Page 122 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

Livira nodded and managed a smile, though she felt like crying. “I must be going, Mr.Shuh.”

She turned and though she’d set her back to the greatest repository of wisdom and knowledge in creation she felt certain that the answers she needed lay before her. She walked down the path, drawing her robes tight against a slim-fingered wind that carried autumn’s touch and a scent of smoke.

It seemed that the path she trod had last been beneath her feet four hundred years ago, and only yesterday. Soon enough she found herself walking between tall houses where she and Evar had seen only bare rock. She climbed the steps to Yute’s front door and knocked.

“Livira!” Salamonda opened the door, ladle in hand as if ready to defend her kitchen. “No young man today?”

“Only ghosts, Salamonda.”

Salamonda stepped aside and waved her in. “You look as if someone’s broken your heart, young lady.”

“I think it’s just bruised.” Livira breathed in the rich aromas of Salamonda’s cooking.

Salamonda looked around, distracted despite Livira’s news, as if she’d lost something. “A whole turkey gone? A ham yesterday. I swear this kitchen is haunted!”

“Is Yute in?” Livira glanced at the stairs. Wentworth occupied the entirety of the fifth step, spilling onto the fourth, and reaching out with both left legs to the third step to support himself. He appeared to be fast asleep.

“That cat!” Salamonda shook her head and closed the front door. “Yute says they sleep on mountain slopes just the way he’s doing there.”

“How do you get upstairs?”

“I wait.” Salamonda shook her head again. “Or bribe him with a treat. And no, Yute went to the walls very early. He said he wouldn’t be gone long.”

“The walls?”

“There’s a new army come from the west. Sabbers. It’s going to be bad this time. Everyone’s saying it, but that’s not what matters. Yute’s saying it too, this time. Wanted to send me to my daughter’s in Gunderland.”

“Gunderland! That’s... hundreds of miles. Practically Sambara.”

“On the border.” Salamonda nodded. “She married a Grekkar oil merchant. I told Yute I’d rather kiss a sabber than spend a night under that man’s roof.”

Salamonda went on with the cooking, talking endlessly of the many crimes her son-in-law was guilty of, and the general feckless nature of Grekkar men, as if the army on Crath’s doorstep was on a par with a change in the weather. She plied Livira with food as she cooked and gossiped, everything from butter biscuits, to buckwheat pancakes laden with spiced tomato paste, to cups of steaming chai sweetened with honey. Livira, who had arrived with no appetite whatsoever, felt as if she were bursting at the seams by the time Yute walked in furling his umbrella.

“Livira.” Yute put his sunshade into the rack by the door. “Good to see you again.”

“Master Yute.” Livira inclined her head. Good to see you again. It had been more than a year and the man had breezed in as if they’d met yesterday.

“Let’s go upstairs.” Yute crossed the room and hauled Wentworth aside. The huge cat eyed him grumpily but let itself be manhandled. “Salamonda, I need you here at the house today. Don’t go to the markets.”

“But I need parawort, and more cabbage, and Hallamar should be in with the spices from Gondrore by now.”

Yute stopped, turned, and went to Salamonda, taking both her meaty pink hands in his narrow white ones. “My dear Salamonda, I would never presume that paying your salary gives me dominion over your time, but for the love that your mother bore me, obey me in this one thing, this one time.” He released her and returned to the stairs, following Wentworth’s huffy retreat towards the heights.

“He knew your mother?” Livira hissed as she made to follow Yute.

Salamonda, looking pale, dabbed her eyes with her apron. “Took her from the streets and raised her himself.” She waved Livira off. “Go. Go! He’s been waiting to talk to you.”

Livira blinked and hurried after Yute. She’d been sure Salamonda was the older of the pair by a good ten years.

—

“What did you see at the walls?” Livira asked her question as she entered Yute’s dimly lit study, ignoring his nod towards the chair opposite his.

“Nothing I’ve not seen before.” Yute peered at her over his steepled fingers.

“How large is their army?”

“Too big.”

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