I spread one hand out to stop Valeo, and I shushed him, without breaking my lock on the glowing eyes. I could deal with only one predator at a time.
“No sudden moves,” I whispered.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Valeo raise his pike as he eased toward my side. He must’ve spotted the danger, as he placed his shield in front of both of us, the pike raised over my shoulder. I was close enough to feel his breath on my neck and the coarse friction of leather armor against the back of my dress.
We didn’t move.
The cat’s eyes shifted from one of us to the other, taking in our larger size and making its own mental calculations of how to take one down while avoiding the other. Finally, it backed away with a few frustrated snarls before bounding toward a stand of trees. I’d have to tell lookouts later to flush it out of its hiding place so close to the city. I lowered my arms and relaxed my stance, but Valeo didn’t budge. It felt invasive, to have him so close with the danger past.
“What was that thing?”
I angled my head to see him staring down his helmet edge to me. “You don’t have mash cats on the mainland?”
“Can’t say I’m sorry for it. Looks like it would eat all the livestock.”
“And people, too.”
He humphed. “So why create a bigger target for it?”
I answered with a puzzled look and slid out from under his arm. A little distance felt more right than not.
He slung the shield over his back as we edged away, and I walked backward for a few paces, peering around the shield, making sure the mash cat didn’t change its mind. When we’d gone far enough for me to feel fairly safe, I turned back around, and we instinctively headed for the city and safety.
He shook his head at me. “You stretched for it. You have a death wish? Or just practicing your morning prayers?”
Morning prayers involved a dance-like series of stretches while we chanted, called the Dance of Life. I managed to let a piece of smile escape as I turned to him.
“You have to make yourself as big as possible to trick it,” I said. “It has to decide I’m not worth all the effort it would take to bring me down.”
“I think you’d be worth every effort to bring down. I missed my chance back at your house.”
A trembling ran through me, starting from my shoulders and fanning outward, until all of me shivered. My breathing grew ragged, and all I could think was that it—that terrible, unthinkable thing—was going to happen here, now. My body recoiled, turning halfway around, my eyelids squeezed shut. I managed only a hoarse whisper. “Please don’t. You said you wouldn’t.”
He spoke after a quick intake of air. “I didn’t . . . this isn’t . . . ah, Nihil’s nuts. It was a joke. A bad one, apparently.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. My fear was giving way to rage. How dare he. A joke? It wasn’t a joke that any woman in Port Sapphire would laugh about. It was disgusting. Disrespectful.
“Maybe you joke about such things, where you come from.”
He held up one hand, the pike balanced in the crook of his elbow. “If you’re about to insult my native lands, stop there.”
“I need to go.”
“Wait, what did you come here for, then?”
“To be alone. To think. To get away from you and people like you.” I’d hoped to sound angry, but it came out as defeated, an admission there was no way to win with him around. And it was true; I just wanted one precious moment to collect all the shambled pieces of the last few days and piece them back together.
Valeo was stuck in those same moments as I was and wasn’t letting go. “Why, have you run out of vulgar names to call me? Or does everyone on this stingfly-riddled isle think like you do, that I’m some bastard mongrel . . .”
“I don’t think that,” I said. This was escalating too fast for my liking, from a few sparks to the threat of a flash fire, and I was going to have to quench it fast. “I was hoping you’d forget it.”
“I have a long memory.” His head angled down toward me, until I could see the flash of his pupils from behind the bronze plating that apparently kept his head from falling off. His feelings were still all bruised and rubbed raw from the other day.
There was only one thing to do, which meant taking a big bite of my pride and swallowing it whole.
“If it helps, I’ll apologize again, now that I’ve thought about it,” I said. “Now that I’ve seen the word’s effect on you.”
“Why should you care about your effect on me?”
I drew a huge breath and slowed my pace, lowered my tone, and held eye contact until it almost hurt. “First Guardsman Valeo, I know that you’re anxious to be done with your mission and be gone from here. But if what I said—anything I’ve said—has contributed to your feeling unwelcome, then I apologize.”
