Aalis paced the small room, wringing her fingers together, feeling wretched then relieved then wretched because she was relieved.
“Aalis?” She looked up and saw Verne peeking in. “Judd said you wanted me to sleep in here?”
“I…uh, thought, you might like a break…from the men.” Aalis whispered, hating herself.
Verne shut the door behind her then turned back to Aalis. “Yeah…but they think I’m one of them.”
“I know…”
“So you know what he’s going to think, don’t you? What he and the others are already thinking?”
Aalis closed her eyes. “I…I know…”
Verne studied her. “Why do I feel like this doesn’t have as much to do with my needing some ‘girl’ time,” she motioned like Caste, “as you trying to distance yourself from Judd?” Aalis sank onto the bed, her face covered with her hands. “You like him, don’t you?”
“Of course.” Aalis looked up. “Verne, I cannot share a room with him…not alone. Not when the implications are that he and I…”
“Instead it’s you and I?” Verne folded her arms. “If you’re looking at preserving a degree of innocence, you’ve only swapped one male for another.”
“Ugh, I know.” Aalis groaned. She winced. “Was he…hurt?”
Verne sighed and leaned against the wall. “He wasn’t unhurt…” She studied Aalis. “What’s going on between you two? He likes you, a lot actually and most of the time you seem to feel the same way.”
“I know, I know…” Aalis stood up and started to pace again.
“So…what’s the problem? If you want to share the room with him, I’ll get out of your way. I’m okay sleeping in the room with the guys. I did it for most of my childhood.”
“No, no, no…I cannot. Please Verne…” Aalis grabbed her hand and held it tightly. “Please…”
Verne shook her head. “Alright,” she relented and Aalis sagged in relief, “I can’t really demand you come clean when I’m a mess of secrets myself. But you’re the one who said it only gets harder the longer you lie.”
Aalis nodded. “I just need a little time to work out what to do. Please, Verne…”
“Sure.” Verne nodded.
“Thank you.”
They both jolted when there was a knock on the door.
Verne looked at Aalis.
Aalis looked at Verne.
Neither of them spoke.
“Aalis? Verne? Are you awake?”
“Emeri?” Verne opened the door and the daughter of Suvau and Yolana slipped inside. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry to ask but…could I sleep in here with you?” She bit her bottom lip. “My parents are…making up for lost time.” She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, you would think I was the adult and they were the adolescents.”
Verne chuckled but Aalis was concerned. “Well…it is Verne and I in this room…”
“All girls together, then.”
Verne’s chuckle fell from her face as her mouth dropped open.
Aalis stammered. “Verne…Verne is not…”
“You needn’t worry. I won’t tell anyone she’s a woman.”
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“You…know?” Emeri nodded. “How?”
Emeri sat on a crate. “When you’re in my position, dark skinned and of the female variety yet have aspirations of a white male’s accessibility to learning and knowledge, you tend to look at people as they could be and not as they are.” She gestured to Verne. “You might dress like a male and some of your manners are habitually male but there are signs that you are not.”
Verne looked at Aalis who shrugged helplessly. “Perhaps you could point those out to me,” Verne squatted and met Emeri’s gaze, “so I can refine my disguise.”
“Sure.” Emeri smiled then turned to Aalis. “We also need to hide those dreadlocks of yours more effectively. Cleric Severo is too old to notice but the soldiers around here are almost paranoid about witches. There are areas of tainted water this close to Maul. Sir Fereak has no mercy regarding tainted women.”
“Thank you Emeri.” Aalis swallowed. “You…you’re not afraid of me?”
“You saved my father,” Emeri shook her head, her beads clattering gently, “I’d happily lie before the bishop and the entirety of the Order of the Grail to keep you safe.”
Verne took some of the blankets. “Don’t let Caste hear you say that.”
“The miserable soul who acts like one touch will contaminate him?” Emeri stood up and unpacked some linen from the crate. “I would not want his blood pressure.”
Verne chuckled. “I like her.”
Aalis had to agree.
