At just that moment, Mags felt something cold on his cheek. He looked up, to see tiny snowflakes coming down out of the sky. Jakyr followed his gaze and grinned.
“Could not have come at a better time. We won’t have to worry about any of this going bad, nor about smoking or salting it—although I probably will be smoking it piecemeal over time.”
“When did you learn all this?” Mags asked, curious now. He hadn’t taken Jakyr for much of a hunter. Just showed how much he didn’t know!
“What, did you think I was brought up in the city?” Jakyr mocked. “Our inn was in a little village just like the one we left. Father would never pay for anything he could do himself, so he butchered his own animals, and we used
everything.
Nothing went to waste. He’d have had a right fit over me burying the guts, let me tell you. The intestines would have gone for sausages and the stomach for tripe and onions. I just don’t have a good place to properly clean and wash them.” He sighed. “Too bad, because I make a very, very good tripe and onions.”
They worked together in silence except for Jakyr directing Mags’ knife. With two of them working together, they got the hide off and salted, the meat stripped from the carcass and packed away where it would get and stay good and cold and out of reach of vermin, and some of the smaller bones stewing, crammed into a stockpot to make broth by the time they were hungry. Jakyr added the tongue and handfuls of the diced scraps to the stewpot; they both cleaned up and changed. Jakyr insisted that they carry the bloodstained clothing to the cave where the bathing basin was, soak it in the cold water, and leave it there, weighted down with rocks. “Give it a day or two and the blood should be gone,” he said, “And if it’s not, we’ll scrub with some salt and that will be that.”
“Huh.” Mags scratched his head. “Useful—”
“Usually in every couple of villages there’s someone running a laundry who knows how to clean Whites—but they get very upset when you bring them Whites with dried blood on them,” Jakyr said with a laugh. “I learned how to take the blood out first to keep my head from being threatened.”
:Caravan is nearby,:
Dallen said at that moment in Mags’ head. Judging by the way Jakyr’s head had come up at about the same time, Jermayan had warned his Chosen as well.
The caravan clattered in through the entrance in a swirl of tiny flurries, the vanners looking very happy to see a place they associated with food, shelter, warmth, and peace. Lita was driving, as usual, and brought the whole rig right into the cave, backing the caravan into place with a skill that made Mags feel great envy. Mags ran up to them, with Jakyr strolling at a much more leisurely pace behind him.
Lita tossed Mags the reins, and jumped down off the driver’s seat, her eyes widening as she caught a whiff of the savory stew. “Blessed gods, what is that heavenly smell?” she exclaimed, as Bear, followed by Lena and Amily, popped out of the door. They didn’t wait for Mags to unharness the vanners and lower the stairs, they jumped right down after Lita.
“We got a deer,” Mags said, and then was occupied with welcoming Amily, leaving the rest of the explanation to Jakyr. Bear knew better than to lift the lid on the stewpot, having had his knuckles rapped hard by Jakyr the last time he’d tried, but he did poke at the pot where the bones were simmering away, looking interested.
“Huh. Broth,” he said. “I wonder if it’s gonna be as good as beef broth.”
“Probably,” said Jakyr. “It should actually be richer than beef broth. Venison makes good broth. Why do you ask?”
Mags and Amily got to work unharnessing the vanners, wiping them down, blanketing them, and giving them fodder.
“It’d be damned useful if we could preserve some, somehow,” Bear pointed out. “In case someone gets sick.”
Jakyr considered that idea, then shook his head. “I’ll try, but we haven’t got a lot of jars I can seal easily, and I can’t think of any way of keeping vermin out,” he said with regret. “Don’t worry, though; if someone starts to get sick, we can pot a rabbit or a bird and make broth out of the whole thing.”
“What’s in that stew?” Lita demanded, and then, when she saw a look of faintly malicious mischief cross over Jakyr’s face, she waved her hands frantically. “No, no! I changed my mind! I don’t want to know! I want to enjoy my food in ignorant bliss!”
For a moment it looked as if Jakyr might tell her anyway, but he glanced at Lena and Amily and shrugged. “It should be ready, anyway. Good thing you made it in before nightfall; running that trail in the dark could have been a hazard.”
