Petrodor: A Trial of Blood and Steel, Book 2 (73 page)

“Doesn't she? I am
du'janah
. To be born
du'janah
is to be born a traitor.”

“I don't understand…what does that mean? Not one of you serrin has actually explained to me what a
du'janah
is.”

Errollyn touched her face gently. He ran a thumb over her cheek. It tingled, and Sasha felt her heart beat faster. His face twisted in a grimace. “I can't explain. There are no words. You'd need to be serrin.”

“Damn it, Errollyn, that's an excuse, nothing more.” Somehow, with her, a racing heart threatened to unleash a temper, no matter what had brought it on. “How can I help if you just keep pushing me away?”

Errollyn hung his head with a sigh, and offered no answer. His hand slipped from hers. His despair was one sad sight too many. The Errollyn she knew was full of mischievous, irreverent intellect. He found everything interesting, but took nothing too seriously. Now, he seemed a sad wreck of a man. Sasha hated morbidity. She had to do something, because this…this was all getting too much.

Her heart thudding madly, she stood, and pushed him upright as she straddled him. Then, she sat in his lap. Errollyn stared at her. A shiver went up her spine. She put her forearms across his shoulders and locked fingers behind his neck. “I've had a hard day,” she told him, awkwardly. As if that explained everything. Dear spirits, she hoped Rhillian had not just been teasing her, or this was going to rank among the most embarrassing moments of her life.

Errollyn took a deep breath. Wiped at his eyes. “This is unmanly, I suppose?” he said, with a crooked smile. And what a smile. Her heart nearly stopped. Errollyn could cry as a Lenay man rarely would and, yes, a part of her thought it most unbecoming of him…and yet he had eyes like a predator and a body not unlike one of the statues downstairs. With a bow in his hand, he was surely more dangerous to his enemies than even she was with a sword.

“It's only unmanly when it becomes a habit,” Sasha replied, a little breathlessly. Errollyn took another deep breath, finished wiping his eyes and tousled his wet hair. Dear spirits, she liked that too. It hung about those impossible green eyes, grey and wild.

“I apologise for being a pale shadow of the many great yuans you've doubtless known.”

“Not many great yuans have bested as many in battle as you have,” she pointed out.

Errollyn made a face. “Aye, but that's archery. A coward's cheat. Even you think so.”

“I do not.”

“Oh yes you do. You've said many times that you hate archers.”

“I didn't mean it.”

“Do you always say things you don't mean with such conviction?”

“Always. Most things I say with great conviction I don't mean. I'm like that.”

“And why would that be, do you think?”

“Errollyn!” Sasha burst out, finally losing patience. “I gathered all my courage just to sit on your lap! Do something!”

Errollyn smiled, gazing at her calmly. His eyes were so close. If she looked into them directly, she would freeze. “Why does it fall to
me
to do something?” His breath was warm on her cheek. “You have two arms, two legs…”

“I…well, look, it just does!”

“In Lenayin, where women are submissive and await the advances of passing men like the virtuous maidens they surely are?” He was teasing her, she realised. Like a cat playing with a mouse. She got off him before she could succumb to the urge to hit him…but he caught her about the waist and pulled her back down.

“Don't play with me!” she said hotly.

“I thought you wanted me to play with you?” She hit him, hard in the shoulder. He winced, but laughed. “You're beautiful when you're angry.”

“You're a pain!” She really
was
angry now, she disliked feeling so helpless. And yet…and yet his hands on her waist ran up her sides, admiringly, and her breath came very short.

“I'm serrin,” he said reasonably. “Of course I'm a pain.” And dear spirits, as if she hadn't learned the truth of
that
lately. “You're sure you want to do this? Your priests will tell you it'll send you straight to the hottest hell.”

Sasha snorted. “I'm Goeren-yai, I don't care a puddle of piss what some priest says.”

“Watch your mouth,” Errollyn teased, touching her lips with a finger. “We're in a temple.”

“A temple full of sexy nude statues,” Sasha replied, stifling a giggle.

“Sasha?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you for sitting on my lap. I've been hoping you would for quite some time.” Before she could think of a reply, he kissed her.

