Out of the Darkness

“I didn’t think so,” Gismonda replied, “and I turned out to be right. I have had some practice at judging these things, you know. Men are men, regardless of which kingdom they come from.”

She spoke with what sounded like perfect detachment. And if that’s not a judgment on half the human race, powers below eat me if I know what would be, Sabrino thought. He knew what his own countrymen had done in Unkerlant. It didn’t go very far toward making him think she was wrong. “Well, any which way, I’m glad you came through safe, and I’m very glad to see you,” he said.

“I would have come sooner,” she said, “but the first word I got was that you were dead.” She angrily tossed her head. “It wasn’t anything official--by then, the official ley lines had all broken down. But one of the officers from your wing--a captain of no particular breeding--came to the house to give me the news that he had seen you flamed out of the sky.”

“That would have been Orosio,” Sabrino said. “Breeding or not, he’s a good fellow. I wonder if he came through alive.”

“I don’t know. That was the name, though,” Gismonda said. “If he came to tell me such a story, he might at least have had the courtesy to get it right. It must have been kindly meant--I can’t doubt that--but. . . .”

“I’m lucky to be alive,” Sabrino answered. If this is luck, he added, but only to himself. Aloud, he went on, “I can’t blame him for thinking I was dead. If your dragon goes down, you usually are. Mine didn’t smash into the ground, and didn’t crush me after I got out of the harness. Luck--except for my leg.” He couldn’t pretend that hadn’t happened, no matter how much he wanted to.

His wife nodded. “I’m very sorry.”

It was more than polite, less than loving: exactly what he might have expected from Gismonda. “How did you finally find out Orosio had it wrong?”

“A mad rumor went through Trapani a couple of weeks ago--a rumor that the Unkerlanters had offered to make some wounded dragonflier King of Algarve, or of what they held of Algarve, and that he’d turned them down flat.”

Gismonda’s green eyes glinted. “I know you, my dear. It sounded so much like something you would do, I started asking questions. And here I am.”

“Here you are,” Sabrino agreed. “I’m glad you are.” He held out his hands to her. They still hadn’t touched. That was very much like Gismonda, too. But she did take his hands now. She even bent down by the side of the bed and brushed her lips across his. He laughed. “You are a wanton today.”

“Oh, hush,” she told him. “You’re as foolish as that healer of yours.”

He patted her backside--not the sort of liberty he usually took with her. “If you wanted to shut the door . . .”

“I wasn’t supposed to make you tired,” Gismonda said primly.

Sabrino grinned. “You just told me the fellow was a fool. So why pay attention to him now?”

“Men,” Gismonda said again, maybe fondly, maybe not. “You’d sooner have lost your leg than that.”

“No.” The grin fell from Sabrino’s face. “I’d sooner not have lost anything. This hasn’t been easy, and it hasn’t been fun, and I’ll thank you not to joke about it.”

“I’m sorry,” his wife said at once. “You’re right, of course. That was thoughtless of me. When do they think you’ll be able to leave here?”

She was clever. Not only did she change the subject, she reminded him what he would be able to do when he healed, not of what he’d lost. “It shouldn’t be too much longer,” he answered. “I am on my feet--on my foot, I should say. I’d just gone out and about not long before you got here. They’re talking about fitting a made leg to the stump, but that won’t be for a while longer. It needs to heal more.”

“I understand,” Gismonda said. “When you do get out, I’ll take the best care of you I can--and I’ll do what I can for that,

too, once we’re someplace where no one is likely to walk in on us.”

“I appreciate it.” Sabrino’s tone was sardonic. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that was a mistake. If he was to get any pleasure from a woman from now on, from whom would it be but Gismonda? Who else would be interested in a mutilated old man? No one he could think of.

Half a lifetime earlier, such a reflection would have cast him into despair. Now ... At just this side of sixty, he burned less feverishly than he had when he was younger. The decoctions he drank to hold pain at bay helped dampen his fire, too, and the brute fact of the injury he’d taken also reduced his vitality.

He sighed. “Even if you had shut the door there, I wonder if anything would have happened.”

“One way or another, I expect we’ll manage when you’re well enough to come home,” Gismonda said. “In your own way, Sabrino, you are reliable.”

“For which I thank you indeed,” he replied. “It may be flattery--in my present state of decrepitude, it’s bound to be flattery--but you mustn’t think I’m not grateful to you for keeping up the illusion.”