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God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers,      And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face,      A gauntlet with a gift in 't. ..........................Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1809-1861. Hands promiscuously applied,     Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side. ................................... The Waltz, Lord Byron. 1788-1824. I did the dragon's will until you came      Because I had fancied love a casual      Improvisation, or a settled game ...............................................William Butler Yeats. 1865-1939.

  Joe Dawson seemed to be measuring time these days by the length of his new wife's hair. With everything healing--as well as it would--from the nearly fatal automobile accident, there had no longer been the count of lines-in, lines-out, or casts, or number of sutures yet to be taken out. She had been line-free, suture- free, cast-free, for many weeks now.

        So except for the gradual improvement of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy and so on, the only real change was from GI buzz-cut to short curls, now about two inches in length, shiny and dark, almost black, soft rings in odd contrast to the skull-spare features, the grim red scar down the side of her otherwise- incongruous and perky nose. Joe thought it the most beautiful face he knew. Her fair features surely warmed his old heart in any case. The brain damage had rendered her childlike, even feral, like some mischievous sprite or elfling spirit. All the tight lines and solemn dimensions of her old demeanor had melted into playfulness. She seemed a young thirty year old, when in truth she was older than the Sphinx, but that had been in another life and this, the beginning of the last of her days...just like an ordinary mortal.

        Well, an ordinary mortal with a twist, Joe thought. And today, that twist comes home and we shall see if this has any chance of working at all. Immortal Watcher, Seacouver Barkeep, and brand new husband, Joe could only think of himself this morning as "ex-alcoholic," immediately reminding himself there was none such...every day was a new challenge, you never stopped being addicted....yadayada..

        He sorely missed The Bear, who'd already gone off on a honeymoon with his new wife, Dr. Anne Lindsey, and his daughter, Mary. Lt. Crane was off to Paris and had put Dawson in charge of the Northwest Territories in his absence. Joe hoped everything would remain quiet while he found his civilian, world-outside-the-hospital, balance, and got Set settled in at "home."

        Joe could not think what to worry about first. While Set was down playing with the Physical Therapy folk, he finished packing...wondering how they could have accumulated so much baggage, but they had been there almost a third of a year, nearly four months. Anne had seen that Set had some street clothes purchased before she left with The Bear groom. Dawson hadn't even considered working on the conventions of civil dress as befitted the walking well. Neither he nor Set thought much about her being in all sorts of undress, that being the nature of medical access.

        Well, he'd speak with her before they left for home. Home. That was a laugh. All Joe had to offer was a spare room upstairs in the bar. He cooked his meals downstairs in the bar's kitchen, slept on the couch in his office most nights if he wasn't in the mood to go upstairs, or the old service lift wasn't working. Some home, but he had spent time fixing up the spare room, he'd cleaned out the trash stored there, put in a second hand bed, a dresser...very "tobacco road," in ambiance. Set would probably run howling back to the hospital.

        He hadn't really intended to be a couple. Ever. Now he was a Mr., as in Mr. and Mrs. Dawson, like his parents. 'Course the Missus was a tad peculiar...

        Dawson was usually pretty good in unlikely situations, but he had no point of reference for this one. He doubted anyone did. It wasn't like he could ask the other Immortals he knew. There was no way he would be telling Mac or Adam about this. They thought Ram was dead. They were right. Set was not the sort of thing you could explain over the phone or in an email...and even Set, herself, would be very different by the time they returned from Paris in the next spring.

        Oh, he would work things out, Joe tried to be optimistic, he would find a way to be with this wild, wonderful creature, some way to spend the rest of both their lives together. Like the drunkard thing, Joe reminded himself. One day at a time.

        "Joe?"

        Dawson jerked around suddenly, so lost in his worrying he'd missed her entrance.

        Set looked up from the wheelchair where the PT aide had parked her. Her head tipped to the side as she surveyed his own harried self. "Hurt?" she asked, looking at his legs and then straight into his eyes with an intensity that was almost impaling in its effect.

        Joe shook his head, shrugged, lifted his hands. What could he say that she would understand?

        Set was still looking straight at him when Joe finally surfaced enough to notice her eyes were tearing. She was not weeping, or at least not sobbing, just crying silently. Oh, dear.

        When he approached her, Set looked away. "Go!" she said forcefully. "I will be all right." It was what he always said when she was concerned for him, but the "go" portion was something new.

        Joe thought a moment. Oh, what an idiot he was! "We are going together, Set," he took her hand in his. "Together."

        "Out?" she asked. "There?" Set pointed at the window.

        "Yes, Set. Out there. Yes, both of us. Together," Dawson lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles lightly, pretty much the extent of their romantic physicality up to now.

        The quick, easy smile lit her face and wrinkled the scar by her nose. Then it dissolved into a look of abject amazement. Once again she studied Joe up and down as if he were the eighth wonder or the second coming.

        "How?" she whispered.

  Set waved graciously at all the people in the pastel uniforms who had compromised the known world for her up to now. She watched the Wizard Joe open the tall crystal doors without so much as a hand wave or a word. They simply surrendered open to his presence before them. The woman servant--"nurse" they called them, and "orderly"--pushed her through, following close behind the wizard so as not to be caught in the doors as they closed behind them.

        They would be going to his Keep now. He had chosen to take her with him. This incredibly powerful, infinitely tender sage had looked on her with favor. That caused her no less amazement than everything else about the Wizard. She wondered if it were many days' ride, or if his abode were close by this strange temple of healers. Set sunk deeper in her warm coat. Wonderful Wizard, he had even thought to replace her raiments, these latter being lost in the battle which she could not remember.

        The Wizard had left her here on the stone roadside for a long while. Set wondered if the Elder had changed his mind. What use could she possibly be to him, after all? She still couldn't walk, except in the most dismally awkward fashion. She could neither ken nor speak his tongue with any competence at all. He did not seem to desire her as men desire women. What possible use? She certainly would not be meeting a battle anytime in near future.

        He will not return, Set thought sadly. His great heart is just too tender to give me the truth, save at a distance. A messenger would come soon and the servant would wheel her back in. She was already sorting through her memories, planting them carefully, deeply, when a medium-sized dragon roared towards her. Something about how the servant remained undisturbed, without the slightest surprise, as if she knew the beaste were coming...

        This is why he has attended me, Set thought. It must be an Avatar of his powers, a Great Beaste Familiar...or some other thing. But what a sorry offering he makes to this serpent!

        Set braced herself, tried to hear his command of "Be Still," to focus her will, as it always had. She made her eyes remain open, watched the dragon slow to its own stillness before her in the slush of yesterdays dirty snow, and then...

        Her scream was of such pitch and volume that it was a wonder the crystal panes behind her did not all crack and shatter.

        The grey drake had opened its jaw, had begun a squelching, beeping keen, and out of its mouth, alive and completely unharmed, walked the Wizard, tall and brave and completely at ease...

        ...as if it were something he did every day.

  Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.  Not a good beginning, Joe worried all the way home. Who could say what had gotten in to her? Set simply refused to go near the new car. Well, he supposed any car would be new to her. She'd only seen them from a distance in her upstairs window, if then, seeing she was never very interested in "outside."

        The obvious answer was that she had suffered such agonies in the car wreck as would have broken the bravest man, but Set had given no sign she had any recollection of that event, no nightmares, nothing.

        As it was, they'd had to wrestle her and sedate her, and even then, wait nearly an hour before she was sufficiently drunk to be hauled, like a side of beef, still howling, and dumped in the back seat. Needless to say, it had been a rough trip home, but Set had finally fallen asleep, sucking on the knuckle of her right thumb. It broke Joe's heart to see her in the pose she had adopted when the pain or the weariness got the best of her. Just like a small child, he thought. Thumb in her mouth (well, her knuckle anyway) the slender fingers curled over her nose and her grey green eyes squinched shut even in sound sleep.

        Joe Dawson pulled up by the neon sign in the shape of  his name and turned off the customized car that the 'Couver General Hospital Administration had bought for him. The sign, looking all the more tacky in the early eve, reminded him that he would probably soon have to sell this fancy vehicle. The bar had been hemorrhaging financially in his absence and the bills were piling up. Mike had done his best. Wasn't his fault. The place was just not profitable in the best of circumstances and these were hardly they.

        Well, home at last. Joe wished he had more to offer his new wife. The whole place looked smaller and seedier than even he remembered. Dawson wanted to start up the car again and keep on driving, maybe to a hotel...some better place for Set's first night in the world.  Almost on cue, Set's sonorous breathing stopped and she struggled up to peek over the back seat, blinking her eyes.

        "Joe?" her speech was not as slurred as he expected, almost sober again.

        He turned around in his seat. "Set?"

        She tucked her chin down, "Sorry."

        "Awww," Joe lifted her head in the cradle of his fingers. "No. You were afraid. You did the best you could." He shrugged. "I am sorry."

        But she was already looking past him at the dusty grey bricks and the red sign, her eyes widening. "Yours?" she asked. They'd had quite a conversation about property one day when she'd eaten his supper and left him with a very unappetizing stew.

        Joe thought he did not care about wealth and goods, but those very things suddenly loomed large now he was no longer a bachelor. His neck started to burn with shame. That's all there is, Darlin', he thought. All there is.

        And maybe not even that if he couldn't get the finances reworked.

        Set tried to clear her head, tried to surface in the thick, liquid restraints of the shot she'd been given. The Wizard was disappointed in her cowardice. He had worried so for her care, had been so attentive to every detail of her comfort. How dismally she had repaid him with whimpering and screeching and all the things he most disliked in her. If she could just stay quiet in the belly of this beaste, then maybe she would not feel so very ashamed with herself and her very poor showing.

