Her head hurt. Her eyes hurt. Her hands hurt. Her nose hurt. Her legs hurt. When Lanneri put her down, Eiryn felt so wobbly that she thought she was going to fall and she screwed her eyes firmly shut, but Lanneri was there to steady her. “I found a stray, Mother,” they said. Eiryn wasn’t sure whether they were amused or concerned, but she did make herself look around. All she saw was Lanneri’s lopsided smile and dark, gentle eyes. They spun her around, gently, to face a person sitting on a crate. Unlike Lanneri, this gaodansaoina was wearing a green sash over her left shoulder. It wasn’t a very kerisaoina sash, embroidered as it was with bright yellow thread, but since Lanneri had called her ‘mother’ surely she’d worn it on purpose to tell people that she was female like Eiryn.
“I’m Dernyri,” said the woman. She looked even older than Anou-minnoi, and he was the oldest person Eiryn knew. Her hair was just as moon-white, though. Eiryn was a little jealous of it. It was even curlier than Keilan-minnai’s hair. “Let’s hear what made you run all the way to our feast then, girl.” Something was off about the way the woman was speaking, but Eiryn wasn’t sure what. She didn’t move when the woman patted a space beside her on the crate, just tried to figure out what was going on. “Lanneri, where did you find her?”
“You speak kerisaoina!” Eiryn blurted out before Lanneri could answer. That’s what had confused her. The gaodansai was speaking kerisaoina! Mayry-minnoi spoke it too, but he was much easier to understand and he only used it when she was confused by gaodansaoina. Dernyri made everything sound like a strange combination between the two, but it was only because the woman didn’t get the sounds right.
She grinned at Eiryn. “I do that. I find it useful for doing business with you. That’s why I wear this sash too. My son should have been wearing his.” The woman wrinkled her nose disapprovingly and Eiryn looked back at Lanneri. The stranger, the man, was looking so silly that she couldn’t help but giggle. “That’s better. Will you tell me what brought you here now, child? Lanneri’ll go up to the palace and tell your people where you are.”
Eiryn flinched, though it took her a moment to figure out what she meant by ‘palace’. She couldn’t really bring herself to say ‘no’, though. Lanneri ruffled her hair and she quickly tugged it back into place. “See you in a bit, Eiryn. I’ll be back soon, Mother.” And with that he left. Just like that he left.
Eiryn was alone with Dernyri who looked at her. She knew the woman was waiting for her to talk, but Dernyri didn’t seem to mind that she didn’t say anything. The woman patted the space beside her again, and this time Eiryn did climb up the crate. She hadn’t realised that there was a cloth lying over it and she slipped the first time. Dernyri held out a hand and pulled Eiryn up.
“What’s bothering you, girl?” Dernyri reached around to grab something that turned out to be a scratchy woollen blanket that she draped around Eiryn’s shoulders. Eiryn wasn’t cold, but she clutched the blanket around her anyway and huddled beside the old woman. The rest of the gaodansaoina seemed happy to ignore them, even though Eiryn and Dernyri were sitting right at the edge of the circle and she knew people had seen her.
The woman didn’t ask Eiryn again, just leaned back to look up at the sky. Wondering what Dernyri saw, Eiryn looked up too. The light was so bright that she couldn’t see anything else, but Eiryn didn’t dare ask about it.
She hadn’t planned to speak, but she found herself filling the not-silence of gaodansaoina singing anyway. Dernyri seemed willing to listen to her. She didn’t really tell the woman what had happened that night, but she did talk about what she did with her days in general and about farakaoina. After a while it started to make her feel better and she let Dernyri pull her closer. Eiryn rested her head on the woman’s shoulder.
“There now, little one. Do you know what we’re doing here?”
Eiryn shook her head. Dernyri’s voice wasn’t the smoothness of kerisaoina, but it was still steady and soothing. Mayry-minnoi’s voice always shifted around when he spoke, but Dernyri’s voice stayed almost as even as Arèn-minnoi’s did. Eiryn wasn’t really listening to Dernyri’s story. There was too much for her to take in.
