"Couldn't you go where theydobuy them?"

"Go? But this ishome. The war won't last forever, and next year's crops will surely be better-just wait, Fern." But she had looked at little Aelf's hungry, pinched face and decided that she and the childrencouldn't wait. If Durgan wouldn't do anything about it, she would.

She had sat down the next morning and carefully reviewed all her a.s.sets, and had come to the conclusion that applying her skill with a sword was her best chance at keeping the children fed.

She remembered wryly how frightened she had been when she walked up the hill to the manor house.

She had thought that Lord Worsley might have her thrown into the dungeons for her impertinence, or might laugh at her.

Instead he had smiled wearily upon hearing her tale of woe, and had tossed her a small purse.

"The famine has been hard on us all," he had said-though he scarcely looked as if he had missed any meals. "This will feed your children for a time."

She had hesitated before picking up the purse-yes, it would feed Gord and Alis and Aelf for a time, but she wanted to be sure they wouldalwaysbe fed. Saying anything more, beyond a quick "thank you,"

had been one of the hardest things she had ever done, but she had said it all the same.

"When I said I was ready to fight for you, my lord, I meant it-have you no employment for someone skilled with a sword?"

That had startled him. He had stared at her for a moment, then sent for Ambrose, his master-at-arms, to test her. He hadn't said so, but Fern still suspected Lord Worsley had thought she had no idea how difficult it was to use a sword, that she was bluffing and would make a fool of herself in short order once the practice blades were drawn.

She hadn't. Old Ambrose had been impressed, and Fern had been employed. She had gone home dreading Durgan's reaction-wouldn't he think it a blot on his manhood to have his wife working as a manor-house guard?

Durgan had frowned, then shrugged. "Make sure they pay you in advance," he had said. "After all, it won't last long-we want to get every penny we can."

She hadn't said anything. She had been afraid he was right. And she had been relieved that his response had been so calm, when she had expected anger. Let sleeping tempers lie.

That was hardly the last unexpected response she got out of Durgan, though. She still remembered every detail of her husband's astonishing response when she had brought home her first suit of armor, courtesy of her new employers, Lord and Lady Worsley. He had stared at her wide-eyed as she held up the bundle of steel and leather, and licked his lips.

"Oooooh," he said. "Get the children to bed and model it for me... but slap the undergarments!"

She remembered it alltoowell.

"I did as he asked, too, you know," Fern informed her four-legged companion. "First work, then dinner, dishes, diapers, and bedtime stories, and then went to take care of him too! Fastening that heavy, and blastedcold, steel breastplate over my poor, bare nipples was hardly on my list of things I really wanted to do right then! What he wanted to do right then was as clear as... well, it was obvious." Then Durgan had added a new twist.

"Hit me! Make me touch you! Tell me what you're going to do to me!" he had pleaded.

"I thought I'd puke!" she told the horse. "d.a.m.n it, I was.e.xhausted! Sleep was all I wanted, and now this rot! But I knew him, G.o.ds, did I know him!" She shook her head ruefully.

What Fern knew was that if her husband didn't get his way he would yell at her, or worse, sulk, and she'd never get her longed-for sleep. And eventually she'd have to clear the air by doing what he'd asked for originally, and then some.

"It tore me up, though," she sighed. "To twist the beauty and fire of the deed like that. But the genie was out of the bottle and 'darling dear' would never let me have him any other way after that."

Even while her home life deteriorated, though, her career had flourished. She gradually won respect among Worsleys other guards with her skill and her common-sense manner. Lady Worsley was particularly appreciative of Fern's tendency to talk first and only resort to the sword if absolutely necessary, whether handling an unwelcome intruder or a rowdy guest. "It's so much easier to keep the carpets clean with you around, Fern, dear!" she had remarked once, with her famous smile shining.

As for Fern's life outside of work, it just got more unbearable. Durgan had taken to wearing Fern's armor himself whenever he got the chance. The cold mail skirt slapping against his own maleness had given him some bizarre mix of pleasure and pain.

It wasn't long before Fern had had enough.

Her recollection of the night she'd told him to get out was crystal clear. In his typical mature fashion he'd angrily rammed his fist through a window and then screeched in pain.

"Do something! I'm bleeding to death!" he had shrieked.

Fern's thoughts had flashed to the men she had seen die stoically in the field as she glanced at the lily-white rag Durgan had wrapped around his wrist. She sighed inwardly. He was a baby or a liar to the end. Who knew which? And whocared?