        When she finally came around, the beaste had stopped its low, rolling growl, had stopped its gliding, smooth, ground-sailing gait. They were here! She used her good arm to pull up slowly and look around. The smallish dragon was asleep and still. Set looked out through one of its many crystalline eyes. Here was the Wizard's Keep with a bright sigil blazoned cross the entryway, a luminous snake, the color of fire.

        No doubt proclaiming the greatness of the Wizard who dwelt here.

        She felt his fingers beneath her chin as she strove to express her apology in his language, but she could feel his shame with his touch and she cursed herself for having made him so.

        His apprentice, a pale, balding man of gentle disposition, Mica, came out from the Keep and carried Set in while the Wizard held the door. She was almost taken down to tears with the gracious gesture on Joe's part. When she squirmed to get down, Mica released her and she limped round the enormous forecourt, settling down by the miniature bronze columns to stare at the chilling blue lights beneath the harvest table--or altar, she wasn't sure which. It was all in brilliantly polished wood layers, wonderfully done. No, not altar, must be harvest or serving table, for there were many other smaller tables that did not seem the shape for scriptorium or chapel furniture, except for the carrels along the walls.

        It all had a wombish feel about it. The soft lights and the various little nooks and crannies, the magic philters and decoctions lining all the shelves in a multitude of colors and clarities. Every detail bespoke the healer's art, even her own presence here, still in the world. Somewhere above her, on the other side of the long table, Joe and Mica were speaking their strange, musical language...mostly low notes. The Wizard probably warning the apprentice about her. With their melodies fading in the air, Set curled around one of the columns and began to fall asleep...thanking the Wizard for all the blessings he had seen fit to lay at her feet.

        Vowing she would find a way to deserve them.

  Joe Dawson collapsed onto his bed with his legs on. They had gotten through the mid-week evening crowd--hardly that--with a minimum of difficulty. Set slept through the rest of the eve on the tide of the IM Valium that had enabled him to get her home. Mike had helped him get her upstairs to the spare room, where he'd tucked her in and prayed briefly for them both while she slept.

        Then downstairs to help Mike and get back in the rhythm of things. Two pages from HQ, nothing critical, and a dozen customers. He'd get the band in for a practice by week's end and start on the books in the morning. A light night, but Joe was exhausted. Despite the daily Physical Therapy, he'd grown soft in the hospital waiting for Set to recover.

        Lying on top of the covers, Joe Dawson ran a tactical review of the situation. What on earth could he have been thinking? Really. What had possessed him? There was an answer to that last one. Set.

        Of course the answer was a bit indistinct as of yet, as in, "Who the hell was Set?"

        All Joe knew at this point was...

        What? That she used to be Ram, but she wasn't any more. And then---?

        That he loved her, whatever that meant, or would mean, in time. That had been enough all these months. Why was he so uncertain now?

        It was the finances, or lack thereof. It was the incident with the car. It was this dismal place which had always seemed enough for him before now. It was the stress of the hospital. It was the stress of being home again.

        Joe rolled over on his left side, remembering to reach down and pull over the leg so it wouldn't twist his back. He pounded his head into one of the pillows stacked at the head of the sleigh bed which had belonged to his mother. Oh, hell, maybe it was the sex thing, after all.

        And as soon as he thought it, the internal harmonics reverberated like a hymn. Damn! It wasn't like Joe hadn't had his share of intimacy with the fair sex, more than he ever would have thought possible in those first years after the amputations. He had spent many rare nights before Ram's accident at Sweet Lucille's cathedral loft. But Set was not Lucille. Set was a brain-wounded child who would not understand about mutilation any more than she probably understood about sex. Set, who howled like a siren at the sight of a car.

        Joe honestly wasn't sure how she'd react. He was more uncertain about his ability to deal with how she reacted. And he hadn't ever been entirely sober before. Jesus! he thought suddenly, Was I always that scared?

        This scared?

        Joe thought he might break down with the weight of this. He felt old and dingy, ragged round the edges...and entirely too sober to bear any of it.

        And this position was making his shoulder cramp. God damn it! He was tired of this! The pain, the fear, the weariness, the edge where his teeth met all too often....

        Joe threw himself over to his back...

        ...and nearly on top of his new wife who had been lying there quietly watching him the whole while. She must have snuck down the hall from the spare room.

        "Set?" Oh, God, if he had thought she would understand, he would have made some excuse. He needed some time to get used to the idea. He simply was not ready for this. Not now. "What happened to your nightgown?"

        Set tilted her head to the side and sited on him, smiling sweetly, as if it was gracious of him to notice she had nothing on. Joe pushed up to sitting, pressing his back against the headboard. "No, Set," he grabbed her wrists as they reached for the buttons of his shirt.

        She had curled her knees up under her to lean over him and now she sat back on her heels and just stared with a question in her eyes as he held her hands. "Hurt?" Set asked.

        What could he tell her? "No, Set. You did not hurt me."

        She reached again for his buttons, her mouth parted slightly with the intensity of her concentration.

        "No," Joe repeated, more forcefully this time.  "Go back to bed."

        Her brows lowered in a frown and her lush lower lip pushed forward. "My bed-in-the-room is empty," she complained, "and cold, and dark, and..."

        The compounds were going nicely, he thought.

        "And..." she said, beginning to giggle, "No Joe." With this she pounced on him, freed her hands and buried his protest beneath her heat and breath and lips and tongue and...

        Joe was struck with a sudden panic, all out of proportion with the moment. He pushed her hard and she fell off the bed to the floor, where she stayed, sitting cross-armed and cross-legged, facing away from the bed and mumbling something derogatory which he doubted even she understood.

        "Set," Joe tried to amend her anger, "I am wounded."

        Set looked up at him over her right shoulder.

        Joe leaned over the edge of the bed, reached forward and traced along the still red scar of her abdominal incision. "Wound," he repeated.

        Set's mouth dropped open. "Oh," she said with a long soughing sound.

        Encouraged, Joe continued, "I don't want you to see it now."

        Set thought about this for a bit and then said, "Embarrassed?"

        "Yes, Set. I am too embarrassed," Joe was glad she understood. "Go to bed."

        Set stood up with a curious look on her face. "Pillow."

        Joe gave her one of the pillows. She took it and sat down at the foot of his bed, steadying the pillow with her stiff left hand and pulling at the 'case with her strong right grip. "Hidden?" she asked, not looking up.

        "Yes, Set," he could not think what she was getting at. "The wound is hidden."

        She had the pillow halfway out of its case. "Bad?"

        "It is bad, Set, very bad." What the hell was she doing with the pillow?

        He soon had the answer. Set finally had the pillowcase free in her hands. She threw the pillow on the floor and stuck her arms into the case. "Hurt?" she asked again.

        "No, Set. The wound does not hurt any more," which wasn't exactly true, but there was no way to explain phantom limb syndrome to his new wife.  As he watched, Set lifted the pillowcase up and brought it down over her head, covering her head and shoulders completely.

        Joe almost laughed to see her sitting there, arms now crossed again, not a stitch on, with a white pillowcase on her head. Something about her posture, though, made him think better of making fun. Maybe it was some kind of game.  He pulled his legs around to dangle off the bed's side and sidled nearer to sit beside her.

        Set just sat there....waiting, he thought. Okay, I'll bite, Joe reached for the edge of the pillowcase, thinking this must be what she wanted, only to have his hand slapped.

        She said only one word, but Joe understood immediately, the complex idea she meant to convey. She said, "Embarrassed."

        Joe gave in as gracefully as he was able. He couldn't argue with her logic. Set considered her brain injury to be her most embarrassing "wound." It was something always visible, something she couldn't hide from him. It wasn't fair for him to hide from her.

        So he pushed back up on the bed, settled his legs out straight, put his hand over his mouth, and waited. He tried to slow his breathing behind his palm, tried to believe that this wasn't going to be disastrous. But really, what had he thought would happen? When did he think that there wouldn't be a price?

        Set finally turned towards him, her thumb lifted the hem of the case and she peeked out at him. The case corners made little white "cat ears" like some demented lost boy from Peter Pan. Joe's heart rose up to the base of his throat and a buzzing started behind his ears.

        And before Set even touched his buttons again, she nearly undid him entire. Discarding the pillowcase, she came up his right side on all fours and knelt beside his chest, sitting on her heels again. Gently, she pulled his hand down from his mouth and laid her own slender palm there. "Trust me," she began, using his own words, the ones he had spoken so often to her the long, bumpy recovery. "I need you to...Be...Still," the last two words she delivered distinctly as he always did, as if they were an incantation, or würds, in the sense of magery. "Don't be afraid."

        Joe felt keenly, suddenly, in the reversal of roles, the terrible power he had wielded over her when he had only meant to be kind.

        "I am here," she continued.

        It didn't seem so comforting, somehow. Dear Lord, he thought, How often had he held her, commanded her stillness in the face of tedious, frightening...painful...procedures, dressing changes...

        He had simply demanded she be calm, that she be ordered through what could only have seemed like meaningless torment...or torture. On his word alone, Set had relinquished her will to him, had never refused or even complained.

        "I will be here," she finished.

        There it was. She had imprisoned him in his own chains.

        And there was nothing left for him but to lay still and be brave.