Eiryn yawned and shifted around until she was sitting more comfortably on the crate. By the time she’d found a way that suited her, she was half-lying. Dernyri reached out to touch her hair and surprised her by brushing it over her ear carefully. Keilan-minnai always brushed it back. It made Eiryn sniffle, but Dernyri only made shushing noises in return.
When the gaodansaoina started to hum, Eiryn should have been upset or worried because it was even worse than the farakaoina the people in the circle were singing. She wasn’t, though. In fact, Eiryn found it oddly soothing, like dai’s farakaoina for the times when she hadn’t been able to sleep.
Eiryn didn’t want to sleep, though. She simply dozed against Dernyri and watched the dark shapes move in front of her in their patterns that she hadn’t tried to figure out. “What are they doing?” she found herself asking.
“They’re dancing. You’ve never seen dancing before, have you?”
Eiryn shook her head. “What’s ‘dancing’?”
“It’s when you move in specific patterns to music.” Dernyri patted Eiryn’s arm. “Your people don’t have music. I’m sure it sounds awful to you, doesn’t it?”
“’Sall wrong,” Eiryn whispered.
“I know. But if you listen very carefully, it’s quite pretty.”
Eiryn tried. She sat up and listened. She tried to be just as careful as Dernyri had told her to be, but she couldn’t hear it. The singing just sounded off-key to her and she did her best to make it work under her breath. Her voice wasn’t very strong and it wavered, but Eiryn tried to make what she heard work. It wasn’t easy. It was a surprising amount of fun, though, and nothing bad seemed to happen. The world didn’t seem to be ending. That had to mean she was doing something right. After a while, she noticed that if she kept her voice precisely so from one moment to the next, it didn’t sound so bad and it didn’t sound so much like a farakaoina anymore either.
That made sense. Gaodansaoina couldn’t use farakaoina, after all, because they couldn’t make them sound the way they should. So their songs couldn’t sound like one either. When Eiryn looked up to Dernyri, the old woman was looking down at her with a smile.
“You see? It’s quite pretty,” she said, and Eiryn’s own smile vanished into a frown just like that. Gaodansaoina weren’t supposed to notice, but if Denryri was gaodansaoina and noticed then Eiryn was confused.
“How can you tell?” she asked. Maybe she was sifanou after all. What gaodansaoina were doing was wrong. Eiryn huddled a little. Not for them, but for her. Even if they could do music, Eiryn couldn’t. She sniffled again and Dernyri stroked her cheek.
“Hush now, little one. It’s all right. I just noticed that you were singing louder and that you were sitting up straighter.”
“How?”
Dernyri chuckled. “How did I notice or how did I know what it meant?”
Not sure how to answer that, Eiryn stayed silent.
“It’s something people do, little one. If you pay attention to how people talk and how they move, you can learn something about how they’re feeling. When you’re very scared of something and you have to talk, your voice can waver.” Dernyri tapped Eiryn’s nose with a finger. “Even yours, little magic-singer. And you move and sit differently when you’re scared or when you’re confident. All I did was pay attention to the things your body was saying.”
“Oh.” Eiryn wasn’t sure how she felt about that, if people could know how she was doing just by looking at her. Maybe they’d think she was a liar if she said she was all right and didn’t make the right movements and then she’d just be breaking promises, wouldn’t she? Dernyri was stroking her hair, carefully avoiding Eiryn’s ears. So maybe it wasn’t so bad? If people could also see she didn’t like things and stopped doing them, that was goo
d. “I want dai,” she whispered into Dernyri’s embroidered sash and the woman wrapped her arms around Eiryn and started to hum along to the music the other gaodansaoina were making.
Eiryn was still awake when her uncle found her. His voice was so loud it chased away the gaodansaoina’s songs. He was yelling so much that Eiryn wasn’t even sleepy anymore. Dernyri had kept on humming and the more tired Eiryn got, the better the gaodansaoina music had sounded. Dernyri was dozing beside her, apparently undisturbed by her uncle’s angry noises, and Eiryn tried to hide behind the old woman. Maybe if she made herself small enough her uncle wouldn’t find her.
“You’re scaring her.” That was Lanneri’s voice. He sounded calm, but something made him vanish from sight. Eiryn had no idea what it was, but she didn’t want him to go.
