The family just looked at him as if he’d just said he had wings and intended to fly himself to the moons.
“What?”
“A school,” Nien said.
“To do what?” Jake asked, the only one who seemed remotely curious.
“Well, to talk mostly. Ask questions. Find answers.”
“To what?”
“Well, to questions their parents probably won’t or can’t answer.”
“And you can?” Joash asked.
Nien felt a brief stab of guilt. “Well, I hope so. I mean, other than Lant, I’m one of the few in Rieeve that has actually read books that are not part of the Ancient Writings.”
“That won’t win you any favor,” Reean said. “And I thought we might have a hard sell with your father’s cream churner.”
Nien sighed.
“Good luck,” Wing wished him under his breath.
Nien grunted. “Thanks.”
“Well, if it’s as boring as all the stuff you keep trying to get Wing to listen to every night, I’ll stick with the Ancient Writings: At least I know that material so well I can fall asleep and not miss anything.”
Reean cuffed Jake lightly on the back of the head. He rubbed his head and laughed.
“Be careful, son,” Joash warned. “You can guarantee I’ll be hearing about it in the next Council meeting. So far, they only suspect you’ve managed to roust up covert works from other valleys. Start this school of yours, they’ll know.”
Joash was right, of course. Nien had slid by for so long — and the Council had let it slide by — because there was no proof.
Hoping he was making the right decision, Nien looked ahead to the far side of the valley — he could see all the movement there in the large spread of fields before Castle Viyer, like tiny ants — and his heart gave a small start.
What was he thinking…?
By the time he and the rest of the family arrived at the festival it was already well under way. All over the field colorful camps of tents and booths were popping up. After a brief setup, Nien was the first to vanish from the Cawutt campsite. He’d made up his mind about the school and was not going to let a few last-minute doubts shake him. He didn’t notice that Jake took off with friends soon after, followed shortly by Joash who headed straight for the gaming field. Finally, even Wing disappeared, looking for Carly.
Near the Village side of the festival grounds, Carly saw Wing walking alone in her direction. Even from a distance, she could feel his unease.
It was the first festival since the day they’d all received the news of the valley of Lou and the Council’s ill-fated accosting of Wing outside of the Village. Other than the brief sightings of Wing quickly coming or going to the Vanc home construction site, no one had seen him lingering in the Village since.
Wing came up to Carly’s family camp like a shy colt, greeting them with his eyes averted, his body angled as if to deflect a volley of some sort.
“Pull up a blanket,” Carly’s father, Hoath, offered.
That, Carly could see, was the last thing Wing wanted. It was not what she wanted either. She jumped to her feet. “Actually, we’re going to walk.”
“I guess we’re off,” Wing said, tilting his head amiably to her family.
They fell in side by side, walking close, fingers intertwined. Wing said nothing but he didn’t need to, what he needed she was able to give him with her touch and presence, hoping the festival would be enough to hold the peoples’ attention away from Wing for once.
Moving away from the center of the festival, they nodded politely to a family heading into the festival. The children stared openly, and though their parents tried to be less obvious, still their eyes lingered on Wing even longer than normal. Further up the street, a young woman was speeding along, obviously late for some festival event, her arms full of goods and packages, her mind steadfast on her hurry. Carly saw her glance up over her pile of packages and see Wing. The shock of it caused her to snag the tip of her sandal on the edge of one of the street’s flat stones. She lost the sandal and tripped out of it, the tenuous stack of goods in her arms tipping forward and out of her arms. By then Wing had seen her trouble.
“Son-Cawutt Wing, Daughter-Carly,” she was stammering rapidly as Wing bent to help retrieve the fallen packages and Carly stepped past to pick up the lost sandal.
It was then the young woman noticed that one of the packages had managed to snag the edge of her shirt and pulled it clean off her shoulder and left breast. She gasped, grabbed at her shirt, and dropped the packages they’d thus far managed to retrieve. Wing set about to picking up the parcels once more.
Devastated, the young woman let him pile them on top of each other and, clutching them to her chest, took the shoe from Carly’s hand, mumbled thanks, and hobbled off down the street with the offending sandal dangling from her finger.
Carly waited until she felt the woman was out of ear shot and finally let go the laughter bursting inside of her.
“What?” Wing said.
“Very gallant of you.”
Wing smirked. “And nice of her.”
Carly poked him, hard, in the ribs. Wing grunted and rubbed his side, smiling.
At best, the women of the Village were apprehensive of Wing, his looks as much a deterrent as an attraction. However, it had more to do with how they saw him, than any true point of character in Wing himself, Carly thought. To their people Wing was a fragile and honoured thing rarely spoken to beyond the most dignified of terms and never to be looked upon as an object of sexual desire. Yet he was entirely sexual, his lack of awareness of that fact making him more attractive still. It had been Carly’s religious indifference to villager fanaticism coupled with an abundance of energy for being just one of the boys that had saved her from the idea that Wing Cawutt was untouchable. Their relationship seemed to exist in a kind of magical place, a place Carly had rarely taken for granted, fully aware that she would not know Wing or be free to love him as she did without it.