        Set waited for him to calm before she started again on his buttons, this time the ones over his wrists, and not the ones over his heart that had set him off before. She'd gotten very good doing one- handed unbuttoning, her left fingers still too bent to be very useful. Set was slow and deliberate, careful not to stare into his face, setting him outside her direct attention. She seemed to be doing nothing more erotic than weaving or mending or tending a child...some more regular endeavor than undressing her new husband.

        Joe watched her methodically creating a quieter order around them both, a hypnotic rhythm that was at once efficient and compelling. He felt as if she were weaving a spell over him or weaving him into a fabric of her own design. At intervals, Dawson reevaluated his terror, for that was surely what he felt and nothing else. He was okay with the buttons and getting his arms out of his sleeves and rolling over to slip out of the shirt. He was less okay with the T-shirt, now the last layer between himself and the air... and his pants after that and then the new harness and...

        Lying on his side, undressing himself in his imagination, Joe became aware that everything had stopped. Only his shirt was off, the T-shirt still in place, Set sitting quietly at his back. Then he felt her short curls brush his ear. "Don't be afraid."

        Beginning with an achingly gentle caress of his tight shoulders, she straightened the cotton weave over his bunched muscles, and smoothed out the wrinkles from his neck to his waist. Then she followed the same course, this time with a firmer stroke, testing each bound group of musculature, teasing and kneading and pressing it into submission, calling forth surrender after surrender to a near paralysis of profound relaxation.

        This was okay, Joe measured. All of it incredibly pleasurable. If he kept melting like this, he'd end up a spot on the bed, like a gone and guttered candle. He could do this. This was no problem at all. He began to think this was going to work out. He wondered how he could have been so worried. He wondered what it was going to be like waking in the morning with Set beside him.

        Joe wondered then how long he had been asleep and how he could have possibly drifted off...

        He reassessed. Lying on his back now, his T-shirt gone, Set's dark cropped locks cushioning her cheek against his bare chest. She was asleep and her shallow breaths made warm circles of sensation over and over against his breast. Joe supposed she had fallen asleep waiting for him to wake. She seemed completely contented by the look on her face though the Pictish warrior line of the scar made it a little difficult to tell.

        Joe reached carefully for the blanket's edge to cover her, but his shifting weight brought her eyes alive and smiling. Set yawned and stretched. "Sleepy?" he asked, a little too hopefully..

        But she was already up, both hands at his belt buckle and he felt his blood freeze. Get a grip, God damn it! he swore silently. "Be Still," she sent the words floating like a lingering bell into the airless room. Kissing him lightly on the belly, she bent back to the belt, lifting the tongue out of the buckle and pulling the belt slowly through the loops.

        Joe thought it felt like a snake slithering across the base of his back. Another button and then he heard the metal tearing of the zipper. It sent Joe into a retreat somewhere in his mind, a room he had sought and furnished and lived in a very long time ago, when living itself had seemed the worst consequence of war. Please, he pleaded from deep inside his skull, with the last coherence left him,  just let it be over.

        What? he argued with himself. Set had done nothing sexual to him at all. Why did he feel so thoroughly and awfully raped? What was he waiting to be over exactly?

        Joe did not want her to know him. It was as simple and as complicated as that. He wanted her to think well of him. Hell, that she loved and worshipped him was clear enough. She would not love him if she knew he was some old dried out cripple, mangled and spent. He could be brave for the world.

        He could not be brave for her.

        Set meant that much to him. It was going to kill him when she finally discovered, as she doubtless would, how very little he was worth by every measure.

        "Joe?"

        He opened his eyes and tried to hold her salient, penetrating gaze. She was obviously struggling to make this all right for him, and that made him even more pained, more shamed, more afraid.

        "Stop," Joe said. He watched her almost acquiesce, but the sheer gut-stubbornness that had brought her through the accident alive forbad surrender.

        For the first time since Set had awakened from coma, she said, "No." Her shoulders squared, nearly. He supposed the left one would always ride that half-inch higher now. "Trust me," she said so softly he almost believed. "I am here."

        "I will be here," she finished the mantra, hooked her fingers over the waist band and slid his pants down, uncovering the braces, plastic, and harness-work.

        Joe found himself in such distraction that his mind played word games with him, running through all the names for nakedness. There was the birthday suit, -as the day you were born, without a stitch, in the altogether (though, indeed, he felt all apart), jaybird (closer), buck-naked (as if a buck would be clothed), nude (too classy), en dishabille (way too something)...no. The one modifier which fit exactly and which he understood now all too clearly...stark.

        And stark he surely was, though he still had most of his clothes on. Hell, this was it, the moment he had dreaded. She would be disgusted, but he owed her the truth. It was the only justice his love would allow.

        Gathering his courage, he opened his eyes again to survey the wreck of the fantasy he had built around being wed to this woman.

        Set was clearly astounded, but he could detect no trace of disgust or disappointment as she worked the fastenings and loosened the liner. Her touch was sure and even, if a bit detached as if she were gazing on some sort of marvelous and magical machinery. Then in one fluid movement, she slipped her hands under the waistband of his briefs, gathering the band against the pants' top and the harness.

        Then she pulled everything down and off and left Joe jaybird and buck and stark beyond believing.

        And all Joe could think was, Now it ends. Now at least it will be over.

        He tried to think of things to say, words to give her comfort, but he had none for his own desolation, and surely none left over for hers. He was only sorry he had tricked her, lied to her about his own fitness, worth, whatever. There had simply been no way--or will--to tell her. What could he possibly have been thinking? How could he have been so utterly foolish?

        Joe steeled his nerve to look at her again.

        She was only studying him, her hands lying quietly on her thighs as she knelt beside his waist. There was nothing else, no pity, no horror, no pretended understanding.  She wasn't even looking at his legs, just his face. Just sitting back waiting for him to come to terms. Just waiting...and nothing more painful than that.

        It honestly had made no difference to her. Only his fear incited her concern. He had whipped himself into a frenzy over nothing at all.

        Set still loved him, still adored him. It just could not be possible.

        ...but it was.

        And because Set had no words to explain, she merely sat there waiting for him to see the truth of it. The real truth and not these other petty details. Joe felt the knot build in his throat again. His eyes welled and shameless tears tracked their way down the laugh lines towards his ears.

        Set politely ignored his lapse. She got up and went to the adjacent bathroom to retrieve a glass of water. He was thirsty. She knew it even before he did. Joe pulled the blanket over him. The heater was weak at best and the winter night was a little too chilly to stay stark for long. He watched her return, silhouetted in the brighter light from the bathroom. Her walking was getting better all the time, but the leg length discrepancy gave her the roll of a newly-landed sailor.

        He took the glass after she was done with her sip and finished it. Yeah, as if he could be getting judgmental about gaits and leg length. "To bed," he said.

        Set smiled and sighed. She turned on her heels and started for the door.

        "Set?"

        She turned back. "Bed-in-the-room," she pointed down the hall towards the spare room.

        "No, Set. Here," he lifted the blanket with his left hand and patted the mattress with his right.

        He was more than a little amazed at how fast Set could move that rolling gait...

        ...given the proper motivation.

---

        Set stopped at the door. The Wizard had called her name. She could not think why this would be. Had she not made him unhappy enough for one night?

        Did he mean to punish her? Surely the Wizard understood she had not intended harming him, that it was only out of sheer stupidity Set had stumbled onto his one weakness? Joe would not be angry with her just for being stupid. Set was sorry for her slowness, never more so than when it put the Wizard out. Even his great patience had limits.

        She turned around slowly, fearing the worst, only to find him offering her shelter beside him for the night. Impeccable Wizard! Set could not accept fast enough.

        She settled in snugly beside him, resting her temple on his right shoulder, trying not to do anything else that would be stupid enough to distress him. Set thought it must be her hands, the one too stiff and crooked, the other too hard and strong. Neither of them pleasing, surely. Poor Wizard, she thought, whose tender heart has gathered in this impossible stray.

        It was probably how you got that dreadful wounding, she thought. You trusted one of your dragons, who was just a little too green, too newly trained, and it snapped its maw shut--probably not on purpose-- when you dismounted. Any other man would have been killed, or, living, would have given up in despair, but you, Dear Joe, are not any other man.

        Set started to drift asleep despite her best efforts to the contrary. She felt his fingers comb through her hair and it seemed as if her scalp were recreating itself beneath his hand. When he moved down to cup her chin and tip her face up towards his, it was only her jaw which felt real to her and all the rest untouched and insubstantial. And when Joe bent over and lightly kissed her eyes, she slumped back, blinded by the sheer unexpected intensity of the sensation.

        The Wizard was working some magic on her born out of his tender, incredible powers. His fingers traced her nose and the wound that ran beside it, now healed, but still sore and exquisitely sensitive. Something in his touch made her skin flame all the way down to her shoulders. And still, everywhere he touched her came violently alive and everything else was as absent as his lost limbs. This was so entirely disorienting, Set might have become afraid, were it not for the lulling, smoky tones that said her name, and many other things she could not understand, except that they were as loving as his touch.

        Set moved her good hand up to reciprocate, or at least to acknowledge the incredible pleasure of his fingers with the lesser echo of her own touch, but Joe whispered the "Be Still," and she could only give him the surrender which Joe had already owned from the first moment Set saw him.

        Set would never understand how the Wizard could ask so little and give so much. It was one of the many things about him that made Joe seem like a greater being, or some breed of demi-god. Set hoped he would understand that she was merely mortal and not a creature of Light and Power like himself, although she had only to think of all her many awkward stupidities of late, to know that Joe would never make that mistake. Still, the cool brush of his lips along the angle of her collar bone and over the round of her shoulder, was building an incandescence, almost visual, which threatened to burn her alive.

