Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,202

by her.” Katerin looked away quickly, and that revealed more than she intended. “Let no woman be fool enough to think that she can change the ways of Luthien Bedwyr.”

The words were said with perfect calm and control, but Siobhan easily read the underlying bitterness there. Katerin was hurting, and her cool demeanor was a complete façade, while her words had been uttered in just the right tones to make them a barbed arrow, shooting straight for the half-elf’s heart. Rationally, Siobhan understood and knew that Katerin had spoken out of pain. In truth, the half-elf was not insulted or wounded in any way by Luthien’s departure, for in her mind, she and the young Bedwyr had come to terms with the realities of their relationship.

Siobhan remained silent for a long moment, considered her sympathy for Katerin and the words the woman had just thrown her way. The verbal volley had been strictly out of self-defense, Siobhan knew, but still she was surprised that Katerin would attack her so, would go to the trouble of trying to make her feel worse about Luthien’s departure.

“They have a long ride ahead of them,” Siobhan said once again. “But fear not,” she added, with enough dramatic emphasis to grab Katerin’s gaze. “I do know that Luthien does well on long rides.”

Katerin’s jaw slackened at the half-elf’s uncharacteristic use of double entendre and Siobhan’s sly, even lewd, tone.

Siobhan turned and slipped easily down the ladder, leaving Katerin, and the specter of Luthien and Oliver riding away to the north and east.

Katerin looked back to the now-distant riders, to Luthien, her companion all those years back in Bedwydrin, where they had lost their innocence together, in the ways of the world and in the ways of love. She had wanted to hurt Siobhan, verbally if not physically. She cared for the half-elf, deeply respected her and in many ways called Siobhan a friend. But she could not ignore her feelings of jealousy.

She had lost the verbal joust. She knew that, standing up on Caer MacDonald’s wall in the chill of an early spring day, watching Luthien ride away, her face scrunched in a feeble attempt to hold back the tears that welled in her shining green eyes.

“You are so very good at running from problems,” Oliver remarked to Luthien when the two were far from Caer MacDonald’s wall.

Luthien eyed his diminutive companion curiously, not understanding the comment. “Likely, we’re running into trouble,” he replied. “Not away from it.”

“A fight with cyclopians is never trouble,” Oliver explained. “Not the kind that you fear, at least.”

Luthien eyed him suspiciously, guessing what was to come.

“But you have done so very well in avoiding the other kind, the more subtle and painful kind,” Oliver explained. “First you send Katerin running off to Port Charley—”

“She volunteered,” Luthien protested. “She demanded to go!”

“And now, you have arranged to be away for perhaps two weeks,” the halfling continued without hesitation, ignoring Luthien’s protests.

Those protests did not continue, for Luthien realized that he was guilty as charged.

“Ah, yes,” Oliver chided. “Quite the hero with the sword, but in love, alas.”

Luthien started to ask what the halfling might be gibbering about and deflect Oliver’s intrusions, but he was wise enough to know that it was already too late for that. “How dare you?” the young Bedwyr asked sharply, and Oliver recognized that he had opened a wound. “What do you know of it?” Luthien demanded. “What do you know of anything?”

“I am so skilled and practiced in the ways of amour,” the halfling replied coolly.

Luthien eyed his three-foot-tall companion, the young Bedwyr’s expression clearly relating his doubts.

Oliver snorted indignantly. “Foolish boy,” he said, snapping his fingers in the air. “In Gascony, it is said, a merchant is only as good as his purse, a warrior is only as good as his weapon, and a lover is only as good as—”

“Oliver!” Luthien interrupted, blushing fiercely.

“His heart,” the halfling finished, looking curiously at his shocked companion. “Oh, you have become such a gutter-crawler!” Oliver scolded.

“I just thought . . .” Luthien stammered, but he stopped and waved his hand hopelessly. With a shake of his head, he kicked Riverdancer into a faster canter, and the horse leaped ahead of Threadbare.

Oliver persisted and moved his pony to match the Morgan highlander’s speed. “Your heart is not known to you, my friend,” he said as he came up alongside Luthien. “So you run, but yet, you cannot!”

“Oliver the poet,” Luthien said dryly.

“I have been called worse.”

Luthien let it