Page 130 of Knight's Fire
“The Welcome,” Anfelisia said, in Ciranci. “The baby soon comes, yes? So we Welcome.”
“But I am new,” Ayla said, speaking slowly to get the accent right. “Why do all of you…?”
Anfelisia clucked her tongue as others laughed or shook their heads.
“You live here. The baby will live here. We Welcome.”
Ayla was dangerously close to bursting into tears again. The women of the neighborhood dragged her out of the hall and into the kitchen, where she was made to sit and someone else’s drooling baby boy was put into her arms, she couldn’t say whose. She looked up and saw Niel being offered a drink from the jug. All around her people chattered and laughed, finding places to put away the food and gifts they’d brought after showing them to Ayla, who nodded, shocked, uncertain what to make of this. She wasn’t one of them. Why were they giving her gifts? They were acting like she belonged.
Two more men came into the house, ones who hadn’t arrived with the others. They wore empty scabbards on their belts. She didn’t recognize them as neighbors, but Niel grinned when he saw them, and introduced them to her as other teachers from the sword school.
“Come, sword-man,” their neighbor Rizar said to Niel, and he and a group of the men tried to lead Niel outside. Niel’s eyes were instantly on hers, an unspoken question. If she wanted him to stay, he would, without question. But she nodded to him; she was fine. A few minutes later they could hear the men out in the front of the house, whooping and cheering. The women inside fell silent for a moment, heads craning, and then they burst into laughter and snorts.
“Men,” one said, and took the baby back from Ayla. She still didn’t know who’s child it was. The women started giving her advice, and informing her they’d come when she screamed, and would bring the midwife with them. And then they devolved into their own stories and games, and Ayla sat and listened, and found that after nearly a year in this country she could follow most of what they were saying. And, more, that it was nice to sit in her kitchen, surrounded by people who seemed to wish herwell, and who thought she was a part of their own homes, even if she was an outsider.
When they left at dusk, it was with the house fully-stocked and the neatly-arranged remains of a feast cooling beside the stove, the rooms cleaner than her guests had found them, and a small bowl of rounded stones on the counter, which one of the women had explained was good luck, for reasons Ayla could not follow.
Niel came back in and stood behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders and bending down to kiss below her left ear.
“Well, that was unexpected,” he said.
Ayla’s chest still felt flushed with warmth.
It wasn’t the two of them alone here; not at all. It was just like Niel had said. Everything was just starting.
“You didn’t know?” she asked.
“Not a single hint. Well? Are we getting married today?”
“Tomorrow,” she said, and covered a yawn. “The thought of—going anywhere—” Even if they wed in private, with no witness, they would need supplies. She had no cloak to give him. And she was still an Enarian, even in this new land.
“A night in, then,” he said.
“I seem to remember we were kissing,” she told him. “It seemed a very good use of our time.”
He laughed, pulled back the chair, and picked her up out of it.
“As my lady commands,” Niel said, and carried her to the comfort of the bed.
