The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of The Gods Within (19 page)

He smiled and said, “You are a little minx.”

She smiled back at him. “I take pleasure from
your pleasure, my lord.”

He grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her down on top
of him, and she snuggled her cheek against his beard, pretending the coarse
hairs didn’t irritate her delicate skin.

Her husband had contrived an excuse to be away from Penda
on business
. The two of them never openly acknowledged
the fact, but they both knew his real purpose was to get out of the way so she
might spend more time with BlakeDown.
More time beneath
BlakeDown,
she thought,
while he grunts and sweats
on top of me.

BlakeDown dozed for a time, and she lay there patiently
while he snored and breathed heavily. She thought of the young stable boy with
the broad shoulders. It had been easy to seduce the young fellow, and she
longed to feel again the straw beneath her back as he lay on top of her,
sweetly making love to her. With his experience limited to climbing on top of
peasant girls, he knew nothing of pleasuring a woman, and had turned out to be
a most eager and apt pupil. The stable master had learned of their liaison,
which might have been a problem, but she pleasured the stable master as well,
so he dare not be indiscreet. BlakeDown would execute them both.

“This Vodah,” BlakeDown grunted,
surprising her. She’d not realized he’d awakened. “This
kinsman of yours that arrived two days ago.”

Chrisainne lifted herself off the man, threw a leg over
him and straddled him. She wanted him to see her breasts clearly, and she was
careful to straddle his limp manhood, both distractions she knew how to use
well. She said, “A distant kinsman, my lord.”

“And what does this distant kinsman want?”

She felt his manhood coming to life, knew there was no
need to encourage him in his distraction. “To meet with you, my
lord. Beyond that, I know nothing.”

“But you know of the man.”

A messenger from King Valso, he was here to propose a
face-to-face meeting between the two clan leaders. She would be foolish to
display too much knowledge of such matters. Valso wanted her to ensure that the
messenger got a private audience with BlakeDown. Beyond that, it was up to the
messenger to make the meeting happen. She said, “I believe he has
the king’s favor, and is a trusted confidant.”

“He has the king’s ear?”

“I know little of these matters, my lord.”
She turned on her blush. “I am merely a woman, after all. But I do
recall my father speaking of him, said he spent quite a bit of time in the king’s
presence.”

BlakeDown considered that carefully, then nodded and said,
“Then I’ll have him summoned before me.”

Valso wanted it to be a
private
meeting. “Would that be wise, my lord? A public summons.”

BlakeDown’s eyes narrowed in thought for
several heartbeats. “You’re a smart, little one. Yes,
a public meeting between The Penda and a messenger of The Decouix, word of that
would spread quickly. We’ll make it a private meeting, just this
messenger and me. And you’ll arrange it.”

“Yes, my lord.”

