She drew a deep breath.
"That's
a town?"
"Certainly it's a town," he said, keeping his voice matter-of-fact. "What else would it be?"
"The gods alone know. It's so small . . ." Her voice faded, significant of growing tension.
"So? Then perhaps we should take a few moments to study what we see." He raised an arm, pointing. "That large affair, there, with the many windows? That's probably a government building of some kind. It seems to have the proper hauteur about it."
She chuckled—a good sign—and it seemed that she relaxed, ever so slightly. "And that squatty one, with the railing around the front?"
"A trading post," he guessed. "Or a small store." He pointed again. "What do you make of the little blue one?"
"A barbershop? Or a bar?" She laughed a little, and the tension was definitely easing. "Both?"
"Perhaps—though I think it would be a bit crowded for either. And the metal objects—they do seem to be metal, do you think?—along the sides of the thoroughfare?"
"Cabs!" Miri announced with certainty, relaxing back into him. He moved his cheek away from her hair and slanted a glance at the side of her face. She was smiling slightly. Good.
"So? Then tell me about that one—you see? Over behind the little blue one—with the tower and the knob on the top?"
She was silent for a moment, then blinked and grinned. "A bordello."
"Do you really think so?" he murmured. "Perhaps we should go there first."
She laughed—a true laugh—her head against his shoulder, then abruptly sobered. "Val Con?"
"Yes?"
"You're a sneak."
He lifted a brow. "It is a common failing, I am told, among Liadens."
"That's what Terrans say." She frowned. "What do Liadens say?"
"Ah, well. Liadens . . ." He tightened his arms around her in a quick hug. "Liadens are very formal, you know. So it is likely that they would not say anything at all."
"Oh." She took a breath. "What do we do now?"
"I think we should take off our guns and put them in our pouches. In some places the possession of a weapon makes a person suspect, even, perhaps, a criminal. And I think we should each have another sandwich—so that we do not grow proud—" He echoed her laugh softly. "After we eat, we should go down into the valley and look for one of those outlying farms I spoke of, to see if we might not trade the labor of our strong young bodies for a roof and food and lessons in language."
"All that on a sandwich? Well, you're the boss."
"And when," he inquired, "will you be boss?"
"Next week." She stood, pulled a plastic-wrapped package out of her pouch, and handed it to him to unwrap while she stripped off the gun and holster and stowed them away.
"Borril!
Here,
Borril! Wind take the animal, where—ah
ha!
So there you are, sir! No skevitts this morning? Or did they all sit in the treetops and laugh at you? Ah, now, old thing . . ." She finished in a much sweeter tone, as the dog flung himself at her feet with a
whuff
and lay gazing up at her, worship in his beady yellow eyes.
She bent carefully, rubbed her knuckles briskly across his head ridges, and yanked on his pointy ears. Straightening, she sighed and eased her back, her eyes dwelling on the marker before her: "Jerrel Trelu, 1412-1475. Beloved zamir . . ."
Beloved zamir—what bosh! As if it had not just been Jerry and Estra, working the farm and raising the boy and doing what needed to be done, one thing at a time, side by side, him leaning on her, her leaning on him. Beloved husband, indeed!
A wind blew across the yard, straight down from Fornem's Gap, ice-toothed with winter, though it was barely fall. Zhena Trelu shivered and pulled her jacket close around her. "Wind gets colder every year," she muttered, and pulled herself up sharp. "Listen at you! Just the kind of poor-me you hate in Athna Brigsbee! Mooning the morning away like there wasn't any work to do!"
She snorted. There was always work to do. She bent creakily and gathered up the sweelims she had picked for the parlor—she liked a bit of color to rest her eyes on in the evening when she listened to the radio or read. "Let's go, Borril. Home!"
The wind sliced out of the gap again, but she refused to give it the satisfaction of a shiver. The signs all pointed to a bad winter. She sighed, her thoughts on the house she and Jerry had lived a lifetime in. The shutters needed mending; the chimney had to be cleaned and the tin inspected for corrosion—though what she could do about it if the whole roof was on the verge of falling in was more than she knew. It was a big, drafty old place, much too big for one old woman and her old dog. It had always been too big, really, even when there had been Jerrel and the boy and, later, the boy's zhena—and the dogs, of course. Always four or five dogs. Now there was only Borril, last of a tradition.
