Chapter 6

A spell of hail some days later almost crushes Ishir’s roof. Ishir is conducting another inventory count, though it is unnecessary – he has already counted twice. Outside the hailstones batter the house with a deep bassy staccato. Toru huddles next to the crackling stove fire, warming his fingers.

“Don’t you play games?” asks Ishir at length. “I’m bored.”

Toru did not have much time for games growing up, and so he does not know how to play any except ashtapada, which was required as part of his studies. “No. There is no use to them in my life.”

“Use? Well, what’s the use of those earrings people in the court wear, then? What’s the use of the sculptures in the city, or the music during festivals? The world has need for useless things, Toru. We’d hardly be human without them.”

Toru prods at the words, tries to find fissures he can pull apart to check inside. “What about the practice of renunciation?”

“It would be meaningless and easy if worldly things meant nothing to us, wouldn’t it?” But there is the ghost of a smile on his lips, and his eyes dance, and Toru says, “You’re just trying to annoy me.”

“Ah? It’s better than watching your glum face. Why are you so serious all the time? I might as well be sitting here alone.” He picks up the cup by his side and drains it – some local alcohol that smelled like it could be used to clean tabletops. Toru had refused to touch it. “You’re bad at talking too,” Ishir is saying, digging into his ear with his pinky.

Toru cannot refute that – since he was fourteen, he’s barely spoken for any reason outside of need. He and Stuvan only spoke of his training, or victories, or pillagers from far away, or possible invasions from neighbouring kingdoms (Nagashini was the usual fixture here).

The world of the palace seems far away from here. He can indulge Ishir. “What do you want me to talk about?”

“It’s no fun if you think of it that way.” He swipes some dirt off a shelf, frowns at his grubby fingers.

Toru’s bedchamber was always pristine and sterile. Ishir’s floor is gritty even though they leave their shoes in the compartment by the door. The bedrolls are still where they were when they awoke. They ate their breakfast inside and the bowls stand piled up in a corner. A draft comes through the cracks around the door. It is uncomfortable, but home-like in a way Toru has never known. He looks at his hands and they are raw and chapped. “There will,” he says, “be more work after the storm.”

Fences and barns and sheds to mend. Bodies to burn. The sick to attend to. He wonders if Parth has been able to recover yet, or if the weather has made him worse. He realises that, in all his days of knowing Parth, he hasn’t once asked if he could help him in some way. Meanwhile Parth has been introducing him to the villagers, inviting him to games with the children, and telling him about the wheat and mustard fields, the apricots that grow wild in summer.

Should Toru bring him something as thanks? Fruit is out of the question, but perhaps a pot of milk or a cut of meat. He asks Ishir, tentative, scratching the back of his neck.

Ishir smiles faintly. “That’s the first time you’ve asked about anyone here.”

Surely not, Toru almost says. He rummages through his memories, refusal on the tip of his tongue. No, Ishir is right.

It is late for an apology. Toru does it anyway, shifting to sit on his knees and bowing his head. “I am sorry for not accepting your food when I came here. Please forgive me for the trouble. I made things difficult for you.” He gets the feeling, like the short savage scrape of a metal cup against wood, that he is bringing ruin to Stuvan’s house. He does not rub down his puckered skin.

Ishir’s eyebrows go up, and then his expression softens. “Well then, I’m willing to accept that apology after a few more rounds of you getting snow off the roof.”

Toru laughs – he doesn’t know why he finds it funny – but composes himself quickly.

Ishir gives him a teasing look, and says, “Parth likes well-made clothes – he’s got some pride as a weaver – and he likes music.”

Toru hums. His musical skills would have deteriorated by now. But for Parth, he can try. “Does anyone have instruments in this village? Perhaps I can borrow one.”

“One of the headmen has a veena. It belonged to his grand-aunt, or so he says. Like as not one of his city friends gave it to him. Do you play?”

“I used to.”

“Well,” says Ishir, “you can ask the headman about it once the storm passes.” He chuckles suddenly. “They’d play veenas in Nagashini too – I remember a travelling band of musicians that came to our town, when I was a boy. My mother was old-fashioned and told me not to go, you shouldn’t associate with singers and dancers, but I went off and watched them anyway.”

“You’re…not from Bishinya?”

“I’ve lived here most of my life now. But I am from across the border.”

Toru had known there were Nagashinians in this area – he had just assumed Ishir was not one of them. There had been nothing to indicate so. “I didn’t realise – you don’t have an accent, and I never heard you pray.”

“Prayer would do no good to me.”

Toru thinks about asking why Ishir would say that, and then decides that if Ishir had wanted to tell him, he would have told him by now. Instead he says, “What’s it like? Nagashini?”

The fire crackles. “Fields and fields of flowers,” says Ishir, “trees all but bursting with fruit in spring, hoards of huge blue butterflies, like a dream. And its royal family is a farce. Many people flee – you’d have heard of the famines.”

Toru has. Punishments for sinners, the palace priests would say. It helps keep the balance.

“We thought life would be better here.”

This is understandable. “King Stuvan takes care of his people.”

Ishir grunts. Scratches his hair. “Add some more wood to the fire. I’m about to shrivel up from the cold.”

***

“Ishir said you like music,” Toru says, after he hands Parth his medicine.

Parth removes his woollen cap and scratches his hair. It has been more than a day since the hailstorm, and the bags beneath his eyes have deepened. He’s as close to the fire as can be without getting his eyebrows singed off. “And? Do continue.”

Now that Toru is offering, he feels foolish. He tries not to fidget. “I thought. Icouldperhapsplayforyou.”

“What?”

“I can play for you.”

Parth sits in stunned silence.

“Since – you’ve been very accommodating.”

Parth covers his face with his hands. “Stop, Toru, I’m going to die from embarrassment. You talk funny.”

“I do not – ”

“Which instrument? Flute? Drums?”

Toru is grateful for the change in topic. “I play the veena.”

“All princes do.”

“So now you believe I’m a prince?”

“I’ll believe it when you play for me.”

The cheeky glint in Parth’s eyes makes Toru speak before he can think about what he is saying. “I’ll play for the whole village.” He stands aghast at himself, while Parth’s grin grows wide and smug. “I mean, I haven’t played in a long time.”

“No time like now to practise, then. We can ask the headmen if we can use the gathering hall for the performance.”

Ishir turns out to be unhappy about the practising. “Can’t do you it somewhere else? When you said you’d play the veena, I didn’t think you’d make my ears bleed when I was trying to sleep.”

“I can play it here or I can get frostbite and die, and then all these days of sheltering me will have been for nothing.” His fingers are stiff and clumsy on the strings – he knows the techniques, but his body no longer remembers. Still already they are thawing to the notes. The weight of the veena sits in his hands like an old companion. Thin parallel scars along the wood suggest the attention of a cat or some other small creature. It’s probably the most valuable thing in the whole village; Toru’d had to rent it in exchange for one of his shawls. He hadn’t told him, but the shawl was worth as much as a small house in Satra.

Ah, he thinks, what am I doing? For some country boy I barely know.

He tightens a string.