The young woman named Feather Witch bowed and rushed off towards a longhouse. Seren stared after her for a moment. ‘Mayen, if I may ask, who gave her that name?’
‘Feather Witch? It is Letherii, is it not? Those Letherii born as slaves among us are named by their mothers. Or grandmothers, whatever the practice among your kind may be. I have not given it much thought. Why?’
Seren shrugged. ‘It is an old name, that is all. I’ve not heard it used in a long time, and then only in the histories.’
‘Shall we walk, Acquitor?’
Udinaas sat on a low stool near the entrance, stripping scales from a basketful of dried fish. His hands were wet, red and cracked by the salt paste the fish had been packed in. He had watched the Acquitor’s arrival, followed Mayen’s detour, and now Feather Witch was approaching, a troubled expression on her face.
‘Indebted,’ she snapped, ‘is Uruth within?’
‘She is, but you must wait.’
‘Why?’
‘She speaks with the highborn widows. They have been in there some time, and no, I do not know what concerns them.’
‘And you imagine I would have asked you?’
‘How are your dreams, Feather Witch?’
She paled, and looked round as if seeking somewhere else to wait. But a light rain had begun to fall, and beneath the projecting roof of the longhouse they were dry. ‘You know nothing of my dreams, Indebted.’
‘How can I not? You come to me in them every night. We talk, you and I. We argue. You demand answers from me. You curse the look in my eyes. And, eventually, you flee.’
She would not meet his gaze. ‘You cannot be there. In my mind,’ she said. ‘You are nothing to me.’
‘We are just the fallen, Feather Witch. You, me, the ghosts. All of us. We’re the dust swirling around the ankles of the conquerors as they stride on into glory. In time, we may rise in their ceaseless scuffling, and so choke them, but it is a paltry vengeance, don’t you think?’
‘You do not speak as you used to, Udinaas. I no longer know who speaks through you.’
He looked down at his scale-smeared hands. ‘And how do I answer that? Am I unchanged? Hardly. But does that mean the changes are not mine? I fought the White Crow for you, Feather Witch. I wrested you from its grasp, and now all you do is curse me.’