The Kiss of Deception (33 page)

I said a quick nervous remembrance out of respect and dug in. They chattered as I ate, sometimes in their own language, sometimes in mine. The young girl who had brought the food told me her name was Natiya and asked me dozens of questions that I answered between mouthfuls. I was gluttonous and didn’t try to hide it, licking my fingers and sighing with each delicious morsel. At one point, I thought I might cry with gratitude, but crying would have interrupted my feast.

Natiya’s questions ranged from how old I was to wondering which food I liked the best, but when she asked, “Are you really a princess?” the chatter in the tent stopped and they all looked at me, waiting.

Was I?

I had abdicated that role weeks ago when I left Civica and banished the phrase “Her Royal Highness” from Pauline’s vocabulary. I certainly didn’t look like or act like one now. Yet I had just pulled the title out of exile quite readily when it suited me. I recalled Walther’s words:
You’ll always be you, Lia.

I reached out and cupped her chin and nodded. “But no more than you are for bringing me this meal. I am truly grateful.”

She smiled and lowered her long dark lashes, a blush warming her cheeks. The chatter resumed, and I went back to my last butter tart.

*   *   *

When I had eaten my fill, they took me to another tent and, as promised, worked on my hair. It took a fair amount of labor, but they were gentle and patient. While two of the women combed through each strand, others drew a bath, filling a large copper tub with water warmed over a fire. I noticed their sideways glances. I was a curiosity to them. They probably never had female visitors. When the bath was ready, I didn’t care who saw me naked. I stripped and soaked and closed my eyes and let them rub their oils and herbs into my skin and hair and prayed if I was going to die on this journey that it could be right now.

They were curious too about my kavah, calling it a tattoo, which I realized it was at this point. There was nothing temporary about it anymore. They traced the design with their fingers, saying how stunning it was. I smiled. I was glad someone thought so.

“And the colors,” Natiya said. “So pretty.”

Colors? There was no color. Only the deep rust-colored lines that made up the design, but I assumed that was what she meant.

I heard shouting outside the tent and started forward. The woman called Reena gently pushed me back. “That’s just the men. They’re back from the hot springs and paying their respects, though their tributes will likely continue in the tent long into the night.”

They were a more reverent sort than I thought. Their boisterous noise faded, and I went back to the luxury of my bath. I hated the idea of putting my filthy rags back on, but then when I dried off, the women began dressing me in their own clothes, holding up various skirts, scarves, blouses and beads as if they were dressing a child. When they were finished, I felt like a princess again—a vagabond princess. Reena placed a silky blue scarf edged with elaborate silver beadwork on my head, centering it so a V of beads dangled down my forehead.

She stepped back with her hands on her hips to review her handiwork. “You look less like a she-wolf now and more like a true member of the Tribe of Gaudrel.”

The Tribe of Gaudrel? I turned my head, looking down at the flowered carpet.
Gaudrel.
It seemed so familiar, like the name had passed my lips before. “Gaudrel,” I whispered, testing the word out and then I remembered.

Ve Feray Daclara au Gaudrel.

It was in the title of one of the books I had stolen from the Scholar.

I call to her, weeping, praying she hears,

Don’t be afraid, child,

The stories are always there.

Truth rides the wind,

Listen and it will find you.

I will find you.

—The Last Testaments of Gaudrel

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

I lay on my stomach in the meadow, carefully turning the brittle pages of the ancient manuscript. I had shooed off Eben under threat of his life. Now he maintained a safe distance, playing with the wolves and showering them with something I hadn’t thought he even possessed—affection.

Apparently he had been burdened with the task of watching me while Kaden went to pay his respects to the God of Grain. How great this god must be that he would entrust me to Eben, though I was sure Kaden knew I was no fool. I needed to regain some strength before I parted ways with them. I would bide my time. For now.

I also felt the pull of something else.

There was more I needed here besides food and rest.

