Dandra leaned across the table to Natrac. “How many children are there in this house?” she asked, a trace of amazement in her voice.
“Usually around a dozen.”
“Are they all hers?” the shifter asked bluntly.
“No,” said Bava with a chuckle, stepping back through the door. There was a platter of meat in each hand and she held the door open with a foot so that the little girls could follow her through, each of them carrying a bowl or a few plates. Through the open door, Singe caught a glimpse of a large kitchen-and the same faces he had seen peering down from the stairs before. Bava let the door swing shut after the girls and turned to the table herself. “Not all of them, anyway. Mothers don’t always want half-orc children, even in Zarash’ak. I give them a place where they are wanted.”
“There’s an orc legend of the Ghaash’nena, a spirit that protects lost children,” said Natrac. “Bava is the Ghaash’nena of Zarash’ak.”
The elbow of the guardian spirit dipped as she passed and clipped him sharply on the ear. As Natrac cursed and rubbed his abused head, she smiled down at him. “Maybe instead of repeating silly stories, you could make yourself useful,” she said. “You know where the wine is. Bring some out.”
Natrac held up his knife-hand. “One hand,” he reminded her.
“I’ll help,” said Ose eagerly.
“Me, too!” Mine added.
Natrac hung his head in mock resignation and pushed away from the table, following the two chattering girls back into the kitchen. Geth laughed and grinned at Bava. “How long have you known Natrac?” he asked.
“Almost too long to remember,” the large woman said. “It will have been twenty years soon.”
“Impossible,” Singe said. “You couldn’t have been born then.”
Bava wagged a finger at him. “Don’t flirt with me, Aundairian,” she said. “You’re too skinny.” But a smile spread across her face and as she turned back to setting plates out on the table, she added, “We met in Sharn. I’d been there for five years, but I found out later that Natrac had only been in the city for two.”
“You left your clan’s territory for a city?” asked Ashi.
The large woman looked up at her. “If you’re from the deep marshes, sheid, it must sound like a terrible thing, but I’d visited Zarash’ak many times. I knew that if I wanted to do more than paint huts and draw tattoos, I had to leave the Marches. So I went to Sharn. It was a hard decision. I think Natrac had an easier time of it when he left Graywall. Not that he had much choice in the matter-”
“Graywall in Droaam?” Singe said. “Natrac isn’t from Zarash’ak?”
“You didn’t know?” Bava’s face turned red. “Host. I should have thought …” She clenched her teeth. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Don’t tell Natrac.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.” She set down the last plate and reached for a bowl of leafy green vegetables.
Geth, however, sat forward. “Can you answer one thing, though?” he asked. “What did Natrac do before he came to Zarash’ak? Was he a gladiator?”
Bava hesitated then shook her head. “Not as such. Now no more!” She turned away just as Natrac, Mine, and Ose returned with wine. Singe glanced at Geth curiously, but the shifter’s eyes were on Natrac. The half-orc’s were on Bava. Singe exchanged a look with Dandra, who only shrugged in confusion.
Bava got everyone seated with wine and food in front of them, then chased out the little girls, shut the door that led into the hall, and seated herself. “Now,” she said with the same strong confidence she had before Singe had asked her about Natrac’s past, “tell me what’s going on.”
She listened with a careful intensity to their story, interrupting only to ask a few probing questions that brought out anything they tried to skim over. As the tale unfolded, their food grew cold and their wine remained untouched. Diad wandered into the room and took a seat at the table-Bava gestured him out immediately, her face hard and rapt with attention. When they had finished, she reached for her wine and drained the glass, then passed the bottle around the table and made sure everyone had some.
“You don’t mind that we came here, do you?” Natrac asked, his voice urgent. “If I’d known that Dah’mir and Vennet were in Zarash’ak, I would never have contacted you in the first place. Kol Korran’s wager, I wouldn’t even have stopped in the city.”
Bava let go of Orshok’s hand-at some point during their story, she had slipped her hand into the young orc’s grasp-and reached out to pat Natrac’s. “Don’t think of that, Natrac. You know I’m always here.” She shook her head. “And I thought the Ghaash’nena was only supposed to watch over children.”
“Can you help us?” asked Dandra. “Do you know anything about the Hall of the Revered or the Spires of the Forge?”
“In spite of what Natrac might think,” the large woman said, “I’m not a historian. But I think I do know why he brought you to me.” She stood. “Come upstairs.”
When she opened the door to the hall, Diad jumped up from where he had been crouched on the floor. Bava gave him a cross look. “How much did you hear?”
The young man’s flushed face and tongue-tied expression said everything. Bava frowned. “Don’t tell anyone anything,” she said. She nodded back into the dining room. “Clear the table and don’t let me catch you eavesdropping again!”
The half-orc boy rolled his eyes but Bava gave him an impatient grunt and he trudged past them into the dining room.
Natrac leaned toward Bava as they stepped out into the hall and Singe heard him murmur, “Is he too much trouble?”
“He’s running with groups he shouldn’t, but what boy doesn’t?”
“If there’s anything I can do-” Natrac started to say, but Bava shook her head.
“You’re there when he needs it,” she said. “That’s enough.”
Bava led them back to the stairs Singe had noticed before. The house had grown quiet as they ate and talked. Most of the children the wizard had seen and heard earlier were already asleep. As they climbed the stairs up to the house’s second floor and then to its third, he could hear the soft snoring of children mixed with the whispers of those few who were still awake. From the third floor, they climbed yet another flight of stairs, this one even narrower. Bava pushed open a door at the top and they stepped into a broad open space that smelled of oil paint. A slow breeze whispering through tall windows with carved screens stirred the air; the same windows allowed the light of the risen moons to fall in silvery patterns across the floor. Stretched canvases were pale, flat blocks in the moonlight. Sketches on paper, tacked onto one wall, rustled like sleepy birds. A half-completed painting stood fixed to an easel, the colors drained from its surface by the moonlight to leave only swirls of light and dark. Bava opened the shade on an ever-bright lantern and colors leaped back into the work. “My studio,” she said, ushering them into the chamber.
A large cabinet with long, flat drawers stood against one wall. Bava went to it and slid open a drawer. Singe peered over her shoulder-and raised his eyebrows in amazement. The drawer held maps, laid out flat. The one on top showed a section of northern Aundair; another, as Bava flipped through them, Cyre before its destruction in the Mourning.
“I collect them,” said Bava, without waiting for the question. “Maps were what first introduced me to art.”
“What good’s a map of Cyre?” asked Geth. “Cyre’s gone.”
“Maps are memories. They show you the way things were on a larger scale than any painting.” Bava found what she was looking for and slid a large piece of stiff, heavy leather from the drawer, turning gracefully to lay it out on a table. “You might as well ask what good an old map of Droaam is.”