Jayne Castle [Jayne Ann Krentz] (24 page)

far more adept with a sintar than he was with words. Quickly, she sought for some way to lighten the

tense atmosphere.

"Well, as to that, I'm reasonably satisfied myself," she said easily.

"Are you?"

"Why shouldn't I be? When I return from the Heights of Variance, I will have a sizable quantity of Sand

to sell, won't I? Freedom will be much more enjoyable if I have the financial resources to afford it." The

lightness left her voice as a sense of bitterness returned. "It's true that under Olara's original plans I was

never meant to get the Sand, but the Spectrum has balanced itself differently than Olara expected. I have

disgraced myself and my House, but I may find myself rewarded for failure in a way no one could have

predicted."

Ridge's gaze hardened abruptly. "Are you saying you're staying with me not because of your honor, after

all, but because of the chance at the Sand?"

"What do you think, Ridge?" she asked coolly.

"There are times, lady, when you have me so confused I don't know what to think," he muttered and

turned to pull down the cover of the sleeping pallet with an angry gesture. "If you've finished playing

Healer for the evening, let's go to bed. We have a long ride ahead of us tomorrow"

"We always seem to have a long ride ahead of us."

"You didn't expect to get your hands on the Sand easily, did you?" he shot back as he sat down to yank

off his boots.

"Does it anger you that I might be thinking in a practical fashion now about this journey, Ridge? You're

hardly one to complain. You've made it quite clear that your main goal on this trip is to return with access

to enough Sand to found your House. Why should it bother you that I might also be looking forward to

what the Sand can buy for me?"

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He wrenched off his shirt and tossed it aside. "The freedom you seek isn't going to satisfy you, Kalena."

"How do you know?"

He slid under the pallet cover and folded his arms behindhis head. He watched her as she turned out the

firegel lamp and began to undress in the darkness with her back to him. "Because I've held you in my

arms," he said deliberately. "And I know you for the woman you are. You're a creature of passion. You

won't be happy unless you accept that aspect of your nature. You will need a man to share your dreams."

"Men are always so sure of themselves when they make pronouncements about a woman's needs," she

whispered. She pulled her sleeping shift over her head and crawled into the pallet beside him.

"I said you will need a man, Kalena, and it's true," Ridge insisted stubbornly.

"If that's so, then I will just have to find myself one, won't I?" she countered lightly.

"You've already found yourself one. Me." He turned his back to her with an abrupt movement. "One of

these days you'll admit it."

Kalena could think of nothing sufficient to say in response. She lay on her side of the pallet, vividly

conscious of the heat of his body, and wondered at the complexity of the luck of the Spectrum. Kalena

lay in the dark for a long time and was certain Ridge was asleep when he startled her by saying half

humorously, "I'm glad it wasn't me you were yelling at out there in the corridor. You have a formidable

tongue, woman."

"Sometimes a sharp tongue is a woman's only weapon."

"Ha. Your end of the Spectrum has armed you well. Ask any man. To tell you the truth, though, I found

your lecture somewhat amusing. After all those arguments we had about the role of the male as protector

of the female, you had a lot of nerve to use my side of things against that young man."

"He deserved to be scolded," Kalena declared firmly. "Right or wrong, he took the vows to protect and

care for his wife when hemarried her. He should have honored those vows. He had no business being

downstairs drinking the night away while his wife went into labor alone."

"He's just a kid."

"He's old enough to father a child, isn't he?" Kalena muttered.

Ridge mumbled something to himself, in response, then said to Kalena, "Just the same, I'm glad he was

your target tonight instead of me."

"It would never have been you. Not under such circumstances as existed tonight," Kalena said simply.

Ridge was silent for a moment, then asked, "Why do you say that?"

"There would have been no need to remind you of your responsibility and commitment to your wife. You

would never forget such matters. You would have made certain she was safe and protected when her

time came."

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"Thank you for your faith in me, wife. And now I'll tell you something I have decided about you."

"What's that?"

"I don't think you're honoring your marriage contract just because you've decided to get your hands on

some Sand. It isn't greed that keeps you by my side." He sounded absolutely sure of himself.

Kalena wasn't sure just what he meant, but she didn't dare ask.

Kalena greeted the sight of the little town of Hot And Cold with more enthusiasm than she had felt for

any of the other villages where they had chosen to stop. They were at the end of eight days of hard

riding. The inns along the way had ranged from primitive to minimal, and the villages had run the gamut

from small to very small.

But Hot And Cold promised an intriguing change of pace. Kalena urged her mount closer to Ridge's

creet as he drew to a halt at the top of a hill and looked down at the tiny village.

"Is it true they have natural hot springs here?" Kalena demanded.

Ridge glanced at her. "It's true. The caravans always try to stop here. The pools are much appreciated

after two eightdays on the trail."

"Two eightdays? But we've only been on the trail for one," Kalena said in surprise.

"We've been moving a great deal faster than a normal trade caravan with all its baggage and pack creets.

The caravans make other trade stops along the way, too. It generally takes at least three eightday periods

to reach the mountains that guard the valley of the High Healers. If all goes well, we'll start into the

mountains tomorrow. We should arrive at the valley soon after that."

"If we can get into the valley," Kalena reminded him.

"We'll get in. That's what I'm here to do."

