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

The afternoon was not so pleasant as the morning had been, at least for me. I rode well out before the others. Some of my attention was on the land and the forest, but mostly I was thinking. Some things were clear to me. Other things were much less clear.

When we crossed a fast-running stream, everyone dismounted to drink and to refill waterskins. Tano inTasiyo went downstream a little way to drink because it would have been a serious insult for him to expect anyone of inGara to drink water after he had dipped his hands into it. An inTasiyo might not be permitted to drink at all from any stream that ran through inGara territory. Rakasa pretended not to notice the young man had gone to the stream. Bara glanced at me, but I said nothing. It was not an inGeiro warrior’s place to decide what insults inGara chose to ignore, so Bara stayed by his horse rather than ordering the young man away from the water.

Tano inTasiyo did not look at anyone. When everyone mounted again, he came back and pulled himself into the high saddle and took his place in the line. He kept his gaze strictly on his horse’s ears.

When the Sun had made his way low in the sky, I found a good place to camp, a small open space where a great tree had fallen, not far from a thin stream where we and the horses could drink. There was no grass there for the horses, but we had grain enough for now.

I might have helped make our camp, but instead I sat on the fallen tree and considered the inTasiyo. He did not help with any task either. For him to touch anything that belonged to inGara would be an insult; his hand should be struck off for any offense of that kind. He knelt down out of the way, his head bowed. I saw how he watched the Lau through his lowered lashes as they cared for the horses and set up tents and brought water from the stream and made a fire. He must be very much afraid, but despite that, he was still curious. Aras started the fire, flicking a glance at the wood arranged on the cleared earth. Flames leaped up at once when he looked at the kindling there. I had become so accustomed to this that I would not have noticed except that Tano inTasiyo forgot himself, looking openly at Aras before he dropped his gaze again.

Lalani brought out food: the last of the soft bread and freshly cooked meat, the last of the fresh fruit, some olives, soft white cheese. She put this out and everyone came to the fire to eat, but no one said anything. A murmur now and then, but everyone was very quiet. I stayed where I was. My stomach was too tight for me to be hungry. No one looked at me, except Suyet, who began to come over to where I sat but changed his mind, and Geras, who watched everything. He did not look happy. I was not very happy either and had nothing to say to him or to anyone.

Lalani wrapped some of the spicy beef in a round of bread and stood up to take this to Tano inTasiyo. Bara touched her arm to stop her, saying, “One does not give food to an enemy.” She stared at him. Then she said, “It is my food and I can give it to whomever I please.” Bara looked at Rakasa, who shrugged. Then they all looked at me.

I said, “Bara is correct to say this. But Lalani is more correct. A woman may do as she wishes in such matters.” Then I said to the inTasiyo, “If this Lau woman wishes to give you something to eat, she may, but it is not a gesture of hospitality from inGara.”

He did not look up. He took the food Lalani gave him and said, barely above a whisper, “I thank you for your kindness.” She did not answer, but she brought him fruit: plums with black skin and red flesh. He ate some of the food she had given him, but slowly. One bite, chewed for a long time, and then a little pause before the next small bite. He ate half the bread and meat that way and set the other half aside. Every warrior learns to manage hunger and every discomfort, but I thought again that this young man was very thin. He must have been close to starvation for a long time to be so thin. Of course, he was a long way from the territory of his people. That might have explained this.

Lalani brought me a plum too, the last one, saved back from the rest. I was still not hungry, but her kindness made me feel a little better. I ate the plum. It was sweet and tart at once. I went down to the stream and washed the juice off my hands. Then I came back to the fire. It was almost dark now. If the Moon had come into the sky, she was hidden behind the branches of the trees among which we camped. These were big firs and spruces and, down along the stream, protected by the folds of the land, aspen and birch and willow.

I went to Aras, who was sitting on a folded blanket, leaning against a saddle. He looked up when I came to him, but said nothing. I knelt and said in darau, “I have been thinking many hard things of you because you would not agree with me about your law and your duty to your king and what you should do regarding that problem. Now that there is this problem and the matter is one of Ugaro custom, I see that your decision is more difficult than