Kill the Dead by Tanith Lee (beach read book txt) 📕

Yet herface—the closer he got, the more it seemed to him that Silky was here. Betweenone step and the next, he had the terrifying meditation that maybe a ghostcould not only cheat death, solidify, appear to all the senses to be mortalflesh, but, into the bargain—the ultimate cheat—could appear to mature, to age.Why not? If a ghost could survive, blotting out the nature of its death,swindling itself eventually into crediting its own “true” life, then surely itmust be capable of supposing itself into growing up and growing old, along withthe rest of living humanity.

But hehad destroyed Silky’s link. Released her—murdered her—

Thewoman was beautiful. Richly beautiful. There was a heavy abundance to her,despite her lean and fragile build, that found its utmost expression in thewelter of honey hair. Her skin, summer-tanned, was honey too, the small lineslike cracks over gold leaf. On her hand was a brass ring. There really was aman somewhere, then. But not here.

Dro slippedoff the hood of his cloak. Walking slowly, his lameness was minimised, and hewas graceful. He kept his hands loose, free of the mantle, showing that hehimself had no weapon ready or considered.

Thewoman stared hard in his face, then suddenly relaxed. She took her hand off thedog’s rope and looked down at it.

“Hush,”she said. “It’s all right.”

“Thankyou,” said Dro, “for taking me on trust.”

“Only afool would judge you a robber,” she said boldly. “As for rape, would you everhave to?” She coloured at her own words, but met his eyes as she said it.“Where are you making for?”

“Overthe mountain.”

Shesaid, “My man’s gone that way. Gone to do business with another man. Buysomething, or steal it, the bastard. He won’t be back till tomorrow. If he comesback then. If he isn’t lying blind drunk in some inn somewhere with some womansomewhere. If he isn’t too drunk to have a woman. I’m sorry.”

The doghad stopped growling and lay down with its sad muzzle on its thin paws. Thewoman walked away to the fire and used a long skewer to pick a meaty bone outof a pot which sizzled there. The dog rose, salivating pathetically as thewoman waved the bone to cool it. Presently she placed the bone on the groundbefore the dog, and as it began to gnaw its meal, she caressed it with apainful tenderness.

“Poorthing,” she said to Dro, speaking of the dog as if about a child. “My man beatshim, starves him. He’d do better on his own in the woods. He’d turn into a wolfand be happy. I tell him, the dog, I promise him, one night I’ll let him go,untie him and send him off. Then I’ll get the beating. But I will, onenight. Won’t I, dog?” She glanced at Dro, who had stood there motionless allthis while, watching her. “You’ll think I’m daft, I expect.”

“No.”

“Youwill. But you’re welcome to share the stew with me. I can’t feed the dog andnot offer something to you.”

“Youcould.”

“I’drather you didn’t go,” she said. “He just left me here, but I’d rather therewas a man by. We came up from the south, do you see. This country’s new to me.”She straightened and looked at him. Her throat was delicate as if carved, theskin stretched taut, yet silken. Through it he could see her heart thudding.

“I’dlike to stay, if you want me to,” he said.

Shesmiled, and said, “Yes, but that’s not an invitation, mind.” By which he knewit was.

Hewondered stupidly if he in turn reminded her of some other, or if she weremerely a slut, or simply lonely. Women were constantly attracted to him, and tothe half-truth about celibacy and psychic power, and whether a ghost-killerwould or not. Or did she not guess his calling.

Theyate by the fire, and then she brought out a skin of beer, and they dranktogether. She began to comb her fingers through her hair until it became anelectric crackling blizzard of golden smoke. She sang to the flames drowsily,her voice light and throbbing. She was making an intuitive magic, all of it forhim. As Silky had done in the apple tree, sun in her hair, murmuring to birdsor leaves... and when he spoke to her now, she gazed at him, unsurprised asSilky had been.

“Can Ipay you for the meal?”

“I don’tthink so,” she said.

Theyspoke about the season for a while, and about the showman’s trade her husbandintermittently practiced. She asked Dro nothing, not even his name. He did notask hers either. He could not have called her by it. Just as he could neverhave brought himself to call her “Silky.” The whole episode was dreamlike,transient.

The dogslept on its side, turned also to gold by the firelight, then to ruby as theflames sank low.

Whenthey each leaned to cast a branch on the fire, their bodies finally touched.The act of sex had become so inevitable and so desired between them that heseemed to have had her before, many times. Everything was familiar, withouthesitation, awkwardness or apology. She was lovely, even what the years hadsoftly faded, or etched with their gold, was lovely, in her.

Afterwards,they lay wrapped together by the fire. The wood breathed. Their own breathinglulled both of them asleep, and later woke them again.

Aboutan hour before sunrise, the whining of the dog roused Parl Dro.

It wascold, the clear wet chill that dripped through the trees before a summer dawn.The fire was out. The woman, showered over by her summer hair, lay sleeping onher side. Her face was cupped into one hand. One bare full breast gleamed outagainst her own tawny colour, startlingly snow-white. The dog stood, hacklesraised. A horse cropped the turf nearby. Beside the wagon was a man.

Helooked almost every inch the uncouth robber the woman had feared the nightbefore. From that alone, Dro recognised him as her husband. Squat, dirty and dishevelled,he poised in a bizarre kind of half crouch, hair and clothes flopping, and aloose gut flopping before all that. Only the man’s hands were curious, thin andarticulate, though crammed now into raw red fists.

“Well,”he said, slurred and drunken and all too