Judd had watched Verne go into the room with Aalis from the doorway of the room where Giordi and Caste were waiting, his heart sinking into his boots. He heaved his pack into the room and closed the door, unable to muster any kind of façade of nonchalance.
“I’m sorry, Judd.” Giordi said, immediately knowing what Judd was miserable about.
“I just…don’t…get it.” Judd muttered. “I thought she…and I…”
“That’s what I thought too.” Giordi insisted as Judd slumped to the floor. “Anyone who sees you two together would have thought the same.”
“Then why…” Judd closed his eyes. “I wasn’t expecting her to welcome me into her room. I’d rather sleep outside in the corridor than ever put pressure on her. I’m alright with that. But asking Verne in…what am I missing?” He looked up. Giordi and Caste were both quiet. “No, really, I’m asking you what is it I’m missing? Am I blind to something? Have I misread something about the way she is with me?”
There was silence from the other two. Judd pulled his boots off, seeing the sock Aalis had darned for him and didn’t know whether to become angry or sad.
“Has it occurred to you that perhaps Aalis is doing the right thing?”
Judd frowned and looked at Caste who was smoothing the pages of his books that had become wrinkled in the chaos of trying to get through the gates of Fort Omra.
“The right thing?”
Caste nodded. “She’s a witch and you want to be a knight. Travelling with you could be enough to stain your reputation, let alone if you were sharing a bed.”
“Caste, Aalis is not a witch! She’s never touched tainted water!”
“So she says.”
“And yet she claims to be a witch?”
Caste looked at Judd. “Which only makes you wonder what else she is hiding.”
“Hiding? Aalis isn’t hiding anything.” Caste’s green eyes met Judd’s and the former fisherman felt doubt. “She…she isn’t.” Judd looked at Giordi who shrugged. “Not you too.”
“Judd, you know she hasn’t told us everything,” Giordi looked at Caste dryly, “and with good reason one may argue.”
“Well…alright I admit she’s tight lipped about her past…but what if it’s been traumatic? What if some hateful person dunked her in tainted water as a baby?” Judd demanded. “What if she’s hiding from something or someone?”
“What if she is simply too different to fit in with the Order of the Grail’s ‘mould’ for the socially acceptable female?” Giordi raised his eyebrows.
“I didn’t write it.” Caste argued.
“But you adhere to it.”
“All of Astaril adheres to it.” Caste snapped back. “Only those who think themselves ‘above’ the rules laid out by men smarter than they do otherwise.”
Judd stood up. “I suppose you condone what we were told about how the dark skinned people must obey the Terras?”
“They are defined as a lower class of people,” Caste explained, holding onto his books, “they’re not the same as us.”
“And that’s how you justify rape?”
Caste went pale, his freckles standing out. Giordi had spoken bluntly and without restraint.
Caste swallowed. “It…it has never been…addressed.”
“What do you mean ‘addressed’?” Judd demanded.
Caste licked his lips. “The people of Maul are categorized as lower beings, a subservient class…and with that comes certain…stigma about relations.”
“Which is why marriage between a Terra and a Maul would never be condoned.”
“Certainly not,” Caste nodded, “it is unfathomable to me how someone could force another…but especially with the people of Maul. Only those without respect for the mandates of the Order could justify it…”
“Answer me this,” Giordi lay down on his side, propped up by his elbow, “if this Jerom Kenet treated a Terra like this…what would the legal ramifications be?”
“He would be whipped and put in the stocks.”
“That’s how he justifies it,” Judd shook his head, “because the people of Maul have no way to fight back. No recourse.”
“In a very small way, the stigma that surrounds the people of Maul have kept them safe.”
Judd shook his head. “It’s wrong. All of it.” He was still reeling from Aalis and Verne sharing a room so his grief was helping fuel his anger.
“You cannot right all the wrongs in this world,” Giordi warned Judd, lying down, “at least, not tonight.”
Judd sighed and rolled out his mat. He lay on it, one arm hooked beneath his head. Sleep would not come as he wrestled with anger and indignation at the treatment of Suvau and his people then felt his chest ache when he thought of Verne and Aalis.