Читать книгу The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection - Megan Lindholm - Страница 17

Firbanks was a dusty, cold little town huddled between two forested mountains. It possessed a single inn, run by a Human and a Tcheria in partnership. To Ki’s regret, the Tcheria managed the food area. There were no tables and benches, only squat-legged trays full of sand raked smooth. Tcheria preferred it so. Guests were expected to crouch on straw mats beside the trays while they ate. Ki found the trays too tall if she sat on the floor, and too uncomfortable to hunker beside. She had brought one of her blankets up from the wainwright’s and, in defiance of local custom, folded it for a cushion. A young Tcheria of the third gender had raked her sand table smooth and brought her hot food and a yellow wine. Ki’s nose told her that the bread was freshly baked. She picked more cautiously at the grayish hunks of meat and green sprouts that swam in her bowl of greasy broth. She frowned at the thought of the two copper dru that had paid for it.

The wainwright had demanded nearly all the money she had as an advance before he would begin work on the wagon. She and her team were making a small wage, pulling logs down from the mountainside. It would be enough to pay for the wagon’s completion. Ki stifled the impatience that rose in her at the thought of the days of work and waiting before her. She had, she reminded herself, no fixed goal. No matter how often the idea came to her, she would not push on to Thesus. Bad enough that she had stopped at the Inn of the Three Pheasants to ask after a man with a bandaged face. Micket, the innkeeper, had been surprised at her queries. She had not enjoyed the speculative look in his eyes. And worse, that she sought out in Firbanks a wainwright that recognized Vandien’s name. To go any further would be to admit to more than concern for his safe journey. She sipped the yellow wine, frowning at its curious flavor.

Besides, no doubt Vandien was long gone from Thesus by now. And if he wasn’t, he would be before the damn wagon was finished.

The wagon. She sipped more wine, as if to drown the thought. No matter how many times she explained it all to the sweating wainwright in his shop, no matter how often she measured out the spaces with her hands, it would not be the same wagon. This wainwright of Vandien’s had his own ideas. He wished to set the wheels differently so they could be exchanged for skids in deep snow. He wanted to make the cuddy larger and put a second door that went out the side of the wagon. He insisted that she needed more and larger windows, and a wider bed. Every day Ki told him exactly how the wagon was to be. And every day, when he spoke of how his work went, it had been done as he had suggested. Today Ki had threatened not to pay. He had said, ‘So, build it yourself if you are so particular.’ The man was impossible. She didn’t know why she dealt with him. He was as impossible as Vandien himself.

She took another sip of the wine. She was becoming accustomed to the flavor. It was all the inn offered.

A patron nudged her shoulder in passing. Ki turned to glare at the knees behind her. Boots of soft leather were fastened right below them. Ki’s eyes traveled up. She could not speak.

His eyes she recognized. He had scraped away all his beard except for a moustache above his unsmiling mouth. His hair had been trimmed back off his shoulders. The scar was a pale track across his weathered face. It pulled one eye askew. His face and body had fleshed out, much to his advantage. The soft linen shirt that opened at his throat was clean, the saddle pack slung over his shoulder was supple new leather. He wore a curious vest with a strange blue pattern worked into it. On one hand was a plain ring with a single stone set into it. A slender rapier in a battered sheath dangled at his side. He did not smile as he gazed down on her.

The saddle pack dropped to the floor on the other side of the sand table. He sat on it, pushing his rapier’s hilt to swing the weapon out of his way. He set an empty glass on the table and put a spherical bottle of the yellow wine beside it. He nested it down into the sand with an expert’s touch. He placed both elbows in the sand and leaned his chin in them.

‘All Tcheria utensils have round bottoms. Now you know why they use a tray full of sand. Nothing tips over.’

‘Oh.’ His solemnity daunted her.

‘You finished up all your business in Diblun?’

‘Yes.’ Damn his grim face. ‘I delivered my freight.’

He nodded sagely as she spoke, pouring wine for himself. He took a long sip of it, waiting. Ki looked down at her bowl, her long hair spilling forward to hide her chastened face. A heaviness of a chance lost grew inside her.

‘I saved Sven’s things for you. I knew you would want them.’

‘I don’t. Get rid of them, Van.’

His face went white and taut. He stood up, nearly knocking over the sand table, wine and all. The black hurt in his eyes was unmistakable now. Humans and Tcheria turned to watch. Vandien stooped to snatch up his saddle pack, growling as he did. ‘There was no call for that, Ki. Just tell me to leave. I only meant well.’

Her knees bumped the low table as she rose in awkward bewilderment. She spread the fingers of one hand, forced it to settle on his shoulder. She tugged him back to face her. His lips were tight, his scar a whiter seam across a pale face. Under her hand, rage coursed through his body.

‘And I only meant well,’ she explained. ‘Why do you take offense?’

He looked down at her hand on his shoulder. Gradually his breathing slowed and his shoulders lowered. He glared around at the folk who stared at them, searing them with his eyes. Humans and Tcheria suddenly resumed conversations, picked up glasses again. Vandien dropped his saddle pack beside Ki’s folded blanket. Ki sat hesitantly, and Vandien settled cautiously beside her.

‘Among my people …’ Regret tinged his voice, and he began again. ‘Among those with whom I have had to deal these past days, to shorten a man’s name is insult most vile. It shortens the man. It implies he is a disgrace to the unnamed parent, or unclaimed by one.’

‘Among my people, it is a sign of affection. And the Romni do not cherish the possessions of their dead.’

‘I did not know you were Romni.’

‘Neither did I. But it is so.’

Vandien refilled both their glasses. ‘We do not get many of them on this side of the mountains.’ He smiled speculatively. ‘They are a life-loving people, so I have heard.’

‘So we are.’

Vandien looked at her steadily. ‘Your hair is longer than I supposed it, unbound like that.’ He touched it gently with the back of his hand. Ki smelled the fern-sweetness of his skin. She smiled.