Temple of the Winds (80 page)

“
Verna, you said you didn’t want to hire a coach, that it would draw attention to us. You said you didn’t want to risk being recognized, and you didn’t want nosy people inquiring as to who was riding a coach.”

“
Not a coach. And I don’t want to hear a string of objections. I hired this farmer to take us south for a ways in his hay cart. He said we could lay in the back and you could rest. He’ll cover us with hay so we won’t have to worry about people bothering us.”

Warren frowned. “Why would he do this for us?”

“
I paid him well. More than that, though, he and his family are loyal to the Light. He respects the Sisters of the Light.”

Warren relaxed back into the hay. “Well, I guess that sounds good. You’re sure he’s willing? You didn’t twist his nose, did you?”

“
He was going anyway.”

“
Really? Why?”

Verna sighed. “He has a sick daughter. She’s only twelve. He wants to go to get some tonic for her.”

Suspicion darkened Warren’s expression. “Why didn’t you cure the girl?”

Verna held his gaze. “I tried. I couldn’t cure her. She has a high fever, she’s cramping and vomiting. I tried my best. I would have given nearly anything to have been able to cure that poor child of her suffering, but I couldn’t.”

“
Any idea why not?”

Verna shook her head sadly. “The gift doesn’t cure everything, Warren. You know that. If she had a broken bone, I could help her. If she had any number of ills, I could help her, but the gift is of limited use for fever.”

Warren looked away. “Seems unfair. They offer to help us, and we can do next to nothing for them.”

“
I know,” Verna whispered.

She listened to the rain against the roof for a time.

“
I was able to ease the pain in her gut, at least. She’ll rest a little more comfortably.”

“
Good. That’s good, at least.” Warren fussed with a piece of straw. “Have you been able to get in contact with Prelate Annalina? Has she left you a message in the journey book yet?”

Verna tried not to betray how troubled she was. “No. She hasn’t answered my messages, nor has she sent one of her own. She’s probably busy. She doesn’t need to be bothered by our little problems. We’ll hear from her when she has time.”

Warren nodded. Verna blew out the lamp. She snuggled up to him, putting her forehead against his shoulder. She rested her arm across his chest.

“
We best get some sleep. At sunrise we’ll be moving on.”

“
I love you, Verna. If I die in my sleep, I want you to know that.”

Verna’s fingers stroked the side of his face in answer.

Clarissa rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Dawn was leaking in around the edges of the heavy, dark green drapes. She sat up in the bed. She didn’t think she had ever awakened feeling this good. She reached over to tell Nathan as much. Nathan wasn’t with her.

Clarissa sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. When she stretched, her leg muscles protested; they were sore from the night’s activities. She guessed it was simply the thought of the cause that made her smile at the mild ache. She had never known that sore muscles could be so pleasant.

She stuffed her arms through the lovely pink robe Nathan had bought for her. She snugged the ruffles up around her neck and then tied the silk belt. She wiggled her toes in the thick carpet, luxuriating in the feeling.

Nathan was at the writing desk, bent over a letter. He smiled up at her as she stood in the doorway.

“
Sleep well?”

Clarissa half-closed her eyes and sighed. “I should say so.” She grinned. “What sleep I got, anyway.”

Nathan winked at her. He dipped the pen in a bottle of blue ink and went back to his scratching. Clarissa strolled around behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. He was wearing his trousers, and nothing else. With her thumbs she kneaded the muscles at the base of his neck. He made an agreeable sound deep in his throat, so she continued. She liked to hear his sounds of pleasure, and liked even more being their cause.

As her thumbs worked along the muscles of his shoulders, she glanced down at what he was writing. Scanning the letter, she saw that it was instructions about moving troops to places she had never heard of. Nathan wrote on, admonishing a general about the bond to the Lord Rahl, and the dire repercussion should he ignore it. The tone of the letter was the same authoritative tone he used when he expected people to treat him as the man of importance that he was. He signed the letter: “Lord Rahl.”

Clarissa bent and nuzzled his neck, giving his ear a little nip.

“
Nathan, last night was beyond wonderful. It was magic. You were magnificent. I’m the luckiest woman in the world.”

He gave her a roguish grin. “Magic. Yes, there was some of that in it, too. I’m an old man; I need to use what I’ve got.”

She combed her fingers through his hair, ordering it. “Old man? I don’t think so, Nathan. I hope I was half as pleasing to you as you were to me.”

He laughed as he folded his letter. “I guess I did manage to keep up with you.” He slipped a hand inside her robe and pinched her bare bottom. She jumped with a squeak. “It was one of the high points of my life, to be with such a beautiful and loving woman.”

She hugged his head to her breasts. “Well, we’re still alive. No reason we can’t reach for some more of those high points.”

His sly smile grew as he put his hand back on her bare bottom and gave it a squeeze. He had that lusty twinkle in his eye.

“
Let me dispense with this bit of business, and we’ll see about getting our money’s worth out of that big bed.”