As they continued their walk, Carly stepped into the silence, recalling the first time she’d seen him. It hadn’t been far from the street they were now on and she had been a young girl.
Like Wing and Nien, Carly was the oldest child in her family by a large gap, so as a youth she’d found a playmate with a neighbor boy by the name of Mien’k. Mien’k ran with a group of same-aged boys who took Carly in as one of them.
It had been at one of the festivals when the gang of friends finally worked up the courage to approach the strange son of the Cawutt family —
And it had not been Wing, but Nien, the adopted son. Though there seemed to be some kind of fuss among the elders of the Village over Wing, he seemed to be more like a shy’teh, something spoken of but rarely seen. So it had been Nien the gang had noticed first, it being impossible not to.
Nevertheless, none of them had yet managed to approach him until one of the triannual festivals. They’d all been standing about, watching the strange boy from some distant valley, when Carly had urged Mien’k to talk to him. Mien’k had not been very willing. He preferred to think a thing through before jumping into it.
However, another member of the gang by the name of Teru, had never had such inhibitions. “E’te!” he’d called out to the strange looking boy. “What’s your name?”
It seemed the odd-looking boy didn’t suffer from many inhibitions either —
He’d walked right over and introduced himself as Nien Cawutt.
He was spontaneous, easy, charismatic. Instantly likable. By the end of that festival he had become a part of the gang as if he’d always belonged.
It had been half a season later when Carly and the gang had met Nien coming into the Village. He had been with his father, the man everyone knew as the Mesko Tender, but with them was also another young man about Nien’s same age.
“My father, Joash Cawutt. And Wing, my brother,” Nien had said, introducing them.
Carly knew what they had all been thinking at
the time: “So, this is the one that has the Council and the Villagers in a fever.”
As Mien’k and Teru and the rest of the gang had all stepped up to say hello, Carly had watched the black-haired boy with the green eyes. He was beautiful, and almost as different looking from their people as Nien was. Unlike Nien, however, he was terribly shy. He met the others with a quick glance only, nodding briefly. Carly felt her throat tighten and her heart hammer. She quelled both reactions and stepped forward, knowing she had to make him notice her — now — afraid that if she did not make some sort of impression on him she would not see him again for a very long time. So, instead of letting Nien introduce them, she’d done it herself, telling him her name and waiting for him to do the same. He had looked at her reluctantly and Carly remembered smiling back at him, as if all her heart were in that one gesture. To her amazement, he had not looked away. He had seemed to start at her openness and paused. It may have been only a moment, but it had been long enough for everyone else to notice.
“Uh oh,” Teru had said.
Wing had quickly backed away then and Joash, the Mesko Tender, had bid them a good day.
Wanting to punch Teru, Carly had stood watching Wing walk away with Nien and his father. He hadn’t turned back to look at her, but Carly had known that didn’t matter, she had managed to capture his attention. Still, as Carly had left with the gang, she’d known that it was more than that. She’d wanted him to notice her and had managed it. What she’d not expected was how familiar he would feel. How, as he’d looked into her eyes, that it would feel as if they’d known each other all along, an attraction that had been as instant and obvious, as if they’d spent time together in some other place or time.
After that, Carly managed to get the hesitant gang to invite Wing along on their adventures. Wing, it seemed, had been just as reluctant. He joined them only once or twice, but soon Carly had found herself spending less time with the gang and more with the Cawutt brothers finding trouble and enchantment in a friendship that came to outshine every other childhood activity.
“The old gang misses you,” Carly said, coming back to the present. Part of her could hardly believe she and Wing had been together for so long. It wasn’t often she considered it with such perspective.
Beside her, she could feel Wing’s silence like an ache.
“We’re going to try and get together at Lant’s,” Carly continued. “Just a few of us. Mien’k, Shiela, Teru, Bredo, me, Nien, and you — if you’ll come.”
Wing started to speak. At least, it seemed like he wanted to.
Carly waited. But when no reply was forthcoming, she tightened her hand around his.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last, knowing that he disliked disappointing her and unhappy with herself for putting him in the position to do so. She knew how people often wondered if Wing felt anything at all behind his silent demeanor. Carly knew he did, knew that he was capable of feeling more than anyone she’d ever known, more than she thought people could feel. Still, that didn’t mean he knew how to talk about it.
“I just miss the old times, sometimes.”
Wing nodded. He squeezed her hand in return. “So do I.”
Though she suspected that he might, hearing him say it reassured her.
Wing circled their walk and they wandered up along the northing edge of the Village toward Castle Viyer.
She could feel the tension in him ease as she took her hand out of his and slipped it around his waist, their bodies touching in a silent expression of both permission and forgiveness. No matter how withdrawn he was, Carly was grateful for the small wonder of his presence, the feel of him, the quality and tone of his voice. There was not a moment with him that did not feel like the very best part of her life.
At the edge of the castle they drew up next to one of the castle’s crumbling bastions.
Placing his hands atop the bastion, Wing jumped up and turning mid-spring, planted his butt on top of it, patting the stone beside him.
