Now he only shook his head and answered cheerfully, “Not one of mine this time, sir, but a visitor to see Mistress Lal and Mistress Nyateneri. We’ll take him to their room and let him rest there till they return.” He nodded to me, and we began dragging and pushing the half-conscious old man toward the inn once again.
Karsh grunted and spat. He made no move to interfere, but stared hard at us with his pale eyes as we struggled by him. We had reached the threshold when he said, not loudly but very clearly, “A visitor, is it? More likely another body for the tickberry patch.” I did not understand what he meant, but the color came up in Rosseth’s neck. He called for Gatti Jinni to come and help us, but Gatti Jinni had faded away into one of the musty places he knew. So we got the old man up the stairs by ourselves.
I had thought I could go in. I knew that the room would smell of her, and that it might be hard to look at the bed where she slept and wonder if someone who had been dead could ever dream of someone living. But I had no more than lifted the latch and pushed the door an arm’s-length open when I saw the velvet sash hanging across the back of a chair. It was the sash I had traded my first real woven cloth for at Limsatty Fair; it was the sash she was wearing when she drowned. I shut the door and turned away.
Rosseth meant to be gentle. He said, “Tikat, they left by moonlight, they’ll be gone all day. She—Lukassa—she isn’t in there.” I remember that he flushed again when he said her name. Trying so hard to spare others’ feelings must be very embarrassing, I suppose.
“I’ll send Marinesha up,” I said. “I am sorry.” Then I ran back down the stairs as though all the beasts out of my walking nightmares in the Northern Barrens were after me together, so fast that I stumbled and fell to my knees in the courtyard. If Karsh had been there still, he would have split his fat belly with laughing, and well enough I would have deserved it. But I had suddenly come to the end of my tracking at that door. I had followed Lukassa through deserts, forests, across rivers and mountains, tracing out every least shadow of a memory of her passage that all these had kept for me—but into that room I would not follow, not if my one love stood beckoning in the doorway, no more, no. “Let her come to me if she will,” I said to the dusty chickens clucking and scattering all around. “She must come to me.”
And a foolish vow that was, as you will see—aye, and unkind as well, for all the while I yet believed her to be under a spell that kept her from knowing me. But I was very weary—I’ll say that much for myself—and very angry, and full of despair; and just then, there on my knees, I did not love anyone, and I never had.
MARINESHA
If it hadn’t been for Tikat, I would have gotten through that entire week without breaking a single plate. Oh, that may sound very silly to you, but you might not feel like that if Karsh were always after you about accidents and clumsiness and all kinds of things you couldn’t possibly help. And I’d managed, in spite of his nagging and his sneaking up on me and shouting—I mean, if that wouldn’t make you drop something—I’d managed not even to chip so much as a teacup or a panikin all week, even with all the hullabaloo that was going on about those stupid pigeons; and then here comes Tikat calling for me when I’m not in the least expecting it, in that nice rough country voice of his that never got my name quite right, and of course I dropped the porringer, who wouldn’t? And of course I turned right around and slapped him—he understood that. Tikat was a gentleman, I don’t care where he came from.
“I’m sorry, Marinesha,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just came to say Rosseth wants you upstairs.”
“Oh, does he indeed?” I said. Because I didn’t want him to think that I was someone who jumped whenever Rosseth snapped his fingers. “Well,” I said, “you can go tell the Lord Rosseth that the Princess Marinesha will be there in good enough time to suit herself, and if that doesn’t suit him, there’s a delightful man in the kitchen who wants him downstairs this minute.” Because Shadry absolutely hated Rosseth; it was dreadful what he used to put that boy through. I was sorry after I’d said that about Shadry. I said to Tikat, “I’ll be up when I can, I just have to clean away these pieces and hope Karsh doesn’t notice.” But I knew he would.
Tikat had the prettiest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. You wouldn’t imagine a village boy like him having such long, thick eyelashes, the color of warm afternoon sun on the courtyard dust when it’s getting late. And he was tall, much taller than Rosseth, and there was that voice; and if he’d only paid a little attention to his hair, it would have looked like—I don’t know. Like a beautiful bird or an animal, all by itself. Not that I ever gave him more than “good morning” or “good evening,” I’m sure, but he was always very courteous to me, so that shows you.
But this time he was different. I can’t tell you how different he was—if I said he was pale as this or shaking like that, then you’d think that was the difference, that thing, and it wasn’t. Only that I hadn’t seen him like that before. He said, “Marinesha, you will have to tell him yourself. I can’t go back up there.”
“What is it?” I said. “What’s the matter with you?” His voice was so low. I mean, it isn’t as though I didn’t know what the trouble was. There probably wasn’t even a guest who didn’t know that he’d come all this terrible journey to find his girl, and then that pale, whispering little—well, I’ll just say that little thing—just turned away and pretended she didn’t even know him. I thought it was shameful, and I thought the other two put her up to it, the showy, arrogant pair of them, and I wasn’t the least bit shy about saying so. Which took the wind out of a certain stable boy, I can tell you, but what did I care for that? Tikat had manners, and if there is one thing in this world I respect, there you have it. Manners.
But all he said was, “I can’t—I am a coward—I cannot,” and he was past me and gone, almost knocking Shadry over as he came through, which made me laugh—I couldn’t stop myself. So after that there was nothing to do but smooth down Shadry, hide the bits of the broken porringer, and go up to Rosseth. He had just finished settling the oldest man I ever saw onto a straw mattress on the floor. The old man’s eyes were closed, and he was the color of old snow. I was servant to a hedge-doctor once—hardly more than a baby, I was—and I have seen dead people, many of them. I would have thought he was dead, except that Rosseth was talking to him. He was saying, ”There you are, sir, as comfortable as anyone at The Gaff and Slasher. I’m sure your friends will be returning by this evening. If there’s anything more I can do for you.“ But the old man said never a word.
“The only thing you can do for that one,” I said from the doorway, “is to ask him where he wants his body sent, and what sort of priests should meet the coach.” Rosseth spun around and glared at me, but I just smiled. Rosseth always hated it when I did that, just smiled at him in that way. I said, “And the best thing you can do for yourself is pray that Karsh doesn’t miss that spare mattress. He’d turn out your insides to stuff a new one.”
Rosseth gave that long, long, patient sigh that was always his way of annoying me. He said, “This gentleman has only come to see his friends. He won’t be staying the night.”
“He won’t last the night,” I said. Rosseth put a finger to his lips, but I certainly didn’t pay that any mind. I said, “Those three sluts will come back to find a dead man waiting for them.” Which suited me well enough, and I laughed right there, just thinking about it. “Poor things. The only kind of man they won’t be able to get any use out of. I don’t suppose.”