The Broken Crown

Chapter 53

Asha

 Asha had just returned from her hunt and sent the jaguars off to find food of their own. She could not bring them with her since they always scared away the game. Then she crawled to the terrace of her house and began peeling the feathers off the birds she had caught. She always dined with the two jakeen since they were both too preoccupied with collecting herbs and mending small illnesses. Also, Anaïs’ belly was now too round for her to move much.

“What have you caught?” the very woman Asha had been thinking about asked from where she was sitting. The Kahari’s and the jakeen’s houses were neighbouring and it was easy to speak across the distance between them.

Asha held up her prey. “Parrots.”

Anaïs smiled. She was carving out a figure of wood, no doubts as a toy for her child. Asha thought she had never seen the woman as happy as she was now. And the man whose name no one knew had been seen smiling two days earlier.

Anaïs looked up then, her brows raised in interest. Asha followed her gaze and saw that people were collecting around something. Unable to still her curiosity the way she knew a Kahari should, she jumped up and quickly crawled down the rope.

“Kahari!” Equem called her over with a smile. “There is someone you must meet.”

The crowd parted and let her see the man they were all circling. Asha made sure to stand a little taller, showing a little more authority.

He was young, most likely past twenty summers, but not long past. His skin was lighter than that of the usual Yaguar, but a Yaguar he was. His eyes were dark and rich. She had never seen him before.

He smiled. “You are the new Kahari?”

“Yes,” she said. “Who are you?”

“My name is Hiram,” he replied. “My family and I moved to this town while you were in Etheron.”

“He left to travel just before you returned,” Equem said.

“Travel? Travel where?”

His smile grew. “First, I was planning to go to Tibera to meet the many traders and sailors and then go back, but one of them persuaded me to go with him and his men across the Warm Sea.” He chuckled while the tribe listened to him, fascinated. “I had to work my ticket onto the boat, but it was worth it.

“The lands to the east have a burning sun and their lands are all desert. They build their towns in oases where ponds and strange trees with hard fruits – they call them coconuts – break the sands. And the architecture… it is simply stunning!”

Asha listened intently. She knew most of the people in the town did not know what architecture meant, but Thomas had taught her about it when she was in the north. “Are they more beautiful than the Solar Temples?”

“You’ve seen a Solar Temple?” he asked, frowning.

“I lived with the northerners,” she reminded him, smiling a little when she saw that he understood. “My mentor, lord Thomas Bonney, taught me how they were built and why.”

“I never got to see one,” he admitted. “Of course, I travelled with poorer men than you did.”

“You must tell me more,” she said, more than interested in hearing what he had to say. From Thomas, she had learned that interest in all things was the road to wisdom. It was easy to have interest in what Hiram had to say. “I would like to hear of it. We should feast together tonight, so that Hiram may have an opportunity to tell at least some of his stories.”