Tarashana by Rachel Neumeier (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

been—I still was—a tuyo, given to Lord Aras to put to death in any way that pleased him. I waited for her to remember this was a custom of my people, not hers. Her eyes widened a little and she looked at me in a different way. I said, “From one day to the next, you Lau are gentler. But when you are cruel, it is a different kind of cruelty.” I thought about this, considering the words that might give shape to this thought. Then I said, “This is a dispassionate cruelty. I did not understand that word until I came to know your people. I understand it now. I do not know if the cruelty your law requires is worse than what Ugaro might do. Perhaps it is not worse. But Aras should not do it.”

“Of course, you’re right, I see that now,” she said, which is what Lau women say to men whether they agree or disagree. Only women much older than Lalani would disagree with a man. But after thinking about what I had said for a little while, she said in taksu, “I think perhaps that could be so.” That, she would not have said just to be polite.

She had been quick to learn taksu, quicker than Suyet. Of course, one expects a woman to learn such things more easily than a man.

She started to say something else, in darau this time, but from within the courtyard, Sarai called out loudly, “Does anyone know where Ryo might have gone?”

They all knew where I was, only no one would be so impolite as to notice that Lalani and I had gone apart to speak privately. Sarai would not call out in that way unless she had some important reason to do so. I stood up, lifted Lalani easily to her feet, and we both walked back to the courtyard.

“Ah, Ryo! There you are!” Sarai said when I stepped back through the line of shrubs. “Good! Here’s Ias just come looking for you.”

Iasara was one of the boys who ran errands for Talon Commander Sharet, young enough that he could come and go in the woman’s courtyard. Someone had given him a raisin pastry, but now he hastily brushed the crumbs off his hands and stood straight to talk to me. Ias was probably a soldier’s son, though sometimes boys came to the talon in other ways—orphaned, some of them, or preferring a soldier’s life to that of a farmer. However he had come to the talon, Iasara would be a soldier himself someday, but he had only eleven summers now and the Lau do not consider that a boy becomes a man until he is nineteen, so that would not be for some time. He said, “Lord Gaur orders you to come, Ryo. He said now, immediately.”

I looked at him in surprise. “That was what he said?”

The boy nodded solemnly. “Talon Commander Sharet told your guards. They’ll meet you at the main door.”

I turned to Lalani. “I am sorry. I must go. I will tell you if I hear something you should know.” Then I headed for the main door of the barracks. I did not run, but I walked fast.

Aras gave few orders. He especially gave me very few orders. He preferred to ask. By the time I came to the main entrance, I was jogging.

My guards were waiting for me as Iasara had said—tonight it was Suyet, with Rasas, his file leader, and Eroen, another trooper who belonged to that file. I nodded to them, but I did not say anything, only led the way out of the barracks and set the pace toward the other side of the town.

There are times I envy the length of Lau limbs. My guards could have come there in half the time. Probably less. I jogged the whole way through the town while they only had to walk to keep the same pace. We passed the guards posted at the gate of the courtyard and then into the house and up the stairs. That was more than far enough to jog in the warmth; I was glad the Sun had by this time stepped low in the sky or it would have been much warmer.

When I came to the top of the stairs, one of the servants pointed to show me where to go, and I went that way, still trying to think of what might have happened. I probably thought of everything except the thing that had truly happened.

I came to the room, and the door was open, and I heard voices, Aras and someone else, a voice I knew but did not stop to recognize. I was walking fast, and so I think I was at the door before I realized they were speaking taksu.

Then I was through the door. I stopped, astonished and suddenly afraid. The person who had come here was Rakasa inGeiro, son of the inGeiro warleader. Rakasa, and also his friend Bara—young men, but respected warriors—were here, on this side of the river, in this house, speaking with Aras. I could not imagine any good reason that the inGeiro would have sent them from the winter country to find me here. I did not want to imagine any reason so terrible that the inGeiro and not my own people would have sent anyone to find me.

 -4-

“Nothing’s wrong, Ryo,” Aras said swiftly. “That is, nothing’s amiss with your family. Everyone’s perfectly all right. I do apologize; I should have told Ias to make that clear.”

I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding. Then I walked across the room and shoved Rakasa hard, pushing him back a step before he braced against me. “You should have told me that! I think my heart stopped beating! I might have fallen into the land of the shades! Why did you come,