I dropped my gaze to the ground, as Mami had taught me to do, like some helpless, cuddly she-cub. It’s a simple trick to work on a man when you’ve overstepped your bounds, Mami had said, and it works every time. I glanced back up briefly.
Mami definitely knows her man-lore.
Even from within his helmet, it was hard to miss the raised eyebrows. His jaw dropped, and his own tone grew suddenly lighter.
“You mean that.” It was a statement. “Thank you.”
Well, why did I care about my effect on him? For one thing, it did seem like I’d increased my chances of getting home safely. “You’re a guest here, and I’ve been an ungracious host.”
I let drop the thought that most guests didn’t upend their hosts’ homes.
“Nihil break my bones, but I’m also sorry for frightening you just now,” he said. “I came to see if you were out gathering contraband. Your family has a . . . reputation.”
I almost laughed. He only meant the usual sort of harm the Ward was always threatening. “I came for a walk on the beach. I promise by all Nihil’s incarnations.”
“May they be infinite.”
“May they be infinite.” I nodded agreement.
“And if you’d stooped to pluck so much as a flower,” he said, “I would’ve killed you.”
I gasped. Killed? It was a flower—a hypothetical one. Would he really have . . . but wait, a flash of insight flared into my thick head. “You pounded along this boardwalk like it insulted you. If I had been out picking flowers, you weren’t exactly sneaking up on me. It’s as if you wanted me to notice you. To warn me, perhaps?”
Was that a grin, lopsided and toothy, or a smirk or a leer? A smirk, I decided.
“Looks like I came along in time,” he said. “Before you danced that mash cat creature into submission.”
I took my time forming an answer. I’d tried to imagine that he had some basic goodness or a sense of honor about him, more than the other guards. But I didn’t want to make an idiot of myself for believing too much of him too soon.
“You’ve been outside my house. Guarding it? Why?”
I didn’t like the way he shook his head and grimaced. “We’ve all taken up posts around your city.”
“And you chose my house? Or were ordered?”
His eyes darted around, everywhere but at my own, avoiding me. “Doesn’t matter. Not your place to question what we’re here to do.”
I sucked in my breath. He was veering back toward sparks and flames again. “I . . . I think what you’re doing, what you’re all doing . . . I know you have orders. I know the Azwans think there is a demon. It’s just too much to take in, to understand. So frightening.”
“You don’t seem like much frightens you. Or does everyone here do the Dance of Life for savage beasts?”
“No, just me. Most people would run. And the cat would run after.” What did an ordinary mash cat have to do with the Temple? It seemed a stretch to compare the two.
“Ah. So Hadara doesn’t run.” He stroked his chin as if contemplating this. “She stands her ground, and when she gets knocked around, she gets back up, ties up a man’s tongue, and flips her
head of curls at him. That mash cat was lucky to get away while it could.”
“Why are you saying such things to me?”
“It’s called flirting. I’m better at it over a flask of wine. You should join me.”
Mami’s advice had worked too well.
“No, I’m going home, please.” I hoped I sounded firm. “If you’d escort me.”
“And I’m going to pretend you were really out for a casual stroll during a citywide curfew.”
“Curfew?” I glanced back at the empty beach. “I feel very stupid. What is the punishment for this curfew?”
“Just to get arrested and questioned.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “And why haven’t you arrested me?”
“Would you like me to?”
“No, of course not. What I mean is, you keep saying all these scary things to me but never do them, which is good for me, but are you always like this?” He didn’t strike me as soft, and he’d said at the house that he wasn’t the forgiving kind. He was a puzzle, this armored hulk who was easily bruised. And he’d stomped around noisily so I wouldn’t pick flowers, and the other day he’d ordered his comrades not to harm me, when they easily could’ve.
