Page 54 of The Summer Pass

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was him until … ” Vanu shook his head. “I had guessed, but I wasn’t sure—we all thought he was dead.”

“And you were sad about it. You always see the good in people.” She didn’t say, “I never liked that fucker,” but Lill thought that was just because she didn’t want to make her father feel worse. She said, “He told me he was injured in the fire at Alazani, and while he was recovering he had a change of heart—some nonsense about seeing the true beauty of the Hawa way of life. Makes me want to spit. I don’t believe a word of it, either, and I told him so. Gurti said I should have been more deferential to our host.”

Vanu snorted. “Gurti would have said exactly the same in your place.”

“I said it’s my father’s stronghold—Darma oughtn’t to be my host.”

“You didn’t say that to him,” Vanu signed hopefully.

Susami gave him a prim look. “I know what I can safely say to men who like me and what I can’t. No, I didn’t say that to him. I only said it to Gurti.”

“Good. It’s true, of course.”

“I know. Darma doesn’t know you’re here?”

Vanu shrugged. “He knows I’m in the pass. I planted my banner on Crow Crag, just to stir things up. See what would happen. What happened was, he gave his guards orders to shoot me if I approached the walls. I had to fight my way into the dungeon to get Lill.”

“So … Darma probably does know you’re here by now.”

“I wasn’t planning to hide from him for long. I just need to see all of you safe before I can confront him. Tell me—what happened with Lill? Tirtu and Barda and Halza all tried to explain it to me at once downstairs, and I couldn’t have made sense of it even if I’d bothered to listen.”

Lill thought about closing his eyes or turning his head away. They were talking about him; he ought not to eavesdrop. But the fact was, he didn’t know what had happened between the time when he met Atari on the gallery above the great hall and when four of Darma’s retainers had dragged him down from his hiding place in the rafters. He was already getting the idea that it hadn’t been what he imagined, and he wanted to know the full story.

Susami made a gesture of disgust. “It was a misunderstanding, an awful one. Not that they weren’t all angry with Lill—you know that. I was too, but only because … you know. It was lucky—or it ought to have been lucky—that when Lill got in the great house, the first person he met was Atari. He told her he’d come to find out if we were here and make sure we were all right. I don’t think he actually said you had sent him, but that was how she took it. She came to find us, very excited, and said, ‘Lill’s here!’ Darma was with us, and I don’t think Atari knew that he signs—he never talked to her—so she thought she was being discreet, but he saw and repeated it aloud and asked us, ‘Who’s Little Snake? A spy?’ He was very suspicious right away, because no one was supposed to be coming in without his permission, and that name sign, it is a little … ”

Vanu rubbed a hand over his eyes and nodded. “It is a little.”

Susami went on: “I only know what happened after that from Gurti, because everyone began talking at once, out loud, and I guess they were all trying to give an explanation of Lill, and it ended up … Gurti says Barda yelled out, ‘He’s not just a spy, he’s an assassin!’ but Barda thought he was explaining how useful Lill could be, what skills he has. He didn’t mean any harm—though it was obviously a very stupid thing to say. I think they probably all said stupid things. I might have too, if I had known what they were saying. We have all been very confused about Lill.”

“I know.” Vanu looked wretched.

“Darma ordered a search for Lill, and he tried to threaten Atari to get her to tell him where Lill was⁠—”

“He fucking what?” Vanu could sign very loudly sometimes, and this he shouted.

“He tried,” Susami repeated quickly. “Tirtu punched him, and Gurti grabbed Atari. We all had to run up here after that. We didn’t know what happened to Lill. Atari kept telling us he’s very good at hide and seek, so he would be all right. We didn’t know he’d ended up in the dungeon.”

Vanu pushed his hair back from his face, and Lill shut his eyes. When he opened them again, Vanu was leaving the room. Probably going to find Atari and hug her.

Lill hadn’t known how it happened that Darma’s men came looking for him. It had surprised him; he’d thought Vanu’s family might reject his help because they didn’t trust him, but he hadn’t thought they would tell Darma to throw him in the dungeon. And they hadn’t. He thought about that as he drifted toward sleep.

He thought about Vanu’s sad smile, how lost he had looked. Vanu’s embrace had been so warm; it had felt so right to be back there. But of course Vanu had been holding him like that to warm him up, because Lill had been dangerously chilled from the underground stream and losing blood to the arrow-wounds in his arm and side. Vanu had been saving his life, that was all. He’d have done that for anyone.

A hazy memory of how they’d got to the wine cellar swam in Lill’s mind. Had that been a dream? He’d thought he was being carried by an angel. Had he really asked Vanu why he didn’t light the way by glowing?

Vanu had always been scrupulous about respecting Lill’s wishes. It would be entirely like him to get up and walk away, no matter what he himself wanted, the moment he saw he was no longer needed as a furnace to revive Lill’s cold body. He’d be thinking about what Lill wanted, giving him space. He’d always done that.

Chapter 21

Something Real

In some ways, Lill felt as if he’d never been away. Everyone was there, or almost everyone, and they were all behaving so much like themselves. They had set up a sort of camp in the wine cellar of Tagra Degra, with all the doors—secret and public—securely barricaded. Barda and Tirtu had carried Lill down the stairs, couch and all, while Padunu followed, helpfully predicting that they would drop him, which they didn’t.

While Lill slept, most of the furnishings from the chamber upstairs had been brought down here. Nobody had really explained to him the reason for this, but they didn’t need to. The wine cellar was a more defensible position than the upstairs room; Lill could see that.

The wine cellar was a long room with a row of rough stone pillars down each side, creating bays where large jars of wine, casks of beer, and other goods were stored. As Otoni had said, there was quite a lot of food in here along with the drink: strings of garlic and cured hams hanging from the ceiling, baskets of apples and root vegetables piled next to the wine jars. It was dark and hard to see the extent of it all in the pools of light cast by the lamps they had brought down.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” said Barda, squatting by the side of Lill’s couch, “but it’s my fault you got thrown in the dungeon, so if you wanted to set me any kind of impossible task or quest as a punishment—damn, that sounded like a joke, but I’m actually serious. I fucked up, and you got hurt, and I’m so upset with myself, I can’t even … ”