This stranger was by far the most handsome man she had ever seen, and the fact only fuelled her irritation. She curtseyed and placed the tray on a nearby table.
‘What is your name?’ he asked. His accent was strange, the words carefully enunciated.
‘I am just a servant,’ she replied. If he tried to seduce her he would find that not all the women in the palace were of easy virtue.
‘Does that mean you have no name?’
She stared at him, looking for signs of sarcasm. There were none. ‘My name is Charis, lord.’
‘I am not a lord. Thank you, Charis.’ He smiled, then turned away from her. This was unexpected, and her interest was piqued.
‘It is said you have a painting on your back,’ she said. He gave a soft laugh and swung back to face her.
‘It is a tattoo.’
‘Is that a kind of bird?’
‘No. It is. . a description of the method used to make the stain on the skin permanent.’
‘Why is it done?’
He shrugged. ‘A custom among my people. Ornamentation. Fashion. I do not know how it began.’
‘There are many strange customs Outside,’ she told him.
‘I notice that the people here wear no jewellery of any kind, no earrings or bracelets or pendants.’
‘What is an earring?’
‘A small circle of gold or silver that is pushed through a pierced hole in the ear lobe.’
‘A hole? You mean they make a hole in the ear for this. . this ring?’
‘Yes.’
She laughed. ‘Are you making fun of me?’
‘No.’
‘Why would anyone want a hole in their ear?’
‘To hang an earring from,’ he answered.
‘What purpose does it serve?’
‘It looks attractive, I suppose. I have never really considered it before. It is also an indication of wealth. The more expensive the jewellery, the richer the wearer. The rich always have more status than the poor. So a woman who wears sapphires in her ears will command more respect than one who does not.’ Suddenly he laughed aloud, the sound rich and almost musical. ‘How odd and stupid it all sounds now. Have you worked in the palace for long?’
‘A little more than a full year. They offered me a serving role after my father died. He was one of the town’s bakers. He made wonderful bread. They can’t make it now. He did not write down his recipes.
It’s a shame, isn’t it, when something good just goes away?’
‘Are you speaking of your father or the bread?’
‘The bread,’ she admitted. ‘Does that make me seem shallow?’
‘I do not know. Perhaps your father was an unpleasant man.’
‘No, he wasn’t. He was kind and gentle. But his illness went on for so long that it was a blessing when he passed away. I still find tears in my eyes when I pass a bakery and smell fresh-baked bread. It reminds me of him.’
‘I do not think you are shallow, Charis,’ he said, his voice gentle. Her eyes narrowed and she stared hard at him. He saw the change in her. ‘Did I say something to offend you?’ he asked. ‘I thought it to be a compliment.’
‘I know why you compliment women,’ she said stiffly. ‘You seek to take them to your bed.’
‘There is some truth in that observation,’ he replied. ‘Though it is not always the case. Sometimes a compliment is merely a compliment. However, I am keeping you from your work.’
With that he returned to the balcony. Charis stood for a moment, feeling foolish. Then she left the room, angry with herself.
He was not what she had been expecting. He did not leer, or make suggestive comments. He had not tried to seduce her. How different are you from Kerena and the others, she thought? You judged the man on what others had said, just as they judge Harad on hearsay.
And now he thought her witless and foolish.
It doesn’t matter what he thinks, she told herself sternly. Why should you care about the opinion of a man with a painted back?
Most of the itinerant loggers had brought tents which they pitched alongside the cook fires to sleep in at night, or sat outside under the starlight. Others merely found a dry spot beneath the trees and slept rough, under thin blankets. Harad always found a place away from the main groups, settling himself down alone.
He liked the night, and the awesome quiet. It calmed him.
Harad had always preferred to be alone.
Well, not always, he admitted to himself, as he sat with his back resting against the trunk of a huge oak. He could remember, as a child, wanting to play with the other children of the mountain village. The problem was always his strength. In play fights and scraps he would try not to hurt them, yet always some child would run away crying and in pain. ‘I only patted him,’ Harad would say. One day, when he grabbed another boy, the child had screamed. His arm was broken. After that no-one wanted to play with Harad.
His mother, Alanis, a shy, reserved woman, had tried to comfort him. His father, Borak, a brooding logger, had said nothing. But then Borak rarely spoke to Harad, unless to scold. Harad never understood why his father disliked him, nor indeed why Borak would always leave when Landis Kan visited. The lord would sit with the boy, asking him questions — mostly about whether he dreamt. No-one else seemed interested in his dreams. He would always ask the same question. ‘Do you dream of ancient days, Harad?’
It was an odd question, and Harad didn’t know what it meant. He would tell the lord that he dreamt of mountains, of woods. Landis Kan was disappointed.
Borak was killed in a freak accident when Harad was nine. A felled tree crashed to the ground, and a dead branch snapped upon impact. A shard of sharp wood flew through the air, piercing Borak’s eye, embedding itself in his brain. He did not die swiftly. Paralysed, he was carried down to the palace, where Landis Kan himself fought to save him. Harad still remembered when the lord rode up to the cabin with the news that Borak had died. Strangely his mother shed no tears.
Alanis herself died three years ago when Harad was seventeen. There was no drama. She said goodnight, and went to her bed. In the morning Harad tried to wake her. He brought her a tisane of sweet mint, and placed it by her bedside. Then he had touched her shoulder. As he looked into her face he knew she had gone. There was no movement, no flicker of life.
That was the first moment Harad felt truly alone.
He had run his hand through his mother’s dark, greying hair, wanting to say something by way of farewell. There were no words. Their relationship had never been tactile, but each night she would kiss his brow, and say: ‘May the Blessed Priestess watch over you as you sleep, my son.’ Harad cherished those times. Once she had stroked his cheek as he lay abed, his body battling a fever. That was the single greatest moment of his childhood.
So, on that last day, he stroked his mother’s cheek. ‘May the Blessed Priestess watch over you as you sleep, mother,’ he said.
Then he walked down to the village and reported her death.
After that he lived alone. His strength, and an awesome stamina, made him a highly valuable asset as a logger. Yet that same strength still caused him problems. Other men would feel compelled to test it against their own, like young bulls vying for supremacy. Harad travelled throughout the timberlands.
Everywhere it was the same. At some point someone would engineer a disagreement, no matter how hard he tried to avoid confrontation.
He thought this bleak period in his life had ended last year, when he broke Masselian’s jaw. Masselian was a fistfighting legend in the high country. After that Harad had been left alone. In some strange way he had transcended the other ‘bulls’, reaching a plateau on which he was untouchable.