Mystic Warrior (10 page)

She applied her not-inconsiderable strength into digging in her heels and yanking her arm from his grasp. She nearly toppled when he released her. Murdoch refrained from catching her when she stumbled. The more he ached to hold her in his arms, the more he knew he must let her go, for her own good.

She righted herself and, hands on hips, glared at him. “You should know about Healing—your back is covered by scars! Are they wounds that do not Heal?”

He hadn't wanted her to see his scars, not the physical
or
the emotional ones. That she
had
seen them humiliated him even more. “I still have some ability to Heal,” he growled at her. “One does not go to war without injury.”

“You would have served this world better as a Healer than as a mercenary.”

He crossed his arms and regarded her with the same arrogance she employed. “I made an honest living.”

“Killing?” she retorted, not acknowledging his loftiness. “I have spent these last years attempting to understand how you could have done what you did to my father.”

Refusing to let her force a fight, Murdoch turned and stalked through the field, avoiding the new seedlings.

She followed on his heels. “We have nothing in our texts about aberrations like yours.”

Murdoch snorted. Aberrations! Accidentally killing a beloved leader and setting a village on fire were
aberrations
.

“I need you to talk to me!”

He could practically feel her breathing down his back. He was glad he'd remembered his shirt so he did not remind her again of whatever had set off this charming chat.

“I've studied other kinds of mental abnormalities,” she continued, despite his silence, “and observed the phenomenon among some of our people. Did you know your father was an Agrarian with Navigation abilities? That's an aberration.”

“He should have stayed an Agrarian. Then he wouldn't have fallen overboard and drowned before I was born.” He caught her elbow and dragged her to the road.

“But, see, that's what I mean.” She shook him off again, matching his increasing pace. “Agrarians aren't
meant
for life on the sea. He got seasick and fell overboard. But he could Navigate! He shouldn't have been able to.”

“No more than I should be able to do what I do.” Murdoch dismissed her absurdity with a gesture. “I'm not an Olympus. Only your family should be able to See. The gods laugh at us.”

“No, we laugh at the gods,” she argued. “We ignore what we don't understand. Your gifts are too great to be dismissed, but there may be others like your father, people who are expected to continue as their families have for centuries but who could be so much more!”

“Who could be dead like my father,” he said indifferently. “None of this matters to me. My place is here, and I'm trying to make the best of it. Your place is on Aelynn. You need to go home and do what you can there.”

“I can do nothing!” She threw up her fists in a gesture of despair and frustration that he had never seen in the ice queen before—then she proceeded to walk away from him.

She could do
nothing
? An all-powerful Olympus could do nothing? Murdoch frowned and caught up with her. “You can do everything your mother could do. Quit feeling sorry for yourself, grow up, and go home.”

She spun on her heel so fast, her palm cracked against his jaw before he could halt her. Murdoch staggered more from surprise than pain. He rubbed his face with his fingers to take away the sting and shook his head. “What the hell was that for?”

“Because I can't blow up rocks or set fires to express how I feel,” she said with the stone-cold voice of her mother. “Because violence seems to be the only way to hold your attention.”

Lis stalked off, practically racing into the village. He caught the back of her bodice and tugged her to a halt so they could proceed at a normal pace, without attracting unnecessary notice. His action pulled her gown tight against her unbound breasts, and cursing, he hastily released her. Lissandra had definitely grown up—and filled out—in the years he'd been gone. His lust for her escalated so swiftly, it drained his head and made him dizzy.

The damned woman made him dizzy just by existing.

“You make no sense,” he complained. “Blowing up rocks serves no purpose.”

“Isn't that what you do when you lose your temper? Blow up things? Set them on fire? That must be extremely gratifying, far more so than arguing with a senseless donkey who kicks and brays and resists doing as it's told.”

“You no longer have any right to tell me what to do,” he pointed out, logically enough. “I was banished from Aelynn, and thus am free from your authority. And that's making you crazy, isn't it?”

As they reached the far side of the village, she picked up her speed again. “You were never under my authority. No one is. Yet an entire island needs me to bring home an Oracle to save them from destruction. You see my problem?”

“Your problem is that you think what I do actually matters, and it doesn't. I can't go home. Besides, it wouldn't solve anything. It won't bring your father back.”

They were nearing the cottage. The young man and his friends would arrive soon. This painful argument wasn't going anywhere. Murdoch increased his pace.

Lis didn't. “Ian says if you find the Chalice of Plenty, you can do anything you like,” she called after him with a decided tone of resentment.

He'd tried that. Even the chalice had hidden from him. If that didn't prove the gods had forsaken him, he didn't know what did.

Even Healing in this world was a painful chore. Clenching her teeth against the sensation of the boy's knifing pain, fighting the waves of anguish emanating from his friends, Lissandra rubbed an unguent over her patient's wound. Leaning his broad shoulders against the doorframe, Murdoch crossed his arms and watched the proceedings like a jealous lover. Not that he gave off jealousy so much as impatience and frustration. If that much leaked past his mental shields, she was glad she could not feel the full fireworks going off inside him.

“The wound needs time to mend,” she reminded the youth while his companions hovered anxiously. With the bandage applied and her work done, she mentally shut out the farmers, as well as Murdoch, and sighed with relief at the return of serenity. “Keep the wound covered. Don't get the bandages wet. If you see the flesh turn red around the wound, come to me at once.”

“Yes, madame,” the boy replied, bowing his head gratefully. “I thank you. I will chop some wood for you when my hand is better.”

She hoped she wouldn't be here long enough to need any more wood than the pile Murdoch had already built, but she nodded at the boy. “I would appreciate that, thank you.” She looked at the two men who had brought him here. “You cannot hide forever. You know that, don't you?”

