She sang the silly tune, training her own thoughts to picture a croaking, odious little beast who hopped from one catastrophe to another, but her thoughts skittered away before he was flattened by a cart’s wheel.
Hod laughed, throwing his head back. “I could see the toad. That was wonderful!”
“You are odd,” she said, but she laughed too and sang him another one of Gilly’s tunes, one about a talking trout with rainbow scales.
“A rainbow is many colors,” Hod marveled.
“I will have to think of a better song—a more powerful song—to show you a rainbow, but I cannot think of one now.”
“I don’t think it is the songs that have power . . . It is you.”
“Mayhaps it is you,” she suggested. No one had ever “seen” her songs before. But Hod shook his head, adamant.
“Sing about your family,” he urged when she grew quiet. “Show them to me.”
“I don’t want to. They are mine.” She let go of his hands.
He sat in silence for a moment, his head cocked as though he contemplated her, and in a way he did, listening, listening, listening.
“Stop that,” she grumbled.
“Stop what?”
“Prying.”
“I want only to ease your sadness.”
“I am only sad when I am forced to remember. Or sing,” she said, her tone wry.
“You are sad all the time. It radiates from your skin and your voice. I hear it in the constant hitch of your breath.”
“You have only known me three days.”
“I have known you five.”
“Two of those days I was sleeping.”
“Yes . . . but the sadness was still there.”
“My family is gone . . . and the sadness is all I have left.”
“How did you end up in the sea, Ghisla? How did you end up here? Washed onto the shore?”
“I walked to a seaside village a day’s journey from Tonlis, and I boarded a ship,” she confessed.
“All alone?”
“Yes. I hid in the hold. I didn’t know where the ship was going, but I didn’t care.”
“Why?”
“I thought drowning would be a pleasant death.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. It was terrible. And I was afraid. And Odin did not hear my death song.”
“I think he did. He brought you here. To this land.”
“Is this land where people come to die?” she asked, wry, thinking he would laugh at her bitter humor.
“Saylok is dying . . . but mayhaps you will help us live.”
“Why is Saylok dying?”
“There are no girl children.”
“Why?”
“Master Ivo says the land was cursed.”
“Who is Master Ivo?”
“He is the Highest Keeper. He is the guardian of the temple and the runes and is the conscience of Saylok.”
“Is he the king?”
“No. The king is selected from the clans. There is a castle beside the temple. The king rules the clans . . . and the keepers rule the king, though King Banruud might disagree.”
“There are no girls at all?” She could not imagine such a thing.
“In twelve years . . . only the princess. There have been no other daughters of Saylok born in that time. The men bring daughters from other lands . . . but it is not enough . . . and there seems to be no remedy or rune to cure the drought.”
“There is a princess?”
“Princess Alba, daughter of King Banruud and Queen Alannah.”
“You say the queen’s name with sadness.”
“Queen Alannah has recently died. The chieftains have been gathered to the temple mount. That is where Arwin has gone. I will hear all about it when he returns.”
“Is Arwin a chieftain?”
“No.” Hod smiled as though the thought humored him. “Arwin is a keeper—a cave keeper—but he was trained in the temple and often returns when councils are called.”
“It seems a complicated system. Keepers and kings and cavemen and curses.”
“Don’t call Arwin a caveman,” Hod laughed. “He will never forgive you. He fancies himself one of the anointed, a powerful keeper, and does not always like that he’s been assigned to watch over a cave bedecked in runes.”
“There are runes in this cave?” Ghisla asked, her interest piqued.
“Yes,” Hod sighed. “I wouldn’t mention that to Arwin either. He’ll cut off my tongue for speaking so freely and cut off yours for knowing the secret.”
“I will not speak of it. I have no interest in runes. I would rather talk about the princess.” She would rather talk about anything other than Tonlis.
“Arwin says Alba’s birth made Banruud king. There was great hope that the curse was broken. But it has been five years since Alba was born, and there have been no others.”
“So Saylok . . . It is not a good place?” She was not certain there was any good place.
“People are afraid. Fear brings out the ugliness. It is easy to be kind and good when it costs us nothing. It is not so easy when it can cost you your life. So people are not kind, and often they are not good. And here . . . you are rarer than gold.”
On the morning of their seventh day together—after two days of doing little but singing and letting Hod “see” to his heart’s content—Hod proclaimed there were chores to do, and there would be no singing until after supper. Ghisla didn’t mind the rest and trailed after him as he ticked off his tasks, helping him where she could. He had a system for everything, a system that fascinated her, and she watched him accomplish a dozen daily tasks with ease and quiet efficiency. He hung the furs that lined the walls and floor on a line that was strung between two trees and beat the dust from them with a broom. She did the same with the furs from her nest, but Hod was stronger than she, and the dirt plumed from his swings far more easily, so she retrieved a basket from the cave and picked berries instead, thinking it a task he couldn’t do. But he wasn’t a bad berry picker either; he ran his fingers lightly over the leaves, popping off the little balls that conformed to a certain size, and when they were finished, he’d gathered almost as many as she.
In the afternoon, he set his traps in the forest, chopped wood for the fire, and climbed an enormous tree to fetch some honey. He had no fear of heights or the massive beehive high in the branches and began climbing back down with dripping chunks of honeycomb in his basket and a cloud of bees circling his head. Ghisla knew a song about bees and began singing it—“thank you for your golden treasure, we’ll not take more than we need”—hoping the bees would retreat. They did, almost immediately, but Hod fell from the tree, landing in a pile at her feet.
He lay on his back, stunned and gasping for air, his eyes fixed up at the branches above him, his basket of honeycomb still clutched in his hand.
“Hody!” Ghisla cried. “Are you hurt?”
“No . . . not . . . exactly,” he gasped, searching for the breath that had been pummeled from his breast. “I’ve grown accustomed to their stings and their sound . . . but I am not accustomed to seeing them swarm.”