Karavans by Jennifer Roberson Read Free Book Online Page A

taken for one another.”
    Embarrassment faded. “But you are,” Ilona said mildly. “Particularly from the back.”
    “I am taller—”
    “A finger’s width, perhaps.”
    “—and my braid pattern is much different.”
    “Brodhi,” she began patiently, “no one in this settlement knows anything at all about the ritual braid patterns of the Shoia. Almost no one in this settlement knows anything at all about the Shoia, period, except for what Rhuan has told us; the Mother knows
you
never say anything about yourself.” She waved a hand to forestall the bitter reply she saw forming in his eyes. “But of course you’re correct: why should you share anything about your race with ignorant Sancorrans?” Ilona bestowed upon him a sweet, insincere smile. “Excuse me; I have duties at the karavan.”
    She brushed by him and stepped back onto the footpath, reflecting that perhaps she should not have provoked him, but Brodhi annoyed her. That he felt himself far superior to the Sancorrans had been plain from the first day of his arrival in the tent settlement, having added it to his courier route. She asked Rhuan once why his cousin was so different from him in temperament; Rhuan merely said they had vastly different sires, and that Brodhi had been so since their childhood.
    Ilona shook her head as she strode down the footpath. There were not enough years in a person’s life to waste any of them on bad moods and attitudes.
    BRODHI GRITTED HIS teeth as he watched Ilona march away. He knew her only by sight; he did not trouble himself to share the company of the karavan-masters and their hired diviners. He found himself feeling bested in their exchange, that she had dismissed
him
rather than the other way around. It was a feeling that left him disgruntled.Annoyed, he turned on his heel to resume walking, then halted abruptly. He had to. Or risk tripping over a child.
    That child looked up and into his face. He saw the rich blue of her eyes, the pale hair and lashes, the clarity of her skin. Human skin. Fragile skin. Brodhi could see her spirit through it.
    In a high, thin voice she asked, “Will you help us?”
    And then others were there: an older boy, an older girl; a boy not much bigger than the smallest child, who had spoken. Four hatchlings, loose without supervision.
    “Go home,” Brodhi said.
    Four very similar faces blazed into the redness of shock and indignation. Well, that was not unusual; his own skin took on varied tones dependent on his mood.
    “Go home
please
,” the elder girl snapped. “Or is courtesy beneath you?”
    “Ellica,” the oldest boy murmured, though he was no happier. He simply hid it better.
    Courtesy
was
beneath him. But amusement wasn’t. Brodhi smiled.
    The youngest, the tiny girl, was unperturbed by undercurrents. “Can you help us?”
    “He won’t,” the sister said, no more polite than he. “He’s Hecari. Why should any of
them
help us?”
    It shocked him into speech. “Hecari! I?”
    The older girl glared. “Well, aren’t you? Who else would be so rude as to give us orders?”
    He glared back. “I am not Hecari.”
    It was now the youngest boy’s turn. “Then what are you?”
    “Torvic, hush.” The older boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, reached down to gather the little girl into his arms and settle her on his hip in practiced motions. “Come. We’ll find someone else.”
    But they had, against his will, managed to intrigue him. Before they could leave, he asked, “Why do you need help? And where are your parents?”
    “Our da is at the karavan grounds,” the older boy answered.
    “And our mam,” the girl—Ellica?—interjected, “is the one who needs help. There’s a moonsick man who won’t leave her alone.”
    Brodhi’s curiosity evaporated. “Well, then go find a moonmother. She’ll look after him.”
    “And what about our mam?” the youngest boy demanded. “What if he hurts her?”
    “Why should he harm her?”
    The littlest girl, tucked into