The words of the old manuscript were a mystery to me, though some I could guess at, given their frequency and positions. Many of the words seemed to have the same roots as Morrighese, but I wasn’t sure, because several of the letters were formed differently. A simple key would have helped enormously—the kind the Scholar had in abundance. I had showed it to Reena and the others, but the language was as foreign to them as it was to me. An ancient language. Even on the page, I could see that it was written differently from the way they spoke. Their words were breathy and smooth. These had a harsher cadence. I marveled at how quickly things were lost, even words and language. This may have been written by one of their ancestors, but it was no longer understood by the Tribe of Gaudrel. I touched the letters, handwritten with a careful pen. This book was meant to last the ages. What did the Scholar want with it? Why had he hidden it? I traced my fingers over the letters again.

Meil au ve avanda. Ve beouvoir. Ve anton.

                 
Ais evasa levaire, Ama. Parai ve siviox.

Ei revead aida shameans. Aun spirad. Aun narrashen. Aun divesad etrevaun.

          
Ei útan petiar che oue, bamita.

How would I ever learn what the book said if Gaudrel’s own people didn’t know?
The Tribe of Gaudrel.
Why had I never heard of this book before? To us they had been only vagabonds, rootless people with no history, but they clearly had one the Scholar wanted hidden. I closed the book and stood, brushing bits of grass from my skirt, watching the meadow go from green to gold as a last sliver of sun dropped behind a mountain.

A haunting silence pressed down on me.
Here.

I closed my eyes, feeling a familiar ache. The bitter need swelled inside. I felt like a child again, staring into a black starlit sky, everything I wanted beyond my reach.

“So you think you have the gift.”

I whirled and found myself looking into the deeply lined face of the old woman, Dihara. I blinked, caught off guard. “Who told you that?”

She shrugged. “The stories … they travel.” She carried a spinning wheel and a burlap sack hung over her shoulder. She walked past me, the tall grass shivering in her wake as she carried the wheel to where the meadow met the river. She faced one direction then the other, as if listening for something, and set the wheel down in a clearing where the grass was shorter. She dropped the sack from her shoulder to the ground.

I ambled closer but still kept some distance, unsure if she’d welcome my presence. I stared at her back, noticing that her long silver braids almost touched the ground when she sat.

“You may come near,” she said. “The wheel will not bite. Nor will I.”

For an old woman, she had very good hearing.

I sat on the ground a few paces away. How did she know about my supposed gift? Had Finch or Griz told her about me? “What do you know of the gift?” I asked.

She grunted. “That you know little of it.”

She didn’t get that information from Griz or Finch, since they were thoroughly convinced of my abilities, but I couldn’t argue with her conclusion. I sighed.

“It’s not your fault,” she said as her foot pushed the treadle of the wheel. “The walled in, they starve it just as the Ancients did.”

“The walled in? What do you mean?”

Her foot paused on the treadle, and she turned to look at me. “Your kind. You’re surrounded by the noise of your own making and you attend only to what you can see, but that’s not the way of the gift.”

I looked into her sunken eyes, blue irises so faded that they were nearly white. “
You
have the gift?” I questioned.

“Don’t be surprised. The gift’s not so magical or rare.”

I shrugged, not wanting to argue with an old woman but knowing otherwise from the teachings of Morrighan and my own experience. It
was
magical, a gift from the gods to the chosen Remnant and their descendants. That included many of the Lesser Kingdoms, but not the rootless vagabonds.

She raised one eyebrow, scrutinizing me. She stood, stepping away from her wheel, and turned to face the camp. “Stand up,” she ordered. “Look over there. What do you see?”

I did as she instructed and saw Eben playfully wrestling with the wolves. “The wolves don’t take to others the way they do Eben,” she said. “His need is deep, and there is a knowing between them. He nurtures it even now, making it stronger, but it is a way that has no name. It is a way of trust. It is mysterious but not magical.”

I stared at Eben, trying to understand what she was saying.

“There are many such ways that can only be seen or heard with a different kind of eye and ear. The gift, as you would call it, is a way like the way of Eben.”

