She kept her mind on the problem as she and Zemetrios walked through the inn to the room they were not to share.

The door was of old wood, carved with a sort of tree, a tree of fruit, but the carving was rough and had faded away, sanded off by time. Even so, it was a splendid room when once they had opened the door. The window had been shuttered though the night remained close and warm. Clirando undid the shutters. Outside, the village curled away into the dark, hardly a light anywhere aside from a few last smoldering torches.

They lit the room’s two candles. Despite the low ceiling, the chamber was large, and clean. The bed too was large, heaped with covers and furs as if for the cold months.

He said, “Maybe after all you’ll sleep tonight.” She said nothing, knowing she would not. “I’ll look forward to seeing you again, in the morning. Rest well.”

“Wait.”

“Yes, Cliro?”

Her back to him still, she said crisply, “This is a great cave of a room. Why not stay? There’s space for both of us, and enough pillows and covers for an army—enough therefore to spare if one of us sleeps on the floor.”

When he did not reply, she turned and looked at him. In the dull light she could not read his face, saw only the slight scar on his cheekbone, the lucent steadiness of his eyes.

“If you trust me,” he said.

“I trusted you in the forest,” she answered flatly. “Or rather, Zem, I trusted myself if you were not to be trusted.”

I too have now called him by a familiar name—did I mean to?

He lowered his head. It was a meek gesture belied by his tall, muscular frame, and for a second she did not trust him. But then he said, “You can rely on me, Cliro. Don’t insult me by making out I’m a mannerless oaf. I won’t lay a finger on you. However much—”

She waited. What had he meant to say? However much he would like to?

The excitement of the night still fizzed in her blood like strong-spiced wine. Be careful!

She pointed at the bed.

“This is a wide couch.” He did not speak. Clirando drew her sword. “Do you know the custom?”

“Yes. A woman and a man who must sleep in the same bed put a sword between them, and so keep chaste.”

“Here’s mine then,” she said. “We’ll both lie down here. Neither of us is a baby, let alone a dishonorable fool. What do you say?”

Another sword rasped, and candlelight slid down it as it in turn was drawn from his scabbard. He placed it in reverse, head to toe with hers, the hilt under the tip of her blade, her hilt upon his point.

“Agreed.”

Either side the bed, looking down at the swords which already lay and slept there, she and he.

“Well,” she said.

“Do you prefer I sleep clothed?” he said.

Something flamed at Clirando’s center. No use to deny it. None at all. Nor to deny—she had not been careful.

“Only if you prefer. We’ve pledged faith. Strip if you want. I’ll turn my back.”

So she turned again, honorably enough.

Behind her she heard the click and rustle of his garments undone and coming off. And—there, on the wall, Clirando saw his shadow reflection, clear in every detail, drawing the tunic over his heard, unbuckling his belt.

Did she dare look around at him?

She wanted to.

Her core was full of fire, leaping and alive—no longer frozen flame, defrosted by desire—

Abruptly he cursed.

At the signal, irresistibly, Clirando spun about.

“What is it?” she lamely demanded, hardly knowing what she said, her eyes full only of Zemetrios, standing naked before her.

“A sharp bramble from the wood caught in my boot—it had a sting—” he said, explaining the curse, breaking off.

His body was tanned and beautifully made, as it had promised to be. Again she thought of statues of gods, but this one was living. From the width of his shoulders to the narrowness of his hips, the coordination of arms, the long legs—perfect—aside from the scars of old wounds that marked him. Yes, he was soldier and warrior. So much was obvious.

“What caused that scar?”

“This? Oh, that was at Ashalat three years ago. A spear. He lived just long enough to regret it.”

“And that one, over your ribs?”

“A knife. I can’t recall—Disbuthiem, I think, in the Northern Isles. Or was it Bas Bara?”

“That one, then, on your stomach?”

“Oh, that one. My first year as a soldier. My own fault. I managed to stab myself at practice. Shameful.” He laughed. His laugh was golden, like his body and his beauty. Unselfconscious—no, flaunting himself, yet in such a still, couth way.

He gave however no sign of wanting her. Judging from evidence already clearly before her, that would have been a proud show, too.

Did she dare go over and touch him—that slender final long-healed wound on his thigh…? Would he recoil?

He did not want her? Maybe it was only that. He liked her, respected her, maybe. She was a warrior woman, like his “first love” and like his mother. She meant nothing else.

“I count four—no, five scars. I include the little scar on your cheek.” She paused. “Is that your total?”

“You mean my back, do you, Cliro? By the Father, no, I haven’t one on my back.”

Her gaze left the alluring playground of his body and fastened on his blue eyes.

“Nor I.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I have more scars than you, Zem. Perhaps this shows me to have also lesser skill in battle.”

“Or to be more brave? How many scars, then?”

“Seven.”

One candle flickered, as if a spirit had breathed on it.

Neither of them looked at the candle.

He said in a low voice, “Show me.”

And at his own words, his thought, Clirando beheld on him all the arousal any woman could ever have required.

It matched, she conceded, her own hidden want.

Her hands flew over her garments. She was bold, also flaunting. Her slim and tawny shape came from its concealment, the tips of her breasts already woken and hard.

In silence she pointed out the seven narrow scars—one on the right shoulder, three at her stomach and waist, two on her right leg, tiny as small coins, and the longest, deepest scar on her left arm, made by a blow that, in the moment it happened, she scarcely noted. It had been Araitha’s in the war-court.

The bed still lay between them. Divided by two swords.

“Cliro,” he said, “be sure. If you have doubts, I’ll take myself off into the inn. I do warn you though, I shall then get myself very drunk.”

“Stay sober. Stay with me.”

As they moved about the bed to meet each other, each of them saw in a sudden glimpse one more magic, stranger and less strange than the sorcery of sex—

“The swords—”

Both blades had twined together, roping each other round like vines.

“Is that because we—?”

But he reached her then.

He took her face in his hands. His body gathered hers in. His mouth was familiar to her. She knew it, as if many times before—

All the inebriated power of sexual hunger coursed through her.

Her hands moved over his smooth and unmarked back. She gripped him against her.

In moments the entwined blades were thrust from the bed, and furs and coverlets in heaps across the floor.

His lips on her breasts were like a rain of warm honey, his teeth grazed her with shivering darts. At the flaming center of her flesh he woke her fire into a conflagration.

They raced quickly along the road of lust, unable, either of them, to delay another minute.

As he filled her, her body sprang to amalgamate with his. The struggle of ecstasy began, and exploded like every firecracker ever loosed on a night of full moon. Blind and moaning, they clung, the crescendo bursting them in an infinity of stopped time. Until, cradling each other, rocking, sighing, they fell back into the hollow of the night.