The Gandalara Cycle I (34 page)

"Yes, I'm all right, Rikardon," she said. Her voice was still shaky. "But - oh, look at this! I'm getting oil all over your tunic." She looked down at the messy rag, and the bowl of oil resting on the ruined table. She laughed a little. "Isn't that silly? All I could think of was fixing the table before Thanasset came home.” She chuckled again, more loudly. "Isn't that silly?"

"Milda," I said, shaking her to forestall the hysterics that seemed imminent. "Where is Thanasset? What happened?"

She pulled herself together. "Thanasset left the house after lunch to spend some time at his office," she said. "He said not to expect him for dinner. I went out to do some shopping and visit Holla - she's an old friend - and when I came back, I found this awful mess.

"Rikardon, who would do a thing like this? That dinnerware has been in our family for six generations, and it's all . . . it's all. . She seemed to sense she was on the verge of hysteria again, and she shook herself. "Well, it's all broken, that's what. And it needs cleaning up. I'd better get started."

She put the rag down on the table and headed for the door into the midhall, but she paused there, reading my expression with characteristic accuracy.

"What are you thinking about, boy? Do you know who did this?"

Milda reminded me so much of Ricardo's grandmother, Maria Constanza. She was sweet and gentle and frail -and heaven help anyone who crossed her. It was built into me, from both Ricardo and Markasset that I couldn't lie to Milda.

"Worfit's men did it," I said. Then I told her everything that had happened that day, beginning at Worfit's office. By the time I had finished, we were sitting down at the table and she was rubbing oil into the scars while I talked.

"It seems Worfit has found a safe way to get back at me. Or so he thinks. But if he believes that just because nobody was hurt ...

I stood up.

"Sit down," Milda said.

I sat down.

She put the rag aside, cupped her elbows in her hands, and leaned on the table. "If you've got any thought about riding Keeshah right down Worfit's throat, you forget them. That's just what he wants you to do. Think about it. Worfit knows he'll never find an assassin willing to come after you. Everybody knows about Keeshah. So he provokes you into an attack, and surrounds himself with enough men to handle ten sha'um. To defend their own lives, they'd kill you and Keeshah both.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, while I thought about what she'd said. She was right. If I hadn't been suffering from my own sort of shock at seeing Thanasset's beautiful things destroyed, I'd have seen it myself.

If I don't do anything, this will happen again. And maybe somebody will get hurt next time. I’ll have to leave Keeshah here all the time, to protect the house. But how will I protect Milda and Thanasset when they're away from the house?

I was afraid to leave Raithskar for fear this would happen. But it looks like staying here will only provoke Worfit.

"I'm going to Thagorn," I told Milda.

She nodded. "That seems the right choice to me, Rikardon. Worfit won't trouble Thanasset and me if you're not right here to get angry about it. And it does seem unfair of your dad - I mean, Thanasset," she corrected quickly. I reached over and squeezed her shoulder, and she covered my hand with her own for a moment, "It does seem unfair to put so much pressure on you right away, after everything you’ve already done for us.

"Don't you worry about this Captain business, either," she said. "It will work out to whatever is right for you."

"Milda, you . . . I'll miss you a lot."

"And we'll miss you, Rikardon. Shall I tell Thanasset about Worfit?"

"I guess you'd better, but please ask him not to take any action on his own. I'll leave quietly, tomorrow morning. Worfit will know I've gone. He might even think he's scared me off, and that will be enough for him."

"You won't leave without saying goodbye to Thanasset, will you?" she asked. "He would be very sad."

"Of course not. I promised to talk over the Supervisor's job with him before the Council meeting tomorrow. I'll have to do that in the morning, so that he can take my answer to the Council for me.

"Tonight . . . there's someone else I have to say goodbye to."

I had taken a quick bath and dressed with care in a suit I had admired on my first day in Raithskar. It was a thigh- length yellow tunic and a green, sleeveless surcoat embroidered in a matching yellow. Such color coordination was the mark of evening dress, since ordinary clothing was a jumble of bright colors. With brass-studded sandals and a heavy chain belt, I accepted Markasset's judgment that I was very well dressed. It didn't hurt my ego any when I passed a lady and drew a second look.

