Page 76
“I want to walk out,” she says. “While I can feel that it’s finished.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“Take your coat. It’s colder beyond the western trees.”
She has it over her arm already. I notice too late.
Vai puts it on. Then she reaches for my hand.
“I’m still sorry about yesterday.”
“I believe you.”
She waits, and I hear everything I have said except what she came around the table to hear.
“I still want you here,” I tell her.
Her fingers tighten around mine. She rises on her toes, and I bend so she can kiss me.
Then she lets go and walks out with the escort.
Reivaka takes the remaining grant papers to the records room. Edrin goes upstairs with the council copies. The witnesses follow him, talking about breakfast.
I am alone at the table where Vai has just become free of me.
Her chair is crooked. I straighten it, then put it back at the angle she left. Neither position changes anything.
I leave the room.
In the courtyard, two keepers ask Reivaka about an afternoon grain delivery. She names the clearing they should use and tells them who is meeting the wagons. No one asks me to choose a road.
I go to the cultivation. A young cedar has pushed against its binding, and I cut a longer strip of cloth. I am halfway through tying it when I discover I have wrapped the same place twice.
I remove the second strip.
Through the roots I could attend to the western path. Instead, I work along the row until the bindings are checked and the loose cloth is in the basket. The basket belongs in Reivaka’s workroom. I carry it back myself.
She looks up from the table when I enter.
“Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“There’s bread in the kitchen.”
I leave the basket beside her tools.
“If Vai asks for me, I’ll be in the deep grove.”
“Shall I send word if she comes back?”
“She can decide whether she wants to find me.”
Reivaka studies me, then points toward the kitchen arch.
“Take something with you.”
