Free Moongather by Jo Clayton Page B

Noris.
    He’d put aside, for the moment, his irritations and was smiling gravely down at her. “You can get water for the animals from this. The servants will bring the other things you need to care for them. Can you do this?”
    Serroi nodded; hesitantly she stepped closer to him and dared to touch his hand, sliding her fingers along his strange disturbing flesh. She sneaked a look at his face and saw that he was uneasy at her touch, yet at the same time pleased by it. Without another word he walked away, disappearing through the doorway.
    The silence in the court lasted several minutes after his departure then died before the coughing roar of the sicamar, a long-haired beast with a flat face, ripping teeth, yellow-green eyes and small round ears. His long fur ranged in color from the palest tan on his underbelly to a brindled chocolate on his back. The tips of the longer fur on the top of his head and around his neck were a yellowish green while the deeper fur was a misty blue-green like the color of new spring grass that rose above the last year’s growth now dead and faded brown. He paced restlessly up and down his cage, a powerful, beast, magnificently muscled, in the prime of his life—but not well. Patches of his fur looked dull, ruffled; the yellow-green eyes were filmy and his mouth hung open now and then as if he lacked the will to keep his jaws together. Serroi sucked in a deep breath, shivered. There was an almost imperceptible taint of sickness to the air in the court. Perhaps nothing lived on these islands because nothing could live there. Her head began to ache. There was so much she didn’t understand, so much she couldn’t understand—but she knew the sicamar was suffering; her eye-spot throbbed to his pain. She began walking along the cages, peering solemnly at the animals inside, tilting her head back to inspect those piled high above her. Her eye-spot continued to throb as she started feeling her way into them, but she redirected her efforts, not absorbing now but projecting, reassuring them, caressing them with that deep love she had for all of them, the love pent up inside her that had no other outlet. By the time she finished her round even the air smelled cleaner. The animals were settled in drowsy comfort, in silence or making their various kinds of purring sounds. Content again, she went to the cage with the chinin and opened the door, whistling her old call, laughing as the adults and pups leaped out and pranced around her, sniffing at her, rearing up to lick at her face.
    Serroi hesitated in the doorway. The roam was lit by a few candles; a fire snapped and crackled in a dark-stone fireplace. Bathed in rich golden light the Noris was stretched out on a divan, propped up on velvet pillows watching the flames dance. She wanted to go to him, he seemed as lonely as she sometimes felt, but she knew instinctively that he was uneasy with her no matter how relaxed he seemed.
    â€œCome here, Serroi.” His voice was soft and dreamy. He hadn’t looked at her but he knew she was there anyway. Serroi licked at her lips. “Sit beside me,” he said. One pale hand dropped onto a thick pillow on the floor beside the divan. The gesture was too deliberately graceful, another betrayal of his lack of ease. Serroi moved silently to the pillow and settled herself stiffly beside him, her head by his shoulder. Though she couldn’t have put what she felt into words, her discomfort came from his. She stared into title flames, waiting for him to speak.
    After a lengthy silence she looked up to meet his eyes. They were fixed on her and bright with curiosity as if he were tasting his reactions and hers, probing at himself with a curious objectivity that confused her. Among her own, people emotions rode surfaces. No man paused to examine his anger but was simply and thoroughly angry.
    â€œYou’ve settled in comfortably?”
    â€œYes, Ser Noris.” She brooded a