When at last he had grabbed a few of his things and stormed out she had barred the door behind him and cleaned up the broken gla.s.s, noticing wryly that there was not a drop of blood visible among the shards. She had slept, exhausted, on the floor outside the children's rooms, with her sword beside her.

"Why are you sleeping on the floor? What happened to the window? Where's Daddy?" The children's voices had awakened her.

When Fern had answered their questions with some rea.s.suring half-truths they had calmed down somewhat. They were upset to learn that their father was gone, but not too upset. Frankly, when your father has a rotten temper, and your mother carries a sword, and they're not getting along, well, better to have your father separated from your mother than from his head.

A sudden jolt flung her from her memories back to the present day. Fern struggled to keep herself from going over her horse's head as the beast stumbled and came to an abrupt halt. Dismounting, she was dismayed to see he had thrown a shoe. "d.a.m.n!" she said. "So much for an quick ride home. I guess we'll have to stop by Jacob's smithy."

That was not entirely an unwelcome thought. Quiet and gracious, with a pervasive sense of humor, Jacob had always seemed a bit out of place as a blacksmith. His exaggerated manners never quite seemed to fit the coa.r.s.eness of his surroundings.

"Oh, well," she said. "My errand for Lord Worsley went smoothly enough-that particular bunch of troublemakers won't be back this way any time soon, so there's no great hurry about getting anywhere.

And it's not as if I mind Jacob's company." She straightened up and looked thoughtfully down the trail toward the smithy.

"I can never read that man, you know." She smiled. "But it's an interesting challenge to try. All the same, I'd have preferred you'd kept on all your shoes, you dumb beast, so I could have gotten home to a hot bath and my children."

With a sigh she set off again, now on foot and leading her lame mount. Her thoughts drifted back to the path her life had taken over the years.

She'd been lucky in a lot of ways. With the end of her marriage and her fool husband gone who-knew-where, one would have expected balancing children and employment to be a problem, but Lady Worsley had leaped to her rescue.

"My dear, I have been agonizing for simply ages over how to find suitable playmates for my children and yours are such gems! I would be delighted to have them stay in the nursery with Nanny and my little ones whenever you are occupied elsewhere!"

The offer had been a G.o.dsend and Fern really did like both Nanny and Lady Worsley, if only Lady Worsley wouldn't gush quite so much.

Fern had suddenly been free to run her own life, with no short-tempered cloud sharing her bed and raining on her parade. And all those men!... Smiling, warm, appreciative men who'd been flirting with her for years. Surely one of them would give her the kind of affectionate, thoughtful, mature (but occasionally silly), relationship she craved! Perhaps that fellow guardsman, or maybe the grocer... ?

"Guess again." Fern growled, scuffing the dirt as she walked and wishing more than ever for that hot bath. Muscles stiff from the long ride now complained about walking so far, but she angrily ignored her aching thighs and strode along.

Some of the guardsmen had considered a female warrior to be an unnatural thing and had refused to a.s.sociate with her when not on duty, but others had been eager to see more of her. A few townsmen had seen her in her armor and been openly admiring. She had never been left lacking male company.

Somehow, though, not one of the affairs had panned out.

"Oh, they had their moments," Fern recalled angrily, "But when the relationship made it to the bedroom every single one of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds was looking for this big, powerful knight-b.i.t.c.h to beat and humiliate him.

And that last one! First the fool badgers me into fulfilling his stupid dominatrix fantasy, and then he has the gall to say he's ent.i.tled to extra kindnesses from me as I had abused him so!"

By the time Fern reached the blacksmith's place she was flushed, not only from the heat and exertion ofthe long walk but with anger and frustration as well. Jacob took one look at her and offered her a drink of water from the earthen jug he always kept tucked in the shade, well away from the heat of the forge.

She accepted it, still half-lost in memories, and as she drank she thought again how everyone simply a.s.sumed, because she used a sword for a living, that she wanted to spend her entire life dominating people. The men who wanted to be dominated swarmed to her, and the others, the ones who might have been worthwhile, stayed away.

"What makes men such idiots, anyway?" Fern burst out after wiping the water from the corners of her mouth with the back of her sleeve. She reached up again, this time to brush away a mix of sweat and tears from her eyes.

"Excuse me?" Jacob asked. "Is the water not to your liking, perhaps? Or perhaps you're miffed with the four-hoofed male behind you who has forced this detour?" He smiled at her, slightly bemused but with concern in his eyes all the same.

