Eloise

"You're thinking of me," she said quickly. "That means you care for me. Then why not leave him, Earl? Get rid of the danger? Kill him if you have to. You could do it."

"Yes," he admitted. "I could do it if I had to. And if he was hurt, dying and in pain I would. But tell me, Eloise, just what has he done to you that you want to see him dead?"

"Done? Why nothing, Earl. He-"

"Saved your life." Dumarest glanced to where he lay. Quietly he added, "When you think about it, Eloise, it seems a poor reward."

* * * * *

Adara had been dreaming; a nightmare in which he ran from something terrible, straining every muscle and yet making no progress. And faces had watched him as he ran, laughing faces which had turned and kissed, to face him again with cynical amusement.

Eloise, whom he had lost.

Dumarest, who had won her affection.

He stirred and opened his eyes. The fire was a bare glow in the darkness, an ember which threw a low, ruddy light in which shapes rested, shadows thick around and between. Two of them seemed to be lying close together, too close; and with sudden jealousy he added fuel to the ember, blowing it to life, turning to verify his suspicions.

He had been mistaken. Dumarest was alone; the impression that another lay at his side was a trick of the light. And yet surely there had been the murmur of voices, the rustle of movement? Or had that been, like the smiles and kisses, a part of his dream?

Tiredly he looked around. Arbush was a mound, his face a blur. Eloise was another, her back towards him, a tangle of hair falling over her hood. He looked again at Dumarest; the stranger who had come to ruin his life, the violent man whom the woman had chosen.

Violence, why did she love it so much?

And, if she did, and he should prove to be the more violent of both men, would she again turn to him with love in her eyes?

If he should kill Dumarest?

He felt himself tense at the alien concept and fought the ingrained conditioning of the past. Old habits had been replaced by new, and the man himself had told him that he had nothing to lose. To kill then, to strike and prove himself the master; to take the fruits of victory, the love he had known.

And the man himself had provided the means. He turned and reached for one of the weapons; lifting it to stare along the barrel at the hard face, hard even in sleep. A simple pressure and it would be done. But he had seen the thing work, the destruction it caused. To fire it in this confined space would be to kill them all.

Carefully he placed it aside and again studied the sleeping man.

The eyes, perhaps; his fingers gouging, blinding, gaining time in which to kill at his leisure. He sweated at the thought of it; how could he ever rob another of his vision? The throat then; his fingers tightening, stopping the breath. Or the gun, not fired, but used as a club. His hand crept towards it.

"Try it," said Arbush quietly, "and you'll be dead before you know it."

"You know?"

"I saw."

"But the gun? I-"

"You hadn't cocked it. If you had, the noise would have woken Earl at once." The minstrel rose from where he lay, hunching as he warmed his hands at the fire. "He looks asleep, and he is, but only as an animal sleeps. One move towards him, a touch, and he will waken ready to kill. I recognize the signs."

"Does he always sleep like that?"

"Not always, he's a man, not a beast; but he's learned to survive. And you worry him. Did you know that the woman wanted to leave you behind?"

"No! She couldn't. She-"

"She's in love with Earl. A woman in love is rarely sane and never to be blamed. A man either. Earl knows that, which is why you are here."

"He promised me that he wouldn't take her." Adara looked from one to the other. "He swore to me that he would leave her."

"And he will. Earl isn't looking for a woman. He is searching for something more important than that."

"Earth, she told me."

"Earth." Arbush sighed. "A dream, perhaps, but one which rules his life. Which gives him the reason for living, perhaps; we should all have a reason for that. Once I thought I had it, but for me the dream didn't last I had the gift of music and the ability to make a song. Small things some would say; to me they were the gate to adventure, the means to achieve paradise. In a way I found it. For a few weeks it was real. In the city was everything I had ever longed for. I tasted it, reveled in it; now it is gone. But, my friend, such is life."

"Endless disappointment?"

"In a way, as women are. Each offers untold joys and each, somehow, fails to deliver what we expect. And always there are surprises. The plain one who is passed by at a glance can, when passion rules her, dominate the universe of a man's being. The one who is lovely to look at can be as cold as the ice around us. And, after all, what is a woman? Surely she is something which can be shared? Once you had her, now she yearns for another, but have you lost all? Once Earl has gone, what then? She will still remain."

Adara said, slowly, "I wanted to kill him."