‘Nevana, leave the girl be! She is not a child. If you want someone to mollycoddle, carry Pitr for a while.’
Pitr, the youngest, overhearing this, had been lagging a bit, but quickly increased his pace until he walked safely in the midst of the other children. Seeing this, Mari smiled.
‘Poor, confused young thing,’ she teased, loud enough that Nevana could easily overhear, as she was meant to. ‘Can’t decide whether she wants to hold hands with a child, or a certain young man.’
Pouting at Rani’s rebuke, going very red at Mari’s teasing, Nevana walked alone in the middle, listlessly, looking as out of place in the group as she felt.
‘She knows, all right!’Durus said in a stern tone that was devoid of kindness. She was annoyed by what she perceived as the often impractical and rebellious convolutions of her daughter’s mind, a subject with her that was often cause for concern. Regardless, she egged the girl on because through her daughter she hoped to exercise her own proprietary interest in the stranger who was skilled at working metals, and even now she considered various means by which she herself could profit by his skills. ‘Nothing would make me happier than a union between my Nevana and that big foreigner, and to see her safely tied down with a swelling belly.’