Fighting to control herself, she did not reply. She could hear Simon moving nearby, the straw rustling.
“Are you hurt? Are you having a bad dream?” His voice was closer, almost beside her ear.
“No,” she gasped, then sobbing took her voice away.
Simon’s hand touched her shoulder, then tentatively moved up to her face.
“You’re crying!” he said, surprised.
“Oh …” She struggled to speak. “I’m so … I’m so … lonely! I want t-to go h-h-home!” She sat up and bent forward, pressing her face into the damp cloak over her knees. Another great storm of weeping overtook her. At the same time, a part of her stood as though separate, watching her own performance with disgust.
Weak, it told her spitefully. No wonder you won’t get what you want. You’re weak.
“… Home?” Simon said, wondering. “Do you want to go back to Josua and the others?”
“No, you idiot!” Anger at her own stupidity momentarily cut through the sobs so that she could speak, “I want to go home! I want things to be the way they used to be!”
In the dark, Simon reached for her and pulled her close. Miriamele struggled for a moment, then let her head fall against his chest. Everything hurt. “I’ll protect you,” he said softly. There was a curious note in his voice, a sort of quiet exultation. “I’ll take care of you, Miriamele.”
She pushed herself away from him. In the sliver of moonlight that leaked through the shed’s doorway, she could see his tousle-haired silhouette. “I don’t want to be protected! I’m not a child. I just want things to be right again.”
Simon sat unmoving for a long moment, then she felt his arm again around her shoulder. His voice was gentle when she expected to have her own anger returned.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m scared, too. I’m sorry.”
And as he spoke, she realized suddenly that this was Simon beside her, that he was not her enemy. She let herself sag back against his chest, craving for a moment the warmth and solidity of him. A fresh torrent of tears came rushing up and spilled out of her.
“Please, Miri,” he said helplessly. “Don’t cry.” He put his other arm around her and held her tightly.
After a while the storm of weeping subsided. Miriamele could only lean against Simon, without strength. She felt his fingers run along her jaw, tracing the path of her tears. She pushed in closer, burrowing like a frightened animal, until she felt her face rub against his neck, his hidden blood pulsing against her cheek.
“Oh, Simon,” she said, her voice ragged. “I’m so sorry.”
“Miriamele,” he began, then fell silent. She felt his hand on her chin, cupping it gently. He turned her face up to his, to his warm breath. He seemed about to say something. She could feel the words suspended between them, trembling, unspoken. Then she felt his lips upon hers, the gentle scratch of his beard around her mouth.
For a moment, Miriamele felt herself floating in some unfixed place, in some unrecorded time. She sought a huddling place, somewhere to flee from the pain that seemed all around her like a storm. His mouth was soft, careful, but the hand that touched her face was shaking. She was shaking, too. She wanted to fall into him, to dive into him like a quiet pool.
Unbidden, a picture came to her like a shred of dream: Earl Aspitis, his fine golden hair gleaming in lamplight, bending above her. The arm around her was suddenly a confining claw.
“No,” she said, pulling away. “No, Simon, I can’t.”
He let go of her quickly, like someone caught pilfering. “I didn’t …”
“Just leave me alone.” She heard her own voice, flat and cold. It did not match the swirl of violent feelings inside her. “I’m … I just …” She, too, was at a loss for words.
In the silence, there was a sudden noise. A long moment passed before Miriamele realized that it came from outside the shed. It was the horses, whinnying nervously. An instant later, a twig crackled just beyond the door.
“There’s someone out there!” she hissed. The confusion of the moment before fell away, replaced by the ice of fear.
Simon fumbled for his sword; finding it, he stood and moved to the door. Miriamele followed.
“Should I open it?” he asked.
“We don’t want to be caught in here,” she whispered sharply. “We don’t want to be trapped.”
Simon hesitated, then pushed the door outward. There was a flurry of movement outside. Someone was hurrying away, a shadow lurching toward the road through the misted moonlight.
Simon kicked free of the cloak tangled about his legs, then sprang out the door after the fleeing shape.
