The wards glowed dimly as she threw the shawl over her shoulders and lifted the tent flap. Wonda stiffened, looking around and listening carefully, but her eyes slipped away from Leesha as easily as Rojer had done to the corelings. She moved to inspect the flap, peeking inside to see the blankets and pillows Leesha had arranged to appear as her sleeping body. She grunted and replaced the flap, resuming her station outside the tent.
Hidden in plain sight, Leesha passed through the camp towards Gared’s tent, ignored by the Sharum sentries. She still wasn’t entirely sure what she meant to do. Even if she went through with it and lay with him, she did not think she would have the nerve to let herself be caught at it as her mother instructed. And if not, what was the point?
She drew a deep breath, decided, and reached for the tent flap. A deep voice from within checked her.
‘Ma’am, we can’t keep doin’ this. It ent right.’
‘You didn’t mind me teaching you what goes where with your da asleep ten feet away,’ Elona said, ‘but now it’s so wrong?’
There was a shuffling sound, and Gared groaned.
‘One last time,’ Elona said. ‘Just so you don’t forget me.’
‘We’ll get caught,’ Gared said, but there was more shuffling, and this time Elona groaned.
‘We ent been caught at it yet,’ she gasped. A rhythmic slapping of flesh followed, and Leesha felt ill. She threw open the tent flap and strode inside, tossing back her shawl. Elona’s arms were around Gared’s neck, and he held her suspended in mid-air, skirts around her waist and his breeches around his ankles.
‘You have now,’ Leesha said.
‘Night!’ Gared shouted, dropping Elona, who gave a yelp as her bare bottom hit the hard canvas floor of the tent.
Leesha put her hands on her hips. ‘Every time I think I’ve seen the lowest you can sink, Mother, you find a deeper place.’
‘Oh, if that ent the night calling it black,’ Elona muttered, getting to her feet and smoothing her skirts. Gared had yanked up his breeches and was attempting to force his still-stiffened member back inside. It was a futile task.
‘When I tell Da …’ Leesha began.
‘You won’t,’ Elona said, ‘if not out of respect for what it would do to your poor father, then on your Gatherer’s oath.’
‘This isn’t Gatherer’s business,’ Leesha said.
‘Everything is Gatherer’s business when you wear the apron!’ Elona shot back. ‘Did Bruna ever belie the affairs of the town? I promise you, she knew every one.’
She looked down her nose. ‘And besides, I’m not the only one with a secret. What are you doing here in the middle of the night, Leesha?’
Leesha glanced at Gared, but he had turned his back on them, still fumbling. Her mother had her checked, and she knew it.
‘Come along,’ she said, lifting one side of her shawl to wrap it around Elona’s shoulders. It would protect them both as they went back to the tents where they belonged.
Gared finally managed to lace his trousers back up and turned back to them, a guilty look on his face.
‘You’ve disappointed me again, Gared Cutter,’ Leesha said. ‘And just when I was beginning to think you a changed man.’
Gared looked stricken. ‘It ent my fault!’
‘Course not,’ Elona snapped as she stepped into Leesha’s shawl and they turned to go. ‘Mrs Paper had her way with you and you were helpless as a Rizonan girl when the Sharum came.’
Leesha was prepared for the morning sickness this time, and managed to deal with it without alerting anyone that anything was amiss. By lunchtime, she was feeling normal.
Gared came to her as she stretched her legs. ‘All right if we talk a bit?’
Leesha sighed. ‘I don’t think there’s much you can say, Gar.’
Gared nodded. ‘Guess I deserve that.’
‘You guess?’ Leesha asked. ‘Gared, you had sex with my mother!’
‘What’s it to you?’ Gared demanded. ‘You declared our promise broken a long time ago, and I ent bothered you since. I don’t owe you anything.’
‘What about my father, who took you in when your home was destroyed?’ Leesha demanded. ‘Did you owe him anything? Or your own da?’
Gared spread his hands. ‘You don’t know what it was like, Leesh. After Bruna made me tell the town I’d lied about you, no girl would let herself be caught alone with me for a second. Even after you left town for Angiers, I was as popular as itchweed.’
‘I don’t blame them,’ Leesha said.
Gared swallowed a scowl, keeping his patience. ‘Ay, maybe so. But it was lonely, too. Yur mum was the only woman in the whole town paid any attention to me. Only one who acted like I was worth more’n spit.’
He sighed. ‘And in the right light, she looked just like you. I could close my eyes and pretend …’
‘Ugh!’ Leesha cried. ‘I do not need to hear that you thought of me while you …’ She felt her nausea returning, tasting bile in her mouth.
‘Sorry,’ Gared said. ‘Just tryin’ to give honest word. Never stopped wanting you.’
Leesha spat the sour taste from her mouth at his feet. ‘Could have had the real me fifteen years ago, you’d kept your mouth shut.’
‘Know that,’ Gared said. ‘Curse myself for it every night. It’s why I was always so angry. But I wonder, maybe it was the Creator’s Plan?’
‘Eh?’ Leesha asked.
‘Whole world would be different, we’d kept our promise,’ Gared said. ‘You might never have trained with Bruna, or gone away to study in the Free Cities. Might not have brought the Deliverer back with you.’
‘The Painted Man is not the Deliverer, Gared,’ Leesha said.
‘How do you know?’ Gared asked. ‘What makes you so sure you got it all figured out? Maybe the Creator din’t make him perfect for a reason. Maybe he’s testing the rest of us, too. Maybe the Deliverer’s just supposed to show the path, and we’re the ones to walk it.’
Leesha looked at him curiously. ‘Why, Gared Cutter, when did such deep thoughts climb into that thick head?’
Gared scowled. ‘Just an idiot to you, ent I? Not worth the attention of that big brain of yurs?’
‘Gared, I didn’t mean—’
‘Course you did,’ Gared cut her off. ‘Yur always so humble, but it’s all an act as you talk to the simpletons.’ He turned to leave.
Leesha reached out, taking his arm. ‘Don’t go.’
But Gared yanked his arm away, refusing to even look at her. ‘No, I get it. I’m just a strong axe and a hard cock to the Paper women.’
He stormed off, leaving Leesha feeling lonelier and more confused than ever.
16
Where Khaffit Cannot Follow
333 AR Summer28 Dawns Before Waning
Inevera tugged at the thick cloth, stifling in the humid greenland summer. Every breath into the veil seemed to add a blast of steam into the hood. It clung to her hair, matting it with sweat. It had been years since she had been forced to wear even the robes and veil of dama’ting, so white the brightest sun slid off them and so fine her skin could breathe as if bare. Save for these few excursions, she had never been forced to wear the blacks of dal’ting, and wondered how women could bear them.