WHEN HE SAW ME, Master Peter put his things down, smiled as if we were great friends, and swept his elegant bow. “We meet again . . . er . . .” He gave up trying to remember my name. “Mistress Healer.”
How disappointing that he’d forgotten.
“Mistress Evie.” I turned to SSahlOO and AAng. “Let me try.”
Instantly, Master Peter’s fear mushroomed. He ran.
I thrust my arm out and caught him. “You”—I tried to soften my voice—“have nothing to fear from me.” I felt around his terror for the air SSahlOO said would be there.
Ah, yes. I tried to make it bigger. “I would never hurt you.”
His fright didn’t diminish. He swallowed, tried to push words out, swallowed again. His eyes bulged, which diminished his good looks.
I glanced over my shoulder. The others were baring their fangs at him, having fun at my expense. I lunged at them, jerking Master Peter with me.
As a group, they drew back and laughed.
“Beg pardon! Master Peter, did I hurt you?” If I’d pulled his arm out of its socket, I could put it back.
No answer. His eyes were unfocused. I moved his arm around. It went smoothly, and I didn’t sense pain, just terror—
—which brought on my ogre anger. How dare he be terrified when I meant him well? I could yank his arm out on purpose and heal it. He’d find out then that I’d take care of him.
Fie! What was I thinking?
I drew him to the edge of our plot, pushed his shoulders down until he sat, and squatted before him, sideways to the pack, so I could see them, too. They’d returned to their usual occupation, chewing meat sticks slowly to make them last.
“Greetings.” I tried for a sweet smile.
His fear didn’t lessen.
Keeping his distance, SSahlOO coached me in Ogrese. “Tell it you want it to be happy.”
I did so. Master Peter just tried to pull away from me.
“I won’t let anyone else eat you, either. They haven’t, have they? You know you’d be in their stomachs by now, ordinarily.”
The shred of reason he had left understood. I felt it expand and the fear shrink, a little.
“You’re doing it,” SSahlOO said in Ogrese. “SzEE eMMong AAh forns.”
EEnth said, also in Ogrese, “In a way. Not our way.” He softened his voice. “But very good.”
I wanted to do it their way, the fast way.
For the rest of the day, I experimented. I spoke softer, louder, higher in pitch, lower in pitch, singsong or with clipped words. I had SSahlOO and EEnth demonstrate, and I imitated them perfectly to my ear, but without their effect.
Evening came. Eventually, Master Peter relaxed, but not because of my efforts. I was furious. I knew my failure wasn’t his fault, but he became increasingly edible.
Three meat sticks finally calmed me.
I stole more dried meat that night and spent the next day, my twentieth, trying to zEEn again.
Master Peter became entirely unafraid of me and only a little uneasy with the rest of the band. Midmorning, he asked why we hadn’t eaten him. “Am I too stringy?”
We all laughed.
I jested, too. “Lean but certainly not stringy.” Or was I flirting?
“Make him scared again,” EEnth said. “ZEEn can either calm or frighten.”
But I couldn’t do that, either.
I didn’t give up. I believed I wasn’t wasting precious time. Master Peter had intelligence, humor, health. In his presence I was always atingle. Did he have goodness? Might I love him already? Could I reveal enough of myself to make him like me and disregard my appearance? Already I seemed to amuse him.
On the third morning after his arrival, I asked him to show me his wares.
As the rest of us crowded around, he pulled a canvas cloth from a saddlebag and spread it on the ground before taking out his goods.
How deft he was. Cloth and apparel seemed to fold themselves to their best advantage. He spread his jewelry pieces with a flash of hands—jumble one moment, artful display the next—and grinned at my surprise.
I saw again the saucepan, the bowls, more cookware and tableware, the rapier in its sheath, a flute, and three pairs of shoes.
He stood next to me just beyond the canvas. His nearness opened a pit in my stomach. Hunger? Yes, and an ache, a yearning.
“There’s something else.” He lowered his voice, adding drama. “Shall I reveal it?”
“Please!” I sounded breathless.
Master Peter plunged his hand deep into another saddlebag, the one that held his papers. “This is a treasure. I keep it separate for safety.” He drew out something long, covered by burlap.
Unaccountably, the hairs all over my body prickled. I felt the whole band tense.
He made room on the canvas for the new thing and unwrapped it.
A dragon’s tooth! Orange, as long as my arm, its point sharper than a sword.
Instantly, I dropped into a crouch—we all did. My body heated up. My ears felt on fire.
As one, we chanted, “Ack nack! ZuZZ!” I was furious, wanted to kill someone—anyone.
Around me, everyone glistened with sweat; everyone’s fangs were out in a grimace of rage.
Master Peter ran. The others charged after him. I took a step—
—but my human half wrested control. I wheeled and, with shaking hands, wrapped the tooth and hid it in the saddlebag again. My hairs relaxed. My body cooled.
Master Peter! I dashed after the band.
But they were returning anyway. Master Peter, zEEned again, ambled among them.
“Where is it?” ShuMM demanded of me in Ogrese.
“I put it away. Don’t eat him!” I ran to the sack I kept the meat sticks in and pulled out four.
ShuMM took the peace offering and shrugged.
Master Peter returned to his wares. The others must have stopped zEEning him, because I felt his distress. “Mistress Evie, why did you all crouch and seem terrifying?”
I appealed to SSahlOO and EEnth in Kyrrian, so Master Peter would understand. “Why did we?”
I sensed Master Peter’s surprise that I didn’t know.
SSahlOO said, also in Kyrrian, “Do you like dragons?”
No! I hated—loathed—despised—them.