        And every other part of her was transparent and cold as the slow ice of the tiny box that had lived in the corner of her cell in the healing temple. Set saw herself a crystal of many facets--and only two: the one which touched the Wizard and then all the other dim, lost surfaces of her being. An Image formed briefly of a perfect magic whereby she could crawl absolutely inside the Wizard and then, and only then, with Joe against every side, she would be whole again.

        Set would think of this image often in their future together. In the innocence of her dire wounding she had not enough information to imagine the true nature of sexual union, and it always made her laugh later to think she had gotten it so backward. At the most profound level of her understanding, though, she still felt "enfolded" by the Wizard, by his touch and temperament, his smile and smell, and his exceeding patience, which steadied and defined and set her, like a precious stone, in stunning singularity against the whole wild world.

        But this night, Set thought only that if he should send her away again that she would die, or, less than that, just cease. And if she stayed, then surely like a vigil candle in some tiny wall niche, she would be gone by morn, a braided remnant of wick, burned up in the last light of the oil.

        For surely she was being consumed by the Wizard's brightness, if not by fire, then by his touch, his breath alone. Set wondered that this in no way alarmed her. Though it made her writhe, still the pain was only a building ache somewhere far away below her in a forgotten facet as yet untouched and unreal.

        Set knew that there was a memory of the mind, and a different memory of the flesh. This fact remained with a very few others in what was left of her mind memory. The flesh never forgets.

        And the memory of the flesh is desire.

        But Set could not trust that memory either, her flesh seemed so stricken now by the Wizard's greater power. It shivered though it was not cold, the muscles went lax though they were not tired, her heart trembled and sped, though she did not fear. Her mouth was dry as dust and numb, but every other surface was slick and hot and thrumming wildly.

        Worse than that. As Joe's light, cool touch moved beneath her right breast and his mouth encircled the swollen hard soreness there, her flesh drove a deep moan, a lowing sound like a calf or bear child, from her dry throat. A most unseemly sound, but she was powerless to either stop it or keep it from repeating when she thought it was finished. The distant pain, the lower ache, began to approach, to stalk her like a killing beaste.

        Set felt the heel of the Wizard's palm graze lightly down from her breast, over the rim of her ribs, down her flat stomach. In its path, a trail of sparks and scintillation burnished her skin and roiled the flesh beneath. She was entirely astounded that Joe knew her body better than she knew it herself. The sure, soft touch curved over the mound between her thighs, creating a facet within her.

        Set had been wounded before. This pain was something entirely different. There was no edge, nor end to it, just the deep, throbbing ache, like hunger. Set's hands knotted into fists deep in the bedcovers, holding against the chasm, a  dark void, a great emptiness, impossible to contain.

        In the building mindlessness, Set hoped her flesh remembered.

        Then the true sorcery began and all that went before was relegated to simple prelude.

        Joe slid over her until all their skin touched in delightful buzzes and frictions and pressures. Set could feel his heart beating over hers through the great barrel of his strong chest. She could feel his broad, practiced hands pressing and smoothing, adjusting her limbs, readying her. There was a distant awareness of sound, the Wizard's voice asking, explaining, soothing. Set could not gather the meaning. It did not matter. There was that damnable lowing groan which she was powerless to stop and which, if she were to be truthful about it, was now more nearly a caterwaul or carillon. It did not matter.

        The newly-healed left hip, moved out to its limit and farther, began to complain. And even that did not matter, for in the next moment the Wizard found again the new facet he had created, the gate into her emptiness. Set felt Joe press her there, felt her flesh remember as it rose to meet his entry.

        Wondrous Wizard, she thought, what a marvelous way to die, a painless wounding without diminishment.

        Gradually, the fever and heat and frenzy gave way to a deeper, slower rhythm a gentle, essential wave, a rolling descent away from the world. Set felt her arms and face growing colder, the last of her life centering around the Wizard's entry. She was beginning to die.

        And even this did not matter.

        Just as the pressure, the ache, began to acquire all the edginess of true pain, Set's flesh gave over to a battering series of convulsions. Far away, she thought she heard Joe sigh.

        I am in throes, she thought.

        And then Set passed into blessed, calm darkness.

        When Joe brought her back into the living world with just his voice alone, Set tried to tell him how grateful she was. She wanted to say her tears meant nothing bad. She wanted to explain how very much she loved him and how sorry she was to be so slow, so...

        But he was too mighty and she was too small.

        So, in the end, she merely touched his sweet mouth with her knuckles and spoke the simple form of gratitude which Joe had taught her.

        "Thank you."

        In Adam's opinion, Winter was his least favorite season--Winter in Paris, his least favorite place and clime. Winter in Paris on the damp, bobbing tin can barge which Duncan thought of as "home" was Adam's idea of miserable. Alone in this stupid scow with an infant who had just gotten over colic in time to start teething, was Adam's vision of hell itself.

        And in hell he had been consigned these nearly four months, for the most part alone, except for his new, and only, baby brother. Well, there was also a packing crate full of his dead mother's journals, including one which made for particularly interesting reading each night before the fire when baby Sean had finally gotten off to sleep and the long hours before Duncan returned, if he did. More often than not, the Highlander would drag in at dawn, kiss his son, shovel down breakfast without even tasting it, and drop off into a semi-coma on the double bed. There he stayed until sundown, when he would be off again, God knew where.

        Adam did not think it his place to interfere. If MacLeod had things to do, then he had things to do. Still, there was no justice in the division of labor as concerned the raising of the infant. Really, the only time Duncan had seen to baby care at all was the one day Dr. Adam Piersen, Watcher and Research Assistant, was called before the Watchers' Council to answer for his close association with the Immortal, Duncan MacLeod, and his complete abandonment of his own studies--his own project being the study of himself, the Oldest Immortal, Methos. Of course, they didn't know that.

        It had taken all of one very unpleasant afternoon and all of Adam's considerable wits to get him out of the Council without charges being filed. As it was, Adam lost his position with the group, had to give up any hope of severance pay. He was almost surprised they hadn't ripped off his wrist tattoo there and then, but after what he had told them about himself and MacLeod, no one seemed enthusiastic about touching him.

         When he returned to the barge, thinking Duncan would at least be there, might even be making him supper for a change, it was to find Maurice singing a garbled version of "d'Avignon" and dancing the baby up and down the deck.

        "Maurice," Adam howled, "Get Sean inside! It's far too cold out here!"

        Maurice apologized, saying he'd only just come on deck to see if Adam were coming back yet or not, since he was late opening his restaurant.

        ...and, no, he did not know where Duncan had gone.

        Some days, when Adam was feeling charitable about the whole arrangement, he imagined that Duncan was dealing with ghosts from his past, Tessa's death, she was buried here, and Richie's false murder, and Fitz' terrible loss at Kalas' cruel hand. Other days, Adam felt considerably less charitable and he cursed the Scot for his abandoning ways. Ironic in the extreme, that Adam should have turned out to be the "responsible" parent of the two.

        There was really no choice about it, though. Sean needed loving and nurturing and just general endless tending, the high maintainence business of baby-keeping. If Adam was all there was, then Adam would have to do. No choice.

        Poor Sean, thought Adam, two grown men and not a decent Momma to your name.

        Adam curled by the fire and pulled out the latest journal he'd been translating. He arranged the pillows and the chairs along the couch and put Sean down for a nap in the make shift crib. "Wait now, darling," he cooed, "here's the blankie. There, didn't I tell you it would be dry by now? Adam rolled up the pale blue blanket so the silk edging was outermost and the baby snuggled his sweet face into the smooth surface, popped a thumb in his mouth and was soon asleep.

        They were at last through teeth number three and four, the top two incisors, Sean's having cut the bottom two first, as had Adam as a baby. He knew this from the magic book of Eskimos which Ram, his late King and mother, had left with Alexa for him. Adam forgot why he took to calling it this...something about Eskimos which he could no longer remember.

        The first time he had looked at the magic book was the second day after Sean's christening as Adam unpacked the crates of books and housewares which had finally arrived from Seacouver. He had tried to remember what Alexa told him. She had said not to open the book until he had some serious concern about his baby brother. He had no such concern the first time he undid the miniature hasp with the celtic knot serpent to find it a book of blank pages from which a handwritten note fluttered to the floor. On the note was written, in Ram's hand, the directions for using the book which Alexa had told him before.

        The next time he had opened the book, it was to write down the pediatrician's number on one of the blank pages, it being nearest the phone at the time. Adam's infant brother was puking down his shirt and screaming as if he were in mortal agony...the baby, not Adam. Adam's were quieter tears of frustration and concern. The book opened, all the pages written upon...wherein Ram related all the trials she'd had with Adam and his infantile colic, all the remedies which worked, ones that should have helped, but didn't, and just a gentle running commentary on how afraid she was that Adam would die before she learned the ways of colic and how awful it seemed, but how unlikely it ever was to be truly serious. The pages spoke to his fears without addressing them directly and just generally led Adam through every major difficulty he was to have with Sean in the weeks which followed.

        Including this latest, the teething. He'd developed his own methods after a while, like popsicles and frozen melon slices (Maurice's suggestion). When Adam attempted to add anything to the book, none of his writings would stay on the pages. The pages were always stubbornly blank when he did not need them, filled with his mother's hand when he did. Adam began to appreciate his mother most keenly, now that he was a mother, of sorts, himself. A sad irony this, seeing he could hardly stand her when she was alive. It was not lost on Adam that Sean might feel the self-same way about him when the lad was grown and he often wondered how Ram could have endured the pain that must have caused her.

