Page 40 of The Boy Bride

He was glad to have these few extra days to rest. The bruises from his fall were subsiding, and his head was aching less. He listened with only half his attention to what Halza was saying about processions and rituals. Instead what he was thinking about was what would happen after the wedding. How long would he need to go on playing the role of Vanu’s bride before the signal would arrive for him to complete the mission? It would be just as well if it were some little time, because he would need to secure a weapon, plan his attack, and find a way out of the fortress in the meantime. He would need his exit to be well secured before he made his move, that much was clear.

He was glad too that he had remembered that business about consulting astrologers. Evidently it wasn’t something villagers in Akramarra did; Halza had never heard of it. But they certainly did it at the Zashian court when they were planning a wedding, and it had provided some very good material to impress Padunu and bought Lill a few more days to rest. He needed them, because he wanted to have all his wits about him for the wedding and what followed. He needed to be sure of the role he was playing. He needed to focus on the mission. It wasn’t that he was scared.

“He said he can get henna,” Halza was saying when Lill paid attention to him again. “But he didn’t seem to know what it was for. How do you suppose he thinks he can get it? Why would they have something like that in here?”

“They don’t. They’re clearly making trips outside the fortress for supplies.” And they don’t seem to care that we know it. That was good.

“I’ve explained that the torches for the procession to the, er—to your husband’s house—ought properly to be made of mullein stalks and lit by the village elder, but apparently mullein doesn’t grow up here, and Padunu thinks that Lord Faru wouldn’t take kindly to being called a ‘village elder,’ so … ”

* * *

The work of the day finished, Vanu set the birch log he had selected on end on the stump that he used for this purpose, and carefully split it with axe and mallet. As he sliced away the sapwood from the outside of the log, he thought about the wedding night. How should he approach it?

He wasn’t sure how seriously to take what Tirtu had said about the kind of bride he had asked for. A boy who “can take rough use,” that was what Tirtu had said. Vanu could recall the noise of disgust that Mikhi had made at that. And that could mean only that the boy was tougher than he looked—which Vanu had already observed, thrillingly—not that he wanted to be manhandled. Men who wanted that rarely admitted to it, even in the bedroom, though maybe it was different for someone who was willing to put on a bridal gown and offer himself to another man in marriage …

The truth was, Vanu was used to treating his partners as unwilling because that was the only way to save their honour. The idea of sleeping with a man who didn’t require that pretence of him, with whom he could be gentle, if that was what they both wanted in the moment … He hadn’t had that in a long time. The thought was bracing, like a first draught of strong wine.

How could he find out, without embarrassing his new bride, whether it could be like that between them? Without, for that matter, embarrassing himself? He had almost abandoned all caring for his own honour, but—well, it was a lot to let go of, even up here.

The log was adequately trimmed now, down to the hard heartwood that would make a suitably strong vessel. He brushed aside the wood chips, put away his axe, and brought the work up to his balcony.

Thinking about broaching the subject with his bride brought him naturally to another problem. He was going to have to talk to his bride. In Zashian. He understood the language of the lowland rulers reasonably well, but he couldn’t think of a single time when he’d tried to speak it to anyone.

Tirtu, Khatu, Barda, and Padunu all spoke Zashian well. He should get one of them to explain his situation to Lill, if they hadn’t already. Maybe they had already. If Davanu hadn’t made it all clear before Lill left Torakand. “By the way, you should know that he doesn’t talk. Hope you don’t like making conversation.”

What else might they have been telling Lill about him? He didn’t particularly want to think about it. He sat on the balcony and sketched out the shape he wanted on the birch with a piece of charcoal, then he began to carve.

* * *

Lill sat cross-legged on his mattress and tried to meditate. Halza wasn’t exactly snoring, but he was breathing noisily, and Lill’s nerves were tense enough that this was sufficient to destroy his concentration. Shameful.

He could get up and go down to the ground floor if he wanted—they were not strictly confined to the room—but he had heard sounds suggesting Tirtu was still up. Unless it was the cat, which sometimes came in the house, or one of the goats outside. The village was very quiet, but such sounds as he did hear were unfamiliar, looming large in the darkness.

If he could not meditate, he could at least rehearse the details of his mission. He could remind himself who he was, why he was here, what Vanu had done to his family.

Sharaya, Dashavaya, Yarasha: he spoke their names silently in his mind. All dead at the hands of that man. (The hands that had fastened on Lill’s wrists like manacles. That had slammed him against the tree trunk and cradled the back of his head to keep him from reinjuring it.) Madurasha, head of the Kuro Clan, cut down by that man’s sword, the first to die, plunging the whole family into ruin.

“You don’t have to understand the mission,” Master Hadda used to say. “You just have to carry it out.”

There were parts of this mission that he didn’t understand, certainly. It didn’t matter, because he had been well trained. He could carry out more difficult missions than this. And the heart of the mission, the necessity of plunging a knife into Vanu Urártu’s heart, that he understood very well.

Should he literally use a knife, though? He might be able to get his hands on White Viper’s dagger again, if Vanu was confident enough in his own superior strength to return it to that hook on the wall in his chamber. But if Vanu trusted in his strength, it was with good reason. And with all that had happened so far, would he not be even a little suspicious? Cautious, at least? Lill had revealed more of himself than he had intended, more than he would have if he’d thought at the time the mission was still on. If Vanu wasn’t a complete fool, he would take some basic precautions in case his new bride was dangerous.

So what, then? Cutting his throat while he slept? Even a strong man couldn’t guard against that if it was done swiftly and skillfully enough, with a long, sharp blade—where would he get one?—or a wire positioned so that it would cut him when he sat up, a technique Lill had seen described in Ten Thousand Rivers but never enacted in real life.

Poison offered many possibilities, but all could probably be ruled out at this point, because where would he procure any?

Could he engineer an accident of some sort for Vanu? He probably could, although the options within the confines of the village were limited. No falling overboard from a boat on a fast-moving river or going off into the desert with a leaking water-skin. The best he could hope for was a fall from a rooftop, and that, as he had good reason to know, was by no means guaranteed to be fatal.

Exploit your enemy’s weakness, Master Moon recommended, and even though he was talking about the battlefield, not assassination, it was a good reminder. Lill had time to learn what Vanu’s weakness might be. He had to wait for the signal before he completed the mission. Something would present itself if he was patient.

* * *

Padunu stood in front of a pile of miscellaneous items in the hall of Faru’s house.

“All right. The bride hunt will have to take an irregular form, as there are no relatives of the bride present.”

“Can we consider it as already done, since we had to hunt for him in earnest a few days ago?” Vanu asked.