Free Dragon Haven by Hobb Robin

and we’d be camping out along the way. But I’ve persuaded him.” She paused, choking on emotion, and then went on in a voice so tight that her words almost squeaked. “If you want me to take you back, I’ll do it. We’ll leave today if you say so.”
    If he said so.
    It was too late now. Too late even on that morning when he’d demanded she go back with him, though he hadn’t known it then. “Too late.” He hadn’t realized he’d whispered the words until he saw her reaction.
    “Sa’s mercy, Sedric. Are you that ill?”
    “No.” He spoke quickly to stop her words. He truly had no idea how ill he was, or if “ill” was a way to describe it. “No, nothing like that, Alise. I only mean it’s too late for us to attempt to make our way back to Cassarick in one of the small boats. Davvie has warned me, numerous times, that the autumn rains will soon be falling, and that when they start to come down, our journey upstream is going to be more difficult. Perhaps then Captain Leftrin will recognize how foolish our mission is and turn back with the barge. In any case, I don’t wish to be in a small boat on a torrential river with rain pouring down all around us. Not my idea of camping weather.”
    He’d almost managed to find his normal tone and voice. Maybe if he seemed normal, she’d go away. “I’m very tired, if you don’t mind,” he said abruptly.
    Alise stood up, looking remarkably unattractive in trousers that only emphasized the female swell of her hips. The shirt she wore was beginning to show signs of hard use. He could tell she had washed it, but the water she had used had left it gray rather than snowy white. The sun was taking a toll on her, bleaching her red hair to a carroty orange that frayed out around her pins, and making her freckles darker. She’d never been a beauty by Bingtown standards. Much more of the sun and water, and he wondered if Hest would take her back at all. It was one thing to have a mousy wife, and another to have one who was simply a fright. He wondered if she ever thought of the possibility that when she returned, Hest might not take her back. Probably not. She had been raised to believe that life was meant to be a certain way, and even when all evidence was to the contrary, she couldn’t see it differently. She’d never suspected that he and Hest were more than excellent friends. To Alise, he was still her childhood friend, erstwhile secretary to her husband and temporarily serving as her assistant. She so firmly believed that the world was determined by her rules that she could not see what was right in front of her.
    And so she smiled gently at him. “Get some rest, dear friend,” she said, closing the door quietly behind her, shutting him into his oversized packing crate and leaving him in the dark with his thoughts.
    He rolled to face the wall. The back of his neck itched. He scratched it furiously, feeling dry skin under his nails. She wasn’t the only one whose appearance was being ruined. His skin was dry, his hair as coarse as a horse’s tail now.
    He wished he could blame everything on Alise. He couldn’t. Once Hest had banned him, dooming him to be her companion, Sedric had done all he could to seize any opportunity the trip might present. He was the one who had schemed to take advantage of every opportunity to take a scrap of dragon flesh, a scale, a drop of blood. He’d planned so carefully how he wouldpreserve his collection; Begasti Cored would be waiting to hear from him, anticipating that his own fortune would be founded on being the man to facilitate supplying such forbidden merchandise to the Duke of Chalced.
    In some of his daydreams, Sedric returned to Bingtown to show Hest his loot, and Hest helped him to get the best prices for his wares. In those dreams, they sold the goods and never returned to Bingtown, establishing themselves as wealthy men in Chalced, or Jamaillia, or the Pirate Isles, perhaps even beyond, in the near-mythical Spice