Chapter 26
YOU CAN’T LIVE ALL YOUR LIFE IN ONE SET OF FEATHERS
“We’ve got her bolt of fabric, then,” Veru said. “I suppose we’d better try to complete the third task before she returns.”
“This one will take the longest time, I fear,” the red knight said.
“I wish you luck. I’ll send my brother to you.
He’ll be coming this evening.” He picked up Veru’s hand and bent over it, placing a kiss on the back and then turned it over and gave her his magic comb, folding her fingers over it as he did.
“Oh, Polden, no,” Veru said. “I couldn’t.”
“But you must. Don’t you see?” he said. “She will ask how it was done. I dare not keep this with me. She will gather virgins and use them. I won’t have it.”
“But won’t she do that anyway?” Danik asked.
He shook his head. “It’s unlikely. It would take far too many and too much hair to grow the wool for even one sheep before a full moon.
Without the comb, she won’t be able to get more of the precious wool.
She has enough to keep her happy for the time being.
I’m hoping by the time she realizes what has happened, you’ll be long gone with the comb. ”
“But can’t she simply conjure another comb?” Veru asked.
“The comb was not made of her magic. She acquired it as she does most of her magic—by stealing it from others. What she doesn’t understand is that the most powerful magic never works well when stolen, only when gifted. This is why I am gifting it to you.”
“Very well. I’ll keep it for now. But I plan to return the gift someday, my friend.”
The knight nodded his head. “As you wish, my lady. Good luck to the two of you. Fare thee well, my friends. Dos vedanya.”
“Dos vedanya, Polden.”
He took his leave and Max leaped onto Veru’s lap as Danik dished out a heaping bowl of hot porridge for both of them. They ate and considered the two jars of sesame seeds.
While Danik cleaned the bowls, Veru reread the contract and asked, “Why do you think the black knight needs to hold the jars while we’re harvesting the wheat?”
“I don’t know,” he said over his shoulder. “Maybe it’s a toll thing? We can only harvest while he’s holding on to something in exchange?”
“Maybe.”
Veru shook the jars, listening to the seeds roll around inside.
Max stared at her with his big cat eyes.
Opening her bag, she dug around inside until she found the flask Kadam had left for her.
Uncorking it, she emptied the water into a mug and then dumped all the black seeds into it, then did the same with the white sesame seeds and Danik’s water flask. He came over as she was finishing up.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Hedging our bets. Now, I need something small. It would have to sound like the sesame seeds.”
Max jumped off her lap and headed over to a bin in the corner. He meowed and tapped it with his foot. When Veru opened it, she found rice.
“Interesting. I can’t recall rice being here before. But it’s perfect, Max. Thank you.”
She filled both containers with approximately the same amount of rice and closed them up again.
“I’ve been meaning to ask how your scalp is healing,” Danik said.
“It’s better,” Veru replied. “Still a little tender in the back, but the doctor said the sutures he put on my scalp would absorb on their own and promote quick recovery. Apparently, it’s not made of catgut or silk like in our world but spun from some rare tree-dwelling spider creature found in this place.
I tried not to ask too many questions. And honestly, I prefer not thinking about it too much.
When I do, it makes me want to scratch.”
“Interesting. May I take a look?”
Veru nodded, forcing herself to keep her hands at her sides, and Danik stepped behind her chair and gently parted her shorn hair. “There’s a scar, but it looks very good. Mostly healed, I’d say. There’s still blood on your hair though.”
“He wanted me to wait another week until I got it wet again,” she explained. “I figured most of the hair was so new anyway it probably didn’t matter that much.”
“It’s been that long. I can help, if you like.”
Veru sputtered. “Help? Help me . . . bathe?”
“No. Not that, of course. I meant wash your hair. It’s so short now that it wouldn’t take long, I should think—that is, unless you’d rather bathe. I’m not sure we have the time, but if you want to . . .”
He trailed off, and Veru could see his neck turning red.
“No, I think it’s a good idea. My hair, I mean. Not a bath.”
“Okay. You just sit there. I’ll get what we need.”
Danik bustled around the cottage, opening the closet to find clean towels, a basin, and soap.
He poured hot water into the bowl and mixed in some cold water from the pump outside, then had Veru turn in the chair, plumping a pillow behind her shoulders so her head hung over the side.