They queued up for bowls of the thick, dark stew, and chunks of bread to go with it. It had a rich, wild taste to it, and the bits of organ were tasty, oddly familiar, oddly unfamiliar in his mouth. Whatever odd, metallic flavor that the blood might have given to it, Jakyr had neatly disguised with seasoning.
“So I was thinking,” Mags said, after he’d had a couple of mouthfuls, “I was wondering if maybe you lot ought to go out ahead of us this time. That way you could sorta scout the village and let us know what’s what once we get there.”
Jakyr frowned. “I don’t think that’s all that good a notion, Mags,” he said—and Lita predictably cut him off.
“Of course you wouldn’t. You don’t trust us to be able to suss out the situation,” she said with scorn. “I’ve been gauging audiences since before you were in Whites, Jak. I think it’s a splendid idea.”
She paused to inhale a few more bites of stew, and Jakyr winked at Mags while her attention was still on her bowl. Then he launched into his counterargument, an argument that was as frail as a cobweb and just as easily destroyed. He put up a brave mock fight, though. They went through two bowls of stew each before he put down his bowl, threw up his hands, and said, “Have it your way! You will anyway! It’s all about you winning!”
“As if it wasn’t as much about
you
winning, you hypocrite!” she snarled back, and they were off, this time with some real vitriol.
The others hastily gathered up the dishes, worked together to get them quickly washed and put up, took lanterns and retreated—Lena and Bear to the caravan and Mags and Amily to their sleeping nook.
“Where are we going?” Amily asked in puzzlement, as Mags led her by the hand past the now-empty spot they had used, and deeper into the cave.
“It’s a surprise,” Mags said, and chuckled. “Or maybe not, since you saw we ain’t got the same place.”
“Ooh,” was all she said, and let him lead her down the twisting passage. The arguing voices faded away as they made the first turn, and after the second, they could not be heard at all.
He hung up the lantern on the hook and was pleased with her reaction to the new bed. Now . . . to follow Jakyr’s instructions.
Although there was one thing they were certainly not going to do. Jakyr had suggested that he start undressing her slowly, caressing her and kissing her as he did, but she was already stripping away her clothing and huddled under the feather comforters in next to no time, and he didn’t blame her. It was cold enough to make his teeth chatter, and he was glad to follow her example, blow out the lantern, and join her under the covers.
This was the first time they had ever been undressed together. He felt excited, and awkward, and hot and cold all at the same time. But he kept his head and did as Jakyr had suggested, starting with the same sort of kissing and cuddling they’d done all along. Then he started doing the other things that Jakyr suggested. Some things had made sense and some hadn’t—but all of them seemed to work just fine, and her little sounds started making him hot and things almost got out of hand—until he let down his barriers and concentrated on picking up little bits of thought from her.
He was pretty sure that if he had been an Empath and was feeling what she was feeling, that wouldn’t have gotten the results he wanted. But having to concentrate on listening with his mind, that was work, and it calmed that unruly part of him right down and let him work on getting her to that big happy place Jakyr had told him about.
Then her thoughts went all incoherent, and she began to gasp, and all of her shuddered and arched under his ministrations, and with great satisfaction he knew that he had done it.
He held her and cuddled her while she panted and slowly relaxed, then started it all again. Except that this time, now that she’d been taken care of, it was going to end in his turn.
Just when he was about to make his move, she wiggled and got herself under him. That made him pause. He couldn’t see her in the thick cave dark, but he whispered to her, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she whispered, and
yes
said her body under his and
yes, yes,
her hands and her lips, and so he did what he’d been dreaming about for months and months.
And he hurt her; he heard her gasp, and it wasn’t a gasp of pleasure, but at this point that part of him that was not to be reasoned with had the bit in its teeth and it was going to gallop away to what it wanted regardless. He couldn’t have stopped it and, really, didn’t want to. He’d pleasured himself, of course; what fellow didn’t once that part became aware of what it was for and how good some things felt—but, oh, this was better, better, so much
better!
And then it was his turn to gasp and groan and shudder and then collapse over to the side, shaking.