31
Flamedance
Simon was filled with anger, a high, wild fury that pushed him on like a wind at his back. The figure running before him faltered and he drew closer. He felt as he thought Qantaqa must feel when she ran some small fleeing thing to ground.
Spy on me! Spy on me, will you?!
The shadowy form stumbled again. Simon lifted his sword, ready to hew the sneaking creature down in its tracks. Another few paces …
“Simon!” Something caught at his shirt, tugging him off stride. “Don’t!”
He lowered his hand to regain his balance and his sword caught in the weedy grass and sprang from his fingers. He pawed at the ground, but could not find it in the deep brush, in the dark. He hesitated for a moment, but the dark shape before him had regained its stride and was pulling away. With a curse, Simon abandoned the sword and ran on. A dozen strong paces and he had caught up again. He wrapped his arms around his quarry’s midsection and tumbled them both to the ground.
“Oh, sweet Usires!” the thing beneath him shrieked. “Don’t burn me! Don’t burn me!” Simon grabbed the thrashing arms and held on.
“What are you doing?!” Simon hissed. “Why have you been following us?”
“Don’t burn me!” the man quavered, struggling to keep his face turned away. He flailed his spindly limbs in seeming terror. “Weren’t following no one!”
Miriamele arrived, Simon’s sword clutched in both hands. “Who is it?”
Still angry, although even he was not quite sure why, Simon took the man’s ear in his hand—as Rachel the Dragon had oftentimes done with a certain recalcitrant scullion—and twisted it until the face swung toward him.
His prisoner was an old man; Simon did not know him. The man’s eyes were wide and blinking rapidly. “Didn’t mean no harm, old Heanwig didn’t!” he said. “Don’t burn me!”
“Burn you? What are you babbling about? Why were you following us?”
Miriamele looked up suddenly. “Simon, we can’t stay here shouting. Let’s take him back.”
“Don’t burn Heanwig!”
“Nobody’s burning anybody,” Simon grunted. He dragged the old man onto his feet less gently than he might have, then marched him toward the shed. The intruder sniffled and pleaded for his life.
Simon retained his hold on the old man while Miriamele tried to relight the torch. She eventually gave up and took another from her saddlebag. When it was burning, Simon let go of the prisoner and then sat with his back against the door so that the old man could not make another bolt for freedom.
“He doesn’t have any weapons,” Simon said. “I felt his pockets.”
“No, masters, got no nothing.” Heanwig seemed a little less frightened, but still pathetically eager not to offend. “Please, just let me go and I’ll tell no one.”
Simon looked him over. The old man had the reddened cheeks and nose of a veteran tosspot, and his eyes were bleary. He was staring worriedly at the torch, as though it were now the greatest danger in the room. He certainly didn’t seem much of a threat, but Simon had learned long ago from Doctor Morgenes’ small-outside, large-inside chambers that things could be other than they appeared. “Why were you following us?” he demanded. “And why do you think we’d burn you?”
“Don’t need to burn no one,” the old man said. “Old Heanwig means no harm
. He won’t tell nobody.”
“Answer my question. What are you doing here?”
“Was just looking for place to sleep, masters.” The old man chanced a quick survey of the shed. “Slept here before once or twice. Didn’t want to be outside tonight, no, not tonight.”
“Were you following us in the forest? Did you come to our camp last night?”
The old man looked at him with what seemed genuine surprise. “Forest? In Oldheart? Heanwig won’t go there. Things and beasties and such—that’s a bad place, masters. Don’t you go to that Oldheart.”
“I think he’s telling the truth,” said Miriamele. “I think he was just coming here to sleep.” She fished the water skin out of her saddlebag and gave it to the old man. He looked at it for a moment with suspicion. Understanding, Miriamele lifted it to her own mouth and drank, then passed it to him. Reassured, the old man swallowed hungrily, then looked at her as accusingly as if his fear of poison had been confirmed.
“Water,” he murmured sullenly.
