Ship of Magic

“No. She'd understand. We know one another that well. She'd understand anything I did.”

“Then she'd also understand if you came in the morning, clean and sober.” Brashen pointed out reasonably. He sounded very tired. After a moment's silence, he proffered her his arm. “Come on. I'll walk you home.”

Chapter Eight Night Conversations

Her mother broke down as soon as they were inside the door, her knees simply folding. Kyle stood shaking his head, so Keffria saw her mother to bed. The bedroom she had so long shared with her husband had become a chamber of sickness and dying. Rather than put her mother on the cot where she had kept watch so many nights, Keffria ordered Rache to make a guest room ready for her. She sat with her until the bed was ready and the serving woman settled her impassive mother into it. Then she went to check on Selden. He was crying. He had wanted his mother, and Malta had told him she was busy, too busy for a crying baby. Then she had left him sitting on the edge of his bed, without so much as calling a servant to see to him. For an instant Keffria was angry with her daughter; then she reminded herself that Malta was little more than a child herself. It was not reasonable to expect a twelve-year-old to care for her seven-year-old brother after a day such as they had just had.

So she soothed the boy and helped him into his night-robe and stayed by him until his eyes sagged shut. When she finally left him to seek her own bed, she was sure that every other soul in the household was already asleep. The dancing light of the candle as she trod the familiar halls put her in mind of spooks and spirits. She suddenly wondered if the anma of her father might not still linger in the chambers where he had suffered so long. A shiver walked up her spine, standing up the hair on the back of her neck. A moment later she reproached herself. Her father's anma was one with the ship now. And even if it were lingering here, surely her own father would bear her no ill will. Still, she was glad to slip soundlessly into the chamber where Kyle had already gone to bed. She blew out the candle lest she disturb him and undressed in the darkness, letting her garments fall as they might. She found the nightgown Nana had laid out for her and slipped into its coolness. Then finally, finally, her own bed. She turned back the blanket and linen and eased in beside her slumbering husband.

He opened his arms to welcome her in. He had not slept without her, but had waited for her here. Despite how long the day had been, despite how weary and sorrowful she was, that gladdened her. Keffria felt as if Kyle's touch cut through knots of pain that had been strangling her for days. For a time he simply held her close. He stroked her hair and rubbed her neck until she relaxed in his arms. Then he made love to her, simply and gently, without words as moonlight spilled into their bedroom from the high windows. This summer night's moon was bright enough to lend almost colors to all it touched; the cream-colored sheets on the bed, Kyle's hair like ivory, his skin two shades of dull gold where sun had and had not touched it. Afterwards, as she curved her body against his and rested her head on his shoulder, all was silence for a time. She listened to the beating of his heart and the movement of air through his chest and was glad of it, and of his warmth.

Then she suddenly felt selfish and thoughtless, that she could possess all this and enjoy it, on the very night of the day when her mother lost her father, and with him all possibility of physical closeness and this kind of sharing. Lax and warm from their lovemaking, it suddenly seemed too terrible a loss to exist in any world. She did not move away from Kyle, but closer as her throat closed painfully and a single hot tear slid across her cheek to drip onto his bare shoulder. He reached up to touch it, and then her face.

“Don't,” he told her gently. “Don't. There have been enough tears today, and enough mourning. Let it all go, for now. Don't let there be anything or anyone in this bed save we two.”

She caught a breath. “I'll try. But my mother's loss ... I just truly realized what she lost. All this.” Her free hand charted the length of him, from shoulder to thigh, before he caught it up and brought it to his mouth for a kiss.

“I know. I thought of that, too, as I was touching you. Wondered if there would be a time I didn't come back to you, what you would do. . . .”