Malachus wiped her tears with his thumb, smearing a track of moisture over her cheekbone. She was lovely, even in her sorrow, and the urge to comfort her overwhelmed him. He bent and kissed her forehead, traveling from the space between her eyebrows to her left temple, where fine strands of her hair lay against her head. He retraced his path, lips brushing her right temple, lingering there before he kissed her damp cheek, then her nose and her other cheek. She tasted of salt and smelled of the herbs she’d mixed into the poultice layered under his bandages. He dared not kiss her mouth. If he did, he wouldn’t stop. She didn’t move, accepting his caresses with a faint sigh and the curl of her fingers in his tunic.
He straightened, not realizing until then that his hands had settled on her hips, stroking them through her clothing. “Don’t fret, Halani. You’ll see her again soon.”
She opened her eyes and gave him a sheepish smile. “I’m far too old to be crying for my mother.”
“Never let that trouble you. I cried oceans of tears for mine.” Malachus prayed that whatever gods Halani and Asil worshipped, they’d be far more merciful to Asil than his mother’s had been.
Halani regarded him with a measuring look. “You have a gift for knowing what to say and make it fit for that moment, though I have a hard time imagining you crying for your mother.”
He gave a light snort. “I didn’t say I did it as an adult.” His lamentations didn’t manifest as tears now but as rage. Buried deep and long-lasting.
She stepped away from his loose embrace, wiped her eyes, and bent to gather up her supplies and the old bandages. “Breakfast is catch-as-catch-can. One of us will bring you something to eat soon. Likely last night’s leftover bread and some cheese. Marata and Talen are leaving with the first group, so he’s dismantled his kitchen. Pray for all of us that it won’t be Passarin who volunteers to take up Marata’s duties. One pot of his stew can annihilate an enemy army.”
Malachus wondered how many people of those remaining would weep copious tears as Marata waved goodbye to them from his wagon. Even when his stomach balked at anything heavier than a broth, he’d enjoyed the free trader cook’s fare.
Unwilling to sit idly by while everyone else worked and sweated under the summer sun, he abandoned the stifling tunic and donned his own garb, which someone had laundered for him. The shirt didn’t bother him; the trousers were another matter. He tied the drawstring in the waist so that they rested lower on his torso, beneath the bandages circling his middle. It didn’t stop the material from chafing his injured hip, enough so that even the medicated padding didn’t offer protection. Undaunted, Malachus used one of his smaller knives to split part of the seam where the garment rubbed the hardest. It looked odd but no worse than moving about camp swaddled in blankets or borrowed tunics too large for him.
Putting on shoes without help presented an even greater challenge. Slipping them onto his feet was nothing; bending over to strap them to his calves almost made him pass out from the pain. Perspiring and queasy, he finally left the wagon’s confines, dressed, shod, and praying he didn’t vomit.
Asil spotted him first and skipped to his side. “You’re dressed! Who helped you?”
He imagined Halani saying the exact same thing but in a voice quite different from Asil’s cheery one. She’d inevitably pin his ears back when she saw him. “I managed alone. I didn’t want to miss seeing you before you left with the others.”
Her bright grin dimmed, then faded altogether. “I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye. You’re my friend. Friends tell each other hello and goodbye.”
There was something about Asil’s simple wisdoms that went straight to the heart of every matter. It had been a privilege to meet this odd woman with the wizened face and childlike ways. He wouldn’t see her again, but he’d remember her for all the days remaining to him.
“We’re most definitely friends,” he said. “And friends help each other. What can I do to help you for your trip?”
She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, considering his offer. “I’ve been too busy to pack any of my things from our wagon. You can help me there.” Her gaze traveled over him. “Unless you feel poorly. I don’t want Halani mad at me if you aren’t supposed to work.”
“If she questions us, I’ll tell her it was my idea, and I insisted on being given a task.”
The wagon Asil shared with Halani was much more comfortable than the provender wagon he slept in. Two beds took up one end of the wagon, one on the floor, the other above it built on a platform, both layered in colorful blankets and bolsters that turned the top bed into a couch on which one could sit and entertain. Cupboards and locker seats built into the walls on the long sides of the wagon served as storage. Rugs covered the floor, their pile plush under his bare feet—something Asil insisted on before he entered the abode.
“Keeps things clean in here,” she said. “Or we’d be beating carpets every day until our arms fell off.”
