His First Crossing
The first village after the passage through the mountains was a mistake.
Kayvin tugged his hood over his head—his ears were not so much a tell as myth suggested, but he was learning that red hair was enough to draw the human eye—and looked for a public room. It would be good to sit along a wall, nurse a drink, and listen. He was good at listening. Even if he wasn’t good at much else.
There, that had the look of a tavern. There was a sign over the door: The Demon’s Head. Well, he wasn’t a demon, not really, so he wouldn’t take it personally. Anyway, there didn’t seem to be many other options in this small town.
He went inside, cradling his pack to occupy his hands. The room was more than two-thirds empty, and the afternoon sun slanted on the polished tables. Should he take an empty seat? Should he wait at the door and catch the eye of a serving man or woman? Or should he approach what appeared to be a counter outside the kitchen?
He had read so many texts, preparing to come here, but they were old texts and possibly well out of date. And all of them were written by scholars more concerned with the great deeds of history than the common customs of peasants and merchants entering a public room. He was adrift.
But this was why he’d approached a small town first, near but not too convenient to a trade route. He could, he hoped, play off any errors as quirks of a visitor from away. As he was.
He saw no serving man or woman, and two men chatting at a far table gave him an odd glance as he stood by the door—or maybe he was just too conscious of any interest—and so he edged toward a nearby empty table. He set his pack on one chair and took the other, his back to the wall. He wished he had a book, or something else to make his waiting appear more natural.
This was a fool’s errand.
That was fitting, for he was a fool. A useless fool, even. He was ill-equipped for this dangerous errand, or anything else. And though he would have a fine grave, already designated near his father’s freshly sealed sepulcher, and though he would be given flowers and a cursory instrumental passage from well-paid musicians, no one would miss him.
“Hello, young sir! I didn’t see you there.” A man came out from the kitchen, tucking an apron about his waist, and started toward Kayvin’s table.
Kayvin wasn’t sure if the greeting contained a mild rebuke. “Sorry, I just—sat down.”
“That’s fine, of course you did. You’ve walked from, where, Lotsbridge?”
Kayvin shook his head, not wanting to be caught in any questions of neighboring personalities or events. “No, I’ve come through the foothills.”
“Oh, from down south, you mean. Blueriver.”
“No, nearer the mountains. It’s been a distance.”
“The Tendertooth Hills? Well, that is a day’s walk. Let’s get some food into you.” The man began counting items on his fingers. “I’ve got lamb that’s been stewing since morning, and a good pork and cabbage bowl, and a nice pot of beans with root vegetables and some of the early herbs. Any of those sound to your fancy?”
“The beans, I think,” Kayvin said carefully. He thought meat could be a luxury, and he did not want to appear as if he were spending freely.
“That’s a good choice,” the man confided with a grin. “The pork came in as part of a debt, and I think he was trying to short us. I keep telling Meria she should have refused it, but…” He shrugged. “The beans and vegetables are good, though; that was my own lunch too. Ale to drink with it? I’ll have them out in three tail-shakes.”
Kayvin didn’t know whose shaking tail they were to be timing, but he smiled and nodded and sat back against the wall.
Everything was so foreign—the matte wooden furnishings, the glazing on windows and the largest no wider than the length of his arm, the fields outside greened by rains that never made it over the mountains... The people talking to each other, indifferent to him.
He crossed one leg over the other and propped his elbow on the edge of the table as if it were an armrest for his bench, and he raised his chin, trying to arrange himself as he’d seen his father overseeing banquets. This was not so different, sitting alone and watching others dine. Remote, austere, set apart. Only, the farmers across the room had made no pretense of obeisance and their conversation, at least, was unlikely to be about him.
Kayvin let his elbow fall to his side and sighed. His father, with a Shining Gem as empress and a sera qadra of two dozen and another three dozen concubines, should have had more sons.
