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He raised his own eyebrows in a frown, looked at Atwei again, then at the locket, finally shook his head and smiled. The Thyre and their strange and 'secret' ways, their 'secret' things! Then, while she remained standing there, he went and said his farewells to the elders...
'You waste your time with that one,' Brad Berea spoke gruffly to his daughter, Glina. 'He can fish, fetch and carry, hit a bird in flight, and eat - oh, he can eat! - but make sense? You ask too much of him. He spoke to me only once, to tell me he was the Lord Nestor: but what sort of a "Lord", I ask you? Since when, nothing.'
To be kind to her, Glina was only very homely. And Nestor, man or Lord or whatever, was a handsome specimen. He was a natural hunter, too, and upon a time had doubtless been a valuable member of a Traveller band, or citizen of some Szgany township. But now: Brad had seen more activity, more urgency, understanding, intelligence, in the geckoes which inhabited the rafters and chased flies when the sun fell hot on the roof. They, too, were hunters, but they didn't need to be told how to do it! It was instinct in them. But this one - hah! - it surprised Brad he knew enough to wake up after sleeping! Beggars can't be choosers, however, and Glina would lure him to her bed if she could. And what then, Brad wondered? Idiots in the camp? Better perhaps if he'd left Nestor in the river to drown.
'What happened to him, do you think?' Glina glanced at her father across the smoky room, where he took a taper from the fire to light the wick of the first lamp of evening. The fire would be allowed to die down now, as night came on. For if not its smoke, going up through the quiet forest into the air, would be like a beacon to ... well, to anything which might pass this way, overhead. But the cabin in the trees was warm and a lamp was enough. With blankets at the open windows, to keep the light in and the night air out, the Bereas were safe and snug.
'Happened to him?' Brad grunted. 'If you'll just feel the back of his head, above his right ear, you'll know well enough what happened to him. He received one hell of a clout from something or other, a blow that very nearly caved in his skull! The bone has knitted now but it's left a fat, hard knob just under the skin, and probably on the inside, too. Also, he was shot and lost a deal of blood. The scars are clear enough in his side. Finally, he fell or was tossed into the river, and very nearly drowned. And all of this occurring about the time of the first vampire attacks on Settlement and Twin Fords. I didn't know about those when I dragged him out of the water, else I mightn't have been in such a hurry. What? Why, for all I knew he could have been a victim of the Wamphyri! But if so, well, it would have showed before now. So that's what happened to him. All in all, he's a simpleton with a damaged brain, and only his natural instincts seem in order - some of them, anyway. But even they might be a bit askew, else he'd know for sure you were after his parts!'
'Brad Berea?' His wife's voice came from the curtained platform which was their bed under the rafters. 'Come to bed and leave the young ones be.' After a hard day she'd retired early; but she would be up early, too, in the first hours of true night. It was as well to be awake in those most dangerous of hours, when the sun was down and the stars bright over the barrier range, and the vampires thirsty after their long sleep.
'Huh!' Brad grunted, and thought: Aye, go and do your duty, Brad my son.
But in fact Irma was a good woman and had stood by him uncomplainingly for twenty years and more, living a solitary existence out here in the forest. Brad had been a loner when she ran away from her Szgany band to be with him, and he was a loner still. A trip into Twin Fords every so often; it was the only pleasure Irma ever had out of life; that and Brad's love, and the knowledge that he would look after herself and their daughter all his days. In days like these, it was more than enough. As for Twin Fords: nothing there now but ruins, empty streets, and doors slamming in the wind like shouts of denial. And so no reason to visit.
'And you two?' The bearded Brad looked at Glina and Nestor sitting by the open door. 'Will you sit up again all night, girl? To be with that one? A pointless exercise! For I wonder: does he sit and think? Or does he just sit?' He took off his jacket and went to the foot of the ladder-like stairs climbing to his bed.
Glina looked at Nestor, whose eyes followed Brad where he began to climb. There wasn't much in those eyes, but they did have soul. Brad was hard-voiced, but he was soft-hearted, too, and Glina believed Nestor knew it. 'I'll sit and talk to him a while,' she said. 'I think he knows what I'm saying, but it doesn't mean much to him, that's all. Maybe we'll walk down to the river under the stars. Nestor likes that.'
Brad thought: Oh, and what else does he like? 'What, the strong, silent type, is he?' He called down, gri
Down below, Glina listened a while to the creaking of her father settling himself, the low, murmuring voice of her mother cautioning him to: 'Shhh! Be quiet ... the young 'uns ... here, let me.' And then the rhythmic sounds of their sex. Little privacy in a timbered cabin.
Then Nestor's arm went around her waist, and his hand up under her blouse, to squeeze her large breasts. It was an automatic response to being left alone with her; something which he had learned to expect, to enjoy; something which Glina had taught him. 'Yes, yes,' she breathed in his ear, stroking him through his trousers with her fingertips. 'But not here.' And he followed her out of the open door and into the night.
The night wasn't yet cold; they walked slowly at first in bright starlight, then more hurriedly, finally breathing heavily, almost panting along a well-worn path to the river. And on the sand and shingle bank they threw off their clothes and fell on top of them, and she guided him jerking into her flesh. She knew how it would be but surrendered to it, as she had since the first time. But since Glina had been the one to lead him on right from the start, she could hardly complain. And he was a man, and filling her he filled the loneliness, too.
The first time...
That had been when he was back on his feet again, five or maybe six sunups after her father had rescued him from the river. Until then Glina had washed and tended his wounds, fed him, cared for Nestor generally. And she'd rocked him in her arms when, in a fever, he'd called out strange names, shouted his passion at unknown persons and wept bitterly over obscure grievances and disappointments. Despite what Brad Berea said about him now, then there had been fire in Nestor.
But as the fever went out of him so the silence entered, and for a while his eyes had been empty.
In a little while he'd been strong and made no complaint about work. He hunted with a crossbow, fished, used an axe and carried wood and water well enough. Twice a week, when he went to bathe in the river, Glina spied on him. He was big and stirred her inside.
Once, three years ago when she was sixteen, the Bereas had gone into Twin Fords. Brad required new tools; her mother wanted a new dress, pots, pans; Glina just wanted to see and be seen. Then some boy might make inquiries, and find his way to the cabin to see her. Forlorn hope, for even then she had known she was homely: her brown, lustreless hair, nose just a little too sharp, heavy buttocks. She'd been to Twin Fords as a child, often, and had seen the many pretty girls there.
That time when she was sixteen, some young couple had got married. There'd been a party, music, laughter, and in the evening there would be drinking and dancing. An old friend of her father's had said they could stay the night. Well, Brad Berea knew how to drink and dance, and he had seen how Irma needed it. It seemed only fair.