Blood Storm: The Second Book of Lharmell (12 page)

I felt a pang when I looked at our joined hands, the silver rings we each wore. I remembered what he’d asked all those months ago on the parapet in Pergamia when I’d given the ring back to him.
Something to remember you by?
Would he remember me once we were parted; would he still wear the ring? Would I, once I was married?

‘Are you going to open it?’ he asked, nodding at the parcel.

Reluctantly, I let go of his hand. I unravelled the black cloth to reveal a bow. It was the perfect size and weight for me: half the length of my body and made of taut, honey-coloured wood. I’d been without a bow since we’d been thrown from the
Jessamine
. I’d intended to buy one, but hadn’t found one of the right quality. I turned it in my hands. ‘It’s perfect,’ I breathed. ‘When did you buy it?’

‘That first day in Pol.’

I thought back. That was the day we’d quarrelled, the first day he’d disappeared into the warren of laneways in search of something or someone he wouldn’t speak of. I thought that he’d forgotten me altogether as soon as he’d left our rooms. I wanted to ask,
What came first? The bow
for me? Or had there been someone else foremost in your thoughts?

‘It’s made of Amentine ash,’ he said, and I nodded, having already recognised the grain. I felt homesick as I stroked the polished wood, which was ridiculous considering how reluctant I was to return.

‘I miss the mountains,’ I said. ‘The desert makes me dizzy. What’s it like for you? To be home again after all these years, I mean.’

Rodden rubbed at Leap. ‘Peculiar. I never thought I’d see my home again. I banished myself years ago.’ He nudged me with his shoulder. ‘There’s more,’ he said, nodding at the black cloth.

I searched the folds and found bowstrings and a quiver of arrows.

‘Not Griffin’s,’ he said as I examined the mustard-coloured feathers the arrows were fletched with. ‘Local falcons. Fast ones. Lucky for arrows.’

I hooked a string to the base of the bow, rested the butt on the floor and, holding it secure with my foot, looped the string over the other end with one fluid movement. I hefted the weapon with my left hand and pulled the string with my right. It flexed under my firm grasp. ‘It will be good to shoot some arrows again.’ I turned to Rodden. ‘Thank you.’

He was watching me, and I realised he had been the
whole time I was distracted by my present. I lowered the bow. Unbidden, my eyes flicked to his mouth. I felt the thread between us tighten. Though we sat close he held that part of himself distant, the part that could blend with my own like two rivers running together, if only he would allow it. I hadn’t expected to ever want that. I hadn’t expected to need that.

I hadn’t imagined I would ever fall in love.

He couldn’t help but hear the direction of my thoughts. I let him hear, and see their manifestation on my face.

‘You’re welcome,’ he said. His lips when they came touched my cheek, soft but chaste. He stood and tugged on my hand. ‘Come on. They’ll be wondering where you are.’

I fumbled with the cloth in my lap, eyes lowered so he couldn’t see the sudden sheen to my eyes. ‘Of course they won’t be,’ I muttered. But in my confusion I allowed myself to be pulled to my feet and out of the wagon. He stayed close as we paced through the darkness. I peered sidelong at his face but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Though it was foolish, I allowed myself to hope that his kiss had been for my cheek and not my mouth due to an observance of chivalry. He’d kissed me once before; now I found myself hoping that he would do so again.

The Jarbin had made a circle of rugs around a flat, hard-packed expanse of ground. Lanterns cast bright yellow light, and as we stepped into the circle a greeting rose above the chatter and music. Two boys jumped up and guided us to a carpet beside the leader. He stood and kissed my hands, and spoke a few words. Then he smiled, his large white teeth glowing in the lamplight.

‘He says happy birthday,’ Rodden translated.

I turned to Rodden in surprise. ‘You told him?’

He grinned. ‘I told everyone. An easy thing, as you might imagine, to keep secret from you.’

My hands still in the leader’s, I gazed around the circle in amazement at upturned faces and warm smiles. After feeling like a ghost among them for many days, I blushed at the attention.

I was bade to sit, and settled between the leader and Rodden.

