บททั้งหมดของ Blue Thread, Silver Scales: บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 20

AilisThe land beyond the stronghold was not unfamiliar.That was almost disappointing.Fields were fields.Bare trees were bare trees.Mud appeared to be the same in every kingdom.We passed a small farm before the sun was properly warm.A woman stood in the yard holding a basket.Two children watched from behind a fence.No one waved.Neither did I.Aedrathi soldiers rode at the front and rear of the column.A few walked beside us.Their speech passed around me without meaning.I had begun recognizing one word.Or I thought I had.They said it whenever they wanted someone to move.The trouble was that they also appeared to say it when speaking to averrens.I decided not to use it until I knew more.By midmorning my feet hurt.Not badly.Enough to notice.The boy beside the wagon had stopped carrying his bundle.His mother carried it now.I considered offering.Then remembered I owned a needle and little else.If I carried his bundle, I would have more possessions than I had ever hel

AilisThe first soldier who asked me to mend something had to take his coat off before I understood him.He stood beside the well with one arm extended toward me, speaking Aedrathi and pointing at his elbow.I looked at his arm.He pointed again.“I don’t understand.”He frowned.He pulled off his coat.The split beneath the elbow was immediately obvious.“Oh.”He smiled.“Yes. That I understand.”He did not understand me either, but it seemed fair.I took the coat.The wool was good.The tear itself was small.The cloth around it was not.I rubbed the edge between my fingers.Thin.If I simply closed the tear, he would be back with another one beside it.I pointed.The soldier nodded.I pointed more firmly.He nodded more firmly.We were accomplishing nothing.“Corren!”The soldier called.An older man looked up from the writing board in his hands.I recognized him from Sael.He had checked names before we left and had spoken Veyrathi to the families near the second wagon. Corren, ap

AilisI found the books beneath the overhang of a cooper’s house.Or perhaps they found me.I had been looking at ribbons.Not buying them.Looking is free.The stall beside them held used things.Two brass candlesticks. Three belts. A cracked mirror. A small painted box with no key. A cup with a dent in its side. And books. I stopped.There were not many.Perhaps fifteen.Two were enormous, with thick leather covers and metal at the corners.Smaller books lay stacked beneath a folded cloth.I had two coins.I put my hand on the flap of my bag.Two. I needed other things.Shears eventually. Another needle. More thread. Shoes. Clothes. Things I had not thought of yet.I picked up a book.Sermons.I put it back.The next concerned the life of a saint.I returned that too.The third had a worn brown cover, softened at the corners by other hands.I opened it.Two women’s names had been written inside.One above the other.The first had faded almost completely.I turned the pag

AilisBeren’s brother had not, in fact, been at the royal feast.I learned this over breakfast.Beren sat on an overturned crate near the wagons with bread in one hand and a wedge of cheese in the other.Corren had found an onion somewhere and was cutting it into his bowl with a small knife.Jorvan was farther down the line checking a strap beneath one of the wagons.I had thought about the feast again before sleeping.I had not meant to.“Your brother,” I said.Beren looked at me.“What about him?”“The vesk.”Corren stopped cutting his onion.Beren smiled.“What vesk?”“The bad vesk. At the royal feast.”“Ah.”Beren’s smile did not encourage me.“Was your brother there?”“No.”I put down my spoon.“Beren.”“He worked with army kitchens for a time.”“At the feast?”“No.”“Then how does he know the vesk was bad?”Beren tore his bread in half.“A cook told him.”“A cook who was there?”“Yes.”“So your brother heard from a cook that the vesk was bad.”“Yes.”“And you heard it from your

AilisThe first Aedrathi word I understood that morning was road.A soldier called it twice while pointing toward the wagons.I looked where he pointed.The road was still there.Good. Beren had not lied to me about that one.The second word I understood was wagon, though this required less skill because the same soldier slapped the side of one while saying it.I decided it still counted.By the time the fires had been stamped out and the last blankets returned to the supply wagon, I had heard both words often enough that they no longer sounded entirely foreign.This was progress. Very small progress.I had learned smaller things.I put my book into my bag and checked the flap twice before joining the column.A woman caught my sleeve before we started.She was Veyrathi, older than me, with one antler broken short near the tip and a dark mantle folded over both arms.“They said you mend.”I looked at the mantle.Then at her.“Who said?”She pointed somewhere behind me.There were too m