Stonefather

“If Demwor hires you, which is unlikely, and if we have occasion to see each other again — also unlikely — then yes, I agree, I won’t mock you.”

“Thank you.”

“To your face, anyway,” she said. Only she was grinning in a way that said that indeed no harm was intended.

I’m going to hide my face from everybody, thought Runnel. And my name. People find the one offensive and the other ridiculous. And I had to come all these miles to find out about it.

They walked in silence for a little while. Then Runnel could not contain it. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“Nothing,” she said. “You’re not handsome, you’re not ugly.”

“What makes you say I look proud?”

“Well it’s the whole thing. The expression.”

“What about the expression?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding exasperated. “You just do. Like you’re a statue.”

“What’s a statue?”

“How can I explain it if you — a statue is made of stone or metal or clay, and it shows a person’s face, only it doesn’t move, it just stays exactly the same.”

“I move my face. I talk. I smile. I move my eyes. I nod.”

“Well, stop doing it, or you’ll drop the jar.”

“Did you have to fill it completely full?”

“Do you want me to carry it now?”

He would not have a girl carry something because he could not. “I can do it.”

“You want to know what’s wrong with your face? I’ll tell you. Right now you were annoyed with me — for filling it so full, then for offering to carry it. But nothing showed in your face. You moved your mouth, you moved your eyes, but you didn’t show anything you were thinking. It looks like you think you’re better than me. Like you don’t have to bother feeling anything about me.”

“Well, I was annoyed. I can’t help what my face shows.”

“And you’re annoyed now, and it still doesn’t show.”

Runnel made a monstrous face. “How about now?”

“Now you’re ugly. But it still doesn’t look like you mean it.”

It was a shocking thing to learn about himself. “Why didn’t anybody ever tell me?” ^:

“Probably because they thought you were proud and didn’t like them, so why should they tell you anything?”

“So why are you telling me?”

“Because I saw you knocked in the dirt by Wesera, and you looked thirsty and miserable. Your face 

looked proud, so I thought that meant you had spunk. Now you say you aren’t proud, so that must mean you don’t have spunk, so. . no, we said no mockery, so… I believe you. I believe you can’t help it. But you know what helps? Ducking your head. Makes you look humble. Hides the stiffness. Do that a lot, and people won’t want to slap you around.”

“Do you want to slap me around?”

“Two answers to that. No, because you’re carrying my water for me. And no, because I don’t care enough to slap you, and I’m never going to, so if that was your first test to see if you could get close to me—”

He was sick of her assumption that he had some interest in her like that. So he walked faster and moved briskly ahead of her.

“Watch out, slow down!” she shouted. “You’ll drop it, you’ll break it, you’ll spill it!”

Water was sloshing and splashing, so he did as she asked, and she was beside him again.

“So you don’t like me,” she said. “I get it.”

“I like you fine,” he said. “You helped me. I just don’t want anything from you except a chance at a job so I can get some of these moneys or coins or whatever you call them. And maybe, just maybe, a drink of this water after we get it to wherever we’re going.”

“Well, that would be now, because we’re here.” She led him to a doorway in a large, high stone wall.

She stopped outside the door and whistled — a bit of birdsong, it sounded like. She grinned at him, and said, “Lark.”

The door swung open, and for a moment Runnel thought it was magic. But no, there was a tall stupid-looking man pushing it outward, and Lark flounced through saucily. “Let my boy in, will you?” she said to the man.

Runnel flashed with anger for a moment, but then realized that she was just playing, and besides, just now his only hope of a drink and a meal was her. At least she was letting him in. She could have said, Take the waterjar and get rid of this boy, and he could have done no more about it than with the men on the cargo raft. He was inside. That was a good thing. So he said nothing, just followed her through the door and into the courtyard.

She led him to a stone structure about the height of a man and half more, with stone stairs winding around two sides of it. She motioned for him to climb the stairs behind her, and when he got to the top, she bad already opened a small trapdoor in the roof of the thing. “Pour it in.”

He did.

She took the empty jar from him. “I’ll carry it now.”

“Now it’s empty,” he said.

“Believe it or not, this is the time when people are most likely to break the jar. Once it’s empty, it feels light, and you get careless. Only I’d be the one in trouble, not you. So I carry it down. Now move on down out of my way, Runnel, or I’ll mock you.”

“Then you’d be an oathbreaker.”

“Your back will be to me, so I can mock you without breaking the oath.”