        Ah, but if he were lucky, and very, very careful, then Sean would grow up loving him as Adam himself had loved his dear Teacher, the Master of Swords, Lord Malak. Adam had been thoroughly delighted to find that one of the ancient journals he'd found in Lyons the year before contained a short history of Malak's early life when he had still been Field Marshall General and leader of the Danaan troops. Adam opened the journal to the page he'd bookmarked with a tab-backing from one of Sean's disposable diapers...

        Yes, the campaign in the sothern drifts, Adam's favorite story. He checked again on Sean. Sleeping like a, well, a baby...except that few babes were quiet sleepers Adam had learned. Retrieving his leather bound notebook and pen, Adam began the next page in the text...

       Whilst Lord Malak emboldened the Host and mounted their mighty armies upon the field of glory in the Sothern Drifts, the Ten betook themselves unto the King and privy council to conspire in secret how they might rid themselves of the meddlesome, self-righteous General of Generals.

        Adam knew that his teacher had lost his standing with the Danae, that Malak had been a great general in his time, de-comissioned for some incident of which he would never speak. Yet everyone at court had treated him with the greatest respect, or perhaps fear, though Adam could never remember a time when the lord was anything but gracious and jolly.

       The Throne of Thrones listened respectfully to the petition of the Ten, the lesser generals of the Host, the disgruntled members of the Privy Council, and pondered the wisdom of such a course.

       Wait, thought Adam, that can't be right. It hardly makes sense. Checking back, he discovered he'd skipped a line in the translation. He stretched his legs, checked on the baby, sleeping soundly, and went over to stir the stew, a really decent bit of mutton swimming in new potatoes and leeks and a broth to die from. Then he returned to the journal and started over, picking up the line he'd missed.

       Throne Lord and Majesty, Ithuriel, Light of the World, All Father, was, except in this last attribute, the stunning paragon of the Danae, the Crown of God, the Word of Wisdom. But childless in these latter days, the whispers grew and rumors rampant fled that God Himself had turned His Shining Countenance away, so, the Ten posited, might much be gained to make the glorious General Malak serve his people on other than the kiling fields.

       Adam stroked Sean's back gently with his long, sensitive fingers and pondered what the Ten could be up to. Malak had won them a fabulous victory in this campaign. Even Malak said so, and he wasn't prone to exageration. Hmmm.

        Heads up! Adam was on his feet, sword in hand almost before he was aware of doing so.

        "Expecting someone?" MacLeod came through the door of the barge. "That smells good," he indicated the stew.

        "Well, I surely wasn't expecting you," Adam snorted and returned to the couch and the translation.

        "I live here," Duncan shed his coat, clunk, to the floor with his sword hidden within.

        "One would hardly know it," Adam commented without looking up.

        Duncan picked up the ladle and dipped it into the stew, slurping up a generous portion and wiping his chin on the dishwashing rag.

        "I believe they're called bowls," Adam commented idly, turning the page and patting Sean who was beginning to rouse on the tension which filled the tiny can-boat. "Marvelous inventions, really, and they work so well with spoons and napkins."

        "Oh," Duncan laughed and ate another ladle-full, this time using his hands to pick out the meat, "I seem to remember those. Aren't they for throwing overboard so the ship will ride higher in the waves?"

        Adam ignored the reference to his social lapse of four month's earlier when there had been a row about who would clean up after dinner. "And are we going for dun the nanny one-hundred days now?"

        "I'll call Guinness," Duncan replied around a mouthful of day-old French bread from Maurice's. "Listen, did you get the--" he walked straight into Adam who was on his way to the frig to get Sean's next meal.

        "I do not mind--" Adam said, in a tone that indicated he did so mind, very much, "that you can't seem to find any place for your things besides the floor."  He picked up Duncan's coat and hung it on a hanger in the closet. "Or that you come and go at all hours, leaving me to guess what or how much to cook, or that I do all the work around here...and, yes, I did get the laundry done and everything is...let me emphasize this for you, Master of the House ....everything is back in its place where it belongs."

        MacLeods thick eyebrows rose quizzically. "You're angry about something, Adam. I can tell."

        Adam's eyes crossed. He pulled the bottle from the frig and took the top off, setting it in the microwave and keying in a minute on medium. Sean was behaviorally conditioned to the whirring sound of a microwave...it would probably mark him for life...making him salivate at the most inopportune times, Adam thought. He noted the baby had stopped grunting and now smiled on him, gurgling and babbling, proto-Swahili by the sound of the fricatives. "I do mind that you can't even seem to think of me as an object to walk around."

        "What?" Duncan pulled the bottle from the oven, replaced its top, testing the temp on his tongue, making a face at the taste. "How he can drink this stuff--"

        "It's okay, Sean. Daddy's made you dinner," he warbled to his beloved baby boy and strode over to the couch to gather up his all-too-appreciative son. "Has mean old brother Adam been a grump all day? Well, we'll go for a walk in the park and I'll show you the snow man, and..."

        It wouldn't be so hard, Adam thought, clenching and unclenching his fists. His katana is all the way over there in the closet...

        ...and my sword is right there, on the floor, two strides away.

         Duncan "beat the bounds" of his territory like the chieftans of old...down the Quay de la Tournelle as far west as the San Michelle Boulevard, then south along the eastern edge of the famous Latin Quarter, and back east along the San Germain which bent northward and intersected the Quay three blocks east of the barge. Again and again he made this circuit, casting the preternatural sense of his Immortal heritage, searching the night, night-after-night, for any usurpers of his tiny domain.

        Tiny, yes, but at its center containing the entire wealth of the cosmos, the infinite wonder that was his son, Sean. For this wonder he would do, had done, a great deal more than merely walk the circle all night, every night. Eight Immortals had met their deaths along the route over the past four months. Temporary deaths these, to enable the Scot to get their bodies to some more discrete place, north of the city, the vast underground tunnels near the Opera, or various other private places where the Highlander might take their heads and their Quickenings without the whole City bearing witness.

        Duncan was not a little amused that it took half-a-dozen Watchers to keep up with him. As it was, he'd managed to lose his "tail" on at least three of the decolations. He noticed this eve, that Watcher number four had been replaced by a younger substitute. The winter nights were taking their toll on his contingent of "stalkers." Well, that was their business and none of his own.

        Duncan finished the fifth round and settled in beneath the bridge arch of the Henry IV Bridge, or "cat bridge," for short. He settled back against the stone arch and pulled out a thermos and a small, flat box, setting them beside him and rearranging his greatcoat up around his neck.

        His thoughts turned to Adam. The Old Man had been so out of sorts lately, very different from the usual, easy-going manner, and more of the harsh sarcasm that Duncan found so grating. He was glad that Adam didn't know they were under repeated attacks from all quarters now that word had gotten out...a leak in the Watchers, no doubt...about MacLeod's son. Mac had been very careful to keep this from his friend. He'd taken the watch alone and it was beginning to wear him down. They would soon have to leave Paris, earlier than the planned return to Seacouver in the spring. Duncan had already inquired of the Vallincourts whether they could stay at the estates north of Paris.

        At least Adam would be happy. He wasn't overly fond of the barge, wasn't fond of boats in general, some long sea voyage with St. Patrick or some other Gaelic drui had put him off of sailing for good. Duncan only believed about half of anything Adam was likely to say. He'd had his leg pulled more than once going round some historical bend with the Eldest Immortal. Duncan was convinced it was Adam's way of making his friends stop playing "were you there when?" Probably because the truth was less glamorous than historians were wont to display it and Adam had long ago tired of apologizing for blasting yet another sacred tenet high out of the water.

         His attention returned to the box and its very strange contents. As if Sean weren't present and inheritance enough, Ram had left him--well, a gift, probably the oddest he'd ever received. Duncan opened the box. Inside lay a small vial of clear fluid, medicine, and a larger jar of lotion that smelled like apple seeds or almonds, and several rolls of peppermints. The original single roll had been replaced many times by the Scot and he still was not finished with the sheaf of papers which comprised the rest of the “gift.”

         He missed the odd woman who had so transformed his life. No wonder Adam was so tense all the time, doubtless he mourned, in his own edgy way, the mother he had hardly known.

         And if he ever needed proof of her oddness, this last gift of Chaos was surely that. Duncan popped a peppermint into his mouth out of habit, and read again the cover letter, penned in a perfect and pleasant hand.
 

Shield Brother,     I leave this for you with the Lady Lucille who has told me you are vexed in the matter of my son, Adam, and the portion of Cronos' memories which you shared at the bay near your cabin the last time we spoke together.     I am convinced that your fine wit and wide heart will have found, with Dr. Burn's help, the suitable resolution to this dilemma between Adam and yourself. And if that be the case, then these items are useless and may be burned with my blessing.     But should you need a position of last resort, should your well-laid strategies avail you nought, or should you require a tactic in reserve, then this is such.     I can no longer stand your Shield, dear Brother, but perhaps this will serve. Do not attempt to finish these pages at once, they bear difficult lessons, and are best taken in small portions...     They will seem, at best, to be the ravings of a madwoman---which they surely are. They will seem, at worst, to be the limits of perversity--which, believe me, dear Brother, they are not.     I can only add that bringing Order out of Chaos is not always an act of wanting or of will, determination or diligence.     Sometimes Chaos seeks its own Order, and the best course is to follow Its dictates.

