a mist of cooking smoke across his path. Its smell reminded Carnelian's stomach of how hungry he was.
'We'll eat soon,' said Akaisha as if she had heard his thoughts.
'It was kind of you to…' Carnelian could not find the next word.
'You're not the way we imagine you to be,' she said.
'We must be… disappointing.'
She stopped to look up at him surprised. 'In what way?'
'You believe us angels… and now see we're only men.'
Her eyebrows rose again, causing Carnelian to feel he had been caught saying something childishly conceited. She reached up and he allowed her to touch his cheek.
'You really are just a man,' she said. 'And, though your beauty is unsettling, your face is not the lightning which we believed you hid behind your masks.'
She resumed their journey down the winding stair. 'But it was not that which I meant. It is your manner that is unexpected. The other, he is what we expect of your kind. But you… you are almost like one of us.'
'I speak your tongue… a little.'
'No, there is something else.'
'I grew up among Plainsmen.'
They had almost reached the foot of the slope so that they could gaze out from under the cedar canopy across the ferngardens, golden in the dying sun. The easterly caressing them was rich with the perfume of the magnolias. Carnelian felt an ache of joy that forced him to stop and close his eyes. It was as if he had come home after being a long time away.
He sighed. 'It is so peaceful here.'
Tell me of this servant woman who spoke our tongue,' Akaisha said.
Carnelian opened his eyes to look at her. Her upturned face had a tightness around the eyes and mouth that made it clear this was the reason for their walk. Seeing how vulnerable she was, Carnelian considered his words carefully. He began to relate everything he knew about Ebeny and of his childhood with her across the sea.
'So far away,' Akaisha breathed, staring tlas if she were seeing the island at the other side of the world.
She came back. This Ebeny spoke our tongue and she wove our patterns. Was there anything else she had from her people?'
Carnelian saw the yearning in Akaisha's eyes and, as desperately as she, he wanted to give her some proof. He closed his eyes and searched his memory. Suddenly, he grabbed her hand. 'She… she…' He calmed himself. 'Her mother…'
Akaisha gave an eager nod of encouragement while Carnelian tried to stitch the words together in his mind so that he could utter them in a piece. 'Her mother gave her a stone woman.' He showed the size of it in his hands. 'She called it her Little Mother.'
With her free hand Akaisha pulled something out from her robe. Carnelian made to take it but she snapped it into her fist and pulled away from him. Her eyes burned. 'You mustn't touch it. A man must never touch a sacred image of the Mother.'
Carnelian was glad he had not told her that Ebeny had given him her Little Mother to keep him safe on his journey to Osrakum.
'All Plainswomen have these from their mothers,' she said, slumping down onto a root.
Carnelian shared her bitter disappointment. 'I can think of nothing more.' He sat down beside her, resting his chin in his hand. Something occurred to him. This woman -'
'My sister.'
'Did you send other girls that year?'
Akaisha looked at him with hope. 'She was the only one. The other four were boys.'
Carnelian controlled his excitement. He showed her his palm. 'Do you remember her tattoo?' He almost groaned when he saw Akaisha's expression of strain.
'If I drew it for you?'
'Perhaps.'
Carnelian searched around for something to write on. 'Mud,' he said at last.
She understood and led him down to the path running alongside what she told him was the Homeditch.
'Wait here,' she said. She found a path down into the ditch and had soon disappeared into its gloomy depths. He waited and then she returned cradling a pool of muddy water in her hands. She found a piece of ground still bathed in the last red light of day. He cleared it of needles and she poured the water over it. Crouching, Carnelian smoothed the mud and carefully drew out the glyphs Ebeny had on her hand: Eight Nuhuron. He drew back to allow Akaisha to have a look. He chewed his lip as she peered at it. At last she turned to him, nodding, a look of almost girlish wonder on her face.
'It is the same.'
She looked away to the scarlet horizon. The east wind made her salt earrings clink. When she turned back she was frowning.
'When the Assembly voted, most of the men and some of the women voted for your deaths.'
'Mother Harth?'
'She will never forgive the killing of her son. I carried most of the women against her and we won, but we bought you only a momentary reprieve. Those who voted with me did so from fear of what might come from killing angels. It will not take them long to see you are flesh and blood.'
Carnelian's stomach clenched. His hopes had come to nothing. He felt a pang of regret that he had not after all returned to his father in Osrakum, but he dismissed this, knowing he could never have abandoned Osidian to die alone. There was nowhere else to go. He managed to find a smile for her. 'I only wish I could have told Ebeny that I met you; that I saw her people and her home.'
Akaisha was watching him. 'I can save you.'
Hope surged in Carnelian.
'I could adopt you into my hearth.'
'I don't understand.'
'Within our ditches, each hearthmother rules the children of her hearth.' 'Surely the Elders -'
She shook her head. The Assembly has no authority over a hearth nor over a hunt outside the Koppie.'
'But the Elders punished Fern.'
'It was I who set his punishment. He appeared before the Assembly merely to give an account of your journey.'
Carnelian considered everything she had said. 'Why would you do this, my mother? Surely this will bring you nothing but trouble.'
'You helped save the souls of my husband and my eldest son. Even if you had not, I would do this to keep the honour of my son who brought you here. Beyond all this, I will save you because my long-lost sister loves you.'
'You only have my word that that is so.' Akaisha smiled. 'My sister wouldn't have taught you our tongue unless she loved you. As much as you say you consider her your mother, she must have considered you her son.'
'Will the rest of your hearth welcome me?'
She grew grave. They'll accept my decision because they must, but it might take a while before you are welcome.'
'And my friend?'
She gave him a sharp look. 'You mean your brother?' 'Fern told you that?'
She nodded, still wary. When he said nothing, she said, 'I've been wondering why if you are brothers he doesn't also speak our tongue.'
'He never knew Ebeny.' Carnelian saw in her eyes that her welcome for Osidian was conditional on his relationship with him. He could not risk the truth.
'We were separated at birth.'
Akaisha still looked unconvinced. 'I do not believe he will settle in among us easily.'
Carnelian took one of her hands. 'Don't judge him too harshly, my mother. His life has been very different