Even the arched ceiling didn’t escape decoration. Someone had painted a mural on the tongue-and-groove matchboards between the support frames, their detail highlighted by the sunlight spilling through the open clerestory windows set high into the walls of the wagon’s long sides.
The interior reminded him of a berth on a ship, where every bit of space served a function.
Asil snatched a cushion from the upper bed and plopped it down on one of the locker seats. “You can sit here and help me fill my traveling chest.”
Though Halani had been distressed at the upcoming separation from her mother, Asil seemed unbothered by it. She talked with hardly a pause between sentences as she and Malachus emptied one chest of possessions into another bigger one and added more Asil insisted she needed for the journey. Most of the items were clothes and grooming tools, hair scarves and her own personal apothecary chest of favorite herbals and elixirs.
A ragged doll sewn from scraps of fabric and bits of rope joined the items. Asil placed it carefully atop the pile, pausing to pet it with reverent hands. The doll had seen better days, its rag dress stained, the rope hair speckled with tiny bits of detritus. Malachus recognized a well-loved toy when he saw one. This doll had been played with so much, it threatened to fall apart.
Asil stared at the doll for a moment, features creased as if she wrestled with some grave, life-altering decision. She turned suddenly, presenting the poppet to Malachus. “Would you like to hold Dove?”
Her unexpected gesture surprised him. No one with eyes could mistake how much she treasured the doll, and he was hesitant to touch it, fearful that if he did so, the fragile thing would disintegrate in his hands. “I’m afraid I’ll break her.”
“It’s all right if you do. I’ve had to sew her legs and arms back on several times, and her head twice.” She thrust the doll at him. “Go ahead.”
He took it gingerly. “Why did you name her Dove?”
“Because Hali has eyes like dove’s wings. She made this doll for me when she was small and we played together. I made one for her, too. It looked like me. She made this one to look like her.”
Truly terrified now that he’d do something to accidentally destroy the poppet, Malachus carefully handed it back to Asil, who gave the rope hair a quick kiss before setting it back in the chest. “It’s a very fitting name,” he said. “Halani does have eyes the color of a dove’s wings.” And skin like a silk ribbon. He shoved away the thought and the images it called to mind.
Asil closed the chest lid, securing the latch before perching atop it. “If I take the doll, it will be like having her with me until the real Hali meets us in Domora.”
He had no reply worthy of such a sentiment. The bond between her and Halani was the stuff of childhood dreams, though in this relationship, the parent had assumed the role of the child and vice versa. It might not work for every mother and daughter, but for this pair it did, and Malachus found it a wondrous thing to behold.
“Does Halani still have the doll you made for her?”
She nodded and pointed to another chest tucked away in the corner. “She doesn’t play with it anymore. She says it’s too valuable now, though I don’t think she’d get half a belsha for it if she tried to sell it.”
Malachus sighed. Spoken like a true trader. “There’s value in things all the belshas in the world can’t buy. Your daughter’s right. Your dolls are beyond price.”
Asil shrugged. “She’s too old to play with a poppet anyway. It’s books now. I’d buy her one in Domora, but Hamod wouldn’t like it. He’d say it’s a waste of good coin.”
Malachus frowned. While he had yet to meet the absentee wagon master, he’d overheard enough conversation about him to gain the impression that he was a difficult man at the best of times. Asil’s comment only lowered his opinion. Books were like beloved poppets, their value immeasurable and never a waste of money. He wondered if Hamod would have changed his opinion had he seen the small crowd gathered around Malachus the day before as he read to them from one of the two books he had with him. The enthralled faces staring back at him held the same reverence he’d just witnessed in Asil’s handling of her doll.
An idea took shape in his mind, a way he might repay Halani for her care and something she could share with everyone else in the caravan once he was gone. “Halani said she can’t read.”
“She can’t, but she likes books. Likes to hold them and turn the pages.”
It made sense that none of the free traders were literate. The cost of a book limited the ability to read to those wealthy enough to afford one and a tutor to teach them. Malachus’s extensive literacy was a rarity, one of many benefits he’d reaped as a foster with the Sovatin monks, who’d raised him in a society devoted to learning and whose god was education.
He remembered his first sight of Halani in the market, standing in front of the bookbinder’s stall, a yearning gracing her features as she lingered under the merchant’s narrow gaze to admire one of the books.