River Secrets

by Shannon Hale

  “I think it could be rotten great.”

  29

  A Few More Secrets

  Razo had not worn his old brown uniform since first adopting the Tiran clothing. He vaguely recalled rolling it up in a ball and stuffing it into Enna’s wardrobe some months back, so he stopped there a couple of nights after Isi and Geric’s arrival to prepare for their welcoming banquet. Finn was who-knows-where again, but Enna was in her room, sticking little silvery things in her hair the way the Tiran ladies did. Apparently, her distaste of all things Tiran had begun to wane.

  He grabbed his ball of wrinkled uniform and ducked behind Enna’s dressing screen to get presentable. He thought he would like to look good tonight, all laid out in his Bayern army splendor. Just to honor Isi and Geric. No other reason.

  He pulled on his leggings. That is, he pulled them halfway on. He could yank them up his thighs, but the bottoms left his ankles bare like little-boy knickers.

  “What mischief’s this?”

  He wrenched his long-sleeved tunic over his head and tugged down. The hem used to hit the tops of his thighs, but it barely covered his waist, and the chest and shoulders were so tight that he had to pull himself tall just to breathe. And then, of course, his boots proved too short for his toes. He glared at the back of Enna’s head, then had to laugh. It was a pretty solid prank.

  “Ha-ha!” he said, emerging. “Do you like my new attire?”

  Enna’s eyes widened as Razo strutted a little circle. She choked, then leaned forward to laugh as though her delight were so heavy that it weighted her chest. He pranced on his toes as he imagined girls must do when showing one another new dresses.

  “Tight tunic and short leggings, the newest Bayern fashion,” he said in a high voice. “It’s an Enna specialty.”

  “I can’t take credit, though I wish I could,” said Enna, still laughing.

  Razo ceased flouncing and set his features to look dead serious. “Don’t play, Enna-girl. You can’t make me believe Finn did this.”

  “Finn? What’re you… ? Razo, it’s you.”

  Razo re-firmed his expression to be even more deadly.

  Enna barked a surprised laugh. “Don’t you realize, you Forest yokel? You hit a growth spurt this year.”

  “Please, I’m not as gullible as I used to be. This’s another of your tricks, like the short stirrups on my saddle.”

  Enna put out her hands as if to say, What can I do if you don’t believe me?

  Razo snorted. “I’m eighteen years now, and my brothers stopped growing when they were…” How old had they been? Sixteen, seventeen? His clothing had seemed tighter these past months. Was it possible that all of a sudden his body took to the idea of getting taller?

  “Am I really?”

  Enna flicked her hands in the direction of his bare ankles as if saying, There’s your evidence.

  Razo nudged Enna out of the way and placed himself before her mirror. He had not seen his reflection in months or more. The top of his hair had been singed in the firefight and was not long enough to stand up impressively. His face sported several rather impressive bruises, and his skin was speckled red from the scalding water of Dasha’s fight with the burners. But something else was different—a firmer jaw? A longer chin? He squeezed his arm muscles and nodded, impressed at their girth, then glanced at Enna to see if she had noticed. She was smirking.

  “Stand up.” He pressed his back to Enna’s and patted the tops of their heads. “I’m taller than you.”

  “Barely. Don’t let it go to your head.”

  “No, wait, let me say that again—I’m taller than you!”

  “Barely,” Enna said again.

  Razo did not care about barely. He strutted and frolicked, swaggered and sashayed, chanting his ha-ha’s and feeling the magnificence of his new size.

  “You’re still a head shorter than Finn, at least,” she said.

  “You can’t burst my pig bladder balloon, Lady Hair Ornaments. I know that I’m quite imposing.”

  He changed back into his Tiran garments, and they sauntered down to the celebration, exchanging jabs, verbal and of the elbow kind, and were laughing to the point of the occasional snort when they crossed into the banquet hall’s heady fragrance of a thousand oil lamps. Finn was sitting on a pillow at their table, his back very straight, his thumb flicking a spoon as though to relieve nervous tension.

