Daniel was blindsided when Cam abruptly switched to a completely new topic. By then, he was talking as much to himself as to Daniel, Daniel supposed, since he was waxing near lyrical about biscuits, a food to which Daniel was relatively indifferent. Biscuits were supposed to be the case in point to illustrate all the wonderful food Daniel hadn't been able to taste for nearly three years. One minute Cam was rhapsodizing about butter and flakiness and the next moment he had gone to the bad place.
"I can't stand it any more," Cam blurted. "I've tried to respect your privacy and Sam's, but it's messing with my mission and I'm going to ask. Why are you being such a hardass as far as she's concerned? She's more or less been throwing herself at you. She's had dozens of men after her since you disappeared and she's ignored them all."
"Dozens of men… Not you?"
"I never let myself think that way, Daniel. For three years, we've worked closely together and, most of that time, she's been under my command. Besides I know her history with you. Given the physical resemblance, if she came on to me, I'd figure I was just a stand in."
"How about Jack?"
Cam was perched on the railing, watching him shrewdly. "That's what this is all about, isn't it? Jack O'Neill."
Daniel shrugged.
"Daniel, get a grip. He's years, as in many, many years, older than she is. Suddenly it matters. You haven't seen him Daniel in awhile, but it's like he aged 10 years overnight. He's still in great shape, but he thinks like an old man now. He's going to retire as soon as we get you back. It's the only reason he hasn't already. He just wants to sit in a fishing boat somewhere and be left alone. Sam's not ready to be mothballed out in the middle of Nowhere, Minnesota."
A large ship appeared on the horizon behind them and Daniel steered closer to shore to give it as wide a berth as possible. Cam watched it with interest. "You don't seem too many of them on the river, do you?"
"Not many. Not this far up river anyway. The towns just get smaller and meaner than where you found me and people are pretty self-sufficient. Not much room for trade. Waters aren't navigable for the big ships after another forty miles or so. The few you see tend to be military vessels." He pointed to the scarlet pennant that floated above the main mast of the ship approaching them. "That would be the Margave's flagship. It does nicely to awe his subjects."
Suddenly there was a grating sound. The boat shuddered and then came to a halt. Daniel cussed in a multitude of languages for several seconds. "That's very colorful, Daniel, but not informative," Cam said. "What's happening?"
Sam and Teal'c had also joined them and were waiting for an answer. "I think we hit a sandbar. They shift over time and there've been some horrific storms this spring to help the process." He stood, his hands on his hips, his eyes closed, considering what to do and how to do it. "Okay," he said, looking at them all decisively, "Not to alarm anyone, but a boat unable to move like this out here away from any town is a target for river pirates. There are none in sight and the Margave's boat is still in view, but the story might be very different in an hour. The faster we get off the sandbar the better. What we need to do is lower the dinghy, row it out about 50 yards with the anchor, and drop the anchor. Then we winch the boat with the winches we usually use for trimming the jib to pull it toward the anchor. If we can twist the boat so the current helps us get it moving, I think we'll be okay. Teal'c and Mitchell, if you could go out in the dinghy. I think I need to be at the helm and dealing with the sails. Sam, you're with me, okay?"
They swung the dinghy out and down to the water and secured the lines. Sam and Daniel took the sail in so that the wind wouldn't be fighting what they wanted the ship to do. They worked the winches and the boat had just come free of the sandbar and was riding in the deeper water again when suddenly a huge log came rushing past the dingy in the swift current. Daniel watched it come toward them, absolutely helpless to do anything. Without thinking about it, he grabbed Sam's hand. The impact was sudden, but not a surprise to anyone. There was a sickening rubbing and grating as the log then scraped along the length of the boat before they saw it tumble past the stern and continue downriver.
Daniel dropped Sam's hand and raced below. He saw that the log had knocked a hole just at the water line and a stream of water was spurting through it. He grabbed a sack of pitch soaked rags, packed the hole, and tried to decide if he could make it to Inova. Times had become unsettled. The Margave had gone from being a fair ruler to one whose sanity was in question. He focused increasingly on supposed rebellion at the expense of keeping general order. His paranoia was actually beginning to produce the seeds of insurrections as people tired of the injustices that had come from his suspicions. Still the brigands preferred to operate away from towns and witnesses. He suddenly flashed on an image of Sam being stripped and raped by men like Valentino. The hole was manageable and they were about an hour's sailing from Inova. They would go on. There wasn't really another viable option.
Sam had followed him below and he turned to look at her. He thought about how he had grabbed her hand and how his first thought when he tried to decide what to do was fear for what could happen to her. The past was the past. So she had betrayed him with Jack. How did that compare to some of the things he had done? If the thing with Jack had meant as much as he thought it did at the time, would she be here now? If he had any hope going forward it would be to be forgiven and that meant forgiving others himself. "Sam," he said softly. "I've behaved like an ass. I'm sorry."
