“What was that language the people were singing?” Xulai asked.
“An Old Tongue,” replied Precious Wind. “One of the many that were spoken during the Before Time. They make a study of such things at the abbey. The music, too, was from the Before Time. I am told even the abbey does not know what the words mean, but since they were written in letters still used in Norland, they can be pronounced. The words and the music are so fitted together that the meaning seems plain.”
“To lift up the soul,” murmured Xulai.
“Certainly,” Precious Wind agreed. “To lift up the soul.”
To lift it from the princess and to place it onto me, thought Xulai, thinking that she should feel a great deal heavier and surprised that she did not.
It was the thought of heaviness that moved her to consider what had actually happened the night she had carried out the princess’s wishes. The time since then had been full of duties and responsibilities, there had been no time for consideration, but that word, “heaviness,” now sent her mind back to the quiet, candlelit room where the princess had died.
The princess had been frantic. She had wanted Xulai to find, bring, and then swallow a thing. The princess had died of a curse. So it was said. So the duchess herself had said, there in the woods. Xu-i-lok had known a curse had come upon her, known from the beginning that someone sought her death, not only of the body but of the self, the soul, the being.
If one were cursed, perhaps one would want to put one’s soul beyond reach. And perhaps, if one were dying, one would want to be sure that soul was given to the carrier who would have the strength to take it home.
Was that what it had been? She caught Abasio’s eyes on her, serious and quiet.
“I never knew her,” he said, speaking directly to Xulai. “But I imagine she was a quiet woman of great dignity who never spoke of things better left unsaid.”
Precious Wind nodded, and Oldwife Gancer echoed the notion. “You speak truly, sir. She spoke often of important matters, of things we needed to think of and consider, but she never spoke of things better left in silence.”
“A trait we might all seek to emulate,” said Precious Wind.
“Yes,” murmured Abasio, his eyes on Xulai’s face. “Yes, that is true.”
Xulai took a deep breath. “I will try to behave as she did. In her honor.”
Abasio smiled, an almost invisible smile. Nothing more was said until they reached Woldsgard, and even then, they spoke only of ordinary things. Abasio took his meal with Great Bear and Precious Wind. Xulai had guessed why. Abasio was determined to make close friends of Xulai’s people and do it as quickly as he could. She was glad he took his supper with them that night while she had her own supper in the kitchen. She did not feel like talking and retreated to her bed when she had finished, sleeping through all the night, as though there were not enough sleep in the world to rest her heart.
Chapter 2
The Journey
“When will he tell her?” Dame Cullen asked the cook.
“Shh,” Cook replied. “She can hear you.”
Dame Cullen turned, her glance scraping the table’s wood to its grain, the wall’s stone to its heart, finding nothing there to warrant her attention, a rare occasion, for the wife of Crampocket Cullen was as dedicated to the welfare of Woldsgard as was the steward himself. Neither of them need look far to find faults in others’ care of the place. Pinch-lipped, Cook nodded toward the chimney corner, where only Xulai’s knees could be seen, the rest of her hunched and snuggled into the warmth of the curved inglenook, a bowl of oatmeal in her lap. Across from her sat Abasio, whose presence Dame Cullen thought it impossible to account for.
“Hmph,” said Dame Cullen, casting one of her most reproving sneers in Abasio’s direction. “For years I’ve wondered why she isn’t out playing with the other children. Our children not good enough for her?”
“The duke keeps her close because of why she came here,” said Cook sharply. “The princess was cursed; Xulai came because of that. Keeping her safe is the point of it; good or bad enough doesn’t enter in.”
“Well then, when will he tell her?”
“Tonight, I should imagine,” said Cook very softly.
Dame Cullen never spoke softly. “Young for what’s coming, the dwarfish thing.”
Abasio considered the unpleasant words had been directed at him as much as at anyone and he replied, his voice slow, authoritative, and quietly admonitory. “Not dwarfish, madam. The Tingawans are said to be slow growing, long of life, slow to age, which may prove to be a good thing, considering the years that may pass before the way to the west will be peaceful enough that Xulai can fulfill her task.”
Dame Cullen, who found sources of insult as easily as she imagined cobwebs in corners, tossed her head and swept out of the kitchen, her stiff skirts scurrying along the floor like the scuttle of a dozen rats. In the chimney corner with the chipmunk half-hidden in a fold of her skirt, Xulai suddenly saw and heard the rats, the lead rat insistent upon the cadence, his whispery squeak keeping his fellow rats in step until they reached Dame Cullen’s bedchamber. She looked up to meet Abasio’s eyes.
He winked at her and asked, “Do you hear them? When she gets upstairs, they’ll all come rushing out, gnashing their yellow teeth and scaring her half to death.”
“Oh, I heard them,” said the chipmunk. “An army of them.”
Xulai’s jaw dropped,
