The Blue Sword (Damar #2)(14)

This train of thought took him far enough from the center of anger that he had begun to relax a little; his hands uncurled, and the black mane swept against his fingers. He looked ahead; he knew, although he could not yet see it, that his camp lay just beyond this next bit of what looked like flat bare impartial desert and was in fact a little rise in the land, enough of a buffer from sand and storm to allow a small well of sweet water, with a little grass and low scrub, to live behind a protecting shoulder.

As he looked out across his desert, almost calm again, or at least finding the beginnings of calm, the kelar suddenly produced a picture of Sir Charles' foolish white face anxiously saying, "My dear sir - hmm - Your Majesty" and explaining why he could not help him. The picture was thrust before his eyes, and he took his breath in sharply between his teeth. Having caught his attention, the single-minded kelar snatched Sir Charles away and presented him with the girl again.

What about her? he shouted silently, but there was no answer. It was rare that the Gift ever made it easy for him by explaining what it wanted. Sometimes he never did find out, and was left to muddle through like any other mortal - with the added disadvantage of inscrutable messages banging inside his skull.

His patience gave way; he leaned forward in the saddle, and the big stallion leaped into a gallop. The six riders, who knew their king's moods, and hadn't been very happy at their reception at the Outlanders' hands themselves, let him go. He swerved away from the line that would take him directly to the camp.

The man on the golden dun, who had been riding on the king's right, soothed his mount with one hand. "Nay, we do not follow him this time."

The man at his left glanced across at him and nodded briefly. "May the Just and Glorious be with him."

The youngest of the riders snorted with laughter, although it was not pleasant laughter. "May the Just and Glorious be with all of us. Damn the Outlanders!"

The man on the dun frowned and said, "Innath, watch your tongue."

"I am watching it, my friend," replied Innath. "You may be glad you cannot hear what I am thinking."

The king had disappeared in the heat glaze rising from the sand by the time the little group topped the rise and saw the pale tents of their camp before them, and resigned themselves to telling those who awaited them what had occurred during the meeting with the Outlanders.

Harry blinked and recognized the boy at her elbow. "Thank you," she said absently, and he led the pony away, looking anxiously over his shoulder at the way the desert men had gone, and evidently grateful to be leaving himself. She shaded her eyes with her hand a moment, which only served to throw the fire of her headache into greater relief. She looked up at the men on the verandah and saw them moving uncertainly, as if they were waking up, still half under the influence of unpleasant dreams. She felt the same way. Her shoulder creaked when she dropped her arm again. At least it will be a little cooler inside, she thought, and made her way up the steps. Cassie and Beth, their mounts led away after Harry's, followed her.

Luncheon was a quiet meal. All those who had played a part in the morning's performance were there. Rather, Harry thought, as if we can't quite bring ourselves to separate yet, not because we have any particular reason to cling to one another's company. As if we'd just been through ... something ... together, and are afraid of the dark. Her headache began to subside with the second glass of lemonade and she thought suddenly: I don't even remember what the man looks like. I stared at him the entire time, and I can't remember - except the height of him, and the scarlet sash, and those yellow eyes. The yellow eyes reminded her of her headache, and she focused her thoughts on the food on her plate, and her gaze on the glacial paleness of the lemonade pitcher.

It was after the meal had been cleared away - and still no one made any move to go - that Jack Dedham cleared his throat in a businesslike manner and said: "We didn't know what to expect, but by the way we're all sitting around and avoiding one another's eyes - " Harry raised hers, and Jack smiled at her briefly - "we don't have any idea what to do with what we've got."

Sir Charles, still without looking up, said, as if speaking his thoughts aloud: "What was it, Jack, that you said to him - just at the end?"

Harry still had her eyes on Dedham, and while his voice as he answered carried just the right inflection, his face did not match it: "It's an old catch-phrase of sorts, on the let-us-be-friends-and-not-part-in-anger-even-though-we-feel-like-it order. It dates from the days of the civil war, I think - before we arrived, anyway."

"It's in the Old Tongue," said Sir Charles. "I didn't realize you knew it."

Again Dedham's eyes suggested something other than what he said: "I don't. As I said, it's a catch-phrase. A lot of ritual greetings are in the Old Tongue, although almost nobody knows what they mean any more."

Peterson said: "Good for you, Jack. My brain wasn't functioning at all after the morning we'd spent. Perhaps you just deflected him from writing off the Outlanders altogether." Harry, watching, saw the same something in Peterson's face that she had wondered at in Dedham's.

Sir Charles shrugged and the tension was broken. "I hope so. I will clutch at any straw." He paused. "It did not go well at all."

The slow headshakes Dedham and Peterson gave this comment said much louder than words could how great an understatement this was.