(A/N – Here's the next bit. Thanks to my top reviewers Alix, atitudegal11 and Pendrag. Your pearls of kindness really are most truly appreciated. Well, onwards once more. I hope you like chapters about apples. Yes - seriously.)

**Disclaimer** - I disclaim my tom-thievery.

Chapter Nine

Mat swatted at the bee hovering dangerously close to his nose.

'Why is this bloody thing attacking me? You are picking just as many apples as I am.'

Mai glanced at him as she plucked a rosy apple from a low branch and dropped it into the nearby sack. 'Perhaps it likes you.'

'Wonderful. Now I am being wooed by a bee.' Mat took another swipe at the irritating creature. 'No offence, little one, but you are really starting to bother me. I am giving serious though to crushing you under an apple.'

With a roll of her eyes, Mai plucked another apple from a nearby bough. Mat watched as she nipped at its sweet flesh and tossed the fruit onto the ground. After a few more moments of torment, the bee abandoned its vexing pastime and serenely wove its way the apple.

'There now. Do not try to fight it, Mat. Just give it what it wants.'

Mat snorted, shooting a venomous look at the creature happily meandering over its prize before turning his attention back to the tree.

Between them the industrious pair had managed to nearly empty the lower branches of all its fruit, although the sack was not yet half full. Squinting up at the tree, he could see tantalising glimpses of what looked to be a veritable harvest of the sought fruit. He supposed there was only one solution to the current problem.

'Haven't done this for a while.' he muttered, levering a sturdy looking branch to test its strength.

Satisfied, he hoisted his body onto the branch, using his legs against the trunk as leverage.

Mai's eyes were wide as she stared at him. 'What are you doing?'

'Getting more apples,' he grunted, wincing as a stray twig poked him in a particularly sensitive spot.

'Well stop it. I am not fixing your fool head if you break it. I mean it, Mat.'

He crouched on the conquered branch and grinned at her. 'Do not worry, I haven't fallen out of a tree since I was twelve.' He mused for a moment. 'Actually, that was the last time I ever climbed a tree. Oh well.'

His shrug almost set him off balance and he scrabbled at the trunk for a moment before righting himself and replacing his smile.

The girl continued to glare at him. 'Come down. I am not lugging you back to the camp if you fal...'

She broke off as an apple spun past her.

Mat's grin was now almost impossibly gleeful. 'Sorry. Could not resist.'

'Try'. The word had a strangled quality to it, as though it had emerged through clenched teeth.

Laughing, Mat hauled himself higher, dislodging brittle twigs and stray apples as he climbed. Mai watched him ascend, brushing the falling leaves from her face, until he had all but vanished into its depths.

'Have you found any more?' Her voice was slightly tentative. She had no desire to startle him into a fall.

'There are quite a few up here.' More rustling sounds. 'You had better stand back.'

Mat stepped back as the tree swayed slightly, thankful for his warning as she watched a glut of apples thud to the ground.

Mai could hear the sound of cheerful whistling, only slightly muffled by the foliage.

'Enjoying yourself?'

'Absolutely.' The tree quivered slightly as he came back into view. 'Want to try?'

'I don't think so.'

'Come on,' he urged, dropping to a lower bough. 'It really is bracing.'

'I am perfectly fine right here.'

He held his arm for her. 'There's a nice view.'

Mai shook her head, freeing tendrils of hair that swayed about her face.

'Very well.' He eyed her askance. 'I suppose, if you are afraid, then there's little to gain in forcing you.'

'Nice try, Mat.'

He gave an exaggerated sigh as he turned back to his conquest of the tree. 'I had better get back to work, then.'

'Wait.'

Mat turned to find the girl on tiptoe, arm extended towards the tree. Smiling, Mat enveloped her hand with his own. A shudder rippled from her body to his own.

'Cold? Well, your hands certainly are freezing.'

He hoisted her inelegantly onto the branch beside him.

'There, you see?' The branch swayed alarmingly as he bounced slightly. 'Perfectly safe.'

Her eyes gazed somewhat longingly at the ground. 'I suppose so. Where are you going?'

Mat paused. 'Higher, of course. You know, where the apples are?' He eyed her cloak critically. 'We really have to find something better than that. It's hardly good for climbing.'

She watched him disappear into the thinning canopy before returning her contemplation to the ground. Mai supposed she was pretty much stranded. There was little likelihood that she was going to leap to the ground unaided, and there was even less of a chance that she was going to follow Mat higher into the infernal tree. Swinging her feet slightly, she cursed softly at her predicament. But then there wasn't really much skill to it, she supposed. And the tree wasn't that high.

After a moment's deliberation she grasped an overhanging branch and levered herself onto it. It did not take long for Mai to discover that was something wonderful in climbing trees after all. All around her, leaves and branches stirred in the breeze, causing them to whisper almost conspiratorially to one another in their soft, unknown language. The ground looked an almost fathomless distance away and seemed to swirl in an almost giddy fashion whenever she looked downward. Mai felt the stirrings of delight, a sensation now as unfamiliar to her as her current pastime. It felt glorious to let go of her demeanour, even just for this wonderful moment.

