“Why else would I have come to Oyngestun?” Ealstan asked. Vanai murmured something too low to hear and looked down at her shoes. Ealstan said, “You aren’t talking about your grandfather, the way you always did before.”
“No, I’m not talking about my grandfather,” Vanai agreed wearily. “I think I may have said everything there is to say about him, and done everything there was to do for him. And he’s certainly said everything there was to say about me.” Her jaw set. Ealstan thought she was a year or so older than he. Suddenly, she looked a good deal older than that and harder than he’d dreamt she could.
He started to ask what her grandfather had said about her. A second glance at her face convinced him that wouldn’t be a good idea. Instead, he said, “Will you come with me?”
Her laugh had a raw edge to it. “This is only the fourth time we’ve ever set eyes on each other. We haven’t spent more than a few hours together, and we’ve sent a few letters back and forth. And because of that, you want me to leave behind everything and everybody I’ve ever known and go off with you to a place neither one of us has ever seen?”
Dull embarrassment filled Ealstan. He’d let his hopes run away with him. Life as you lived it wasn’t really much like what it was once the writers of romances got through with it. Kicking at the cobbles once more, he began, “Well, I--”
“Of course I’ll come with you,” Vanai broke in. “By the powers above--the powers above who are deaf and blind to everything we Kaunians have suffered--how could whatever happens to me there be worse than what’s happened to me here?”
He knew he didn’t know everything that had happened to her here in Oyngestun. Once more, he realized asking wouldn’t be smart. In any case, joy and astonishment left him little room to worry about such things. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” he said. “Not ever.”
To his astonishment, her face worked. She bit her lip, plainly fighting back tears. “Nobody but you has ever said anything like that to me,” she whispered.
“No?” Ealstan shook his head in bewilderment. “A lot of people have wasted a lot of chances, then.” He saw he’d flustered her again. Since he didn’t want that, he asked, “Will your grandfather be all right if you leave him alone?”
“I hope so. In spite of everything, I hope so,” Vanai answered. “But the redheads are as likely to scoop me up on the way to Eoforwic as they are to grab him here. I can’t do anything about that. I managed to keep him from going out and having to work himself to death on the road, but those days are gone now.”
“How did you stop the Algarvians from sending him out to do road work?” Ealstan asked.
“I managed,” Vanai repeated, and said no more. Her face went hard and closed again. None of the pictures that flooded into Ealstan’s mind was any he wanted to see. He asked no more questions, which seemed to relieve Vanai.
Now she tried to break the tension: “How can we go to Eoforwic? I don’t think they’ll let us ride together in a caravan car, and I wouldn’t feel safe in one, anyhow. Too easy for the Algarvians to stop the caravan and haul away everybody with yellow hair.”
Ealstan nodded. “I think caravans are dangerous, too. That leaves walking, unless we find someone to give us a wagon ride for part of the way.” He grimaced. “With the two of us, I don’t know how likely that is.”
“Not very,” Vanai said succinctly, and Ealstan nodded again. She went on, “Let me take this to my grandfather and get a heavier cloak and some stouter shoes.” She sighed. “I’ll leave him a note to tell him some of what I’m doing, so he wont think the Algarvians got me. He’ll have some learning to do, but I think he can. He’s not stupid, even if he is a fool. Wait for me here. I’ll be back soon.” She hurried away.
Instead of waiting, he went up to his room and gathered his own meager belongings, then returned to the apothecary’s shop. Good as her word, Vanai came up a few minutes later. She was wearing the heavier cloak, and had a cloth bag slung over her shoulder. “Let’s go,” Ealstan said. Side by side, they started out of Oyngestun, heading east.
As soon as a grove of pale-leaved olive trees hid the village behind them, they began holding hands. They leaped apart when a Forthwegian on a mule came past them, but then resumed. Not long after that, they were kissing. Not too much longer after that, they went off the road into another, thicker grove. It wasn’t perfect privacy, but it was good enough. When they started walking again, they both wore foolish smiles. Ealstan knew he was in trouble, but had a hard time worrying about it. He was, after all, only seventeen.
Thirteen
Priekule was a gray, unhappy town after more than a year and a half of Algarvian occupation. Krasta still frequently left her mansion to visit the shops and cafes in the heart of the city, but what she found there satisfied her less and less often.
The food in the cafes seemed to get nastier every week. Sometimes a mere sniff after she went inside one was enough
