Vessel (23 page)

“It’s more like a castle, isn’t it?”

“It’s strange, like they left on a trip and never came back.”

“What’s strange is it’s not looted. Most every place has been.”

“It’s hidden well,” I said, looking out across the snowy landscape outside the window. There was nothing but trees around us.

“We should be able to rest up here for a few days,” said Recks, bringing me a hot earthenware cup of bullion. It warmed my stiff fingers as I wrapped them around the mug.

“Days? But the Reticents?”

“By the looks of things, they’ve got their hands full for a while. I think we can relax.”

“And then what?” It suddenly seemed very important for me to know.

“Have your supper, and we’ll get some rest. We can talk about it in the morning.”

I wanted to argue, to demand a decision be made now, but the rich barley beef stock smelled too good to my grumbling tummy to put up a fight. I slurped it, feeling it warm me all the way down to my belly.

The fire burned brighter as Recks added more wood, lighting up the darkness and throwing shadows around the room. He went to inspect the furniture and pulled the plastic sheeting off a large wooden bed.

“It still has sheets,” he said.

I set down my empty cup and went to see.

“Climb in,” he said, helping me take off my outer robes and boots.

The mattress was soft, but the blanket was cold and I shivered in the covers.

“Let me help.” He pulled off his own jacket and pants, quickly sliding in next to me. He felt warm and safe around me. I found myself wanting him even closer as I tucked my head beneath his chin to rest on his collarbone. I felt the muscles of his chest and his arms around me. I lifted my face to rub the stubble of his chin with my lips.

“Alana?”

“Yes?”

“Would you be my mate?”

At first I didn’t answer. I was overcome with such a strange sensation of joy and sorrow; I couldn’t speak.

“Alana?” His voice was uneasy.

“I would be a terrible first wife for you.” Recks looked into my eyes, his nose against my nose, so close his breath brushed against my own lips.

“I don’t want a first wife. I want you.”

“But, I’m hideous.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it.”

Recks pulled something off his little finger and showed it to me—a ring with an emerald buried in the gold band.

“See this? How beautiful the stone is? That’s only because the craftsman looked inside an ordinary rock to find it. The outside means nothing.” He slipped the ring on my finger and tangled his fingers with mine, kissing my face.

“Say you will?” he whispered.

I couldn’t feel my breath. “I am yours. I’ve always been yours.”

“Then it’s done. I’ll be yours till the end of my days. Mother, make it so.”

“Yes,” I managed to say breathlessly.

I’d long since lost any sense of reality as my happiness overwhelmed me. In this dream, he loved me. I no longer felt afraid, and the walls around my heart melted. I knew he’d keep his word. His lips on mine eliminated the need for anything else to be said. His touch said the things that couldn’t be expressed in words. I thought my heart might shatter into a million tiny pieces. I’d been here before with a man this way many times, but it had never felt like this. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t hurt. I didn’t need to separate myself from my body to survive this. It was good and right, like the way a warm blanket comforts on a cold night.

The sweet, musky scent of his skin—so different from Dine’s stink—filled my nose. I drank him in, and yet I wanted more. The desire surprised me. Craving to be as close as I could, I held him tight, as if he could become another part of me, a part I hadn’t known was missing until now. He pulled me into his chest just as strong, his lips crushing mine.

“Are you okay?” he asked next to my ear, his breath hot on my neck. He waited motionless for my answer. At first, I could only nod, my eyes still closed, but he wasn’t satisfied with that.

“Alana, don’t ever say yes to me just because you think you have to. I don’t want it to ever be like that.” I looked into his clear green eyes filled with love for me. I touched his temple, pushed the black hair from his eyes, felt the rough stubble on his chin, and brushed my thumb across his perfect lips.

“It could never be like that with you, Recks. I want you always.” I pulled him back into me. He surrendered to my kisses and I to his.

I didn’t know how much I slept that night, how much was a dream, or how much was real. I only knew that I was changed forever. I could never be happy if I awoke without his arms around me again. But I did wake in his arms, his body keeping me toasty warm even though the fire had long since gone out. The angle of light coming in the windows told me Mother Sun was high in the sky. My tummy grumbled, but I didn’t move. I wanted to lie there and soak it up as long as I could—the sound of his gentle breath, his skin on my skin, the feel of the downy hairs on the back of his arms. I wished I could download it to my chip and save it forever.

The thought of the chip in the back of my head brought a thousand new thoughts flooding back to me. Were we safe? Could they find us? Were they even looking for us? Recks took a deep breath, the sound a soothing ripple in my ear.

“You awake?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“Hungry?”

“A little.” I pulled his arms tighter around me, snuggling into him, unwilling to get up.

“I’m starving. I wonder if there’s anything in the kitchen downstairs.”

I opened my eyes. Was Recks telling me to make breakfast? If he was hungry, it was now my job to feed him. That’s what wives did. I moved to sit up, but he held me down.

“Where are you going?”

“You said you were hungry.”

“I’ll live. Be still.” I relaxed in his embrace again, confused and happy at once, thrilled by his breath tickling my neck. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“The day I met you; you said, ‘May Mother Sun shine on you.’”