Such confidence was undoubtedly based on a lifetime of success in similar situations, Kalena thought

with a sigh. She examined the tiny village below, which sat in a wooded valley nestled in the mountain's

foothills. This was strange country. There was little gradual incline as the plains gave way to valleys and

the valleys gave way to mountains. Everything seemed to happen abruptly. The plains simply stopped.

After only a short range of low valleys and hills, the mountains took over.

"Are you disappointed that you haven't yet encountered an explanation for the failure of the other

caravans?" Kalena asked. She knew Ridge had had little luck in his conversations in the inn taverns.

"No, I'm relieved," Ridge assured her dryly. "I'm paid to handle Quintel's problems, but that doesn't

mean I don't prefer the quiet trips."

"This hasn't exactly been a quiet trip. What about those two men who attacked us back in Adverse?"

Kalena mused slowly. "You don't think they had any connection with the problems that have plagued the

route?"

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"If they did, the trouble has been easily resolved, hasn't it?" He tugged lightly on the reins of his mount

and started down the hill into the valley.

Kalena thought of the two dead men and their black glass pendants and she shivered. She hoped Ridge

was right in thinking there was nothing more to worry about from that direction. She urged her creet after

him.

"I have heard of natural hot water pools such as the ones you say are in this village," she remarked.

"Olara told me they can be very useful for certain types of healing. She has sent more than one old

person from our village to a town that had hot pools. Once she sent a small child who was crippled from

a fall."

"All traders love the way the pools feel after a long day's ride. They're much better than a normal bath.

Apparently, there's something in the water that's unique."

"It's hardly surprising, is it?" Kalena noted. "We're very close to the Heights of Variance. It's possible

hot waters that feed the pools have their origin somewhere in the mountains. It's said that the Light Key is

sealed somewhere in the Heights of Variance and that its influence pervades the mountains. That's why

the High Healers live and work there. The presence of the Key supposedly lends power to their

medicines."

"I thought you didn't believe in myths," Ridge mocked.

"Well, I don't, but one wonders sometimes. After all, no one else has been successful in creating a

version of the Sands. And we all owe much to the medical knowledge that has come to us from the High

Healers. It's obvious they have some extraordinary abilities."

"The High Healers are very clever, very wealthy women who have been smart enough to build a

powerful reputation based on one very marketable product, namely the Sands of Eurythmia." Ridge's

voice was mildly scornful. "They shroud themselves in mystery primarily to keep everyone in awe of

them. There is no good reason why they should not be willing to deal directly with men. Their insistence

on trading only with married women has been a nuisance from the start. Quintel has had his hands full

over the years working around their various demands and restrictions."

Kalena grinned at Ridge's display of typical male irritation. "Working around those demands and

restrictions has brought a great deal of wealth and power to the House of the Gliding Fallon. You

yourself are planning to make a sizable profit off this venture. Just think, Ridge. If you do return to

Crosspurposes to found your House, you will owe it all to a bunch of uppity, unpredictable, difficult

females."

"You have a way of viewing things from a strangely skewed perspective, Kalena." She saw the reluctant

amusement in his golden eyes when he glanced back over his shoulder.

"A woman's perspective," she confirmed with some satisfaction.

More and more she found herself enjoying these moments when he gave in to his sense of humor and

shared some small joke with her. Kalena knew she often deliberately provoked him just to see if she

could tap into that indulgent side of his nature. The risk in such provocation, of course, lay in never being

certain she wouldn't hit a vein of temper instead of good humor. But every time they were able to share

this closeness, she knew the risk was worth taking. When she won an outright laugh from him, Kalena felt

as though she had uncovered a cache of buried treasure.

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There were times, Kalena knew, when she walked on thin crystal. Ridge's legendary temper was never

far from the surface, and she had been scalded more than once by a burst of it. On such occasions she

immediately ceased her provoking ways and set about placating him. It wasn't difficult. She was learning

rapidly that dealing with Ridge's fiery nature was a relatively simple matter. Arrisa and the others would

have been startled to hear her say so, but Kalena was beginning to feel she had a distinct and unique

talent for it. It was an odd sort of talent, and probably wouldn't be of much use in the long-term, but

while she was around Ridge, it came in awfully handy.

On one point, Kalena was very careful not to provoke Ridge. That was the subject of his own honor. At

times, Ridge would grow quiet for long periods on the trail and she would wonder if he was thinking of

how close she had once brought him to dishonor. He had absolutely no sense of humor about that, and

she could hardly blame him. She realized now that that was how Ridge viewed the entire beginning of

their relationship: As a near disaster for his honor. It wasn't just Quintel's life that had been at stake, but

Ridge's keen sense of personal honor.

He took his role as Kalena's husband seriously; if it had been discovered that his wife was Quintel's

assassin, his honor would have been savaged. Ridge owed his loyalty first and foremost to the austere

man who had been his employer and his benefactor. As far as Ridge was concerned, his wife owed her

loyalty to her husband. One way or another, Ridge's fierce sense of pride made him feel totally

responsible for the actions of his wife.

He would make a good lord for a Great House, Kalena decided grimly. Ridge had the convoluted,

overly fierce notion of responsibility necessary for the job. Any woman who committed herself to be his

wife on a permanent basis would find herself trying to manage a very difficult husband. Managing him for

only eight days on the trail had been hard enough.

Kalena wasn't absolutely certain she had done well by her own honor since Adverse. She had reluctantly

come to that conclusion that her duty was clear. She couldn't deny that by the terms of the contract she

had signed she owed Ridge the respect and loyalty of a wife. The fact that she had never intended to