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began, and then caught Vandien's look. Ki could not imagine what he had said to the boy, but Goat suddenly closed his lips. He kept his words in check, but not the sulky look that claimed his face. Snatching up a good portion of the scattered quilts and blankets, he began to make up a bed by the fire.
    Vandien refused to acknowledge his pique. 'Good night, Goat,' he told the boy affably. He gathered the remaining quilts and cushions and made up their bed beneath the wagon while Ki belatedly washed the road dust from her face and smoothed her tangled hair. He was already settled when she came to join him.
    'Why under the wagon instead of next to the fire?' she demanded as she crawled in beside him. She knew the answer, and he knew it, but he spoke anyway. His voice was sleepy. 'Feeling of shelter, keeps the rain off. And makes it harder for anyone to attack while we're sleeping.'
    'Like sleeping in a coffin,' Ki grumbled. She dragged off her boots, blouse and trousers so that she was clad in loose cotton drawers and chemise. Shivering, she burrowed into the quilts and settled against Vandien. He was warm. She curled her body around his, her belly to his back. She could smell his hair and the warm skin of his neck.
    'These children,' he said softly, 'make me feel old.'
    'Um,' Ki agreed. She kissed the nape of his neck experimentally.
    He sighed. 'Very old. Ki, did you hear me earlier? Dictating, chastising, directing, warning. I sounded just like my uncle when I was a child.'
    'Your guardian?' she asked. With the tip of one finger, she wrote her name on the warm skin of his back.
    'Yes. He was always directing me, never letting me do anything on my own. Not even choose which women I'd bed.' Vandien's voice trailed off as his mind went back to those painful times, to his futile efforts to sire an heir for his line. He moved slightly apart from Ki, and she, knowing his old pain, let him. He wouldn't want to be touched just now. Damn. Well, that's how it was, then. She closed her eyes, sought sleep. 'I'd hate to think I had grown to be just like him,' Vandien said suddenly. 'Ki, did you hear what Willow said earlier? That she didn't think any one as old as I am could understand why she'd run away to her lover? Do I look that old to you? Old enough to be her father?'
    'Depends on how young you started,' Ki replied sleepily. Then, 'Sorry. Not to me, Vandien. Only to someone as young as Willow.'
    He rolled onto his back and stared up at the bottom of the wagon. 'How old do I look to you?' he asked quietly.
    The weariness of the day had suddenly found Ki. 'I don't know,' she sighed. She opened her eyes a slit, stared at him. He was serious. Traces of lines at the corners of his mouth. A few hints of grey in the dark curls, mostly from old scars. Weathered skin that was more the work of sun and wind than years. She thought, as she had the first time she saw him, that it was not a bad way for a man to look. She'd rather die than tell him that. 'Old enough to be smarter than you act most of the time. Young enough to worry about foolish things.'
    'Mph.' He rolled to face her, dragging her covers away. 'That's not a very satisfactory answer.'
    She tugged at the covers, opened her eyes. His face was inches from her own, his hand on the curve of her waist. 'Not a satisfactory answer?'
    He shook his head, the curve of his smile beneath his moustache barely visible in the dwindling light from the fire.
    'Then let me put it another way.' She seized the curls at the nape of his neck and pulled his face to hers.
     

FOUR
    I n the coolness before dawn, Ki's strangely vivid dreams broke and dragged against her like cobwebs. Gently she drew away from Vandien and pulled on her clothes. The camp was silent; Gotheris slumbered deeply by the dead ashes of the fire, his arms flung wide in sleep. Ki took the kettle and water bucket and headed for the spring. She considered waking Vandien to share the quiet with her but decided against it. She needed this