Not All There #2
Master Hadda always discouraged friendship. He had once congratulated Lill on not needing friends.
“A spy needs to stay aloof,” he said. “These bonds may be harmless for an ordinary soldier—some even say they make him fight more valiantly. But they are not for our kind.”
He had felt honoured to hear Master Hadda say that. To be able to feel that he was set apart in a good way, not because he didn’t belong in the Order, was a disgrace to his lineage, was too pretty, and so on.
Maybe it was true that there was some part of him missing, but it was a good thing, if so. It was a part of him that was not needed. He was a tool of the Great King, he could not live outside the Order, and nothing that he had to endure to remain here was too much to ask.
The door of the round house opened, and Lill raised his head to see Halza stumble through.
“And no more nonsense!” Tirtu called after him before he banged the door shut and slammed home the bolt.
“Lill! Are you all right?”
Lill pushed himself up to sitting. Halza was bruised and dusty and dragging his injured leg worse than ever as he made his way to his bed. It was ridiculous that he was asking Lill whether he was all right.
“I am fine.”
“You saved my life. They were going to—”
Lill waved a hand impatiently. “They may still. I achieved nothing.”
“You didn’t find the tunnel?”
“No.”
Halza groaned. “Did you look everywhere?”
“I scouted all the way around the wall, where I could get to it, and I took a look inside Vanu’s compound.”
“What’s that?”
“He has an inner wall around his house—I think he probably built it himself, to keep his daughters safe.”
It had been difficult to climb it—Khatu and Barda couldn’t have done it, which was presumably the whole point of it.
But Lill had, and he’d looked over at Vanu’s property and seen no evidence of a tunnel anywhere along the outer wall.
Though it was always possible they’d hidden the entrance inside one of the buildings.
The barns that were right up against the wall behind the great house were a good possibility in that regard.
If Lill could get out of here, that was where he’d go next.
“He didn’t hurt you when he slammed you against that tree?” Halza asked anxiously.
“I’m fine,” said Lill again. He didn’t want to think about that strange moment when Vanu had bloodied his own knuckles to prevent Lill’s head hitting the tree.
“I was afraid you’d hit your head again and—”
“I’m. Fine.”
“Because you know what happened to Prince Batan’s brother, don’t you?”
“What? No.” The Order had not kept copies of frivolous books like The Legend of Prince Batan.
“You don’t? He was kicked in the head by a horse, and everyone thought he had recovered, but then a month later he fell off a stool and hit his head again, and that time he fell unconscious and died.”
“What nonsense,” said Lill scornfully.
Had Vanu Urártu read The Legend of Prince Batan?
It seemed implausible. Lill had looked at the book by Vanu’s bed on his way out of the room, but he had no idea what it was.
It had been written in an angular script that he had never seen before, presumably the writing of Hawakhurta.
He hadn’t known they had writing in Hawakhurta.
“All right,” said Halza, “if you say so. But how in the world did you manage to drop out of the tree like that and land right on that fellow’s back?”
“I’m trained.”
Halza frowned as if he didn’t find that a sufficient answer but wasn’t sure what question to pose next. Before he could come up with one, they both looked up at the sound of the bolt being drawn in the door. Lill jumped to his feet; he would meet his fate standing, if he could.
The door opened to reveal Vanu’s daughter, with Khatu hovering at her elbow. Someone must have sent him as an escort. She motioned to him impatiently to come inside and close the door. She was carrying a tray with bowls of food.
“There’s water here,” she said to Halza, pointing to a jug with a towel over it. “For you to clean up.” She made a scrubbing gesture.
“Water for washing up,” Khatu translated. Halza just stared at him.
“Thank you,” said Lill, addressing Vanu’s daughter rather than her interpreter. That was proper protocol; he’d learned that. “And for the food.”
“I have a message,” she said in her overloud voice. “The message is: We forgive you for attacking Tirtu, and we’re sorry for what happened to him.” She jerked a thumb at Halza. “Da says he’ll send you home if you want to go. He figures you do, seeing that you were trying to escape.”
Lill digested this as Khatu translated. Was it some kind of trick? What was the move to make here, if it was? He was at a loss.
“Vanu says that,” he repeated finally.
“He does, yeah,” said Khatu. He grinned. “Sorry about all the … ” He waved a hand vaguely. “The thing is, you should know Lord Vanu never wanted you thrown over the wall or any of that.”
“Why should we believe you?” Halza was clearly trying to talk tough, but it came out sounding rather reedy.
“What are you telling them?” Vanu’s daughter asked suspiciously.
“Just filling them in on what happened.”
“You told them it was your father’s idea to chuck them over the wall?”
“Yeah, so … ” He turned back to Lill and Halza. “My da made a mistake, see. Lord Vanu just said he didn’t want to marry you, but Da, er, misunderstood. Sooo … that’s how that happened—you could even say Barda and me saved the day, hey?”
That, Lill thought, was going a little far. He said nothing.
“Anyway, that thing you did, dropping out of the tree onto Tirtu?” Khatu went on enthusiastically. “That was some pure bee-fuckery! Mikhi here thinks so too—she was telling me—”
“Earth’s tits, Khatu!” Vanu’s daughter stamped her foot. “You’re supposed to be acting as my interpreter, remember?”
“Sorry, Mikhi, sorry.”
Mikhi turned back to Lill and composed herself.
“The message from Lord Vanu is that he’ll let you go if you want to go.
But if you don’t, then this is for you.” She held out her hand.
In her palm was a gold ring with a small red stone.
“He heard it’s your custom, um, where you’re from. For a betrothal.”
“What’s going on?” Halza hissed.