Riversend: An Amberlight Novel. Sylvia Kelso

whatever Tellurith was doing came through him to me. Twitch, locked-up muscles. Catching breath. It’s the weirdest experience, to respond to someone who’s responding to somebody else.

      If she hadn’t, I doubt I could have gone on with it.

      * * *

      This is hard to admit too. I learnt—we all learnt, I realize—a long time ago. As a boy, when I saw someone put a hand on someone else in a barrack-yard and have his face smashed in. As a man, with a squadron commander cashiered because he loved—showed he loved—another man. “They gave me a crown,” he said, “for killing five men. Then they threw me out for loving one.” Nobody ever had to explain it: if you’re a real man you never want, never love, never look at, never touch other men.

      I’m a man. Until now, I’ve never known what that means.

      Lying there, my hands on him, my weight on him, his hair, his body under me, physically there—I understood what I was. How “man” isn’t “woman.” What we truly are.

      And then—

      I felt it happen. Rules broke. Ties—bonds broke. A wall opened. Something said: You can want to do this now. And if you want it, you can do.

      As much as Sarth, I have been inside a Tower.

      Worse than Sarth, because I didn’t—wouldn’t—know.

      * * *

      I touched his face. You do it with a woman. Learning who they are, how they’re different. But this was more than women’s differences. Skin, bone, body structure.

      And—

      I have to be honest. If anywhere, here. Ever since I saw the bastard I’ve—over and over, I’ve thought, he’s beautiful.

      Touching him wasn’t just exploration. It was pleasure. It was possession.

      Be hung, but it was desire.

      Except—not like with a woman. Because a woman—You want to have her, yes, to join with her, to be more than human, for a minute, a moment, one time out of time, losing your whole self. But a man—a man is—

      You.

      And if he’s beautiful, the pleasure, the possession, even desire is different. Because wanting him, touching, just accepting that you want him—is to want, to accept—yourself.

      * * *

      I think, maybe, I can do that. Will do it. Have done it, or why am I writing this?

      Or how could I have gone on with it? Once Tellurith drew his attention back, first to kiss, then embrace, then touching him. Jaw, throat, chest. Nipples. And when Tellurith does that . . .

      I knew what he felt from both sides. Enough to disorient anyone. But when he rolled over, I could have let be. Could have lain there like a lump. Like the ones who watch for pay.

      Even then I would have learnt enough to put me out of the bed. How I ever thought I had technique with a woman—Tel’s taught me everything I know.

      And everything she knows, I know now, came from him.

      But I didn’t lie there. And at some stage . . . touching him stopped being for my pleasure. And moved to making his.

      Probably I was a perfect irritant. An amateur flute-player in a trio, out of time, out of tune. Tellurith has a better feel for the other’s feelings, a better sense of mutual pleasures, of give and take between the two.

      I don’t think I did a good job of making it three. But I tried.

      And River-lord witness, I will run if they try that on me!

      * * *

      Settling. Week 9.

      Journal kept by Sarth

      How can a man become a general—one supposes this is at least the equivalent of Sethar’s reputation—and be all but ignorant of love? What do they teach Outlanders?

      And, the Mother defend me, what has he inflicted on Tellurith?

      To be sure, it had a certain—poignance. Like the shy, the clumsy ardor of a very young boy, when he first tries to repay what he has learned. The Mother knows, it was the last thing I expected when he stalked round that bed. I thought I had gone too far at last. That he meant, at least, to murder me.

      Who was the more surprised, when he kissed me instead?

      It does seem to have eased something. Too subtle to call change, too slight to show in speech, almost too little to read in a glance. One cannot even say he looks me in the eye more often. But he does look. And even without looks, when we meet, or are together now, his stance, all his body language says, All right. Yes. You can be near me.

      Going for water this morning, it made me notice the Iskardans more than usual.

      Tellurith says that when we finally finish building, the next project will be water pipes. The Mother knows, of the myriad lost joys I yearn for, running water in the house—oh, inconceivable delight, hot running water in the house!—is among the first. During the epidemic, to have had even the Tower hallway fountain, where visitors used to wash their shoes . . .

      It would be churlish to complain. There are plenty of other austerities, from miserly heating to the foul-burning fat-lamps, from soldiers’ hand-me-downs to the mere lack of once taken-for-granted delicacies. Oh, for something beyond corn bread and salted meat and rationed honey or dried fruit!

      Until we have a trade balance, that must be foregone too. Meanwhile, we chop wood and carry water, and try not to think that, because they are all among the work-crews, the women shirk.

      So we were tramping yet again to the fountain where, ever since his arm healed, Alkhes insists on taking a yoke. We climbed the five stone steps from the washing bay; tucked hoods down against the wind. Thanked our gods it had not begun to rain, and started through the mud, trying not to let the empty buckets bang our knees.

      More Iskardans were abroad than usual, it being what passes for a market-day: folk up from the Kora, some hunters from the upper valleys, where fur-trapping has begun. Threading the street, we kept our eyes down. Though it is only sensible, a token appeasement, in different ways it chafes us both. But since I am far better at glancing under lashes, it was I who noticed how they looked at him.

      In his own way, Alkhes is worth a look. Over-small by Tower standards, but well-cut features, and the eyes and hair . . . pools blacker than ebony, sentient midnight sea. Falls of silken mahogany, fine and straight and forever tumbling in his face. It goes up under a helmet, he says. And for all his size, well-proportioned. Subtle, lithe, exquisitely resilient; in heavy coat and infantry boots, he still has a killer’s grace.

      So they look, if it is only one in ten, with something more than censure. Since the confrontation with Darthis, there has been a spice of awe. But this morning . . .

      Recognition? Acknowledgement? Anticipation? Too slight, too enigmatic for analysis. But there is something—

      Something they know, and we do not.

      Should I mention it to Tellurith? But what would I say? I can hear Zuri now: a presentiment, some man’s fancy. And is it anything more?

      * * *