Shields Lady (21 page)

"Was he dead?" Sariana was afraid of the answer.

            "No. But he won't wake up for quite a while. Probably not until the warehouse manager finds him later on this morning. The assumption will be that he tried to steal a few casks of wine. That should get him locked up for a decent length of time. As for the other one…" Gryph finished the sentence with a careless shrug.

            "What about him?" Sariana demanded as Gryph led her along the pier. "We should find a town guard and report this incident."

"None of this concerns the town guards. It's Shield business."

            "Damn it, you keep saying that. What do the Shields care about a couple of street thieves?" "The man who ended up in the bay tonight was the one who attacked me the night of the ball. He's

probably the one who killed Brinton. As for the one whose head you dented with a wine cask, he was undoubtedly the accomplice who helped the murderer to escape the first time."

            Sariana was dumbfounded. "You didn't tell me Brinton had been killed. You mean you think the two men who trailed me tonight were involved with the theft of the cutter?"

            "Yes. But even if they had been just a random pair of thieves roaming the streets in search of easy prey, they would still be Shield business."

"Why is that?"

            "Because they chose you to hunt down," Gryph explained. "And you are most definitely Shield property."

            "I want to go home," Sariana said in a small voice. "I've had enough of this crazy place. I just want to go home."

            "One of these days I'll take you to your new home. In the meantime, we have a journey to complete," "Why must I accompany you?" she demanded.

            "Because I can't take the risk of leaving you behind while I go after the cutter." "You're afraid I'll run away from you?"

            He shook his head. "That's the least of my concerns. I can always find you if you decide to run, Sariana. Remember that. Even if you go all the way back to Rendezvous I'd find you."

            "But in Rendezvous you would no longer have any claim on me," she pointed out. "Under the laws of the eastern provinces I'm not married."

            "My claim on you is not dependent on any law. I think, deep inside yourself, you know that. It's the real reason you tried to run from me this morning."

            She ignored that because she was getting very tired of arguing the point. It was hard to argue with someone who arrogantly refused to see the logic or justice of his opponent's side. Sariana walked beside Gryph in silence for a few moments. With every step she felt increasingly trapped.

            "You said you aren't afraid I'll run away if you leave me behind. So why are you afraid to take the risk of leaving me here?" she finally asked moodily.

            "Whoever is responsible for stealing the prisma cutter has probably figured out what I'm doing on the scene. I think he's also learned that you are involved with me. That's why those two were after you. It wouldn't take much intelligence to decide to use you to stop me."

            "Why would whoever it is make the assumption that I'm a vulnerable point for you?" "Because you are a vulnerable point," he said simply. "You're my Shieldmate. Everyone in the western

provinces understands how important a Shieldmate is to her lord and his clan."

            "Everyone except me."

Gryph smiled crookedly. "But you're learning, aren't you?"

            A typical summer dawn broke over the distant mountains a short time later. Sariana watched it from the deck of a windrigger in full sail. She gazed at the coastline slipping past and listened to the creak and snap of the skillfully designed sails. The ships of the western provinces were fester and more maneuverable than those of the east. Sailing was another area in which the experimentally inclined westerners excelled. The westerners were even working on a vapor fueled engine that might someday power their sleek ships.

            Sariana was feeling resentful of clever westerners and just about everything else this morning. Life had not seemed very fair lately.

            Soon she would have to go below to the cabin Gryph had booked. She had avoided it until now because she did not want to face the single bed she would find there. There was very little possibility that Gryph had booked himself into a separate cabin and she knew it. As far as he was concerned, he was a married man. Furthermore, he had decided she was in need of protection.

            After what had happened in the dark hours before dawn, Sariana was forced to wonder if Gryph was right about that last detail. Two men were dead and she had almost been kidnapped. The search for the prisma cutter had turned into a far more serious affair than she had anticipated.

            It was frightening the way dungs had a habit of getting out of control in the west. Sariana sighed. Just when she had thought she was making progress toward her ultimate goal of salvaging her future, everything had gone wrong.

The scarlet-toe hissed in sympathy and cuddled closer into the curve of Sariana's shoulder.

            "What am I going to do now?" Sariana asked the scarlet-toe.

            "Unpack," Gryph suggested as he came up behind her. He leaned one arm on the rail and looked down at her.

            Sariana jumped and fixed him with a brief glare. Then she pretended to study the shoreline once more. "Gryph, we have got to talk about this situation. We've got to come to some sort of understanding."

            "It all seems clear to me. What is it you don't understand?"

Sariana's hands tightened on the rail. "You simply are not going to be reasonable about this, are you?"

            "You have no idea of how reasonable, patient and understanding I am being," he told her. She bit off her useless protest and stood beside him in depressed silence.

            Gryph was quiet for a while, too, but in the end he was the one who broke the charged silence with a weary groan. He leaned both of his arms on the rail and looked out to sea.

            "You probably won't believe this, but I didn't intend things between us to become so complicated, Sariana. I swear I had every intention of going slowly. I told myself I would giye you time and court you carefully. I knew you were unaccustomed to our ways and I wanted to introduce you to them gently. But the other night when I stupidly let myself get sliced by that blade, everything changed. I went to bed groggy from the painkiller the medic had given me and I woke up with a fever. When I saw you sitting in the chair beside my bed all I could think about was how much I wanted you. You wanted me, too. I knew that beyond a doubt. I decided I would explain all the details in the morning. But the next morning you were all business again, intent-on keeping me at arm's length while you decided what to do next. You wouldn't even listen to me. It was as if nothing important had happened between us during the night."

