Not All There #3
Lill shook his head, looking at the ring in Mikhi’s hand. Waiting for Khatu to translate again gave him time to assimilate this new development. He heard Halza gasp as he realized what was happening.
“What about him?” Lill asked finally, inclining his head toward Halza. “If I accept this—what happens to him?”
“He wants to know what we’d do with the other lowlander if he accepts,” said Khatu.
“We haven’t decided what to do with him. We might hold him for ransom, or we might let him go. Is he your friend? Do you want us to keep him?”
She had been telling the truth, before, when she said they were planning to send both Lill and Halza home. She was probably telling the truth now. He would assume that she was.
“I would rather you let him go. I don’t want him to come to harm. But he is not my friend.” He wasn’t sure why that would matter, but he also didn’t see any need to pretend.
Khatu translated this, and Mikhi nodded. “You want us to promise not to hurt him. I can give you that assurance. So long as he behaves himself, he will not come to any further harm. That is my father’s assurance—I speak for him. It’s not conditional on you accepting the ring.”
“Uh … ” said Khatu. “Are you … ”
“Honestly! Just do your job, Khatu. Yes, I’m sure. You’re terrible at this.”
“She says, uh—yes. We’ll let him go. Not to worry.”
She was right; he wasn’t any good as an interpreter.
Lill nodded. He didn’t know if he believed the assurance—he thought she meant it, and maybe Vanu even meant it, but Vanu wasn’t the only one in the village capable of acting to harm Halza.
That had just been proven. Still, Lill felt he’d done his best now, discharged his debt of honour to Halza. He could move on with his mission.
He reached out his hand, and Vanu’s daughter dropped the ring into it, a wide smile blooming on her face as she did so. Halza gasped. Khatu let out a throaty cheer.
Lill looked at the ring. It was a delicate band of gold with tiny details worked in it, little grains of gold surrounding an opaque, faceted, orange-red stone.
“That was made in my village,” Mikhi said proudly. “Taskhabara in the Summer Pass. We have very famous goldsmiths. But the stone came from all the way across the Steppes, from Shing or Durba or one of those places.”
Lill slid the ring onto a finger at random and found that it fit. It felt strange; he’d never worn a ring before.
“What happens next?” he asked, looking up at Mikhi and Khatu.
Mikhi shrugged. Khatu, grinning, said, “Next we plan the wedding!”
“Da! Da!”
Vanu was exercising in the yard when he heard Mikhi’s shout. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and flipped his practice sword to rest it on his shoulder as he turned toward her. She skidded to a halt, face alight with excitement.
“He took the ring,” she signed.
Vanu raised his eyebrows sceptically. He tucked the practice sword under his arm so he could reply.
“Took it and threw it on the ground?”
“Took it and put it on!”
Vanu whistled. That he had not expected—not at all. The boy had seemed so desperate to escape, hiding in the cupboard, stealing the snake-handled dagger—and so enraged when he was recaptured, which only happened because he had come to the aid of his comrade.
“He thought you gave the order to throw him over the wall,” Mikhi explained. “When he realized you didn’t … ” She shrugged. “He came here to marry you. Why is it a surprise that he still wants to?”
Because I clearly can’t protect him from being thrown over the wall—him or his friend.
But, equally clearly, the boy could protect himself.
“He wanted an assurance that we wouldn’t hurt the other lowlander,” Mikhi went on, “and I gave it, because I thought that’s what you’d do. But he said the other lowlander’s not his friend.”
Vanu nodded.
“I said we hadn’t decided what to do with the other lowlander—we might hold him for ransom, I said, or we might let him go.”
“Sweetheart, we are not in a position to hold people for ransom these days.”
“Oh. I guess not.”
“Does Tirtu know about this yet?”
“I don’t know. I came straight to tell you.”
“Let me wash and put on a shirt, and we will go tell him. He said he forgave the boy, but I do not want to take his goodwill for granted.”
“You always think these things through,” said Mikhi admiringly.
Vanu rolled his eyes. If that flattering portrait were true, he wouldn’t have suffered the betrayal that landed him here in Umtúshta with the gate filled in with rocks. He’d learned a lot since then.
“Did you find out his name?” he asked.
“Your bride’s name? No, but Susami and Atari and I have started calling him … ” She hesitated, then made a modified version of the sign for doll. “It was … my idea,” she admitted. “Before I saw him drop out of the tree on Tirtu. Now I think maybe we should call him something else.”
Vanu thought about the boy’s fierce, dark eyes, the way he had twisted in Vanu’s grip and lashed out, the stolen dagger with its ivory handle lying in the dirt.
Idly he made the sign for snake.
“Oooh,” said Mikhi aloud. “That’s perfect.”