From Across the Clouded Range (15 page)

Teth jumped. Her heart hammered. “I
thought you were sleeping. You almost scared the life out of
me.”

“
So which is it?” Milne’s
head appeared around the chair. She held the red cloth to her mouth
and wheezed.

Teth sagged. “Forkleaf petals,” she
admitted, holding her hand out for her aunt to see.

Milne chuckled. “I never thought of
you as believing such nonsense, but it won’t hurt him, so you’re
welcome to try.”

Feeling foolish didn’t stop Teth from
dropping the small pink petals in the pot. Forkleaf petals were
rumored to calm men’s hearts, make them desire a settled life, and
look on a woman more fondly. Milne made good money selling the
petals that only grew in the higher elevations for a short time
each year but privately dismissed their efficacy at every
opportunity. Still, Teth wanted all the help she could get. She
added water to the pot and placed it on a polished wooden tray with
two cups. “Would you like some?” she remembered herself and asked
Milne.

“
Not with that stuff in
it,” Milne made a face. “Are you going to change your clothes
before he arrives?”

Teth looked at herself. She was
wearing her usual short pants and long-sleeved shirt. Her feet were
bare, her hair was a mess, and her breasts were bound with cloth.
“I suppose,” she admitted. “Not that the dress is much
better.”
“It will have to do. Speaking of which, how is the gown
coming?”

“
It looks like it was sewn
by a sailor on a three-day binge, but it’s almost done.”

“
I’m sure no one will
notice the dress, my dear. They will be too busy looking at the
beautiful creature wearing it.”

Teth stuck her tongue out at her
aunt.

“
You best get going,”
Milne warned. “I hear rustling in the trees. I think your promised
has come to call.”

“
Curse the Order,” Teth
swore. “Can you stall him while I change?”

“
Of course, dear. Now
hurry upstairs. He’ll be here in a few seconds.”

Teth turned and bounded up the stairs
two at a time. By the time she reached the window of her room,
Dasen was too close for her to see. She cursed silently and
searched the room for her only reasonable dress. Below, she heard
Milne greeting Dasen. Her raspy voice was too soft to make out the
words, but Dasen’s was clear. “It is nice to see you again. I
somehow remember coming here when I was a boy. You always had the
best treats.” Dasen clearly knew how to reach Milne’s heart,
compliment her cooking.

Milne coughed. Teth flung open the
trunk at the end of her bed.

“
Please let me help you to
your chair or would your bed be more comfortable?” Dasen asked. “Of
course, you are capable, but what is the purpose of the young but
to help the old?”

A mistake there, Teth thought. Milne
hated being reminded that she was old.

“
My father told me that
you had been ill. I was very sorry to hear it and have prayed to
the Order that you recover quickly.”

Teth made a face at the overly pious
sentiment – if the Order cared, Milne wouldn’t have gotten sick in
the first place. She pulled out the dress and started to remove her
clothes.

“
You can’t know that,”
Dasen said, aghast. “The Order is often mysterious, and we can only
align ourselves to It and trust that Its goodness will protect
us.”

By the
Order
, Teth thought,
am I going to be the first girl to join a counselor?
She unwound the cloth from her chest and pulled
the blue dress over her head. Her shoulders barely made it through
the small arm holes. The material strained until she thought it
might split. It sagged through the middle and only fell to the
center of her calves. With her breast unbound and legs uncovered,
she felt absolutely naked.
How can anyone
dress like this?
She could not ever
imagine being comfortable in such a creation.

“
Is Tethina here?” Dasen
asked. “I understand. Certainly I am in no hurry. We have at least
an hour before the sun is down.”

