Page 78 of The Summer Pass

“I am once again in your debt,” he said.

Vanu waved that away. “Wait until you hear what I have in mind to do next before you say that.”

Chapter 27

Talking About Feelings

It was late in the afternoon by the time Gurti and Otoni were ready to return to the great house. As she waited in the street for Otoni to finish saying her goodbyes, Gurti was surprised to see Padunu approaching. He walked quickly, glancing back over his shoulder.

“Shaman, I didn’t realize you were out here,” she said when he saw her.

“Yes, I thought I might be able to be of some assistance. I cannot tell whether I have succeeded or not,” he admitted.

“And don’t come back!” someone called out of an upstairs window behind him.

Padunu adjusted his cloak on his shoulders and cleared his throat.

“Tirtu was with me initially,” he said. “I don’t suppose he found you?”

“Was he looking for me?”

“Yes—that is, I assumed he was. He spoke of you, expressing concern about how you were faring and impatience with his own mission, which was to accompany me. I took it for granted that when I offered to release him from his duty, he would go to you.”

It was a nice thought. And maybe, in a former time, he would have been right.

“Well, he didn’t. He knew where we were—or he should have. I guess he must not have been as worried about me as he seemed.”

Padunu sighed. “We both know he doesn’t need to worry about you—but I had hoped that he would eventually be willing to admit that he cares about you. Hadn’t you?”

Gurti glanced at the shaman and wished Otoni would hurry up. She did not understand why Padunu was speaking to her of this, and she had a mind to tell him it was none of his business, as surely it wasn’t. But she recalled how he had spoken of Lill, before Lill returned, how he’d said Lill was good for Lord Vanu or some such thing. And he had been right about that. Maybe the spirits of the ancestors had granted him some insight into the workings of other people’s hearts, strange as that would seem.

“I had not thought of wanting any such thing,” Gurti said, and Padunu must have thought she wasn’t going to answer him, because he looked startled. “I had not thought of it,” she repeated, “while my husband was alive.”

“Well, no,” Padunu said, as if that seemed natural to him. “Since you had your husband to, er … ”

“Faru didn’t care for me,” Gurti said bluntly. “He behaved as a husband should—and I behaved as a wife should, for many years—but there was no affection between us.”

“Indeed,” said Padunu. “And, if it is not remiss of me to say so, there is affection between you and Tirtu.”

“I daresay there may have been,” she said guardedly. “At some point.”

Padunu was silent for a moment. What was keeping Otoni, Gurti wondered.

“He told me that he loves you.”

She stared. “He told you? When?”

“Earlier today. I don’t know why he did it, either. I can only interpret it as a testament to the strength of his feeling.”

Gurti was spared from having to think of a reply to that by a crash that echoed down the street from the direction of the fortress gate.

“What was that?” Padunu yelped.

“The siege, Shaman,” Gurti said dryly. “That will be the Zashians battering the gate.”

They heard the crash clearly in the Tsunakharu house.

“What’s that?” Na Tsunakhari, the mistress of the house, barked.