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Chapter Thirty-nine:
Brandon
It was early winter in the islands, which meant day after day of sullen sky, raw wind, and spitting rain. As was the custom, everyone in the village grumbled good-naturedly about the weather any time an opportunity for conversation arose.
“Outside for five minutes to dig in the yard, and I thought my fingers would freeze off.”
“Woke up this morning, looked out the window, and just went back to bed.”
“If you’re taking the path down to the road, be careful—big muddy patch just sprang up overnight, what with all the rain.”
But Brandon never heard Villette utter a single word of complaint.
It had been two months since they arrived at the settlement that stretched along a thin border of arable land between the steep border of the coastline and the hills that hulked in the center of the island. They had been exhausted and anxious after more than two weeks of hard travel down roads that grew narrower and less hospitable with every fifty miles they made it from the city.
Despite the dramatic events of their final night in Corcannon, they could not be entirely certain that the high divine would believe Villette was dead. They could not be sure that the temple guards were not in close pursuit. Every two or three days, they switched up their mode of travel, selling horses, buying new ones, hiring a carriage, taking a public coach. Every time they stopped at an inn for the night, they registered under different names. If the town was big enough, they slept in separate establishments. They wore unremarkable clothing, only used coins of small denominations, made no special requests.
It still would be possible to trace them, Brandon knew, but only with a great deal of effort. And only if the high divine believed they were alive.
Not until they arrived in the village where he had grown up did they draw any attention, and then they made quite a stir. But that was only because Brandon’s parents and brothers and cousins and friends were so happy to see him home, two years after he’d gone off to seek his fortune in the wide, mysterious world.
“You finally realized there’s nothing so special about Corcannon after all,” his father said. “Everything you need is right here.”
“Got tired of being the island boy that all the city folks made fun of,” his older brother teased him. “Did they always tell you that you smelled like fish and brine? Because youdo.”
“Being a soldier is too much hard work, I suppose,” one of his cousins said. “You’d rather lie in a boat all day and hope the fish bite.”
Everyone had been agog with curiosity about the Cordelano he’d brought home with him, a woman who reeked of wealth and privilege despite her worn clothing and tired face. Islanders had a strong respect for privacy, so Brandon knew that no one would pester Villette with questions, and he figured that very few would come right out and ask him for details. Clearly, all the villagers assumed the two of them had eloped because Villette’s family didn’t consider a Zessin boy to be good enough for their daughter.
But his mother looked from Brandon to Villette and back to Brandon, and seemed to guess the whole story. Oh, not the part where Villette carried the blood of the god in her veins. Not the part where Villette had been imprisoned by powerful enemies and assigned to play a great and terrible role in the fate of the world. But she looked at this beautiful, proud, strong, fragile, haunted, hopeful creature, and she looked at her son, and she seemed toknow.That the woman had needed rescuing and that the man had rescued her and that, even now, they feared they were not entirely safe.
“Villette will stay with us for a while,” his mother had said. His mother had a decent command of Cordish and Brandon had taught Villette some rudimentary Zessin, so the two women had already been able to hold a halting conversation. “You will sleep at your brother’s. We’ll talk about more permanent arrangements later.”
She sent Villette directly to bed that first afternoon, and spent the next few days fussing over her, feeding her, and assembling for her an entire wardrobe of loose trousers and embroidered smocks. The first time Brandon saw Villette in a simple handmade island outfit, with her dark hair pulled back and her face at peace, he thought he might not have recognized her if he passed her on the streets of Corcannon.
“Thank you for taking such good care of her,” he said to his mother as she walked him halfway back to his brother’s house one evening a week after their arrival. It was a cold, wet fall day, a hint of the miserable season to come, but they were taking their time with the stroll. His mother always preferred to speak the hard words outdoors, whether she was asking for a favor or relating the news of an uncle’s fatal illness.
“I like her,” said his mother. “Her troubles have made her kind, not cruel. That’s not always the way it goes.”
“Has she told you about her troubles?”
“No, and I don’t ask her to. But I can tell she’s had them.” She put a hand on his arm. “I’m proud of you for helping her.”
“You don’t know that I did.”
“I know.”
They walked on a few more yards in silence. “So do you think to marry her?” she asked.
Brandon’s breath huffed out in a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a sigh. “I would,” he said. “But I don’t want to ask her.”
“You don’t think she’d accept you?”
“Oh, I think she would. But not for the right reasons.”
“You think gratitude is a poor substitute for love.”
He glanced at her sharply. That was it exactly. “She feels like she owes me her life. I don’t want to make her spend the rest of her years paying off that debt.”
