Page 17 of Swordheart #1

No one tried to stop them.

It took Halla a moment to gather up her courage to go into the next inn.

She’d washed her face in a puddle so that no one could tell she’d been crying a few hours earlier.

But she stared at the door and thought about other people and other people’s malice, and had a sudden urge to turn and run into the fields and never come out again.

Then she realized she’d been standing there for several minutes, with Sarkis beside her, and that he had to guess she was frightened—frightened of an inn, for gods’ sake!—and the shame of that lifted her chin. Don’t embarrass yourself.

She opened the door and went in, with Sarkis standing behind her like a particularly warlike dog at heel. She wondered if the innkeeper would think they were married, then glanced at Sarkis and had a hard time picturing him being married to anyone.

Though he was once, wasn’t he?

She didn’t want to think about that. She was strong, Sarkis had said. The admiration in his voice had been obvious.

He certainly could have no admiration for a woman who had been foolish enough to fall into such an obvious trap, and who had sobbed on his shoulder like a child. But apparently he was stuck with her so long as she wielded the sword. Whether he likes me or hates me, admires me or despises me.

She did not want him to despise her.

How could he not? You’re a decadent southerner. Hell, even by decadent southern standards, you’re pitiful. You can barely climb over a wall on your own. You were held prisoner by an old woman armed with embroidery hooks. He’d have been well away already, most likely, if he wasn’t stuck with you.

No, that was unfair. Sarkis was clearly a decent man, and he wouldn’t leave someone so obviously helpless wandering around in the woods by herself.

This was, if possible, an even less comforting thought.

After this is all over, after I’ve got enough money to set up my nieces—if I can get enough to set up my nieces—I’ll hand him the sword and tell him he’s free to go find a better wielder. That would be the best thing I could do.

“Can I help you?” said the innkeeper, turning to her.

“Two rooms for the night,” said Halla.

“One,” said Sarkis.

The innkeeper looked from one to the other. “Which?”

Oh … oh, of course. I can just sheathe the sword, he doesn’t need a room. It’ll save money.

Halla knew that she was blushing. “One,” she said.

“You sure?” The innkeeper’s eyes lingered on hers and she was glad that she had washed the tears off them.

“I will sleep in the stable, if you have one,” said Sarkis. “I do not require a room.”

“Ah.” The innkeeper nodded, apparently relieved. “Good to hear, for I’ve only one room free in any event.”

He took Halla’s money and nodded her upstairs. “Last on the left.”

She went to the stairs. Sarkis followed. “I will bring up your bags, my lady,” he said, loudly enough for the innkeeper to hear.

“Thank you,” said Halla.

They went to the room. It was a narrow strip of bed and a narrower strip of floor beside it. There was a chair and a basin wedged in so tightly that using either one would require a great deal of planning. The mattress sagged.

Halla collapsed onto it and made a distinctly unladylike noise of relief.

“I once heard a yak make a sound like that,” said Sarkis.

“Are you comparing me to a yak?” She heard the thump as he set her pack down and a rattling as he checked the doors.

“It was merely an observation. My lady.”

Halla couldn’t be bothered to lift her head. Every muscle in her body was trying to unknot at once. “I’m sure I’d be a very good yak.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “You’d be the best of yaks.”

Was that a compliment? An insult? She wasn’t sure, and at the moment, she didn’t much care.

“Yaks complain, but they’re smart. As smart as horses. And curious. And they don’t suffer fools.”

Halla sighed, rolling over. Her back screamed. “I wish I didn’t suffer fools.”

“You needn’t suffer them any longer.”

She opened her eyes. “What? Why not?”

“Because I will dispose of them for you.”

Halla started to laugh weakly. “Oh gods! If only you’d come along ten years earlier…”

He sat down in the chair, facing the door, as alert as a guard dog. “Take a nap,” he suggested. “I’m here now.”

