Page 85 of The Boy Bride

He’d realized too late that was a plain insult. Khatu and Barda were men, whereas Lill was … also a man, in a way. At least, he was a boy who had grown up, which usually made you a man. But for him the category seemed so inadequate.

Lill was laughing, not looking insulted. “I know. And I’ve been wanting to be better friends with Susami, I really have. I—I think I know how to do it. I just needed to know it was what you wanted.”

“Right … ”

Vanu was ashamed of how little thought he’d given to this situation. He’d only got as far as thinking that it was too bad Susami and Lill weren’t more friendly, but that surely it would come in time. It hadn’t occurred to him that they might have complex reasons to be wary of one another.

“Sometimes I need to be given orders,” Lill signed.

“I am not going to order you to be friends with my daughter. But you have my permission.”

* * *

Lill presented himself in the door of the girls’ house. He hadn’t been in here before. The house was laid out similarly to Vanu’s, with a high-ceilinged front room, a raised seating platform that could be heated from beneath, and stairs leading to a gallery with doors to bedrooms and the balcony along one side. Susami was mixing a pail of whitewash in the middle of the room. Her hair was tied up in a kerchief, and she wore a plain apron over her dress. Lill came cautiously in until she looked up and saw him.

“Vanu said you wanted my help,” he signed.

She nodded and pointed at the pail. “I am going to paint the room.”

She signed slowly, watching to make sure he understood. He was inclined to be insulted—surely she knew how much hand language he had learned in the last two weeks—but he guessed she was just being cautious.

“I want you to climb up to paint the ceiling,” she explained. “Can you do it?”

“Of course!” Lill signed enthusiastically. “I would love to help. But I confess I have never painted anything before.”

She smiled her serene, cool smile. “It is not hard. Climbing up to the ceiling, that is the hard part. But I already know you can do that.”

When Vanu came in an hour or so later, Lill was up in the rafters with the pail of whitewash and a brush, his hair tied up in a kerchief like Susami’s.

“She really put you to work,” Vanu observed, looking up at him.

“Of course. I was glad to help.”

Vanu grinned at him and went out again, pausing at the door to sign, “I’ll be on the archery range if you want me.”

Lill finished off the corner he had been painting and climbed down. He was satisfied with the job he’d done, even more so when Susami looked at it and signed approval. He found himself smiling—really smiling—at her as he pulled off the kerchief she had loaned him, and when she smiled back he realized how much he had wanted her approval. He picked up the gauzy wedding tunic that he’d taken off for painting and put it back on, fiddling with the sash.

Susami stepped close and pinched the fabric of his sleeve, rubbing it assessingly between her fingers.

“It’s very fine,” she said. “Is this how you dressed in the lowlands?”

Lill shook his head. “This is women’s clothing, and I was strictly a boy in the lowlands.”

He wondered for a moment whether that statement made any sense as he’d phrased it. He was sure she would give him a puzzled look or ask for an explanation, assuming his fledgling grasp of hand language had failed him. But she didn’t. She gave him a smile of such warmth and understanding that it took his breath away.

“Then welcome home,” she signed.

He must have looked happy still when he came out of the girls’ house and found Vanu on the archery range. Vanu cocked an eyebrow at him inquiringly.

“Susami said something nice to me,” he said. “I wasn’t sure she liked me, but … ”

Vanu nodded as if he didn’t need further explanation. He loosed his last two arrows at the target, solid bullseyes, before propping the bow against his leg so he could sign.

“I wasn’t sure she liked me for a long time.”

“But you’re her father!”

Vanu made a wry face. “Don’t mean filial respect,” he said out loud. “I mean liked.”