Teth quickly ran a wire brush through
her hair, working out the few snags and wishing for the first time
that she had a mirror in her room. She slid in two simple clips to
hold the fine strands behind her ears. There was barely enough
there to clip – it would have just reached her eyes without them.
Most women in the village wore their hair in great braids wound
upon their heads. They seldom, if ever, cut it. Teth could never
deal with that but suddenly felt embarrassed by her child’s length
crop of hair. It was even shorter now that Milne had evened it out.
She had said that was better than having it look like it had been
cut with a knife by a fire, which was exactly how Teth had last cut
it.

“
My studies have been very
productive,” Dasen explained. “I am given a great deal of freedom
to follow my own projects and spend most of it studying the order
of commerce and labor. I think Tethina will very much enjoy the
university. It has the first college for study of the matronly side
of the Order. . . . Yes, it is quite revolutionary.”

Finally, she retrieved her shoes from
beneath her bed. They were ragged with blood still staining the
leather, but the only others she had here were long, heavy,
fur-lined boots that she wore in the winter. She took a deep
breath, felt the heat rising in her face, the sweat forming on her
brow and down her back. Despite the heat, she shivered. With an
uncharacteristic prayer, she opened the door and started down the
stairs. A thousand questions crammed her mind. As many potential
scenarios played out – everything from him running into her arms to
running out the door. After nearly two weeks to think about it, she
knew now that Milne had been right, she had to change, but she
would never, could never be like other women. She could not host
teas, command servants, lay in bed, belly swollen with a child.
Could he understand that, meet her in the middle, craft his world
to fit a misfit like her?

With each step, her apprehension
built. If he chose, Dasen could destroy her, lock her in a house,
beat her, rape her, ignore her. Milne had said to be his friend, to
trust him, but it was too big a risk. She had decided that she
would do whatever she must to remain free. She would try to win
Dasen to her side, but if they could not find a common ground by
the time the forest ended, she would disappear, return to the
forest and cast her lot with the animals and trees. Once they
reached the city, he would have all the power. If she had not
swayed him by then, she never would.

Her pulse quickened until blood
pounded in her ears when she reached the bottom step and saw Dasen.
He rose immediately from his chair and met her eye. She was struck
by how tall he was. He was probably half-a-head taller than her,
and she was as tall as most of the village men. She was not used to
looking up to anyone and found it unnerving, but she held his
gaze.

“
Tethina,” he started
cautiously. Blood rose in his face. “It . . . it is good to see you
again.” He bowed slightly then approached. “I . . . I am sorry it
has been so long. I should have written. If I had known . . .
.”

Teth could not stop herself from
laughing. “If you had known we were going to be joined? I think
that caught us both by surprise.” She cast a look at Milne, who
only smiled.

“
Well,” Dasen sighed. He
now stood a long pace from her and seemed to be wondering what to
do next. He scanned her up and down, trying to keep his expression
neutral but failing utterly to hide his bewilderment. He was
obviously surprised but not as much as he could have been. So how
much did he know? She had always assumed that he knew as much about
her as she knew about him, but maybe that was not the case. So he
was either surprised to see the infamous Teth in a dress or
surprised to see a normal girl in such a shambles of a
dress.

She decided to end his confusion. She
took a deep breath. “I don’t know how much you have heard, but I
don’t usually wear dresses – they aren’t very practical in the
forest – and this is the only one I have that is even close to
fitting.”

Dasen gulped. “I . . . well, I suppose
we’ll have to remedy that.” He looked her up and down again, trying
to hide his dismay. “I am sure we can have something more
appropriate made before we arrive in Thoren.”

“
I’m sure you’re right,”
Teth conceded. She was not sure what she had wanted him to say, but
that had not been it. She suddenly felt less comfortable in the
dress than she ever had. She brushed by Dasen and walked to the
table. “Can I get you some tea?”

“
That would be lovely,”
Dasen leapt, obviously relieved to change the subject. “Milne, will
you join us? I see that only two cups have been laid
out.”

Milne watched Dasen for a long moment
then rose and put a hand on each of his arms. “It is meant for
you,” she rasped with a wink. “I think I’ll lie down for a
while.”