  “What’s funny?” he asked.

  “Razo’s taller,” said Enna.

  “That is funny,” said Finn.

  Enna did not sit beside him.

  The feast was more fancy than hearty—orange fish with heavy mustard sauce sweetened with dates, minced clam meat stuffed with peppercorns and pine kernels on bread soaked in wine. It was not until the chief of assembly’s speech during the pickled melon course that Razo realized what this was—a farewell gala.

  “The honor of this royal visit…” blah blah blah “…excellent tidings from Lord Kilcad on the peace he greeted in Bayern … hope of ongoing relations … and bid a fond farewell to those Bayern who will now be returning home.”

  Returning home. Razo had not thought…Of course, the assignment was meant to carry through only until after the assembly’s vote. Megina would stay, but he imagined many of Bayern’s Own would leave and others come to take their place. Razo would be sent back to Bayern’s capital, life as normal returned, no war, no worries. That would be all right. He supposed.

  Home. It would slay him if he never saw his ma or Rin again, he loved being Uncle Razo, and there were some happy moments with his brothers, when he was not spitting dirt and pine needles out of his mouth; even so, the memory of the homestead pinched him like the clothes he’d outgrown.

  He leaned on his elbow against a floor pillow, thinking how well he liked the lounge and lunch customs of Ingridan. And he was pretty attached to his lummas now and to the kind of weather that permitted sandals. Wind on the toes was a good thing. He even liked the summer with its breathless heat. The smell of tangerine blossoms so sweet and unreal, it felt wicked. The way the ocean gulped the city to a stop, the ships that made his toes itch to climb aboard. Eggy fig cakes and sour, sour olives, dark bread seeped in greenish oil, fish and wine sauce unbearably sweet. Dasha. He would miss these things. A pressure in his chest told him that he already did.

  Just as he was feeling his most sentimental, the music began. Four ladies with harps and fiddles settled into the center of the hall and played a melancholy tune, one he’d heard sung on every feast day. The sound of it went down his throat and twiddled with his stomach, and the words hummed themselves into his mouth.

  Ingridan, pour yourself inside my skin

  A city of seven rivers

  My blood runs in all your rivers

  Dasha was one of the harpists. He watched her very closely and wondered if he’d already lost the opportunity to tell her that he liked her ankles, and that lock of hair that slipped loose from her braid, and when she was too happy to keep from bouncing.

  When the song ended, everyone moaned as they applauded in the Tiran custom for giving homage to a song of their homeland. Razo was expecting another tune to follow, hopefully one a bit more robust to tap away the flavor of homesickness, but all the musicians rose and left, except Dasha. She held out her harp, and wonder of wonders, Finn stood, crossed the room, and took it from her.

  Razo looked at Enna. Her face was so obvious and gaping, he decided she could never tease him about that again.

  Dasha gave Finn her seat, made sure his fingers were on certain strings, then stepped back.

  The room was shivering in stillness, everyone watching the Bayern soldier with a Tiran harp, his sword hilt clanking against its bow. His entire face was red-turning-purple, but his lips were straight and serious.

  “I want to play a song for my love, Enna,” he said.

  Razo heard Enna emit a tiny sound, much like a squeak.

  Either Finn’s fingers missed half the right notes or the tune was as near
to the sound of a wounded cat as Razo had ever heard. After what he could only guess was an introduction, Finn sang. Enna squeaked again.

  Tell her that she is my rose

  Tell her that I love her

  Whisper that I’ve gone away

  And I’ll love no other

  Finn was fairly large, decently broad, certainly strong, but as he sang, his voice sounded ten years old. It squealed over high notes and trembled and sometimes rasped and disappeared completely when the song sank too low. To Razo’s mind, the song did not suffer much by losing a few of those absurd lyrics, but Finn sang them with bone-deep earnestness.

  Razo’s throat tickled as he tried not to laugh.