As if her thought had reached out and touched some chord within him, the dog suddenly bounded forward, giving tongue in mock ferocity, charging around the side of the house and out of sight.
"Borril!" she yelled, but any fool would know that that was useless. She picked up her pace and arrived at the corner of the house in time to hear Borril, in full stranger-at-the-gate alarm.
Across the barking cut a man's voice, speaking words Zhena Trelu understood to be foreign.
She rounded the corner and stopped in surprise.
Borril was between her and two strangers—barking and wagging his ridiculous puff of a tail. The taller of the two spoke again, sharply, and the barking subsided.
"Be quiet, dog!" Val Con snapped. "How dare you speak to us like that? Sit!"
Borril was confused. The tone was right, but the sounds were different than the sounds She used. He hesitated, then heard Her behind him and ran to Her side, relieved to be out of the situation.
"Borril, you bad dog! Sit!"
That was better. Borril sat, tail thumping on the ground.
"I
am
sorry," Zhena Trelu continued, trying not to stare. "Borril really is quite friendly. I hope he didn't frighten you."
Again, it was the taller who spoke, opening his hands and showing her empty palms. Zhena Trelu frowned. It did not take a genius to figure out that he did not understand what she was saying.
Sighing, she stepped forward.
"Stay,
Borril." As she moved, the two men came forward also, stopping when shock stopped her.
The shorter man was not a man at all. Not, that is, unless foreigners of whatever variety these were allowed a man the option of growing his hair long, braiding it, and wrapping it around his head liken vulgar copper crown. A woman, then, Zhena Trelu allowed. Or, more precisely, a girl. But dressed in such clothes!
Zhena Trelu was not a prude; she knew quite well what useful garments trousers were—especially working around the farm. But these . . .
First, they seemed to be made of leather—sleek, black leather. Second, they were skintight, hugging the girl's boy-flat belly and her—limbs—and neatly tucked into high black boots. The upper garment—a white shirt of some soft-looking fabric—was acceptable, though Zhena Trelu thought it might have been laced a little closer around that slender throat; and the loose leather vest was unexceptional. But what in the name of ice did a woman want to wear such a wide belt for? Unless it was to accentuate the impossible tininess of her waist?
"Am I
that
funny-looking?" Miri asked, and Zhena Trelu started, eyes going to her face.
No beauty, this one, with her face all sharp angles and freckles across the snubbed nose. The chin was square and willful, the full mouth incongruous. Her only claim to prettiness lay in a pair of very speaking gray eyes, at present resting with resigned irony on the other woman's face.
Zhena Trelu felt herself coloring. "I beg your pardon," she muttered. She moved her eyes from the girl to her companion—and found herself staring again.
Where the angles of the girl's face seemed all at odds with each other, the lines in her companion's face worked toward a cohesive whole. High cheeks curved smoothly to pointed chin; the nose was straight and not overlong; the mouth was generous and smiling, just a little. His hair was dark brown, chopped off blunt at the bottom of his ears, and one lock of it straggled across his forehead, over level dark brows and quite nearly into the startling green eyes. His skin was an odd golden color, except for the raw slash of a recent scar across his right cheek.
He was dressed in the same sort of clothes as the girl, the clinging leather and the wide belt keeping no secrets regarding his own thinness.
Zhena Trelu frowned. The girl's skin was pale, doubly so when compared to the man's rich complexion. And they both looked tired. Skinny, too—never mind the outlandish clothes—and foreigners to top it all, without even a word of the language.
The wind sliced across the open lawn; the girl shivered—and that decided it. If the child was sickening for something she needed to be out of the wind. What was her zamir thinking of, to have her out in the chilly autumn weather with no jacket on and that shirt laced up so loose? Zhena Trelu glared at him, and one of his eyebrows rose slightly as he tipped his head, rather like Borril trying to puzzle out one of the rambling monologues she addressed no him.
"Well," she told the young zhena sharply, "you might as well come on in. There's soup for dinner to warm you up, and you can have a rest before you get on." She turned and marched up to the house, treading carefully on the creaky porch steps.