‘How do I say “thank you” in Jarbin?’ I whispered.

‘“
Preibek,
Uwin.” Uwin is his name.’

I turned to Uwin, and bowed my head respectfully. ‘
Preibek,
Uwin.’

Uwin’s eyes shone with pleasure. He grasped my hand once again and called out to the tribe, which brought on cheers and delighted smiles.

Beside me, Rodden laughed and applauded with the rest of them.

‘What? What did he say?’

‘He told them you just spoke your first words of Jarbin.’

I reddened all over again. ‘For heaven’s sake,’ I muttered, smiling.

Rodden accepted two cups of wine from a man with a flagon. ‘
Preibek
,’ he said, before turning to me. ‘I don’t think they’ve ever heard an Amentine princess utter a word of Jarbin, do you?’

I looked around the animated circle and thought of the girls whose wagon I shared, and wondered if their effusiveness of an evening was their normal behaviour after all, rather than a ploy to annoy the foreign girl.

Drumbeats filled the air. Six men leapt into the circle brandishing crossed swords over their heads. They were clad in boleros and white trousers. After displaying their swords – and their bared teeth – to the crowd with a zeal that bordered on threatening, they placed their crossed swords on the sand and began an intricate dance. They leapt over the blades, their bare feet just missing the sharpened edges, and twined around one another, arms akimbo, fists pressed into hips. After a short but wild performance,
they retrieved their swords and flung their arms over their heads with a loud ‘
Yah!
’

At our rapturous applause their stern faces melted into grins and they hopped about, bowing. Before running off again into the darkness they each gripped both their swords in one hand and held the blades behind them, and with their free hands took turns to grasp one of mine and kiss it. I barely had time to murmur ‘
Preibek
’ to each of them before they darted off.

The sound of a lone pipe twined upwards in the evening air. A hush fell over the circle. A tattoo was rapped out on a tambourine, accompanied by the twangs of a stringed instrument. The tune was cheeky and rapid, and on its heels followed a troupe of dancers, ten women in coloured silk skirts and beaded halters. Arms rippling like water, they stepped into the arena. To the rapid beat of the music they assembled in two rows and began rolling their hips and stomachs. Their bellies were not one curved plane but several independently moving parts. Their spines seemed disjointed. I was as hypnotised by the swaying and popping movements as a snake by a charmer.

When the women finished their dance and the applause died away, Rodden rose and tugged at my
hand. He called to the musicians and they laughed and nodded, taking up their instruments once more.

‘You remember the brinle?’ he asked me, a twinkle in his eyes. The brinle was a courtly dance from Brivora.

‘You want me to dance – after that performance?’ I tried to take my hand back but he held fast. ‘The musicians won’t even know the brinle,’ I protested.

He pulled me to my feet. ‘They know “ol Gesta”, which is close enough.’

‘I need to practise – I can’t remember –’ I hissed, conscious of everyone’s eyes on us.

He put a finger to my lips, eyes shining with amusement. In spite of myself, I found myself smiling back, and as the first notes began I allowed myself to be tugged into the centre of the circle.

The brinle was a couple’s dance but this particular one was unusual as it was danced by only a single pair. I turned out my feet and fanned my loose trousers like I would a skirt. Rodden pressed his arms to his side. He caught my eye and winked, and I bit back a smile as the beginning of the dance demanded an aloof expression.

Then we began. Like most court dances, the brinle consisted of simple steps and turns. But this dance told a story, one almost comic, of a girl purposely
oblivious to the attentions of a suitor. I kept my chin up and face turned away from Rodden, my eyes on the stars when I knew he was looking, but sneaking looks when I knew he wasn’t. My alternating expressions of detachment and fascination drew laughter from the crowd. The music became rapid. The steps became skips, the dance a chase now, and the laughter became shouts of amusement as I evaded Rodden, still pretending I had no idea he was there. The finale came with a crescendo of beating drums. I evaded, turned – and found myself nose-to-nose with him, breathing heavily.

We were both smiling as the applause erupted. On impulse I stood on tiptoe and pressed my mouth against his. He returned the kiss, but quickly broke it. As he pulled away I saw anger flash in his eyes.

