“Maybe you can read to her while you’re here,” Asil suggested.
Or teach her to read. If Halani was willing to learn, he could give her a few lessons before he was healed enough to continue his search for the mother-bond. A rudimentary education at best, but with that and maybe a book to help her, she’d find it useful in the future and remember him fondly when they parted ways.
The idea continually turned over in his mind as he helped Asil pack the rest of her essentials. While she refused to let him carry her chest for her, she did allow him to share the burden, and the two hefted it across the campground toward the wagon she pointed to as one she’d travel in for the journey to the Kraelian territories.
“What are you doing?”
They halted together at the question and turned in tandem to face Halani.
Arms akimbo, features set in grim disapproval, she eyed the chest suspended between them before turning a hard stare first on her wide-eyed mother and then on Malachus. She didn’t wait for either of them to answer her before firing off another question. “And why are you wearing clothes?”
Malachus glanced at Asil, who returned it with one that told him he was on his own. He offered Halani a conciliatory smile. “I volunteered to help Asil. Doing so meant wearing something less awkward than a blanket or that tunic I borrowed.” He showed her the cut he’d made in the trousers seam. “I made adjustments.” Fortunately, he’d had Asil to help him with his shoes the second time.
“Asil!”
Kursak’s shout startled the woman so that she jumped, yanking hard on the chest. The movement jerked Malachus’s arm, which in turn tightened his chest muscles. He hissed as a shard of pain lanced his torso from collarbone to abdomen.
Halani leapt forward, her hand wrapping around his to help with the chest. “Mama, be careful!”
“Asil!” Kursak yelled a second time. “Bring the chest here.”
Overwhelmed by orders shouted from two sides, Asil dropped her side of the chest and started to cry.
Abandoning Malachus, Halani enfolded her mother in an embrace. She raised a hand to Kursak, signaling him to stop. The wagon master leapt off the wagon’s half-filled bed and joined them. He stood a little behind the two women. “Sorry, Asil,” he said in a soft voice. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It wasn’t you, it was me,” Halani replied. “Can you take her things from Malachus? I’ll see to Mama and then him. I’m afraid he might have split one of his wounds.”
“I’m well,” Malachus told Kursak. “Just a twinge. I’m not so injured that I can’t put a box of frocks and hair combs into a wagon by myself.” There was a lot more in the chest than that, but he’d done the one thing he’d tried to avoid—made a nuisance of himself.
Kursak bent to take the chest. “No arguments. Hand it over. I learned a long time ago not to raise Halani’s hackles if I can help it.”
Freed of his burden, Malachus chose to leave mother and daughter alone, surreptitiously watching as Halani patted her mother’s hair and dried her tears. She then kissed Asil’s forehead, told her something that made Asil grin, and sent her to join Kursak, who was rearranging casks, pallets, and the problematic chest.
Malachus braced himself when Halani strode toward him. “You,” she said, pointing a finger, “are trying to heal from life-threatening injuries. Stop undoing all my hard work.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Forgive me. Guilt got the best of me. Boredom as well. Is Asil better now?”
She gave him a knowing look from the corner of her eye. “Nice attempt at diverting me. Mama is fine, probably better than you. Now, back to the provender wagon with you so I can see what damage you’ve done.”
After a steady stream of grumbling and admonishments, she pronounced him unharmed by his efforts. “If you wish to help,” she said, “find a way to distract the children. They get underfoot in all the excitement. One of the mules almost stepped on Focana’s toddler, and Seydom caught two of the boys trying to stow away in the grain wagon.”
Malachus had no experience with children, unless one counted the childlike Asil. He hadn’t a clue how one might go about distracting them. Then he recalled the expressions on a few of their faces as they sat with their mothers while he read.
He pointed to the single tree a short walk from the camp, its wide, leafy limbs providing ample shade. “Send them there. I’ll meet them once I get a book from the wagon. I can’t promise I can keep their attention long, but I’ll try.”
“You’re going to read to them.” She said it as if he’d just promised to teach them how to fly, wonder and yearning in her voice.
“Yes.” Her reaction convinced him even more that offering to teach her how to read was his best idea. He chose not to mention it then, preferring to wait until things had settled in the camp and he had more time to speak with her.