She looked at him for a long time. Had he waited just a little bit too long to apologize? Had he managed to exhaust all her patience? "Actually, Daniel, I'm pretty angry with you," she said at last. "I don't know if I'm ready to make up."
He nodded in acknowledgement. "You have every right to pissed at me for the way I've acted since you got here. Last night …. it really hurt me that you didn't seem to know what I'm about, but that wasn't what made me pull back so hard. What hurt more, and the reason I was so ugly to you, was how good it felt kissing you. How much it made me want things that I've given up on ever having."
She continued to look at him, thoughts he couldn't read chasing themselves behind her eyes. He spread his hands, "I don't have anything else, just my regrets."
He went to move past her, to go above decks and get the boat underway as quickly as possible. Just as he started up the stairs, she said, very softly, "It's okay. I'll get over it."
If anyone had been wearing a watch, they would have known that it was almost precisely a Tauri hour interval before they saw the brightly painted buildings of Inova appear and but a few minutes more when they were tying up to the wharf. Daniel left the rest on board to continue bailing water and managing the leak.
He walked quickly to the blacksmith's shop. The day was waning and the man was almost done closing up shop. Jaqauin greeted him uneasily and Daniel felt the twinge of misgivings he had had ever since Karkach grow into something more. "Your friend was most happy to receive your invitation to come and visit him," he said.
"That is fine, very fine. My wife will be most pleased. Petras' wife is her cousin, twice removed but family is all to my wife. We have to put family first, you know."
Was there some reason to be reading a warning into that statement? "I believe there was a matter of the second half of my payment?" Daniel asked.
He came near to Jaquain to take the coin and whispered the true message, his lips barely moving as he leaned close to take the money.
Jaquain looked anything but pleased to have the job completed. Daniel thought he would have liked better not to have gotten any answer.
"So business going well?" Daniel asked, his voice showing a good humor he didn't feel.
"With such a fine ruler as the Margave, we must all prosper," was the answer he received. This from a man who had made no secret to Daniel of his displeasure with their ruler.
"Do we have an audience?" he whispered to Jaquain. The man blinked and jerked his eyes sideways.
"I can't help but agree with you," Daniel responded, "If you have any more messages to carry or other business with which I can assist you and I am in port, you know where to find me," Daniel bowed and went quickly to arrange for repairs to the boat. He offered double price to have the men put aside other work and go immediately to the waterfront to begin to take care of his problem.
Daniel stuffed a change of clothes into a duffle with a few other things he didn't want to leave on the boat with the workmen. The others grabbed their packs and they made their way to Daniel's favorite tavern to seek lodging in the rooms above the common area. The boat was going to have to be lifted out of the water to patch the hole and they could not spend the night aboard.
Halfway up the dock with no one in earshot, Daniel said, "We may be in serious trouble. The message I carried was … not the sort of thing I want the Margave to know about. I've helped with a couple of other things along the same vein. One of the Margave's men showed an unhealthy interest in me in Karkach. Just now, when I delivered the answer, the sender seemed to be trying to warn me. If I understood him correctly, I think he was saying he might have to give me up to save himself and his family."
Cam looked at him curiously. "You'd think the sender wouldn't have told you what the message was if it was that dangerous."
"Here the law is that the carrier is as responsible for the message as the sender. We must read it and satisfy ourselves that it is not in anyway part of something illegal. Even if it isn't involved with something illicit, boatmen have paid penalties for messages that were untrue. Of course, we are also bound by a strict code of confidence. The penalties for revealing the contents of the message are also stringent."
Cam said, "I'm surprised anyone is willing to take messages under those circumstances."
Daniel shrugged. "It pays well." He scuffed at the dock for a moment with his sandal. "One other thing. I don't know how many rooms Sirus has available at the moment, but if Sam's in one alone, it's an invitation to trouble, particularly since Valentino's still probably hanging around." He looked at the three Tauri, so vulnerable in their general ignorance of the people and the customs. "I'm the one with the rep. The safest thing is for people to think she belongs to me."
"Makes sense to me," Cam said. Teal'c nodded.
"I agree," Sam said. Her face was carefully schooled in neutral lines.
Daniel ducked his head in quick acknowledgment and led them to the tavern.They found Jem and Tomas there ahead of them and spent two hours with Daniel's dear friends while they told stories that taught Sam, Cam, and Teal'c why Carlos had meant so much to Daniel. He knew he concealed his unease over their situation well – he was supposed to be a legend among the boatmen and the boatmen were the paladins of this world. Legends, after all, needed to project supreme confidence at all times and never let anyone see blood in the water. Midway through the evening, Jaquain came in, saw him, and stayed only long enough for a quick glass and no more than a nod in Daniel's direction, reinforcing Daniel's conviction that things were not as they should be.