My pleasure at the dance faded. Why did I have to go and do a stupid thing like that?

Rodden grasped my hand tightly – too tightly – and we bowed and curtseyed to the Jarbin. I kept a smile plastered on my face but my stomach was churning. He was angry. I had kissed him and he was angry.

He steered me out of the circle of light, his grip hard and unfriendly, and into the hush of the desert. In the light of the moon I could see the familiar agitated set
to his shoulders. His mouth was a grim line. When we’d disappeared behind the crest of a dune he at last came to a halt and dropped my hand.

‘Sit.’

‘
Please
,’ I corrected. ‘What? Did I offend you? Did I break some rule of propriety?’

He paced before me, hand to his mouth. The minutes stretched between us.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said at last.

‘About what?’

‘You want to know everything. I will tell you everything.’

I felt a flash of triumph.

He knelt before me in the sand and gripped my forearms. ‘I’ve been lying to you.’ His voice remained flat.

I searched his face in the wan starlight; explored the thread between us. I shook my head. ‘No.
That
is a lie. You said it yourself: you can’t lie to a harming.’

‘I can,’ he averred. ‘I can hide things from you. There is such a thing as a lie by omission. I am not proud of what I have done – that is certainly the truth – but it is my knowledge, and my price to pay. But I will tell you now because of the way you feel about me. I see myself reflected in your eyes and it
is not the man I really am. Since we were lost at sea, I’ve felt you . . .’ He released my arms. ‘You shall change your mind soon enough. But I do not want your forgiveness, or your pity, though you might think to extend it. I will tell you all because I do not wish to lead you further down this path we’re on. You will not thank me for revealing the truth. In fact, you may hate me from this night on. So be it.’

‘You can tell me anything. It won’t change what I feel,’ I said. ‘I don’t care about your past. I can see you’re a good person. Don’t you think I can see that?’

‘You can’t see it. I haven’t let you.’

‘I know you, Rodden,’ I insisted. ‘I know everything about you, just as you know everything about me – everything that matters. I might not know the details, but I’m not blind. When I look at you I can see your goodness.’ I reached up to touch his cheek.

He slapped my hand away. ‘You know nothing,’ he growled. He pulled himself from my grasp and turned away, sitting with his back to me on the slope of the dune.

‘Once,’ he said, in a voice as cold as Amentine ice, ‘I killed everyone I loved.’

I waited in the blackness of the night. Shook my head though he couldn’t see me. But even as
I denied it, I felt the truthfulness of his words as he finally, deliberately, relaxed the tight hold he kept on himself. Then I didn’t just feel the truth, I was struck by it. Wave after wave of pure emotion like a ship battered in a storm. Grief and fear and a great pounding guilt. I clutched my head, reeling from the sensations.

‘You see?’ he whispered, his voice faint to my ears as my head throbbed to the beat of his remorse.

‘My family was poor, like most others in Pol. We eked out a living doing whatever was necessary. My mother wove cloth from the few goats we kept; my sisters helped her as soon as they were tall enough to hold a spindle. My brother, older than me by eight years, hired on with mercenaries to the south, but was killed before the coin he’d been promised could be sent home.

‘My father was a clever man, and saw the virtues of an education that he himself had lacked. Though my mother denied the privilege to her daughters, who would never leave to be killed in someone else’s war, she feared the fate of my elder brother might befall me, and consented to my education.

‘The money my father made crushing sand and metals to make dye for rich Brivorans paid for books and a tutor. I was sent to a man called Levin Servilock, who ran a school for boys on the far side of the city. Six days a week, from the time I was seven years old, I attended what was known as the Clan. The lessons began innocently enough: geography, mathematics, the sciences, languages. I was taught not only the intricacies of my native tongue but other local dialects, such as Jarbin, and the languages of other continents. I became fluent in Brivoran. Then came archery and tracking. Swordplay. Knife skills. We were taught to fight and to hunt. This made little sense at the time. We were to be tradespeople and caravan masters, not warriors, after all.