She blinked at him, then blushed.Hehadn't done anything wrong. "By the G.o.ds, I'm sorry, Jacob," she said.

"Thank you for the drink. It's not you, and it's not the horse either. It's... well, it's a long story."

"Rest your feet while I take care of the beast's shoe, and if you care to complain to me about the G.o.ds'

whims in the process, I've a sympathetic ear. I promise to 'tsk, tsk,' in all the right spots."

Much of Fern's anger had burnt itself out by now, and she'd no desire to rekindle it by another mental review of her personal life. Once in an afternoon was quite enough! But perhaps, she mused, she might share some of her problems and at the same time find that c.h.i.n.k in Jacob's emotional armor that she sought.

"Do you find people mix up who you are with what you do?" she asked. "I may have a job as a knight, but that's not who I am! Or is this a man's way of thinking, that you are what you do?"

"I don't know about it being 'a man's way of thinking,' " Jacob said. "I've always seen a more vulnerable side to you than your armor would imply, but I'd say that many folks of either s.e.x miss such things. After all, ask yourself, do you see me as just a smith?" He smiled at her briefly, but then turned his attention to the stallion's hoof.

She stared at him, caught off-guard by the question. Actually, up until that moment, she had indeed thought of him just as a smith-a rather unusual smith, but too aloof, too closed off, to think of in a more personal way. She suddenly found herself staring at the firm line of his shoulders and back at the same time she noticed how gently he handled her horse, running his hand tenderly down the leg.

"Well, I..." She hesitated, suddenly at a loss for words-facing down bandits and negotiating with brigands she could handle, but this sudden change in an old relationship had her baffled. She chose her words carefully.

"I've always thought you were a good looking man, Jacob, and polite, but well, distant." She tried to find some way to phrase what she wanted to say without admitting the truth, but then gave up.

"G.o.ds, you're right, Jacob. I saw you as a smith and nothing more. I guess I've never thought of you outside your professional role because, in all the years that I've known you, you never seemed to inviteany relationship beyond a professional one."

"I might point out that you were married for virtually all those years-happily married, I thought."

"Little did you know!" The barrier had broken, and she poured out her frustrations and fury over Durgan's failures as a husband.

After that the conversation drifted on to other matters-nothing of great moment, but an exchange of thoughts that left her feeling warm and satisfied. By the time Jacob was satisfied that the horse was fit to ride, Fern was grateful for that thrown shoe-and after the goodbye hug Jacob gave her she thought that perhaps he might need a cold shower even more that she had wanted a hot bath. They exchanged promises of dinner together two days hence, and Fern rode away from the smithy towards home in a markedly different humor from the one in which she'd arrived.

She found, at dinner and in the days that followed, that his graciousness was more than skin deep and his gentle touch was not reserved solely for his four-legged clients. Much to her delight, it seemed that Fern had finally found someone who believed in "Do unto others..."It amused her to describe to him some unreasonable, but all too common, bit of behavior that she had encountered from some man in the past and watch Jacob get this wonderful, genuinely bewildered expression on his face as he responded: "Why? That doesn't make sense." Or, "That's ridiculous." Or, "Why would he expect that? That's not fair to you!"

"I know that, and you know that, but he did it just the same," she'd reply with a chuckle, at last finding some humor in her previous misadventures.

Eventually, late one evening, when the children had decided to spend the night in the nursery, a long intimate talk with Jacob turned into long intimate caresses. The couple retired to Fern's room.

"You know," Jacob warned, "I'm really nothing special in bed. Open-minded about things, and affectionate, yes... but really, well, boring."

"Ye G.o.ds, man! I deal with crisis for a living!" she shouted. "I subdue giants, battle two, three men at a time! h.e.l.l, my contract includes fighting dragons if need be! Do you think I need high drama in the bedroom as well? Affection is wonderful! Boring is good! Bore me!"

They burst into laughter and he hugged her tightly. She reveled in the shared humor and in his touch.

Finally she pulled back to gaze into his eyes; those deep, gorgeous, tender, blue eyes she had overlooked for so long. "And now sirrah," she sighed in a voice soft and husky, "Please, if thou wouldst..."

"Yes, darling?"

"Go you gently into this sweet, good knight!"

A b.i.t.c.h in Time

Doranna Durgin

Shiba sat on the bare wood planks of the cabin porch, wiggling her bottom away from a persistent splinter. Mail hung heavily on her shoulders and across her back, and the leather-lined helmet chafed her ears despite its custom contours. Hot in the sun, it was. Across the tunic on her broad chest hung a short row of service pins and one smooth, polished medal. Shiba would have ripped it off if she'd been given the choice. What good was valor when it wasn't enough?

