Tortall by Tamora Pierce Read Free Book Online

male? Why use cloth to hide her breasts? Why did she not wear the shell of cloth leaves like other females?
    When Fadal returned, she opened her pack. “I’ll makea bargain with you,” she said. “We’ll split the food and the things we’ve gotten working together, and take opposite paths. All right?”
    Fadal wanted to leave? “I don’t understand,” Qiom replied. He did not like this. The thought of going on without Fadal was frightening.
    “Oh, please!” Fadal exclaimed, dashing away raindrops that fell from her eyes. “You’ll denounce me at the next temple—”
    “Why?” Qiom asked, scared. What would become of him without her? “Temples have fire in them. I hate temples. You said you would explain things. You promised to teach me to be a man, but now you mean to leave. You make no sense, Fadal.”
    She stepped back and stared up into Qiom’s face, her eyes searching for something. Her terror was still there, but it began to fade, to be replaced with bewilderment.
    “You—” Her voice squeaked. She cleared her throat, then asked, “Why do women cover all but their eyes in veils?”
    For perhaps the first time Qiom felt irritation. “I have no idea. Why do you ask me about clothes?”
    Fadal sat in the road, plop, like a frog. Her eyes were huge. “You really
were
a tree.”
    Qiom blinked. “I said I was. What has my tree-ness to do with cloth leaves—with veils?” Fadal was quite pale. Qiom knelt and offered her the herb pouch. “Are you sure you don’t need medicine?”
    Fadal took the pouch but did not open it. Instead she asked, “What do you know of our religion?”
    “There is a god who is in fires,” Qiom told Fadal. “I am afraid of fire, so I know nothing of its god.”
    Fadal’s mouth quivered like an aspen leaf. “Three hundred years ago, the Oracle came to this part of the world,” she said carefully. “He spoke for the God in the Flame, our oldest god. He spoke clearly, when all others who heard the god’s voice went mad, and he wrote down the god’s commands. We follow what he wrote. He told us that women of an age to bear children are a temptation to men. They are disorderly and selfish. If they are not to distract men from the god, they must live apart from men, except for marriage visits. Outside women’s quarters they must veil themselves until only their eyes, hands, and feet show. Old-fashioned women even wear a sheer veil over their eyes.
    “My father wasn’t from here. In his land, the God in the Flame is still one of many gods. Father taught me to hunt and fish and handle tools because he had no son. He died a year ago, and my mother remarried this spring. Her new husband is devout. The day he wed my mother, I was ordered to put on the body veil and move into women’s quarters. He was planning my marriage.” Fadal shook her head. “I couldn’t bear it. I cut off my hair, bound my chest flat, and ran away. If I were caught—an unveiled woman …”
    Her voice died away. Qiom, sitting on his heels beside her, nudged her shoulder. “What would happen?” he asked.
    “Men would say I was a prostitute or a demon. They would stone me to death.” She looked at him. “But you saw. You are a man of this country; you look it and your accent isours. But you don’t care that I’m female, do you? If you didn’t mind for my sake, you would for your own—the man who travels with an unveiled woman is thought to be infected with vice. He too must die because he would spread that infection. Only one explanation fits why you don’t care.”
    “Why would I lie about being a tree?” asked Qiom. “You must admit it is a silly lie.”
    Fadal laughed and laughed. When water streamed from her eyes, she went alone into the trees. By the time she returned, it was too late to travel. They made camp instead. After supper, Qiom asked Fadal to tell him more of her religion. He wanted to get it all exactly right when he described it to Numair.
    A man offered cloth shoes