Dernyri said, “You are, boy,” and there was cold, hard stone in her voice that made Eiryn want to run away from them both, but she couldn’t move. She hadn’t even thought the woman had heard her uncle. Dernyri started to reach a hand out behind her, then stopped and shifted herself around. Unsure what was happening, Eiryn let the old woman pull her against her chest. “You are.” That sounded softer and Dernyri started to tuck the blanket around Eiryn more carefully. It wasn’t cold, but Eiryn was grateful and snuggled as deeply into it as she could.
“She ran away!” Eiryn saw her uncle wince. She’d never heard his voice like that before. It didn’t suit him and he seemed so unhappy.
“And if you’re not careful, she’ll run again. Child, you’re no good to anyone like this.”
“I know. I just – I was worried about her.” And just like that, just like it had never been, her uncle’s anger vanished and Eiryn didn’t know where it’d gone. There was a hole where her throat should be, but she felt along her neck with her hand and it was still there. Her uncle dropped onto the boxes beside them. Some of the gaodansaoina that were still moving around came to check on them, but Eiryn could feel Dernyri waving them away because the woman’s body moved against her.
“You were never any good with them.”
Eiryn didn’t understand anything about that sentence. Who wasn’t good with what?
Her uncle laughed, low and short and sharp. “Neither are you. You terrorise them.”
Eiryn tried to press herself closer to Dernyri, though she sat up the moment Lanneri returned with a box. The man grinned and put the small dark wood down beside Dernyri and opposite her uncle. Arèn-minnoi didn’t reach for it, but Eiryn thought that he wanted to. “You kept it,” he said and he sounded so… lost. Like Eiryn’d felt when she’d run, but before she could move closer to her uncle Dernyri had thrown something at him. It took Eiryn a moment to realise that the woman had hit Arèn-minnoi with a pillow. She’d never seen pillows that small before and when Dernyri made to throw another at her uncle Eiryn grabbed it and pulled it towards her. The cloth was rough in her hands and it wasn’t very colourful, but it looked just the right size for Innas to rest aos head on.
Innas was still home. Everyone was still home. Eiryn wasn’t. Her uncle wasn’t. Dai wasn’t.
“You should take her somewhere else for a while.”
Eiryn didn’t want to go somewhere else; she wanted to go home. But she didn’t know how to say it. Her uncle and Lanneri were blocking her view of the people feasting, the dark gaodansoi standing statue-still while her uncle was caressing the box he’d been given. It didn’t make any sense at all. Eiryn looked up at Dernyri and the old woman gave her a smile.
“He and his sister made that for me,” the woman said. “Your mother was always getting them into mischief. They made that when they tore one of my favourite bags.”
“I want to go home.” Eiryn didn’t want to hear stories about her uncle or her mother. She was tired and she wanted to sleep. Dernyri stroked her hair.
“Think about it, Arèn.”
“Think about what?” Eiryn asked, though it didn’t feel quite right to interrupt.
“Taking you to see where your mother and I grew up,” her uncle said. “I’ll think about it. It isn’t ready.”
Dernyri seemed about to say something else, but then Lanneri interrupted, “You should take her to bed.”
“I should. Are you ready to come home, Eiryn? Everyone’s worried about you.”
Eiryn was too tired to protest, so she let her uncle gather her up. She rested her head against his shoulder and just about remembered to say a polite ‘good night’ to the gaodansaoina before her uncle was walking away.
His niece was fidgeting beside him. Arèn had never taken her to the Hall of Balance before, but her behaviour didn’t seem to be spurred by curiosity. Eiryn didn’t wander from his side to look around. Instead, she pressed close against him. They were among the spectators today, though he’d been sure to wear his black-and-white sash and to lend the spare to Eiryn. It’d gotten him a few raised eyebrows and strange looks from the kerisaoina and gaodansaoina gathering in the gallery, but not many. Everyone knew what the gathering was about and it wasn’t unheard of for people to leave work without changing sashes. It saved time.