Illia's house was located northwest of the Square, halfway across the city from Thanasset's home. It was a modest house, with a smaller yard and grounds than Thanasset's had. But it, too, opened directly from the street with two doors, one into the house and one into the garden. Its midhall - a long, central room which divided the house - had walls faced with smooth plaster, spotlessly white. In this house, the sitting room to the right of the entrance door was not closed off with a wall, but formed an extension of the midhall. When Illia's mother answered the door, she led me into that parlor and we sat there for a while, exchanging slightly awkward small talk.

Her father, a big man with a lopsided grin, came home while I waited there. He worked for the city as a gardener; he said a quick hello, and then excused himself to go and get cleaned up. Just after he left, Illia appeared on the stairs which faced the parlor.

Before I had touched Serkajon's sword, I had been plagued with a sort of double vision, especially regarding the Gandalaran people. To Ricardo, they had been ape-like creatures with prominent supraorbital ridges, slightly pug noses, and outsized canine teeth that resembled tusks. To Markasset, they had looked quite ordinary, like people I had grown up with and known all my life.

Regarding Illia specifically, Markasset remembered her as inordinately pretty, but he had found more value in her unquestioning trust in him than in her looks. In Thanasset's garden on the day I first came to Raithskar, Ricardo had recognized Illia's beauty while accepting its alienness.

It was
Rikardon
who looked at her now. The alienness was gone. She was so beautiful that I stood up and stared, speechless, as she came down the stairs.

Her head fur was a dark gold. It shone in the lamplight, looking so soft that I wanted to touch it. Her face was small and delicate, her mouth a gentle curve.

She was wearing a long, sleeveless shift of lightweight linen in a soft shade of green. Glass beads in a darker green decorated the low neckline and the belt which pulled the soft folds of the gown snug to her waist. The skirt was slit up the left side, almost to her hip, to allow walking freedom. There was a single fine chain of gold around her neck.

Somehow, I said goodbye to her mother, for I suddenly found myself outside, walking beside Illia in the direction of the restaurant district. There was a tense silence that I didn't like, and didn't quite know how to break.

"I thought we'd eat at the Moonrise," I suggested finally. It was a restaurant that Markasset's memory recommended. "That sounds wonderful” she agreed. She hesitated a moment, then added, "They have a way of cooking glith steaks that is delicious."

“I remember,” I said softly. She caught her breath sharply. I took her hand and made her stop walking, then drew her around to face me. "Illia, are you nervous about being out with me tonight?"

“I - yes, of course I am," she admitted. I thought she sounded relieved that she didn't have to pretend. "It's - well, it's very strange, knowing you and not knowing you."

"Please don't be afraid of me."

"I'm not. It's just . . ." She took a deep breath. -Do you remember . . . everything about Markasset?"

I thought about lying to her, but I decided she deserved at least honesty from me.

"I remember every moment you and Markasset spent together."

"Oh, dear."

She turned away abruptly, and we walked along again. But she didn't take her hand away, and this time the silence was more comfortable.

In a few minutes, she began to talk of ordinary things: the fruit she and her mother had been preparing for the drying oven that morning; her sewing projects; her work as a teacher in a school for young children. I realized that she wanted to deal with only the present, and not to contend with our "mutual" past or the uncertain future. That suited me perfectly, and I set myself to keep that tone in my end of the conversation.

It was one of the most enjoyable evenings I have ever spent. We had a wonderful dinner at the Moonrise, and then went on to a dance hall, where we sat at a numbered table, sipping faen, until our table's number was called. Then we joined the other couples on the patterned dance floor and performed the stylized, intricate dances of Gandalara. There were about a hundred tables, and only twenty couples danced each dance, so we were able to rest well between sessions. Markasset had been a good and an energetic dancer, and I loved dancing with Illia.