She fell asleep almost at once. When she woke again, the sun was going down and Sarkis was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her. He tilted his head up at her.

“Have you been awake this whole time?”

“Of course.”

She shook her head, bemused.

“Do you wish to go downstairs?”

“Mmm.” She stood up, wincing at the stiffness in her joints. She didn’t mind being older, she just wished her bones hadn’t aged faster than the rest of her. Somewhere in her early thirties, her hips had decided they belonged to a much older body.

There was a privy at the end of the hall with a carved wooden seat. It was a great deal better than attending to business in hedgerows. There were fewer twigs in awkward places.

Sarkis, who presumably did not need to do this sort of thing, either, waited at the other end of the hall.

“Err,” said Halla, once she emerged. “Do you… uh…?”

“If I stay outside the sword long enough to eat and drink, yes,” he said. “But not right now.”

She nodded. “I thought I’d be hungry again,” she admitted. “But I’m just exhausted. I want to sleep for a year.”

“Understandable,” said Sarkis, holding open the door to her room.

“I guess I’ll just sheathe you?” She looked at the sword, tied open with the dressing gown cords, which were by now much the worse for wear.

“No,” said Sarkis. “I should sleep, but I will make a bed here. After this morning’s attack, I do not wish to leave you unguarded.”

Halla blinked at him. “Um,” she said.

Don’t be silly. It’s not as if you weren’t asleep earlier. Hell, you climbed into his lap last night. And you’re traveling alone together, so your reputation isn’t going to get much more compromised.

There was just something very different about sleeping in proximity in the middle of a hedge and sleeping, at the same time, in the same bedroom. Maybe it was the existence of the bed.

Halla looked at the bed, which was narrow, sagging in the middle, and had bits of straw leaking out from a gap in the side. As a palace of carnal delight went, it was definitely sub-par.

Sarkis rolled his eyes, picked up her pack, and set it down in front of the door. Then he stretched out, folded his arms across his chest, and put his head on the pack.

Halla peered over the foot of the bed at him.

“It’s fine,” he said, not opening his eyes.

“Is that comfortable?”

“Not particularly.”

“Do you want a blanket?”

“It’s fine.”

She wrung her hands. It seemed like the worst failure of hospitality to have blankets when Sarkis didn’t. “At least take my cloak!”

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “Lady, I have slept on stone floors with snow coming in through the windows. This is not a hardship.”

“Yes, but you don’t have to,” she argued.

“There’s no snow. And we’ve got blankets!

And a cloak! You could even share the bed if you want—I mean, not share it, obviously, not share -share it, I’m a respectable widow, or I was before I met you and all this happened, but of course I’m still respectable like that, so I would never actually—not that I’m saying you’d want to, of course, even if I wasn’t respectable, or that I’d want to—not that you’re not—I mean, it’s nothing against you, you’re a fine man who’s actually a sword and I don’t know if swords even—I mean, it would be ironic if they didn’t, given the symbolism, don’t you think? —but—”

At that point, her embarrassment reached out from somewhere in the center of her chest and mercifully throttled her tongue.

Sarkis had begun staring at her at some point in that recitation, his head tilting further and further to one side, like a dog that could not believe what it was seeing.

Halla folded her hands in front of her, took a deep breath, and said, “You could sleep on the bed if you wanted. Just to sleep. I wouldn’t be a threat to your virtue.”

He continued to stare at her.

“For the love of the gods, say something,” she begged.

“In… I know not how many years…” said Sarkis, “no wielder has ever been concerned about my virtue.”

“If you’d just take the cloak,” said Halla, feeling her face burning so hot that it could probably warm the whole inn, “we could stop having this horrible conversation.”

“Give me the cloak.”

Halla sighed with relief, pulled her cloak off the back of the chair, and draped it over Sarkis.

He watched her with an indescribable expression. Halla snuffed out the candle and was grateful when they were plunged into darkness so that he couldn’t see her blush.