The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [74]
“How old now?” Rehada asked as she approached the basket.
“Praise to the ancients, she nears her ninth month, and she is healthy as can be.”
Rehada pulled the blanket back to reveal the red face of a babe. Gierten was thin, with a wiry strength to her, but this baby was round in the cheeks with strong color to her skin. She looked nothing at all like Ahya, but still it drove a knife through Rehada’s chest merely to look upon this child, this Landed child, while hers was gone, ripped from her when she had only begun to blossom.
“She is hale, indeed,” Rehada said to prevent herself from crying. She looked along the line, to those that seemed like it was a struggle just to remain standing. “I wonder, then, why you’ve come here.”
“We need grain as much as the next family.”
“Last year your husband’s nets were full.”
Gierten shook her head. “The fish have all gone. Even two months ago we could find enough to live on if not sell at market, but now we can’t even do that.” She smiled as she reached down and pulled the blanket over to protect her child from the breeze. “And my Evina needs all the food she can get.”
It was then that Rehada noticed something from the corner of her eye. Beyond the line, nestled between several tall stone buildings, was a patch of snow-covered ground with three white fir trees standing over it. On the far side, near the mouth of an alley that led up toward the Boyar’s mansion, stood a man. He was in the shade of the trees—with the clouds in the sky and his dark clothes it was difficult at first to pick him out. It was Soroush, still wearing his double robes, his ragged turban, daring anyone to notice him and call attention to it.
She pulled her eyes back to Gierten, for she couldn’t let on what she’d seen, but as they continued to talk—Gierten regaling her with all manner of meaningless stories about the baby’s first months of life—Rehada caught several more glimpses of Soroush. Clearly he had been following her, or had been waiting, knowing somehow she would walk this way.
She bid Gierten dasvidaniya and began heading along the line, hoping to cut across and speak with Soroush, but when she looked for him again, he wasn’t there. She rushed across the street to the trees, looking up along the alley, but she did not find him.
She shivered, and not from the wind tugging at her robes. For some reason she felt more alone than she ever had since coming to Khalakovo.
Rehada woke to a soft knock at the rear of her home. She stood, wiped the crust of dried tears from her cheeks, and pulled her robe over her naked form. Another knock came—more insistent—as she took a small lamp from the mantel and limped along the creaking hallway to the rear of the house.
A third knock came as she opened it.
Standing there was Soroush, lit in golden relief by the light of her lamp. She had known he would eventually come, but she still felt watched from the scene in the city earlier that day.
She bowed her head, stepping aside to allow him entrance. It was not lost on her the parallel this made to Nikandr’s visit only three days before, the only difference being that Nikandr had used the front door while one of her own was forced to use the rear. She was ashamed, though she had to admit she wasn’t sure whether it stemmed from the fact that Nikandr had become so familiar with her or that Soroush, even after all they’d been through, still was.
Doing her best to disguise the pain she felt in her feet and shins as she walked, she led him into her sitting room and offered him vodka. He turned his nose up at that, clearly expecting araq or the sour citrus wines from the south of Yrstanla.
“It has fallen out of favor.”
“Even in Iramanshah?” His voice was deep and smooth, like the voice of a mountain. It was something she’d been so long without she’d forgotten how reassuring it could be.
“In case you’ve forgotten, the picture I’m painting is not of a woman in Iramanshah.”
He smiled. “You could still have a bottle hidden beneath the floorboards.