Good for a thorough rolling-on, that's what.

Beside her stood the Line Mate, the man in charge of the border cabins that represented the first line of defense against illegal magics. He wore his only everyday work clothes. Well,hewasn't waiting for his new partner.

"Patience," he said, resting his hand on the skirt of mail that hung over her long ears. "He'll be here.

Naught for you to worry."

Shiba made a grumping noise and lifted her nose to the air, expertly sorting it for any taste of stranger-odor. There! Was that... ? She whined, licked her lips, and tried again. Definitely!

"Coming, is he?" the Line Mate asked, expectantly eyeing the path that led from the woods. His other name was Eldon, though Shiba thought he ought to pick one name or the other and stick with it. "All right. Just you keep in mind that he's only recently lost his own partner. That does things to a lineman, you know."

Shiba's tail quivered, and her forehead furrowed into furry wrinkles. The scent of her new partner was strong in her nose, stronger than any words Eldon might say. People talked all the time anyway, whether they had something to say or not. She strained her eyes-not the strongest of her senses-and yes, there he was! Just visible through the trees at the edge of the cabin's small clearing, a tall walking stick in one hand and a full satchel slung over the other shoulder. Shiba whined as he emerged from the woods, and licked away the drool gathering on her lips.

"Easy," said Eldon, as Shiba's new partner approached. The man's easy stride seemed a tad too casual.

"Tallon," Eldon said. "Welcome. You made good time."

"Good enough," the man said. Shiba liked his voice. It had a roughly furry texture not unlike her own. He nodded at her. "See you musta spent some time getting ready for me. Wasn't necessary."

"I didn't do it for you," Eldon said. "I did it for her. She was strongly attached to the old man. It's good for her to have a little ceremony, something to mark your arrival as out of the ordinary. I can't help but worry about the way you two are going to mesh."

Tallon dropped the satchel and looked thoughtfully at his new linehound.

Shiba gave him her n.o.ble Beauty pose. After all, she was of the best bloodlines and strikingly marked.

The black of her back was glossy beneath her chain mail, and her chest, belly, and legs were white, so heavily ticked with black that from any distance they looked blue silver. The black of her head and ears was divided by a neat ticked blaze that spread out to take over her muzzle, and her eyebrows werepunctuated by deep brown. Her body was st.u.r.dy, her tail strong and graceful, and her ears fell long and soft, the perfect complement to her hanging flews. Best of all, her legs-long, heavy-boned and angular-were up to the task of following her incomparable nose.

She knew all this because Jehn, her former partner, had told her so. She believed him utterly, just as she believed everything he said.

Tallon just shrugged. "We'll get along fine," he said. "Jehn'll have trained her right, and beyond that, a dog's a dog."

Shiba couldn't believe her ears. She looked at Eldon, who appeared to be speechless.A dog's a dog, ey? Her ears, previously c.o.c.ked forward like big floppy wings at the side of her head, flattened. She rose and circled the man, eyeing him with cold brown eyes.A dog's a dog? Well, this dog was ab.i.t.c.h. Tallon would not only do well to keep that in mind, he was about to find out exactly what it could mean.

Shiba gave his satchel a sideways look. Itdidmean she couldn't lift her leg on the thing. But there were other ways... Shiba dropped shoulder-first on the satchel and rolled with the dramatic wiggles and flourishes commonly reserved for the rankest carrion.

Tallon seemed to have missed the point, for he never made the necessary apologies and overtures to earn Shiba's forgiveness. Of all the linemen on the border, why give herthisone to break in? No matter how long he'd been a lineman elsewhere, Tallon was the green one here, for this washerterritory. A lifetime-all three years of it-of protecting this section of the border from spellrunners meant that she knew all its hiding places, and all the tricky runners in the area.

For a while there, spellrunners had taken to disguising the smell of magic with the much stronger scent of critter. It'd worked, too, because Shiba, like any other linehound, had a pa.s.sionate hate for the oily-furred, long-bodied, toothy-jawed, witless-and here she had to pause in her thoughts to get hold of herself-critters. Why, their true name was such an abomination that a proper b.i.t.c.h never even said it, not even to herself.Critter, that's all they were ever called by a linehound, all of whom were thoroughly trained from their natural inclination to hunt down and shred every critter whose scent trail they crossed.