by Sharon Shinn
Justin was nearly silent, but Ellynor, observing him, did not think he was unhappy. He watched the others with a bright attention, laughed at Cammon, rolled his eyes at Kirra, smiled whenever Senneth spoke. He was absorbing them, she thought, storing them up, like a man taking a long last draught of water before setting out across the desert.
She had done much the same thing the last night she ate at her family’s house before leaving with Rosurie for Lumanen Convent. She imagined she would do it again the night before she and Justin left the Lirrenlands and headed back toward Ghosenhall.
He felt her eyes on him and turned to give her a quick smile, utterly guileless, completely free of pain. When he put his hand out, she laced her fingers through his and held on as tightly as she could.
IN the morning, the single party broke cleanly into two with a minimum of fuss and farewell. Kirra insisted Justin and Ellynor take the leftover meat—“We’ll just hunt every day we’re on the road, so we don’t need it”—and Tayse asked when Justin thought they might be expected back in the royal city.
“Six weeks, maybe,” Justin said, glancing at Ellynor with a question in his eyes. She nodded, thinking most of that time would be taken by travel. “We’ll come back through Kianlever.”
“I’ll let them know when you’ve crossed the mountains back into Gillengaria,” Cammon promised, and everyone laughed.
“No secrets in our little group,” Kirra said brightly, and mounted her horse with careless grace. “It’s too cold to stand around talking! Travel safely. See you soon.”
With that, everyone climbed into the saddle, everyone called out a good-bye, and the two groups of riders went their separate ways.
The brilliant sunshine didn’t do much to warm the air, which got colder and thinner the higher they climbed. The trails were either poorly marked or completely nonexistent, and more than once Ellynor thought they had lost the way altogether. She had only crossed the mountains once before, and that was going in the other direction. She had no idea how to pick a route through these slaty slopes and sharp, jumbled boulders. But Justin seemed perfectly at ease in the unfamiliar terrain, watching the paths ahead and confidently guiding his horse across expanses that looked impossible to traverse.
They made camp just below the peak, huddling together for warmth since there was limited fuel for a fire. Sunrise was the most welcome sight Ellynor had ever seen, and they scrambled down the eastern slope of the mountain on foot, holding the reins of their horses. The air warmed considerably with every yard they descended, and they were on level ground more than an hour before sunset.
Oh, and then they were in the Lirrens. Oh, then they were in that wild, beautiful, dangerous, beloved land.
CHAPTER 42
IT took six more days to travel to Ellynor’s family’s house. Justin watched the miles unfold around them, finding the terrain strikingly different from the lush and mostly fertile land of Gillengaria. The Lirrens were generally rocky, dotted with small stony hills and low, uneven meadows that nurtured only stunted trees and starved weeds. Their route didn’t take them past rolling farmland or any cultivated fields that Justin could see, though Ellynor told him most of the homesteads featured small gardens that required unending effort to tend.
“And there are farms near the eastern coast, where the Dalrian sebahta grows grains, and they trade with the rest of us,” she said. “Except they don’t trade with the Cohfens, but the Cohfens buy their grain from the rest of us.”
They passed no towns, no roadside taverns, none of the marks of civilization that Justin was used to. Instead, Ellynor pointed out individual homesteads and clan clusters as they passed—usually a collection of low buildings on relatively level land near a natural source of water.
“Not much help for a traveler passing through,” Justin commented. “Unless he can count on the kindness of the people who own the houses.”
“Well, he can if he’s kin,” Ellynor said. “But if he’s not kin— or if he’s from a feuding sebahta-ris—then, no. He doesn’t ask to stop for the night. He just keeps riding.”
He glanced down at her, reckoning. “That’s why you need the sebahta-ris,” he said. “So you have friends everywhere you go. Somewhere to stay when you travel.”
“That’s one of the reasons,” she said.
He grunted. “Bet that was the first one, and all the rest of it came later.”
She smiled and shook her head.
They talked easily while they rode, since the ground was too rough for them to maintain a fast pace. He was still apprehensive about what to expect when they arrived at Ellynor’s home, so he asked for more details about what to say, what not to say, who might be there awaiting them, who might arrive a few days after they did. He made her repeat over and over the names of her closest kin, and within three days he could rattle off her aunts and uncles by blood, as well as their sons and daughters. Pretty soon he could also recite the basic alliances within the Lahja sebahta-ris, though he had trouble keeping track of the friendships that developed between individual families of feuding clans.