Thin and careworn, their faces revealed no expression. “We can do more by hiding than by going to war,” one replied. “Our families need us more than the army does.”

She couldn't disagree. France's war was one of aggression, not defense, fought for glory and greed, as far as she had been able to discern from Ian's explanations. The idealism of the early revolutionary years was lost in cynicism and violent dissension among factions. Murdoch was well out of it—if that was what his retirement here meant.

She stood, and the men passed by her, tugging their forelocks in farewell. Murdoch stepped out of their way. They didn't address him, but they offered nods of what appeared to be respect to the man honed like a blade of steel, standing aloof and alone.

Lissandra repacked her bag once their guests had departed, and when Murdoch continued his stoic silence, she approached their earlier argument from a different angle. “You've been raised as a leader of men. I cannot understand why you reject the opportunity the gods offer.”

“I've always been a peasant,” he said in evident displeasure at the topic. “My father was an Agrarian and my mother is a hearth witch. They're called farmers and maids here. You're the closest thing Aelynn has to a princess. Should you be Healing peasants?”

“Aelynn doesn't have nobility or peasants,” she protested, then frowned at the sound of her mother speaking through her. “The gods give us only the burdens that we can bear. It would be far easier if I were just a Healer, but they chose some of us for heavier loads. We all work equally, each according to our ability.”

“Some people are more
able
than others, then,” he said sarcastically. “Did my mother have any choice when your mother took me away?”

Lissandra stared at him in puzzlement. “I was barely old enough to speak at the time, but I do not remember any argument over your joining us. Your mother should have been pleased that you were given the best education possible. Would she rather you plowed her fields?”

“She doesn't have fields. Hearth witches may eat at your table and walk through your homes, but they cannot earn land with their labors. Which means she had no vote and no say in what your parents chose to do. You need to look beyond your own privileged life, princess.” He walked out.

Drat the man!
If she had to follow him to the ends of the earth, they would have this discussion. He had avoided the subject of leadership with his ridiculous arguments about equality. He'd been immersed in revolutionary ideas for too long. She caught up with him as he turned toward town. “I am not a princess.”

“Be glad of that. The average citizen here despises the aristocracy. In Paris, the nobles are paying for their arrogance by losing their heads.” Murdoch had forgotten how blind Lis's naïveté could be. She needed to see the world from a fresh perspective.

Lis nodded as if he had imparted nothing new. “Trystan and Mariel explained that to me. I don't think anyone would mistake me for a noble.”

“They'd be fools if they didn't,” he muttered. “You haven't a subservient bone in your body.”

“Nor do you,” she said with a hint of amusement. “I traveled from the coast with everyone thinking me a poor widow. You are not the only one with unexpected talents.”

Talents.
An odd description for the things he did. Calling up a wind and flinging men into trees was a
talent
. Setting fires with his mind was a
talent
. Talking to horses in his head—

As if conjured by his thoughts, a pony with a small boy on its back raced to meet them. Murdoch caught Lis's arm and pulled her to the side of the road. She shook him off, as usual, and approached the widow Girard's son, who spoke to her quietly, throwing nervous glances in Murdoch's direction.

“That is thoughtful of your mother,” Lis said, accepting the basket the boy removed from his saddle. “I have made the tisane I promised her. If you'll wait a moment . . .”

The lad stared at Murdoch while Lis returned to the cottage to gather some packages. With nothing better to do, Murdoch stared back.

“My mother says you're a saint,” the boy said.

“Boys should not argue with their mothers,” he replied. Lis was right, damn her. He didn't know how to converse.

“Do not let anyone follow you here, Jean,” Lis warned, returning to hand the refilled basket to the boy. “We cannot have too many people visit.”

“My pony is fast,” the lad said with confidence. “No one can follow me. Père Antoine says that when Abel has time, he can teach me to grow giant beans for my mama's cassoulet.”

“Save your pony's manure,” Murdoch told him. “Let it rot behind the shed. Add old bean vines and scraps from your table until it all composts into a dark soil for your garden. Then plant the beans beside your garden wall so they will stay warmer in spring.”

The boy beamed. “Thank you, monsieur.
Citoyen
,” he corrected in confusion, before tugging the pony's reins and galloping off toward town.

“Changing the world takes time,” Lis remarked. “The people of France do not even know what to call one another.”

Murdoch shook his head. “Making up new names changes nothing. The people would be fine if their leaders listened to them instead of serving their own selfish greed and ambitions. But people who fight for power are the least likely to be reasonable about sharing it.”

Lis studied him as if he'd just sprouted wings. Only then did he remember she was an Olympus with the power he'd just disparaged. So much for communicating.

“An interesting theory,” she said noncommittally. “If you are returning to the field, I will remain here to plant a few seeds for our own use, in case we must stay for any length of time.”

“There is a manure pile behind the stable,” he called mockingly as she departed.

The moment she shut the door between them, Murdoch's whole world emptied, and he slipped into a pit of despair. He'd thought if he isolated himself in rural tranquility, he could smother his unpredictable reactions and live normally—until Lis walked back into his life, reminding him of all he could not have.

No matter how wrongheaded she might be, Lis was the one shining, pure vision in his life. And he must not sully her—which he would certainly do if he couldn't chase her away.

Curse it all, it would be easier to move an island than Lis once she made up her mind.

 

Kneeling beside the newly turned earth, patting her precious rosemary seeds into the soil, pondering whether she could summon heat and moisture as Murdoch did, Lissandra glanced up at a sudden gust of wind.

In minutes, dark clouds scudded across the sun, and thunderheads loomed over the trees.