when the others turned back to the house, Corson lingered in the darkening garden, to let the cool night air clear her head. She was still lightheaded from the wine-which was not unpleasant, but it made her feel restless and somehow unsatisfied. “I won’t think about Steifann,” she swore, tossing her head like a skittish filly and nearly falling over a low stone bench.
Impatiently gathering up her skirt, she sat down on the bench and closed her eyes, savoring the sweet smell of the ripening grapes. She was not much surprised when Raphistain came back to join her.
“How does my fair guest?” he asked, bowing.
“Well, good sir,” Corson replied, amused at his courtly speech, and at her own mimicry. As he bent over her, she was struck again by his resemblance to Nyctasia. He was taller, of course, and darker, his skin weathered from years spent working out of doors. His rugged, broad-shouldered frame was nothing like Nyctasia’s slight figure either, and Corson noted with approval that his limbs looked strong and well muscled. It was his features that revealed the Edonaris blood, and the Edonaris were a handsome lot. She suddenly found it easier not to think of Steifann.
Raphistain sat down beside her. “Does what you see please you, my harvest queen?”
Corson pretended to admire the view of the fertile hills and fields. “It seems a lush and inviting land, though I speak as a stranger,” she said innocently, though there was no mistaking her meaning.
“You must become more familiar with it. I would have you feel at home here, and learn all there is to know.”
“It has always been my delight to find new countries to explore. But no land holds me for very long.”
“I too, though I have spent all my life in the valley, am a keen explorer. Let me tell you my theories about how it should be done.”
“You are Nyc’s kinsman, and no mistake,” Corson said drily.
“You flatter me. I am but a tiller of the soil, and she is, in her own place, a ruler of the highest rank.”
“Blood will tell, they say. You’ve many of the same ways about you.” It seemed to her that he preened himself a bit at this last remark. What strutting peacocks these provincial gentry are, she thought. They’re worse than the true nobility any day.
“Mind what I say, Corson,” said Raphistain. “We were speaking of exploration.
Now, my question is, if one were to travel this whole world of ours, what would be the best way to go about it?”
“I think you have an answer to your own question.”
“But I want your advice. You have so much more experience than I. First, I think, it would be well to start in the northernmost climes-what are said to be the coldest places.” He stroked her hair softly.
“It sounds as good a plan as any other.”
“Just so. Then, one would be wise to travel southward, but slowly. It would be a shame to miss any of the sights, and subtler delights do not reveal themselves to the hasty voyager.”
“That I agree with, to be sure.”
He smiled. “It heartens me that my ideas find favor with you.”
“I think you know what you’re about.”
Raphistain took her hand. “Perhaps that is because the lands I now want to explore seem fairer to me than any I’ve ever imagined.”
“We’re still in the north,” Corson reminded him.
“So we are. Now, it has also been my experience that as we go southward, the climes begin to grow warmer.”
“Then the southernmost point is the hottest?”
“No. In fact, I believe that the central regions are the most torrid.”
“So I have found,” said Corson, who was beginning to grow bored with the game.
“But I mustn’t let you think that I would neglect what lies to the east and the west. If one is to be a daring adventurer, all the extremities must be explored.
Therefore, though the general direction is southward, there should be many pleasant excursions to see what is to be found on either side.”
“It sounds like a lovely journey,” said Corson, yawning. She stood up suddenly, and pulled Raphe to his feet. “Yes, there’s no doubt that you’re a true Edonaris, my friend. Nothing but talk, everlasting talk!”
Raphe was so startled at Corson’s challenge that he dropped his pose of detached amusement and looked her directly in the face. “Corson, you’re the most desirable creature I’ve ever met,” he said with ardent sincerity, and clasped his arms around her waist, drawing her close. Corson kissed him, and he responded with passion, pressing her to him as if afraid she might escape, caressing her silk-clad body with hungry hands.
“He tastes of the grapes,” Corson thought, biting at his lip gently. She whispered, half singing:
“He who would be my mate
Must be of the roving kind,
And follow, to find his fate,
Where the wandering roadways wind.”
They both laughed. Then, with their arms about each other’s waists, they walked back to the house in silence.
Nyctasia was dismayed to discover that there was no bar for the door to her room. Watchdogs guarded the yard, and of course the main gates and portals were barred at night, but there was no reason to sleep behind locked doors. No doubt a maid would come in at dawn to rekindle the fire, before Nyctasia was awake. In a great stone house like this, mornings would be chill all the year around.
Nyctasia understood this well enough, but she was accustomed not only to a locked room, but to having armed guards on duty while she slept, to keep watch for her enemies. Though there was no danger here, she could not help feeling uneasy and vulnerable in this undefended chamber.
But for her, as a guest, to request a bar for her door would be to imply mistrust of her hosts, and etiquette forbade that she commit such a breach of courtesy. The vahn knows I do trust them, Nyctasia thought, as she tossed restlessly about in the canopied feather-bed. This is absurd. I’ve nothing to fear here. But she could not bring herself to draw the curtains around the bed and hide the unguarded door from view. She slid her dagger under the pillows, feeling like a fool, but still she did not sleep.
Would she ever feel secure enough, she wondered, to go about unarmed, as the Edonaris of Vale did? They carried knives, yes, but useful knives sharpened on one edge only-tools for cutting, not weapons for stabbing. A dagger, with its double edge, was highly impractical for anything but murder.
Finally, Nyctasia rose and wrapped herself in the white pearl-silk robe-’Deisha’s, no doubt-that she’d found neatly folded on the bed. She would spend the night in Corson’s room, she decided. With Corson at hand she’d feel safe sleeping in an open field. Corson took up most of any bed, she pulled away the bedclothes, and she snored like a wild boar, but she was an exceptionally reliable bodyguard.
But outside Corson’s door she hesitated. Had she heard voices within? If Corson was not alone, she’d hardly welcome another visitor. Nyctasia peered through a crack in the door and smiled at the genial firelit scene that greeted her.
Corson, still in the golden gown, was sitting on the edge of a bed piled high with feather mattresses and colorful quilts. Raphistain knelt at her feet, unlacing her sandal, and both were laughing quietly.
“I thought you said the north was the ideal starting place,” said Corson, lazily stretching out one bare foot to touch his hair.
“Under a strange sky, one cannot steer by the stars, madame. North depends on how you lie. Is not this as good a point of departure as any other?” He kissed the arch of her foot, then her ankle, and lightly caressed the back of her calf.
Corson lay back on the bed and said a little huskily, “Mind you don’t lose your way, friend-”
“No fear,” whispered Raphe, sliding the silk dress up above her knees.
Nyctasia stole away noiselessly and returned to her own room. Good breeding prevented her from spying any longer at Corson’s door.
Back in her bed, she resolutely refused to lie staring at the unbolted door. She had nearly succeeded in falling asleep at last when a faint sound from the threshold suddenly woke her again. Heart racing, she groped under the pillows for her dagger. It was not merely her fancy this time-the door was being pushed softly open.