       The remaining pages, some thirty in all, contained, well--lessons, as she had said. Duncan had plowed his way through the hideous pages, wondering how Ram could know any of this, or how she could think such of her son.

        ...or of himself for that matter. Had he not known better, Duncan might have burned the lot straight away, but he did know better. Ram was outrageous, but she was almost never wrong, though this commentary, lessons, whatever, would seem to prove otherwise.

        But the night watch was long and usually, thank God, an exercise in boredom. Duncan had finally finished the pages once through and had begun to go back over them, memorizing and analyzing and trying to understand them in any context that might make sense....though none did.

        And the last page was a recipe for pancakes, Mickey Mouse smiley faces, or some such...a treat for Sean.

        But Duncan did not read the recipe this night, no, here was another recipe, darker than the backside of the void, poisonous as a viper, explicit as a haradan. A position of last resort, Duncan thought. Pray God I never find myself in such a position. Surely Ram is raving in this instance. He felt his gorge rise and broke open another roll of peppermints.

        Ah, he thought, saved by the moment. The unmistakeable signature reverberated at the base of his throat. Setting the papers back in the box, the box back in his coat, he traded it for the noble blade which had seen far too much action of late.

        Tall and upright as an elder oak, he stepped into the light,

        "I am Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod."

        Adam woke to a most disconcerting sensation. He had taken Sean to bed with him after the two a.m. feeding, knowing he was too exhausted to wake if Sean were to cry from farther away in his crib. Perhaps his baby brother had awakened and summoned him unsuccessfully. As it was, Adam found his beloved sibling latched onto his left chest by four very new, very sharp incisors.

        "Breakfast time already?" he hissed. He disengaged his brother as gently as possible and repositioned him over his shoulder. "Oh, and wet, too. Poor baby..." Adam slipped off the bed and retrieved the wipes and diapers from the bedside table drawer, commissioned as changing table for the duration. "There we are, now what is my lord's pleasure? Shall we finish off the venison this morning, Sire? Or will it be that brace of duck you brought down so handily yesterday's hunt?"

        On and on he prattled about this and that, wondering at how late in the morning it was, and why Duncan hadn't yet returned. Sean joined in the conversation, equal in enthusiasm, if not coherence, to his older brother's bright chatter. They settled on peaches and formula for their breakfast fare and cozied in together on the window seat watching the bright sun of mid morn light the eastern face of the Holy Mother on the Isle, Notre Dame. "Now you see that frieze up there in the far face, Sean," Adam's hand floated up and pointed out the window.

        Sean was always fascinated by his brother's fingers. His bright blue eyes opened wide and his head fell back as he stared up at Adam's hand, completely forgetting the spoonful of peach paté seeking entrance.

        Adam corrected his inadvertent distraction and brought Sean's attention back to the present task, which was roughly, more peaches in, than on, the baby. He reckoned fifty percent was the acceptable tolerance limit, which was why they always did breakfast before bath. "You know," he continued, "Saint whoever that is, standing with the three angels with his head in his hands..." the next spoonful found itself heading into Adam's mouth as he considered the stone high relief of the Blessed Lady. "Wonder if that is some Immortal reference? Never thought of that before? Duncan was here around that time, must ask him--"

        "Da-dam."

        Adam choked on the mouthful of peach mush. "What?" he asked, stupidly. He thought he'd heard, but no, give the child credit, wonderful as he was, he was, after all, only four months old. It was a trick of phonation, a distortion of Adam's first chance at sleeping to a reasonable hour.

        The baby, still reaching for the spoon and more peach stuff, fussed a bit and then said, quite clearly, and much more loudly, "Da-dam!"

        Adam obliged wordlessly, wondering why such a simple thing, the sound of a name, not even his name, really, should strike him so mortally, deeper than the marrow, all the way to his old soul. He mustn't encourage this, he argued with himself. Sean should say his father's name first, or at least Dah, but this was too clearly his name. It would break Mac's heart. Adam had to admit his own, if not broken, was surely smitten. Oh, he thought suddenly, wiping his eyes, and feeling very silly, this really hurts.

        If this is how Ram felt about me...

        And a great many things he had always found to be unfathomable, or only irksome, became suddenly and transparently revealed to him.

        Breakfast done, Adam lifted up his brother and cradled him close thinking how very fragile this reliquary of his entire heart felt, how very light and soft to be so omnipotent.

        For which romantic thought, Sean grabbed Adam's prodigious beak and giggled in high delight, wearing his sovereignty like his skin.

        "Ouch," Adam complained, only half in jest. "And here's your Daddy," he emphasized the word, "come home just a little too late for any peaches."

        Adam's head snapped around and his breath stopped. No. It was not Duncan's signature. He placed the baby down on the middle of the bed. "It's all right, Sean. Just a little unexpected company."

        He dove onto his belly, retrieved the elaborate gild sword which was his pride, and made his way to the fore barge door, agile as a cat. Damnation! He picked up another aura east, and two more west. A pack of Immortals? Nearly an oxymoron given their autonomous natures and the way of The Game.

        Why would so many...and, bloody hell! three more approaching? He spun back and stared at the infant on the bed. They were coming after Sean! Adam had experienced battle fever on more than one occasion, but this was something else entirely...once he thought the child was in danger a whole set of thoughts took his skull over and pumped his chest up with a wondrous, righteous rage.

        How dare they come here!

        They were advancing from all sides. Think, Adam, think. The baby began to cry, but hushed as Adam turned to quiet him. He was in a boat! Boats traveled on water. He was on a very long river that was navigable all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, for Pete's Sake! Oh, God, but he wished he'd paid more attention when Duncan went over the engine and...

        "Okay, Sean," a glance out one of the portholes showed him four of the hunters on the edge of the cobbled quay. "We can do this." He reached his long arms up and deployed the ladder. Scrambling up to the engine loft, he ran his fingers over the controls and slapped his palm down on the ignition.

        Keys, keys, keys....Adam jumped back down into the kitchen and started pulling out drawers. Keys, damnation, where--Got them! Back up the ladder and he tried to remember the order, prime, clutch, pump, wait....and thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and he pulled the throttle...Kachunka, kachunka...

        ...and once more, and the engine kicked over, spitting and then catching as Adam glanced left in time to see two of the rounders not ten feet from the gangplank. Too late, you bastards...

        But the tin can wasn't moving.

        Adam hit his forehead with his palm. Of course it's not moving, you idiot! It's still tied to the dock!

        His feet hit the decking at the bottom of the ladder and he swept up his brother in one arm and his sword in the other. "I'm going out on deck to cut the lines, Sean. It will be all right. You stay here and be very quiet." Adam opened the closet door, pulled down a pile of clothes, and laid Sean on top, closing the door, knowing all the while it was a waste of time to try to hide the child. His aura was almost as strong as a full Immortal already.

        He was out the door before the two advance men had stepped onto the plank. Adam kicked up the hasp pins with his foot and pushed it away from the barge. It fell into the river. Duncan would not be pleased. "What do you want?" he yelled, advancing on the aft rope.

        "Just give us the MacLeod child. We have no interest in you," the taller of the "couple" roared back, glancing behind him where the ten or more reinforcements waited just outside of sight.

        "There's none such here," Adam tensed the muscles of his forearms and let fly against the thick hawser.

        "Oh, and who was it spewed curdled milk down that fine coat of yours, then?" the shorter man laughed. Six of the others moved forward.

        And not a gendarme in sight, Adam gave the rope another stroke, still not through. Probably at the deli round the corner stuffing on croissants like their stateside cousins. Another slice and, yes, free. One more line...

        Which is exactly what the waiting hoard thought also, because the next thing Adam knew was a sharp crack and a blow to his left shoulder that spun him around cursing. He'd been shot. They would kill him and board at their leisure. He was halfway to the foredeck and the one remaining line. The barge engine was moving the aft end out into the river away from the dock. Adam would have to walk straight into their fire if he was going to get to that line, would have to last long enough to get through the rope with his bright blade. It would be close, he thought. which would give first, the line, or his life?

        Maybe it was only his imagination then, but clear as this beautiful, ice bright morn, Adam heard his brother call out his name, and all the rest was simplicity itself.

        Some greater power than his own took him forward to the line and held him steady as he cut through the stubborn rope and the barge at last floated free, out into the middle of the Seine.

        He couldn't think why it was taking him so long to get back up the ladder and steer this stupid tub, or how the rungs had got so wet and sticky. His hands were shaking as he grabbed the wheel and tried to turn the vessel into the current and away from the Holy Isle, but he couldn't make his arms move...

        He saw the eastern wall of the Isle looming up in the windows and heard the loud sirens and...

        ...and then he fell down into the kitchen on his back, dying...

        ...but he couldn't let go...one more thing to do..one more before...

        "Merde!" a distant voice cursed and the boarding party crashed into the barge which had crashed into the Isle.

        "Attends moi! Ici..." a man crouched over him and held his head up.

        Damn, Adam was so nearly dead, he could no longer see. Very carefully, he took a last, deep breath, "In the closet," he rasped, "my brother, get my brother. Mon frere dans la.."

        But that was the last of everything that was in him. Adam felt his bladder release...

        ...and he died.

 

       "Whoa, there, big fella," a laughing baritone buzzed near Adam's ears as he struggled awake, still fighting.

        "Master Piersen, Hero of the Moment, and Lord Regent Protector, par excellence."

        Adam dug his spiderish fingers into his very dry sockets and blinked his surroundings into focus. "Wh--Where?" he rasped past his swollen, dry tongue.