Mai was priding herself on her exhilarating achievement when her cloak managed to wrap itself around a jutting branch, forbidding her from climbing nearer to Mat's height.

'All right, this cloak is useless,' she muttered, yanking at the offending garment. The treacherous hem refused to budge. 'Stupid thing.'

Having no choice but to remain on her present perch, Mai sat and surveyed her surroundings, her cheeks imbued with rare colour and tendrils of hair flipping playfully in the breeze. The view was not exactly breathtaking, but the golden sun had cast a pretty haze over the shallow valley that served as the camp's base and filtered through the ruddy leaves, making them almost ablaze with colour.

Mat watched her from above as he dropped apples to the ground. 'You are not bad for a first timer. You must have been a climber as a child.'

'I suppose so.' There was a curiously dubious note to her reply.

'That is quite unusual, really. Most of the girls where I cam from never climbed. Probably too worried they would muss their hair, or something.'

Mai's hand drifted self-consciously to her unkempt tresses. 'I do not suppose that is not a problem for me, at least.'

Encouraged by her smile, Mat continued. 'Where are you from, Mai?'

'I am not from Laybridge.'

Well, he knew that much.

'Then where?'

Mai was studying the dying leaf turning in her slender fingers, as though in wonder of its fragility. If their eyes had met then, Mat would have seen the unmistakable glisten of tears in her gaze.

'I do not remember.'

The bough beneath Mat chose that moment to give an ominous groan. Mat's eyes flickered the weakening branch, then back to Mai. Too late he pushed his legs in an effort to jump to another limb, only to vanish with the surrendering bough through the brittle canopy.

Mai sat with her hands clasped over her eyes, too afraid to acknowledge what had just happened. The brief scatter of noise had trailed into a worrying silence, unbroken save for the sighs of startled leaves and winter-weakened branches drifting from the thrumming tree.

Unbidden images of ghastly injuries suddenly clamoured for attention in her stunned mind. The first flutters of panic squirmed within her.

Stop it! Go and see if he is all right!

She lowered her hands and clenched her fists tightly. Hours later, she would wonder at the small crescents still ferociously branded in her palm, but for now she felt nothing of the vicious bite of nails into her flesh.

It was the yell of outrage that finally got her moving. With an agility she had not though herself to possess, Mai manoeuvred her way through the branches. She dimly heard the low snarl of something tearing as she leapt to the ground; her attention was focused only upon the very irritated Mat Cauthon sitting cross-legged beneath the tree.

'Oh, finally,' he snapped. 'Glad you decided to check I'm not dead.'

Mai swallowed past the drought in her throat. 'Are you hurt?'

'Look! The bloody thing bit me.'

Mai blinked at the finger Mat stabbed at her.

'Stung you,' she corrected, eyes straying to the apple close to Mat's uninjured hand. It was the one she had taken a bite from earlier. The small bee now squirmed feebly beneath it, legs picking uselessly at the air.

Mat nipped the sting with his teeth and spat it on the ground. 'You would think that it would be grateful to me.'

'For squashing it?'

He scowled. 'No, for not pitching an apple at it earlier.'

'Bees can be so inconsiderate.' Some rational part of her presumed her recent fright to be the source of such an inane comment, but the rest of her was too giddy with relief to care.

Mat gaped at her. 'You are mocking me? I just fell out of a tree, nearly broke my bloody head, landed on the one bloody apple with a flaming bee on it, and you are having a bloody laugh at my expense?'

The girl bit back a smile. 'I am sorry, Mat.' She knelt beside him. 'Does it hurt very badly?'

Mollified, Mat nodded with mock solemnity. 'I do not think I can make it back to the camp. Go on without me.'

A smile finally blossomed on her face, a true smile in place of the quiet, contained expression she usually displayed. It suited her well.

'Do you think the men will take well to the notion that their exalted leader was conquered by a bee?'

Mat considered this for a moment. 'What if it was a very big bee?'

He watched her smile change, fade into an expression he couldn't fathom. 'You are not what I expected of a General.'

'Oh? Am I a disappointment, then?'

'A little.' Her head tilted as she appraised him. 'Perhaps if you grew a big moustache...'

Mat dignified that suggestion with a grunt. He stood hesitantly, checking for any aches that had not been there before. Mai watched him expectantly.

'Well? Anything excruciating yet?'

'Only this,' he declared with a scowl. The proffered finger was now slightly red and swollen looking.

'I am sure there will be something for it at the camp.'

Mai realised he was staring at her rather intently, and felt her cheeks instantly redden in response. She bent to gather fallen apples to over her blush. 'What?'

He gestured to the hem of her cloak. 'I suppose now we will have to find you something else to wear.'

Mai lifted her cloak slightly to discover that a large rent had been torn from it. The tree now proudly boasted a strip of black cloth as an adornment to its branches. She gave a muttered curse.

Mat made a tutting sound. 'Mai, your language is atrocious.' He laughed at her incredulous expression. 'Sorry. It is good to see you are picking up some unsavoury habits, that's all.'