She went back to her work, as if her explanation was complete, though it was still a puzzle to me. She pulled raw uncarded wool from her bag, and then something with longer straight fibers.

“What do you spin?” I asked.

“The wool of sheep, the fur of llama, the flax of the field. The gifts of the world. They come in many colors and strengths. Close your eyes. Listen.”

“Listen to you spin?”

She shrugged.

Here.

The last arm of sunlight had disappeared, and the sky above the mountains tinged purple. I closed my eyes and listened to her spin, to the whir of wheel, the click of treadle, the rustle of grass, the gurgle of brook, the low hum of wind through pine, and that was all. It was peaceful but not profound and I became impatient. I opened my eyes.

“You said stories travel. Do you expect me to believe that my story traveled here to you?”

“I expect that you’ll believe what you will. I’m only an old woman who needs to return to her spinning.” She hummed, turning her face toward the wind.

“If you believe in such ways and my story traveled true, then you know it was the truth when I said I was brought here against my will. You’re not Vendan. Will you help me escape from them?”

She looked over her shoulder, back at the camp and the children playing outside a wagon. The shadows of twilight deepened the lines of her face. “You’re right, I’m not Vendan, but neither am I Morrighese,” she said. “Would you have me interfere in the wars of men and bring about the young ones’ deaths?” She nodded her head toward the children. “That is how we survive. We have no armies, and our few weapons are only for hunting. We’re left alone because we don’t take sides but welcome all with food and drink and a warm fire. I cannot give you what you ask.”

I was grateful for the food and clean clothes, but I was still hoping for more. I
needed
more. I wasn’t simply a traveler on a long journey. I was a prisoner. I pulled my shoulders back and turned to leave. “Then your ways are not useful to me.”

I was several yards away when she called to me. “But I can help you in other ways. Come here tomorrow, and I’ll tell you more about the gift. I promise you will find that useful.”

Did I really have time for an old woman’s stories? I had plenty of my own from Morrighan. I wasn’t even sure I would be here tomorrow. By then I’d be rested, and my opportunity to leave might arise. I didn’t intend to be dragged much farther across this wilderness. My chance would come with or without her help.

“I’ll try,” I said and walked back toward camp.

She stopped me again, her voice softer. “The others, they couldn’t tell you what your book said because they don’t read. They were shamed to tell you.” Her pale eyes squinted. “Even we are guilty of not nurturing gifts, and the gifts that aren’t fed shrivel and die.”

*   *   *

When I got back to camp, Eben was still watching me, true to his task even while he lay with the wolves as if he were one of them. I heard raucous talk and laughter coming from the large tent in the center of camp. The
respects
seemed to have escalated to the jovial variety. Reena and Natiya greeted me.

“Do you want to go into your
carvachi
to rest first or join the others and eat?” Reena asked.

“
Carvachi
? What do you mean?”

Natiya chirped up like an eager little bird, “The blond one named Kaden, he bought Reena’s
carvachi
for you so you could sleep in a real bed.”

“He
what
?”

Reena explained that Kaden had only rented it for whatever time I was here, and she would sleep in the tent or another
carvachi.
“But mine is the finest. It has a thick down mattress. You will sleep well there.”

I started to protest, but she insisted, saying the coin he gave her would be useful when they traveled south. She needed it more than she needed a
carvachi
to herself, and there would be many more nights alone ahead of her.

I wasn’t sure which I wanted more—another good meal or to lie on a real mattress with a roof over my head, far from the snores and body noises of men. I chose the meal first, remembering that my strength was important.

We filed into the tent along with three other women who had just brought some trays of ribs from the fire. My Vendan escorts sat on pillows in the middle of the tent, along with the five men of the camp. Their long soak in the hot springs had washed the grime away and brought color back to their skin. Griz’s cheeks gleamed pink. They drank from ram horns and ate with their fingers, though I had already seen that utensils were available. You might be able to offer civilization to a barbarian, but that didn’t mean they would partake of it.