“Da,” Khal said tightly, “she’s tired. She’s just awoken.”
“Khal, this is how people get to know each other. Rowena doesn’t mind. Do you, Rowena?”
“I…no.” I didn’t want to insult Khal’s father. “…but there isn’t much to tell.”
“You grew up in the baron of Belnor's castle? Beautiful area.”
I noticed he avoided the topic of my birth.
“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t get to roam much.”
“Now that’s a travesty. You must want to stretch your legs and adventure after so much time inside. Khal here, he’s an excellent traveling companion?—"
“Da.” Khal’s voice had a warning tone. His father stared back, all innocence.
“I know he is.” I broke the quiet, if not the tension. “Khal is…good at everything.”
His father’s face shone. “Exactly what I’ve been saying. Could anyone find a better man than?—"
“Da, that’s enough.” Khal was on his feet. There was no smile on his face.
His father’s eyes softened, grew sad. “I’m sorry, son,” he said. “You know I only want your good.”
“This is not about my good.” Anger was rolling off of him, and I wished I had a place in this scene to touch his arm, to calm him, even to speak. But this wasn’t my place. It wasn’t my home,or my father. I was the poison in the mix, making everything bad for him.
The old man’s eyes were pitying. “And my daughter-in-law? Do you think her good is in that city, with the people who tried to kill you? Back with that baron?”
“I will not discuss this with you. And I will not let you speak of this in front of her.”
“Fine,” he seemed so calm, so unruffled in the face of challenge. I could only imagine what would occur if I’d spoken to my father in this way, but this man, leaning on his staff, didn't even frown. “You’re trying to protect your wife. I can get behind that, even if I think you’re wrong. You’re married. You have to do what you think is right. Thank you, Mother.” He took a bowl from the older orc woman, the one that didn’t smile.
Khal hadn’t sat, hadn’t relaxed. And that was the moment that the old man before me switched to the old tongue.
“But you will have to reckon some way to save her, when your mother gets here. And this way is the easiest.”
“She speaks the Old Tongue.”
His father blinked. The false jollity returned to his face. “Well then, our Rowena is full of surprises.”
So he knew. Because that could only be a surprise if he alreadyknewI was a bastard, and not a real baron’s daughter.
“This old man will stop nagging. Go ahead and finish your stew. I’ve been rude to our guest.” He smiled. “Rowena, you must be bursting with questions, yourself. From now on you ask, and we’ll answer.”
I looked up at Khal. He was still frowning, fierce, looking every bit like that orc warrior I’d met that first evening in the council hall. But he searched my face from that height, and I knew I wasn’t afraid of him. I knew that anger wasn’t at me, and that if it was, I might still be safe. I knew he was safe. Khal sat down beside me again, his knee touching mine. With the darklooks he was giving his food, the angle of his body, I felt like he was ready to grab me up and carry me away.
"I would like to know how you came to be here,” I spoke into that house. “How did you marry into the enclave, Khal's-father?"
And then there was no need for either of us to speak, for a long while.
I felt Khal relax, bit by bit, and I was able to focus on swallowing mouthfuls of stew between nods and smiles. It was the story Khal had told, but dramatized. It was easy to see how Piotr had made his living as a traveling tinker, how welcome this man would be around any fire.
"And that's when I knew." His eyes gleamed. "And I said, 'Lady, marry me.'" He sighed, contented. "And then she knocked me out cold."
He spoke longer, hamming it up about his strange courtship, his mistakes, the fierce immutability of the woman he loved.
"They need to knock heads more often. He's her son. He knows what he's doing. We don't raise our children to be ourselves. If we do it right, they'll be bull-headed and become who they want to be. Isn't that right, Khal?" His voice was cheerful, but even as he winked at me, his eyes were sad. "Don't worry. She'll be angry, but she'll get over it. She's used to being right, but she loves him. We all do."
I was nodding. My eyelids were heavy. Had I really slept for days already? Now that I'd eaten, I felt the exhaustion in every limb.
