The Silences of Home by Caitlin Sweet Read Free Book Online Page A

was writing and squinted at the desert to the south of her tent. She saw heat shimmer, broken by dark cacti with branches like beseeching arms—and another dark shape, this one moving. She rose as it drew closer, its trembling lines hardening into a rider on a white horse. Even from a distance she could see his tunic’s green and blue. She raised her arms, though he was riding directly toward her.
    “Queenswoman,” he gasped when he had reined his horse to a rearing halt, “thank the First I have found you.” His face and hands were crusted with sand and sweat. Beneath this grime, his skin was a peeling red. “I fled a battle,” he said as they tethered his horse in the shade of the provisions tent. “And then I got lost. My food and water ran out yesterday. But how rude I am,” he said, turning to her with a smile. His teeth were even and white in his tangle of beard. “I am Gwinent of Sordinna, a tiny hamlet you’ve probably never heard of, to the west of Luhr.”
    “And I am Lanara of Luhr.”
    He arched one eyebrow and gave a low whistle. “A real Luhran. I had no idea they could be so attractive.”
    Lanara laughed. “High praise from a man who’s been lost in the desert. Come and have a drink. And a wash.”
    “Why not a swim,” he said, “to take care of both?”
    They walked upstream, away from the shonyn village. When they went down to the river he drank first, in deep, silent gulps. Then he waded slowly in, wincing as the water touched his raw skin and the cuts that crisscrossed his arms and legs.
    “How did you get those?” she asked.
    He surveyed his arms as he bobbed, chest-deep. “A sandstorm. Bits of cactus and stone everywhere. Not a very dramatic reason. Would you be impressed if I said something about the battle? Or predatory birds?”
    Lanara laughed again, then fell silent. She watched her tunic darkening in the water.
    “What’s wrong?” he said, his legs slicing him in one long glide toward her.
    “Wrong? Oh, just that you
know
something’s wrong. And you can understand me when I talk at a normal speed. And you’re awake in the middle of the day. All of which makes me realize how homesick I’ve been.”
    “For Luhr?” he demanded. “Stodgy, stuck-up, smelly Luhr?” He dodged her splash with ease.
    “For a man who’s been lost in the desert,” she said, “you’re entirely too energetic.”
    She told him about the shonyn as they lay drying on the bank and later, eating slices of lynanyn and hard bread soaked in lynanyn juice.
    “These shonyn have good taste,” Gwinent said as he chewed. “And I’m not just saying that as a man who’s been lost in the desert.”
    She chuckled. “Mmm. But I miss
fresh
bread. And sweets. And vegetable soup. I know I shouldn’t. I’m here at the Queen’s command, after all, doing important work.”
    He made a sour face. “And when has doing important work ever been a cure for loneliness?”
    She curled her fingers around bread crust and did not look at him. She had called it homesickness, but he had named it truly. Loneliness: the spreading chill in her gut that she had not expected. She wrote to Ladhra and her hand shook with the need to see her, to walk with her among the trees of the Queenswood and laugh at nothing. She wrote to her father—though not as often—and tried desperately to see their small, sunlit house. Just as desperately, she tried not to see it.
I am failing Queen Galha
, she thought.
And myself
.
    “Thank you,” she said to Gwinent. “I suppose I’ve been foolish. It sounds so simple and sensible, the way you phrase it.”
    “Hardly. But you’re welcome.” He touched the back of her hand lightly. She watched his fingers, with their blunt nails and their cuts.
    “Tell me about the battle you fled,” she said. She did not move her hand.
    “Don’t you have to teach soon?” he asked, and she saw that the sky was pink and the sun was low.
    “Yes,” she replied. “But not for a while. Talk to me