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“So, when are you going to make it public?” Marit said, breaking Haplo’s concentration.
“Make what public?” he asked, kneeling to study some tracks. The Labyrinth occasionally made false trails, seeking to lure Patryns to their doom and he didn’t want to get pulled off-course.
“Your claim on Alfred.”
Behind Marit, Huge the Hand made a choking noise. Haplo looked at them. The human assassin’s darkly tanned skin looked a little flushed, but Marit’s eyes sparkled with amusement.
“I’ve made no claim,” he said dismissively. These tracks were the same his party had been following, so he stood and got moving again.
“Really? So you share his house and protect him from everything and get nothing in return? I never thought you could be so selfless,” Marit pressed, walking soundlessly behind him. Hugh, a little farther back, made slightly more noise, but he hadn’t grown up in the Labyrinth the way they had.
“Marit, it isn’t like that. Alfred needs someone to look after him. Besides, I could easily retort that I never thought you would be jealous.”
“I’m not. That’s the best part,” Marit said. “But if you aren’t laying a claim on Alfred, I’ll be upset with you. After everything that happened, I expected you to close the circle with him. Rune-bonding may be out of the question, but even he could understand the importance of that.”
Haplo felt himself echoing Hugh’s flush. The truth was that he’d been reconsidering his feelings for the Sartan ever since he’d reversed his aging spell. He hadn’t thought much of Alfred at first, but the Sartan had proved himself as loyal as any Patryn and more so, given what they’d faced. And he was handsome enough now, not that Haplo had ever been very concerned with looks.
He’d considered making an offer to Alfred, who would no doubt flush and stammer and carry on. What his answer might be, after all that, Haplo didn’t dare think about. It was true that he was closer to Alfred than anyone else he’d ever met, but closing the circle was going a bit far.
“It’s not going to happen,” he finally told Marit.
“Are you two talking about whether or not Haplo is in love with Alfred?” Hugh said, his voice a little strangled. Haplo hadn’t stopped to wonder if their conversation would scandalize Hugh. Well, there was no helping it now.
“It’s not a question of whether or not,” Marit pointed out. “Just when Haplo will finally act on it. Does that upset you?”
“The Brotherhood never cared. Our business was death. How our members chose to live their lives was no one’s interest but their own. I just didn’t think your people would feel the same. Most people would be disgusted, I suppose.”
“My people never had the luxury of caring,” Marit told him. “Our lives were hard enough. Wasting time to worry about the morals of the comfort you could get would only get you killed.”
Haplo would have been happy to tune them out, since he disliked remembering his own time as a Runner, but he was suddenly curious to hear if Hugh had any other comments. His people were still coming to terms with the idea that a mensch could be so like a Patryn, but Haplo had seen much more than they had. He liked Hugh.
“And closing the circle is a way of declaring his feelings?”
“It would be something like a mensch marriage ceremony or a pledge of brothers-in-arms,” Haplo said before Marit could come up with an explanation. He grinned ruefully as he remembered the quarreling mensch of Pryan who had wanted him to marry them. “By closing the circle together, we vow to be one being, to defend each other in life and death. It can be done between anyone who wishes to form a bond, men or women. It has to do with mingling the circle of our beings.”
Hugh knew the importance of the circle. Haplo had been forced to join theirs together once to heal him, incorporating Hugh into the circle to share Haplo’s strength and magic.
“And I’m not going to do it with Alfred. He’d be expected to come with us on these missions and you remember how badly Alfred and the Labyrinth go together.”
He could sense Marit’s amusement as clearly as if she’d laughed, which she never did. She hadn’t said it, but she made it clear she though he was trying too hard to deny it.
Hugh didn’t say anything else and Haplo was left to his own thoughts as they continued searching for the lost hunting party they had come to rescue.