The Rose of the World (82 page)

‘I don’t snore!’

Tawny brows drew together in a frown, then one furious blue eye opened uncertainly, blinked and stared.

‘You!’

Katla Aransen heaved herself onto her elbows, and found that doing so didn’t hurt as she had somehow expected. She stared around, trying not to look too nonplussed.

‘Just how long have you been lying there listening to us?’

‘Oh . . . forever. I heard the bit about the women. Well, several bits about women, actually.’ She fixed the speaker with an accusatory glare, then transferred her gaze to the other. ‘It seems you have enjoyed yourselves thoroughly, talking away about such things over my head.’

‘We have waited three days for you to wake up,’ said Saro Vingo defensively. ‘We had to amuse ourselves somehow.’

Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Three days?’ She trawled a surreptitious hand down her flank to her belly, felt around. Then she pulled open the shift she wore – an item of clothing which most definitely had
never
belonged to her – and stared down into its shadows at the place where the wound had been. All that marked it now appeared to be a pale pink scar. This, she pressed gingerly, and when that elicited no pain, harder and harder again.

‘Virelai healed you,’ Saro said.

She took this in, chewing her lip.

‘And how come you are here?’ Katla demanded a few seconds later, glaring at the visitor at the foot of the bed.

Tam Fox threw back his head, and the beads and bones rattled in his tawny braids. ‘Ah, Katla, I have much to thank you for.’ His vivid green eyes swept over her wickedly. ‘More than you could ever imagine.’ One heavy lid closed in a barely perceptible wink.

Saro laughed.

‘What?’ She stared from one to the other. ‘What are you laughing at?’

‘We have all travelled a long, strange road, Katla. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to examine closely every stone upon which we tread.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever it is you’re both trying to keep from me, I’ll find it out. You know I will.’

Voices sounded in the corridor outside and she stared at the ornate archway expectantly.

‘Where am I, anyway?’ she asked, to fill the moment before the door opened.

‘Cera’s fine castle, or what remains after your Eyran king had his way with it.’

There were obviously far too many stories to be told. Even thinking about the implications of this was tiring. She sighed, and watched the door come open and a head peer around it.

‘Mother!’

Bera Rolfsen grinned, and suddenly looked half her age.

‘Katla, my love!’ She flew across the room with her arms open, then at the last moment drew back.

Katla rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not made of twigs, you won’t break me so easily.’

It was the first embrace she could remember receiving from her somewhat austere mother; or maybe that was because she usually behaved so badly she rarely merited such treatment. Over Bera’s shoulder, she watched the next visitor enter, and her jaw dropped.

‘Father!’

Aran Aranson took in the tangle of limbs on the bed and his single-browed grimace lifted. He grinned, his dog-teeth white against the black of his beard. Despite the smile, he looked drawn and tired, a man who had too recently for comfort or reflection been through many hard experiences. He leaned against the door jamb as if to join in the embrace would be to take too large a step from one world into another.

A shaft of sunlight speared the room, falling obliquely over Tam Fox. Like a great cat, he stretched and yawned. ‘Well, now, I must away,’ he said. ‘Now that the sleeper has awoken and all is well. I have promised to accompany Mam and Persoa to Jetra.’

‘Go?’ she stopped herself before she said something she regretted, then added, ‘Persoa? But isn’t he—?’ Clearly the hillman had not died in the volcano, after all. She made a face. All this thinking hurt her head. It had been a lot easier being asleep all this time than having to deal with surprise after surprise.

Bera stood back off the bed and surveyed the tawny man. ‘So you’re off are you, back to your wandering ways?’ There was no disguising the chill in her voice. So one thing hadn’t changed, then.

‘Indeed.’ Tam Fox inclined his head. ‘I’ve been thinking of starting up another troupe. The little man, Dogo, has a remarkable aptitude for juggling; and Joz throws a mean knife.’

‘So, you’re not going to make an honest woman of my daughter, then?’ Bera enquired, hands on hips.

‘Mother!’ A shriek of outrage.

Saro went pale.

‘Me?’ The mummer’s green eyes slid to Katla’s astounded face, softened, darted away again. ‘I think not.’

‘Er, actually, I—’ Saro started.

Tam Fox crossed the room swiftly and got him by the arm. ‘Come with me,’ he said, his fingers digging into Saro’s bicep. ‘If you know what’s good for you.’

A family row was going on behind the door even by the time he closed it. ‘Saro, my lad, if you blunder in with a clumsy offer, you’ll lose her forever. Is that what you want?’

Saro pulled himself free of Tam Fox’s grasp. Gone from shock, to panic, to fury in such a brief space of time, now he was trembling.

‘You’ll have to give her a good long time to get used to the idea, and even then she may not have you. She’s a wildcat, is Katla Aransen: she’ll be hard to tame, maybe even impossible.’

Saro’s jaw firmed. ‘I don’t want to tame her,’ he said angrily.

Tam Fox grinned. ‘Good lad.’ He sighed. ‘And good luck.’

Then he turned on his heel.

‘Will we see you again?’ Saro called after him, not sure which of the likely answers he would prefer to hear.

At the end of the corridor, the mummer turned back. In the shadows his eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Oh yes,’ he said softly. ‘I’m sure you will.’