But when he could think again, he remembered what Jakyr had told him.
“After you’ve hurt her, make her feel good again.”
So even though he would have liked to fall right asleep, he kissed her and cuddled and caressed her, and finally the plaintive little breaths and the pain-thoughts turned into pleasure again, and he made her happy.
And then they slept.
• • •
With a wink at Mags, over a breakfast of oatmeal cooked in the deer broth—which was surprisingly good—Jakyr suggested mildly to Lita that they might want to start right away for the next village. But this time Lita didn’t exactly rise to the bait. Maybe she had figured out she’d been manipulated last night; after all, she was anything but a stupid woman.
“Tomorrow is soon enough,” she said. “We won’t be taking the caravan anymore; we’ll be riding double on the vanners. With snow in the air, we can’t take the chance the caravan will get stuck somewhere.”
“For once, I agree with you,” Jakyr said, and that was that. Mags and Amily had a second night together, which went even better than the previous one, and in the morning, with Lena up behind Amily and Bear up behind Lita, the four of them headed off at a brisk trot for the next village on the Circuit. He hoped she wasn’t still sore so that riding the wide-barreled vanner was going to hurt her, but she seemed cheerful enough as they trotted off.
Mags and Jakyr gave them a half-day head start, which would become a full day after they overnighted at the next Waystation. Jakyr spent the morning bottling up as much of the broth as he could, which was not nearly as much as he wanted, and cleaned the kettle, while Mags secured the site for another five or six days of absence. Then, after a good lunch, they were off.
But as they approached the Waystation, they immediately knew that something was . . . not right.
There was a smell of woodsmoke in the air, and there shouldn’t have been anyone around to build a fire.
Maybe
the scent had traveled from the village, but the wind was in the wrong direction, and that seemed unlikely.
They approached the Waystation cautiously. Unlike the previous station, this one was not only in good repair, it was in
suspiciously
good repair. The roof was newly thatched, every stone in place, and all the woodwork repaired and stained. And, yes, there was a very thin curl of smoke coming up from the chimney.
They looked at each other. “Someone’s moved in and is helping themselves,” Jakyr said, with a hint of a growl in his voice.
“I thought that was against the law,” Mags replied.
“It is. And we’re going to put a stop to this. But whoever is using it might be armed, so we’ll treat this as if an enemy had taken it.” At Jakyr’s nod, they both dismounted and turned the Companions loose. The Companions ghosted through the trees, somehow becoming practically invisible, and scouted the area around the Station.
:Nothing out here. And we don’t scent anyone in the Station itself,:
Dallen said. Mags and Jakyr glanced at each other, and Jakyr nodded, but they both kept their swords in their hands as they eased up to the door.
Someone had modified it so that it had a real latch and a lock instead of the string latch that Waystations were supposed to have. Jakyr made a face, but Mags waved a hand at him.
“I got this,” he said, and sheathed his sword, taking a slim dagger from his belt instead. Of course, if he had known that he was going to have to pick a lock, he would have brought the set of lockpicks with him. But who could have predicted that someone would have helped themselves to a Waystation?
Mags had been taught by an expert, a member of the City Watch who’d once been a thief. He himself was by no means an expert, but this was a very crude lock, and that was being generous; it yielded to his efforts long before Jakyr got impatient.
When they opened the door, it was to find that the unknown someone had not only helped himself to the Station, he had moved in, lock, stock, and barrel.
One of the bed boxes had become a curtained bed. The other had been turned into a storage chest, complete with a lid. The storage cupboard had been joined by a second as well as a wardrobe. There was a table with a basin and a pitcher, a little table with a chair, a rug on the floor, a chamber pot in the corner, and very little room left in which to move.
There was also a pot simmering over the fire in the fireplace, which suggested that the occupant could be expected to return at any—
:He’s coming up the path,:
Dallen warned. Mags and Jakyr positioned themselves on either side of the door, weapons ready. They waited, scarcely breathing. The door swung open.
Before the man could react to the fact that “his” door was now unlocked and unlatched, the two were on him, Jakyr’s sword at his throat, as Mags snatched away the ax in his hand.