Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

his left arm was firmly around the waist of Fairview. I could see no blood on Fairview, only a bandage around his head. His eyes looked dazed.
    "Oh, there you are." Doyle's eyes brightened as I skidded to a halt beside them. "Thought you'd be along, soon enough. That the General over there? Hoped he'd survived. Most of the rest are gone, I figure. Thought I was a goner too, when that rifle shattered my funny bone. I fell down in the trench, and that weren't a safe place to be, I'll tell you, but there weren't no safe place on that hill, certain. So I figured I'd just stay still and hope for the best. Fairview were 'side me, and I could hear him breathing – a day and a night I'm hearing him, and we was both struggling to stay away from afterdeath, I guess. Then the guns got all silent, and I'm thinking it's time we was moving on, 'fore the locals come and knife us. But the master here, he didn't seem much taken to moving, so I had to wake him up, ungentle-like."
    Only death, it seemed, was likely to still Doyle's tongue. Fairview had seen me now and recognized me; he gave me a lopsided smile as Doyle rattled on about the various methods he'd tried to poke and kick Fairview into awareness.
    "What worked?" I asked, addressing Fairview.
    "You did," Doyle replied cheerfully. "I told him you'd keelhaul him if he didn't return to duty."
    I ignored Doyle. Fairview blinked rapidly, as a man does when emerging into daylight from darkness. Then he said softly, "They wanted me to go."
    "Who did?" I asked. Behind us, the stumbling train of three hundred wounded men was nearing its tail end.
    "I don't know. The Fates? Someone. They wanted me to go on. To be born. Again. And I said no, not until I saw you. I knew you must be there. I'd seen the Mippite begin to stab you."
    I felt a chill all down my back. One hears stories about such things – of men who enter so far into afterdeath that they can remember afterwards what it is like. But that tale is rare; men who are so far gone don't often return.
    Even Doyle was silent now, though he kept Fairview firmly in his grip. Fairview said, still hesitant, "I wouldn't go on. I didn't want a new life; I wanted my old one. They kept urging me. I got angry at them. I called for you. And then I heard Doyle speaking. He said you wanted me. So I came back."
    He spoke simply, as though nothing were more natural than for him to defy the laws of death for my sake. For a moment I was still.
    Then I took him into my arms. I told myself that I was only relieving Doyle of his burden, but somehow my lips found Fairview's lips, and I was kissing him with a lifetime's worth of accumulated passion. Sweet blood, he was kissing me back. And it was good, feeling the power of a man who was my equal in strength and rank. It was very good.
    But it would have been good in any case, because it was Fairview.
    I drew back finally, though not letting go of Fairview's waist. Instinctively, I looked around. The General – perhaps out of pure tact – had entered into conversation with his messenger-lad, setting his back to our reunion. Some of the other soldiers passing us, who knew that Fairview and I considered ourselves equals, looked shocked at seeing their frivolous slanders confirmed.
    Doyle merely grinned. "There now," he said, "I knowed that if I brung him back alive, it would be worth it. Maybe a little reward, hmm? A few sips from the officers' supply of drink?"
    "Doyle," I said, unable to help laughing, "what are we going to do with you?"
    "Drown him?" suggested Fairview, but he was laughing too. His eyes still looked dazed, as though he remained half in afterdeath, but it was clear that he could understand what I was saying and doing.
    Doyle shrugged, grinning. "Keep me close by, I figure. You're the only masters who can stand me."
    "I'll raise you in rank—"
    "If you want to be my soldier-servant—"
    Fairview and I stopped and stared at each other, while Doyle nearly rolled off the road, laughing at us. Then he stopped and pointed. "Oh my blessed, see? That's what I was telling you 'bout!"
    I stared at what he was pointing at. "The General?"
    He rolled his eyes, the way he always did when officers missed the point. "The rock he's standing right near – that's the monument I was telling you about. See here . . ."
    He hurried forward, while the spaniel tried to trip him in her eagerness to welcome him back. Fairview and I followed more slowly. I still had my arm around Fairview, but he shook himself