“I did?”

“Yes, to a slave even. I couldn’t believe it. And now she has. She brought me you.”

“Mother Sun has nothing to do with it. I love you because you’re kind. It was only ever you.”

When we got tired of lounging in bed, Recks showed me the kitchen, and we cooked Soren’s oats for breakfast. Every day I liked Soren more. With little else to do, we wandered the castle, curious what else it might hold. Almost every room was enormous and dusty, untouched by humans for a long time. Beautiful paintings adorned the walls of fancy-colored, peeling paper.

After an hour, it seemed we’d seen all there was to see, but Recks opened one more door and proved me wrong. Inside, the walls of the high-ceilinged room were completely covered in books. A spiral staircase led to a second level with even more volumes high above us. There were books of every size, shape, and color. There may have been fewer books than the Reticent library held, but the effect was so much greater because they could all be seen at once.

“Whoa,” murmured Recks, looking up at the walls of shelves.

“It’s so beautiful,” I said, touching the ornate wood of the stair railing.

“I can’t believe the Reticents never ransacked it.”

“Maybe they didn’t think they needed it. A lot of these look like fiction.”

“You know what this means, don’t you?” asked Recks.

“What?”

“If this is still here, there could be more untouched libraries out there. They haven’t been able to destroy every book.”

“I don’t think they could even if they wanted to.”

Recks and I scanned the shelves for a while, opening a book here and there. I found a poetry book and became engrossed for a while until I noticed Recks was gone. Turning to look for him, I saw him staring out the window at the valley. I joined him, my hand low on his back.

“What is it?” I asked.

“People should know about this.”

“This castle?”

“No, books. Knowledge. Stories. They should know it all.” I didn’t like where his thoughts seemed to be heading.

“Yes, I suppose they should but how? None of them can read.”

“But we could teach them, and they could teach others.”

“And we could get killed doing it too.” I moved away from him. I didn’t want to hear this talk anymore, but he kept on.

“It’d have to be a secret of course. We could find people, like Soren, who could be trusted.”

“But you can’t teach them by download. It’d take a lot more time.”

“I know, but it could be done.”

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” I breathed on the glass to fog it up and drew stars with my finger.

“You don’t want to,” he said. It was more of a statement than a question.

“You’re my husband. I go where you go.”

He pulled me into his arms. “If I weren’t here, what would you do?” His eyes peered deep into mine, as if he could somehow read the thoughts in my soul.

“I would die.”

“Of course you wouldn’t die, Alana. You were doing just fine when you found me.”

“I’d search for you until I died then.”

Recks laughed and kissed my forehead. “Let me put it another way. If you could do anything you wanted, anything at all, what would it be?”

I thought of all that was on my chip, of everything I’d seen in Kinder’s downloads. “I’d like to live by the ocean, some place that was warm all the time. And I’d learn to swim.”

“I promise you, you shall.”

“Really?”

“Yes, we can leave tomorrow if you like.”

“But what about the reading? You said you wanted to teach others.”

“I can do that anywhere. It’d probably be safer to put some distance between Gora and us anyway. You’re right about that.”

I knew why I loved Recks. He always reminded me when I least expected it that my opinions had value too. I hugged his neck tight and whispered my thanks in his ear. There couldn’t be a more perfect husband for me.

“I’ll never make you do something you don’t want to. Remember that,” he said.

I nodded.

“But you have to speak up. Tell me what you’re thinking. All right?”

“I’ll try.”

We stayed there a few more days until our food ran low. Recks felt better, so we packed our satchels and left early one morning before sunrise. I was sorry to leave the beautiful castle, but I could hardly believe we were going to the ocean. Once again, I was the wild bird escaping, eager to spread my wings and fly.

We followed the map in my head south all that day and the next. Recks never questioned my sense of direction. He simply followed where the map took me. The Mediterranean was still hundreds of miles away, but I swear I smelled it sometimes.

The countryside became even more rugged and mountainous the further we traveled. I led us around Gora toward the ancient city of Budapest. The smell of the fires burning in Gora stunk up the air for miles. The farther we were away from it, the better.

Recks stayed quiet much of the time, an easy-going traveling companion ever wary of danger. Again, we kept to the forest most of the time, coming down to the road only long enough to use the bridges to cross the larger streams or search abandoned houses for useful goods. Sometimes we chatted as we hiked.

“We’ll have to cross the Danube River when we get to the city,” I said.

“We can’t go around the city? It’d be better to avoid lots of people.”

“The river’s too wide to cross without a bridge or a boat. Most of the rural areas don’t have bridges anymore.”

“How many people live there?”

“It was once in the millions,” I said, checking the data in my head. “Now it’s probably in the thousands, most on the south side. The bridge might be guarded. I don’t know.”

“And the Reticents? Are they there?”

“Oh yes, but they may have gone to Gora to see what happened.”

“Then we should move at night.”

I nodded, silent in my acceptance.

“And we should make sure your head is covered.”

“With what?” My
billa
came to mind. I felt like Recks wanted me to wear something more than a hat.

“We’ll find something. Don’t worry. I won’t make you cut your hair again.”