What with one thing and another, it was only reasonable that they spend the night. Corvill fixed the toaster like a charm; it took him the better part of the afternoon, but Zhena Trelu was not critical. She could not have fixed it at all.
Meri had been set to dusting after the dishes were done, and Zhena Trelu went out to milk the cow. By the time she came back, Corvill was waiting to show her the repaired toaster, and she exclaimed over that for a bit, even toasting a celebratory piece for everybody and doling out the last of the poquit jam.
A startled glance at the clock about then told her it was time to start making supper, for which she drafted Meri's help, first directing Corvill's attention to the carpet sweeper.
After supper, she went out to give the scuppins their evening grain while Meri and Corvill did the dishes. On the way back to the house she stopped, shivering in the wind, to look up at the rock-toothed gash that was Fornem's Gap. It was fixing to rain tonight, for sure . . .
And who but a two-headed, heartless monster would send the pair of them on their way with night coming on and a cold rain due out of the gap before morning?
On the porch she paused again, listening to the soft sound of their voices, talking their foreign talk as if the weird word-sounds actually meant something. Shaking her head, she tramped back into the kitchen.
Meri was in the middle of a yawn, which she belatedly covered with a slender hand.
"Tired?" Zhena Trelu asked, and sighed at the girl's blank smile.
She reached out and firmly grasped one small hand. "Come with me."
Turning down the right-hand hallway, she marched the two of them up the main flight and turned left, past the upstairs parlor and the attic stairs to the boy's old room. Pushing the door open, she yanked on the light cord and finally released Meri's hand to point at the double-wide bed where Granic and his zhena had slept—the same bed the young zhena had died in, struggling to birth a child too big for her.
"You sleep there," she told Meri.
The girl moved soundlessly over the rag rug and scrubbed floorboards to sit on the edge of the bed. She smiled and raised her hand to cover another yawn, while Corvill waited quietly by the door.
"That's fine," Zhena Trelu said. "Good night, Meri." She nodded to the man. "Good night, Corvill."
"Good night, Zhena Trelu," she heard him say softly as she pulled the door shut behind her.
Val Con turned down the bed and undressed, folding his clothes onto the bench against the wall. Slipping under the covers, he took a deep breath, consciously relaxing, and let his eyes rest on Miri.
She undressed, letting her clothes lie where they fell, and went to the mirror across the room, unwrapping the braid from around her head. It seemed that she swayed slightly where she stood, but he was tired enough to believe it only a trick of his eyes.
"Come to bed, cha'trez."
She turned her head and gave him a faint smile. "You convinced me."
It took her too long to walk across the room—she was, indeed, swaying—and she sat on the edge of the bed with a bump. "Why'm I so tired?"
"Altitude, perhaps. Also, we have had to think very hard today—everything is strange, the words must be heard and remembered . . ." He shifted, pulling back the covers. "Miri, come to bed; you're cold."
"Nag, nag." But she slipped under the covers, her face beginning to relax as she closed her eyes—and tensing again as she snapped them open. "Light. Aah, the hell with it." She closed her eyes with finality.
The hell with it, he agreed silently, and closed his own eyes, letting the tide of weariness take him.
Someone shouted his name; there were rough hands on his shoulders, and he was fighting, and the voice cried his name again, and it seemed familiar, and he opened his eyes with a jerk, staring uncomprehending at the face suspended above him.
"It's Miri," she told him, breathlessly.
"Yes." He was shaking, he realized, even more bewildered. The room beyond Miri's shoulder was brightly lit, composed, empty of threat. He looked back into her eyes. "What happened?"
She let out a shaky breath. "You were having a nightmare. A bad dream." She released his shoulders and slid to one side, her cheek resting on her hand.
A bad dream? He cast his mind after—and found it immediately; he recognized it for what it was and knew he was shaking harder. The bedclothes were stifling, in spite of his chill. He pushed them away and began to get up.
"Val Con?"
He looked at her, and she saw the lines etched around his mouth and the shadow of fear in the green eyes. He was trembling so hard she could see it. She put out a hand and covered his, feeling the cold and the shaking.
"There's this old Terran cure for nightmares," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "Goes like this: You have a bad dream, you tell somebody. Then you never have it again." She offered a smile, wondering if he heard her. "Works."
He took a slow, deep breath, then lay back down like a thing made of wood and pulled the cover back over him.
Miri moved closer, not touching but offering warmth, hoping to ease the trembling. She reached out to brush the hair from his eyes.
"Not a dream," he said, and his voice was as rigid as his body. "A memory. When I was put on—detached duty—from the Scouts to the Department of the Interior I—received my orders and went to fulfill them—immediately, as instructed. I entered the proper building and walked down the proper hallway—and every step I took down that hall it seemed there was something—crying out?—screaming—in me—telling me to run, to go far away, to on no account continue forward . . ."
"And did you?" she asked softly.
He made a sound, which she did not think was laughter. "Of course I did. What else would I have done? Disobeyed orders? The dishonor—the disgrace . . .Gone eklykt'i? My Clan . . ." He was holding himself so stiffly that she thought he would break.
"I continued down the corridor, fighting myself every step of the way—against every instinct I had otherwise. Against my hunch. The only time in my life I failed to heed a hunch . . ." He closed his eyes.
Miri shifted beside him, worriedly.
"I went down the hall," he said tonelessly, "through the proper door, handed my papers in, and commenced training as an Agent of Change. And they lied, gods, and made it seem truth and twisted what I saw and how I knew things and pushed and pulled inside my head until Val Con yos'Phelium was hardly more than a memory. And it hurt . . ." He took a breath that could not have filled his lungs—and suddenly the horrible control snapped and he was rolling toward her, his arms locking around her, his head burrowing into her shoulder.
"Ah, Miri," he cried, anguish twisting in his voice. "Miri, it hurt . . ."
And he burst into tears.
She held him until it subsided, stroking the dark hair, running her hands down his back, feeling the tension going, going—gone, finally, with the sudden last of the tears. She held him a little longer and sighed; his breathing told her he was asleep.
She shifted, trying to ease away, but his arms tightened, and he moved his head on her shoulder, muttering, so that she sighed, resigning herself to a cramped and sleepless night.
She woke to find him looking very seriously into her face.
"Morning," she said fuzzily. "Is it morning?"
"Early morning," he said softly. "I do not think Zhena Trelu is about yet."
"Good." She moved, meaning to give him a kiss—and stopped.
"What is wrong?" he asked.
She shrugged, glancing away from the brightness of his gaze. "I'm never sure whether you want me to kiss you or not."
"Ah, now that is very bad," he said. "A problem in communication. I suggest that the best course is for you to kiss me whenever you wish to do so. In this way you will eventually be able to ascertain when it is I most wish to be kissed."
"Yeah?" She grinned and swooped down, intending the veriest peck on the cheek, but he shifted his head and caught her lips with his. His fingers were as suddenly in her hair, loosing the braid, stroking lightly . . .
When the kiss was over, Miri lay trembling on his chest, looking at his face, all blurred with longing and lust and love. "Any more kisses like that," she said, hearing that her voice shook as well, "and I ain't guaranteeing the outcome."
He smiled gently, one eyebrow slipping up. "It's early."
She closed her eyes against the sight of him, against the sudden stab of—what?
Robertson, she pleaded with herself, don't go sappy on me. She felt his fingers, feather light and trembling, moving down her cheek, stroking the curve of her throat.
"Please, Miri," he said wistfully. "I would like another kiss."
Opening her eyes, she obliged him to the fullest extent possible.