.

Beneath her fizzing delight Ash
discovered a strange reluctance. It was not that she didn't want
him. But there was a league or two of difference between pretending
to be Thornaster's seruilis, and tying their lives together. He
might start believing she should do what he said, or smother her
with unnecessary caution. But, no – even when he'd thought her
nearly a child, he'd accepted sense. A more significant factor
would be his family – and all Aremal – which would likely have
opinions about sudden marriages. That was daunting on one level,
but not something she could treat as a real hurdle without
admitting to a shameful level of cowardice.

Ash looked down at her hand,
remembering a night too many years ago: how she'd tried to break
free, had fought and struggled with all her strength. There was no
similarity in the situation at all, but she realised the source of
her hesitation. Fear.

Hateful how nightmares of Eward Carlyon
still had the power to bind her. If she could set them aside, was
there any doubt that Thornaster suited her, that all she needed was
for him to wake up and ask his question? Though it seemed to her
that a proposal was unnecessary. He'd made his intentions
clear.

Sliding from the bed, she padded slowly
up to him. For all her confidence, her heart started pounding, and
her hand shook as she lifted it, but still she smoothed back his
hair, and waited for the moment of sleep-born surprise to pass, and
his eyes to focus on her. And then she said: "Yes."

Perhaps Thornaster's best feature –
besides the horses – was his ready comprehension, which meant that
he dispensed with unnecessary questions, any tiresome delays, and
simply swept her into his lap and kissed her.

Perhaps he'd been drinking mead, for
the taste of him was sweet fire, and Ash burned up, intent on
nothing else but making him hers. Any lingering qualms could be
brushed aside, and even the reason she was so successfully 'Ash
Lenthard' cast no shadows. While taking off her clothes certainly
didn't make her face or figure less boyish, the intensity of
Thornaster's reaction made clear that he found no deficit.

They didn't waste breath on words until
long after, when Thornaster sighed breathily, linked fingers with
hers, and murmured: "Home."

"What do you mean?"

"Something my father would say. He and
my mother were pushed toward each other by a great many people who
thought they were an appropriate match, so of course they resisted.
But my father realised that whenever he was with my mother, he felt
like he could most truly be himself." He lifted her hand, examining
the scrapes left by her attempts to escape the well. "I don't think
I'll ever again feel at home, unless you're there."

This effectively ended the conversation
as soon as they'd started it, but the ninth ardeca bell reminded
them of the world outside.

"Arun is expecting us at midday."

"They didn't catch Frog, did they?" He
would have told her if there'd been news.

"No. The Setsel's entire immediate
family was gone by the time the Guard arrived. The servants and
remaining relatives have admitted no knowledge. Someone is likely
sheltering them, but that investigation is only beginning."