  Finn’s voice faded out, his thick fingers plucked the final notes, up the harp to the thinnest, shortest string and its piercing adieu. He placed the harp on the ground, his hands trembling as they never did when holding a sword. The silence of the room begged, Should we applaud?

  Razo looked at Enna, ready to share a smile, and gulped when he saw her face. She was sobbing.

  “Great crows,” he whispered. There were more mysteries in this world than he could ever solve.

  She teetered to her feet and ran sloppily across the room, around tables, leaping over outstretched legs. Finn had his arms out, and they embraced right there in the middle of the hall.

  “Of course I’ll marry you,” Enna said. “Yes, Finn, yes, of course.”

  The silence shattered into walloping applause.

  Razo clapped so violently that his hands hurt, and he still felt like laughing, so he did, though he was not laughing at Finn—the laugh was just stuck in his throat like a hard bite of apple, and he needed to get it out. Strangely, it made his eyes water.

  Dasha was clapping hard, too, and the Bayern were whooping. Isi and Geric both cupped their hands around their mouths and shouted huzzahs. The prince gestured toward Finn and Enna in case Napralina had missed it, and she nodded happily. Talone, who’d been standing by the door, crossed the room and sat on a pillow beside Megina. She smiled without turning her head.

  The thought occurred to Razo that if he had not been applauding close friends in a raucous room, he would have felt very lonely just then. He clapped harder.

  When the banquet dwindled and the guests had drifted away, Razo still sat on his cushions, stacking bread crumbs into a miniature fortress. A hand touched the back of his neck.

  “You’re still here,” she said.

  He could smell a faint cloud of tangerine perfume and, underneath it, the heartier fragrance of ocean brine. The scent played him, and he felt full of the hum of her tune.

  “Want to go for a walk?” His voice sounded just the right kind of casual, even if he could not quite school his face into a nonchalant expression.

  The Ingridan autumn air was pleasant and cool and carried with it a round feeling like something complete—a full moon, a full plate, the end of a good day. The wind from the west smelled brown and parted the ocean from the air, filling it with harvest wheat.

  They followed the Pallo, the slim river of Thousand Years, out the gates and across the avenue to where city architects had joined it with the tiled ways of the Tumult. The river was high, just one pace down from the edge of the bank. Razo watched their reflections drizzle across its surface as he told her of Enna’s offer to teach her fire. Dasha stared straight ahead, her mouth agape.

  “That is… that’s just…” She ended in a whisper. “Thank you.”

  Razo thought about taking her hand and then did not. Dangling just above the horizon, the moon looked so perfect and round, he longed to pluck it from the sky and pop it in his mouth.

  “I have not seen you much lately.” She was wearing tiny silver bells in her hair. They tinkled when she turned her head, as though laughing at the water sounds rushing beside their feet.

  “I haven’t seen you,” he said.

  His tone straightened her spine. “Well, where have you been? With the girls from the pastry kitchen?”

  “With … what? What would you mind if I were?”

  “I think it’s disgusting the way some boys cavort with poor girls.”

  “You do?” Razo had not thought she could be so haughty.

  “Yes. I’ve seen it a thousand times, noble boys like you playing with their hearts with no intention of making true on promises, just because they’re beneath your rank and—”

  Razo laughed. “Oh, you’re worried about them. …Wait, ho there now, would it make a difference if you knew that I’m no noble?”

  “You’re not?” She kept walking.

  “No. Razo of the Forest, as poor as a tree rat in the winter.” He tried to read her reaction to the news from the corner of his eyes while whistling a jangled tune, then stopped when his dry mouth turned the whistle into a scratch. “So, does that make it all right if I cavort with pastry girls?”

  “I suppose.” She sounded reluctant.

  Razo’s own spine straightened. “What’s with pointing fingers at me anyhow, noble girl? What about you and Finn?”

  “Finn? He wanted my help to learn the harp so he could play it for Enna and he asked me to keep the secret.”

  “Oh, right. And the prince?”

  “If you are referring to his intentions toward me, my father wrote me to ask my opinion, and I said I declined. By the way, did you see how smitten he seemed by the queen’s sister?”

