Page 127 of Swordheart
Sarkis let out his breath in a gusty sigh. “I hope this job is done quickly,” he admitted. “Because I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
Halla finished wading in the stream and emerged, clean but freezing. The water was cold. It wasn’t quite as bad as fresh snowmelt, in that her bones did not ache, but it wasn’t pleasant.
She’d run out of most of the ordinary songs she knew and had started in on hymns. The Four-Faced God had excellent hymns about the harvest and the planting and so forth. She wished she knew some hymns to the White Rat, for Zale, but then again, she was also aware that her singing wasn’t the sort of thing any god would desire. Anyway, the Rat never seemed to go in much for hymns.
Halla wondered vaguely if Sarkis’s great god liked hymns. He didn’t seem like the type, but that might have more to do with Sarkis than with the god.
She toweled off, trying to use the rough cloth to rub warmth back into her skin. It wasn’t entirely successful. She realized she’d stopped singing and started up again, before her watchdog could come running.
Not that I don’t want to see him, but I’d prefer to be dressed.
I think.
Halla stifled a sigh. She had very little to offer anyone in that department, she knew… or rather, she had entirely too much of it, in all directions. Men were only interested in hips like hers if they wanted heirs, and she was fairly sure that Sarkis didn’t.
He’d said some very kind things, but presumably he was being just that—kind.
And I must be practical. I must always be practical.
When he’d had his arms around her earlier, she had not felt particularly practical. He was as solid as a stone wall and he radiated heat and he had held her so tightly that she could hardly breathe.
It felt wonderful.
She had to tell herself that Sarkis was her guard, nothing more.
Probably nothing more.
The kiss in the marketplace had felt like a great deal more, but he hadn’t repeated it.
Which is for the best,Halla told herself grimly. She had nothingto offer except kisses and men generally wanted a bit more than that. Her late husband certainly had, at least when he was younger. Not that Halla was that young herself.
Gods, why couldn’t she have met Sarkis fifteen years earlier?
Well. Might as well ask why the sun couldn’t rise later in the day so we could all sleep in.
She was getting an inheritance she had never expected. She could provide for her family, what little was left of it, and if she did not do anything completely ridiculous, she would be able to live comfortably on what remained. She should be grateful for that much. Shewasgrateful for that much.
Her dreams of running her hands down Sarkis’s muscled arms, tracing the path of each silver scar… well, they were dreams, that was all. You had them and you enjoyed them and then you got on with life.
She’d already seen what happened when you gave yourself to unsuitable men. Her mother had been a walking object lesson in loving unwisely. Even her mother would probably have balked at loving an enchanted sword.
Assuming that love is the correct word,thought Halla, a bit dryly. Love might well make your heart race and your pulse pound in your ears, but the one pounding a good deal lower was lust, plain and simple.
Which was… well, not helpful. Hell, Halla didn’t even know if shelikedlovemaking. She didn’t think she hated it. Plenty of people enjoyed it. It seemed like it had a lot of potential. She was pretty sure that her husband hadn’t been very good at it, but in fairness, she probably hadn’t been, either. She’d have liked the chance to find out, but given the risks, it hadn’t been worth it to find out after her husband died.
Well. Maybe when she was past the point of childbearing, someone would come along who wanted to spend time with a good-natured widow.
I don’t wantsomeone,though. I want Sarkis.
No. She had to be practical. Other women got to be impractical—young ones, beautiful ones, ones with well-off families to catch them when they did something foolish. Halla was no longer young and had never been beautiful. So, she had to be one of the practical ones.
Sarkis did not make her feel the least bit practical.
All those years of thinking that foolish girls in ballads were simply too dumb to know better,she thought, slogging up the cold riverbank toward the wagon.And it turns out that you’re no better, when it comes down to it.
She came into the circle of firelight. Zale smiled up at her, and Sarkis gave her the muted scowl that passed for a smile, and Halla realized that she almost didn’t want the journey to end.
CHAPTER 41
