Many Roads Home by Ann Somerville Read Free Book Online Page A

things, throw them away. Bad for you.”
    “And then my feet would be bloodied, not blistered. We don’t have time for me to become used to walking barefoot.”
    “True. You’ll have to wash them. Go soak them in the sea. You can cast a line while I make the fire.”
    The cool water helped, but if Hilario had asked for more help than fishing, Yveni wouldn’t have been capable of obliging. He did manage to catch a couple of small fish for their supper, to supplement the sweet fruit Hilario collected as he foraged for firewood.
    After supper, Hilario smeared the juice of a beach succulent over the blisters, and rubbed cold ash into the soles of Yveni’s feet. “To toughen them up. Don’t put those evil things back on tonight.”
    Yveni wondered about biting insects or worse, but thought he needed to worry most about the blisters. He really needed to stop moving around. He’d never been so tired.
    Hilario built up the fire, then laid a blanket on the ground close to it. “We’ll share.”
    Yveni tried not to reveal how awkward he felt at the idea. He’d been sleeping hard up against a dozen male strangers for nearly a week without a second thought, but this was nothing like being out in the woods, hunting with Gil and his father’s court. As vicont, it would have been unthinkable for him to share his bed or his tent with a soul other than his father or a manservant. It wasn’t like snuggling with his younger sisters either, when one of them was lonely or sick. Hilario wasn’t a child, as his swagger and revealing britches proved.
    “Come on, Gaelin. I’ll steal the blanket if you don’t join me.”
    Yveni grinned to hide his unease and lay down on the ground. Hilario joined him, pulled the second blanket over them, then wrapped his arms and body tight around Yveni’s. Yveni stiffened—was this normal?
    “Cold.” Hilario shuddered. “Your clothes are stingy. They give no heat.”
    “Uh, sorry. Do you…um…sleep like this in your camp?”
    “Sure. With my wife. You have a wife?”
    “No. I’m too young to marry.” Not strictly true, since he’d turned seventeen the month before his father had his stroke. The issue of a betrothal had been put aside with all the worry over his father’s health.
    “Hah, you’re plenty old enough. I’ve been married for three years and I have a son, another on the way.”
    “But you’re only nineteen.”
    “So?”
    Yveni tried not to think of the Uemiriens as primitive for letting children marry, but it seemed very strange to him.
    “Will you marry when you can? Everyone should be married. I like it a lot.”
    “Uh…yes, I suppose so. I mean, my father wanted me to marry. To carry on the family name. I mean, business.”
    “Funny reason to be married. I want to be married for sex and children.”
    Under the cover of night, Yveni flushed hot. Hilario poked him. “You don’t want sex and children?”
    “I’ve never thought about it,” Yveni lied. What he should have said was he didn’t want sex with a wife , a secret he’d only ever confessed to Serina and sworn her to never reveal to anyone.
    “Hmmm, you’re strange. Are all your people like that? Cold?”
    “I don’t know,” he said somewhat stiffly. “I don’t know all of them.”
    Hilario laughed and poked him again. “True, true. Well, I think you need a wife. They’re nice and warm at night,” he said with a suggestive thrust of his hips that made Yveni want to bolt. “Men aren’t so soft.”
    “Uh…no.”
    “But they’ll do for warmth if there’s no wife.”
    Yveni really didn’t want to continue with this line of conversation. “Good night, Hilario. I’m tired.”
    “Good night, silent child. I hope your blisters sleep well too.”

Chapter Six
     
    The seasons rolled on in their inevitable course, but Paole kept so busy with his practice that it shocked him to realise it was but a month to the snows, and that he needed to make haste back to the cabin and resupply if he wanted