Page 50 of Thief of Roses
“You might think less of me,” she admitted.“We have been so at peace together here.I don’t want to ruin it.”She stalked off to set her own small rock down beside his boulder.
“I have told you my great crimes and you forgave me,” he said.“Will you not allow me to reciprocate that acceptance?I cannot imagine that you could tell me anything that would lessen my esteem.Do you eat babies?”
“No,” she glared.
“Have you tortured anyone?”
“No.”
“Killed anyone?”
“Yes.”
Baró’s brow arched.He looked impressed.
“Me too.My esteem for you grows.”He put his hand out, palm up, for hers.“Look at who — at what — you’re talking to, Rivani.Who am I to cast judgment on you?”When she put her hand in his, he squeezed it in reassurance.“I have a fear, Rivani, that in my coming years, I will forget everything of you unless someone else revives my memories.I will forget our conversations, the sensation of your hand in mine, even your gift of my name.If you tell me about yourself, I will forget that too.But oh, for that time I can remember!I will think of you constantly, fighting my forgetfulness with every scrap of knowledge of you I possess.I know the important things — that you are kind and compassionate, clever and resourceful, fair to your own detriment, affectionate and intelligent, and you make me want to improve myself.But when you say such things, that you would not just be an outcast among the ignorant xenophobic populace but also among your own, I want to know since I will never be a part of your life outside of here.”He regarded their joined hands.“You have told me not to call your dearest friend an abomination.I would just like to know my dearest friend at all.Please, give me the opportunity to offer you the same unconditional acceptance you offer me.”
“Oh gods, Baró, you hit low.”The callused warmth of his hand robbed her of deep thought.“There’s nothing to tell, Baró.My birth had inauspicious omens and my life has played out to confirm it.I am considered unlucky.”
Baró tried to mask his disappointment but dropped her hand.
“If that’s all...”He returned to the fallen masonry and resumed working in silence.
Before long, when the path opened enough to allow Rivani passage, he left for the bailey to begin work on her smokehouse.
XXI.
Asennight later, thesmokehouse needed finishing touches before Baró announced its completion.He had not been passionate about the project, complying because Rivani wished it, but when he needed distraction it became a welcome object of diversion.The foundation excavation had been tedious, but he took pleasure in fitting the masonry debris together like a fine strategic puzzle, putting his mind to a challenge that consumed him beyond weary survival.Rivani surrendered her involvement, seeing the unexpected sign of creative genius manifest in his careful construction, engaging his mind in a way she had not witnessed before.
Rivani asked that he not leave for her ovulation and when he made no gesture of readying himself to depart, she privately rejoiced.The unintended consequences of proximity meant that her own desires could not be hushed.She enjoyed watching him work, snuggling into her fox fur cloak and pretending that she snuggled Baró instead.If he were human, Rivani would have not have been alone in reveling in the surface pleasures of watching him — the rippling muscles, the sweat-sheen on his fur even in the midst of the cold, the sheer power of his body.But he wasn’t human, and for Rivani that added another level of physical intrigue even if no one else would have been open to understanding it.More than even that, she found beauty in the shape of his mind, evident in his work as he figured out ways, sometimes extraordinarily simple and other times absurdly complex, of maintaining a solid structure for her purposes.
Before he volunteered to build the smokehouse, Rivani anticipated putting together a makeshift clutch of branches with a ring of masonry around it for support and a crawl space.Now, under his hand, it had become something functional for both of them, not just a construct that might last the season.The practical manifestation of his cleverness — managing the calculations without the benefit of writing and utilizing the sub-par materials as if they were commissioned from a quarry — spoke of an intelligence that she could have only guessed at.Save for this project, she might never have known his capacity for brilliance even if his innate ability and speed at acquiring her language hinted at it.
She bit her lip, watching him one morning, his exhalations billowing out in white puffs from his nostrils.
“You’re a younger son,” she announced, trying again to fit the pieces of him together just as he fit the stones of the smokehouse.“Clearly well-educated.You have a logical strategic mind.You have mentioned the military.Were you, perhaps, a military engineer?”
