Page 99 of The Boy Bride

Vanu smiled. “Why don’t you go see if they’re free to show you?”

Lill had popped up from his seat before he registered that it wasn’t an order. Now he’d made himself look overeager, as if he was more interested in seeing the caves than sitting with his husband.

“I don’t have to go right now,” he said, but when he was already on his feet, it wasn’t convincing.

Vanu grinned and waved him off. Lill went, unsure whether that had been success or failure.

* * *

On the short walk over to the great house, Lill felt his enthusiasm ebbing. He wanted to see the caves, yes, but shouldn’t he have waited to see them with Vanu? It would have been more … suitable. Or perhaps, he reflected as he approached the imposing doorway of the Lord of Umtúshta’s house, he was just looking for excuses not to trouble the Gukhártus at home.

He’d managed to avoid Faru almost completely since the wedding, and he was fairly sure Faru had been avoiding him too. It was a satisfactory state of affairs.

The door to the great house stood wide open, as it often did. It wasn’t because Faru was hospitable; it was a tradition of Hawa lords, as Tirtu had explained. Their houses were supposed to be open to the whole village during the day. Somehow it seemed extremely typical of Faru that he kept up the tradition when there was almost no one in his village to appreciate it.

When Lill brought the milk in the mornings, he would usually just set it inside the door and leave; he’d never gone all the way inside the house. He did now, because it was what he had come here to do.

The great house was gloomy and dark inside, although the sun was still high in a clear sky. This was because the windows were very small, without glass, fitted only with solid shutters. An archway leading off the central hall had been roughly boarded up, sealing off the collapsed part of the building. The stairs leading to the second storey were stone, without the carved wooden bannisters that distinguished Vanu’s house. Altogether there was much less wood and fewer textiles than in Vanu’s house, which helped make the place feel cold and uninviting.

“No! No. Absolutely not. He’s my eldest son, and she’s—she’s nobody, no parents, no kin to speak of. How could he be so thoughtless?”

That was Faru’s voice, ringing out from an open doorway at the top of the stone stairs.

“You think he intends to marry her?” Gurti was not speaking so loudly, but by this time Lill was listening hard.

“What are you suggesting? That he’s going down to Sakka to—to fornicate?”

“Yes,” said Gurti, and Lill had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. The words of course were strongly implied.

Faru must have turned on his heel and stalked out of the room at that, because he appeared at the top of the stairs.

He recoiled at the sight of Lill, flinching so visibly that it was actually comical. As if he knew how weak that made him look, he tried to compensate with a ferocious unfriendliness. He glared.

“What are you doing here?” he spat, speaking in Hawada.

Lill had all but abandoned the pretence of not understanding the mountain language, but here he thought it might be useful again. He didn’t need Faru to know that he’d overheard his conversation with Gurti.

“Good afternoon, Lord Faru,” he said in Zashian. “I’m looking for Khatu and Barda.”

“For what reason? You can have nothing to say to them.”

“Lord Vanu said they could show me the caves under Umtúshta and the way out onto the mountain,” Lill said placidly, as the thing that he imagined would enrage Faru most thoroughly.

He was right. Bright spots of colour rose on Faru’s sallow cheekbones, and his fingers flexed on the stones of the wall behind him, in lieu of gripping a railing that wasn’t there.

“You will stay away from Khatu and Barda. I will not have my sons associate with you.”

Lill looked up at Faru and summoned a bland smile. The man could have killed him at one time—had come very close to doing it—but he couldn’t now. He was powerless now that Lill and Vanu were married, and he had to know that Lill knew it.

“Lord Vanu said I could talk to them, so … ”

“I will separate him from you, mark my words,” Faru snarled. “I never wanted you here. The gift of that coward Davanu—a lowland boy—no, I could see that you came to bring ruin to all of us. I counselled Lord Vanu to send you back, but he ignored me. If I had not sworn an oath to my father, I would have defied him long before now.” He reverted to Hawada: “My shaman knows how to lay a curse that will make him abandon you. I will have him do it.”

Gurti shot out of the door at the top of the stairs.

“What are you saying to him?” she demanded.

She sounded equal parts furious and alarmed. Lill felt suddenly sorry for her. What kind of treatment did she have to tolerate from this man?