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

of other questions I wished to ask, but then Suyet jumped down from the wagon and started toward us and the moment was past.

Tano inTasiyo had been walking near the wagon as well, and stayed there rather than following Suyet. He almost always stayed near the women, whose tolerance prevented any inGara warrior from treating him with too much open scorn. He kept his head a little bowed, watching everything but never looking directly at anyone. His manner was so practiced that it had occurred to me this might not be the first time he had conducted himself in this manner, silent and inoffensive, among the people of a tribe where he was not accepted.

Geras, following the direction of my gaze, asked me, “So, Ryo, how is your father going to react to that boy? Fine—young man, whatever. What I’m asking is, if your father gets mad enough, any chance he’ll take that out on us? On Lord Gaur? Because that would make any problem my business.”

“No,” I promised. “He will be angry with me, not with anyone else.”

Geras eyed me. “Uh huh. All right. Just how angry is he likely to be with you, then? I’m asking because, no offense, but that wouldn’t necessarily suit Lord Gaur real well either, so that’s also my business.” Then he said, in slow but improving taksu, “I mean no offense by asking. I will take your blow for it if you wish.”

“That’s almost right!” Suyet told him cheerfully, now close enough to hear what we were saying. He corrected Geras’ pronunciation and added, “Plus you’re supposed to look down. Not that it’s any of my business, but what did you say?”

“He is asking about Tano,” I said. “Geras thinks he is responsible for everyone.” I added to Geras in taksu, “I took no offense, but it was right to offer to take a blow. When there is any doubt regarding the matter, that is almost always right.” Then I switched back to darau and went on. “There is no need for so much concern. My father will be displeased with me, as has occurred in the past and will no doubt occur again in years to come. If he punishes me, I will endure that, as I have in the past and may again in years to come.”

Geras eyed me. “That’s all very well, but I am responsible. You’re the one who asked me to lend a hand, so don’t try to tell me otherwise now. Young men sometimes don’t think ahead when they most ought to. If you ask me, this better not be one of those times.”

Everything in this was exactly like Geras. I took enough time to show that I was considering his words carefully. Then I said, “I think everyone is too much concerned. My father cannot demand I withdraw my oath to the young man. However angry he may be, he will know that.”

Nevertheless, that night, I finally asked Gayata whether he knew the tale that lay behind that enmity. We were sitting around the fire, talking and telling stories. We had already eaten most of the food, but we were enjoying the sugar dumplings Tayasa had taught Lalani to make.

Sugar is rare and precious in the winter country, so Lalani had brought some cones of sugar as gifts. That was why the women had made the dumplings. Lalani had also brought generous packets of raisins, and the women had added a few of those to the sugar at the heart of each dumpling. Everyone greatly favored this addition.

“You should trade for raisins,” Lalani told Tayasa and Marya and the other women who had come to the fire to eat with us that night. “We grow many-many grapes in Gaur. Better kinds than any in the borderlands. We make wine, but we make raisins too. You could also trade for sugar. We make more sugar in Gaur than anyone makes in the borderlands. It's too cold there for the right kinds of plants.”

Marya ate another dumpling and said thoughtfully, “Perhaps we might do that.”

“An exclusive arrangement between inGara and Gaur might benefit both people—you should ask for that.”

Leaving the women to their business, I said to Gayata, “Recently I have begun to wonder about the enmity that lies between the inGara and the inTasiyo. You are older than I am, so perhaps you know something about how the bitterness came about between our tribes.”

On the women’s side of the fire, no one noticed I had asked this. They were discussing ideas about trade and not listening to the men. But on our side of the fire, everyone was suddenly listening. Aras looked up sharply, not at me, but at my brother. Tano set down the bowl he had been holding and folded his hands tightly in his lap.

Gayata was nodding, unsurprised. “I was thinking I should find a chance to ask you if you understood the problem,” he told me. “It seemed to me that you might not understand the matter as well as you should. It concerned my mother, so I can tell you how it happened.”

Already I was surprised. “Your mother was involved?” I added to the Lau, “My father’s first wife, a woman named Tasig, who had been of the inGeiro. She was not a singer, but she was greatly respected. She died some years ago, of the woman’s sickness.” I did not know the word for that illness in darau, so I touched my chest to show the sickness I meant.

“Our women sometimes have that too,” Aras said quietly, and to Gayata, “I regret your loss.”

“Yes,” said Gayata, inclining his head to accept this expression of sympathy. “This problem with the inTasiyo happened long before that, when my mother was young, only a little after she had married my father. At that time the inGara and inTasiyo were neither allies nor enemies. Our lands