The Care and Feeding of Griffins (45 page)

But Antilles seemed pleased to hear it.  His ears came forward
and the solid set of his shoulders seemed to relax somewhat.  “Aye, forgiven,” he said.  “Therefore, let thee and me wander a while and so ease your stranger’s fears.  When you know better how the land does fall, mayhap you will be more content in your corner of it.”  Again, the slight stress on ‘your’.  He was teasing her.  Of course, he was also scolding her, but the teasing made it at least a little bearable.

They came to the bridge, and he turned aside to cross it without pausing.  Taryn stood on the shore, hesitant, and he stopped and looked back at her. 

“I don’t really spend a lot of time in the woods,” she said. 

“
Aye, I know.”

“
Well…wouldn’t you rather show me the plains?”

He raised one arm and gestured expansively. 
“Behold, the plains,” he intoned.  And dropped his hand.  “Come, Taryn.”

There was a smile tugging at her lips, but she still didn
’t move.  “Wouldn’t it make more sense to show me around in some place where I might actually spend a little time?”

“
Aye.”  He came back for her, cupping her back in one huge hand and propelling her gently alongside him down the bridge until she picked up her feet and started walking.

“
But I don’t really spend a lot of time in the woods,” she said again.

“
Ah, but once I show them to you, surely you will return.  Tis all part of my insidious plan to bring you in closer to my watchful eye.”

“
Why?” she asked, trying to ignore the sudden leap of her heart.

“
Mayhap I like to look at you,” he said quietly, but he didn’t prove it, not even with a teasing glance.  “In any event,” he continued, tossing his horns, “the foothills of Isauren have far more to offer a newcomer then the plains, and what better place to acquaint yourself to the wilds of stalk and stem than a forest?  I am not as expert as lo I could be, owing to my misspent youth, but I daresay I shall prove at least partway a help to you.”

“
Misspent youth?”

“
Oh aye,” he said, and rolled his steely eyes.  “My father was well-insistent upon my adhering to the more lordly pursuits, and I, eager pup that I was, obeyed him in all things.  Therefore, an education of histories, disciplines, diplomacies, and other statescraft.  Ha.  See how well I am served by it now.”

He sent a brooding stare out over the river towards the lake, glanced at her, then shook himself out of whatever dark thoughts he was having and said,
“When I found myself alone, there were many things that of a sudden I realized were not addressed in my education, woods-wisdom among them.  I was book-learned, some, and close-taught by others.  I think you are quite safe with my schooling.”

Taryn, groping for something light-hearted to say, ventured,
“Did you learn smithing from a book?”

“
Nay, that my father deemed lordly.”  He gave her an assessing look, though, one that seemed guardedly pleased.  “How is it you knew?  The door of my forge is not even in sight of the path to my home.”

“
You had way too many metal things decorated to the nines for you not to be doing it yourself.”  She bit at her lip, then took the plunge and added, “Plus, you look like you’ve spent a little time swinging a hammer.”

“
Oh aye?”  He raised both arms and flexed them impressively, forcing Taryn to become hugely engrossed in the study of Aisling’s talons.  It didn’t help that the griffin did her goggling for her, even uttering a awe-struck, “Too-ra
loo
!”, which mimicked Taryn’s voice a little too well.  “A little time, aye,” Antilles concluded mildly, rubbing Aisling’s beak-feathers.  “Not so much as I would wish.  Tis a taxing work, of singular strain to the body, but it does dominate the mind so that no other thought may enter.  A hard-bought peace.”

“
Is there any other kind?” Taryn asked without thinking.

He gave her a long, considering stare. 
“Nay, come to that.  There is not.  Here, human.” 

