Page 61 of The Summer Pass

“No?”

Lill shook his head slowly. “You see good in people—I don’t know why you do, but it’s beautiful.”

Vanu’s smile had a touch of sadness in it again. “Heart of the Blue Heaven, I missed you.”

At that moment someone thumped on the barricaded door on the opposite side of the anteroom. Lill and Vanu both jumped. Vanu was on his feet in an instant, but he put out a hand, firmly, to stop Lill from rising too.

“Can you ask who it is?” Vanu signed.

“Who’s there?” Lill called.

Whoever it was, he resented them. He had forgotten that his time sitting alone with Vanu was stolen and likely to be brief.

“Barda!” came the muffled shout from the other side of the door. “I’ve got Firuduna with me!”

“Firuduna?” Lill repeated in surprise.

Vanu looked blank for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers. “That was his name! I’m coming,” he signed.

“I’m coming!” Lill called. “I mean Vanu’s coming!”

He watched Vanu easily trundle the heavy barrels away from the door, which burst open to admit Barda and Firuduna, tumbling in on each other’s heels, laughing. Behind them, looking like he was finding this all much less amusing, came Nakhana.

“We weren’t followed!” Barda reported breathlessly, pushing the door shut and leaning against it.

Vanu tossed him out of the way like a sack of meal and began rolling the barrels back into place. Firuduna and Nakhana leapt to help.

“I found my cousin,” Firuduna explained. “When he heard what I was doing here, he wanted to come join us.”

“We’ll fall back to the wine cellar,” Vanu signed. Firuduna and Nakhana both nodded smartly.

Then they saw Lill.

“What happened to you?” Nakhana signed. Lill raised his only usable hand apologetically, and Nakhana swung around to repeat the question to Firuduna.

But Firuduna was busy asking questions of his own. “Earth’s heart, Lill! Barda told me you were at death’s door—what are you doing out of bed?” To Nakhana he signed, “Lill was the spy that they captured—he’s been tortured half to death!”

“I didn’t say that!” Barda protested. “I just said he had an arrow in him. But you know how tough he is.”

“Tortured?” Nakhana was repeating. “Spy?”

“Tough?” said Firuduna.

Vanu stepped in front of them and scooped Lill up from the stairs. Lill rested his head on Vanu’s shoulder and smiled at the sceptical look Firuduna was giving Barda. He knew he wasn’t looking very tough at the moment. He didn’t mind.

Vanu carried Lill back into the wine cellar. The scent of wine hit him like a weak blow from a tired opponent. The sleepless hours he’d spent sitting on the floor of the outer room, fighting back panic, already felt like a bad dream.

Perhaps it was senseless to feel that everything would be all right now just because Lill wanted him. All Vanu knew was that he’d been a wreck a short while ago, so terrified of falling apart in front of his family that he had to retreat to the outer chamber to be alone, and now he felt as if he was the one who’d been rescued.

The wine cellar camp was almost cozy in the dim light of the brazier. Everyone had claimed their own space with blankets and mattresses. Tirtu was on watch, or at least awake, but the others were still sleeping. Susami had her arm around Atari, who was nestled against her. Halza’s fiancée was sleeping next to her mother.

“It didn’t take me long to find Firuduna.” Barda was chatting away. “But then he wanted to go get Nakhana, and that took longer, and then we had to wait for our moment to sneak back down here. They didn’t see us, I’ll swear to that.”

“They think you’re in the fortress, my lord,” said Firuduna. “That guard who saw us at the postern gate must have talked—and they know someone stole Lill out of the dungeon, but they’re not sure that was you. At least that’s the gossip that we heard. Right, Barda?”

“Right,” said Barda. “Firuduna picked up lots of useful—what do you call it, Lill?”

“Intelligence,” Lill supplied without taking his head off Vanu’s shoulder.