Miriamele stared at him, but Simon slowly smiled. He leaned across and fished out the other skin bag, the one Miriamele had told him she was saving for cold nights or painful injuries. Simon squirted a little bit of the red Perdruin into a bowl and held it out where the old man could see. Heanwig’s trembling fingers reached for it, but Simon pulled the bowl back.
“Answer our questions first. You swear you were not searching for us?”
Heanwig shook his head emphatically. “Never seen you before. Won’t remember you when you’re gone. That’s a promise.” His thin hands snaked out again.
“Not yet. Why did you think we’d burn you?”
The old man looked at him, then at the wine, plainly torn. “Thought you were those Fire Dancers,” he said at last, with obvious reluctance. “Thought you meant to burn me like they burned old Wiclaf who used to be First Hammerman up to quarry.”
Simon shook his head, puzzled, but Miriamele leaned closer, fear and distaste in her expression. “Fire Dancers? Are there Fire Dancers here?”
The old man looked at her as though she had asked whether fish could swim. “Town be full of them. They chased me, chased Heanwig. But I hid from them.” He smiled a weak smile, but his eyes remained wary and calculating. “They be in quarry tonight, dancing and praying to their Storm Lord.”
“The quarry!” Miriamele breathed. “That’s what the lights were!”
Simon was still not sure he trusted the old man. Something was bothering him, like a fly buzzing beside his ear, but he could not decide what it was. “If he’s telling the truth.”
“I tell the truth,” Heanwig said with sudden force. He tried to draw himself up straight, fixing Simon with his rheumy eyes. “I was coming here for a bit of sleep, then I heard you. Thought the Fire Dancers were here—they roam all through town at night. People with houses bar their doors, do you see, but Heanwig’s got no house no more. So I ran.”
“Give the wine to him, Simon,” Miriamele said. “It’s cruel. He’s just a frightened old man.”
Simon made a face and handed Heanwig the bowl. The old man sniffed it and a look of rapture crossed his age-spotted features. He tilted the bowl and drank thirstily.
“The Fire Dancers!” Miriamele hugged herself. “Mother of Mercy, Simon, we don’t want to get caught by them. They’re all mad. Tiamak was attacked by some in Kwanitupul, and I saw others light themselves on fire and burn to death.”
Simon looked from Miriamele to the old man, who was licking his wrinkled lips with a tongue that looked like something which made its home in a seashell. He felt an unlikely urge to reach out and cuff the old tosspot, although the man had done little enough, really. Simon suddenly remembered how he had raised the sword, that moment of fury when he might have slain this poor wretch, and was horribly ashamed.
What sort of knight would cut down a feeble drunkard?
But what dreadful fate had sent the old man to frighten the horses and break twigs in the very moment when he was finally holding Miriamele in his arms? They had been kissing! She, the princess, the beautiful Miriamele, had been kissing Simon!
He turned his gaze from the old man to Miriamele once more. She, too, had been watching Heanwig drain his bowl, but now her eyes flicked up to Simon’s for a moment. Even in the torchlight, he could see her blush. Fate was cruel … but a little earlier, it had been kind as well. Oh, sweet Fate, sweet Luck!
Simon abruptly laughed. The greater part of his anger dissipated like chaff before the wind. The loveliest girl in all of Aedondom, clever and quick—and she had kissed him. Called him by his name! He could still feel the shape of her face on his fingertips. What right had he to complain?
“So what do we do?” he asked.
Miriamele avoided his eye. “We will stay the night. Then in the morning we will get as far away from the Fire Dancers as we can.”
Simon darted a glance at Heanwig, who was looking hopefully toward the saddlebags. “And him?”
“We will let him stay here for the night, too.”
“And what if he drinks all the wine and takes it into his head to strangle us in our sleep?” Simon protested. Even he found it rather silly to say such things about the bony, shivering old man, but he desperately wanted to be alone with Miriamele once more.
As if she understood this and was equally determined not to see it happen, Miriamele said: “He’ll do nothing of the sort. And we will take turns sleeping. Will that make you feel better, Simon? You can guard the wine.”