Keeping small children focused on a single thing for longer than a breath proved more of a challenge than Malachus anticipated, but he managed the deed, employing some of the storytelling techniques he’d seen Halani and Marata use on the crowd. The children were as interested in the book itself as in what was in it, and Malachus held his breath more than a few times as grubby hands carefully turned the book upside down, flipped the pages, and traced the inked words inside. He breathed a sigh of relief when one of the free trader women came to rescue him.
She gathered the children with a practiced hand, unfazed as they dashed and danced around her like snowflakes in a strong wind. “The others are leaving now,” she told them. “Come say goodbye.” She nodded a silent thanks to Malachus for his help. “Halani said to fetch you as well, Malachus. Do you need my help to stand?”
He refused her offer and slowly gained his feet. This invalid treatment was growing tiresome. The children raced toward the cluster of wagons and people waiting on the camp’s new perimeter. Malachus hesitated to approach the group. The free traders had offered him their unstinting hospitality and care, for which he was grateful. The fact that they’d taken him in instead of robbing him and leaving him for dead still amazed him. This was a farewell between members of an extended family, affectionate, teasing, worried, and familiar. He was a guest, a visitor, welcomed among them but not part of them.
Asil would have none of it. She shouldered her way through the crowd, Halani following close behind her, and ran toward him. “Malachus!”
Malachus planted his feet, bent his knees, and braced himself as Asil looked ready to launch herself at him. This was going to hurt.
“Careful, Mama! Wounded!” Halani cried out just in time.
Asil curbed her lunge toward him, pulling up short. She shuffled toward him instead, and he met her halfway, offering an embrace she enthusiastically claimed. He clenched his teeth against a groan when her arms squeezed his middle, and she nestled her face dangerously close to his chest injury.
When they parted, Asil’s smile held a touch of sadness. “Will I see you again, Malachus?”
He lifted her work-roughened hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “You’re a traveler like me. Such folk inevitably cross paths with each other. Be well, Asil. It has been my honor to know you.”
She blushed, snapped forward to plant a damp kiss on his cheek, and scampered back toward the departing free traders. Halani turned to him, gratitude in her eyes.
“Thank you for not giving her false hope. Yours was a good answer.”
“And as honest as I could make it without disappointing her.” The likelihood of him meeting Asil again was slim. He touched Halani’s arm. “Are you all right?”
“I will be.” The forlorn look she wore gave way to a half smile. “You did better than you thought with distracting the children. I think they liked your book. Parents will sing your praises for days to come.”
Again, that faint touch of envy in her voice. So far he’d read to a small crowd twice, and she’d missed both opportunities to hear. “I have yet to read to you,” he said. “I can do so tonight if you aren’t too tired. It’s a good way to help daughters not dwell on their worry for their mothers.”
Her half smile bloomed to a full one. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
They made plans to meet in front of her wagon after supper. “We’ll all be too tired to listen to or tell a story tonight,” she said. “My presence won’t be missed at the main fire.”
With no storytelling planned after the meal, the group dispersed to complete evening checks on the livestock, begin assigned guard duty, or find their beds. Malachus grabbed one of the lit lamps hanging outside the provender wagon and trekked toward Halani’s wagon. Lit both inside and out by more lamps, it cast a welcoming glow in the darkness. She sat on a saddle pad before a small fire not far from her door, tending the flame. Malachus paused for a moment to admire the way light flickered across her features, emphasizing the width of her cheekbones, her fine jaw and slender nose. Golden highlights wove through her brown hair, tamed into a long braid that draped across her shoulder to coil in her lap. What did all that hair look like unbound?
She glanced up and he raised the book he held. “A different tome from the one I read earlier, so you’ll be the first in the camp to hear me read from this one.”
Halani clapped her hands, her expression delighted. She stood and gestured for him to hand her his lamp. “I’ll take it and set it on the steps. Would you prefer a stool to sit on? It might be easier for you than getting up and down from the ground.”
“I don’t need the stool. A blanket on the ground is fine. I’m not enfeebled.”
“True, but you’re still healing. Believe me when I tell you no one will consider you enfeebled if you choose a stool or chair, so the offer stands should you change your mind.”
He wouldn’t and he didn’t. Even were it not a point of pride, Malachus had no intention of giving up the opportunity to sit close to Halani as he read to her.