Realizing that he was in danger of being left behind, Borril jumped up and galloped across the lawn, taking the three wooden steps in a bumbling leap. Zhena Trelu, fidgeting with the chancy catch on the wind door, grumbled at him.
"Borril, sit
down,
you lame-witted creature.
Borril!"
she raised her voice as he jumped, almost knocking her down.
"Borril." From her back, a steady voice spoke, firm with command. Woman and dog turned to look.
The slender zamir stood on the second step, bent slightly forward, one golden hand extended. "Borril!" he repeated firmly. "Sit."
Zhena Trelu watched in fascination as the dog waggled forward and thrust his blunt nose into the outstretched hand. "Sit," stated the owner of the hand again.
Borril sat.
The man reached out and tugged lightly on a pointy ear, turning his head as the girl came to his side.
"Borril?" she asked, extending a wary hand. The silly creature
whuffed
and pushed his head forward. In careful imitation of her companion, she tugged on an ear. Borril flung himself onto his side in ecstasy, rolling his eyes and sighing soulfully. The girl threw back her head and laughed.
Zhena Trelu turned back to the catch and pulled the door wide.
"Well, come on," she snapped when they just stood there, staring at her from the second step. "And don't pretend you're not hungry. Doesn't look like you've had a full meal between you since last harvest-time." Irritably, she transferred the sweelims to the hand holding open the door and waved at her hesitant guests with the other.
After a moment, the man moved, coming silently up the last step and crossing the porch into the hall; the girl trailed him by half a step, and Zhena Trelu bit back a sharp lesson on manners. Did the girl think the house was a den of iniquity, that she sent her man in ahead?
They're foreigners, Estra, she reminded herself as she led them down the ball. You're going to have to make allowances.
She dumped the flowers into the sink, turned the flame up under the soup pot, and looked back to find them standing side by side just inside the door, looking around as if neither one had ever seen a kitchen before.
"Soup'll be ready in a couple minutes," she said, and sighed at the girl's blink and the man's uncomprehending head-tip.
Feeling an utter fool, she tapped herself on the chest. "Zhena Trelu," she announced, trying to say each word clearly and pitching her voice a little louder than normal.
The man's face altered, losing years as he grinned. "Zhena Trelu," he said, matching her cadence.
So, it works, she congratulated herself. She pointed at him, tipping her head in imitation of Borril.
He moved his shoulders, lips parting for an answer.
"Tell the truth, Liaden," Miri muttered at his side.
His eyes snapped to her face, both brows up. Smiling in rueful resignation of what he found there, he turned back to the old woman and bowed very slightly, fingers over heart. "Val Con yos'Phelium, Clan Korval."
Zhena Trelu stared, trying to sort the sounds. Valconyos Fellum Can Corevahl? What kind of name—no, wait. Corevahl? He was a foreigner, after all, with wind only knew
what
kind of barbaric accent. She pointed. "Corvill?"
The level brows twitched together, and he frowned, green eyes intent. "Korval," he agreed warily, though still thumping harder on the last syllable than the first.
"Corvill." Zhena Trelu decided, and pointed at the girl, who grinned and shrugged.
"Miri."
"Meri?" Zhena Trelu asked, frowning.
"Miri," she corrected, refusing to look straight at Val Con, though a glance out of the corner of her eye showed him grinning widely.
"Meri," Zhena Trelu repeated, and brought her finger back to Val Con. "Corvill."
He inclined his head, murmured, "Zhena Trelu," and jerked his chin at the dog, curled on his rug next to the stove. "Borril."
"Well, that's fine. Now we're all introduced, and dinner's almost ready." The old woman went across to the stove, lifted the pot lid, and stirred the soup with a long wooden spoon. Going over to the cupboard. she pulled out three bowls and three plates, shoved them into the girl's hands, and waved at the table. "Set the table, Meri."
The girl turned hesitantly toward the table. From the depths of the cupboard, Zhena Trelu produced three glasses and three mismatched napkins, which she handed to the man. He took them without apparent confusion and headed for the table. Zhena Trelu nodded to herself and went back to the sink to rescue the languishing sweelims.
"Hello, Meri," Val Con murmured, setting the glasses by the bowls and plates she had laid out.