Jem and Tomas seemed oblivious to something being not quite right, but Teal'c and Sam read Daniel well and Cam picked the concern up from them. SG-1 sipped rather than drank deeply, staying alert. They were drinking in Carlos' memory so Daniel had to have one, but that was all he really consumed. He smiled a little, noticing the surreptitious concern about his drinking anything. Lodi wasn't a man who was affected by a single drink, but they didn't know Lodi and kept trying to fit their Daniel on top of someone quite different.
When Jem and Tomas got up to leave, Daniel walked them outside, an arm around each. The street was quiet. He said to them in a low voice. "I think I'm under suspicion by the Margave's men. They can't be paying this kind of attention to me just for carrying a message but I don't know what they know or they think they know beyond that. You're at risk because you are my friends. I strongly suggest that you take your boat out of the harbor tonight and lay low somewhere for awhile."
Tomas said, "Only if there's no way we can help you." Daniel shook his head. Then Tomas looked at Daniel a long moment and added, "I think there's more you want to say."
Daniel smiled, appreciating the man's perspicacity. "I may be leaving with my friends in there and, if I do, I doubt I'll ever come back. I wanted to say good bye and tell you both how much I value you."
"No, Lodi," said Jem in a cry of distress. He hugged Daniel hard.
"If I go, it'll be because it's for the best for many people," he said. He released Jem and turned to Tomas who said, "We value you too. We don't agree on everything, but that has never mattered to you."
Daniel said, "Or to you."
He and Tomas hugged then and Daniel whispered to Tomas, "I know you'll take of Jem. He's so fragile. If the Margave's men ever got their hands on him…"
Daniel watched his friends walk toward their boat with an aching heart. He had hoped for few things more ferverently than he did that his troubles would not rub off on them.
Sirus had a long standing relationship with Daniel and gave them an ideal situation for the night, moving another guest to make it happen. They had two rooms with a connecting door at the end of the hall. The rooms had windows that allowed them to climb out onto the sloping roof of the shed at the side of the tavern. Of course, an enemy could attempt entrance through the same means. They agreed to stand watches through the night. Daniel also clung to the hope that if anyone came for them, Sirus would do what he could to delay them and give him so lead time to get away.
Daniel and Sam withdrew to their room. They unsecured but did not open the connecting door. Cam and Teal'c were talking and Sam said she needed some quiet to go to sleep. Daniel and Sam stood awkwardly looking at the single bed. "We won't actually be in it together much anyway by the time each of us stands a watch," Daniel pointed out.
She shrugged and said nothing. He took it to mean she was still angry. "Look, I'll just go next door and share a bed with one of the guys while the other stands watch."
He was past her and almost to the door when she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and yanked him back. "I've always wanted to make out with a guy with long hair, but my father being a general, I never even got to go out with one," she said very softly, mindful of the men in the next room. "In the years since then at the Academy and in the military, I haven't even really met any."
"So my kissing you would be a public service of sorts?" Daniel asked in a whisper, keeping it light, ruthlessly suppressing the bubble of hope building up inside until he was sure of her intentions. Maybe her silence had been because she was working herself up to make a move. Maybe.
"There'll be nothing public about you, Lodi-Strider-Daniel. You're about to become my private preserve completely. Don't start anything by kissing me if you don't understand that."
He encircled her with his arms and took a step back so that she was between him and the wall. She reached up and pulled off his bandana, put her hands in the silky hair, and pulled fistfuls around her face. He brushed her lips with his and then he kissed her, tongue deep, lip crushing kissed her. She brought one leg up and around him, the strong muscles in her thighs pulling him closer. His hands were everywhere. He slid one up her other thigh to her buttocks and lifted her so that both legs were around him and he was holding her against the wall. They kept kissing hungrily. Daniel wanted, with everything in him, to claim her, but when she reached down to touch him, he caught her hand. He pulled back to look at her. "I thought you told me three years ago when I wanted to make love to you that you were through with sex outside of marriage, that you'd been hurt too much when relationships didn't work out."
"I can't manage that kind of self control now. I've waited too long for you," she said simply.
"Sam, we're not out of here yet. I'm not reinstated and back to being the man you knew. You still don't know Lodi and you might not like him. I can't let this go any farther in this place so removed from your real life. We can be together up to a point, but we can't make love, not now. We need to stop."
He carried her to the bed and laid her down gently. "Good night," he said and kissed her forehead.
"Daniel, wait," she said, her arms still clinging to his neck. "Do you still love me?"
Footsteps crossed quickly to their door and Teal'c stepped in. "I think we may have trouble gathering outside," he said in a low urgent voice. Daniel and Sam stepped quickly and quietly to the window and looked out discreetly. Six men had gathered at the base of the shed. As they were considering their possible intent, several pairs of heavy footsteps sounded below and they heard loud voices inquiring after them in the name of the Margave.