His manhood had grown fully erect. He lifted her hips and
shoved it into her, jammed it into her painfully. Oh well, she’d
try to pretend he was the stable boy.

~~~

After the battle in the circle with Jerst, Morgin
staggered down to the lake and washed off the sweat and blood and dirt,
stripped down completely and washed his clothing as well. Truly exhausted, he
staggered back to his tent, lay down on his blanket and slept for a couple of
hours.

He awoke to the smells of fire roasted meat, found Yim and
Branaugh waiting outside his tent in the fading light of dusk with a hearty
meal and bandages for his wounds. Yim fed him while Branaugh salved the cuts
and slashes on his arms and legs; he winced and grunted as she stitched up a
particularly nasty one in his side. But both young women remained completely
silent, Yim without her usual girlish chatter, and Branaugh without her usual
probing and challenging questions. They kept their heads bowed, wouldn’t
meet his eyes, refused to respond to his comments, and answered a direct
question with little more than a grunt. So he ate mostly in silence, trying to
think through his new situation, occasionally thinking out loud and talking to
himself. When he finished the meal and Branaugh finished her ministrations, she
and Yim scurried away almost fearfully. He went back to his blanket.

He awoke well after sunrise and crawled out of his tent. Carefully
placed just outside the tent flap he found a bow stave wrapped in oiled cloth. Since
joining the whitefaces he’d felt naked without a good Benesh’ere
longbow at hand, really a remnant of Morddon’s memories more than
his own. And he vaguely remembered mumbling during the meal the previous
evening that he’d have to get a good bow stave and make one. Branaugh
must have paid more attention to the off-hand comment than he had.

He examined the stave carefully. It was the highest
quality of yew, fine-grained, and properly dried. He’d heard that
the townsfolk of Norlakton cut such staves to Benesh’ere
specifications, then dried them carefully and traded with the whitefaces for
good steel. He ate a light breakfast of jerky and journeycake and water, then
sat down in front of his tent to work on the bow.

Making a bow took great care and careful concentration. He
began shaping it with his knife, cautiously removing only a tiny sliver with each
stroke. Any mistake that removed too much wood would render the stave useless,
or result in a bow of inferior quality. So he always removed less than he
thought necessary and cautiously edged his way slowly toward the finished
product. He’d long ago learned to be patient with such work. Centuries
of making such bows had taught him patience. Centuries of—

That thought wasn’t his, so he cut it off
abruptly and shouted, “No.”

Every whiteface within earshot paused and looked his way. Yim,
waiting patiently nearby, jumped to her feet, crossed the distance between them
at a running shuffle, stopped in front of him, bowed and said breathlessly, “Does
the SteelMaster wish for something?”

He almost snarled sarcastically,
No,
the SteelMaster does not wish for something.
But he shouldn’t
take his frustration out on the poor girl, so he merely said, “Yes.
I want you to call me Morgin, and please stop referring to me in the third
person like I’m not here.” It had come out more
harshly than he’d intended.

She blushed and lowered her eyes. “Master
Chagarin might think that a sign of disrespect. He might not like—”

“Tell Master Chagarin I ordered you to. The
SteelMaster ordered you to call him Morgin. And tell all the other girls they’re
to do the same. Tell everyone they’re to do the same.”
Again, his frustration had made it come out harsh.

She bowed. “Yes, SteelMaster—uh,
Morgin.” She scurried away fearfully

Oddly enough, while the camp had come fully awake, no
whiteface came near him. There were more than seven thousand of them going
about their daily business, and yet they gave him and his tent a very wide
berth. Near midmorning Yim and Branaugh approached him, stopped a few paces
away and bowed their heads. Branaugh said, “If the SteelMaster
will permit, we’ll—”

Morgin interrupted her. “Did Yim tell you
what I said, that I wish to be simply called Morgin.”

Yim blurted out, “I did tell them, but they
don’t believe me.”

“Believe her,” Morgin said to
Branaugh, and he thought he caught a hint of a smile on her lips. But it
disappeared quickly.

“Very well,” she said. “If
Morgin will permit—”

“And please stop addressing me in the third
person.”

“Very well . . . Morgin. We’ve
come to pack up your belongings.”

“Why?”

“We have a tent more appropriate to your
station.”

“But I like this tent just fine.”

“But it’s not—”

“No,” Morgin snapped.

She described his new tent, a pavilion even grander than
that she and Harriok shared. He liked his little tent, and a streak of
frustrated stubbornness crawled up from his gut, so he shook his head and said,
“I’m not moving. I’m staying right here.”

Branaugh turned to Yim, though when she spoke to the young
girl her words were clearly meant for Morgin. “Did I not tell you
all he would be stubborn about this.”

Morgin spent the morning sitting in front of his tent,
working on the bow, and slowly, little by little, the whitefaces stopped taking
a wide detour about him. It started with one of the young girls rushing past