            "As far as I was concerned, the only thing that had occurred was a rather unpleasant attempt to start an affair with you. I should have known better. I can't understand what prompted me to even think about getting involved with you in that way. I must have been out of my mind."

            Gryph winced. "I know it wasn't the most auspicious beginning for a relationship." "It certainly was not," she shot back. "I'm still sore in places." Then she flushed and gritted her teeth as

she realized what she had said.

            "I've told you, I'm sorry about that. Please believe me, I had no idea the link would be that strong. Nobody warned me, either. But with practice we can both learn to control the crossover effects."

            "I don't know what you're talking about," Sariana stormed, "but I do know that on top of everything else that happened that night you lied to me."

            He stiffened and the humble apology went out of his voice. "I'm not accustomed to being labeled a liar. The fact that you're my Shieldmate does not give you any special privileges when it comes to making such accusations."

            "Don't go all haughty and arrogant on me, Gryph. You lied to me and that's a fact." "What, precisely, did I lie to, you about?" he demanded icily.

            "You said you were as inexperienced as I was!" She lifted her chin and waited for him to admit the falsehood.

Gryph relaxed slightly and turned back to the rail. "Oh, that."

            "Yes, that."

"Well, it was true. I have never linked with any other woman."

            "I'm not talking about linking, whatever that is. I'm talking about sex, damn it. Pure, simple, straightforward sex. You were no virgin, Gryph Chassyn," Sariana accused.

            "I'm supposed to apologize for that, too?"

            She glared at his profile, uncertain of his mood. "Are you laughing at me?" He shook his head quickly. "No. I swear I'm not. I'm just realizing that there was a slight

communication problem that night and you got the wrong impression. For that I apologize." He made a sweeping gesture with one hand. "Hell, I apologize for everything about the clumsy way I handled our first night together. If anything, my bungling should prove just how inexperienced I was. I wasn't any more prepared for the crossover effect than you were."

            "What is all this nonsense about a crossover effect?" Sariana demanded. "It's what happens when a Shield and his Shieldmate make love."

Sariana's eyes widened as she remembered the explosion of pain and passion and the way she had

seemed to be absorbing everything he had been feeling that night as well as her own jumble of sensations.

            "You're telling me I wasn't just hallucinating because of all that punch I drank?" she asked weakly. "You weren't hallucinating," he assured her softly. "We were linked and you were picking up on my

feelings as well as your own. Unfortunately, I wasn't in great shape that night. My shoulder hurt, I was running a fever and I was still recovering from the effects of the medic's anesthetic. To finish it off, there was the unavoidable discomfort that comes from tuning into the prisma the first time. Poor Sariana. You had enough new sensations of your own to deal with that night. I'm sorry you got hit with everything I was feeling and the prisma, too."

            Sariana stared at him in openmouthed amazement. "You mean you go through that every time you make love to a woman?"

            "Of course not," he said impatiently. "Haven't you been listening? It's only like that between a Shield and his Shieldmate. It doesn't happen with other women. And from what I've been told, it isn't supposed to be that bad between a Shield and his lady, either. What happened between us was very strong, Sariana. I'm not sure I understand all of it even though I've thought about it a lot since then. But I'm sure we can control it."

            "Wait a minute. Are you telling me that you have been to bed with other women but it's never been like that with any of them?"

            He smiled slightly. "I told you, you're my Shieldmate. There's been no other for me. I've never been married before. A Shield can't link with just any female, you see. Given several thousand women to choose from, a man would be very lucky to find even a few who had the potential of linking with a Shield. And even then there are likely to be other complications."

            "Such as?" She couldn't believe she was hearing this, but Sariana couldn't bring herself to believe Gryph was lying, either. One thing was certain: He believed what he was saying. Westerners loved legends.

            "Such as the fact that the woman in question might not be interested in going to bed with a Shield. Or she might be past childbearing age. Or she might already be married to a man from her own class in which case the Pact forbids the Shield from approaching her." Gryph's smile twisted wryly. "The First Generation colonists drove a shrewd bargain."

            Sariana seized on the one point that applied to her. "You mean if the woman doesn't want to marry the Shield she's free to say no?"

            "You weren't listening. As usual. For a bright woman, Sariana, you have an odd tendency to hear only what you want to hear. I said the woman is free to choose whether or not she wants to go to bed with the Shield. Once she's been to bed with him, she's married. Unless, for some reason, the link didn't work." His eyes grew very brilliant. "But there is no question of that in our case. We are linked, Sariana. One of these days you'll admit it to yourself and to me."

            She instinctively took a step backward, even though he hadn't moved. "Why is it so important to… to link with a woman? You admitted you don't need to be linked in order to have a sexual relationship."

            "There are two reasons why a Shield searches very hard for a woman with whom he can link," Gryph said evenly. "The first is that he cannot father a child with any woman except a true Shieldmate. All other unions are sterile. And even with a Shieldmate, he can only produce sons. No Shield has ever fathered a daughter. The future of every Shield clan is dependent on the sons finding mates among the descendants of the colonists of The Serendipity."

Sariana stared at him. "You're telling me the legend is true? Your class was not among those on board

The Serendipityr

            Gryph lifted his head proudly. "My people were conveniently on hand when the lightstorm took The Serendipity. Without my ancestors, everyone on that ship would have died. We saved them. We saved them a second time on the ground. Someday I'll tell you the whole story. The important point is that the colonists repaid the Shields by negotiating the Pact. It binds us into their social system."

            "This is all just a legend. A wild tale concocted by the people of the western provinces. I know it is." "You know I'm not lying to you, Sariana. Look at me. I have never lied to you." For a moment she was trapped by the truth in his eyes. She struggled to resist and became frantic

when she could not. Without a word she spun around, seeking escape.