They stood in water up to their calves, leaning down and searching through the silt for anything out of the ordinary – anything that might give them a clue. The girl reached down and cupped her hand, bringing a small palmful of water up to her face. She smelled it and then took a cautious sip. She rolled the water around on her tongue before she swallowed it. She squinted her eyes and looked up at him.
"This isn't right," she said. She shook her head, her eyes still scanning the riverbed for any trace that something had passed through there.
"What isn't?" he asked. He squinted a little in the early morning light.
"This water. It's too clean," she said. She shook her head and kicked a rock over with her foot. "If your girl had been here – if she had died – this water wouldn't be so clean."
"How can you be sure?" he asked. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun.
"Because bodies foul the water, and this water tastes pure," the girl said. She leaned down close and squinted against the reflection of the sun on the surface of the water. "And you see these fish here?" she asked. She pointed to a group of tiny silvery bodies wriggling out from beneath the rock she had overturned. "They're only juveniles. If a body had passed through here, there would be bigger fish here by now trying to scavenge. And these babies would have moved on – to avoid becoming part of the prey. The fact that there are only these babies here," the girl said. She straightened up and squinted into the horizon.
He turned and followed her gaze out toward the long, winding road behind them.
"Looks like we've got company," she said. She nodded toward the approaching soldiers on horseback. She gave him a conspiratorial smile. "Show time."
# # #
He knelt in the tall grass, the sun hot on his back. He was sweating now, but he didn't want to take his jacket off because it would stir the tops of the weeds around him.
He watched the girl chatting with the guards, shy and coquettish, flirting with them and laughing – her black hair whipping loose in the wind behind her. With her scars all covered up and the sun on her face, she appeared to be a girl much younger than the one he had seen the night before. She looked almost like a teenager now, laughing and innocent and new. She spoke with a light and gently lilting accent, suggesting that she had come from Asia not long ago. She had been a maid in a nearby kingdom, she said, and was now a nanny for two small boys in the nearby town. What had happened here, she asked. The town was so nice and the people so gentile, she couldn't imagine it had been anything bad, she said. And they told her.
They told her about Belle and the scraps of her dress they had found in the river. They told her where they would search next if they didn't find her here. They told her what they had found and what people had told them along the way. They told her everything – so easily, so unsuspecting. They had no idea what she was.
He sat back in the grass and watched her work, watched her pluck thread after thread of information from the men standing around her. When they hesitated, she would adjust. She played the frightened young girl, who might get hurt if they didn't tell her what to watch out for. And the oldest among them spoke to her as if she were a daughter. She played the teasing and petulant teenager, who accused them of not knowing nearly as much as they claimed. And the boldest and rashest among them gave out more information to prove that they knew the most. She played the shocked and humble young lady, who was grateful for what they could tell her. And the youngest among them shared his information, eager to be treated as more than just a child. And with each passing persona, the men thought nothing of her changes. The gradations of her personality were as fine as the color on a chameleon's skin. They had no idea what she was.
# # #
What she was, as it turned out, was a thing of beauty – not static beauty, not beauty to behold – but beauty that released itself like a coiled snake from within her when she moved. He found her outside in the leveled field behind his house, her Japanese sai in their holster – the straps of it slung over a tree branch. She was learning to use the weapons she had found the week before in the north tower. She had a stack of them lined up and leaning against the tree at the edge of the clearing, and what she had selected was mainly of the polearm variety – a series of long wooden sticks with blades or spears at the end of them. She had placed a long towel on the ground beneath the weapons, so that their handles didn't touch the ground.
He crossed his arms and leaned his side against a tree, watching her slice through the air above her head with a halberd. At first, she used mainly the few moves he had shown her, things that he had picked up during his brief service on the front lines of the Ogre wars. But as she moved and turned, twisting the pole between her arms, he saw her weight shifting, sinking, and her hands sliding over the weapon more smoothly. She was incorporating it – integrating it – into her body, as if the weapon was just an extension of her arm.
She turned and kicked and flipped the pole with deadly precision, using it as a lever in one moment and as a spearhead in the next. She crouched down low to the ground and thrust the halberd up and at an angle, as if to impale an approaching horseman. Then she sprang up and threw a high kick into the space at her blind side as if to snap the neck of an invader approaching on foot. She spun in a slow arc, bringing the weapon down from above her eye-level until it was even with her knee, as if she were repelling a group of enemies who had closed in around her in a circle. And then she dropped to a crouch, sweeping the blade across the ground as if to clear a path in the space around her. She held that position, eyes dark and waiting for the next attack, sweat glistening on her face, upper chest and exposed arms. She waited there for a moment more before standing and lowering the weapon.
She crossed the clearing, holding the halberd vertically just behind her right arm. When she reached him, she rested the handle of the weapon on her foot, and picked up a towel to dry the sweat from her face. Her cheeks were lightly pink, but she was only slightly out of breath.
