Page 8 of The Boy Bride

Vanu ran back down the stairs and around the corner in time to see Khatu get hit in the face with a shoe and the boy lose his grip on the capstones of the wall. Vanu ran as if he thought he could be in time to catch him.

Tirtu was distracted by yelling at Khatu as Vanu stood over the boy where he lay stunned on the ground beside the cart. That was why Vanu was the first one to see the set of knives strapped to the boy’s thigh. His first thought was that someone had finally come over the wall to finish the work that the king’s men had begun. Just the sort of person he’d be likely to let down his guard for, too, so that one of those little sewing-needle knives, delivered at the right moment, would be enough.

So he’d been suspicious from the start, and what had he done? Taken the knives off the boy and hidden them and not mentioned them until now.

Of course he had; the boy had been winded and half-conscious and tiny, no threat at all, and Khatu had been trying to shoot him already. And then when Tirtu had seemed to know all about him and Vanu had assumed the boy was to be Tirtu’s bride, he’d put his suspicions aside.

If he had, after all, been sent to be Vanu’s bride … But he’d been requested by Tirtu and chosen by Davanu. There were no two men alive Vanu trusted more.

Heart of the Blue Heaven, it was a relief he wasn’t meant to be Tirtu’s bride, though. Vanu hadn’t been sure how he was going to cope with that. The boy was probably a bit like the summer sun for beauty, if you thought in those terms. Anyway, he was very good to look at, slight and delicate and endearing in a dress, with skin the colour of new parchment and dark eyes and silky black hair, pinned up in braids under the smashed bridal headdress. And Vanu had slept alone for three years, a long time for him, a very long time.

“Boy’s name?” he asked Tirtu.

“Ah, er—some lowland thing, I can’t recall. Reera or something.”

He spoke as if it wouldn’t concern Vanu to know the name of his bride. Vanu shrugged, because maybe it didn’t. Mikhi was right; he didn’t need a bride. He didn’t need to condemn a youth with his life ahead of him to imprisonment in Umtúshta. They didn’t need another mouth to feed. Besides, Faru wouldn’t like it, and things that Faru didn’t like became Vanu’s problem, in a tedious way that he could do without. There were many reasons to say no.

“Think it over,” Tirtu repeated, getting to his feet and clapping a hand to Vanu’s shoulder.

Vanu nodded.

Chapter 4

Plenty to Eat

Lill came out of the round house which he had begun to think of as the infirmary, squinting in the sunlight. He’d seized a moment when Halza was asleep, to avoid questions about what he was doing, but actually he didn’t have strength for much. He felt weak and wobbly; he had no idea how he’d made a break for it the day before. This morning just getting to the wooden bench outside the door seemed like enough of an accomplishment, and he sank down onto it gratefully.

The weather was beautiful, the air soft and cool, the sunlight warm on his face. On the other side of the doorway was an apple tree, its branches filled with white blossoms.

He’d had a good breakfast: some kind of thick, nourishing porridge, with thin slices of a crisp, pickled vegetable on top. Halza hadn’t known what it was any more than Lill, and had seemed suspicious of it. He had talked nostalgically about food that his mother down the mountain made for him. Lill had little sympathy.

A young man came bounding up from between the houses. He wore the high-collared black coat that the men of the Passes all seemed to favour. His was decorated with patches on either breast showing big, stylized yellow birds with curved beaks. He was a little older than Lill and much taller and broader, with long, untidy chestnut-brown hair and light eyes. Lill’s shoulders tensed. This was the archer. He was grinning broadly.

Oddly, it wasn’t a sinister grin, or it didn’t look like it was meant to be a sinister grin.

“You speak Zashian?” the archer asked, speaking quite intelligible Zashian himself.

“Yes.”

“Fair weather. I’m Khatu. I shot at you. Sorry about that. It was just bee-fuckery, you know?”

Lill frowned at him, wondering again if his brains were addled.

“Bee-fuckery?” Khatu repeated helpfully. “Maybe that’s just something we say up here.” He folded himself down onto the bench beside Lill. The wood sagged under his weight. “It’s, you know how a bee will sting you even though it loses its stinger and dies? Bee-fuckery. I always said to myself, if anybody comes over that wall at us, I am going out in a blaze of bee-fuckery. Like a mad bee-fucker, I don’t care. That’s why I shot at you.”

Lill had known more than a few bee-fuckers in the Order, though he didn’t think they’d have liked to be called that.

“What’s the word in your language?” he asked after a moment. “Because I must tell you that sounds ridiculous in Zashian.”

Khatu whooped with laughter. “Guldaggaba,” he said, clenching his fist and scowling. He had heavy eyebrows and a wide mouth that made for an impressive scowl.

“Mm, that does sound better,” said Lill.

“So what are you doing here, if you are not the first wave of an invasion?”

“I’m certainly not that. I’m to become Lord Vanu’s boy bride.”

“No! Snow in the lowlands! Are you really?” Khatu’s eyebrows did a pretty effective expression of shock, too.