Page 97 of The Boy Bride

“Thank you for your advice,” he said formally.

He dropped off the milk, dodged a bleary-eyed Padunu staggering out of Tirtu’s house in the direction of the privy with one hand over his mouth, and returned home. He made tea, hung his bedding out on the balcony to air, and only noticed that he was whistling when he realized that Lill’s door was open and Lill was standing in the doorway, squinting in the sunlight.

“Shit, did I wake you?”

“No, I was awake. But I heard you and thought I’d come out.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Um … fine.” He raked his hair back with his hand. It was gorgeously untidy.

“I made you tea.” Vanu pointed to the pot on the table. “We’ve had breakfast already, but there’s porridge left. I’ll get you a bowl.”

Lill looked confused and slightly wary. “You don’t have to do that. I’m fine.”

“No trouble.” Vanu took off down the stairs before he could do any of the things he’d thought of in the category of “a little extra affection.” Clearly they weren’t what was called for here.

* * *

The plum wine had been nice, and a slight headache the next day wasn’t much of a price to pay, but on the whole Lill didn’t think he was ready to become a serious drinker. For one thing, he passed by Tirtu’s house around noon and heard sounds of groaning that suggested terrible suffering was going on within. The other reason was more complex and had something to do with the fact that Vanu didn’t drink wine himself. It wasn’t that Lill felt he shouldn’t enjoy something that Vanu couldn’t … of course it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that he thought it would be more enjoyable to drink with Vanu … no, in fact, it was that. Drinking with the other men of Umtúshta was all right, and he could see himself doing it once in a while. But he couldn’t see it becoming a habit if it didn’t involve the person he …

The person he talked to the most. That was certainly Vanu. Of course it was; Lill had been quite deliberate about it. He was trying to be a pleasing wife, and conversation at least was something he could handle.

That afternoon they sat out on the balcony together, as they did almost every day. Vanu had started carving a new wooden bowl, this one with handles. Lill enjoyed watching him as a pleasing round shape emerged from the chunk of wood that he had started with. He worked slowly and methodically, with smooth motions of the knife that looked small in his big hands, though it was actually a sizeable blade.

They had been silent for several minutes, Vanu focussed on his carving, Lill watching him. Suddenly Vanu said aloud, “The temples at Alazani. You hear people say what happened to them?”

“Of course,” said Lill.

It was one of the worst things the Lion of the Summer Pass had done—was said to have done. Three ancient temples burned, priests slaughtered, and treasures plundered: typical business for a mountain bandit lord, but on an audacious scale. And now—Lill felt a sudden lifting of his heart, because Vanu was about to reveal that he hadn’t done it.

“Regret that,” Vanu said, not looking up from the wood, though his knife had stopped moving. “More than anything I ever did.”

“Oh,” said Lill. An odd mixture of feelings swirled inside him.

“Should have had better control of my men.” He frowned. “Or I should have known that I wouldn’t be able to rein them in and shouldn’t have taken them down there. It was supposed to be a strategic thing—take the temples to show that we could. You ever see them? They’re fortified. Hard to take. I did figure there’d be a bit of robbery, if there was anything to take—wasn’t going to try telling a force of Hawakhaba not to steal shiny things. Be like telling the snow not to fall. But setting fire to the buildings, cutting down holy men when they tried to flee?”

“You didn’t order that.”

Vanu looked up with an expression of hopeful surprise. “You knew that?”

“Not before I met you.” Not until that moment, when it had popped out of his mouth.

“Well, no.” Vanu was silent for a moment, carving again, concentrating on the motion of his knife through the wood. “It was like—in the steppes, the wild horses, when one of them starts to run, they all go in a flood, you know. You can’t stop them. The men were like that, falling on those temples. That was where I lost Darma. My interpreter. He and I had quarrelled that morning, and I … regret I never got to make things right before he was gone. Died in the fire in the main temple.”

“What was he doing, trying to put it out?”

Vanu looked up again. His pale eyes could be so bleak sometimes. “No. Setting it.”

“Then … why did you want to make up with him?”

“Yeah … I guess I wanted to make up with the Darma who hadn’t done that yet. If that makes any sense. He’d been loyal. I thought I’d provoked the quarrel.” He shrugged.

For some reason, Lill was conceiving a strong dislike of this Darma. But he said, “That does make sense,” because it did.

After another minute of silence, he said thoughtfully, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees, “You said you regret the sacking of the temples more than any of the other things you’ve done. Why that? Because they were temples? But you must have raided other things, villages and caravans, and when it comes to death, innocent people being killed, were those not worse?”

“They would have been, if—yes. The raids on villages can be much bloodier than what we did at Alazani. I’ve never done a raid like that.”