“It’s like learning the names of all the marlords in the Twelve Houses!” he exclaimed. “Kirra can tell you what serramarra married what serramar fifty years ago and how many children they had and where they were married off.”
“Well, it’s easier if you know them,” Ellynor said. “If you actually care about them.”
“If I actually think it’s important,” he grumbled, but he could feel himself laughing. “Tell me this,” he said. “Do I have to wait for everyone to be present before I give you the bride gift?”
She had told him already that the presentation of the gift should be very public, yet not seem ostentatious or rehearsed. It was supposed to flow naturally from some conversation at a time that would seem perfectly designed for a declaration of love. Justin was fairly certain that it would be the most awkward moment of his life. He kept asking for details, trying to visualize the setting, trying to prepare.
“No,” she said. “Not if the right moment arrives and some of the family is still on the road. But you don’t want to go through the whole visit without presenting it to me! Everyone will know why we’re there. They’ll think it very peculiar if you never mention you want to marry me.”
“But how do I know what the right moment is?” he insisted.
She spread her hands, looking helpless. He realized that, to her, it was such an intuitive thing that it was hard to explain. “Well, this is how my cousin’s husband did it. We were talking about chickens, and how to get them to lay more eggs, and what to feed them. And he laughed and told a story about the time his mother lost a ring in the chicken coop and one of the hens ate it, but they didn’t know which one. So they started slaughtering chickens, two a day, and poking through the entrails. They were eating chicken every night for a month. He said soon they were begging to be fed venison or grouse or anything except chicken. One day, his mother found the ring in the droppings of this mean old hen that was so stringy and tough that no one would have thought to prepare her for the cookpot. And it was her favorite ring, and she was so happy to have it back that she snatched it up and cleaned it off and put it right back on her hand. And then she made a feast dinner for them that very night. And when he was done telling this story, he turned to my cousin and said, ‘She loved that ring more than anything, and she gave it to me so that I could give it to my bride.’ ”
She stopped speaking and looked hopefully over at Justin. He said, “That’s it? I talk about chicken dung and entrails? Somehow that doesn’t sound like the perfect moment to me.”
“No, it’s just—I don’t know how to explain it. The giving of the bride gift is supposed to seem like a natural extension of the conversation. It’s proof that you belong, that you fit in.”
“Which I don’t.”
She reached over and took his hand, giving it a tight squeeze before letting it go again. “Maybe you don’t,” she said. “But they’re willing to accept y
ou. You’ll be fine. If you don’t find the right moment, then I’ll—I’ll have my mother ask you a question that makes it obvious this is the time to make the presentation.”
“ ‘Justin, shouldn’t you be giving my daughter something right about now?’ ” he said.
She laughed. “I think she can be more subtle than that.”
“I don’t require subtle. I require knowing what I’m supposed to do. So what other questions are people likely to ask me?”
“They’ll want to know about your family,” she said a little hesitantly. “It will seem strange to them that you had none. The concept of an abandoned child is not one that they can easily understand.”
He glanced at her. He could see that she was trying to speak carefully, not wanting to offend him. He kept his voice gentle as he asked, “What about whores? Is that a concept they understand?”
She looked even more unhappy. “There are women. In most of the sebahta. Who do not marry and who do not work in the gardens or help raise the children. They live in the households and they are not cast out, but they—they only play a small part in family rituals. Any man can go to these women, though they have the right to refuse to take a man to bed.”
“Not exactly the same thing,” he said.
She nodded. “But everyone knows what a whore is,” she said sadly. “Enough of our men have traded across the mountains that the word has become commonly known.”
“Well, I’m not going to lie about it,” he said.
“No, of course you shouldn’t lie. But you don’t have to tell them more than you want to tell them.”
He laughed. “Why do I get the feeling they’re going to be very curious about all the details of my life?”
She smiled. “Because you’re very wise! They will want to know everything.” She paused and then said, “And not just about your blood family. They will want to know about your own sebahta.”
He was amused. “I don’t think I have one of those.”
“Your—the people you consider family, with whom you have an unbreakable bond.”
Now he was thoughtful. “You mean, like Senneth.”
She nodded and gave him a sideways look. “And Kirra.”
“Kirra?”
She watched him closely and he knew there was something here that would surprise him. He would have to be careful. Ellynor’s face was casual, but he had the sense that she was about to say something that mattered to her a great deal. “She said she was your sister.”
