CHAPTER II
'LECTO'
Last night I'd have sworn I'd never sleep. Not on the ground, without even a cover, in this strange world and with so much to run through my mind. Yet I did, for now Clytemnestra wakes me gently. She says she'd like a little sleep. It seems she hasn't slept yet?
The sky is rich purple and I think even a little lighter in the east, I must have slept many hours. I watch Clytemnestra as she settles herself. Apparently intending to sleep standing. That tallies. I stand and stretch my stiff joints, I could really go for tea and a cigarette about now but I settle for a little more of the pork we cooked last night and large handfuls of the sweet lake water. The fire has burned down to fine grey ash.
I've nothing to do but wait. Wait and regard Clytemnestra's somnolent form in the growing light in the east. Dawn comes and the forest about us seems to wake almost as one. Birdsong and the calls of other, larger animals welcoming the new day. I'm impatient and increasingly bored, pacing around. Logically if Clytemnestra sleeps like a horse, she may need as little sleep as a horse, perhaps a couple of hours a night, and she'd certainly implied as much.
She sleeps for less than that, in fact. I can't judge well with no watch or clock, but I think perhaps forty five minutes or so. I don't even realise that she's awake until I hear movement and turn to see her walk to the shore. She stretches all the way down to gather a great double handful of water and tip it over herself, and again before she's satisfied. By then I'm at her side and she smiles down on me, water dripping from her beautiful face and running in a channel between her breasts.
I take her hands and pull until she leans toward me close enough for a long good morning kiss. Drops of water fall on my face from her short, floppy hair and for some reason I find that wildly exciting.
"We should go soon," she says, straightening up, "The road's not getting any shorter."
"I can't wait!" I really mean that.
Clytemnestra shows me how to wrap the cooked pork in broad leaves to keep it clean in her satchels and we both drink as much as we are able before setting off, though she says that rain is coming in a day or two. I take her at her word though the sky is almost cloudless right now. I hope she's right because her canteen, large as it is to me will be scarcely sufficient for the two of us for more than that. Particularly since today promises to be as warm as yesterday.
We set an easy pace around the lake, heading north and Clytemnestra explains her plans, which are our plans now.
"The woods are big, On my own I should guess another four days to the northern border. Together, maybe twice that."
I have the good grace to look embarrassed about that. She notices and dismisses any such feeling, placing a hand on the side of my neck, as close to an embrace as she can manage without stopping or leaning down.
"I begrudge you nothing, lady. Your company promises to make our journey more agreeable than I had any right to expect."
I put my hand on hers, and then in it and for a time we walk holding hands and she goes on.
"The road we follow is little trafficked today, but I believe that once it leaves the forest it should soon join a main artery serving one of the northern cities and I have it in mind to visit the place. Beyond that I don't care to plan."
There's something agreeable in her free-spiritedness and I give my assent. It's full day, bright and warm as we find the path again on the northern side of the lake. I'm happy to once again be under the shade of the canopy, even if it has no effect on the heat. As before, the path is somewhat grass-grown, obviously disused as Clytemnestra had said and I wonder who made it and why they stopped coming.
So we walk for two days, talking at times, but more often not. Clytemnestra is as good as her word and never once asks me about my past, and I don't ask about her's. I learn as much as I can, though without giving away my profound ignorance of the word around me.
I learn that the day is, at least roughly, twenty four hours long, with as much light and dark as I'd expect in the summer. There's no moon, Clytemnestra has never heard the word and when I describe it she wonders how I came up with such a bizarre concept. The nights are lighter than I expect though and the sky never gets darker than a rich bottomless purple. Sickness and disease are all but unknown here, but tea is widely drunk. Ideal.
Clytemnestra likes to sleep about three hours a day, but broken up into up to a dozen little snoozes here and there. She says she prefers to sleep lying down, but doesn't have to, at least, not every day. I think she hasn't known many humans well, because my need for a good eight hours a night somewhat scandalises her. She has known humans though, that's worth knowing.
I certainly am slowing her down, more than she feared, in fact not only by my slow pace but my need to sleep for so long. She really seems not to mind, though. She says she has all the time in the world. We don't make love again, though not for want of passion. Our lips often meet, our hands often stray to one another's body. The path feels inconducive to anything more, though.
In the evening of the second day Clytemnestra finds a grove of wild amaranth and the leaves and tender stems make a nice addition to the last of our pork. She shows me where and how to dig for water, though we don't bother doing it since even I can tell it's going to rain tonight.
It does. Great sheets of rain lashing down at our leafy roof. Perhaps two hours of monsoon like rain a little before sunset. We take what shelter we can beneath the densest parts of the forest canopy but it has little effect. We are soaked in warm rainwater in a way that's not actually unpleasant. Clytemnestra gathers water with a swatch of oilskin she has apparently for that purpose and makes licentious comments about the way my wet white clothes cling, nigh transparent, to my body.
The rain ends almost as swiftly as it started. Clytemnestra says that's the way of rain, she seems surprised that I might think differently. Steam rises from her broad black back as we force our way a little deeper into the forest seeking some slightly dryer spot to rest for the night. It's pure chance that we see a glow of light through the trees.
"I don't like that," she whispers to me, silently sliding her rifle from its scabbard and loading it with infinite care, "No fire should be burning so soon after such rain, and not so deep in the wood."
I take her at her word. One'd certainly have to be going some to keep fuel dry in that downpour. I start to creep closer and Clytemnestra lets me get ahead, superior as her bushcraft is, she cannot help but make more noise than me in this dense woodland. I see it first, a little house, a cottage perhaps is a better word. Light flickers behind glass windows, firelight and I think perhaps something more steady too.
