Xulai said, “Except the teaching part . . .”
“Oh, you’ll do well at that. These are very young students, children at the age when learning a language is like learning to breathe. You’ll enjoy it. Tell them stories in Tingawan, translate, repeat; they’ll be telling them to you before long. If you don’t know any stories, ask the school librarian for some children’s books.”
That evening, not long after supper, one of the blue-veiled men, a sly, foxy-looking fellow, arrived with an invitation for Xulai to visit the dyer in his new quarters. As Precious Wind got up, prepared to accompany her, Xulai pressed her back into her chair. “No, Precious Wind. I just want to see what he’s working on and hear a few stories. I’m safe enough here in the abbey and someone will bring me back.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. Sister Tomea insists I’m quite safe and since I’m no longer even a pretend child, it’s time I find my own way about.”
Precious Wind settled into her chair, though Oldwife Gancer shook her head in slight dismay. Giving them no time to formulate an argument, Xulai took a package from a chair by the door and slipped into the corridor behind the blue-veiled man.
“I’m Brother Derris,” he told her cheerfully, looking her over from head to toe as though he were thinking of buying her. “I work mostly with visiting craftsmen and their animals. That’s why they sent me. I like that friend of yours. He’s a strange one.”
“He’s traveled very widely,” Xulai commented. “I’m sure he’s full of stories.”
“As a hive is full of bees, that one! We all like to hear him talk. Here, I’ll show you the short way.”
“Can you show us the way into the—what do you call them, the grounds in back of the abbey where the houses are?”
“The Parkland. Oh, right, you’ll be living there. I can do that. You want to show them to your friend, right?”
“I thought it would interest him, yes.”
“Easy. Here in the abbey, there’s always a dozen hard ways to get anywhere but at least one easy one. That’s us blues’ job—learning the easy ones.” He grinned a carnivorous grin and set out almost at a trot.
They found Abasio’s wagon parked next to a small stable where Blue was comfortably installed. Inside the wagon, the little stove held a steaming kettle. Abasio, on first seeing her, let his hand drop in surprise. It struck the hot kettle and he drew it back with an exclamation.
Blue whinnied, drawing the blue’s attention. Xulai shook her head warningly, and Abasio took a deep breath before bowing and saying, “Welcome.”
“Good fortune,” she replied, bowing even lower.
Brother Derris declined the polite offer of tea and said he would be back shortly to take them into the abbey grounds. They said nothing until he had joined a group of other blue-veiled workers at some distance from them.
Abasio stared at her, saying softly, “Well. Was yesterday’s Xulai the true Xulai, or is today’s . . . ?”
She took a deep breath. “Abasio, which do you prefer?”
“I told you,” said Blue. “I said she was no kiddy-widdy for all that glitter around her making her look like a baby.”
“Do I look different?” she cried.
He looked her over carefully from several angles, hiding his relief. He had not been out of his mind when he had seen her as an older person. This was the truth! Thank God.
He said, “I was having some trouble . . . relating to you. I kept having these . . . rather unsuitable feelings.”
“That’s a good phrase,” she said. “ ‘Unsuitable feelings.’ I’ve been having those for some time now. Several years, at least.”
“About whom?”
She blushed. “Oh, not really about anyone. Just . . . free-floating feelings. Then you came, and they became . . . more unsuitable.”
“Since when?” he asked, startled. He had prided himself on his propriety.
“Since the night you took me under your cloak in the woods at Woldsgard. The night the Duchess of Altamont was there.”
Abasio mused. “Feelings that may have . . . frightened you?”
“Well, no. Actually, I was mostly feeling surprised because I wasn’t frightened. Not with you there. And yet . . . I did not feel as I did when Bear was protecting me from . . . crowds of people or horses. Logically, I should have had similar feelings, shouldn’t I?”
Blue said, “Oh, no. No. Here we go! This is another one of those fated things, isn’t it? Now we’re in for it!”