“
I should leave you then.”
Dasen looked suddenly nervous, as if he were being left alone with
a semi-trained bear.

“
No, dear,” Milne assured.
“Despite her appearance, Tethina doesn’t actually bite. You’ll be
fine without me.”

That only seemed to increase Dasen’s
apprehension. “I . . . I’m sure, but my concern is . . . . I mean.
. . it is not that she will . . . I mean shouldn’t she have a
chaperone.”

Milne laughed, and Teth could not
suppress a snicker. “First of all,” Milne said, “you are to be
joined tomorrow. Even if anything happened, I doubt anyone would
care. But most important, I do not have any fear that our Tethina
cannot take care of herself.” Dasen’s eyes crept back to Teth, who
was standing in her natural position, axe handle straight on the
balls of her feet, muscles taught. He released a long breath and
looked suddenly faint.

“
Here is your tea,” Teth
offered. She approached and handed him a cup then turned to help
her aunt to her room. She heard Dasen sip the tea and watched him
over her shoulder. Would the forkleaf petals work? As the tea hit
is tongue, Teth saw his face transform but not as she had hoped. He
winced, pursed his lips, and barely forced his mouth to swallow.
His eyes went to the cup in profound distaste as he worked his
tongue in his mouth.

“
That is why it doesn’t
work,” Milne whispered. “It tastes terrible. No man in his right
mind would drink enough for it to have any effect. Your natural
charms will have to be enough this time.” She laughed and patted
Teth on the arm.
So it does work!
Teth thought,
I just
have to find a way to mask its taste.

When she returned from her aunt’s
room, Dasen’s tea was sitting on the small table between the two
chairs. He eyed it dubiously as if it might bite him. Teth used his
distraction to inspecting him. Over the past few days, she had
constructed an image of Dasen from her distant memory and Ipid’s
letters. To her surprise, he looked almost exactly like she thought
he would, like an overdressed counselor who never made it out of
his church. He did not look like he had done a real day’s work in
his life, like he had never even seen the sun, like he couldn’t
walk fifty paces without being winded. His clothes were
extravagant, perfectly pressed, and, from all appearances, brand
new. He wore heather-grey pants of such a fine weave that Teth
could not even see the individual threads. They were cuffed smartly
at the top of his shining black boots and creased all the way up to
where they met his slate-grey jacket. The five onyx buttons running
down the jacket were undone, revealing a black vest embroidered
with tiny blue, red, and yellow flowers peeking from thin green
vines. Five additional buttons glimmered like rainbows from the
vest until they gave way to a shimmering blue silk scarf that had
been tied around the top of his crisp white cotton shirt and then
tucked into the vest.

As impressive as that
seemed, the clothes did not suit the man. He looked as out of place
as Teth would wearing that joining gown tomorrow. He pulled
absently at the tight collar as sweat ran down his brow and cheek.
The vest was too snug as were the pants. He shifted from foot to
foot as if trying to find a comfortable way to stand in the boots.
Despite his attempts, he lacked the posture to maintain the lines
of the suit. His shoulders slumped, legs sagged, and belly stuck
out. Most of all, his face lacked the command his clothes required.
It was narrow and long, cheeks high and sunken, nose pinched, jaw
angular. His ears stuck out from his narrow head like two handles –
Teth suppressed a smile as she remembered grabbing those ears as a
girl; how he had screamed. His neck was long and white as bone as
were his hands and face. His narrow lips were drawn together in
contemplation. His, maybe brown, eyes studied the room with honest
interest as if trying to link every object into a larger pattern
that he could not quite capture. None of these characteristics
struck Teth as something she saw in men who wore suits like
Dasen’s: the governor, Ipid’s assessors, the few other officials
who ventured to these distant parts. All in all, Dasen looked
thoughtful, unassuming, and kind, just like the boy she had known
so many years before.
But will he accept
me as I am? He could certainly be worse.