        "We've moved venues north to the Vallincourt estates..." Duncan began.

        Adam bolted up off the bed. "Sean!" he squeaked.

        Duncan caught him up in a bear hug, "Steady on, Old Man. The babe's down with the Lady of the Manor and being treated like the Dauphin Himself."

        The hug was accented with a warm squeeze and a kiss on the top of his head which left Adam comforted, if no less confused, seeing he was standing there naked in the midst of an ornate, high-vaulted, Louis XIV bedroom, in the arms of his young friend.

        "You did well, Methos," Duncan was saying, speaking to their ultimate safety in this place by using Adam's real name, and acknowledging a respectful formality. "I am more grateful than I can say for all you did to save my son."

        Adam squirmed out of the embrace, murmuring meaningless and trite formulae meant to answer and reassure, but also to distance and reestablish territorial perimeters. In the midst of lifting this verbal moat-gate, Adam collapsed to the floor...

        Which only served, it seemed, as an invitation for the Highlander to scoop him up in his brawny arms like a child and return him to the cashmere and satins and linens of the large, antique, four-poster bed, where Duncan tucked in the Elder Immortal as if he were a six-year-old.

        Now that he was fully awake, Adam began to appreciate why his friend was being so solicitous. He was hurt--badly. Even dying and reawakening--which surely must have happened--had not been sufficient time for him to heal. The fiery tracks of the bullets... seven? no, eight had found their mark...spoke to him in ragged, stunning terms and the blood loss made his head spin now that the initial adrenaline of his concern for Sean had peaked and then deserted him.

        "And what a brilliant bit of strategy," Duncan crowed as he moved about the room gathering a small table and what looked to be the makings of a sumptuous feast. "How did you ever think of it? Of course, running into the Isle like that would bring every gendarme in the vicinity down on your head. Absolutely brilliant!"

        Adam tucked his head and tried to look humble, instead of embarrassed. He couldn't really decide whether his friend was making fun or being serious in his praise. If the latter were the case, Adam did not want to disabuse Duncan of the notion he was wise and ingenious. Even old as he was, Adam was still vain enough to want to be thought of as a hero, and not just a damn poor barge driver.

        Whatever, at least Sean was safe, and he. himself was not yet dead either.

        And, even better, they were done and done with the damned scow and back on dry land to stay. Adam eyed the large carafe of ice water and lemon slices and Duncan poured him a glass without even asking. What was it Sweet Lucille always said?

        Ah, yes, Adam thought drinking cautiously the sweet, tangy fluid, Kill me now, Lord, it just doesn't get any better.

        As the various aches and ouches eased, Adam started with a delicious bouillon in a mug and quickly graduated to a brazed bit of beef and a fistful of warm, fresh bread, dipped in the soup, and dribbling down onto his bare chest.

        Duncan laughed and continued his cheerful discourse of gratitudes and gossip, handing over another course each time Adam's voracious appetite had cleared the previous plate.

        Then there was only the sherbet, which had somehow missed its proper place earlier in the meal--to clear the palate. No matter, Adam had it down his gullet in a thrice. Then he breathed deeply, glanced around, and when no other victuals were forthcoming, he sighed and settled back against the dozen pillows propped against the ornate headboard.

        He thought he could get used to this being a hero. Quite satisfying all around.

        Maybe a bit of a nap and then the last of his injuries would be healed.

        Adam tucked his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, luxuriating in full belly, clean sheets, the absence of pain...sheer, unadulterated pleasure. This miserable day had really turned into an evening of high delight...

        "Methos," Duncan sat beside Adam on the bed, his broad back to the Oldest Immortal. "Are you still awake?"

        Adam opened one eye and tried to gauge the set of the Scot's shoulders. What was Duncan asking? Really. "Yes, sort of," Adam replied, trying to give his friend the option to back out of what had all the aura of a "serious discussion."

        "I have been meaning to talk to you about something for a long time now," Duncan began, but still, he did not turn around to look at Adam as he said this.

        This only made Adam all the more suspicious. He wished Duncan would leave this to another time. He feared that the near perfection of this lovely eventide was about to be sundered and he'd had so few of these pleasant moments of late. Perhaps a diverting tactic would turn Duncan from his moody conversations. "Why didn't you tell me we were under siege?" he patted the wide shoulders, just firmly enough to indicate camaraderie, not imposing enough to suggest anything else.

        Duncan's head sunk below the level of his shoulders and disappeared, appearing for an instant as if he'd been beheaded. "I did not want to worry you. I thought I could keep you and the babe safe."

        "And that's where you were all those nights and why you came back looking like hell's own fury, and why you could never stay awake for supper, why you never seemed to care about watching Sean?"

        "Of course," Duncan twisted around and sited on Sean's older, very much older, brother. "What did you think?"

        Adam giggled silently. "You don't want to know."

        Duncan's dark eyes did not yield.

        "Okay," Adam surrendered. "I thought you had misgivings about fatherhood. That you were out... Well, this IS Paris, and there are all sorts of interesting diversions..." Adam paused, "And I do know how much you miss the mortal woman you used to live with..."

        "Tessa," Duncan said angrily, "Her name was Tessa, NOT 'the mortal woman.'"

        "Yes, Duncan. Forgive me." Well, that was a very brief respite, Adam thought, one wrong move, and I have descended from hero to goat again. And we used to be such good friends, he thought ruefully. Now all we can seem to do is fight.

        "No," Duncan stood up and began to stalk the room in obvious discomfort. "I know you didn't mean anything, and, no, I wasn't catting around, though I can see it would look like that. I should have told you they were coming after us, because of the rumors about Sean being my son. Why didn't you tell me about the flap with the Watchers?"

        "Oh," Adam rearranged the pillows and reclined on his side, propped up on his elbow. "I didn't want to worry you, either, especially since you seemed so--preoccupied --with something else."

        "So what did you tell them?" Duncan pulled a beautiful chair over and sat down beside the bed.

        Adam pushed over on his back and laughed, stretching his arms towards the ceiling to release his shoulders. He yawned and squinted the grey-green eyes shut. "Well, I told them you and I were lovers," he answered finally. Adam stretched again and waited for Duncan's reaction.

        ...and waited. He glanced over towards his friend and was surprised there wasn't any sign of the expected detonation.

        "They made me resign, of course. They were so scandalized they hardly asked me any questions after that..." Maybe the words just hadn't sunk in yet.

        Adam cast further afield, trying to engage the reticent Scot. "I said you seduced me over red wine and pasta at Joe's one night after I arrived at Seacouver to work on the Northwest Territory's record systems."

        Still nothing. Duncan just sat there and stared at him as if measuring Adam for a suit...or perhaps a casket. Adam couldn't be sure, except the brown eyes' intensity was daunting. "I told them as soon as Mrs. Seaton found out, being my mum and all, she came to Seacouver to stop the affair and ended up getting bedded, first by you and then by an old flame from her college days. She got preggers from the latter liaison, but you are convinced the child is yours...I wanted to see to raising my brother and I wasn't adverse to continuing our relationship, so..."

        He should say something, Adam thought, or maybe he's just letting me twist in the wind for trashing his reputation so thoroughly.

        Adam plowed forward, "...so when I started sobbing with my great grief over my mother's loss and my poor, wee baby brother...they couldn't get my faggot ass out of there fast enough...nobody even considered charges or..."

        Something like a snort or a coughing sigh escaped Duncan's full lips. "You are unbelievable," he said, speaking the word as if it were three: un-believe-able.

        Adam was pretty sure Duncan meant this as derogatory, but it was said like highest praise. He played his long fingers over the bedding and waited for his friend to say something else.

        Duncan rose from the chair, crossed his arms, and strode off towards the high window. He opened the lower, middle panes, letting in the evening air and parting the transparent inner drapes. "That's it?"

        Oh, Adam thought, this was going to be worse than he'd imagined. "That's what?"

        Duncan turned around and faced Adam. "Is that all you told them?"

        Adam laughed. Good, the Scot was going to take this with some humor. It would be all right between them. "I thought that was enough," he answered playing into the game.

        "And that will be entered into The Chronicles?" Duncan asked.

        Oh, no, Adam cringed. Duncan was not kidding. The Highlander was not amused. "Yes, Duncan, it will be so entered. I am sor--"

        "And if it were true?"

        This question caught Adam up short. What the hell was Duncan saying?

        "Which brings me back to my original point, that item we needed to discuss," Duncan started back towards the chair by the bed.

        Oh, great, Adam pushed back up to sitting and resettled the bedding around his lap. He'd played his strongest hand only to bring the Scot back unerringly to his original course. Well, if his revelation about the Watchers wasn't going divert Duncan, then nothing would. "That point being?" Adam asked just so he could feel as if he had any part of this conversation.

        Duncan turned the chair around backwards and mounted the seat, straddling it like a horseman, resting his chin on his hands on the rim of the chair's back. "You know that I have Cronos' memories..."

        Adam nodded, "You did say something about that after your session with Herself up in the clearing near your cabin."

        "It is a little difficult to explain..."

        No doubt, Adam thought, if your posture and voice and smell mean anything at all to this old war nose, I'd say you were readying for a very precarious battle position.

        "...but it is as if I were Cronos, that..." Duncan swallowed and lowered his head to chew on one of his knuckles. Then he looked up at Adam and continued without stopping. "I was there when he raped you, there when he took you, tied between the posts in his tent. As if I were physically there and felt and did---what was done to you. I know how afraid you were to begin with, how senseless you were by the next morning. I know the pleasure he took from you. I felt it. I wanted it."