Surprisingly, his voice was as muted as theirs, or so Xulai thought. Perhaps he did not only speak but had horse-sense as well.
“I don’t know, Blue, and you’re not helping,” snapped Abasio.
Xulai kissed Blue on his nose. “Would you mind if your friend and I just . . . find out what’s happening?” She was examining her mood, finding it inexplicably . . . what was this? Joyous?
“Your mother must have been a lovely-looking woman,” said Abasio.
The joy was stifled.
“Oh, well. Let me tell you about my mother and father,” she said through her teeth, beginning at once to do so. It took some time, a few tears and refills of tea, and Blue’s head was hanging over the rail of the corral before she finished. He was, thanks be, silent.
Abasio mused, “You figure she gave you this ability to make people see you differently.”
“You evidently didn’t see me differently.”
“Oh, yes, I did, but your image kept wavering because I knew I was seeing falsely, if that makes sense. I’ve got a magical helmet, a kind of library that leads me toward the truth, most of the time, so I know what seeing true feels like.” He smiled as he said this, a sad, rather longing smile. “It’s not magic, really, but I call it that. I came by it through a lovely lady I knew once. Her name was Ollie, and her destiny was higher than either of us wanted it to be. She went to meet that destiny and could never return from it, but she left me the magical helmet, and she’s . . . in it, maybe the way your mother is in you. Perhaps you just don’t know how to . . . listen to her yet, or talk to her.”
She found this thought too strange to contemplate at the moment. “No one knows who I really am except Oldwife, Precious Wind, and me. Bear doesn’t know. The men don’t know. They’ll know I look older and Precious Wind will tell them something or other, but don’t you or Blue tell them anything else. Oh, and I brought this.” She handed him the package she had been carrying.
“What’s this all about?”
“I knitted these scarves on the way here as a kind of thank-you to the men who came with us. With winter coming, they’ll be useful, and will you give one to each of our men? Please. They seem shy of me, especially Bartelmy, so you tell them I much I appreciated their help. Then there’s something else! I want you to see this house we’re supposed to live in. It troubles me.”
Abasio went to summon Brother Derris from among his friends and from there followed him around the corner of the stables, through a couple of doors, down a long tunnel, and up a flight of stairs that led out into the light. They were in the enclosed meadow with the forest side behind it. The sheep were beginning to lie down for the night. Through the foliage from the scattered groves, the roofs of the distant houses made geometric shapes against the blank gray of the wall.
“I can bring her back to my place,” Abasio told the brother. “Will you be there?”
Brother Derris nodded. “If you’re not back before dark, I’ll come looking for you.”
They walked away from him, around a copse of trees, and then around another, finally seeing the house, which stood open to the dusk, the rooms still light enough to see by. They wandered through each room of the house and out the back to the row of outbuildings—woodshed at the far left, then stable, paddock, barn with hayloft, then pens for goats or cows. The wall was just behind the paddock, frighteningly close. They turned and went into the house again to stand inside the front door, where they looked at the abbey across the open ground, its r
ear wall crowned with guards.
“No guards!” he said.
“That’s it!” she exclaimed, immediately aware of what had bothered her. “There are no guards on this wall. It’s right up against the forest; anyone could come over it. If someone wanted me out of this house, they’d take me out like a snail out of a shell.”
“The abbey might have outliers, guards out in the woods who’d give an alarm.”
“Enough to stop an army? Enough to stop that man who was with the duchess?”
“The one you turned into a baby for?”
“You heard about that.”
“Oldwife mentioned it. Then got angry at herself for doing so. I had to swear silence. I’ve been doing that a lot lately . . . Hush!” He held up his hand, then grasped her arm and pulled her back inside.
“What?” she whispered.
“Your two Tingawans are coming out to take a look at the house. Do you want them to know we’re here?”
She shook her head. For some reason, she did not.
“Where are they least likely to go?”
“The barn,” she guessed.
