The heat hit like a hammerblow as soon as I stepped out from beneath the shade of the trees. I stopped, and set my teeth, and forced myself to say to Esau as he came near, “I may feel the heat too much. I have no water with me.”
I usually carried a waterskin. I was supposed to carry one. Esau was carrying two. He handed me both without comment, then held out his hand to one of the other men for another. “Pour one over your head,” he told me. He retrieved my shirt from where I had dropped it, soaked it with water, then gave it back to me. “Put that on. We can sit in the shade here till dusk. Won’t bother me any; I’m the patient sort. You think you need to do that? Tell me the truth.”
I felt better with cool water soaking my hair and dripping down my back. I did not want to send the assassin to Lord Aras and not see myself what happened. It was not only that I wanted to be there; I had caught the young man and I had refused every plea he had made. Now I felt responsible. “It is not very far. I will walk back now, but perhaps not fast. There was a horse. She went that way.” I nodded to show the direction.
“Our boy had a horse, did he? And you caught him before he got to her. Wonderful how useful an Ugaro can be. I don’t know why Lord Gaur bothers to keep the rest of us around.” Esau looked at one of the other soldiers. “You, Shauroet, take a couple men and go find that horse.”
The man did not argue. None of the soldiers here were men I knew well, only a few of them by name, but Esau knew them, and everyone knew him. Shauroet and two of the other men went to do as Esau had told them. Three of the other men took charge of the young man. They had cords with them, so they could bind him properly. He did not try to fight them when they untied the shirt I had used. He yielded to everything. I began to warn them, but he snatched at a man’s knife before I could. He was very quick. Because of my earlier blow, he did not have full use of his right arm or he might have managed to use that weapon as he intended. Then I got it away from him. He cut me twice, but the wounds were not bad. One was a narrow slice across the heel of my hand and the other less than that, a cut down my forearm, but barely enough to draw blood.
I had taken the young man to the ground in the short, violent struggle over the knife. I had hit him hard enough he was not able to get up at once. Two of the soldiers grabbed his arms and pulled him up hard and held him. The soldier whose knife he had taken started to hit him for making trouble for them. I caught the soldier’s arm, stopping that blow. I said, “He was not trying to attack you; there would be no point to that. He wanted to drive your knife into his own throat.”
They all looked at me and then at the assassin. He was shaking now, with exhaustion or despair. I could not be sorry I had caught him, but I began to think I would also not have been sorry to fail in the attempt. The soldiers bound him carefully. No one hit him. Esau looked at my cut hand and shook his head. “Careless,” he said.
“I know.” It would not have happened except I was tired and slow with the heat. Even so, I should have been able to take a knife away from a Lau without hurting him or being hurt myself. I was embarrassed.
“I meant I was careless,” Esau told me. “I should have expected something like that. I grant, you were clumsy to let him cut you twice. The heat slows you down. Hold still.”
I stood patiently while he poured water over the cut, though it was not really necessary. It was not a serious wound, but I let him cut a piece from my shirt to bind it so it would not bleed much. I knew he meant what he had said about his own carelessness. Esau was a weak sorcerer—very weak—but the curse meant he was hard to deceive. He was not accustomed to being taken by surprise.
I had been horrified when Aras first told me that about one Lau in fifty was a weak sorcerer. Even after he told me that, for a long time I had not understood the occasional comment anyone made regarding that kind of sorcerer, because the Lau used many ordinary words when they meant that kind of curse. By the time I understood what they meant, the idea troubled me less. I had come to understand, partly from Esau, how very weak the curse could be, and how those with that kind of curse guarded their people against more powerful sorcery. Lau parents teach their children very young to be mindful of their own desires and intentions, suspicious of any urge to be too compliant and twice as suspicious if those near them seem too biddable in their dealings with someone else. Those children with a small curse learn those lessons best. Only a very powerful sorcerer can make them forget that caution. Knowing this helped me tolerate my awareness of weak sorcery among the Lau, but it was also easier to tolerate because I had learned to trust Esau long before I realized he was touched by the curse.
Finally everyone
