“Are you sure?”
“I am. Sister Tomea insists I’m quite safe and since I’m no longer even a pretend child, it’s time I find my own way about.”
Precious Wind settled into her chair, though Oldwife Gancer shook her head in slight dismay. Giving them no time to formulate an argument, Xulai took a package from a chair by the door and slipped into the corridor behind the blue-veiled man.
“I’m Brother Derris,” he told her cheerfully, looking her over from head to toe as though he were thinking of buying her. “I work mostly with visiting craftsmen and their animals. That’s why they sent me. I like that friend of yours. He’s a strange one.”
“He’s traveled very widely,” Xulai commented. “I’m sure he’s full of stories.”
“As a hive is full of bees, that one! We all like to hear him talk. Here, I’ll show you the short way.”
“Can you show us the way into the—what do you call them, the grounds in back of the abbey where the houses are?”
“The Parkland. Oh, right, you’ll be living there. I can do that. You want to show them to your friend, right?”
“I thought it would interest him, yes.”
“Easy. Here in the abbey, there’s always a dozen hard ways to get anywhere but at least one easy one. That’s us blues’ job—learning the easy ones.” He grinned a carnivorous grin and set out almost at a trot.
They found Abasio’s wagon parked next to a small stable where Blue was comfortably installed. Inside the wagon, the little stove held a steaming kettle. Abasio, on first seeing her, let his hand drop in surprise. It struck the hot kettle and he drew it back with an exclamation.
Blue whinnied, drawing the blue’s attention. Xulai shook her head warningly, and Abasio took a deep breath before bowing and saying, “Welcome.”
“Good fortune,” she replied, bowing even lower.
Brother Derris declined the polite offer of tea and said he would be back shortly to take them into the abbey grounds. They said nothing until he had joined a group of other blue-veiled workers at some distance from them.
Abasio stared at her, saying softly, “Well. Was yesterday’s Xulai the true Xulai, or is today’s . . . ?”
She took a deep breath. “Abasio, which do you prefer?”
“I told you,” said Blue. “I said she was no kiddy-widdy for all that glitter around her making her look like a baby.”
“Do I look different?” she cried.
He looked her over carefully from several angles, hiding his relief. He had not been out of his mind when he had seen her as an older person. This was the truth! Thank God.
He said, “I was having some trouble . . . relating to you. I kept having these . . . rather unsuitable feelings.”
“That’s a good phrase,” she said. “ ‘Unsuitable feelings.’ I’ve been having those for some time now. Several years, at least.”
“About whom?”
She blushed. “Oh, not really about anyone. Just . . . free-floating feelings. Then you came, and they became . . . more unsuitable.”
“Since when?” he asked, startled. He had prided himself on his propriety.
“Since the night you took me under your cloak in the woods at Woldsgard. The night the Duchess of Altamont was there.”
Abasio mused. “Feelings that may have . . . frightened you?”
“Well, no. Actually, I was mostly feeling surprised because I wasn’t frightened. Not with you there. And yet . . . I did not feel as I did when Bear was protecting me from . . . crowds of people or horses. Logically, I should have had similar feelings, shouldn’t I?”
Blue said, “Oh, no. No. Here we go! This is another one of those fated things, isn’t it? Now we’re in for it!”
Surprisingly, his voice was as muted as theirs, or so Xulai thought. Perhaps he did not only speak but had horse-sense as well.
“I don’t know, Blue, and you’re not helping,” snapped Abasio.
Xulai kissed Blue on his nose. “Would you mind if your friend and I just . . . find out what’s happening?” She was examining her mood, finding it inexplicably . . . what was this? Joyous?
“Your mother must have been a lovely-looking woman,” said Abasio.
The joy was stifled.
“Oh, well. Let me tell you about my mother and father,” she said through her teeth, beginning at once to do so. It took some time, a few tears and refills of tea, and Blue’s head was hanging over the rail of the corral before she finished. He was, thanks be, silent.
Abasio mused, “You figure she gave you this ability to make people see you differently.”
“You evidently didn’t see me differently.”
“Oh, yes, I did, but your image kept wavering because I knew I was seeing falsely, if that makes sense. I’ve got a magical helmet, a kind of library that leads me toward the truth, most of the time, so I know what seeing true feels like.” He smiled as he said this, a sad, rather longing smile. “It’s not magic, really, but I call it that. I came by it through a lovely lady I knew once. Her name was Ollie, and her destiny was higher than either of us wanted it to be. She went to meet that destiny and could never return from it, but she left me the magical helmet, and she’s . . . in it, maybe the way your mother is in you. Perhaps you just don’t know how to . . . listen to her yet, or talk to her.”
She found this thought too strange to contemplate at the moment. “No one knows who I really am except Oldwife, Precious Wind, and me. Bear doesn’t know. The men don’t know. They’ll know I look older and Precious Wind will tell them something or other, but don’t you or Blue tell them anything else. Oh, and I brought this.” She handed him the package she had been carrying.
“What’s this all about?”
“I knitted these scarves on the way here as a kind of thank-you to the men who came with us. With winter coming,
