It was the way the door of the rest station swung wildly open and crashed into the wall as if a stormwind had blown in that told Jin Bu who had arrived at the camp. She let go of Zaw’s hand and stood up to face her father.

“Hkanna Jin Bu, what are you doing here?” he rumbled, and then looked suspiciously at Zaw as though his unconscious state was just a feint. He walked into the rest station with another man, short and plump, waddling behind him who Jin Bu recognised as Dow Som, the Master of the Camp and Jin Bu’s uncle on her mothers side.

Dow Som rarely left the camp these days but Jin Bu had vague memories of being a toddler on feast days, his twinkling eyes and how she would sit on his knee and listen to his booming thunderous laugh as she pulled his moustache and poked his belly. His body still resembled a thick buttersquash, thick around the waist, and his moustache bristled like a thick caterpillar. Yet his eyes no longer shone as they once had, but were sunk and worried-looking. There was a weariness to his eyes that suggested he had not laughed in a long time. Although he was Master of the camp it was her father Gunthaw who held the highest authority here and he stood in front of his brother in law to emphasise this. He was older too, but still resembled a warrior. His chest and shoulders were the width of a young oak and while his face had lines of age, they only seemed to confirm his status as the battle hardened Head Man of Blackstone. It was only his eyes, agitated and angry, that contradicted his dignity.

Jin Bu chose to put all her bravery into her voice rather than her eyes. She looked down but spoke firmly. “He saved my life, father.”

“And what were you doing here in the first place? I have told you since you were a child this camp is no place for a women, especially an unmarried one.” he growled.

Jin Bu thought that it was a small blessing that her father did not appear to know of her and Zaw’s relationship.

Seng Nu appeared in the doorway behind them carrying a basin of hot water.

“What exactly is going on here Dow Som?” thundered Gunthaw to his Brother in law. “I told you no women at the camp, and now not only is my youngest daughter here, but another young woman, who I’m sure from the looks of her is unmarried, is strolling through the camp like a worm wiggling on the end of the fishing rod. Is this a rest station or are the scarlet-lit houses of the City expanding their business to the jungle?”

Seng Nu had not expected anything in return for her help. It had taken all her strength to walk into the camp today and offer it. She had not expected a trade in return and did not want it. But she had not expected to be insulted for being here.

Dow Som had taken out a handfan and was wafting it in front of his now sweating face. He looked aside at Seng Nu and then back to Gunthaw “Brother, she is a...”

With a crash, the basin dropped to the floor spilling hot water across the floor. It wasn't clear if Seng Nu had dropped it or thrown it down. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Gunthaw. Anger was new to her

“She is one who can speak for herself.” she said in a voice barbed with thorns. “and I don’t know what a scarlet-lit house is, but from the way your voice dipped when you said it I can only guess it is a place where respect for women is lacking. But I do know what a worm is and I know they are blind, so the closest thing to a worm in this room is the man who is ignorant to everything.”

For a brief moment, the only thing that could be heard in the room was Dow Som’s handfan, which he was wafting anxiously over his sweating face. Jin Bu, still by the bed, felt the skin on her face tighten. Who was this camp maid that was speaking to her father like this?

Gunthaw’s eyes were aflame. He eyed Seng Nu like a panther stalking a pigeon. But this pigeon was not flying but standing defiantly, meeting his eyes with her own.

“Who is your father, girl? you shame him and your clan with the way you speak to me,” he said through gritted teeth. He spoke in a slow growl and each word simmered with aggression and the muscles on his neck bulged like tightly wound rope around a restrained and struggling beast.

“Or maybe your father is the one to blame here,” he said in a low growl.

Seng Nu let it roll over her like she would a breeze. She did not know her father and had no clan to be loyal to. The energy of anger was leaving, to be replaced only by the duller bruise of disappointment.

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“She has no family” said Dow Som. “She is a forest orphan.”

“If she was raised by the forest she would speak in the language of creeper trees and jungle pigs, but she has made herself understood well enough here.” Said Gunthaw, now speaking directly to Dow Som as if Seng Nu wasn’t there.

