A Shadow In Summer(10)

"Never misbehaved as a child?"

Itani grinned. He had a strong smile.

"Rarely caught," Itani said. Marchat laughed.

They made an odd pair, he thought. Him, an old Galt with a walking staff as much to lean on as to swipe at dogs if the occasion arose, and this broad-backed, stone-armed young man in the rough canvas of a laborer. Not so odd, he hoped, as to attract attention.

"Noyga's your family name? Noyga. Yes. You work on Muhatia's crew, don't you?"

"He's a good man, Muhatia," Itani said.

"I hear he's a prick."

"That too," Itani agreed, in the same cheerful tone of voice. "A lot of the men don't like working with him. He's got a sharp tongue, and he hates running behind schedule."

"You don't mind him, though?"

Itani shrugged. It was another point in his favor. The boy disliked his overseer, that was clear, and yet here he was, alone with the head of the house and not willing to tell tales against him. It spoke well of him, and that was good for more than one reason. That he could trust Itani's discretion made his night one degree less awful.

"What else was different in Kirinton?" Itani asked, and as they walked, Marchat told him. Tales of the Galt of his childhood. The war with Eymond, the blackberry harvests, the midwinter bonfires when people brought their sins to be burned. The boy listened carefully, appreciatively. Granted, he was likely just currying favor, but he did it well. It wasn't far before Marchat felt the twinges of memories half-forgotten. He'd belonged somewhere once, before his uncle had sent him here.

The road was very little traveled, especially in the dead of night. The darkness made the uneven cobbles and then rutted dirt treacherous; the flies and night wasps were out in swarms, freed from torpor by the relative cool of the evening. Cicadas sang in the trees. The air smelled of moonrose and rain. No one in the few houses they passed that had candles and lanterns still burning seemed to show much curiosity, and it wasn't long before they were out, away from the last traces of Saraykeht. Tall grasses leaned close against the road, and twice groups of men passed them without comment or glance. Once something large shifted in the grass, but nothing emerged from it.

As they came nearer the low town, Marchat could feel his companion moving more slowly, hesitating. He couldn't say if the laborer was picking up on his own growing dread, or if there was some other issue. The first glimmering light of the low town was showing in the darkness when the man spoke.

"Marchat-cha, I was wondering . . ."

Marchat tried to take a pose of polite encouragement, but the walking stick complicated things. Instead he said, "Yes?"

"I'm coming near to the end of my indenture," Itani said.

"Really? How old are you?"

"Twenty summers, but I signed on young."

"You must have. You'd have been, what? Fifteen?"

"There's a girl," the young man said, having trouble with the words. Embarrassed. "She's . . . well, she's not a laborer. I think it's hard for her that I am. I'm not a scholar or a translator, but I have numbers and letters. I was wondering if you might know of any opportunities."

In the darkness, Marchat could see the boy's hands twisted into a pose of respect. So that was it.

"If you move up in the world, you think she'll like you better."

"It would make things easier for her," Itani said.

"And not for you?"

Again, the grin and this time a shrug with it.

"I lift things and put them back down," Itani said. "It's tiring sometimes, but it's not difficult."

"I don't know of anything just at hand. I'll see what I can find though."

"Thank you, Wilsincha."

They walked along another few paces. The light before them became a solid glow. A dog barked, but not so nearby as to be worrisome, and no other barks or howls answered it.

"She told you to ask me, didn't she?" Marchat asked.

"Yes," Itani agreed, the tension that had been in his voice gone.

"Are you in love with her?"

"Yes," the boy said, "I want her to be happy."

Those are two different answers, Marchat thought, but didn't say. He'd been that age once, and he remembered it well enough to know there was no point in pressing. They were in the low town proper now, anyway.

The streets here were muddy and smelled more of shit than moonrose. The buildings with their rotting thatch roofs and rough stone walls stood off at angles from the road. Two streets in, and so almost halfway though the town, a long, low house stood at the opening to a rough square. A lantern hung from a hook beside its door. Marchat motioned to Itani.

"Wait for me here," he said. "I'll be back as soon as I can."