Chapter III

AILIS

She gave me a look.

The air smelled different outside the walls.

Smoke, mostly. Averren dung. Wet earth. Something cooking.

I turned my head toward that last one before I could stop myself.

There were several cookfires farther down the slope.

A pot hung over one.

Bread sat in a basket beside it.

I looked away.

Then back.

The bread remained there.

This seemed promising.

The soldiers brought us to a broad canvas shelter where benches had been set beneath an awning. The feverish boy was taken somewhere else with his mother. So was the old man whose leg troubled him.

The woman from the kitchens started after them.

A soldier stopped her.

“Family?”

“No.”

“Then wait here.”

She hesitated.

“They don’t know him.”

The soldier looked toward the old man being helped away.

“Healer does.”

The woman did not look convinced.

Neither was I, though I could not have said why.

Perhaps because for five years "someone else will care for him had not been a sentence worth trusting.

The soldier had already turned to the next person.

The kitchen woman remained where she was. I touched her elbow.

“He was walking with help.”

She looked at me.

“Yes.”

“And they took him toward the healers.”

“Yes.”

“We know where he went.”

She breathed out.

“Yes.”

I left my hand there until she moved toward the benches.

Only then did I realize I still did not know her name.

That felt rude after laughing with her over the kitchen floor.

“Ellyn?”

She turned.

I had guessed.

I could tell from her face.

“No.”

“Oh.”

The woman smiled for the first time.

“Mara.”

“Mara.”

“Yes.”

“I knew it began with something.”

“It did.”

That was generous of her.

We sat.

Someone brought bread.

I had been watching the basket approach for long enough that I tried to look elsewhere when it finally reached us.

This accomplished nothing.

I still knew exactly where it was.

A woman in a plain brown dress handed me a piece.

I took it.

Then waited.

She had already moved to Tessa.

I looked at the bread.

There was no instruction attached to it.

It was coarse and still warm in the middle.

I ate too quickly.

The first mouthful hurt going down.

I slowed after that.

Mostly.

Tessa had finished hers before me.

I broke off a piece of mine.

She frowned.

“No.”

“You were looking at it.”

“I was not.”

“You were.”

“So were you before they gave it to you.”

“That is different.”

“How?”

“It was not yours yet.”

I ate the piece I had meant to give her.

I broke off another and put it into her hand.

“There.”

“I said I didn’t want it.”

“Then give it back.”

She ate it.

I smiled.

A man sat behind a narrow table at the far end of the shelter.

He had several sheets of parchment in front of him.

Ink. Two pens. A little dish of sand.

I watched him write while I ate.

His letters were too far away to read, but his hand moved quickly.

One person stood before him.

Then another.

Names, perhaps.

The thought made me sit straighter.

“Tessa.”

She was licking crumbs from her thumb.

“What?”

“Do you think they are taking names?”

She looked.

“Probably.”

I rubbed my fingertips together.

There was dirt beneath my nails.

One still had the faint gray mark the silver thread sometimes left when it dragged across the skin.

My name.

That should not have made me nervous.

I had given my name many times in five years.

Ailis.

Sometimes Ailis Edevane.

Usually only Ailis.

Lady Ailis had disappeared quickly. Nobody had ordered me to stop using it. There had simply ceased to be circumstances in which anyone cared.

The line shortened.

I ate the last of my bread.

When my turn came, I stood before the table.

The man looked up.

Older than I expected.

Gray had begun at his temples.

No armor.

A dark wool coat with ink on one cuff.

“Name?”

“Ailis Edevane.”

His pen touched the parchment.

“Edevane.”

“Yes.”

He wrote it.

That was all.

I had expected -- I did not know what I had expected.

“Age?”

“Twenty-two.”

He wrote again.

“Place of origin?”

“Eilin.”

The pen stopped.

He looked up.

“Kingdom of Eilin?”

Yes.”

His eyes moved over my face.

I knew what he was doing.

People did that whenever Eilin came up.

Trying to decide how much to ask.

He looked back at the parchment.

“Taken from there?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

“Five years.”

His mouth tightened.

Only slightly.

He wrote.

“Family?”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

The man waited.

Behind me, someone shifted in line.

I looked down at his ink dish.

There was a little skin dried across one edge.

“Ailis?”

I looked up.

“My parents were in Eilin when I was taken.”

“Names?”

I gave them.

He wrote those too.

“Do you know if they live?”

“No.”

He waited a moment.

I wished he would write something.

“Other family?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Anyone elsewhere you could go to?”

Five years was long enough for people to marry.

Move.

Die.

Forget you.

I disliked the last thought and put it away.

“No.”

He made another mark.

“Were you held here the whole five years?”

“No.”

His pen moved.

“Where else?”

“I am not sure.”

Some places I knew. Some I knew only by the household that had owned them.

“What work were you made to do?”

“Mostly textile work.”

“What kind?”

“Embroidery. Mending. Some garment work. Decorative household work when they needed it.”

The pen slowed.

“Skilled embroidery?”

“Yes.”

Then I worried that sounded proud.

“I mean -- I was trained before.”

That sounded worse.

He looked up.

“Were you paid?”

“No.”

Of course not.

He nodded as if this confirmed something he already expected and wrote again.

Then he put the pen down.

“Do you wish to return to Eilin?”

I stared at him.

The people behind me were still waiting.

Someone farther down the shelter was asking for more water.

An averren gave a low call outside.

I heard all of it.

“It still stands?”

The man blinked.

“No.”

“Oh.”

He moved one of the parchments aside.

“When the roads are secure. We are recording where people wish to go.”

I looked toward the open side of the shelter.

The stronghold stood above us. Beyond it -- I did not know.

Eilin was somewhere beyond a great deal of land I had crossed unwillingly and remembered badly.

“Is it safe?”

“Eilin?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.”