It felt as wonderful as she remembered from the day before…only this time, she could stay where she was and enjoy it at her leisure. She kissed him back, but evidently not very well, because he smiled, took her hair in both hands and showed her how to do it better. That became a game and soon she was laughing between kisses, and feeling…spirits, better than she could ever remember feeling, with the possible exception of the first time she'd bested Kessligh in a sparring session as a girl.

She undid her bandoleer and put the sword aside, while Errollyn's hands moved up over her hips to a breast…“I'm sorry,” she quipped at him, feeling a little cocky all of a sudden, like a girl riding a horse for the first time who thought she was doing pretty damn well. “I don't have much there.”

“The rest of you more than compensates,” Errollyn replied, and pulled off her jacket. Sasha ran her hands over his bare chest, the first time that she'd not bothered to try to hide her delight at the view. Errollyn put his hands up her shirt, moving to pull it over her head, but instead found…

“What in the hells is this?” He pulled off the shirt and stared at the gold chain about her neck. Or, more precisely, what hung on the end of it. “Well that's an anticlimax,” he remarked. “Of the many things I was looking forward to finding under here,
that
wasn't one of them.”

Sasha bit her lip. The Shereldin Star felt cold against her skin. With her jacket on, no one had yet noticed the chain beneath its collar.

Errollyn stared, then looked up at her. “You're wearing the holiest artefact of the Verenthanes beneath your shirt.”

Sasha shrugged. “There was nowhere else. Kessligh didn't trust the new hiding place. He wanted it well guarded, and…well, I am the best swordsman in Petrodor now.”

Errollyn's amusement was turning into a grin. “It doesn't concern you that some might consider it improper to hide the star against bare, female skin?”

“Should it?” Sasha retorted. “What's more important—holding to silly superstitions or keeping it safe?”

“Look, I think you can do without this for now…” he took the chain up over her head and placed the star atop her discarded shirt and jacket. “It kind of spoils the mood.”

“Doesn't it!” she agreed, and kissed him again.

What followed, Sasha thought later, was rather like a memory of battle, its recall dimmed through a haze of frantic, heart-thudding action. Or rather, she tried to make it that way, but Errollyn restrained her, told her firmly to slow down and laughed at her when it became clear that she could not. Slowly it dawned on her that she was completely out of her depth. Errollyn was
experienced.
Like most serrin. He seemed almost as confident of her body as he was of his own.

He finally got her to a bed, shedding clothes as they went, and pressed her onto the mattress. He tried to settle her down to his pace, kissing and feeling her, and that felt wonderful for a while. But inevitably, she became impatient…it was slightly embarrassing to be so frantic, while he remained so calm. She wanted him to be frantic too, but had no idea how that might happen, unless he was inside her. Even serrin men were supposed to go crazy then, surely?

Errollyn didn't go crazy. He watched her, in turns curious, affectionate and intense. She tried desperately to match him, to be as cool, as controlled
as he, but it wasn't working. Worse, he drew her out, as though he was pulling back on his bowstring. Finally, at her moment of greatest pleasure, he gave her a great, athletic burst that fairly set the bed to shaking. What followed was indescribable.

“Good?” he asked her when she had recovered a little, gasping and swearing against his shoulder. Cocky, arrogant serrin. It wasn't fair. He read her well enough, and grinned, nuzzling her hair.

“I'd…” she managed, when she could get a functioning word out. “I'd thought it would hurt, or…or something.”

“Doesn't always.” He kissed her ear, and progressed down her neck. “Would you like some more?”

“I…I don't know that I can. Can you?”

“Always.”

She tried to give him a hard look but it turned into a laugh, and then they were kissing again. He did some things to her that she'd only heard described, and those by disreputable sources. Worse, she loved it. Perhaps her critics were right, and she
was
depraved. It was nothing she hadn't imagined doing, if only she could have found the right man. Or, as seemed more likely the case with Errollyn, the wrong man in the right circumstances. This time, when she climaxed, Errollyn came with her.

After they'd lain together for a while, warm and a little sweaty, Sasha remembered something else. “Damn, I have to take my powder.”

“There's no rush. It works even after a few days.”

The powder was a habit with Sasha. She did not know if she would have the opportunity to swallow the stuff if she were captured again, certainly not all captors would be as considerate of her dignity as the Archbishop of Torovan. But she'd always considered it worth carrying, just in case. This was the first time she'd considered taking it for amorous reasons.