He sighed. “Do you think I should notch my pike for everyone I harm? It’s not like I’m out looking for reasons.”
“And should I find that reassuring?” We’d begun walking back, more like strolling, passing the first outcrop of houses. I no longer felt in any danger, and unnerving conversations about killing and violence were starting to seem fairly normal with him.
“I take no pleasure in killing, if that’s what you mean. In your case, I might have to think hard on it.”
“You like me.” As soon as I’d blurted that out, I wished I hadn’t. What could I have meant by that?
He stiffened and looked ahead, not at me. “Nothing can come of any friendship between us.”
“I know. You don’t want to like me. You want to leave here and go home.” His denial stung. He liked me. I didn’t know how I knew, but by Nihil’s navel, I knew. “Where is home?”
“Wherever Nihil sends me.”
“Have you no family?”
The helmet hid too much of his face for me to read his expression, but the change to a more guarded voice, one of caution and unspoken meanings, was easy enough to understand. “The guards are my family.”
“I have a very large family,” I said, lightening things before he started stamping that pike again. “You can borrow them, if you like. They’re very good at ordering people around. Just try to return them unharmed, yes?”
He chuckled at that. “I’d like that. I came from a small family, but . . . but that was long ago. I’m alone, pretty much.”
“You miss them?”
He started to nod and then stopped. “The past is not a woolass. It cannot be yoked.”
I recognized the poem. “Our pasts are the churning tide, ebbing before us.”
“Markden. I didn’t know your island would have the translations.”
“We’re not that remote. The Customs House has a few of his scrolls, and many others. The merchants bring them from their travels. They swap them around, what with ships always coming and going.”
He grinned. “Like the way Feroxi trade weapons and tools. I like it.”
“You ought not to like anything about us. It’d make it harder to leave.”
“Nothing would make it hard to leave this place.”
“Sorry.” I sighed. This conversation was getting nowhere, but at least our feet had gotten me home. My house was around the next bend in the boardwalk. Maybe Valeo wasn’t a good man like the men I’d grown up around, always volunteering at the Ward or fixing old ladies’ roofs or making elaborate toys for orphans or going about some important business something. But I knew he was trying.
The question was why. I didn’t believe for a moment it was because he imagined I’d flirt with him over a flask of wine, either.
I wheeled on my toes and stared up at him. He stared back and waited for me to speak.
“The mercy we would claim as our future has drowned in our wake,” I said, reciting the last line of the Markden poem. “Don’t drown yourself, First Guardsman Valeo.”
He exhaled a long, ragged breath. “What am I to make of you, Hadara of Rimonil?”
“You said nothing could come of any friendship between us. Yet any two people who can chase off a mash cat together aren’t enemies, either. So: friends.”
He nodded. “Friends.”
I wheeled with a last flounce of my skirts and gathered them up enough to stride smoothly the rest of the way home without a backward glance, giving Valeo a last glimpse of my calves. That wasn’t exactly unchaste, but it felt like the closest I could get to flirting. Babba had already come out onto the boardwalk to watch for me. As I reached him, I gave only a backward glance at Valeo, who was nodding to Babba in that way men have of communicating just with looks and grimaces and grunts and such. How they manage to say so much with so little, I don’t suppose even Mami knows. Man-lore. It’s a mystery.
Only the creases in Babba’s face gave away his anxiety for me. I’d obviously worried him and ought to have felt more ashamed of that, I suppose. If I’d come back alone, I’d likely have faced a tongue-lashing, but instead, I was simply told to go help Mami at the hearth for all our guests.
It was Mami who satisfied everyone’s curiosity on what that soldier had wanted with me, giving me a chance to natter on about curfews and the mash cat to oohs and ohs before I was loading a platter of charred redroot, lentils, and summer greens for supper. I pretended to be too busy to hear any other conversation, and this was true—I knew I would revisit my encounter with Valeo in my head a dozen or more times before the evening was through.
