Page 72 of The Boy Bride

Vanu backed away and set Atari on her feet. Lill dropped down from the cornice, landing lightly, before Vanu could offer him a hand. He looked embarrassed now and wouldn’t meet Vanu’s eye. But he signed to Atari, “Your turn to hide.”

For a moment, Vanu felt like asking if he could join the game.

* * *

“Why don’t you go out into the village and visit your friend?” Vanu suggested that afternoon, draping his arm along the cushions behind Lill.

Lill, who had been about to nestle against Vanu’s side—it had seemed the thing to do, now that they were alone on the balcony—looked up at Vanu’s profile. His friend? Presumably Vanu meant Halza. Should he say that Halza wasn’t his friend? No, Vanu was trying to be a good husband, suggesting this out of generosity. And they’d been doing well that morning, although Lill had felt rather a fool with the show he’d put on, climbing the house like a monkey, and that embarrassing, uncalculated scream. But Vanu had seemed to like watching him play with Atari.

“Maybe you can find out what that business outside the house last night was about,” Vanu added, with a twinkle in his eye.

“I could try,” Lill said neutrally. He had fully intended to do that at some point, but he hadn’t expected Vanu to suggest it. It was disconcerting, almost as if Vanu was party to his mission, giving him orders.

He went out to Tirtu’s house, across the street from Vanu’s. The cat was lying on the windowsill by the door. It stretched and yawned and jumped down to prowl past him, briefly rubbing against his leg. He knocked on the door of the house.

“Come in!” Tirtu’s voice called from inside.

Lill hesitated. This was so awkward. What was he pretending to do here? Visit his “friend”? When had he ever done such a thing? He pushed open the door and leaned inside.

“Hello? It’s Lill.”

“Lill!” Halza cried. “Just a moment, I’ll be right down!” He was at the top of the stairs with a rolled-up mattress clutched in his arms.

“I told you to leave that to me!” Tirtu scolded. “Hello, Lill. We’re moving Halza into his own house.”

“Let me help,” Lill suggested, glad to have something practical to do.

He ran up the stairs and took hold of the mattress to help Halza manoeuvre it down the stairs.

“Which house are you getting?” he asked, as he backed down the stairs, as if this was a completely normal question. Which of the empty houses in this deserted village are our captors letting you live in?

“Oh, there’s a nice place near the gate with a slate roof that just needs a few repairs. Tirtu and I spent yesterday cleaning it up enough to make it habitable. Pad came by to help, but he didn’t do much.” He chuckled.

“So, uh, you’re settling in, then.” Lill didn’t know what to say in front of Tirtu. How much had Halza told him about his plans? For that matter, what were Halza’s plans?

The rolled-up mattress wasn’t heavy, and Halza could carry it easily when he wasn’t trying to negotiate stairs with his healing leg. Lill relinquished it to him at the bottom of the steps.

“You’re hardly even limping anymore,” Lill noted.

“We’ll have you dancing the burira in no time!” said Tirtu heartily. “Here, Lill, you carry this.” He held out a clanking bundle of what might have been kitchen implements.

“Are you sure I can have all that?” Halza asked. “I don’t want to deprive you.”

“Nonsense, it’s all stuff I don’t need. Gurti brings me my food—I don’t need to cook for myself.”

They left Tirtu’s house and took the path toward the gate. Tirtu was carrying a stack of cushions.

“Do you cook?” Lill asked Halza.

“Me? Of course not!”

“Oh. Lord Vanu cooks. Or at least, he made these cake things for dinner the other night. Plasinta, they were called. With mushrooms inside, and some with sweet cheese. They were very nice.”

Tirtu gave a kind of wincing laugh. “Did he? Did he. He’s the Lion of the Summer Pass, you know—you can’t tell him it’s beneath his dignity to be making dumplings or, or giving his hostages, uh, uh—I mean, you can throw out hints, and he’s a smart man, he knows what you’re getting at, but he ignores you, he always has.” He gave Lill an apologetic look.

“I don’t mind,” said Lill, since he couldn’t see a reason not to. “The plasinta were good.”

This was good too, actually. He was gathering intelligence about his husband, and a clearer picture was emerging. It was very useful. Surely not what Vanu had intended by sending him out here. He wondered what Tirtu had been about to say that Vanu gave hostages. Something embarrassing?