“You seem to know a lot about this,” she remarked.

Errollyn shrugged. “Serrin are educated young.”

“How young?”

Errollyn smiled, a dazzling blaze of green eyes. It sent a thrill up her spine…and through her loins. “I was taken aside by a nice girl in my fourteenth year. She had sixteen years, and she decided my time had come.”

Sasha shrugged. “That's not so young. In some parts of Lenayin, girls marry and bear children younger than that.”

“Serrin women cannot conceive younger than yourself. Sometimes not until twenty-five.”

Sasha blinked up at him. “Truly?” Errollyn nodded. Sasha had known that serrin women had few children compared to humans, but that was all.
Another thought occurred to her. “How do you know it isn't the male seed that's weak?” she challenged.

Errollyn shook his head playfully, so that his thick grey hair fell on her face. “Serrin women have the same difficulties with human men.”

“And human females conceive quickly when mounted by the virile young men of Saalshen?” It was by far the oddest conversation she'd ever had—naked on her back with a man between her legs. Something about it was wonderful, beyond the simple eroticism. All her life, she'd been the crazy tomboy who wore pants, rode horses and broke things. She'd rarely had the chance to be a woman, in truth, and she hated all of the things that in the eyes of most Lenays, would have made her one. All except this…but she'd never had the chance to do
this
before. Not safely, with someone she'd have trusted with far more than just her virginity. Now, she felt…womanly. She flexed her legs more tightly about Errollyn's waist, and liked the way that felt.

“Virile old men too.” Errollyn ground himself against her, sensuously. Sasha winced, biting her lip, but trying to look defiant. That didn't work either. “It's instantaneous.”

“I'd better take my powder then.”

“No. Stay.” He kissed her, gently. “There's no rush. Two days after is fine.”

Sasha sighed and reached for a blanket that had come loose in their lovemaking. She drew it over them both. The air had a chill, most unlike the warmth of recent weeks. “I have to go soon,” she told him. “There's work to be done.”

Errollyn studied her, one hand toying with her hair. “You're sad.”

Sasha smiled, and wrapped her arms around his middle. “Only out there,” she said.

“Kessligh will be fine,” Errollyn assured her. “He'll be a better swordsman on one good leg than most people manage on two.”

“I know.” She shook her head against the pillow. “It's not just Kessligh. It's…all this suffering. Is…is this my life? Do you think?”

“Do
you
think?”

Sasha rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I…damn, I shouldn't be thinking about this now. I don't want to spoil it.”

“I'd like to think I mean more to you than just a good fuck,” Errollyn remarked. Sasha blinked at him. They'd been speaking Lenay, of course. It astonished her how that was just an unconscious habit with people she trusted.

“I didn't mean
that
,” Sasha retorted.

“I know,” Errollyn said mildly. “I'm just saying that if I wanted to bed
some girl who was pretty and said nothing of substance, I'd pay some midslopes whore for a night.”

Sasha smiled. “Oh, I doubt you'd have to pay.” She brushed shaggy hair from his face. “It just struck me today…walking past these piles of burning corpses.” Errollyn stroked her hair. She took a deep breath. “I've always had this…very simple equation. Every time Kessligh's training became too painful, every time I hurt myself in sparring, or fell off a horse, or awoke one morning feeling just so stiff and awful that I couldn't possibly rise from my bed, I told myself that if this weren't my life, then it would have to be Baen-Tar, and Alythia's life, all pretty dresses and gossip and marriage. And suddenly, my present situation wouldn't seem so bad.

“Today on the docks, I thought about that equation once more, and…and suddenly pretty dresses and awful gossiping twits didn't seem like such a bad life after all. You know?”

“I know.” Errollyn nodded. “I was raised in the foothills of the Telesil Mountains. My uman was Dahlren.” Sasha gazed up at him wonderingly. Errollyn did not speak of his childhood often. “She was an old thing, and unimpressed with people, human or serrin. The world of wild things was her world. She was too old to take an uma, but she took me nonetheless. I grew up mostly alone, save for Dahlren, and she wasn't much for conversation. I learned the ways of animals, I learned the herbs of healing lore and I learned to hunt. Sometimes I look around in this city, and wonder what I'm doing here. I dream of greenery when I sleep. I dream of trees, Sasha. Do you dream of trees?”