another sickened her.
Yet neither could she surrender. She would not spit on her hand and wet the Hollow for the Krasians. She had worked too hard to hold the Hollowers together after the flux to assimilate the refugees from Rizon and Lakton to just turn them over. If there was a way to negotiate a peace, she had to find it.
The first meeting with the Krasian leader had seemed to indicate that was a possibility. He was cultured and intelligent, nothing like the rabid animal the accounts had portrayed, and clearly held true to his beliefs, even if Leesha thought them brutal and cruel at times. She had looked deeply into his eyes, and there was no cruelty there. Like a stern father administering a needed spanking, Ahmann Jardir was doing what he thought best for humanity.
Leesha paused in her work, realizing that the chopping outside had stopped. She looked up as the door opened and Wonda stood in the threshold.
“Wash up and set the table,” Leesha said. “Lunch will be another few minutes.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, mistress, but Rojer and Gared are here to see you,” Wonda said.
“Tell them to come in and set another pair of places at the table,” Leesha said.
But Wonda just stood there. “They’re not alone.”
Leesha set her knife on the cutting board and toweled her hands clean as she went to the door. Ahmann Jardir stood on her front porch, standing calmly and ignoring the way Gared glared at him. He wore a fine white robe over his warrior blacks, matching the white turban his crown nestled within. Leesha’s eyes danced across its wards, but she forced herself not to stare. She dropped her gaze to his eyes, but that was worse, for they bored into her with such intensity that she felt as if he could see her very soul.
Jardir bowed deeply. “Forgive my appearing unannounced, mistress.”
“Just say the word and I’ll haul him back where he came from, Leesha,” Gared said.
“Nonsense,” Leesha said. “Welcome,” she told Jardir. “Wonda and I were about to sit down to lunch. Would you care to join us?”
“I would be honored and delighted,” Jardir said, bowing again. He followed Leesha into the cottage, pausing to remove his sandals and leave them by the door. Leesha noted that even his feet were covered in ward scars. A kick from him would likely do as much to a coreling as one by the Painted Man.
The meal Mistress Leesha had prepared was a meatless stew served with fresh bread and cheese. Jardir bowed his head as she invoked a blessing over the food, and then everyone began eating at once. He began to lift his bowl to drink when he noticed the greenlanders were leaving theirs on the table, using some sort of tool to bring the food to their lips.
He glanced at his own setting, and saw a similar utensil there—a wooden strip with a depression at the end. He looked at Leesha and mirrored her actions as he tasted the stew. It was delicious, with heavy vegetables he had never tasted. He began to eat more vigorously, using the thick greenland bread to soak the last drops from his bowl as he saw Gared and Wonda do.
“Exquisite,” he told the mistress, and felt a thrill run through him as he saw her pleasure at the compliment. “We do not have such food in Krasia.”
Leesha smiled. “There is much we could learn from each other, if we can find a way to live in peace.”
“Peace, mistress?” Jardir asked. “There is no such thing on Ala. Not while the alagai hold the night and men cower before them.”
“So the tales are true?” Leesha asked. “You mean to conquer us and levy our people for Sharak Ka?”
“Why should I wish to conquer you?” Jardir asked. “Your people are humble before the Creator, stand tall in the night, and shed blood in alagai’sharak alongside my warriors. That makes you Evejan, though you know it not.”
“It don’t!” the giant growled. “We ent got nothin’ to do with your filthy—”
“Gared Cutter!” Leesha’s voice snapped like a dama’s whip, silencing him. “You’ll keep a polite tongue at my table or I’ll give it such a dose of pepper you can’t talk for a month!”
Gared recoiled, and again Jardir was amazed at the power of the woman. She made the dama’ting seem timid.
Leesha turned to him. “I apologize, Ahmann.” She seemed taken aback when he smiled brightly at her. “What did I say?”
“My name,” Jardir said simply.
“I’m sorry,” Leesha said. “Was that improper of me?”
“On the contrary,” Jardir said. “It sounds beautiful, coming from your lips.”
With no veil to cover her cheeks, Jardir saw how her pale skin reddened at his words. He had never courted a woman before, but it seemed as if Everam himself guided his words.
“More than three thousand years ago,” Jardir said, “my ancestor Kaji ruled this land from the Southern Sea to the frozen waste.”
“So the histories say,” Leesha agreed, “though three thousand years is a long time, and accounts can become…blurred.”
“Perhaps here in the North,” Jardir said, “but the temple of Sharik Hora in the Desert Spear has stood that long and more, and our records are sharp. Kaji did rule this land, sometimes by the spear, and sometimes by building alliance with its tribes and sealing it with blood.”
He looked around the table. “Kaji’s blood is still strong here. Even your name, Deliverer’s Hollow, honors him. You are not chin to be conquered, but lost brethren to be welcomed into our fold. I name you Hollow tribe, and accord you all the rights therein.”
“What rights?” Leesha asked.
Jardir reached into his robe, producing his personal Evejah. Its cover was of supple leather embossed with wards, and its pages were gilded in gold. A red ribbon hung ready to mark a page. The pages were soft and thin from daily use.
“These rights,” he said, giving her the volume.
Leesha took the book as one who knew its value, and he recalled she was a bookbinder’s daughter as she turned it to examine the spine. She pushed her bowl aside and spread the cloth from her lap over the table before laying the book upon it and paging through.
“It’s beautiful,” she said after a time. “But much as I would love to learn the language, I’m afraid I can’t understand a word.” She closed the book and held it out to him.
Jardir held up a hand to forestall her. “Keep it. What better book to help you learn? You may find its truths more in line with your own beliefs than you imagine.”
“Oh, I couldn’t!” Leesha said. “This is too precious!”
Jardir laughed. “You give me a cloak that rivals Kaji’s own, and you balk at a book of his truths? I can pen another.”
Leesha looked back down at the book, and then up at him. “You penned this yourself?”
“In my own blood,” Jardir said, “during the years I studied in Sharik Hora.”
Leesha’s eyes widened.
“It is not gold or jewels, I understand,” Jardir said. “I would shower them upon you if I could, but I brought no such trinkets north. This is the most valuable thing I own, apart from my crown, spear, and new cloak. I hope you will accept it while Abban negotiates a proper dower with your mother.”
“Dower?” Leesha asked in surprise.
“Of course,” Jardir said. “Your father gave me permission to court you, and your mother will see your price is met. Did they not tell you?”
“No they corespawned didn’t!” Leesha cried, rising to her feet so fast her chair skidded out behind her. In an instant everyone was on their feet. Jardir felt a sudden flash of fear. He had given offense to her, but without understanding how, he could not even apologize.
“Son of the Core!” the giant cried, and swung his meaty fist across the table at Jardir.
Jardir could not remember the last time a man had dared to strike at him. Had they been anywhere but at Mistress Leesha’s table, Jardir would have killed him for the affront, but remembering Leesha’s abhorrence of violence, he acted only in his own defense. He caught Gared’s wrist and pivoted, pulling him clear across the table and flipping him onto his back. He put a single toe into Gared’s throat and held his log of a wrist with only two fingers, but though the giant thrashed, he was held firmly prone and helpless, his face reddening more with every