  “Yes, actually. Well … well, what of Victar? You said you didn’t know him and then—”

  “I made a point to know all the men in Captain Ledel’s company after you told me your suspicions. We have become friends, of a sort, but he is just that type I was referring to, a cavorter and a heartbreaker. He makes me laugh, but I don’t like him much.”

  “No, no, no, you do too like him. I saw you with Victar, you with your smile and your nose all crinkly.”

  She stopped short. “My nose what?”

  “All crinkly. Your nose crinkles when you smile especially big, when you’re really pleased.” He accused her with his glare. Then, of all inexplicable things, her eyes began to tear. “Uh, did I say something…?” He rubbed his neck. “I’m always saying something…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “You noticed my nose,” she said with a little squeak.

  Razo had nothing to say to that.

  “No one has ever observed that about me before, or never told me. It means you’re noticing me. It means you care.”

  “Well, of course I care, any dolt could see—”

  “Do you really?” She placed both hands on his chest and looked up.

  It was about the best invitation he’d ever had to kiss a girl, and he was not about to let the moment escape. But this was no teasing girl who patted his bum just to see him squirm. This was someone who made his heart clatter against his ribs. He did not feel quite as cavalier as he would have liked. His mouth was dry, his lips were dry, his head felt light, and he suddenly had the crazy notion that Dasha’s hands were holding him down from the sky. He thought he had better say something quick, and the first words that touched his tongue were, “My heart’s really pounding.”

  “I know,” she said. “I can feel it.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  Quit stalling, he told himself.

  So he bowed his head and closed his eyes, and somehow his lips found hers. He kissed her once, then let her lips go, but it was about the sweetest thing he had ever tasted, better than fig-and-egg cake, so he went back. A longer kiss. He peeked. Her eyes were still closed. He kissed her again and felt her mouth smile under his.

  “You were stalling,” she whispered.

  “I was not.”

  “You were, too. You were scared.”

  “I’m not the least bit scared, my lady, see?” He swept an arm under her knees and picked her up, kissing her again as he did. “Not scared a whit.”

  Razo took one step off the pier and plunged them both into the autumn water. He bobbed back up like a duck after a feedi
ng, lay on his back, and let her float him, the water under his body as strong as a net, massaging his back with thin, rippling currents.

  His shoulder rubbed against a small boat, and he grabbed the side and clambered in, pulling Dasha in after him. He reasoned that as it was not being used, no one could mind if he borrowed it for a little row. The exercise warmed his muscles. Dasha looked extremely pleasing just then, as wet as an otter, but then the water rolled off her unnaturally fast, down her legs and onto the boat’s floor, leaving her clothes wrinkled and dry.

  She drew something out of the linen pouch she carried at her side.

  “A sling!” he said.

  “Two slings, even.” She held the oars while he examined each, admired the weaving, the coarse green material.

  “These are more durable in this humid climate, and I’ve heard that hemp slings might even be more accurate than wool ones. Though I don’t know how it would be possible to improve your aim.”

  He bound the slings around his waist and took up the oars again, eager to be doing something besides staring at Dasha with an undoubtedly gushy expression. She let her fingers drag in the water, and he wondered what the river’s dreamy voice was telling her.

  “Will you be going home now?” she asked.

  “If that’s where my captain orders me.” He could not say those words and look at her at the same time.

  “Do you miss it?”

  “Bayern? Sure I do. And the Forest, and my ma and sister, too, though…I don’t know, whenever I go to my ma’s house, I feel like a stinky little boy again caught stealing a lick of honey.” He laughed, wishing he had not used the word stinky. “I mean, nothing changes there.”

  She was quiet for a time, her fingers tracing ripples on the river. “My father’s tenure as ambassador to Bayern will be short. He desires to return to Ingridan and the assembly.”

  “Hmm, I wonder who’ll replace him.”

  They met eyes, smiling, both daring the other one to speak the idea. Razo gave in first.

  “You’ve thought of bidding for the position yourself?”