Remo kissed the smooth skin at the nape of Jilda's neck, still flushed with passion. Making love, even with Jilda, had never been so good as this last time, beneath the open night sky. There had been an urgency about her caresses, a hunger that she had needed him to satisfy. "You make me very happy," he said, lifting her chin. Her eyes were filled with tears. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," she said quickly, drawing her hand over her
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face. "I am happy, too. I never thought I would find you. I mean, someone like you," she added.
"No. Not someone like me or someone like you. You, the original, and me. That's the only combination that works."
Jilda looked up at the stars. Gullikona, the Golden Lady of the sky, was burning in all her glory. "Sometimes I feel as if the love we have was meant to be," she said softly. "Like the princess and the warrior of the legend."
"They don't even come close," Remo said. He looked out to sea. "Jilda, the submarine from the States is due in tomorrow."
"No!" She held him fiercely. "We will not speak of tomorrow."
"Why not?"
"I will not cross the sea in an iron fish," she said. "I have built my own boat. It is hidden near the shore."
Remo laughed. "Ever the stubborn barbarian," he said. "Look, the sub's perfectly safe, and it'll save us weeks of travel. Just trust me, okay? We'll set Griffith up with some relatives, and then-"
"I will remain with Griffith." She held his glance for a moment, then turned away. "He is an exceptional boy. His upbringing cannot be entrusted to people who do not understand him."
"Spoken like a true mother."
"It was my promise to H'si T'ang. He was a wise man. We would all do well to listen to what he has said."
"Meaning what?"
Jilda bit her lip. "It will only be necessary to spend a few years with Griffith. After he is grown, 1 will return to Lakluun. Where I belong."
"Hey," Remo said gently. "Is that what's bothering you?" He stroked her hair. "You don't have to change your life for me. I love you, funnyface, remember?" He
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tweaked her nose. Her green eyes changed to blue and then gray and back to green again, like the shifting hues of an ocean. "God, I'll never get used to those," he said.
"Remo ..."
"Shhh. Listen to me. If you've got to stay in Wales, I'll stay with you. We'll raise Griffith together. No problem. I've always wanted a kid, anyway."
His thoughts ran to their life together in the green hills of Emrys's valley. The three of them in the Forest Primeval. Me Tarzan, you Jilda. His face flushed, and his hands grew cold. He liked the feeling. He liked it very much. "I'll build you a nice little house," he said eagerly. "With a picket fence around it. No fair spearing any animals on the fence. And we'll plant some flowers around the front, just like in the movies."
"Oh, Remo-"
"And when Griffith's good and sick of us telling him how to run his life, we'll take off in one of your crazy canoes and row ourselves to Viking Land, and swim in ice water and swill mead with the boys-''
"Stop!" She didn't bother to check her tears now.
"I don't understand," Remo said quietly. "I'm asking you to marry me." He stared at her in bewilderment. "Don't you ... I mean, I thought you wanted ..."
"Above all things, I wish to spend my life with you. But the sacrifice ... the sacrifice will be too great."
"There wouldn't have to be any sacrifice, I'm telling you."
"Not for me, Remo. For you."
"For me? You've got to be kidding. I've spent my whole life in orphanages and army barracks and motel rooms. A cottage in Wales'11 seem like a castle as far as I'm concerned."
"It is not the place," she said. "What you would be
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giving up is something inside you, something so rare that the sages among your people have waited for millennia to see it." She took Remo's hand in hers. "You listened to the words of H'si T'ang. You have a great destiny before you. You cannot abandon that for something as selfish, as small as-"
"Small?" Remo shouted, rising to his feet. "Smalll Is that all you think of us?" He picked up a rock and threw it so hard that it whistled. "Damn it, I don't want a 'great destiny.' 1 want to be happy, and for the first time in my life, I am. 1 want this. I want ..." His voice cracked. "You."
It was a long time before Jilda spoke. "That is why I must leave you," she said quietly.
The song of the tree frogs, combined with Chiun's distant melody, seemed to fill the world.
"Whatl" he whispered.
She didn't answer. She gathered her things and dressed quickly, pretending not to see Remo standing beneath the plum tree. Her vision blurred. "Good-bye," she said.
He raced to stop her. "Tell me you don't love me."
"Remo-"
He shook her. "You can't believe in that prophecy crap any more than I do. I'll let you go if you want to go, but not because of any bullshit legend. Just tell me you don't want me, and I'll leave you alone. That's all I'll accept. Otherwise, you're stuck with me. For better or worse."
"Remo, I can't. It's not fair of you."
"Tell me! Do you love me or not?"
The moon shifted. Her face, more beautiful than Remo had ever seen it, was bathed in pearlescent light.
"Good," Remo said. "For a minute, I thought-"
"I don't love you." She pulled away from him abruptly. Remo exhaled as if someone had kicked him in the belly.
She backed away into the shadows. "I don't love you.
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