        Adam's mouth slacked open and he fought to keep his gaze from darting away. It was a moment before he could breathe again, and another before he could think, could review each word and weigh it and divine the meaning that was spoken and that which was not. Adam willed himself not to shake, to breathe easily and deeply. Duncan had come very close to his secret, but did not know it. His words would have been different if he had. But this other thing? What was Duncan trying to tell him?

        Oh, my God! Adam held himself motionless as the idea broke over him like a thick plank to the crown of his head. What an idiot I am! Duncan is gay! And that is what he's trying to tell me. That's why the interlude with Cronos fascinates him. Why couldn't I have seen it? I am such a dolt! Of course, and that is what's wrong between us. In subtle, endearing ways, he has made himself available...hell, we have all but slept together already...and I have been too blind.

        But, on review, Adam couldn't believe he had missed so obvious a fact. The body- building, the hair--though it was shorn now--the hole in the left lobe where the earring used to be, Duncan's longest life mate, a man, Fitz. The conversation with Richie when the lad had first moved back to Seacouver returned to Adam. Even Richie had picked up on the undercurrent, it had elicited a similar reaction in the young man, had scared him so much he'd run away to California and subsequently been picked up by another, less- ethical gay Immortal.

        "Adam?" Duncan broke the silence.

        Adam drew in a long breath, "Yes?"

        "I don't mean to offend you," Duncan said.

        Be very careful, Adam warned himself, suddenly minded of his beloved teacher, Malak. What had Malak said that one night in the long and distant past when, full of ale and too much good cheer, Methos had "put the moves" on his mentor, thinking to translate his overwhelming love of the man into something more--palpable. Malak had been so tender in his refusal, so infinitely caring, that Adam had ended up even more certain of their friendship than he would have done bedding his master. Think, Adam chided himself, this is just such a situation where all your wit must serve. "Nor have you," he replied. "Your concern is appreciated, Duncan, but several thousand years' after the fact, and I am in no way affected--one way or the other--at this distant point in time."

        Oh, drat. Adam would let his anxieties tighten up his speech so that the words had all the loft of an English lesson.

        Duncan was clearly thinking how to proceed. There was a welcome lifting of his dark stare away from Adam to the high ceiling and the gilt cherubs that resided in the corners.

        Adam tried again. Something allegorical to come to the point obliquely and more comfortably. "There is an ancient legend--Babylonian, I think," stop with the history lesson, he corrected himself, "that concerns Amayar Liet and the Master of Cavalry."

        Duncan's brows lowered over his dark eyes and he tilted his head, "Yes?"

        "It is more about friendship than it is about love," Adam continued, trying to think why he had picked this particular story. It bore only the thinnest connection with the current situation. He always considered himself a rational sort of being, hardly prone to petty prejudice, but Adam had to admit this new discovery about his friend was more than a little unsettling.

         "Well," Adam drew up the covers so his chest was covered, making it seem as if the room were chilling because of the open window. "Lady Liet was religiously and faithfully in love with her Lord, but the Master of Horses, who had been a dear friend all her life, loved her, impossibly, unbearably, but circumspectly. In the course of his unfailing devotion, the Master saved her Lord's life..."

        Adam tried to read Duncan's expression but it was smooth as a windless pond, open and listening, and nothing more. Onward, "The Lady wished to repay the Master for his kindness and his bravery, but he would accept no present, no favor...because the one thing he most desired, he could never have..."

        Duncan's granite features began to melt and Adam felt himself being measured, word-for-word. Oh, damn. Well, there was no help for it now. "A servant of the Cavalry Master came to My Lady one early eve with a missive of dire warning. The Master had been so long ill from his loving and his longing for Lady Liet, that he had at last decided to take his own life rather than continue the agony any longer."

        "So the Lady visited him that very eve. She came to his house, to his room, to his bed, and she gave herself to him, body and soul and heart..." Adam waited.

        "I don't understand," Duncan said finally.

        "That's because," Adam's hands floated out in front of him and he was suddenly and painfully away of all his various affectations and how they must appear to others, Duncan included. He tucked them under his arms and continued, "I have not finished."

        "Before they were joined, Lady Liet said that bit of verse which used to be known as the lai of Amayar:"

        “This one night, Beloved, will I be with you. But this night only, and never will we speak of it again. So that you may know there is no place where you can go that I will not be. So that you may know there is no thing which you may be, but cherished and forgiven and loved forevermore.”

       "And that," Adam finished, "used to be the parable by which all sorts of scandalous behavior was forgiven in the light of a greater good. I believe it was the first attempt in the social order to accept pragmatism as means for moral order."

        "You would," Duncan smirked, relaxing visibly. "Do you really think that?"

        "About pragmatism?"

        "No, Adam, about such actions being scandalous?"

        Okay, Adam, old man, be careful...and don't wait too long to answer. "I am hardly the arbiter of propriety." Oh, that was pathetic. Why can't you just tell him it's all right and that you would gladly lie with him if that's his desire? After all, he couldn't satisfy you any less than the women you have slept with. Oh, sure, Adam's internal voices argued on, and then why don't you just tell him, that man, or woman, neither is the font of your desire...oh, and then tell him the truth why don't you.

        Not if I live another millennium, Adam answered himself.

        "I suppose," Duncan got up and went back to wandering about the enormous room letting his large hands trail over the woodwork, the silk pillows, the tapestries."Adam?"

        "Yes, Duncan," Adam found his shoulders had crawled up near his ears. He pushed them back down, disengaged his hands and folded them in apparent ease on the covers.

        "When Sean Burns was still with me," he indicated his forehead. "We talked about the rape."

        Lovely. Adam's face slumped into a sulk and he sunk down against the pillows.

        "It affected me profoundly, Adam," Duncan spoke the admission bravely, Adam thought, though it surely could not have been easy for him. Some friend, you are, Adam. Can't you help him in some way? Can't you make this easier for him?

        "And I know it affected you, even if you don't admit it," Duncan continued. "He said it explained a great deal about your effeminate mannerisms, your seductive affectations..."

        Adam came up off the bed with a start. "My what!"

        "It is all right, Adam," Duncan said.

        "The hell it is!" Adam's voice had risen remarkably, in both pitch and volume. He grabbed behind him for the sheet and wrapped up his nakedness before striding across the room, where the glint of his gold sword had caught his attention.

        "Really, Adam. You cannot help that you have reacted to what is an unhealable wounding like--"

        "Oh, shut up about that, will you!" Adam plopped himself down by his sword and the coat it rested upon. He dug in the pocket for his polishing leather and oil and set to cleaning it, as much for something to occupy his anger, as it was for a warning to Duncan that he was going too far with this.

        Duncan either did not understand the warning, or chose to ignore it. "Dr. Burns explained to me that your fear about getting close to people, the way you never take anything seriously, the way you pretend to be so selfish...that it all has to do with--"

        "I get the point, Duncan," Adam cut him off and went on oiling his sword, never looking up.

        "It affects our friendship," Duncan said softly, sitting down across from Adam.

        Here it comes, Adam thought, and he cut his thumb on the blade. Damn.

        Duncan reached forward and Adam drew back as if confronted by an adder.

        When they were both settled again in their respective neutral corners, Adam spoke. "I don't know where you are going with this, Duncan. I am not particularly happy that you have been discussing me with Dr. Burns, nor can I see to what purpose, except that the vision, or whatever it was, distressed you. I am sorry you were drawn into that, but I doubt there is anything I could say or do would ease your discomfort. If there is--"

        "Well," Duncan began to lean forward, then changed his mind, "there is something that will make that memory better for both of us...Dr. Burns agreed with the idea, though he had some reservations. Even Lucille said--"

        "Oh, bloody hell!" Adam sputtered, "Not enough you've been discussing me with a dead man, now you're discussing this--this thing--with a Watcher?"

        "Well," Duncan's lush lips tightened in a wry smile, "I never told her you were gay."

        "Oh, very funny, Duncan," Adam was too outraged to appreciate the levity.

        "Lucille said it made sense, that you were such an exquisitely careful--"

        "Enough!" Adam nearly whined.

        "Don't you want to hear what we decided?" Duncan offered.

        "I am breathless in anticipation," Adam said, dripping such venom a cobra might envy him.

         "Well, I suppose it was Lucille's idea first, but Sean and I had to agree, the longer we thought and talked about it, and about how to amend Cronos' cruelty, which has marked you--"

        Adam groaned audibly.

        "I am sorry, Adam. I don't mean to make this more difficult..."

        Adam fidgeted and sought out the cherubs in the ceiling. "Tell me what you decided-- or wait, let me guess. That you and I should sleep together. That granting me that unsurpassing pleasure would somehow erase the other from my memory, my psyche, my general--how did you put it? Ah, yes, 'effeminate' nature."

        Duncan drew up, stony and silent, a look on his face partly confusion, partly profound pain.

        Adam stood, sword in his hand. "You don't know me, Highlander!" Despite the fact he was armed and Duncan was just sitting there, stunned, Adam maneuvered around the small couch and backed across the room.

        Duncan's voice descended into minor tones, all smoky fire and wind-strafed, barren wilderness, "I would never hurt you, Adam." He said it accusingly, as if Adam should damn well know that.

        "I believe you said something similar to my mother, right before--"

        "Adam!" Duncan's voice lost any pretense at constraint.

        "Look," Adam lowered his sword, but his grip on the hilt remained firm. "It does not bother me that you are gay, Duncan. What bothers me is that you would go to such an elaborate ruse to try to get me into bed with you."