Page 68 of The Wolf and the Woodsman

“It’s my daughter,” Zsigmond says easily, as if they are words he has been practicing his whole life. A warm pleasure puddles in me hearing them. “Évike.”

The woman rubs her eyes; the way she is staring at me I might as well be a smudge on a windowpane, something she wants to see past. I remember what Zsigmond said: that it isn’t looked kindly upon for a Yehuli man to father a child with someone who is not of their blood.

“And you didn’t think to—oh, never mind.” The woman brushes by Zsigmond and sets down something on the table. It’s a loaf of braided bread, shining honey-gold. She holds out her hand to me, still not quite meeting my eyes. “I’m Batya. I’ve been keeping your father fed for the last twenty years.”

Zsigmond’s lips part as if to protest, but a hawk-eyed glare from Batya silences him. I take her hand and she squeezes mine tightly, three times, like she’s trying to judge its heft. Already she reminds me of Virág. Her gaze sweeps over the parchment in front of me, streaked over and over again with the five letters of my name.

“Évike,” I say. My fingers are half-numb by the time she lets go.

“And will you be joining us for our celebration next week?” Batya asks, a hand on her hip. When I only stare at her blankly, she turns back to Zsigmond. “Well, you might as well invite her. You’re already teaching her to read, I see. She might as well hear some of our stories, and try a bit of our food.” Her eyes go up and down me again, and then she says something to Zsigmond in the Yehuli tongue, something I don’t understand, and I only catch the word zaftig.

Whatever it is, it makes Zsigmond scowl. When Batya leaves again, my father sits down across from me and offers me the bread, so brusquely it seems almost like he expects me to refuse it. I pick off a piece and taste it. Each bite dissolves sweetly on my tongue. Zsigmond seems relieved.

“What did she say about me?” I press. “Batya.”

“The Yehuli tongue is like a long hallway with locked doors on all sides,” he says.

It is the first time he has been so evasive, and it mortifies me. I don’t take another bite of the bread, and pick up my quill again. As dawn ladders up over Király Szek, it occurs to me that I haven’t slept, and a sudden tiredness clouds my mind.

“Then teach me to open them,” I say finally, more a petulant challenge than genuine entreaty. If Yehuli is an oak tree branching between us, I only want to clamber over it, or else hack it down to nothing. I wonder if he worries what Batya and the others will think, if they see his half-blooded daughter speaking their tongue and writing their words.

“Perhaps,” says Zsigmond. I just stare at him, unblinking, and eventually he relents to only a few words, even though they vex me terribly. I don’t know which is worse—the speaking or the writing. The sounds tear up the back of my throat, and the words are missing half the letters that I learned in Régyar. The word ohr makes me feel as if I’m choking on food, but when my father traces its letters into the base of his candle stand, the wick goes up in perfect light.

My vision trains on the teardrop of flame. “Could you put it out too?”

“Certainly,” Zsigmond says. “Creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin.”

Like Isten in the Upper-World and Ördög down below. “And can all Yehuli do magic like that?”

“All who have the patience to learn it. Our children learn to read and write Yehuli at the same time they learn Régyar, so they can study the holy text.”

It seems less troublesome than lopping off a pinky, or listening to Virág’s interminable stories, struggling to commit every detail of Vilmötten’s exploits to immaculate memory. My heart skitters like an animal in the underbrush. I’m afraid that if I needle Zsigmond too much he will shrink away from me, or begin to feel that having a daughter is more burden than blessing. But I try one more question anyway.

“And the celebration,” I say, “the one that Batya mentioned . . .”

Zsigmond gives a slow nod. “It’s a holiday. Not a big one, but we will go to the temple and hear the rabbi tell the story. If you would like to come, you must let me ask Batya to borrow a dress from one of her daughters.”

His easy acquiescence shocks and thrills me, but I sense a current of uncertainty beneath it. Perhaps my very presence will jeopardize his position among the Yehuli—it was the reason that my mother never took me to Király Szek to begin with. Going to the temple with my father will require as much delicate maneuvering as attending a banquet with the king. I am still not quite one of them, and I don’t know if I ever will be. I brace myself against these worries, curling my ink-stained fingers into my palm, and remind myself why I came to Zsigmond last night. If I’m not careful, I will end up with a knife in my back before I can decide whether to be Yehuli or not.

Still, I don’t want to leave Yehuli Street. When Zsigmond opens the door for me, I reach out and take his hand impetuously, swallowing hard and waiting to see if he will squeeze mine back. His thumb brushes across the nub where my pinky once was, and then his other hand closes over our twined fingers, a perfect weight.

The king has gathered all his counts for a council meeting, and of course I am compelled to be in the chamber beside him. We all sit around an oaken table, the king at its head with his crown of fingernails, parchment scrolls unfurling before him like shed snakeskin. Now I can recognize the letters on them, but my vision goes fuzzy when I try to noose them into words. I fear how long it will take before I’m able to read Régyar, to decipher the silent threats coiled on the table in front of me.

Although I saw them at the king’s feast, the counts are scarcely recognizable. They wear their silk dolmans now, each as neat and bright as a lizard sunning itself on a rock. I can only tell them apart by the small ornaments they wear on their chest, symbols of their region: a shard of antler for the count of Szarvasvár, a white feather for the count of Akosvár, a tuft of wolf fur for the count of Farkasvár, and a bear’s long claw pinned to the breast of the Kalevan count. Count Furedi, who administers Farkasvár from a great walled fortress on the western side of Ezer Szem, gives me the chilliest of stares. We wolf-girls are his region’s greatest embarrassment.

I stare back, eyes narrowing. I wonder if he was the one who left the note at my door, but his face betrays nothing. If there is anyone in this city, aside from Nándor, who would want me dead, it is Count Furedi. Nándor and Gáspár are both barred from the king’s council meetings, but their names run quietly beneath every thread of conversation, like the simmer of distant thunder. It quickly becomes clear enough what side each count has chosen.

“We intercepted a missive from the Merzani bey to his soldiers,” says Count Furedi, tearing his gaze from mine. “Once they manage to cross the border into Akosvár, they were instructed to burn the crops, to starve us into submission. They know very well that winter is near.”

“Of course.” Count Reményi, who administers Akosvár, curls his large fingers into a larger fist. “Forgive me, my lord, but I have warned you of precisely such a thing. Already the inhabitants of Akosvár have begun to abandon their villages and flee north, seeking refuge behind the walls of my own keep. We cannot accommodate any more of these refugees, and we certainly won’t be able to feed them once winter is upon us.”

I remember Gáspár’s words—that with each Régyar soldier dead at the hands of the Merzani army, Nándor’s appeal grows. I think further of the peasants I saw at the festival, with their dirty hands and missing teeth. They seemed hardly less desperate than the people of Kajetán’s village, and easy prey for a very pretty man who makes empty promises.

“We are expecting a hard winter in Kaleva,” says Count Korhonen, in his lilting Northern accent. “But we trust that the guidance and the goodwill of Godfather Life will carry us through these difficult months.”

“Indeed we do,” comes the voice of Count Németh of Szarvasvár, who is preoccupied stroking his antler ornament. “We must thank Godfather Life for his blessings, and perhaps appease Godfather Death with a greater sacrifice. What say you, my lord?”

Although it is his council meeting, and I am his personal guard, it’s easy to forget that the king is even seated beside me. He blinks, dazed, as if someone has just prodded him from slumber.