Wil nodded. “Sometimes, people aren’t what they appear to be.”
Wil yawned, his eyes drooping. “Tired. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for doing your job.” She stood. “So, what next?”
“ ’Nother Circuit, probably. Work’s never done.”
She smiled. “Valdemar first.”
“Yeah.”
She bent forward and kissed his forehead. “I spoke to Valdemar. She said to sleep. It’s her Midwinter gift to you.”
He cracked a smile. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Goodbye.”
“Good night,” he yawned back.
Before he dropped off, Wil thought it nice when she kissed him.
Lelia sang a word, the sound echoing across Companion’s Field.
A white form broke off from the herd and trotted toward where she waited at the fence, an apple in her outstretched hand.
“Midwinter gift for you,” she said as Vehs delicately nipped the fruit from her palm. The Companion chewed, then bent and touched his nose to the pack at her feet.
“The stories call,” she said. “Evendim, if it matters. Rumors of half-hawk men there.” She stood up on tip-toe and kissed his cheek. “Keep him safe.”
Vehs shook his mane and stamped his hoof. A gesture of frustration? It didn’t matter anyway, even if it was. She had songs to sing.
The Companion watched her as she walked through the frosty grass toward the gates, whistling as she went.
Wil hummed to himself on his way to Lyle’s quarters. He lifted his fist to knock—
Wil froze.
Vehs told him.
Wil thought that a very stupid question, and expressed as much.
Wil shook himself.
Wil walked in silence down the stairs, rubbing his forehead lightly as he went.
Wounded Bird
Michael Z. Williamson was born in the UK and raised in Canada and the US. A twenty- four-year veteran of the US Army and US Air Force combat engineers, he is married to a reserve Army combat photographer who is a civilian graphic artist. They have too many cats and two children who have learned how to fight anything, including zombies, from the age of four.
Women only wore dresses in Mirr. Riga had compromised with a knee- length tunic of wine silk with crimson and silver embroidery and beading over her trews. It stuck out in vivid contrast to the somber blacks and whites of the natives. She acceded somewhat to their law and wore a kerchief over her flaxen hair, but her warrior’s braid hung below, rather than loose under a long headdress like the locals.
Not that it mattered to anyone but her. Father and Erki knew her, and the locals would never regard her as anything other than a girl. She saw how the locals treated women: as servants.
Jesrin, for example, serving her minted tea, was lean and healthy looking and seemed rather bright. She’d never develop as anything here, though. She was unnumbered and unlettered and probably not much of a cook, just a serving girl. Riga would have liked to talk to her at least, but she’d have to go to the kitchen to do so. Women didn’t talk in front of men. Even if Riga might, Jesrin certainly wouldn’t. Riga thought about the kitchen, but that was a concession she didn’t want to make. She was not a servant. She was a trader and a warrior.
Jesrin moved on with more tea for the Amar, the local trading lord. She hesitated around his gesticulating arms, then moved to pour. He changed his motion just in time to catch the spout of the samovar and deliver a big splash of liquid to the lush woolen rug the men sat on.
“Clumsy wench!”
Riga twitched as Amar Rabas backhanded Jesrin. The blow was hard enough to stagger her, but she flailed through contortions to avoid dropping the silver tea set. Riga could only imagine the penalty if the girl did that.
A moment later she wasn’t sure she could imagine. The slight girl shrieked as her ankle twisted, but she laid the tray down carefully on the marble flagstones behind her. Not a drop spilled.
However, Rabas drew a heavy cord from somewhere and laid into her, the knotted end thunking heavily right through her thick clothes. The girl writhed and twitched, but she let out only whimpers. Presumably crying was punishable, too.
Father gave Riga a warning glance, and she nodded once, her face blank, while inside she burned with rage. It was not their business to interfere, though he obviously didn’t like it either. Riga’s brother Erki fought to keep his own temper. He was three years younger, though, only fourteen. What a lesson on foreign cultures for him.
It was worse for her because Riga was a trained warrior. Had the Amar swung at her like that, she’d have broken his arm and then sliced his throat. And, of course, been beaten to death or hanged for her trouble. It just drove home that fighting was not always the answer.
It also drove home that she despised this southern city and its culture. In the week they’d been here, the Amar had escalated his hospitality, gifts, and praise every day. He’d also escalated his brutality and rudeness to his servants and his own hires.
She knew she had to calm down, so she looked around their setting again. The walls were faced in gleaming marble. Wrought iron and bronze rails, hooks, and mountings adorned the stairs and walls. The doors, posts, and lintels were carved elaborately, some of them with scenes that made her blush. Apparently, denied other outlets for their energy, it went into suggestive figures.
While the small fleet of five ships—both of theirs and three others belonging to distant cousins—were being packed with valuable spices, silk, and teas, Riga really wasn’t sure it was morally worth it. Mirr was pretty. Mirr was also a filthy dump as far as attitudes, decency, and anything beyond decadently carved stone and flowers went.
“Amar Rabas,” Father interrupted diplomatically. When the man looked up from his flogging, he continued, “We are grateful for your hospitality. It is time to retire to our inn for the day. I hope to see you again tomorrow, as we prepare to leave.”
The Amar rose, and the girl crawled to her knees and bowed low. He glanced at her, snapped, “Get to the kitchen,” then turned back to his guests. “Of course, Gunde. May I host you for dinner tomorrow? A feast in farewell before you eat ship rations?”
“My son and I would be honored,” Father said. Of course, Riga was only a daughter and was not mentioned here, any more than a dog would be.
They bowed all around and departed, as the girl scurried limping away, taking the tray and towel with her.