him on some errand. She stopped abruptly, looked at him fearfully, realizing she’d
unintentionally breached whatever sacred space they’d all decided
to adopt about the SteelMaster. Morgin laughed, shook his head and said, “I
won’t bite.”

She giggled and hurried on.

By noon the movement of whitefaces around his tent was
that of a normal, large Benesh’ere camp, though he did notice the
Benesh’ere women now gave him odd looks in passing, the same coy
looks barmaids used when they wanted to make a little coin on their backs. A
young girl passing by gave him that look now, then turned and walked away, a
little extra sway to her hips. He watched her recede into the middle of the
camp, couldn’t help but find her attractive.

“She’s a looker, ain’t
she?”

Morgin turned his head and looked up to find Delaga,
Fantose, Baldrak and Jack the Lesser standing over him. They’d
approached from behind his tent and he hadn’t seen them coming. Fantose
nudged Delaga in the ribs and said, “She’s wondering
what kind of steel the SteelMaster has between his legs.”

Delaga answered him with, “Blasted
SteelMaster! Every woman in camp’s wondering the same thing.”

Baldrak shook his head sadly and sat down as Fantose said,
“Me own wife’s wondering at it.” Fantose
plopped down beside Baldrak and continued. “Sad day when a man can’t
count on his wife pleasuring him because she’s all atwitter about
some SteelMaster.”

For the first time since the fight with Jerst Morgin
relaxed. “You’re not going to treat me like some god?”
he asked.

Baldrak considered that for a moment. “We
never had a SteelMaster before. We don’t know how to treat you.”

“Well, how about like you always did?”

Fantose’s eyes narrowed in careful thought. “So
I should come over and spit on you and kick you a few times like I did when you
first come to us?”

They all got a good laugh out of that. When the laughter
died, Jack asked, “What will you do now?”

Morgin didn’t understand. “What
do you mean by that?”

“You’re now free to do as you
wish,” Jack said. “To go where you will. No one will
hinder a SteelMaster.”

Morgin considered that and shook his head. “I’m
a wanted man in the clans, with a price on my head. Any clansman can kill me
without penalty.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed and he said, “Oh,
I wouldn’t be too certain of that.”

Whether that was a statement of confidence in his ability
to defend himself—after all, he had defended himself against the
warmaster—or an implicit declaration that the whitefaces would
seek retribution if someone killed a SteelMaster, Morgin could not be sure. Morgin
said, “In any case, I’d prefer it not be known
outside the tribe that a plainface is among you, and especially that a
SteelMaster is among you.”

All four of them nodded thoughtfully at that, and Jack
said, “We’ll spread the word. But what do we do about
the
twoname
?”

Val! Morgin had completely forgotten about him. “What
does he know?”

“Nothing,” Jack said. “We’ve
kept him in a tent under guard.”

Morgin considered that carefully. Deep inside he knew he
could not spend the rest of his days with these whitefaces, these friends of
his, though they probably hadn’t yet realized that. “He’s
a friend,” Morgin said. “Tell him Jerst killed me in
the circle of stones. Keep him under guard in a tent as far away from the Forge
Hall as possible. Then, when we go back out onto the sands in the fall, let him
go.”

Delaga said, “And plainfaces come among us
quite regularly, so we need to make sure you always look like one of us. Yer
taller than most plainfaces, tall enough to pass for a short whiteface.”

Fantose added, “Just keep yer hood up, don’t
let no one see yer face.”

Baldrak chimed in, “And wear gloves or
gauntlets. Don’t let them see yer hands.”

Fantose leaned toward him conspiratorially. “And
you know, you might do me a favor. Pleasure me wife, but do a really bad job of
it.”

Delaga thought that was the funniest thing, but Jack asked
again, “So what will you do?”

Morgin looked pointedly at Baldrak. “I think
I’d like to work with some smiths on some steel, see what I can
really do.” He looked at the bow stave in his hands. “But
first I think I’ll finish this bow.”

Fantose eyed the stave and gave him a sour look.

“What’s bothering you?”
Morgin asked.

Fantose grumbled, “Waste of a good stave.”

Jack put a fatherly hand on Morgin’s shoulder
and said, “He means that while you may be a SteelMaster, when it
comes to making a bow, and using a bow . . .”

Delaga finished for him. “You ain’t
no whiteface.”

“So only a whiteface can make and shoot a
bow.”

Jack shrugged uncomfortably. “It takes a lot
of knowledge to make a proper longbow. And a lot of strength to pull one. Don’t
be disappointed.”

“I’m strong enough,”
Morgin said. “And I’m going to make the bow of a
proper size for me, not a whiteface. And I’ve made bows before. I
have the knowledge.”

Fantose’s eyes narrowed. “When
did you learn to make a proper whiteface longbow?”

Morgin almost answered, but held his tongue as he realized
it was an answer from a dream. But in that moment he realized that hiding from
his dreams had never served him well, so maybe it was time to embrace them,
especially if he was going to use them to find the Unnamed King. He said, “I
learned about twelve centuries ago, before the Great Clan Wars.”