There was one awkward moment when, after recognizing us, the band - a harp, two flutes, a clarinet-looking instrument, and bongos I might have bought in Santa Barbara - changed their schedule to play our "favorite" melody when we reached the dance floor. We studied the painted wooden tiles with great concentration while we danced, and burst out laughing as soon as we were seated again.

Just before dawn, we finally left the dance hall. As we walked back toward Illia's house, I tried to think of a way to tell her I was leaving.

"Zaddorn stopped by my house this evening," she said suddenly. "He told me that you've been asked to join the Council. He also said he wants you to work for him. Which will you do?"

"Neither one, I'm afraid. There are . . . circumstances Zaddorn doesn't know about. I'll be leaving Raithskar for a while."

Her hand gripped mine more tightly. "How soon?"

"Tomorrow."

"Did you know this when you came by this morning?"

"If I had known it then, I would have told you,” I said.

"Yes. I believe that."

We walked together quietly, then, until we reached her home. She didn't take me to the house door, but led me through the gate into the back yard. I followed along with her, busy with my own thoughts, until I realized where we were going. Behind her father's bath-house and storage shed, there was a grassy area that was hidden from all the houses nearby, but was open to the sky. It was a very private place - and very special to Markasset.

I stopped; she stopped and turned to me. Her face and hair were pale, and her eyes reflected the glow of the moon soaked clouds above us.

"You don't owe me this kind of goodbye, I said.

"Isn't it more of a greeting . . . Rikardon?"

Markasset's memory of his last night in Raithskar brought me tender images of Illia's body, its sweet eagerness, its beauty in the moon glow. If I had been Ricardo, in a human world, it would have been easy and natural to accept her invitation. Or if I had been entirely Gandalaran, a new boyfriend, I'd have had no compunction about being in a place she had once shared with Markasset.

But I was an alien personality, in a body which she had known intimately. I fought for a grasp of the ethics of the situation, even while my body and my emotions were responding to Illia's willingness.

I hesitated so long that she became embarrassed. "I thought. Don’t I I. . . I mean, don't you want to. .

"Yes!"
I said quickly. "Oh, yes, I want to."

She came to me then, and put her arms around me. I could feel her fingers pressing into my back. The sight of her face, looking up at me with serious eyes, was too appealing to resist. I kissed her, tantalizing my tongue on the rounded tips of her large canine teeth. All thought was swept away in a surge of affection and gratitude, and arousal more intense than I had experienced in a long time.

She broke away from the embrace with a soft sound of contentment, and we walked to the grassy area Markasset remembered. The distant thunder of the Skarkel Falls settled over us as we lay down together.

When I kissed her goodbye at the back door of her house, she whispered: "I won't decide about - anything. Not until you come back, Rikardon."

Suddenly I was swept up in an "echo" from Ricardo's life.
I saw Julie, young and loving, saying: "I'll wait for you, Rick. No matter how long the war lasts, I'll wait for you.”

Julie hadn't been able to wait, and had paid a high price in guilt.

"Don't make me any promises, Illia," I whispered to the Gandalaran woman in my arms. "Do what seems best for you."

She kissed me again, briefly, and then pushed herself away from me. "You're a very gentle man, Rikardon. I do care for you. Keep safe.

She went into the house, and I walked home under the colorful dawn sky. The first rays of sunlight, diffused by the cloud layer, marched by overhead in a parade of changing, blending color, deep red to pale yellow and all shades between.

I stepped quietly into Thanasset's house through the front door. I turned left to climb the stairs, but a sound from the sitting room made me look that way. Through the door opposite the stairs, I could see Thanasset. He was standing by one of the tall and narrow wood-latticed windows that lined the outside wall of the room. He had one foot propped on the low stone ledge that ran along under the windows.

There was something about the way he held himself, with his arms propped on his raised knee and his shoulders hunched up, that made me cross the midhall and pause at the sitting room door.

"Father?" I said. He turned away from the windows, surprise and relief plain on his face. "Are you well?"

"Come in and sit with me for a moment, Rikardon," he said, coming away from the window. "I need to talk with you before you leave."

"Then Milda told you about Worfit?" I asked as I sat in one of the wood-and-fabric armchairs scattered around the center of the room.