“Now fold it over. Flesh to flesh,” he told her, and was annoyed to feel a coiling warmth in his loins at those artless words. “By which I mean, the wet sides should press together to form a kind of seal to itself.”

“Okay,” she said, kneeling on the folded hide to pat it down. “Like this?”

“Fair enough. Tonight, you sleep on them. The weight and warmth of a living body helps the cure to absorb. Tomorrow, we scrape away whatever did not. We should smoke them too, but we will need good green wood for that so we will do without. Here.”

She took the second finished hide and laid it out on the ground, pouring the rest of the warm brains over it without being told. “What are we making out of them?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Oh.” Her eyes tapped at his and fell away. He could see her shoulders stiffening, armoring herself as if against a blow. “I…I don’t suppose maybe I could get a jacket or…you know…something?”

“Not without a fleshing pit and not with saoq in any case, but there will surely be better hides in the mountains. And when we find them, you will already know what to do. You can make your own clothes.”

All of Amber’s face wrinkled around in ways that meant surprise, except for her smile, which was nothing like a dumaq woman’s smile and yet reminded him with great force and satisfaction of his mother receiving that little pot of jam or tin of candied blossoms and how she had looked at his father. If Meoraq had draped Amber head to foot in jewelry, he doubted he would get half the smile she gave him now for being told she could do a smelly, messy, body-breaking chore. He glanced up to send his Father another silent thanks and noticed the heavy skies all over again. “I want you to sleep in my tent tonight,” he said, frowning at them.

She looked up, brains dripping down her raised arms. “What? You what?”

“It means to rain. The hides should be kept dry.”

“Oh. Put them in your tent. Right.” She laughed a little. “I thought you told me to sleep in there.”

“I did,” he said, puzzled. “If you can’t mark my words, tell me so that I can repeat them. You need to sleep on the hides so that your weight and warmth—”

“In your tent?” Her face was very pink. Drops of brains fell lightly on her blood-stained thighs. “With you?”

Some great invisible hammer came clubbing down on the whole of his body, leaving him to stare foolishly back at her as if asking a woman to share his bedchamber, even if it was just a tent, had no special significance at all. How could he even say that without realizing how it could be perceived? If he’d said this to a dumaq woman—any dumaq woman—she would be bowing herself there right this moment to receive his fires.

And with this unplanned thought, the warmth in his loins became flame.

‘I only want her out of the damn rain so the hides won’t get wet,’ he thought stubbornly. He wanted the hides to stay dry while they cured and he would admit to nothing more, but when Sheul wanted him to make leathers, He provided lhichu, and when He wanted His chosen to breed, He gave them women.

‘And she is a woman, no matter what else she is,’ he thought. ‘A stubborn woman, an insufferable woman, a human woman, but a woman and when I order a woman to my room, by God and Gann, she goes!’

His head tipped warningly. “Do you not mark me?”

“I understand you just fine.”

“Then you will sleep in my tent.”

“Why?”

“What? Why do you think?”

She did not answer and the silence gradually stole both the edge from his voice and the urgency from his constrained member. He leaned back, scratching once, needlessly, at the side of his snout.

“Why do you think?” he asked finally, quietly.

“I think,” she said, not meeting his eyes, “you know you can sleep on these things without me.”

He looked at her without really seeing her. His mind was like the clouds, heavy without weight, in constant motion but unchanging. He did not think, exactly, but after a certain span of time, he said, “Come to my tent tonight.”

She stilled, but only for an instant. “No,” she said, and backed away to fold the hide over.

So. He’d not only ordered her to his tent, she had refused to go. Meoraq rubbed at the side of his snout several times, until it began to hurt. “Why not?”

She closed her eyes and just breathed. Meoraq found himself counting her breaths; a slow-count of six. She opened her eyes and raised her head just enough to look at him. “Because if it was just to get me out of the rain, you’d ask for me and Nicci.”

He did not amend his offer, which was vaguely disturbing to him in the part of his mind which was still thinking.

She seemed to be waiting, and when he only sat there and said nothing more, she slowly leaned back and gathered up the saoq hide to hold loosely in her arms. “What do you want from me?” she whispered, color dull and dark in her cheeks.

“I don’t know,” he told her and it had to be truth, however much it felt like a lie.

“Is it…” She clapped one brain- and blood-smeared hand to her face and pushed at her eyes, then shook her head and looked right at him. “Is it sex?”

“No,” he said, troubled.

The color in her cheeks deepened to an alarming shade and she looked away. “Okay.” She stood up, eyes averted and too bright. “I’m going to put these in your tent.”

Meoraq reached out and caught at her leg before she could flee. He rubbed his brow-ridges, cursing himself and all the words he could not make, because there was no way to tell her that it wasn’t sex, it wasn’t either that fierce eruptive will of Sheul or the shameful temptation of Gann, but this…this nameless thing that was neither fire nor clay but as constant as the wind, sometimes a storm and sometimes only a breeze, was always with him. No, it was not sex, but it had to be something that made him look for reasons to sit with her, to speak with her, even to fight with her if that was all there was, because even the most tedious and foul chore of curing a damned animal hide could become something to look forward to if he was with her. And it wasn’t sex, but he wished it was; it wasn’t sex, but if it had been, even that could be good, could even be glorious, just because it was with her.

He released her and said nothing as she carried the hides away. The wind gusted, throwing smoke into his eyes. He closed them and began silently to pray.

5

He slept on the hides alone that night. When Amber woke him for his watch, he offered her his tent again, but she refused and he did not insist. The rain came and went, rattling noisily off the metal blankets of those humans unlucky enough to have no tent, then blowing away. By dawn, the wind had mostly dried things out and there was plenty of cold saoq to pass around, but it was a cold morning and it only grew colder as the day went on.

They walked into the biting wind, moving fast to keep warm. The extra effort exhausted the humans quickly, which meant longer rest periods than usual. Amber lit a fire at each stopping place and Meoraq was generous with his reserves of tea, but still it was Scott they all clustered around—Scott with his endless talk of the ship awaiting them at Xi’Matezh and their lost Earth, as good as found once more.

They made their camp that night beside a thick copse of trees that gave them at least some shelter from the wind and enough wood to set several good fires. Meoraq’s evening hunt proved fruitless, but Scott and his people still had a few bones to gnaw and Meoraq had cuuvash for himself and Amber. Afterwards, he took her to the open plains to continue her spear-training. She didn’t want to, but she didn’t fight back when he pulled her bodily away with him, and after a few light cuffs, she stopped trying to stare off at her Nicci and paid attention to him.