The old man looked from one to the other, evidently trying to decide where the battle lines were drawn. “Old Heanwig won’t be no bother. You don’t need to stay up, young masters. You be tired. Old fellow like me doesn’t need sleep. I’ll stay up and watch for them Fire Dancers.”
Simon snorted. “I’m certain you would. Let’s toss him out, Miriamele. If he isn’t the one who followed us, there’s no reason to keep him.”
“There’s a perfectly good reason. He’s an old man and he’s frightened. You forget, Simon, I’ve seen the Fire Dancers and you haven’t. Don’t be cruel just because you’re in a bad mood.” She gave him a stern look, but Simon thought he saw a tiny flash of knowing amusement in it.
“No, don’t send me out to those Fire Dancers,” Heanwig begged. “They burned Wiclaf, they did. I saw it. And him not harming nobody. They lit him on fire down Pulley Road, screaming ‘Here’s what’s coming! Here’s what’s coming!’” Heanwig trailed off, shuddering. What had started out as a self-serving justification had become real as the memory played out before his mind’s eye. “Don’t send me away, masters. I’ll never speak no word.” His abrupt sincerity was apparent.
Simon looked from Miriamele to the old man, then back to the princess. He had been neatly outflanked. “Oh, very well,” he growled. “But I’m staying up on first watch, old man, and if you do anything the least bit suspicious, you’ll be out that door and into the cold so fast your head will spin.”
He gave Miriamele a last look compounded of annoyance and longing, then settled back against the shed door.
Simon awoke in the early morning to discover Miriamele and the old man both up and chatting amiably. Simon thought that Heanwig looked even worse in daylight, his seamed features smudged with dirt, his clothes so tattered and soiled that even poverty could not excuse it.
“You should come with us,” Miriamele was saying. “You’ll be safer than by yourself. At least join us until you’re far away from the Fire Dancers.”
The old man shook his head doubtfully. “Those mad folk be most everywhere, these days.”
Simon sat up. His mouth was dry and his head hurt, as though he were the drunkard of the company. “What are you saying? You can’t bring him with us.”
“I certainly can,” said Miriamele. “You may accompany me, Simon, but you may not tell me where I can go or who I can bring along.”
Simon stared at her for a moment, sensing an argument that he had no hope of winning, no matter what
he did. He was still weighing his next words when he was saved from the useless engagement by Heanwig.
“Are you bound for Nabban?” the old man asked. “I never have seen those parts.”
“We’re going to Falshire,” Miriamele said. “Then on to Hasu Vale.”
Simon was just about to upbraid her for telling this complete stranger their travel plans—what had happened to the need for caution she had lectured him about?—when the old man made a gasping noise. Simon turned, angry already at the thought that the old tosspot was now going to be sick right in front of them, but was startled by the look of horror on Heanwig’s mottled face.
“Going to Hasu Vale!?” His voice rose. “What, be ye mad? That whole valley runs haunted.” He scrambled a cubit toward the door, grasping fruitlessly for a handhold in the moldering straw beneath him, as though the two travelers had threatened to drag him to the hated place by force. “Sooner I’d crawl down into quarry with those Fire Dancers.”
“What do you mean, haunted?” Miriamele demanded. “We’ve heard that before. What does it mean?”
The old man stared at her, eyes rolling to show the whites. “Haunted! Bad ’uns, bogies from out the lich-yard. Witches and suchlike!”
Miriamele stared at him hard. After a year like the last one, she was not inclined to dismiss such talk as superstition. “We’re going there,” she said at last. “We have to. But you don’t have to travel any farther than you want to.”
Heanwig got shakily to his feet. “Don’t want to go west’ard. Heanwig’ll stay here’bouts. There’s folk in Stanshire as still have a morsel to spare, or a drop, even in bad times.” He shook his head. “Don’t go there, young mistress. You been kind.” He looked pointedly at Simon to make it clear who had not been.
The old sot, Simon thought grumpily. Who gave him the wine, anyway? Who didn’t break his head when he could have?
“Go south—you’ll be happy there,” Heanwig continued, almost pleading. “Stay out the Vale.”
“We must go,” said Miriamele. “But we won’t make you come.”