Page 24 of Something Human

He was stronger than Adares, strong enough to have restrained him if he wanted to, but he let go at the first sign of Adares pulling away. He pushed himself back against the doorpost—probably would have moved back further if the doorpost hadn’t been there—eyes wide, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. Adares realized he was doing the same thing.

Incredibly—and to Adares’s shame—Rus was the first to speak.

“I am sorry,” he said. His voice was hoarse. “I know you didn’t want it to be that way between us.”

“I?” Adares cleared his throat. “Of course I wanted it. I’m always up for anything, especially with someone I like. But I should never have lost control like that. It was appalling. What you said before, about being set apart—that it’s written in your skin, and you would make yourself a lie—I couldn’t ever want you to do that, even if—even for—I mean, I care for you too much, I … ” This was all both too little and too much. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you, and I’m sorry.”

Rus leaned back against the doorpost, head thrown back, eyes half-shut, as if all the strength had gone out of him suddenly.

“Adares … what I am set apart from is marriage and getting children. From continuing my line—from the honour of having sons. But I was set apart from all of that by my own nature. And I am not set apart from you. I think my seed would be safe with you.”

That—oddly—struck Adares as maybe the sexiest thing anyone had ever said to him. It was a moment before he could work through the implications of what Rus had said.

“Immortal gods! You barbarians! Did they honestly only think to forbid you to have sex with women—and leave you free to do what you like with men?” He started forward, his hand reaching for Rus’s thigh, sliding up under his kilt.

“No.” Rus pushed the hand away decisively. “No, that is not what it is. I am not free—I am an offence against the Great Pattern of the world. But I have always been that, I will always be that, no matter what I do.”

“You’re—” He stopped himself. It would be flippant and meaningless to protest. He knew nothing about it; he’d never heard of the “Great Pattern” before Rus mentioned it, and certainly didn’t believe in it.

Rus smiled rather sadly. “You want to say I’m not. I know. Sometimes I agree with you. Sometimes I know—I seem to know—that Heva is more complicated than we can see, and that I could be, must be, part of it. Sometimes I think it is blasphemy to imagine that I could break the pattern danced by the gods, just by wanting what men in Kos and Pheme have all the time. And then this.” He gestured, indicating Adares, the doorway where they sat, the courtyard, the temple complex. “We are here together. The gods brought us to this place together—they have sheltered us in their own house. How could they bless us any better than that?”

“Yeah … ” Adares couldn’t deny that there was something fascinating, even beautiful, in all this, in hearing the subtleties that occupied Rus’s mind. But it left him not knowing where he stood. “So what does all this amount to? Do you or don’t you?”

Rus looked away into the room. “They left me some food, since I said I was staying here. Bread, smoked meat, and dried apples. Can we eat? I am hungry.”

CHAPTER VIII

ADARES MADE A vague movement, unsure whether he should pick Rus up or take his hand, pretty sure neither would be quite welcome. Rus took the decision away from him by gathering his feet under himself, putting a hand on Adares’s shoulder, and pushing himself up to standing. Adares was left to scramble to his own feet.

“How did you get those men to leave you here, anyway?” Adares asked. “I meant to ask that before we—got distracted.”

Rus stood, holding onto the doorpost. “I lied. I told them I had been sent to scout the area after the battle—they had been sent to do the same thing, but of course they think my orders came from the stathan, and theirs came from their hearth headman, and so they had to argue, for form’s sake, which order should take precedence. I was patient with this only because I was lying—if I really had orders from my stathan, of course they would take precedence over the orders of some hearth headman from the eastern plains.”

The way he told this story made it clear that he was not in the habit of lying and did not do it lightly. That was only what Adares would have expected.

“But I could not tell them to leave,” Rus said, “or to pen the horses somewhere else, and so unfortunately they will be back. They may bring others. We cannot stay much longer.”

“Of course. We were living on borrowed time here anyway.” His thoughts turned again to the yellow banners he had seen from the hilltop. “I saw something in the forest … ”

Rus had turned toward the bed, pushing himself away from the doorpost, and Adares noticed what it was that he had used to fasten his kilt.

“Hey—that’s mine.”

Rus shot him an overtly flirtatious look over his shoulder. “Is it? I think it’s mine now.”

It was the pin from Adares’s military cloak. It was the badge of his rank, though presumably that meant as little to Rus, or to the Luth warriors who might have seen him wearing it, as the Luth tattoos had meant to Adares. They would have thought Rus took it from a fallen enemy, anyway, and the news that Adares had fallen in the battle would have circulated by now, so that wouldn’t tell anyone anything they didn’t already know.

But wearing a man’s rank badge pinned on your civilian clothes—it was inappropriate, of course, but it was the sort of thing a very bold and open, don’t-care-who-knows mistress or lover might have done. Of course Rus didn’t know that. Did he?

Rus crossed to the bed, limping but not badly, and sat. “You saw something?” he prompted.

Adares shook himself slightly. “Yes. Right. The Daine are camped in a valley a few hours’ march from here.”

“Ah. Then the help you gave them last summer paid off. They are coming to return the favour.”

“And to meet their old enemy, the Luth. They looked like a substantial force.”

Rus nodded. “They have been getting strong. We have known this. Some of the hearth headmen were saying the Daine would attack if we threatened Tios.”