“What are you called then, young man?” the woman called Geeti asked, leaning forward with some interest. “I spent a few years in Chetla myself, before my marriage.”

“Ruban. Ruban Kinoh,” he said with what he hoped was a friendly smile.

The old woman tilted her head to one side. “Kinoh…Kinoh. Ah yes, big house by the river. How odd,” she said, squinting doubtfully at Ruban. “I’d have expected you to be older. What’s that no-good brother of yours doing these days?”

Luana laughed. “I think you’ve got the wrong Kinoh there, my dear Geeti. I do believe this is Abhas’s son, aren’t you dear? Your father used to be quite the sensation in these parts back in the day, you know.” She smiled, a faraway look in her eyes. “I do hope he’s doing well.”

Now that Ruban thought about it, Luana couldn’t have been much younger than his father. She was fifty if she was a day. “He...ah. He passed away a few years ago, I’m afraid,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. This was not a conversation he wanted to have. Not now, and definitely not here.

Luana’s face crumpled, and for a moment he feared she was going to cry. She didn’t, though. She simply sat still for a few seconds, her eyes bright. Then she smiled a watery little smile at Ruban, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a tissue. “Oh,” she said after a moment. “Oh, I am so sorry to hear that, I am. He was a good man, your father. A very nice man. Of course I was only a girl when he left for the capital to be a bigshot officer,” she laughed. “He never did like being cooped up in a small town, that one. And then Subhas went after him, following in big brother’s footsteps. I can hardly believe it’s been so many years since I last saw either of them.”

“Y-you knew my father?” Ruban stammered, staring wide-eyed at Luana. He supposed he looked like an idiot, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

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Luana nodded. “Of course. My mother worked at the Kinoh House, way back in the day. Prettiest house in Chetla it was too, less than a five-minute walk from the river. Still is, I’d say. All these great modern buildings with their chrome and glass exteriors. They look like bloody great mirrors, in my opinion. And ugly to boot. I’d take a cosy little old-fashioned villa any day over all this modern rigmarole. Well, your father left for Ragah soon after my mother passed away, and then Subhas went after him. I got married and moved out here to Daranj the year after they left. It’s strange, isn’t it? How quickly time goes by. I remember them all like I saw ‘em yesterday.”

Ruban frowned. “My father…he went to Ragah?”

“He did, indeed. He’d gotten a scholarship to that Hunter training school in the capital. Bracken, it’s called, isn’t it? Yes that’s it,” she nodded, a hint of pride in her voice. “He’d always wanted to study there. Although everyone said that it was almost impossible to get in. Not that that was going to stop Abhas, of course. He got a full scholarship too; I remember that day as clearly as if it was only last week. It was just before Mummy got sick. And then he took Subhas with him to Ragah a couple of years later. I believe he went to Bracken as well.”

“Well, couldn’t have been that hard to get in then, could it?” scoffed Geeti, taking a derisive bite of her bread. “Not if that no-good boy got in.”

Luana laughed. She seemed to have gotten over some of her melancholy. “Subhas wasn’t that bad. I always think he only acted out sometimes because everybody kept comparing him to his brother. Couldn’t have been easy, that.

“Still, ‘tis a very pretty lady that lives in the Kinoh House now. A relative of yours, is she? Don’t remember having seen her around here before. Now that’s a lady pretty enough for that beautiful old house, I always say to Lidan. That’d be my son, of course.”

“A lady? At the Chetla house?” Ruban repeated, his brow furrowing in surprise. “Uncle Subhas never told me he was planning to sell the house…though I guess it’s just as well. Not like there’s anyone to look after the place anyway.”

“Ah, so you don’t know her then?” said Luana, collecting their plates. “That’s a shame.”

“Well,” began Ashwin, rising to take some of the utensils from their hostess, despite her protests. Ruban had almost forgotten the Aeriel was still there. “I suppose it can’t hurt to go and introduce ourselves, if she’s as stunning as you say she is. Wouldn’t you agree, Ruban?”