He felt his eyebrows go up. “She said that?” Ellynor was still watching him and so he did not give a quick, sardonic answer; he considered it. A year ago he had not met the Danalustrous girl. The first three months they had traveled together, he would have said he hated her. They had quarreled half the time they were together last summer—in fact, they were usually quarreling. And yet he had put his life in her hands more than once. He had believed she could save Ellynor and he had known she would come back for him if she could. He trusted her. Wayward and restless and frivolous though she was. She would never betray him. “I suppose she is,” he said at last and he saw Ellynor relax, pleased with his answer. He smiled at her. “And I guess that makes Donnal and Cammon my brothers?”
“If you think of them that way.”
“They can be my brothers,” he decided.
“And Tayse, too?”
That required no cogitation. He said, “Tayse is my father.”
THEY arrived at the Alowa homestead in the middle of the afternoon on a sunny but absolutely frigid day. Justin was rapidly taking in details. There were about ten buildings on this roughly defined property, all of them solidly built of wood, some quite large. About half of them sported chimneys that were curling with smoke, so those must be houses where people lived; the others would be barns or sheds. There was a small, well-kept area in the center that appeared to be shared space. It featured two wells, a chopping block, some tools and a cart.
“Which house is yours?” he asked Ellynor, and she pointed at the largest one, two-and-a-half stories high, with brightly painted shutters on the windows. “Do we just go right in?”
“I’ve brought home a visitor,” she said. “I need to announce you.”
She slipped from the horse, so he dismounted quickly, and followed her to a hammered gong that hung from a metal frame. “Two strokes means company,” she said, picking up a mallet that rested against the frame.
“How many strokes means danger?”
She smiled. “Five. You would think of that.”
“You always have to be prepared for trouble.”
She gave him a sideways look. “Maybe I should strike the gong five times now.”
He grinned. “No. I’m going to be very well behaved.”
She hit the gong twice, and it sent out lovely but urgent notes that Justin guessed could be heard even some distance off the property, especially if you were trained to listen for the sound. The hammered metal hadn’t quite stopped quivering on its chains when the first doors opened and figures came streaming out. Justin took a deep breath and planted his feet, bracing himself. But Ellynor dropped the mallet and flung her arms out and ran straight toward one of the women racing from the big house. In seconds, she was enveloped by a shouting, crying, laughing crowd—children, men, women, dogs— and everyone was hugging her and everyone was repeating her name.
This, Justin supposed, was what it was like to belong to a family.
TORRIN had appointed himself Justin’s guide and guardian and nemesis; it was clear nothing was going to induce him to leave Justin’s side. Hayden and a rotating cast of cousins joined them at various points—for meals, for discussions, for tricky competitive games—but none of them stuck as close as Torrin. Justin was even bedded down in Torrin’s room, on a mattress on the floor that was far more comfortable than he would have expected.
Three days after their arrival, no one had offered to kill him, and so Justin thought the visit with the sebahta was going fairly well.
“Now here’s a game I bet you’re good at,” Torrin said. Half a dozen of them were lounging in a small open area in the middle of a barn that housed probably twenty cows. They’d spent much of their time there since Justin’s arrival. The space was cluttered with tools and broken chairs and partial bales of hay, but the body heat of the cattle kept the place relatively warm. It was a good place to retreat from the interference of women.
Justin looked over, keeping his face impassive. This was yet another test, as all the other games had been. Oh, certainly, they had all been played for the sake of entertainment—or would have been, on any ordinary day—but their real value had been the chance to gauge Justin’s reflexes and coordination. So far, he’d managed well enough, even when he couldn’t exactly comprehend the rules, because he’d understood the one great overriding rule: Make a show of strength.
It was not, after all, that different from running a gang of thieves on the streets of Ghosenhall and constantly proving you were so tough that no one wanted to challenge you.
“What kind of game?” he said.
One of the cousins—Arrol, Justin thought—was bringing out a wooden case filled with some kind of jangling cargo. He knelt in the middle of the floor and opened it, to reveal a collection of rings of various sizes, all made of metal. Arrol gave Torrin an unsmiling look. He was a strange one, Justin thought—tall, slim, and silent, more standoffish than the rest of the noisy cousins. He often wore an abstracted expression, as though his thoughts were far from this place and these people, and he hadn’t bothered participating in most of the contests.