Nothing special happened. Eleal thanked the god for rescuing her from Narsh, and from the reapers, and restoring her to her family. She did not mention D'ward, although it was very hard not to think about him while she was praying. And nothing special happened! She limped when she departed just as much as she had limped when she arrived. Perhaps she was being presumptuous in hoping that her efforts would be rewarded with a miracle—or had she not finished her task? She had not actually brought D'ward to Tion's temple.
Later the troupe moved into the Suss hostelry, which was a very good one. Piol Poet disappeared. Eleal found him in the attic, writing busily. She was confident then that he was working on a new speech for the Tragedy of Trastos. She left him alone and later, when Halma was looking for him, she said he had gone to the market.
It was wonderful to be back with her family again. They all told her how much they had missed her; she thought they appreciated her more now. Perhaps she even appreciated them more. That very afternoon, to her complete astonishment, Trong took her aside and sat her down and told her all about her mother, Itheria Impresario. It was a very sad story, and they were both weeping before it was finished.
An hour later, when Eleal was helping Ambria hang out washing, the big woman said, “Did Trong speak to you?"
Eleal nodded. She should have guessed whose idea that had been.
"Don't be too hard on him,” the big woman said gruffly, standing on tiptoe to peg things on the highest rope. “He has never forgiven himself for letting you fall out the window when he was supposed to be looking after you."
"What has that to do with my mother?"
"Well, nothing, I suppose. He shouldn't have made us keep that a secret from you. It is still very difficult for him to talk about."
"But,” Eleal said loyally, feeling her eyelids start to prickle all over again, “if it was a god who, er, I mean ... Well, if she fell in love with a god, then that really wasn't her fault, was it?"
"You mean it was the god's fault?"
Um! “Well, yes. It must have been."
"That's what Trong finds so hard to talk about. Be careful with that blouse, now!"
D'ward was becoming quite fluent in Joalian and everyone was very careful to speak clearly and correctly around him, so he would not pick up the terrible local growl. He asked Eleal to give him reading lessons, too, and of course she graciously consented to set aside some time for this. He wanted to find a copy of the Filoby Testament and practice on that, but she explained that it was written in Sussian, and would be bad for him.
"How about some of Piol's plays, then?” he asked.
"No!” she said firmly. “They're in classical Joalian. If you try speaking that in the streets people will think you are very odd."
He smiled. “That speech I recited from Kingharry was like that."
So they went with Uthiam to a secondhand bookstore. Eleal picked out a famous romance, but D'ward refused it and instead chose an exceedingly dull book about the moons and stars. Teaching him to read with that awful thing was not nearly as much fun as she had expected. He seemed amazed to learn that Trumb went through his phases in only four and a half days, making solemn-faced jokes that Trumb wasn't really a big moon, therefore, only close to the Earth. He was even surprised to learn that the fortnight came from Ysh, who took exactly fourteen days to go from eclipse to eclipse. He spent hours studying Kirb'l and became almost surly in consequence. He claimed he had not known that there were three hundred sixty-four days in a year! At times, the Liberator was definitely strange.
She was not the only one to have noted his smile. Olimmiar Dancer was making a perfect fool of herself, following him around like a lapcat and blushing every time he looked at her, until Eleal wanted to scream. The married women were almost as bad. If their husbands noticed, they did not comment. Everybody knew that D'ward was an honorable man.
Piol produced his ode to courage and Trong started rehearsing the Trastos, although the Varilian was still drawing full houses every night.
Eleal sat down with D'ward to help him learn his speech. He had trouble working out exactly what it said, of course, and then he seemed very unhappy with it.
"It's all, er—what do you call a thing that says something everybody knows already?"
Eleal wasn't sure, so they called over Golfren, who said the word was “platitude."
"This is all platitudes!” D'ward announced.
Golfren read over the speech. “Yes, it is. But isn't most poetry like that? It isn't what it says that matters, it's the way it says it."
D'ward pondered, then laughed and agreed.
He was absolutely horrified when Gartol Costumer produced his costume.
"You mean I have to go out in front of hundreds of people wearing only that? But there will be ladies present!"
"It's traditional,” the old man said, “and the ladies will love it."
D'ward looked very shocked and turned red.
He was interested in all sorts of things—politics and customs and geography and business. Especially, though, he was interested in the gods. One day Eleal actually overheard him ask Trong which were the good gods and which were the bad gods.
Trong, of course, was horrified. “The gods are good and know not evil, my son!” he said, which was a line from The Judgment of Apharos, although D'ward would not know that.
"So where does evil come from?"
"Evil comes from mortals, when they do not obey the gods."
"Then you approve of what women must do in the temple in Narsh?” D'ward sounded more puzzled than impertinent.
Trong growled, “Certainly!” and stalked away.
The very next day, D'ward took Piol Poet off to a corner of the dining area and started writing something. It so happened that Eleal was helping Uthiam hunt for an earring she had lost, and while she was looking under a nearby table she chanced to hear some of what was being said. Piol seemed to be listing all the gods and goddesses he could think of, and D'ward was writing them down. Actually, he only wrote down some of them, and later he left the list lying around where anyone could pick it up and read it. There was no pattern to the ones he'd chosen: P'ter, D'mit'ri, Ken'th, D'ward, Alis.
He'd spelled most of them wrong anyway. And his handwriting was terrible.
Another day, when they were rehearsing in the park under the bridge and D'ward was sitting with Dolm in front of some bushes, Eleal just happened to pass by on the other side of the bushes.
"I know T'lin Dragontrader,” Dolm was saying, “but only by sight. He's probably spying for someone, maybe both sides, maybe four or five sides. Most traveling merchants do. The Vales are always conspiring—Joalia, Thargia, Niolia, and all their vassal states."
"How about traveling actors?"
"Of course. When we return to Jurg in the fall, Ambria files reports with the Niolian ambassador."
Eleal had not known that! She moved to a more comfortable position, a little closer.
"Political spying?” D'ward said. “Do the gods play the same sort of game among themselves?"
"Likely they do, some of them."
"I suppose one tries everything in a few thousand years?"
Dolm chuckled. “I expect so. I was required to report to Zath if I ever learned anything that might interest him—a war brewing, or a plague, for example. I only had reason to do it once, and that was in Narsh last fortnight."