He draped a towel around her shoulders and gave her another for her face.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked.
He shrugged. “My mom had sores on her feet on occasion and I bathed them, tending to the wounds to keep the infections at bay from the time I was young,” he explained.
“Do you know why?” she asked as he carefully poured water over her head and began to lather in soap.
“The doctors didn’t know. Something to do with her blood and the circulation. She always complained that she had ghost pains in her toes and ankles. Then she stopped feeling anything at all below the knee.”
“I’m sorry. Is that how you know so much about herbal medicines and poultices?”
He paused. “Did I tell all this about myself before?”
“Not about your mother, no. When my paw was in a trap, you gave me something to make me sleep. I healed too quickly for you to treat me, but I saw what you’d made and dropped as you ran out. You put a lot of work into it.”
Danik grunted. “She always called me her miracle boy. Didn’t have me until she was older than most. When they got sick, I tended to them, hoping I was a miracle.
That I was sent to them to save them. I never got sick.
Not even a cough.” Danik began rinsing her hair and then paused.
“Mama died first. I was holding her hand so tight. Her body just . . . just stopped fighting. It relaxed. She looked at me and smiled and said, ‘My angel.’ A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, and she was gone.”
He took the towel and began squeezing the excess water from her shorn hair. Then he stood, leaving the towel wrapped around her head, and tossed out the water, putting away the bucket and the soap.
“What about your papa?” Veru asked. “Do you remember?”
Sighing, Danik nodded and looked through the bag, removing the comb.
Then he took the towel from her head, and she sat up.
As he began working through the short hair, he said, “Papa was delirious. He didn’t even know Mama was gone.
I buried her with my uncle’s help, then sat with him for two more days, trying to feed him broth and soaked bread, anything my aunt left at the door.
But he wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink. He was gone before the third day. ”
“How old were you?”
“Not yet twenty. After my father was buried, I stayed away from my cousins long enough to ensure I didn’t carry what my parents had, then I left with my older cousins on a hunting trip to help. Soon after I was assigned my own route.”
His hands stopped moving over her hair. “There. I think it’s long enough now.”
Veru’s fingers darted up to her wet scalp. “I didn’t realize you were using that comb.”
“I thought you might like your hair to be your usual length. Not that I don’t like it short.”
Standing, Veru removed the towel from her shoulders. “Thank you for helping me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, can I ask . . . when we first arrived, and you were searching for your home . . .”
“I was lost.”
“Which makes perfect sense. This is a strange place, after all,” Veru said, taking a step around the chair.
“It is,” he said, setting the comb down on top of the chair and narrowing his eyes at her, wondering what she was up to.
“And then I was a perfect stranger as well. You having only known me as a very large cat.” Veru walked her fingers along the arm of the chair and slid her foot closer, closing the gap between them.
“That’s right,” Danik replied, not moving away but not bending toward her either, which was frustrating to Veru. Never in her life had she had to woo a man, and she found the exercise both taxing and, to her surprise, also exhilarating.
When she was right next to him, her arm brushing against his, she wondered how she should approach him.
Veru knew he cared about her. The kiss they’d shared before proved he wasn’t immune to her charms. So, what was it?
Why did he hold back? What was it that he’d said to her before?
Something about him being string or an instrument that might be broken?
She thought about the words of his song.
He’d been concerned about being a pawn in a vicious game.
It was possible he’d been talking about their situation, but there was a niggling part of her that wondered if he wasn’t speaking of her.
Did she even deserve someone as good as Danik?
His mama’s miracle child, her angel boy?
Surely if she was looking down on them from heaven right now, she’d choose someone else for her only son.
While it was true that Veru was a tsarevna, a royal, born of noble blood, she’d always felt like an impostor.
What would it be like to be loved not for your face, your body, or even your blood, but simply for who you were?
Loved enough that someone would kneel at your damaged feet to ease your pain.
Seen for your humor, your mind, and appreciated or not, depending on your actions and not on your appearance.
Perhaps a more direct approach might work, she thought.
“Danik?” she began.
“Yes?”
“Do you think there’s a possibility that a hunter—”
“A musician who hunts,” he clarified.