He stepped down off the bridge and came around to the bank of the river underneath, where the dark and the relative
calm had encouraged a thick growth of tall reeds.  “This is soaproot,” he said, drawing his axe from his back-strap.  He knelt and hacked at the base of the plants, expertly pulling up a few long, tapered roots in only a few moments despite the gross ungainliness of his chosen tool.  He sheathed the weapon and came out into the light where Taryn waited, showing her the plant and then snapping it in half to display its thick, whitish sap.  “Tis best fresh, though winter is not the best season for it, but it can be kept a few days if pulped and wetted regularly.  Note the odor.”

It would have been impossible not to note the horrible, acrid stench rising out of the milky sap, but Taryn nodded.

“Good.”  He handed it and another unbroken root to her and tossed his horns at her expression of eye-watering repugnance.  “Keep hold of them,” he said, and moved on.

He found them a path leading into the forest, neither toward his home nor to the ruined city, but just up and around toward the mountain in a leisurely looping way.  It was a comfortable walk, but not a very informative one.  He set a slow, strolling pace which enabled Taryn to set Aisling down and let him run around a little, but he made no effort to educate her on the trees they passed.  When she remarked on this, he reminded her that she didn
’t spend a lot of time in the woods and so hardly needed to know.

“
What happened to your insidious plan to lure me in?” she asked.

“
You’re here, are you not?  Ah, there we are!”  He crooked a finger for her to follow and went on ahead out of the thinning forest and onto the stony mountain soil.  A number of low, thorny bushes were scattered up the slopes, growing in spidery sprays from only the barest covering of earth over rock.  Antilles plucked one up, shook its wispy roots free of dirt, and handed it to her.  “Scrulan,” he said.  “Keep hold of it.”

“
Sure, why not?” Taryn muttered, trying to find a way to hold them both without getting any of the awful soaproot sap on her skin or crushing the scrulan’s delicate leaves.  Antilles was already strolling away up the mountainside.  He wasn’t looking at her, but she was quite sure he knew what she was doing and he was smiling on the inside.

It was a long hike.  Up and up and more up, with plenty of loose rock underfoot to keep things interesting and rough-hewn stairs that had been sized for a Cerosan
’s legs and not hers.  Aisling wanted to be carried, which meant that Taryn had to hug her plants to her chest, the smell of soaproot burning her nostrils, while she struggled along in the minotaur’s wake.  It didn’t help that Aisling kept sneezing and giving the soaproot pointedly dirty looks every few seconds.

But at last, and just when Taryn
’s legs were ready to turn into oatmeal and drop away entirely, Antilles came to a high ledge and stopped.  He took Aisling out of her arms and stepped back, addressing himself politely to the griffin’s need for petting and ignoring Taryn’s rattling, exhausted gasps for air.  She staggered away from the stony path and collapsed on a boulder, letting her plants tumble to the ground between her feet as she fought to keep breathing.  In a moment, Aisling came to pounce on her sneaker, which meant that Antilles must have put him down, and sure enough, when she raised her head, the Cerosan was scraping together some dried bushes and deadfall.

“
What,” she panted, “are we…doing…here?”

“
Bathing.”

That took a number of head-shakes and stares to sink all the way in, during which time Antilles very
calmly rubbed a fire into life.  Taryn stared at the tiny ribbon of water that was trickling out of the mountain near the path, then at Antilles’s broad back (now he was tying some branches into a tripod and emptying his satchel of the few tins, traveling gear, and papers it carried), and even at Aisling, who didn’t care.  “We could have…bathed…at the river!” she protested.

“
Aye.”  He gathered up a half-dozen fist-sized rocks and put them into his cheerful little fire.

“
Why…here, you…sadistic…jerk?”

“
Jerk,” Aisling agreed, and bounded over to pounce on Antilles’s hoof.

“
For the view,” Antilles replied, and went to fill his satchel from the thread of mountain run-off.