They slipped out into the barn and up the ladder into the loft. The hayloft door faced the back of the house; on their right, a small, dirty window looked out into the paddock. The hayloft door was half-open, and the two of them lay in old hay, dry and virtually odorless, no doubt years old. A little time passed and Great Bear and Precious Wind came out the back door of the house to stand peering at the wall.
“I simply think it’s odd that all these houses are empty,” said Precious Wind in Tingawan. “The houses seem very susceptible and unguarded out here.”
Abasio looked at Xulai, eyebrows raised. She put her finger across her lips, mouthing “Later.”
“I inquired,” said Bear in the same language. “There’s a whole army of abbey soldiers encamped back in those woods. No one could approach the wall without their knowing. I wouldn’t go otherwise.”
“I don’t think you should go at all, not just yet. I think that your leaving us is oath-breaking, Bear. You swore to stay with her until she reached Tingawa.”
“You told me a long time ago that the duke would reward us well for our time with Xulai. Well, now we’re here. Did you get a full purse for yourself? No. Neither did I. I asked the man who shows us around to find out whether we had something here waiting for us. He asked the prior. Prior said ask this one and that one, and they all said there was nothing here for us. Now, if that’s all I mean to the great duke, I think the years I’ve already spent are enough!”
Silence. Then, very tentatively, Precious Wind asked, “Why didn’t you wait for me to join you before you asked about it? You know Justinian doesn’t lie.”
“The great Justinian! Pfagh! What I swore I would do was scout the trail south of here, and that’s what I’m going to do. There’s no oath-breaking in that. The only difference is that when I get to Merhaven—isn’t that the refuge harbor that belonged to Prince Orez’s mother?—I’m finding a ship for Tingawa. I’ll send a message, first, that it’s safe to continue the journey, and that’s my sworn duty, done!”
“Bear, give me a day or two!”
“That and no longer. I feel Legami-am calling to me. You don’t know what it’s like, Precious Wind. She’s in my nostrils, in my eyes. I seem to see her, everywhere. Feel her in the bed with me at night. I smell the scent of her. Every night I dream about her. All day she’s there, on my shoulder, whispering my name . . .”
“But who will guard Xulai?”
He snorted. “She seems to do very well by herself.”
Precious Wind’s voice seemed stiff and unnatural. “It still seems unfaithful . . .”
“I have more lives than one to be faithful to! You are not the eldest son of a family who expects you to produce the next generation for the clan. I am. You have three brothers who have taken care of the next generation generously. I haven’t. I have a wife waiting for me. I long for her. I need her. And she needs me! I didn’t know it could happen like this, her voice, the touch of her hand, beckoning, begging, suddenly, out of nothing! This job has stretched on long enough! I didn’t swear to spend my life on it. The scouting trip is the end of it. Even when I return to Tingawa, there is yet a great part of the bride-price to be earned before we can marry.”
This time her voice was angry. “Bear, you’d have had your bride-price twice over from what you’ve been paid if you hadn’t gambled it all away! I can straighten out the matter of the duke’s reward. Justinian would not lie to me, Bear. You must let me set it straight!”
He made a gesture of rejection and they moved back into the house. After a time, they saw Precious Wind walking back across the open ground toward one of the abbey gates, shoulders slumped in dejection. Bear was not with her.
“Stay here,” hissed Xulai. “Don’t move.”
She was down the ladder in a flash and out across the ground toward the house. As she approached a young tree, she heard footsteps and Bear came out of the house once more, this time striding across the paddock toward the wall. To Abasio, watching from the loft, Xulai disappeared. She simply vanished. There was a young tree growing against the wall of the house next to the spot where she had been standing, but she herself was gone. Shaking his head in bemusement, Abasio moved to the window over the paddock to get a better view, cursing silently at the filth on the window, which prevented his seeing clearly.