“Grandma Nor Nor brought her up.”

“Not very well it seems.”

“The old lady left us five, maybe six years ago,” said Dow Som.

“That explains her lack of manners. She is half wild like a tame goat that escapes to the mountains.”

“Six years” said Seng Nu. “ And don’t talk about Nor Nor again, her name in your mouth is an unnatural thing. Like a snake that pretends to smile.”

"Get out of my camp!” Gunthaw was blowing air out his nostrils like a bullock. He shouted so loud that the sparrow and crowd that had been perched on the roof of the building took off into the air with a startle, their wings flapping almost as furiously as Dow Som’s handfan.

Jin Bu, who had been standing halfway between the bed and her father, then spoke.

“But father she is healing Zaw.”

“And why does that concern you?” thundered back Gunthaw.

Jin Bu heard the suspicion in his voice. “I told you father. He saved my life. There was an elephant. He distracted it from me but it got him as he ran.” She spoke in a slow and measured tone, as if Zaw was just another man of the camp and not her secret lover from an unaligned clan.

Gunthaw looked at Dow Som who nodded to confirm.

“Where is the camp healer?” barked Gunthaw.

“Alian left a month ago, Brother. He has gone back to his village to look after his mother she is sick.”

“Then get a new healer. A man.” He looked at Seng Nu. “You. Out of here.”

“This man will die tonight if I do not rebandage his wounds". Said Seng Nu.

Jin Bu’s felt as though her legs had been hollowed out and she almost stumbled over at the mention of death. She looked to her Father with pleading eyes. “Father! please let her stay. Zaw...”

Gunthaw reached out and caught the desperation in her voice. He had a vague recollection of this boy being his daughter’s playmate when they were young.

“Thats the second time you have said his name. Why do you care so much about him, daughter?”

Maybe it was because she had just heard Seng Nu talk to her father in a way that no man, let alone a woman, had talked to him before, that Jin Bu herself felt inspired to follow the path of bravery.

“I love him. We will be married.” Her breath had become quick and shallow but her eyes now held her father’s gaze in innocent defiance.

For what seems like forever, the now unravelled secret hung silently in the air, waiting for the winds to blow it one way or another.

“What is this boy’s clan?” said Gunthaw, but he already knew the answer. He had recognised Zaw as the boy his youngest daughter used to run around with when she was just a child.

In the Valley, marriage was a tightly woven basket of relationships between each of the twenty clans with each pairing only allowing their sons or daughter to marry in one direction. Jin Bu was from the Hkanna Clan and Zaw was a Tairu. Tairu daughters could marry Hkanna sons, but the reverse went against the customary law, and made Jin Bu and Zaw’s relationship ‘unwoven’.

While the custom served to bind the clans of the Valley, from the foot of the mountains to the outskirts of the City, in reality, exceptions were often made. There might be too many or not enough women or men in one family and not enough matching pairs to marry them too, and parents would rather see their children married irregularly than alone. Other times, ‘unwoven’ lovers might simply elope together. While this was frowned upon, in most cases the couple would return after a few months, by which time any anger from the families had long since been overruled by the anxiety to see their sons and daughters again.

Gunthaw was not superstitious, he did not particularly care for the basket, but tradition made a fine accomplice. He had already began floating the idea to a PawTun family of Jin Bu marrying one of their lads. The Pawtuns controlled lands between the village and the far-off city and would often levy taxes on the timber that came floating down the river. With a marriage to the clan, there was hope that he could persuade the PawTuns to rescind the tax.

Jin Bu’s eyes had already welled with tears but she kept them looking forward in what was a final futile attempt at defiance. “It doesn’t matter what his clan is!”

But she knew from her father’s eyes that he would not be changing his mind.

“The girl can stay here to look after the boy tonight. But tomorrow she must leave. You are coming back with me right now.” Said Gunthaw to his daughter.

And that was that. Jin Bu left with her father, deciding that for now she would have better luck persuading him to change his mind at home, with her mother perhaps a potential ally. In a last gesture of defiance, she kissed his forehead before they left. "I will return" she whispered. And at that time she truly believed she would.