Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall (20 page)

"If you can find water, don't you think you might get your hands dirty digging for it?''

"I don't see," Drakkar said mildly, "why you're so set on my performing one task over another. I have the Talent to find water and we could use it. Let someone else dig the latrines."

"Because we can't afford for anyone to be too good to do the down and dirty jobs. If you were falling off a cliff, I wouldn't want to be too good to give you a hand—or the other way around."

Drakkar tilted his head slightly. Alma could see the feathers ripple. Their panoply of blues and greens looked like a mirage in the sunlight. "You have a point," he said slowly, reluctantly. "But as neither of us is falling off a cliff and water is necessary, perhaps I could dig . . . latrines . . . tomorrow."

Stefan took a deep shuddering breath and Alma tensed, afraid of the explosion that would follow. Then Sir Thomas' level voice cut through the air, and she saw him crouched on a concrete block, just above the level of their heads.

"Commendable and right, Stefan," the man said. "But Drakkar offers us what we need most now. We've had the horses on tight water rations the last three days. I want fresh mounts when we hit the foothills—that's nester territory and we may have to outrun a raiding party."

Stefan let out his breath. He took a step back, saying, "Tomorrow, then."

Drakkar nodded. His crest subsided as Stefan stalked away. His boots punctuated his frustration with puffs of dust and gravel.

Blade jumped down lightly and straightened up. "Take Diego with you," he said. "And don't take more horses at a time than you can handle."

The Mojavan nodded. Alma hesitated in his shadow, caught up for a moment in Sir Thomas' intent stare. She felt a blush heat her face and ducked her head, shying away from his observation and running a little to keep up with Drakkar's lean, long-legged movement.

He reached out and caught her by the elbow just when she thought she was in the clear.

"You were going to get in between them."

"I—I couldn't let them fight. It wouldn't be good for the rest of us."

"You thought it was coming to that."

"Yessir. Drakkar doesn't know how far he can push Stefan."

"And you do."

"Y-yessir." Hard to meet his face and yet try not to, try to keep the brim of her hat shading hers. Fear of discovery lanced through her. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

He let her go. "Next time, let them do what they have to do. They're both grown men. They'll learn how to pull with each other.''

"Yessir." She bounded off before he could say anything else.

Thomas watched Diego take off in Drakkar's wake. He thought long and hard, and wished Lady were with him. That keen blue-and-brown gaze caught more than he did, sometimes. If he hadn't overheard the conversation, if he didn't know Diego was who he was. ... He shook his head. His vision had gone double for a moment, a curious overlay of images, and he thought he'd seen Stefan and Drakkar squaring off over Alma, her pretty petite face obscuring Diego's. If he hadn't heard the argument over camp duties, he'd have thought they were fighting over her.

"You've been alone and in the sun too long," he muttered to himself. He trailed in the general direction of the others. Drakkar's defection to finding water meant it was his turn to dig latrines.

Alma watched Drakkar find water. He dowsed for it, something she'd seen done only once or twice in her lifetime, both times by Sir Thomas, because the Director of Water and Power had forbidden the practice. Water could be found that way, yes, but clean water . . . she watched him dig down and let it bubble up. His packs were slung over one broad shoulder and he slipped a hand into it and found a set of vials molded together like panpipes. He dipped the vials into the small puddle. He held the vials up to the sunlight and watched as the chemical changed color.

He nodded in satisfaction. "Good," he said. "Grab a shovel, Diego. We want to widen and deepen this as much as we can."

"How can you tell?"

His attention snapped to her. "Water is life in the desert. How can I not know?" He got to his feet, buckskin knees already dampened with the growing font. He began to shovel vigorously.

Alma tied her string of horses to a thick shrub. Although browned and dulled by the long summer and hot fall, its branches were still pliable. It lived. Maybe its roots fingered all the way into that underground moisture. She had her camp shovel pushed into her belt and worked it free. She stood opposite him and six paces away began to trowel up the packed dirt. Before long, the puddle had spread to her, and a pond began forming. ^

The horses behind her scented the water and were milling about. She felt their thirst like it was her own, as sweat poured down her brow, soaking into her hat and runneling into her eyebrows. Drakkar motioned for her to follow his lead. They moved several times, going about in a crude circle.

Drakkar threw her a grin. "Now the fun part," he said, and jumped in. He began to shovel out the muddy bottom.

Alma watched open-mouthed for a second.

"Come!" he ordered. "We've got to deepen this as much as we can. Horses can't stomach too much silt in the water.''

With an awkward, sideways leap, she joined him. The shock of the jump ran clean through her boots. She grabbed her shovel tightly and began to dig. As they worked downward, the water seeped through to meet them, rising rapidly. Soon, they were knee-deep in water, and then waist-deep.

"That's it," said Drakkar. "A little muddy, but that'll settle. Out you go."

He grabbed her about the waist to hoist her from the watering hole.

She struggled to get out of his way as soon as she saw him reaching for her, but it did no good. He was behind and flanked her, and his movement brought them together abruptly. His arm crushed about her.

Her heart seemed to stop. Then she felt it beat once, ponderously. The feel of him this close took her back to the afternoon he'd rescued her, and she had ridden home in front of him, carried in his loose embrace.

Drakkar sloshed backward a step.
"Shit. "
he said. "So that's who you are."

They each slogged to a bank of the pond and pulled themselves out. Drakkar watched her with accusing blue eyes, his crest half-erect.

"What the hell are you doing out here? No," and he squeezed his eyes shut. "I thought you were someone Shankar had sent after to spy on me. I should have known, should have thought. You've been watching Stefan like a hawk after a chicken. Damn it! Why didn't I know!" He watched her again.

"Don't tell. Please." Alma took her hat off wearily. "I can't let them send me back."

