Happy Marriages #3
The great house was gloomy and dark inside, although the sun was still high in a clear sky.
This was because the windows were very small, without glass, fitted only with solid shutters.
An archway leading off the central hall had been roughly boarded up, sealing off the collapsed part of the building.
The stairs leading to the second storey were stone, without the carved wooden bannisters that distinguished Vanu’s house.
Altogether there was much less wood and fewer textiles than in Vanu’s house, which helped make the place feel cold and uninviting.
“No! No. Absolutely not. He’s my eldest son, and she’s—she’s nobody, no parents, no kin to speak of. How could he be so thoughtless?”
That was Faru’s voice, ringing out from an open doorway at the top of the stone stairs.
“You think he intends to marry her?” Gurti was not speaking so loudly, but by this time Lill was listening hard.
“What are you suggesting? That he’s going down to Sakka to—to fornicate?”
“Yes,” said Gurti, and Lill had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. The words of course were strongly implied.
Faru must have turned on his heel and stalked out of the room at that, because he appeared at the top of the stairs.
He recoiled at the sight of Lill, flinching so visibly that it was actually comical. As if he knew how weak that made him look, he tried to compensate with a ferocious unfriendliness. He glared.
“What are you doing here?” he spat, speaking in Hawada.
Lill had all but abandoned the pretence of not understanding the mountain language, but here he thought it might be useful again. He didn’t need Faru to know that he’d overheard his conversation with Gurti.
“Good afternoon, Lord Faru,” he said in Zashian. “I’m looking for Khatu and Barda.”
“For what reason? You can have nothing to say to them.”
“Lord Vanu said they could show me the caves under Umtúshta and the way out onto the mountain,” Lill said placidly, as the thing that he imagined would enrage Faru most thoroughly.
He was right. Bright spots of colour rose on Faru’s sallow cheekbones, and his fingers flexed on the stones of the wall behind him, in lieu of gripping a railing that wasn’t there.
“You will stay away from Khatu and Barda. I will not have my sons associate with you.”
Lill looked up at Faru and summoned a bland smile. The man could have killed him at one time—had come very close to doing it—but he couldn’t now. He was powerless now that Lill and Vanu were married, and he had to know that Lill knew it.
“Lord Vanu said I could talk to them, so … ”
“I will separate him from you, mark my words,” Faru snarled.
“I never wanted you here. The gift of that coward Davanu—a lowland boy—no, I could see that you came to bring ruin to all of us. I counselled Lord Vanu to send you back, but he ignored me. If I had not sworn an oath to my father, I would have defied him long before now.” He reverted to Hawada: “My shaman knows how to lay a curse that will make him abandon you. I will have him do it.”
Gurti shot out of the door at the top of the stairs.
“What are you saying to him?” she demanded.
She sounded equal parts furious and alarmed. Lill felt suddenly sorry for her. What kind of treatment did she have to tolerate from this man?
“He was joking,” he signed to Gurti. Aloud, trying to make his Hawada sound halting, he explained: “He doesn’t like me, but he’s loyal to my husband. He’d never break his oath.”
Gurti gave him a long look, as if trying to decide whether he really believed that. Then she looked at Faru. Her expression had not softened.
“You should know better than to speak so lightly of curses, my lord.”
“I never speak lightly, woman.”
Gurti stood at the top of the stairs with her arms folded for a moment, then flapped a hand sharply at Faru.
“You’re in my way.”
He gave her an aggrieved look and took his time descending the stairs, childishly.
“I’ll speak to Khatu,” she called after him as he was going out the back door of the house. “Don’t say anything to him until I find out what’s going on. And don’t make any promises to that other young woman’s family.”
“I will do what I think best.” The door banged closed behind him.
“I apologize for my husband’s behaviour,” Gurti signed when she reached the bottom of the stairs.
“It’s kind of you,” Lill signed back, “but you don’t have to.”
“Did you and Vanu make up after your fight?”
Lill blinked in surprise. Had Vanu told her about that? He talked to Gurti about that kind of thing?
“Yes, thank you,” he managed.
The back door of the hall opened again to admit Khatu, followed closely by Barda, bows and full quivers of arrows over their shoulders.
“Lill!” they chorussed excitedly.
“Sun in the winter, what are you doing here, Lill?” said Khatu.
“Came to see me,” said Barda, elbowing his brother in the ribs.
“Earth’s pussy! He’s a happily married boy, brother! He probably came to see me.”
Lill said nothing, because in fact he’d come to see both of them.
“You didn’t catch anything?” their mother observed.
“Nah, we didn’t hunt,” said Khatu easily. “We went down to Sakka instead. Ah! We’ve got a letter for you, Lill. Not for you, for your man. Barda, what’d we do with it?”
Barda dug out the letter and presented it to Lill, while Khatu tried to avoid their mother’s questions about why they had gone to the village instead of hunting as they had planned.
“Better take this back to my husband,” Lill said, brandishing the letter, and made his escape.