He’d spotted a few other council sashes in the throng before he’d manoeuvred his niece to a bench further back. Arèn had made sure that they were near the doors, though, for Eiryn’s sake as much as anything else. His niece had pressed herself between him and the wall, silent. Arèn had expected her to ask questions, but she only huddled beside him and toyed with her hair.
“Are you all right?” he asked, because the gathering hadn’t yet begun. People were still flowing around them, looking for seats and acquaintances. If he could have, he would have wrapped them both up in a bubble of quiet and solitude, but he couldn’t and it wasn’t necessary. Though a few people greeted him, most left them in peace.
Eiryn shook her head in reply as Anou-minnoi started to speak from in front of the hall’s main window. Even with so many people blocking Arèn’s view, it looked impressive, and Anou’s voice still carried itself strongly over the hushed murmurs of the crowd. If he’d felt comfortable doing so, and he’d thought Eiryn would have appreciated it, Arèn would have stood and lifted her up to give her a better view.
As it was, he pulled the girl into his lap to try and keep her calm. He didn’t want her to get upset. Anou was explaining the purpose of the gathering; Arèn already knew that they’d be announcing Myrtan and Janyn’s fate today. Keilan had come to tell him what the decision would be the night before, mercifully, or he’d have been a mess of nerves. Now, at least, he didn’t have to fake strength for Eiryn and he took the opportunity to cuddle her against him.
That close, Arèn could feel his niece trembling. He didn’t understand why. “Shh,” he said. Cuddling her proved to do little against the shivers and Eiryn’s small hand dug into his. Arèn started to stroke her hair. It was loose, but he didn’t try to pull it back or to brush it behind her ears. He’d have liked to have seen it done up in a ponytail, but Mayry had glared at him the moment he’d opened his mouth to suggest it. So Arèn had left it loose and now he tried to keep it how Eiryn wanted it.
It’ll be over soon, he thought and wished he could whisper it into his niece’s ear. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t take the chance that Myrtan would hear, somehow, and try to use it against them both. Arèn didn’t put it past the man.
Dernyri would probably chide him for not knowing how to soothe Eiryn. Perhaps he should ask the gaodansai whether she was willing to take his niece in for a while. It’d worked well enough for his sister, though Amaru had been thrice Eiryn’s age and far more adventurous. And Dernyri had been much younger.
Even so, Arèn filed the thought away as one to think about later. Eiryn had squeezed his hand harder for some reason and he tried to make soothing noises as he put an arm around her shoulders. Suddenly he wished desperately that he’d suggested his niece take Innas along. Perhaps the doll could have helped.
Though
it wasn’t cold, Eiryn still wouldn’t stop shivering. The people around them shifted and made noise, but Arèn hardly paid attention. He knew that Anou had stopped talking, so he wasn’t surprised that the next speaker was Myrtan. It would be, of course. He’d have one last chance to explain his actions and Arèn wanted to hear none of it. He allowed himself to hear none of it. He knew what Myrtan was going to say, anyway. All Arèn cared about at that moment was his niece. He wanted to tell her what was happening, what it meant. He wanted to explain. That morning, he hadn’t been able to find the words. They’d been stuck in his throat.
“Everything is going to be all right,” he whispered. When the woman beside him glanced at him, Arèn offered her an apologetic smile. He knew he was being rude to speak when the meeting had started, but for once he didn’t care. He’d have left with Eiryn if he thought they could afford it. Myrtan would relish the chance if he did, undoubtedly, so Arèn only tried to smooth the tension in Eiryn’s shoulders.
When it was Janyn’s turn to speak, he sat up straighter. Arèn hadn’t been part of the faslaeraoina discussions after he’d excused himself from the investigation of Myrtan and so he hadn’t had a chance to hear the boy speak in his own defence. Perhaps Janyn would say something useful.
However, he still heard nothing. All Arèn could see of the boy was a down-turned head and all he could hear was silence from the main floor. The bated breath of the crowd around them grated on Arèn’s ears, but the boy spoke not a word, not even when his father nudged him. Arèn almost felt sorry for Janyn; it hadn’t looked like a gentle nudge. Again, tremors of words ran through the crowd as the spectators grew restless in their waiting.
A Promise Broken Page 21
