Page 57 of The Boy Bride

That part of the job was supposed to have been Zish’s. Zish was experienced, had carried out missions like this—assassinations—before. Lill was several years younger than Zish and had never killed anyone. But he had slit the throats of sacrificial calves before—he’d done it many times, because once he had expressed a distaste for it, so the duty had been assigned to him for a solid year after. He’d approached the killing of Lord Xshaka in the same way, imagining that the man in the bed was a calf.

“Did you kill the wife too?”

“No, sir. She did not wake up.” This was true. He had been grateful for it.

Master Hadda nodded. “This was well managed. Your resourcefulness is to be commended.”

Lill felt light-headed. He had not thought to be praised so highly.

Master Hadda looked at Zish. “You are dismissed,” he said crisply.

After Zish had left, the master looked back at Lill. “Was it your fault that the two of you were delayed in the alley and seen by the watch?”

It did not do under these circumstances to defend yourself too forcefully, but neither was it wise to defend your fellows. That was almost never the right move.

“I do not think so, sir. I do not think the initial delay was my fault or Zish’s, but I do think that he caused additional delay by stopping to accuse me. I … believe that was not well done. However, we might have been spotted by the watch in any case.”

Master Hadda nodded. “A fair answer. You realize Zish will likely be put to death over this. Would you like to be the one to do it?”

“No, sir.” Lill kept his voice very level.

Master Hadda looked at him thoughtfully. “Noted.”

* * *

Lill woke feeling clear-headed in a way that made him wonder just how befuddled he’d been earlier. He seemed to remember various things well enough—better than he would have preferred, in fact. If he could have forgotten the way Vanu’s hands had felt on his bare skin, the sounds he had made as he lay under Vanu—he couldn’t forget them, but he could put them out of his mind, he could make them unimportant, bury them. He had plenty of practice at that.

Of all the things he’d imagined the Lion of the Summer Pass might say about his defeat of White Viper, “I learned a lot from him,” was not one of them. He’d imagined there must have been a trick of some kind. He hadn’t expected Vanu to admit it, of course. But what Vanu had said instead had rung true. White Viper had made a mistake, and his young opponent had exploited it, scarcely believing his own luck. It had been a fair fight.

What would Vanu say if Lill asked him about other fights, other victories? (He’d only ever had victories, if you didn’t count his imprisonment in Umtúshta—which, considering that he was alive and well and not nearly as imprisoned as everyone thought, you probably shouldn’t.)

Lill could hear faint sounds outside the shutters leading to the balcony, not voices but noises as if people were out there. He folded back the bedclothes and got up to open the shutters.

Vanu’s daughters were on the balcony, all three of them, sitting on the cushions with steaming cups of tea, chatting animatedly in near-silent flickers of hands and facial expressions. Vanu was there too, still in his faded house robe. As Lill looked out, he was putting down a platter of some crisply brown, fried pastries on the table and settling back on the cushions next to his youngest daughter. She leaned casually against him, and he put an arm around her and hugged her, resting his cheek briefly on the top of her head. Lill felt a strange ache in his throat.

Vanu’s youngest daughter was a girl of about twelve, maybe younger, with dusty brown hair in long braids. With her rather prominent round ears and intent grey eyes, she reminded Lill somewhat of a mouse. Even to someone unused to the looks of the pale-haired Hawakhaba, she didn’t look anything like Vanu.

The eldest daughter, on the other hand, was like a younger, female version of the Lion of the Summer Pass. She had his pale gold hair and blue eyes, his straight nose and sun-kissed fair skin. She had his height, too, or at least a woman’s portion of it, coupled with a woman’s graceful figure. She looked about the same age as Lill.

Mikhi was there too, changed out of her wedding finery and back into trousers, with her hair bundled into its usual sloppy knot, the ribbons stripped out.

It was the youngest girl who noticed Lill first. She jabbed Vanu in the shoulder and pointed excitedly toward the doorway.

Vanu’s response was strange. He tensed, as if to spring up from his seat. He relaxed when he saw Lill, but there was still something apprehensive about his expression. He doesn’t hide his emotions well, Lill thought. Maybe that was a natural result of not talking.

Vanu beckoned him out onto the balcony, not with an expansive gesture of welcome but with a small motion of his fingers, not too different from the way one might signal to an opponent in a duel: “Come on.” Lill stepped obediently down into the midst of the cozy family scene.

“Oh, Lill, you’re awake,” said Mikhi breezily. “We’re eating plasinta. Da made them. He wanted to wait for you to wake up, but we were all hungry.”

Vanu tsked at her and signed something. There was a smudge of flour on his cheek.

“We did wait,” Mikhi translated. “The plasinta are straight off the fire.”

She dropped her voice just slightly and gave the words a stern tone to signify that they came from her father. Lill remembered how she had criticized Khatu’s lack of skill as an interpreter. She knew what she was doing.

Susami signed at Vanu to point out the flour on his face, and he rubbed it off with his sleeve.

“They … look delicious,” said Lill uncertainly, taking a seat on the cushions, in the corner where he had sat when he and Vanu first came out. This put him across from Mikhi and the eldest girl, on the same side as Vanu and the youngest. “I am surprised to hear that you made them, my lord.”