My human side didn’t understand. Yes, dragons were dangerous, but they didn’t seek people out, as ogres did. And, without them, there would be no purpline. “Do they attack ogres?”
“Not anymore. They have their Spires to live in and the giants’ land to hunt in.” EEnth pulled back his shoulders and puffed out his chest. “We have everywhere else.”
SSahlOO stood as straight as EEnth. “We think there was a war a long time ago. Ogres won.”
“Dragons died,” EEnth said.
SSahlOO spat. “You can’t even eat them. They stick in your throat.”
“They’re gummy,” EEnth added. “But we’d fight them again.”
“Fascinating,” Master Peter said under his breath, but ogre ears could hear.
“What do the words mean?” I asked. “‘Ack nack. ZuZZ.’”
“I don’t know.” EEnth took a meat stick. “There are more words, too, that we don’t understand, either.”
“Is this written down anywhere?” I asked, still in Kyrrian. Did ogres have writing?
EEnth slumped back into his usual bad posture. “No, silly mare.”
I balled my fists. “Don’t say that!” I hated for Master Peter to hear what the ogres called me.
EEnth just laughed.
But SSahlOO added, “I think the words start a spell.” He held up a hand to prevent more questions. “I can’t remember the rest of it.” He snatched EEnth’s meat stick, though he could have taken one from the sack.
The two rolled on the ground. I couldn’t think of any more words, either, although ack, nack, and zuZZ had erupted out of me, too.
But I did know a little about dragons, who, for one thing, lost their fangs every five years and grew new ones. I asked Master Peter, “Did you buy the tooth from the giants, or are you going to sell it to them?” If the second, he’d gotten it direct from the dragons, a feat of daring. “Might you have purpline?”
“No purpline.”
Too bad!
“I got the tooth from the giants.” Master Peter frowned. “It would have been a fool’s errand to go to the dragons myself.”
I approved. “Cautious people rarely need a healer.”
He chuckled. “Reckless people often don’t need one, either.”
Oh! “Because they’re dead!” I couldn’t help laughing.
He nodded, smiling.
Giants used the fangs to punch holes in leather, in wood, in almost anything. Dragons let giants take their teeth—they never flame at them—and the giants allow the dragons to hunt a share of their herds of sheep, cattle, and goats. Humans prized the fangs because they were rare. A single fang cost as much as a manor house.
Clouds blew in on a brisk breeze, fall beginning in earnest.
“Mmm.” Master Peter stared down at his wares. “I know!” He picked up four wooden spoons and four wooden spatulas and ran his finger along one.
He wasn’t touching me, but I felt that finger as if he were.
“See the design the grain makes, Mistress Evie. Artful, isn’t it?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“If they were strung, perhaps with beads between each implement, they would make a charming necklace for you.”
“You’d have me wear utensils?”
He drew back. “Not many can carry such bold jewelry.”
I blushed in spite of myself.
“The necklace would turn utensils into art. The beads would be lapis lazuli because the blue would complement your eyes.”
Which were amber. My face was about to burst into flames.
“People would think of a ballroom, not a kitchen.”
Did he really believe something would become me? He knew we had no money, so he couldn’t be trying for a sale. Might he be sincere? I sensed pleasure in him. Pleasure in my company? In my looks because I could wear bold adornments? Or only in showing off his goods?
“The nights will be cold soon.” He pulled a green wool shawl out of a blue linen sheath and held them next to each other. “Elegant, no, the two hues together?”
My human side had little experience with elegance, and ogres didn’t heed beauty other than the beautiful-mare kind.
Master Peter draped the shawl around my shoulders, which trembled.
He stood back. “This shade brings up the color in your cheeks.” He called to SSahlOO and EEnth. “Isn’t Mistress Evie prettier than ever?”
He must have noticed their longing for me.
That infuriated me. I removed the shawl. “I’m aware of how hideous I am.”
SSahlOO and EEnth protested gallantly in Ogrese that I was a beautiful mare.
Master Peter murmured, “You improve on acquaintance.”
Oh, my. Oh! My heart triple fluttered.
He was excited and happy. Happy because of me? Was he beginning to care for me? And I had forty days left!
The rest of the band left to hunt. I didn’t have to go, since I was learning to zEEn, or trying to learn.
“Why is it you never leave with them?”
Did he want to be rid of me? Irritation sharpened my voice. “If I went, a human alone in the Fens doesn’t need a healer, either.”
He smiled. “Dead, eh?”
“Just bones.” I gestured at our ghoulish border.
“You are my protector.”
My heart’s flutter quickened.
He held up a jug. “Pewter. Gnome-made. It never leaks.”
When I left the Fens, I’d need a jug. If we departed together, perhaps he’d share it with me.
If he proposed, it would be mine, too.
Embarrassed at my thoughts, I picked up a cap, bleached linen with a design of embroidered flowers.
“It would become you,” Master Peter said, “but I’m afraid it’s too sm—”
“The stitches are uneven.” I knew it wouldn’t fit me.
“You have discernment.” He executed a small bow.
His voice or his words kept weakening my legs, but I curtsied without collapsing.
He produced another square of canvas from his sack and spread it in his quick-fingered way. “Will you sit with me?”
I couldn’t, unless I ate something first—or I might nibble on his delectableness. I went to the sack that held last night’s theft, already two-thirds diminished. As I returned, his eyes were on the meat strips. He was starving! I held one out to him. He took it, and I returned to the sack for two more for me and two more for him. When I sat, I left space between us for the sake of my heart.
But he moved close!
And when he did, when he wanted to be near me, I succumbed to the besotting power of love. I loved—cherished, adored, relished—Master Peter. He was my delight, my treasure, my happiness.