Taryn looked around.  Blue skies, streaked with silver and white, and a sun just beginning its westward settle, arced over a patchworked valley of green and gold.  The river and a thousand other threads of glittering water tied through this exquisite tapestry, until it blossomed into the vast lake, fathomless no longer, but clearly bordered.  She couldn
’t see her tent, or any other inconsequential detail of mundanity, only the grandiose design that the gods themselves had wrought.  She saw the Valley of Hoof and Horn, and it was all unfurled and all at peace.

Antilles was standing behind her with his arms folded and his head slightly angled.  He had hung his satchel of water next to the fire and added one of the rocks to it.  Now he was just watching her.

“It’s a nice view,” she said.

He inclined his head and drummed his fingers on one bicep, waiting.

“I’m sorry I called you a sadistic jerk?” she guessed.

“
Ha.”  He tossed his horns triumphantly and came to get the plants he’d made her carry.  “This is best when done in a woven bundle,” he began, dropping to one knee.  “For certain, you can have one out of the Farasai on your next visit, but we shall make do without this once.  First, you pulp the soaproot—”  He pulled his axe and used the blunt side to beat the root against a rock, splitting it into a gooey mass of stringy fibers.  The stench this act released was saturant and nauseating beyond belief.  “—and then the scrulan.”  He tore the thin leaves with his fingers, then scooped up a glump of soaproot and rubbed them both briskly together.  The whitish mass of soaproot was slowly stained a pale green, and as this happened, the mephitic odor of the stuff was replaced with a much less-offensive astringency.  “And so!”  He caught her unexpectedly by the wrist and slapped the mixture into her palm.

“
Oh yuck,” Taryn said, enunciating very distinctly.

He laughed at her, got up and went to change out the rocks in his satchel.

Taryn sat there, watching goo slide between her fingers.  “How long am I supposed to sit here holding this stuff?” she called.

“
As long as it please you,” he replied, dipping his hands into the warming water and bringing it out in a splash over his chest.  His fingers, already saturated with soaproot and scrulan, went to work at once, lathering his fur. 

Aisling took one look at this demonstration of good hygiene and sprinted for the safety of the nearest bushes.  Taryn shot him an envious stare and kicked out of her shoes.  She hesitated, then stood up and stripped off her shirt (a process made considerably more difficult by having one hand full of slime).  Antilles continued to ignore her in favor of scrubbing his own self.  Blushing down to her individual DNA strands, Taryn unzipped and peeled out of her jeans and then her panties.  Antilles never even looked around.

And why should he, for Pete’s sake?  He’d been naked since the day she’d met him, did she really think he’d care? 

Gosh, it was cold out here.  Hunching to try and hide the pebbly point of her nipples, Taryn sidled over to the fireside and got a little warm water on herself.  She was no stranger to bathing out of a bucket these days, but there was always a moment here at the start when Taryn had the same wistful thought of a forty-five minute shower or a luxuriant three-hour bath.  It was amazing how little water a person actually needed to get clean.  This little bit the satchel held, probably less than two gallons altogether, was more than enough to bathe both her and the hulking, fur-covered Cerosan.

Who was looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

Taryn ducked her head, hiding her immediate blush behind a fall of hair, her heart suddenly pounding behind her eyes.  Her hands kept moving, pauseless, efficiently rubbing lather down to her ankle and up again, making certain that no part of her thigh or hip was neglected.  Her skin felt very smooth to her, warm and slippery with soap.  Was he still watching?  She didn
’t want to look and run the risk of meeting his gaze. 

If she did look, and if he was watching, so what?  She was undoubtedly the first naked human he
’d ever seen.  That had to result in a certain amount of natural interest now that he had one in front of him, but it didn’t mean anything. 

After all, this was Arcadia.  The rules were different.  She couldn
’t help but think of the Farasai; a whole lot of naked and not a lot of subtle were the hallmarks of this part of the world.  And if Antilles actually wanted…something, he’d probably just say so.

She wanted something.  Why didn
’t she just say so?

Taryn
’s mouth went dry.  She splashed water messily over herself and washed the soap away.  “Done,” she said, and turned around.