At the wall, Bear stopped and whistled, three notes, repeated three times. After a moment, the whistle was returned and someone’s head appeared at the top of the wall. There was conversation, which Abasio could barely hear, as the window was not only dirty but tightly closed. The conversation between Bear and the visitor was brief. The head disappeared. Bear turned and went alongside the house and back toward the abbey.
When Abasio reached the loft door, he saw Xulai standing against the wall of the house beside the small tree, tears streaming down her face.
He slid down the ladder and went to her, whispering, “You disappeared!”
“I thought he couldn’t help but see me!”
“He didn’t. He went right by you!”
“It felt weird. I wanted to vanish; I felt something happening to me; my skin tingled, like I was retreating into the background. What did you see?”
“Shadows, like a little tree against the stone. You’re crying! Why?”
“He’s selling me, Abasio. Bear is selling me!”
“Shh. Tell me what he and Precious Wind were talking about.”
“Some time ago my father gave Prince Orez a small fortune to be sent here, to this abbey, to be held for Precious Wind and for Bear. The prior signed a receipt for it and the messengers brought the receipt back to my father. Before we left Wold, my father gave it to Precious Wind. She has it.” She buried her face in her hands, pressing them together as if to hold her head in place.
“All Bear knew was what Precious Wind told him, that he would be rewarded for his long and faithful service. He probably expected to get it before he left Woldsgard. Certainly he expected to get it here. So, he asked someone if there was something here for him, and the person he asked went to the prior and received word that there was not. He is very angry.”
Abasio pulled her to him, hugging her closely. “Knowing Bear, Precious Wind probably intended to get the payment from the abbey but not pass it on to Bear until we were on a ship headed for Tingawa. Any earlier than that, he would lose it all.”
“I know. That’s what I told Precious Wind.”
Abasio murmured, “Bear’s weakness for wagering is almost legendary! I knew that about him within hours of the time we met at Woldsgard. One of the stablemen told me he won two gold pieces from Bear betting on which flea crawling up his arm would bite him first.”
“I know all the reasons, Abasio! But we should have told him something! Reassured him! I thought Precious Wind would have done that, though maybe she didn’t want to get into a fight over it now. Bear is very
angry and it would cause a great trouble if he went after the prior, because we know the prior has lied to us.”
Abasio nodded slowly. “Yes. That may be part of her thinking. There’s no doubt another part. Any man who can be bought once can be bought again—by anyone else who pays more. Precious Wind may suspect he’s involved in some scheme. She sounded shocked and wary to me. Who was the man at the wall?”
She shivered. “The man at the wall was Jenger, the duchess’s man. He was with her when they stopped us on the road. Bear told Jenger he’d get me into this house quickly, so they could come over the wall and take me. He said to wait until he left on his scouting trip south, then they could get me out of here with no trouble.”
“You’re sure he was the Duchess of Altamont’s man?”
She nodded, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. “Oh, yes. Both times I saw his face clearly. I heard his voice.”
Abasio took his arms from around her and stood away, thinking. “There’s something going on here that doesn’t make sense. When did this man, Jenger, have time to make any agreement with Bear? When did he have time to get here? We only arrived yesterday. Bear was with the other men the entire trip from Benjobz Inn to here, and he hasn’t left the abbey today. I can see the gates from where I’m staying, near the stables, and he didn’t go out on a horse.”
She shook her head hopelessly. “Could it all have been decided before we left Woldsgard? If I hadn’t made the horse biscuits, we’d have been there on Altamont ground when the duchess came the next morning. Maybe Bear meant us to be there.”
Abasio walked back and forth, mumbling to himself, finally stopping to say, “No, no. I don’t think so. I saw him then, during the trip down the valley and that episode at the bridge. He was genuinely irritated. I don’t think he had been bought before that. The story he told us about this house being safe because there are troops in the forest, however—that may be something we can check. Either Bear lied, or he was careless in what he said, or—”
“Or the abbot will confirm that there are troops . . .”