Darkness Descending

“Aye,” Ealstan said. Despite what they’d just finished doing, he hardly dared touch her. Warily, he picked bits of dry leaf from her hair. Even more warily, he brushed some from her backside. Instead of slapping him, she smiled thanks over her shoulder. “Your clothes are all right,” he told her.

“That’s good,” she said again. Slowly, her smile faded. “I didn’t come here . . .expecting to do this.” The expression her face took on alarmed Ealstan. It would have alarmed him more had he thought it aimed at him.

“I did not, either,” he said, which was nothing but the truth. He might have imagined it once or twice, but he’d told himself he was being foolish. He felt foolish now, delightfully foolish, as if he’d had too much wine. Trying not to wear an idiotic grin, he went on, “I did hope I would see you, though.” Speaking Kaunian helped. It made him sound serious, even if he wasn’t.

Vanai’s face softened. “I know. You brought my basket.” She looked down at the dead leaves on the ground. “And I brought yours.”

Ealstan felt like cutting capers. Instead, very much his practical father’s son, he said, “Shall we trade some of what we have found?” As long as they were doing that, she wouldn’t go away. He didn’t want her to go away.

They sat down where they’d lain together, sat down and swapped mushrooms. They sat very close together. Their hands clung as they passed the mushrooms back and forth. Every so often, they paused to kiss. Ealstan discovered how quickly desire revived at his age. But when he reached for one of the toggles on her tunic, she set her hand on his and kept him from undoing it. “We were lucky once,” she said. “I don’t know if we would be again.”

“All right,” he said. It wasn’t quite, but he would make the best of it. He took his hand away. Vanai’s face showed he’d passed a test. “Shall we take back our old baskets?” he asked, and then answered his own question before Vanai could: “No, we had better not. That would tell people we had met. This way, no one has to know anything--no one except us.”

“Aye, you’re right: better if we don’t,” Vanai agreed. She studied him. “It’s good you think of things like that.”

He shrugged, pleased and embarrassed at the same time. “I do my best,” he said, and again had no idea how much he sounded like Hestan. He looked at Vanai. Regardless of what they’d just done, they hardly knew each other. He coughed. “I do want to see you again, though; before next mushroom season.” He hoped that didn’t sound too much like, I want to lie with you again, as soon as I can. He did, but that wasn’t what he meant, or wasn’t all of what he meant, anyhow.

“I want to see you again, too,” Vanai said, and once more Ealstan had all he could do to keep from jumping up and turning handsprings. She went on, “Tomorrow is market day, so I don’t think I can get away, but I can come here the day after.”

His heart leaped--and then fell. “My schoolmasters will beat me,” he said glumly, “the ones not out gathering mushrooms themselves, at any rate.” He could think the switchings he got worthwhile as long as he lay in Vanai’s arms--but not, he feared very long afterwards.

To his relief, he saw his unwillingness to drop everything for her sake hadn’t offended her. Instead, she was nodding. “You have a head on your shoulders,” she remarked. Anyone who knew him would have said the same. But she didn’t, not yet, not with the mind as well as the body.

Out beyond the oak grove, someone called to someone else. It wasn’t aimed at

either Ealstan or Vanai, but both their heads came up in alarm. Nervously, Ealstan asked, “Did your grandfather come hunting mushrooms with you?” Brivibas, that was the old man’s name. If Ealstan had to be polite in a hurry, he could.

But Vanai shook her head. “No. He’s searching by himself.” Her voice went cold and distant. She hadn’t talked about her grandfather like that before. Something must have happened between them. Ealstan wondered what. He saw no way to ask. Vanai found a question of her own: “What about your cousin--Sidroc?” She’d remembered things about Ealstan, too. He felt outrageously flattered.

“He went off to the north awhile ago. We are supposed to meet back at the city gate at sunset.” Ealstan leaned over and kissed Vanai. She clung to him. The kiss went on and on. They started to lie back on the leaves again, but whoever was outside the little wood called out again, louder and closer this time. “We had better not take the chance,” Ealstan said, and heard the regret in his own voice.

“You’re right.” Vanai slipped out of his embrace and got to her feet. “You can send me letters, if you like. I live on the Street of Tinkers in Oyngestun.”

Ealstan nodded eagerly. “And I live on the Avenue of Countess Hereswith, back in Gromheort. I willwrite to you.”