Raddia waited another moment and then tossed the spices into the burning pan – first the yellow and then the red one, and stirring them swiftly with a wooden spoon she lowered her head and took a deep breath, inhaling greedily the wonderful smell. What a magical place this Erat Rin was turning out to be! Oh, let it remain forever forgotten, a nowhere no one knows about, lest strangers flock from other worlds, less beautiful, and ruin it! It stunned her still, how lovely something as trivial as food could be, if prepared with the right ingredients and a little care. For, reaffirming the importance of untouch, food in Lurien was usually a rather plain and bland affair, a simple process to satisfy the base need of hunger, and the meals rarely touched you more than literally, for the brief time it took for them to be ingested. Whereas Dwanari dishes seemed to Raddia made to cause one to moan with delight, from the moment the mouthwatering smells rose from the stove to the moment one collapsed on a chair, fit to burst and stupidly happy.
And food, with its countless varieties and secrets, was the profoundest way with which she communicated with the womenfolk, and felt she belonged with them, because when it came to the language of Iabi’s tribe – to Yodren and Yonfi’s constant teasing – she hadn’t made much progress. Maybe it was the fact that she’d spent almost all her life amongst people who thought it wise to speak as little and with as few words as possible, or maybe it was the Dwanars themselves, whose thoughts were usually quite simple and easy to grasp even without knowing the actual words. Be that as it may, Raddia still got on perfectly well with the villagers, and had compensated for her reticence by letting the women teach her wordless, manual skills – such as cooking and knitting, herb growing and clothes making – pastimes she enjoyed hugely, and through which she was able to please ‘the men of the house’, as she jokingly referred to Yodren and Yonfi.
Tonight she was making mutton with small sweet onions, Yonfi’s favourite. She wished Gallan and Wixelor were here, to sit at the table too. There were times when she missed her brother so bitterly, it took effort not to burst in tears; they’d never been apart before in their lives, and sometimes his absence felt as if she were missing a limb, or as if a great stone weighed down on her chest, so that she could barely breathe. But Yodren’s companionship was thankfully more than enough to ease the pain, and over time they’d established a pattern of togetherness, a daily routine, which afforded them many shared pleasures – such as eating breakfast together and talking silently while Yonfi still slept, or sitting outside the hut near sundown to gaze at the beauty of the world, she with her knitting and he with some of the (frankly, horrid) wooden toys he’d taken to whittling, and which he invariably inflicted on his students as gifts. Raddia had grown quite fond of Yodren, and in fact, according to the customs of both Feerien and Dwanar, they were of an age when men and women living together marry, breed, and raise their usually big families – something she sometimes saw in the women’s faces when talk turned to men, though they were too in awe of her to ever make an actual suggestion. Save the breeding part, Raddia wasn’t hostile to the idea, and neither was Yodren, but it wasn’t a pressing issue, and they didn’t wish to upset their pleasantly simple life in any way. Being Yonfi’s carers, his unofficial parents in a sense, was all the family either of them needed.
Ah, Yonfi... Sometimes his mere thought was enough to make her all tearful, and Raddia sniffled and laughed at herself as she added the strips of fatty lamb meat to the sizzling brownish onions. How incredibly tall he’d grown, her darling boy! Soon she’d be able to rest her head against his big chest and feel his arms go all the way around her... Though for the time being, like all children, Yonfi intensely disliked to be hugged (let alone fondled, or kissed) even without others watching, and Raddia had to be extremely careful even when gazing at him or thinking of him too keenly, for Yonfi had as of late developed the uncanny ability to feel her eyes or her mind upon him, and he’d suddenly turn around and catch her staring and blushing and tease her to death, “his lady”!
This pet name had also been a recent invention, for when she’d first suggested that he call her Raddia, Yonfi had said that in Feerien – and as it turned out, in Dwanar as well – it was considered disrespectful to address an elder by his or her name. And so, thinking back on the night when he’d first seen her, and called her a strange Lady, he took to calling her ‘My Lady’, which he found amusing and Raddia so heartwarming she had to pretend to find it funny as well, lest he quit using it. The dear, beloved boy!
As if summoned by her love, Yonfi walked through the door right then, brown with dirt from top to bottom, barefoot and bare-chested, as the men went about when it grew too hot. With a short, comical bow and a half-uttered “M’lady,” he took the jug of water and drained it, and then attacked a bowl of black figs till it was picked clean. Then he let out a loud belch, scratched his belly and his head (gestures of crass manliness he’d picked up at the building site and took care to repeat at any given chance), and informed her that he might be late for supper, for he and some of his friends were going hunting.
“Just be careful, my love,” Raddia said, before she could stop herself. Of course it was the beasts that should be careful, but still she didn’t like the thought of all those boys (children, really) being attacked by huge-tusked boars and big-antlered deer.
Instead of mocking her as she expected, Yonfi behaved as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “Till tonight then, mut,” he said, and turned to leave.
“Wait,” Raddia called, as he was walking out the door. “What does mut mean?” What happened to ‘My Lady’?, she wanted to ask, terrified that he’d given her some new name, meaning, in the language of the locals, ‘old woman’, or something equally awful.
Yonfi turned around again, looking at her with an amused scowl. “I can’t believe you still haven’t learnt a single word of Dwanari! Even babies know what mut means.”
“I know many words, thank you very much! Just not this particular one,” Raddia said, though something inside her fluttered, fluttered, and wouldn’t be still.
Yonfi sighed, and let his shoulders droop. “It means mother, silly,” he said.
e.
The Runes of Norien Page 66