Our exchange, from the threats to the jokes and back again, crowded out any other thought, with his words and mine pooling like a school of fish darting beneath the surface of my waking moments, bright flashes of silver to distract my gaze and keep me guessing.
I shall bless those appointed by me for special service. Among these shall be the high priests of my Temple, and higher than that are those who in the vulgate tongue are called Azwans, meaning Navigators. They shall steer you toward me, that you may never waiver from the true course.
—from Oblations 11, The Book of Unease
Although I’d joked there were at least a hundred reasons Valeo shouldn’t think twice about an ignorant island girl, there must be a thousand reasons—without exaggerating—why I shouldn’t be wasting so much thought on him. I needed a distraction, something besides platters of piping hot food, or I’d end up cleaning them by eating everything on them.
I hadn’t forgotten the reason for Valeo’s being here in the first place, or what the Temple Guards’ presence meant to our normally busy port. It’s just that it was hard to feel any danger any longer, what with Valeo making threats he didn’t keep and even agreeing to friendship. I couldn’t grasp the reality of trouble of any sort, as if the Azwans and their new curfew had settled into being merely inconvenient rather than ominous.
Fortunately, I had an Azwan to set me straight and re-instill the proper sense of terror the Temple seemed to prefer. Before anyone could get too comfortable over supper, our chatter was drowned out by a commotion farther south, toward the Ward pavilion. Babba and the other men got up to see what was the matter, and Rishi ran up and hugged Babba’s legs. He hugged back, looking thoughtful.
As if by some unheard call, the pounding of giant boots resounded on our boardwalk. No one moved. More soldiers came. With them strode S’ami. Even if I hadn’t recognized him, his clothes gave him away. Not many people could afford that much spider silk. Flowering vines seemed to sprout along his chest and toward his shoulders, even curling on his shaved head.
As he drew close, I could see the flowers were an illusion created by beadwork, painstaking and minute, on a breastplate and skullcap that blossomed with thousands of seed beads
shaped into a shining tropical garden. He was wearing his wealth, and it suited what little I knew of his character. Impressive, though. Maybe I was simply predisposed to hating him. I shrunk back to the safety of the crowd to watch the spectacle S’ami proudly made of himself, and my thighs clenched together of their own accord, remembering his power over me at the pier.
He headed straight for our cluster and held up a hand to stop everyone from scurrying off. Soldiers took up positions at rigid attention, pikes at their sides. I searched for Valeo and didn’t see him; then I hated myself for feeling disappointed.
“Good people, have you some celebration here?” S’ami asked. “An odd day for one, wouldn’t you say?”
Babba was standing in front of the others, as this was his house and his patio, and everyone looked to him, even the neighbors who lived right beside us. He made the cupping motions with his hands before his chin as he bowed. Then he straightened, and became again the tall, imposing man whom everyone liked to surround. “My neighbors come only seeking news, Most Cryptic of Nihil’s Servants.”
“And what news is there?”
“I do not know, sir. It is from you that news would come.”
“So you anticipated my visit?”
“No, Most Worthy. We are nonetheless grateful for it.”
The Azwan gave Babba such an ominous stare that the distance in heights appeared to vanish. “So, you desire news from me yet didn’t know I would be here. Wouldn’t you seek me at your Ward?”
Babba bowed again. “I don’t believe any of us would presume to bother a mighty Azwan at the Ward.”
“What good then would it do to gather here and wait for news? Or do you simply invent it?”
“I don’t believe I understand, Most Worthy.”
“I’m told your people are good at determining the value of nearly anything. A pity the truth isn’t one of them.”
Ah, see, another trap, just like in school. Only the schoolmistress could use a few lessons of her own. S’ami was a master. Nihil must really love tripping people with their own words, since it seemed something the most pious people were good at. I hoped Amaniel flunked that particular lesson. My father chafed. We all did. We were all bowing, some nearly to their knees. “Have we offended you, sir?” Babba said.
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