* * *
Temur wanted to reach out and grab her strong arm above the elbow, where the flesh dimpled in to show the bone and the scars of the Nameless arrow lingered. Instead he stayed his hand and made a fist of it, hiding it in the folds of the robe he’d been wearing off and on since Nilufer gave it to him for protection in crossing the desert.
He said, “Bansh can swim it.”
Samarkar snorted. “With you on her back? Both of you still injured from your fights? Don’t think I haven’t seen the cuts and bruises. You’ll kill your pony in the sea, man.”
Not to mention yourself. But she wouldn’t say that.
She lifted her chin as the sea air lifted her hair, rough streamers draping her shoulders and trailing as if the tide already washed them. He had a vision of her drowned.
But her eyes were trained on the western shore. “I can see across,” she said. “What I can see, I can swim to.”
Temur looked to Brother Hsiung for support, but the monk shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. He wasn’t about to get in the way of a wizard of Tsarepheth. And Hrahima had wandered off down the shore, where she was turning over driftwood and prospecting among the weeds tossed on the shore—whether out of curiosity or after something edible, Temur had no idea.
Samarkar stripped off her clothing with rough efficiency, handing each piece to Brother Hsiung to fold and store in Bansh’s saddlebags. Brother Hsiung averted his eyes after her coat came off, merely holding out one hand behind him. She gave him her jeweled collar as well, to be padded and packed reverentially. Even her loincloth she pushed down her hips and seemed about to discard, but at the last moment she paused, twisting travel-stained linen between her hands.
Her breasts were full, slightly pendulous. Temur winced to see the scars of her neutering and how they marred the round moon of her belly. Travel had slackened her flesh, shrunken her ripe hips.
If she stayed with him, he could offer her nothing different. Not for a long time.
“I’ll need the gold,” she said, as Brother Hsiung made himself scarce by walking down the beach toward Hrahima. “To hire a boat to come and fetch you. Also, the grease for the lamp.”
Silently, he handed her what she asked for. While Samarkar coated her body liberally with the oil from the camel fat, he milked the mare and exchanged the fermented milk in her saddle-skin for fresh. While Samarkar twisted her loincloth into a kind of harness and sewed the gold inside, Temur sharpened his knife on a stone. When the edge was a razor, he sheathed it and stood. Taking up the bowl of airag, Temur went to stand by Bansh’s fine-boned dark head. He touched her soft nose, admiring how the sunlight filled her hide with gleams of red and white-gold.
“Bring me clean water,” he said to the naked woman, and realized only when she returned with the leathern pail brimming and cold with the salty seawater, that he’d addressed a princess and a wizard as if she were a serving girl. She merely arched an eyebrow as she handed it over, but he looked down, abashed.
He took a rag and washed the mare’s neck. Not until he drew the honed knife from his pocket and felt for the heat and pressure of the vein behind delicate skin did Samarkar lay her fingertips on his hand. “Temur,” she said.
“You will have this,” he said, and nicked the mare’s neck with the sharpest bit of blade.
The trickle that ran from the cut was deep red, flowing freely but not too strong. He reached out his hand; Samarkar put the bowl into it, and Temur pressed it into place to catch the flow of blood. Red ran into white, a puddle then a spiral as Temur swirled the cup to mix it. He handed the cup to Samarkar and picked up the salt-water-soaked rag once more.
“Drink it while it’s warm.” His good mare didn’t snort once, until he pressed the rag to her wound, staunching the flow. She stamped and leaned away but did not move off.
When he turned back, though, Samarkar was still staring at him over the wooden rim. He raised his brows; silently she toasted him and downed the draught.
“Take the camel fat, too.” He pressed harder against Bansh’s neck, though the bleeding had stopped. “You can suck on it while you swim. And take my knife in case you have to fight something.”
* * *
The sea was warm at the surface, cold if she let her legs dip below that top layer. It was challenging at first; the waves approaching the beach had strong currents and eddies. But even they did not rival the currents of the Tsarethi. And once she was out past the breakers into the swells, she found it was easy to time them, and she let them lift her on their backs like a mother dandling a child. The water seemed thicker than water she had known before, bearing her up more easily, and Samarkar’s wizard mind wondered if that was a result of the salt she could taste in it. Salt could make an egg float; why not a woman?