"How long have you been standing there?" she asked. She squinted her eyes when she spoke, and looked at a point behind him and off to the side. There was a hint of annoyance in her voice. Her eyes were dark – guarded – as if his seeing her being herself had unnerved her. She dragged the towel across her forehead and then over her mouth.
"Not long," he said. He eyed her coolly.
She nodded and picked up a small jug of water, taking a long drink and swallowing it slowly. She squinted her eyes and looked off at the horizon, her chin coming to a hover just above her right shoulder. She replaced the cap onto the jug and screwed it on. Then she returned her eyes to his face.
He stared back at her, cool and detached.
She was leaning slightly forward, her right hand still closed around the weapon, as if she were waiting for an attack. And her eyes on his were measured – waiting.
He let his eyes flick down, making it a point that he was seeing her, and then raised his eyes again, briefly, to meet hers.
She pressed her lips together into a thin scowl.
Then, without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away. He smiled to himself as he placed a few metres between them. He hadn't been able to unnerve her before, and the feeling of it was rather enjoyable. He heard the clink of metal on steel as she exchanged the weapon she was holding for another. He stopped and turned to look back over his shoulder at her. He eyed her with a sardonic smile.
Her hand stilled, lifting a partizan from the stack. "What?" she said. She turned to look at him.
He cocked his head and then swiveled slowly on his heel until he was facing her again. He took several measured strides back to where he had been.
She rested the handle of the weapon on the top of her foot lightly, her arm wrapped loosely around it. She looked up at him with a line of impatience crossing her face. "What?" she said again. There was a hard edge of irritation in her voice. She scowled up at him.
"Why do you do that?" he asked. His voice was light, amused – even petulant. He pointed at the weapons and then back at her.
"Do what?" she asked. She shook her head and her brow furrowed a little more.
"That," he said. He pointed to the stack of weapons and then back at her.
"What, train?" she said. She shook her head, trying to brush him off. "It's important – I need to stay sharp. I need to – "
"No," he said. His voice cut her off, a bit lower now than before. "That," he said. He pointed to the towel beneath the weapons lined up against the tree and then to the partizan she was holding, resting on the top of her foot.
"Oh," she said. She shook her head, caught off guard. "Because they're yours," she said. She looked at him and gave a shrug with one of her shoulders.
He cocked his head and looked at her, studying the expression on her face.
"But they're weapons," he said. He stared at her like she was stupid. He leaned in and held up one hand, whispering behind it conspiratorially. "They're supposed to get dirty."
She laughed then – an honest laugh – and shook her head at him. She sighed, letting the humor of the moment sweep her along with it. She placed her left hand on her hip and gave him a wry smile.
He leaned back, an amused grin playing across his lips as he watched her.
She laughed again. "Weapons," she said. She raised her eyebrows and smiled, as if she were beginning a long and laborious lecture to a dim student. "Are to be respected," she said.
He mimed a yawn.
"And weapons that don't belong to you, are even more so," she said. She cocked her head to the side, cutting off his flippancy. Her tone dropped into one that was still casual, but held a hint of seriousness in it. "It's a sign of respect for the person who owns them." She pressed her lips together in a slightly upturned line.
He grinned at her – his smile dripping of honey and sarcasm.
"So, you're saying that you respect me," he said. He fanned his fingers out over his chest, feigning flattery.
She rolled her eyes and looked off to the side, getting a laugh that threatened to escape under control. She turned back to him, the smile still on her face, but her eyes settled.
"Of course," she said. She looked at him.
He nodded, a bit awkwardly, and dropped his hand from the front of his chest. He had been playing with her, but she had taken it seriously so quickly. Maybe he shouldn't sneak up on her while she was training.
"That's also why I do that," she said. She mimed handing him something about the size and shape of a book, one hand on either side of the imaginary object.
"What? Hand me things?" he asked.
She laughed out loud. "No," she said. She turned her face to the side, still laughing.
He shook his head and stared at her, laughing at her outburst.
She shook her head and swallowed, her eyes lightly shining from suppressed laughter. "That's why when I hand you things, I use both hands," she said. She stared at him, holding her laughter back.
He gave a slow nod, as if he were starting to understand, but he really wasn't.
She suppressed a smile. "In the Chinese culture, it's considered a sign of respect that when you hand somebody something, you use both your hands," she said. She looked at him, waiting for him to understand.
His mind flipped back quickly over the last twelve days. He could remember her passing him a number of objects during that time, but he couldn't recall what she had done with her hands when she had done it.
He nodded anyway, pretending to remember. "If you say so," he said. He made his tone dismissive.
She smiled, shaking her head. She was already turning back to her field of training.
He turned again, on his heel, and began making his way back toward the house. He stopped a second time and turned back, holding one finger in the air just in front of his shoulder.
"Oh, and Jade," he said. His voice was velvety again.
She stopped, the partizan halfway extended in a starting position. She looked at him.
"You should keep up with the halberd," he said. He cocked his head as he looked at her. "It suits you."
She titled her head and gave him a piercing, sardonic smile.