Page 98 of The Boy Bride

There it was. Lill had been pretty sure, when he’d asked the question, that was going to be the answer.

“The raids aren’t as old a custom as people think. In my grandfather’s time, they were rare, only used to settle feuds and when villages were facing starvation—not for plunder in times when there was plenty to eat. Now they happen all the time. I wanted to put a stop to them. I wanted to go to the King of Zash and say, ‘If I can get my people to stop raiding in the foothills and robbing travellers through the passes all the time, can we have a peaceful alliance?’ I think I could have done it. I thought I could have done it. But word got out that was what I wanted, and someone set the king’s men on me. I think the king’s men had heard, too, what I wanted, and they walled me up instead of killing me because they hope I can be useful to them later. I don’t much want to be the King of Zash’s puppet, though, so I’m staying put.”

He’d said all that aloud, and when he stopped, he winced and rubbed his throat.

Lill reached across and slid his fingers under Vanu’s to release the knife he was holding.

“Use your hands,” he admonished, setting the knife on the table.

Vanu smiled.

“Is that why you were close with my father—because you wanted his help approaching the king?”

“That’s right,” Vanu signed.

“And when he turned on you … do you think it was because he thought you were going to turn on him?”

“I’ve thought that. I’ve wondered if someone said something to him.”

“Who?”

Vanu sat for a moment with his arms folded, looking out into the empty space beyond the balcony. He made an unfamiliar sign with his left hand. Then he shook his head.

“Wrong to slander the dead,” he signed.

Probably Lill, as the son of a man accused of betrayal, should have something more to say about that. Probably he should want to get to the bottom of this, should insist on knowing the name of the real traitor. But he was getting mightily tired of being Madurasha’s son. He changed the subject.

“I’ve been wondering. The Blue Heaven that you all swear by—what is it?”

“You should ask Padunu about that.”

Lill snorted. “Nobody should ask Padunu about anything.”

Vanu laughed in that way he did, mostly silent. “True.”

“Do you know why he’s in here? Padunu. He told us last night.”

Vanu rolled his eyes. “He fucked somebody’s wife by accident on Korukhura Peak. The whole mountain knows about it. Don’t know how he managed that.”

“He said he can’t work anywhere because of it—do your shamans work for hire like, uh … ” Like assassins?

“They can. Or they can attach themselves to a lord or a village headman like he’s done. So if you’re not going to ask Padunu about the Blue Heaven … It’s what we call the spirit of the sky. The lord of the spirit world. You know how everything has a spirit? I don’t know what you call that in Zashian … ”

Lill realized belatedly that this conversation could turn dangerous for him. He did know something of Zashian religion, from his reading, but there were many aspects of it he was not supposed to talk about, names he was not allowed to invoke.

“Their religion is organized differently,” he said vaguely, and then kicked himself for not saying ‘our religion.’ He spoke at random: “So he’s the lord of the sky—is it not a bit scary, being up in the mountains where he’s so close?”

Vanu’s eyebrows went up. “I guess, if you had things to hide.”

“Well, you could always go down inside the mountain, couldn’t you?” He should just stop talking. “Maybe that’s why you don’t like going down there, because you’ve nothing to hide. Me, I love the idea that the mountain is hollow inside.”

Vanu was running his thumb along the scar on his cheek. “There’s another entrance to the caves,” he signed after a moment. “Under the granary behind the great house. That’s the one the Gukhártus use when they come and go. If you want to go out on the mountain with Khatu and Barda some time, I’m sure they’d take you.”

Lill stared, astonished. “Really? You would let me do that?”

Vanu nodded. “Of course. Just in the forest, not down to Sakka. Not yet. You’re too striking to go into a village without a story about who you are and what you’re doing there.”

“Oh, I can do that! I’m—” He stopped himself from explaining how good he was at stealth-craft. “But I don’t need to. I can be patient. I’d just like to see the caves, that’s all.”