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“Asked for the fast tunes.”
The old man lowers his cup. “He asked us to play them faster.”
Vai looks from him to me.
“Show me.”
“You’ll need to hold on.”
“I am.”
The fiddle begins again.
Vai pins her hair up before the next dance. By the time we sit down again, she has lost two hairpins and is willing to admit to one of them.
I find both caught beneath the leaves at my shoulder. She takes them from me with a small, accusing smile.
“You collect things.”
“You leave them.”
She leans against my arm while I pour water into a clean cup for her. The musicians have begun a slower tune. Someone near the door sings the first line, then gives up when the rest of the hall supplies a different one.
“Asha and I used to dance in the lane after the stalls closed,” Vai says. “There was a man selling ribbons who could play a pipe. He stayed later if we fed him.”
“Did you?”
“We saved him the broken pastries. Asha said that was fair because he only knew four tunes.”
She drinks, still smiling at the memory.
“She was better at the turning. I always wanted to watch the people around us.”
“You watched me.”
“Yes.” She puts the cup down. “I liked what I saw.”
I have been called magnificent by people who wanted timber, terrifying by people who wanted a different answer, and immovable by Reivaka on a day when I deserved it. Vai sits beside me with her hair coming down and tells me she liked dancing with me.
I want to ask her again tomorrow.
She puts both pins into the pocket of her grey dress.
“I used to sing while I worked in the northern groves,” I tell her.
“What stopped you?”
“I began working where people could hear me.”
She laughs, then studies my face.
“Will you sing for me sometime?”
“You’ve heard my voice.”
“I like your voice.”
I bend toward her. “Even then?”