With a hand from Wing, Carly jumped up next to him. Side by side they sat for a while, dangling their feet, gazing out over the Village, the festival grounds, the valley. The valley was surprisingly loud with bird chatter, seemingly compelled to compete against the din of the festival. Usually, the castle would be seeing more activity than usual — kids wanting space from parents to meet for youthful conspiracies. But it was quiet around them at the moment, the activity of the festival grounds offering a sense of concealment.
Leaning against Wing’s side, Carly snaked her arm under his, her fingers playing along the inside of his arm. His hand opened and relaxed as she traced the long tendons running down his forearm. As Wing gazed out across the valley, Carly took in the lovely length of his arm, the way his veins stood stark beneath the smooth olive skin, the shape and frame of his big, long-fingered hand, the working callouses on his palm lying in flat whirling patches at the base of each finger.
She slid her hand down and curled her fingers through his, moving them in and out before taking his hand up, marveling at it, pressing a fingertip over the cool smoothness of each of his fingernails, down over the finger joints to his knuckles.
He sighed with pleasure and Carly’s heart quickened at the sound.
He was put together beautifully. A thing that gave him more grief than pleasure. Introverted, his beauty only drew attention when he wanted none at all. His appearance being one of the catalyst’s behind the peoples’ belief in him. If Carly could not change the peoples’ minds about the prophecy at least her presence dissuaded the more banal advances from women brave enough to try to catch the eye of the Leader of Legend. Not that she hadn’t noticed the looks women still gave him. Unless the woman was blind, there was hardly a way she could be immune to him. Still, Carly felt that few women, once past Wing’s handsome exterior, would have been able to endure the reality of him, how he would disappear for turns at a time into the fields, the Mesko Forest, or into himself — preferring his time alone to being with her. And though there was a bright, luminous side to him, often there simmered a dark sadness that haunted his emerald green eyes. Wing may be different, but he was also a man. A think neither the local village women, the people, nor the Council were prepared to accept.
Not that Carly didn’t understand what the people saw him. With Wing, in quiet moments like this, Carly often found herself able to experience a depth in the world she was normally unaware of. A richness of feeling, colour, and sound. She did not consider herself religious, or even very spiritual, but with Wing the world often did feel different.
This could have been what the people mistook for the stuff of prophecy. And it was real. But was it what they thought it was? Would it manifest in the way their people were expecting it too?
Probably not, Carly thought. Such things rarely did.
Carly had never looked at him as the Leader of Legend, and it wasn’t because of any fault or failings in Wing himself, but rather that she did not take the Ancient Writings seriously. She neither held them in esteem nor eschewed them. She simply did not see what they had to do with her life…
Except that they did. They affected Wing, which affected her greatly. And that made her angry. Often, she’d imagined what her and Wing’s life might be like if the Council left Wing alone, seeing nothing in him other than his being the son of the Mesko Tender and one skilled in farming and construction.
Carly squeezed his hand, as the view of the valley rose to fill her eyes with a quiet splendour that took her breath away. In colour, in scent, in feeling it was deeper, richer, more fragrant. A slight breeze pressed the grasses over, revealing a green underside so dark it appeared as a deep green sea shimmering from their end of the valley to the mountains at the southing edge. Carly could hear the watercourse lining the back of the Village vividly, even aware that the sun landing upon their skin made the slightest buzz of simmering, radiant heat. The call of birds had become less noise and more distinct, sharp, part of an eternal canvas.
Where Ca
rly’s fingers curled through his, she noticed Wing’s attention turn. Carly looked at the side of his face until he raised his face.
Yosha, she swore silently to herself, you break my heart. And she wished suddenly to vanish into another world where there existed nothing but sun and flesh, tall grass and mountain, sensation and breath.
Leaning in, she touched her nose to his cheek and breathed. His scent made her giddy. She closed her eyes, her hand closing on his arm.
Wing leaned into her, his other hand reaching over to touch her.
She grasped his hand in hers and pressed it to her mouth. They sat, enveloped in a pod of comfort, warmth, and the wild race of their minds into a near future where they would have shed their clothes and been joined under the sun.
She breathed deeply in her throat as Wing bent and placed his lips just under her jaw.
The touch of his mouth on her neck sent a shiver of desire down her back. She moved to push her face against his head and went too far, slipping off the bastion.
Wing reached out to grab her and missed.
She managed to land on her feet, heart racing, and swearing. Wing looked concerned for about a blink and then, seeing she was fine, laughed.
“Funny, are you?” she said and, reaching up, grabbed his ankle to pull him off. He resisted easily, keeping his perch. Carly wrapped her hand under his knee and pulled. He was strong and leaned back, the muscles in his legs tightening beneath her arm. The feel of his thigh under her hand drew her cheek, and she rested his face against his leg, sighing as Wing’s big hands came to rest upon her head, heavy and comforting.
After a time, she looked up, finding Wing’s sharp green eyes gazing back down at her.
With her left hand, Carly ran her fingers up his other thigh, tucking her fingers beneath his shirt, and sliding her hand across the bare skin of his flat stomach. He closed his eyes and bent his head to her mouth. Popping up to her toes, she met his lips, moving her hand around his back, feeling the pull of muscle beneath her fingertips.
Close as they were, he was suddenly much too far away.
Wing & Nien Page 12