"We've come too far," Drakkar said. "Anyone else know?"

She'd been careful and lucky. She shook her head. "No."

"Well. That's that, then. No spies at least. You came after Stefan, didn't you?"

"We're married." She spoke defiantly.

That mocking smile half-returned. "I heard it was in name only.'' He put his hand up as she stammered wordlessly in anger. "Save it. If I got involved every time my father fought with one of his wives. ..."

"Involved! Who asked you?"

"No one," he said somberly. "But I know and now I've got the burden of the secret. I'm to protect your back, remember?"

"And I yours. I'll do my job, okay?" She got to her feet. Water and mud dripped off her. The string of horses stamped and tossed their heads up and down, eager for water.

"I don't think it's wise to keep secrets from Sir Thomas," He stood as well. "Not to mention that this will probably set the whole camp on its ear.''

She stripped the tie rope off its anchor. "And why would that happen?" She led the horses down to drink as the foaming water reached the brim of the pond.

"Because you're a woman, stupid." Drakkar led his string of horses and mules over. The horses plunged their muzzles into the water. The mules were a bit more circumspect, their long ears going forward and back before they dipped for a drink.

"And what is that supposed to change?"

He grinned. "How we dig the latrines, for one thing."

Heat blazed across her face. "Don't do me any favors. No one knew anything around here and wouldn't have until I told Stefan."

"And when and what are you going to tell Stefan?"

"Well, I—I wanted to wait until I knew Sir Thomas couldn't send me back. And then . . . then ... I didn't know what to say." Her anger cooled suddenly. "I thought he would know me. 1 thought he would just look at me and
know."

"I would have," Drakkar said softly. She looked up sharply, but he had turned away by then, fussing with one of his charges.

"What would you do?"

"Truth?"

"Yes."

Those dark, impossibly blue eyes looked at her across the water. "I'd be madder than hell to have my wife trailing after me, nagging me to come home. Embarrassed, in front of the other mappers and Sir Thomas."

"But I—"

"You're doing all the wrong things for ail the right reasons," he said.

"How can this be wrong?"

Drakkar made a noise in the back of his throat. Then, "He's got his pride, dammit. And so should you."

"What's pride got to do with it?"

He blinked in the late afternoon sun. "Everything. And nothing, I suppose, to you. But it would matter to Stefan."

Alma examined her hat for a moment. It did not seem possible that the Mojavan could know who she was and yet not know who she was. She said softly, "Neither of us have room for pride. We could not love or marry anyone else, even if we wanted to. I'm the girl your father started a war over."

"You're the—you're the one Charles Warden sent to the Vaults?"

"Stefan and I, yes. It's not my fault—it's nothing I asked for and I'd change it if I could."

His face had paled unnaturally. "Don't ask to change it," he said. "You've got the genetic background to bring us back. I remember when my father found out about you. He raved for days. So you and Stefan have this sacred obligation and you've come to remind him of it."

She could not tell him all of her shame, this arrogant prince who looked at her so strangely now. Her stomach felt hollow. "What else could I do?"

"Wait for him to come back. If it was me, I would. And if he doesn't . . . there's nothing you can do to make him come back.'' A mule lifted a sopping wet nose and pushed at him, setting him back on his heels. Drakkar rubbed its muzzle gently.

"I can't wait for him. It could be years."

A sadness drifted over Drakkar's expression and disappeared. "Then I guess you have to do what you have to do. I'll keep your secret—but if you take my advice, you'll at least let him have a taste of the adventure he came for."

She looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"Don't say anything until we've had a chance to look over the College Vaults. If you're dragging him back home to be a husband, it'll be his only chance to do something extraordinary. Trust me.

"He's a fool," Drakkar added suddenly, "if he doesn't go home with you." He gathered up his lead rope. "Come on. We've got five more shifts to water before dark. I won't be treating you any differently than I would anyone else."

"I don't expect you to. But," and she paused, gathering up her own line, "what do you want out of all this?"

"Want? Why should I want anything?" He frowned deeply. "Say it's out of the goodness of my heart. I do have a heart, only my father's physicians say it's misplaced. I'm a mutant, you know." He stalked past, his boots flinging off bits of mud and sand.

"Drakkar!" Alma called, and then stopped. His back was ramrod stiff and she knew he wouldn't listen. She hadn't meant to insult him. Was every word a woman said deliberately misconstrued by a male listener?

"Damn." She hurried after, certain he would give her the all mule and donkey line to water next and those donkeys could be difficult to deal with. Not much different than Stefan and Drakkar.

Chapter 15

Thomas saw Drakkar stomping out of the wash, jerking his string of horses and mules behind him. He leaned on his shovel, enjoying reading the body language of Denethan's son. While it was evident that Drakkar had Talents that no one else had and which should be used to the fullest good of the survey party, it was galling to watch him duck out on duties the other boys had no choice but to take. Drakkar had no chance in a poker game, he mused—his crest had flared up, betraying his emotions, and Thomas had only to wonder what had crossed the Mojavan. That he'd found water was evident, his riding clothes clinging damply to him.

Thomas idly saw Diego slogging after Drakkar, decided the boys had had an argument, looked him over and returned his thoughts to Drakkar. Then, as though he'd been hit, he looked back to Diego. His Intuition hit him like a wall of bricks. A man in anger has an unmistakable walk—and so does an angry woman. Startled by revelation, he bellowed without thought.

"Alma! What the hell are you doing here?"

Illuminated by firelight and protected by night shadow, Alma looked beautiful though she'd been crying. The girl had her hat off now, her short, jagged hair fluffed about her face. Thomas couldn't tell trail dirt from nut oil staining and didn't care. Alma's large eyes dominated her face and he was glad he could once again recognize the soul behind them.