XX. GRADDICK’S LIE

In her absence, Graddick understood her better. Her moods and fibs were all the same– harmless, lovely, comic. Their banter always had the same playful undercurrent. Inevitably, it was making them closer, better able to relate. Even if their companionship didn’t lead to the intimacy that Graddick only hinted to himself he wanted, it had already resulted in something that looked to him–when he was alone and thinking about these things–like attachment.

What he imagined himself to be around her was simple because it was what he always imagined himself to be, a knight. If he gruffly chided her for saying something alarming, it was the gruffness of a stolid protector. If he was silent as she entertained her companions with fanciful stories, it was the silence of a noble seriousness. If he became frustrated with her lies (for she did lie all the time), it was because he so earnestly wanted her to live in truth and virtue. But what other people saw when they were together–what Cuatala noticed, what Ystrien understood completely–was that he had a hard time keeping up.

Vahaera had lived a life of many lies, flying from one bold dishonesty to another, a bee in a patch of red flowers. She would stay with each as long as it was sweet. But Graddick had chosen a single, beautiful lie to tell himself. She had never done anything quite like that.

***

Ystrien was visiting his relatives at Nanther Keep, and Cuatala had disappeared for the afternoon. Vahaera and Graddick sat together in the Breakwater common room. People were coming and going, tracking in dirty snow from the outside, and the innkeeper had decided to play guard and not let anyone in if they didn’t kick the doorpost to get the snow off their boots.

“If we have to kill this dwarven enchanter, do you think we could take over his hermitage at the edge of town?” asked Vahaera as the crowd grew merry.

“I thought you liked being around people.”

“I do, but I also like places where I can retreat from them. I am at war with society. Sometimes an assault is necessary, sometimes a withdrawal. Today it’s withdrawal. I hate fighting in the snow. What about you?”

“Do you mean how I feel about the snow or about other people?”

“I left you an opening and you must choose how to exploit it.”

But Graddick didn’t know how to exploit it, so he said nothing. Vahaera changed the subject. “I almost forgot–Here’s your hammer,” she said. “It’s enchanted, as I thought. It wards off certain harms–poisons, sickness, fatigue…. It has some other function I couldn’t identify.” Graddick turned it over in his hands. He had treasured it ever since Vahaera bestowed it on him. The prize is yours, knight, she had said. He still remembered how those words sounded and how she looked saying them. He thought she looked the same now. But she didn’t. She had never looked that way.