Page 69 of The Boy Bride

Lill was indeed up early the next morning, and he came down to meet Vanu in the yard, though he looked slightly haggard, as if he had not slept well. Vanu made no comment. He wanted to suggest Lill go back to bed, but he didn’t want to offend him.

He showed Lill the safety precautions he used around the archery range: ropes with scraps of cloth tied to them that he strung between a couple of trees to cordon off the range when it was in use. He amused himself by letting Lill try to string his bow, which Lill could not do, and then offered him Mikhi’s much lighter bow. That didn’t get a laugh or an arch comment out of Lill, which surprised Vanu.

Then he watched as Lill failed to hit the target, several times in a row, in a way that Vanu found highly suspicious. But again he said nothing. He was fairly sure the boy was pretending to be a poor shot. He’d hit Khatu in the face with a shoe from the top of the fortress wall. But maybe he wasn’t used to shooting with a bow. In the lowlands, it was only the nobles who hunted, and maybe Madurasha’s son had lost his access to that world when his father died. Maybe that was something else that Vanu had taken from him.

His sword technique was surprisingly poor, too. Vanu was disappointed. He watched as Lill imitated him in the drills, whacking Mikhi’s wooden practice blade against the straw dummy. He hardly seemed like the same young man who had picked up the dance steps so quickly yesterday that Padunu had been sure he must have done them before. When Vanu tried to suggest that Lill show him some of the lowland techniques he knew better, he mumbled some excuse.

Vanu wasn’t sure what was going on. Was Lill just tired? Or had this been a bad idea? Maybe the boy was trying to hint that he didn’t want to do this, that Vanu should not ask him to join his morning exercise again.

Lill remained withdrawn all that day. Vanu’s chore for the day was repairing the thatch on the roof of the girls’ house, using some fresh straw that Tirtu had brought in for him. He’d meant to ask Lill to help, but when he mentioned this at breakfast to Susami, she said a husband shouldn’t ask his bride to mend thatch two days after the wedding—if ever—and then it turned out Atari had brought over her Zashian books to show Lill, so Vanu left him to that and went up on the roof by himself. When he came down to get water halfway through the job, he found Lill sitting on the balcony by himself, staring into space, Atari’s books lying unopened on the table in front of him. He didn’t see Vanu looking at him, and Vanu didn’t know what to say.

He went and found Mikhi and told her to find something for Lill to do.

“A wifely thing,” he specified.

She gave him a doubtful look. “Like what—spinning?”

“No … ” Actually, he had no idea. Offer a Hawa man a spindle and he’d stab you with the sharp end for the insult—but Lill wasn’t a Hawa man, and he’d come up the mountain in a bridal gown. “Ask Susami. She’ll know what’s fitting.”

A little while later, back up on the girls’ roof, he looked down and saw Lill helping Mikhi and Atari in the garden. Lill was making himself useful, though he did seem to need constant instruction in what to do. That reminded Vanu of how he had been three years ago when they were shut in here. He hadn’t known anything about gardens or raising animals. The girls had known some, Gurti much more. Without the women, the men would have had precious little to eat.

* * *

Lill’s mind felt foggy all day, and it was hard to focus on the tasks the sisters assigned him. It was lack of sleep, and this constant feeling of instability, of the ground not being solid under his feet—like being on a boat, only in his mind. (He’d only ever been on a boat once, just a river boat, but he hadn’t liked it.)

He needed a plan about Vanu. In fact, he needed two plans. First, how he would kill Vanu; and second—actually, the killing was second, the first was how he would get Vanu to like him. Something had gone wrong, several somethings perhaps, and damage control was needed to get the mission back on track.

He would downplay his fighting ability; he had decided that this morning. It wasn’t an attractive quality in a bride, and it might make Vanu suspicious. He needed to try harder there, though, because he wasn’t sure he’d been convincing that morning. Perhaps he should somehow ensure that they tried some activities that he was truly bad at. Though he couldn’t see Vanu actually agreeing to wrestle him.

Befriending the two younger girls would be easy, and staying away from Susami wouldn’t be too hard either, since she seemed inclined to stay away from him—maybe for the same reason.

He had to get Vanu back into his bed. He’d never have imagined that this would be hard. He had been terrified of it, of course—not terrified, no, of course not, revolted by it—but he had thought it would just happen, and all the difficulty would be in enduring it. To have to go about actually engineering the hated thing …

But it hadn’t been hated; he hadn’t hated it. He tried to ignore the whisper that reminded him.

He thought he would be tired enough that night that he would fall asleep easily when the household retired. Instead, he fell asleep on the balcony during dinner with Vanu and his daughters, and woke to find himself being carried into his bedroom with his head on Vanu’s warm, rocklike shoulder. He should say something, do something—now would be a perfect opportunity. But he didn’t know what to say or do, and maybe it would happen on its own, maybe Vanu would do something himself …

Vanu was laying him down on his bed, closing the shutters, and going out through the door into the house. And now Lill was wide awake, alone in the quiet dark. He curled into a ball on the bed, hands clenched into fists, and whimpered in frustration.

He lay and tried not to think … tried to think about something useful … tried not to think again … Finally he got up. The house was silent; Vanu had obviously gone to bed by now. Lill opened the door to his room and looked out into the large, dark space of the front room. There was enough moonlight to allow him to see his way down the stairs. He padded along the top of the cupboards and stood looking at the stairs going up to the closed door of Vanu’s chamber.

He imagined himself creeping up the stairs and slipping silently through Vanu’s door. He vividly remembered the layout of the room, the two steps up to the bed, the window on the left that would let in the moonlight. He tried to picture Vanu asleep—he’d never seen him asleep, his husband of three days—did he sleep on his back or on his side, with his long limbs sprawled about or tucked in tidily? Would his pale hair look blue in the moonlight?

That was all beside the point. If he crept up the stairs and into Vanu’s room, and up the two steps to the bed, what would he do? Slip under the covers next to Vanu? That would probably be a good way to get himself strangled, or at least thrown across the room. Well. Thrown across the room wouldn’t be so bad—it was survivable—and Vanu would feel guilty when he realized what he’d done. Could Lill use that?

He was standing at the foot of the stairs thinking about this when he heard soft voices from somewhere. Outside, he thought, in front of the house. He couldn’t make out the words.

He stepped down from the cupboards and ran lightly over to the door under Vanu’s stairs, the one that led to the disused room. He eased it open silently and slipped through.

This room had a small window on the front of the house, with panes of plain glass set in it, transparent enough that you could see out to the street outside. From where he stood just inside the door, Lill couldn’t see the speakers, but now he didn’t need to, because he recognized the voices, and he could hear quite clearly what they were saying.

“My lord, I could not think of doing such a thing.” Padunu sounded as though he was trying to keep his voice low, but it was too much against his nature.

“I don’t see why not.” Faru’s low growl was harder to hear but unmistakable. “You helped my foolhardy sons throw the lowland whore through Lord Vanu’s window readily enough.”

“I did no such thing, my lord. I remonstrated with your sons, I assure, you, I⁠—”

“Enough. The thing is easily done, and if you desire my continued patronage, you’ll do it.”