she looked at the water. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the pool.
The water was breathtakingly cold. For a moment she wondered if she could bear it. But she wanted to prove to Braddoc that she was “pure of heart.” She gritted her teeth and washed as quickly as she could. The thought of plunging underwater to wash her hair made her heart skip a beat, but she longed to be rid of the tangles. Strangely, she felt her skin grow warmer each time she ducked under water. By the time she had finished washing her hair, she felt as though she could stay in the pool forever. But she knew she should finish the ritual so that Flinn and Dayin could bathe. Languorously, she left the pool and poured a bucket of water on the hot stones. She sat down on the bench.
The tension began to leave her body, and Jo felt wonderful. Her eyes began to flutter, and her head fell to her chest. She jerked upright, afraid of falling asleep in the lodge. There, in the swirling steam before her, she saw a faint image of herself. Jo blinked. The image remained, the vapors inside the lodge still swirling around and through the vision. She was standing before a forge, waiting for a smith to pull something from the fire. Her stance was strangely expectant, and Jo felt that same emotion course through her now. What was she so eagerly awaiting? Oddly enough, Braddoc stood beside her. Flinn was nowhere in sight. Then, as abruptly as the image had appeared, it vanished. The steam in the lodge was nothing but steam again. Jo waited for the vision to return, her eyes searching the swirling mists. But the vision was gone.
She dressed again in her now-damp clothing and tied a thong around her hair to hold it out of the way. Jo left the lodge, closing the door behind her. Flinn and Dayin were coming up the path.
The tall warrior stopped in front of her and asked teasingly, “Any visions?”
“Visions?” Jo repeated tentatively. She felt uncertain about telling Flinn about her sending because it hadn’t included him.
“Yes,” Flinn laughed. “Braddoc claims the pool grants visions. None of Braddoc’s mercenary cohorts ever had a vision there. They thought Braddoc touched in the head.”
“Perhaps they weren’t pure of heart,” Jo responded lightly.
Flinn looked at her with a strange expression. “No, perhaps they weren’t,” he said slowly. “Are you going in to help Braddoc?”
Johauna nodded, blushing as she thought of her own vision. I probably just imagined it, she told herself unconvincingly.
“Braddoc can be a… difficult sort to know,” Flinn was saying, “but he’s a good dwarf. Forgive him, if only for my sake.” Flinn touched her arm, and then he and Dayin entered the sweat lodge.
Jo walked down the path to Braddoc’s house. She stooped through the back entry and found she was in the kitchen. The house was substantially larger than Flinn’s cabin had been. Through the short hall straight ahead of her lay the front door and the main room. To her right, two doors opened, one to a supply room and the other to the dwarf’s bedroom. To her left lay the kitchen, which she now entered.
Braddoc was stirring something in a large pot hanging over the fire in the kitchen’s hearth. He looked up as Jo entered, then silently gestured for her to sit at the large wooden table at the center of the room. Two benches flanked either side. She considered sitting on the bench farthest from the dwarf, but decided against it. Like as not, he would think she was being impolite-which she would have been. Besides, the warm fire is inviting, she thought as she sat down on the sturdy wooden bench. It had been sanded smooth and painted a pale green, though the paint was old and wearing thin.
The dwarf turned toward her, his eyes level with hers. In the ample light of the kitchen his hair looked richly russet, a shade redder than her own. The few strands of gray indicated that he was fairly young in dwarf years, but Jo couldn’t guess his age. He had rebraided his beard and hair, for golden threads now intertwined with the plaits. The braids began and ended in elaborate clasps. Braddoc wore a golden yellow tunic of finely woven cloth; the edges were embroidered in a colorful, repeating pattern of graceful curves. A copper torque circled his neck, fashioned in the same style as the cuffs on his wrists.
All in all, the dwarf was a splendid sight. Jo, accustomed only to squalor and poverty for most of her life, felt awed. She had seen such finery only from a distance in Specularum, and then only rarely. She didn’t immediately notice that the tunic was nearly threadbare, or that the clasps and the torque had been stripped of gems.
The dwarf wrinkled his nose and sniffed the air. “Flinn told me about the fire,” Braddoc said at last. “You truly have no other clothes?”
Jo crossed her arms irritably and shook her head. “I only had the ones I wore on the day I met Flinn. They were ruined by a creature Flinn calls an abelaat. Flinn made me these, and what I am wearing is all I possess.” Jo rested her hand on the pommel of her sword, deriving some confidence from the weapon she had learned to carry always at her side. The dwarf’s refined ways left her feeling boorish, which annoyed her.
Braddoc wrinkled his nose again. “They will have to do, then.” He looked at her clumsily bound hair. “We can do something about your hair, however.”
“My hair?” Jo repeated.
The dwarf left the room without responding. He returned almost immediately. “Turn around,” Braddoc said.
Jo looked at him, still unsure of what he wanted.
“Turn around,” Braddoc repeated, “and I will braid your hair. Long hair such as yours should be properly bound, as is mine.”
Johauna saw that he held a comb in one hand and a silver clasp in the other. Slowly she pulled off the leather thong that had gathered her hair.
Braddoc came and stood behind her. He paused for a moment, as if to gather his bearings, and then he began combing out Johauna’s still-wet hair. His strokes were gentle, and he worked out every tangle without unduly pulling at her scalp. Jo found herself relaxing in the silence that followed. The careful actions of Braddoc’s fingers felt almost pleasurable.
“You had a sending?” Braddoc asked quietly.
“Y-yes, I did,” Jo answered. “How did-?”
“Tell me about it,” the dwarf interjected.
Something about the tone in his voice and the gentleness in his hands inspired Jo to trust him. “I was standing near a forge,” she said, seeking to find the words. “You were beside me, and we were waiting for the smith to pull something from the fire.”
“Could you see what it was?” Braddoc asked.
“No. It was in the fire-I saw nothing of it. But you and I, and even the smith… we were all filled with expectation,” Jo said suddenly, her mind whirling with the emotion she was trying to describe. “It is the strangest feeling. The image of the vision is leaving me, but the feeling isn’t.”
The dwarf finished Jo’s long braid and attached the silver clasp. He turned Jo around and pulled the plait to her front, letting it fall to the hollow of her arm. Jo watched his brown eye travel from her rough boots, linger at the calloused hand on her sword, and then continue to her eyes. Then Braddoc smiled, a smile of genuine warmth.
“Your vision was a true one-you didn’t make it up. I would have known if you had, and it’s good that you didn’t he to me,” he said. “I see now why Flinn chose you to be his squire.”
Jo stared back at him, glad that the dwarf had warmed to her. “Thank you,” she said simply.
“Wait here and close your eyes,” Braddoc said suddenly. “I have something to show you.” Without waiting for her response, the dwarf left the kitchen.
Obediently Jo shut her eyes, keeping them closed even when she heard Braddoc return. He placed something on the table before her, and then she heard a little click, as if a catch was sprung. She felt the faintest touch on her arm and opened her eyes.
Flinn opened the door. Dayin followed close behind. It feels good to be clean again, Flinn thought, and he looked forward to the meal his friend was preparing. Braddoc had always been a stickler for the finer things in life, like good food and cleanliness. Flinn had benefited from the dwarf’s predilections more than once.
Flinn entered the kitchen and was unprepared for the tableau that met him. Jo’s face was flushed, and her eyes were bright. Braddoc was standing beside her, and they both turned at Flinn’s entrance.
Jo stood up. “Flinn!” she cried. “Look!” She pointed to a case resting on the table.