'You can be very annoying at times.'

'So I have been told.'

There was silence for a moment as the pair gathered the fallen apples from the shaded grass beneath the tree.

'Mai?'

'Yes.'

'What were you saying before we were rudely interrupted?'

She hesitated before placing the last apple in the sack with its fallen brethren.

'I do not remember.'

His eyes were upon her again, narrowed and unreadable in the shade of his hat. 'No matter, I am sure it will come back to you.'

They headed to the camp, shadows trailing weakly in their wake.

Mat's eyes never strayed from the game before him. His hand hovered ponderously above the marked board, steadfast in its refusal to relinquish the final stone, and any chance at victory, without at least a show of some dignity. Cal watched him with an amused twist to his lips, obviously relishing the way he had outmanoeuvred his foe's attempts. 'Just place the stone, Mat. You cannot win.'

A noticeably lacklustre grin appeared on his combatant's face. 'I am considering my options.'

Cal's smirk broadened. 'I believe you are...' He swirled his hand through the blue tinged air, rippling the thick pipe smoke into almost mesmerising eddies. '...Delaying the inevitable?'

Refusing to rise to the bait, Mat shrugged, eyes still roving over the board with near desperation. 'Be nice. I've had a trying day.'

Cal's face affected an expression of deep concern. 'But of course. How is the finger?'

'Mai has decided it can be saved.' Mat spared a wistful glance at his bandaged digit. 'But it is a terrible distraction. Hardly surprising I have not my usual flair.'

'Very nice, Mat. You have successfully undermined my victory and excused your substandard performance. Congratulations. Now, will you put the bloody stone on the board?'

With an airily regretful sigh, Mat slowly lowered the counter to its fate. 'Courage, little stone.'

'Do not try to brazen it out, friend. I know you hate losing.'

Mat watched his opponent demolish his best efforts in silence, scowling darkly and clamping his teeth on his silver pipe stem ferociously enough to score the fine engraving.

The blond man eased back from the conquered board with an insufferably self-congratulatory sigh. 'Does success always smell this sweet?'

Mat exhaled a plume of smoke in his opponent's direction.

'Must you?' Cal rasped between coughs, waving furiously at the offending haze.

'Not really, no.' He began retrieving his traitorous stones from their final positions. 'Another game?'

Cal broke off a yawn to stare at him in mild surprise. 'It is past midnight.'

'It is?' Strangely, he did not feel in the slightest way ready for sleep. Cal, however, was fighting another wide yawn. 'Very well. I know when I am not wanted,' he declared in a slightly injured tone.

'Just thinking of your pride, Mat. I doubt another resounding defeat will enhance your current mood.'

'You're too kind.'

Cal grinned. 'One of us has to be.'

Mat trudged to his quarters in a somewhat subdued mood. The night air definitely lacked the biting chill that had been so tangibly present in previous evenings. In fact, the faint breeze felt deceptively mild as it drifted across the shallow camp. Mat doubted that the weather would turn so easily, certain that winter had a barb in its claw yet. Droplets of dew sparkled in the pale light as they spun from the disturbed grass, trembling upon and spotting his boots until they were near sodden with their mass. The moon was high and heavy in the obsidian sky, obscured slightly by scudding clouds lit silver by its ashen light. Truly, he had no idea it was so late. He should have been feeling at least some symptoms of weariness by now. It was not as though he was rising late from his blankets, although he regretted the current lack of opportunity for a little superfluous rest.

As he neared his tent, Mat identified the familiar gleam of Mai's candle glowing softly in the darkness. No doubt she was as awake as he, lost to her own unknowable musings. He thought it a pity that she was so obviously troubled. The girl could be decent company at times, and if she would only lessen her strange veneer of austerity more often he was certain she would be more bearable. Perhaps she was worried that Nath would return for her. Mat cursed his stupidity; of course that had to be the reason for her strange, defensive behaviour, and neither he nor Cal had offered any reassurance on that part. If he were to pay the man a visit, make him regret even thinking about coming back for her, then maybe that would lessen her anxiety. He supposed that it was the least he could do after all she had done to help them.

The moonlight struck the tent sides, casting them in eerie silver as he meandered through the deserted camp. The tent openings had been tethered wide to help air the interiors and their yawning emptiness filled him with a curious sense of unease.

He felt keenly the stillness of his surroundings. Even at the late hour, the barren air should have been heavy with fire smoke, the vacuous silence filled with the jeers and laughter of men exchanging boasts around small fires, or drinking and dicing in the ruddy glow of the larger tents. Mat felt like an intruder wandering through this wilderness of desertion, suddenly colder than the mild air could account for.

Mat quickened his pace, eager to reach his own familiar space, but found it as empty and unwelcoming as the rest of the camp. Pouring himself a warming cup of wine he settled himself on an earth-chilled cushion, feeling as though every fibre in his body was thrumming with useless verve and energy. It seemed last thing he needed now was sleep. He ground his pipe into the cold earth, sighing as the filaments of feebly glowing ashes slowly pulsed and flickered into nothingness. It was going to be a long night.