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“Yes.”
She has not asked about tomorrow’s hearing once today, and I have not offered. It can have us in the morning.
I bend to kiss her. The sun has warmed her cheek. She smells faintly of the cedar soap from her room, and when she turns toward me her loose hair catches on the leaves at my shoulder.
I lift it free.
“I put the bowl to use,” she says.
“I noticed.”
She draws my hand to her lap. Her hair lies over both our wrists.
“Were you looking forward to this?”
“Since I left you.”
She has no quick answer. I watch the pleasure reach her face and wish I had learned years ago how little speaking was required to make something clear.
Then she kisses the inside of my wrist, and I am glad I learned in time for her.
After supper, Tavin, the old man with mushrooms on his shoulder takes a fiddle from beneath his chair.
He plucks a string, frowns and tightens it. Across the table, Lessa finishes her drink and reaches for a skin drum. Several people move their bowls out of her way before she has to ask.
Vai turns in her chair beside me.
“You have music.”
“When his fiddle agrees.”
The old man looks at me. “It agreed before you had antlers.”
“It took longer to tune then, too.”
Vai laughs. The old man points the bow at me without apparent offense, then finds the first notes of a tune I know.
She begins tapping one finger against her cup. At the second phrase, she looks delighted.
“We sing this in Tesseny.”
“With those notes?”
“Some of them. Tovi has his own arrangement.”
She hums a little. Her version climbs where ours falls, and the rhythm changes halfway through. The woman with the drum listens, tries it once and grins at her.
“That’s quicker.”
“It usually needs to be. People start throwing things by the last verse.”
“What’s the last verse?”
Vai looks at me.
“I’d need another drink.”
The drummer laughs and begins again. A few people get up to move the narrow tables back. Two couples take the cleared space, one pair counting under their breath until the fiddle finds a pace they can follow.