With a diminutive copper spoon, he scooped little nuggets of red wax from a tin and dumped the tiny spoonful on the folded letter.

“
Nathan, silly, you’re supposed to melt the sealing wax onto the letter.”

One of his eyebrows arched. “You should know by now, my dear, that my way is better.”

She let out a throaty laugh. “My mistake.”

He twirled a finger over the nuggets of wax. Sparkles of light danced from his finger onto the lumps of wax. They glowed briefly and then melted into a red puddle on the letter. She gasped with delight. Nathan was one never-ending little surprise after another. She felt her cheeks warm as she remembered that his fingers were magic in more ways than one.

She bent and whispered intimately in his ear. “I’d like you and that magic finger of yours back in bed with me, Lord Rahl.”

Nathan lifted his magic finger in proclamation. “And it shall be, my dear, just as soon as I send this letter on its way.”

He again twirled the finger over the letter, and it lifted off the desk as if of its own accord. Clarissa’s eyebrows rose in astonishment. The letter floated in the air ahead of him as he walked to the door. He twirled his other hand dramatically, and the door glided open.

A soldier, sitting on the floor in the hall, leaning against the opposite wall, rose to his feet. He saluted with a fist to his heart.

Nathan, standing there in only his trousers, with his white hair hanging down to his shoulders, had the look of a wild man. She knew he wasn’t, but standing there, as tall as he was, as commanding as he was, she knew he must look that way to others.

People were afraid of Nathan. She could see it in their eyes. She could understand their fear, though; she remembered how much she had feared him, before she had come to know him. She could hardly remember, now, just how much the sight of the towering prophet had terrified her.

When he turned those azure eyes on people, and his hawklike brow lowered in displeasure, she thought he could make a whole army turn and run.

Nathan stretched his arm out, and the letter floated to the grim-faced soldier. “You remember all my instructions, don’t you, Walsh?”

The soldier snatched the letter out of the air and stuffed it inside his tunic. This soldier, though respectful, didn’t seem intimidated by Nathan.

“
Of course. You know me better than that, Nathan.”

Nathan lost a bit of his lofty attitude and scratched his head. “I guess I do.”

Clarissa wondered where Nathan had found the soldier, and when he had had time to give him instructions. She guessed he must have gone out while she was asleep.

This soldier looked to be somewhat different from most of the others she had seen. He had a traveling cloak, with leather packs at his belt, and his clothes were of a higher quality than those of the regular soldiers she was getting used to seeing. His sword was shorter, too, and his knife longer. He was not a small man, either. He was as big as Nathan, but Nathan’s bearing made him seem bigger than anyone to her.

“
Give the letter to General Reibisch,” Nathan said. “And don’t forget, if any of those Sisters start asking you questions, you warn them about what I said, and tell them that Lord Rahl ordered you to keep what you were told to yourself. That will keep their jaws locked tight.”

The soldier smiled knowingly. “I understand … Lord Rahl.”

Nathan nodded. “Good. What about the others?”

Soldier Walsh gestured vaguely. “Bollesdun will be around to let you know what he finds out. I’m pretty sure it was only Jagang’s expeditionary force, but Bollesdun will find out for sure. Large as it was, it wasn’t much compared to the main force. I don’t see any evidence that his main force down near Grafan Harbor has come north yet.

“
From what I’ve heard, Jagang is content to sit and wait for something. I don’t know what that something is, but he’s not rushing troops north, into the New World.”

“
He thrust the army I saw deep into the New World.”

“
I still think it was just his expeditionary force. Jagang is a patient man. It took him years to conquer and consolidate the Old World under his rule. He used much the same tactics: sending out the expeditionary force to take a key city, or capture information of one sort or another, mostly records and books. Those men are brutal, that’s part of their purpose, too, but it’s the books they’re sent to get.

“
They would send back whatever they captured, and wait to go wherever Jagang sends them next. Bollesdun has some of our men checking into it, but they have to be careful, and it may take them awhile, so just enjoy the wait.”

Nathan stroked his chin as he pondered. “Yes, I imagine Jagang isn’t eager to send his army into the New World, yet.” He returned his gaze to Walsh. “You’d best be on your way.”

Walsh nodded. His gaze shifted and his eyes met Clarissa’s. He looked back to Nathan, a small smile coming to his lips.

“
A man after my own heart.”

Nathan chuckled softly. “One of nature’s wonders, matters of the heart.”

The way Nathan said the words made Clarissa’s own heart swell with pride to be included in matters of his heart.

“
You be careful, here in the rat’s nest, eh, Nathan? I’d not like to hear that you don’t have eyes in the back of your head, after all.” He patted his tunic where he had put the letter. “Especially not after I deliver this.”

“
I will, lad. You just be sure you get that letter delivered.”

“
You have my word.”

After Nathan shut the door, and business was finished, he turned to her. He had that twinkle in his eye. That lusty twinkle. His sly smile returned.

“
Alone at last, my dear.”

Clarissa squealed and ran for the bed in mock fright.